These are equally strong, and rhyme well, but where is the melody compared with the Gaelic, and it is most extraordinary that I cannot sing them without feeling that I am puffed up with the language, whereas in the Gaelic I have no such feelings. The English will never come up to the following, sublime in their simplicity:—
Mu mheadhon oidhch’ ’nuair bhios an saogh’l,
Air aomadh thairis ann an suain;
Grad dhuisgear suas an cinne daoin,
Le glaodh na trompaid ’s airde fuaim.
Look at the rhyme how smooth and agreeable to the ear—the language how simple and artless, the scene presented how solemn. We can scarcely conceive of any thing more so, than the world having reclined over in sleep’s soft repose, and then suddenly to be awakened with the trumpet’s loudest sound.
The English language completely fails in giving a proper translation; being an artificial language, it disfigures almost every thing it handles.
When the whole world in midnight’s lull,
In silent slumbering sleep is found,
Their rest shall quickly be disturb’d