A Celtic Psaltery / Being Mainly Renderings in English Verse from Irish & Welsh Poetry
The Project Gutenberg eBook, A Celtic Psaltery, by Alfred Perceval Graves
I have called this volume of verse a Celtic Psaltery because it mainly consists of close and free translations from Irish, Scotch Gaelic, and Welsh Poetry of a religious or serious character. The first half of the book is concerned with Irish poems. The first group of these starts with the dawning of Christianity out of Pagan darkness, and the spiritualising of the Early Irish by the wisdom to be found in the conversations between King Cormac MacArt—the Irish ancestor of our Royal Family—and his son and successor, King Carbery. Here also will be found those pregnant ninth-century utterances known as the Irish Triads.
Next follow poems attributed or relating to some of the Irish saints—Patrick, Columba, Brigit, Moling; Lays of Monk and Hermit, Religious Invocations, Reflections and Charms and Lamentations for the Dead, including a remarkable early Irish poem entitled The Mothers' Lament at the Slaughter of the Innocents and a powerful peasant poem, The Keening of Mary. The Irish section is ended by a set of songs suggested by Irish folk-tunes.
I have endeavoured as far as possible to preserve in my translations both the character of these poems and their metrical form. But the latter attempt can be only a mere approximation owing to the strict rules of early Irish verse both as regards alliteration and vowel consonance. Still the use of the inlaid rhyme and other assonantal devices have, it is to be hoped, brought my renderings nearer in vocal effect to the originals than the use of more familiar English verse methods would have done.
The same metrical difficulties have met me when translating the Welsh sacred and spiritual poems which form the second division of this volume. But they have been more easy to grapple with—in part because I have had more assistance in dealing with the older Cymric poems from my lamented friend Mr. Sidney Richard John and other Welsh scholars, than I had in the case of the early Irish lyrics—in part because the later Welsh poems which I have rendered into English verse are generally in free, not strict, metres, and therefore present no great difficulty to the translator.
Alfred Perceval Graves
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A CELTIC PSALTERY
ALFRED PERCEVAL GRAVES
1917
DEDICATION
PRIME MINISTER OF GREAT BRITAIN AND IRELAND
PREFACE
CONTENTS
I. Irish Poems
THE ISLE OF THE HAPPY
THE WISDOM OF KING CORMAC
IRISH TRIADS
Lays of the Irish Saints
ST. PATRICK'S BLESSING ON MUNSTER
THE BREASTPLATE OF ST. PATRICK
ST. PATRICK'S EVENSONG
ST. COLUMBA'S GREETING TO IRELAND
ST. COLUMBA IN IONA
HAIL, BRIGIT!
THE DEVIL'S TRIBUTE TO MOLING
THE HYMN OF ST. PHILIP
Lays of Monk and Hermit
THE SCRIBE
THE HERMIT'S SONG
CRINOG
KING AND HERMIT
ON ÆNGUS THE CULDEE
THE SHAVING OF MURDOCH
ON THE FLIGHTINESS OF THOUGHT
THE MONK AND HIS WHITE CAT
Invocations and Reflections
A PRAYER TO THE VIRGIN
MAELISU'S HYMN TO THE ARCHANGEL MICHAEL
MAELISU'S HYMN TO THE HOLY SPIRIT
EVE'S LAMENTATION
ALEXANDER THE GREAT
THE KINGS WHO CAME TO CHRIST
Quatrains
HOSPITALITY
THE BLACKBIRD
MOLING SANG THIS
THE CHURCH BELL IN THE NIGHT
THE CRUCIFIXION
THE PILGRIM AT ROME
ON A DEAD SCHOLAR
Charms and Invocations
CHARMS AGAINST SORROW
ON COVERING THE FIRE FOR THE NIGHT
MORNING WISH
A CHARM AGAINST ENEMIES
CHARM FOR A PAIN IN THE HEART
THE SAFE-GUARDING OF MY SOUL
THE WHITE PATERNOSTER.
Lamentations
THE SONG OF CREDE, DAUGHTER OF GUARE
THE DESERTED HOME
THE MOTHERS' LAMENT AT THE SLAUGHTER OF THE INNOCENTS
THE KEENING OF MARY
CAOINE
Songs to Music
BATTLE HYMN
THE SONG OF THE WOODS
THE ENCHANTED VALLEY
REMEMBER THE POOR
II. Welsh Poems
THE ODES TO THE MONTHS
THE TERCETS
HAIL, GLORIOUS LORD!
MY BURIAL
THE LAST CYWYDD
THE LABOURER
THE ELEGY ON SION GLYN, A CHILD OF FIVE YEARS OF AGE
THE NOBLE'S GRAVE
THE BARD'S DEATH-BED CONFESSION
QUICK, DEATH!
COUNSEL IN VIEW OF DEATH
FROM "THE LAST JUDGMENT"
A GOOD WIFE
"MARCHOG JESU!"
THE DESTRUCTION OF JERUSALEM
RACHEL MOURNING
THE BURNING TEMPLE
LOVE DIVINE
BEHIND THE VEIL
THE REIGN OF LOVE
PLAS GOGERDDAN
ALL THROUGH THE NIGHT
DAVID OF THE WHITE ROCK
THE HIGH TIDE
"ORA PRO NOBIS"
A FLOWER-SUNDAY LULLABY
THE BALLAD OF THE OLD BACHELOR OF TY'N Y MYNYDD
THE QUEEN'S DREAM
THE WELSH FISHERMEN
III. Old and New Testament Studies
DAVID'S LAMENT OVER SAUL AND JONATHAN
THE FIERY FURNACE
RUTH AND NAOMI
THE LILIES OF THE FIELD AND THE FOWLS OF THE AIR
THE GOOD PHYSICIAN
THE SOWER
THE PRODIGAL'S RETURN
ST. MARY MAGDALEN
IV. Church Festivals
A CHRISTMAS COMMUNION HYMN
A CHRISTMAS CAROL OF THE EPIPHANY
A FOURTEENTH-CENTURY CAROL
EARTH'S EASTER
EASTER DAY, 1915
THE ASCENSION
WHITSUNTIDE
HARVEST HYMN
CAST THY BREAD UPON THE WATERS
V. Good and Faithful Servants
FATHER O'FLYNN
LADY GWENNY
OLD DOCTOR MACK
TO THE MEMORY OF JOHN OWEN
HARLECH CHOIRMASTER
SAINT CUTHBERT
ALFRED THE GREAT
A MILLENARY MEMORIAL
SIR SAMUEL FERGUSON
"MEN, NOT WALLS, MAKE A CITY"
FIELD-MARSHAL EARL KITCHENER
INSCRIPTION FOR A ROLL OF HONOUR IN A PUBLIC SCHOOL
AN EPITAPH
AN INTERCESSIONAL ANSWERED
VI. Personal and Various
LET THERE BE JOY!
A HOLIDAY HYMN
SUMMER MORNING'S WALK
SNOW-STAINS
REMEMBRANCE
SANDS OF GOLD
THE MOURNER
DE PROFUNDIS
IMMORTAL HOPE
WE HAD A CHILD
HE HAS COME BACK
SPRING'S SECRETS
THE LORD'S LEISURE
SPRING IS NOT DEAD
AIM NOT TOO HIGH
WILD WINE OF NATURE
IN PRAISE OF WATER-DRINKING
BRIDAL INVOCATION
THE COMING OF SIR GALAHAD AND A VISION OF THE GRAIL
ASK WHAT THOU WILT