Let me Pray the puissant one
To Mark them in their Mansion,
Guard from FEAR their FAME and wed
Each YEAR their NAME and homestead."
In Munster I find the poet Andrew Mac Curtin some time between the year 1718 and 1743,[9] complaining to James Mac Donnell, of Kilkee, that he had to frame "a left-handed awkward ditty of a thing," meaning a poem of the new school; "but I have had to do it," he says, "to fit myself in with the evil fashion that was never practised in Erin before, since it is a thing that I see, that greater is the respect and honour every dry scant-educated boor, or every clumsy baogaire of little learning, who has no clear view of either alliteration or poetry,[10] gets from the noblemen of the country, than the courteous very-educated shanachy or man of song, if he compose a well-made lay or poem." Nevertheless, he insists that he will make a true poem, "although wealthy men of herds, or people of riches think that I am a fool if I compose a lay or poem in good taste, that is not my belief. Although rich men of herds, merchants, or people who put out money to grow, think that great is the blindness and want of sense to compose a duan or a poem, they being well satisfied if only they can speak the Saxon dialect, and are able to have stock of bullocks or sheep, and to put redness [i.e., of cultivation] on hills—nevertheless, it is by me understood that they are very greatly deceived, because their herds and their heavy riches shall go by like a summer fog, but the scientific work shall be there to be seen for ever," etc. The poem which he composed on that occasion was, perhaps, the last in Deibhidh metre composed in the province of Munster.[11]
In Scotland the Deibhidh was not forgotten until after Sheriffmuir, in 1715. There is an admirable elegy of 220 lines in the Book of Clanranald on Allan of Clanranald, who was there slain.[12] It is in no way distinguishable from an Irish poem of the same period. There are other poems in this book in perfect classical metres, for in the kingdom of the Lord of the Isles the bards and their schools may be said to have almost found a last asylum. Indeed, up to this period, so far as I can see,—whatever may have been the case with the spoken language—the written language of the two countries was absolutely identical, and Irish bards and harpers found a second home in North Scotland and the Isles, where such poems as those of Gerald, fourth Earl of Desmond, appear to have been as popular as they were in Munster. We may, then, place the generation that lived between Sheriffmuir and Culloden as that which witnessed the end of the classical metres in both countries, over all Ireland and Gaelic-speaking Scotland, from Sutherland in the North, to the County Kerry in the South, so that, from that day to this, vowel-rhyming accented metres which had been making their way in both countries from a little before the year 1600, have reigned without any rival.
Wonderful metres these were. Here is an example of one made on the vowels é [æ] and ó, but while the arrangement in the first half of the verse is o/é, é/o, é/o, o; the arrangement in the second half is o é, o é, o é, é. I have translated it in such a way as to mark the vowel rhymes, and this will show better than anything else the plan of Irish poetry during the last 250 years. To understand the scheme thoroughly the vowels must not be slurred over, but be dwelt upon and accentuated as they are in Irish.
"The pOets with lAys are uprAising their nOtes
In amAze, and they knOw how their tOnes will delight,
For the gOlden-hair lAdy so grAceful, so pOseful,
So gAElic, so glOrious enthrOned in our sight
UnfOlding a tAle, how the sOul of a fAy must
Be clOthed in the frAme of a lAdy so bright,
UntOld are her grAces, a rOse in her fAce is
And nO man so stAid is but fAints at her sight."[13]
Here is another verse of a different character, in which three words follow each other in each line, all making a different vowel-rhyme.
"O swan brightly GLEAMING o'er ponds whitely BEAMING,
Swim on lightly CLEAVING and flashing through sea,
The wan night is LEAVING my fond sprite in GRIEVING
Beyond sight, or SEEING thou'rt passing from me."
Here is another typical verse of a metre in which many poems were made to the air of Moreen ni [nee] Cullenáin. It is made on the sounds of o, ee, ar—o, ar—o, repeated in the same order four times in every verse, the second and third o's being dissyllables. It is a beautiful and intricate metre.
"AlOne with mE a bARd rOving
On guARd gOing ere the dawn,
Was bOld to sEE afAR rOaming
The stAR MOreen ni Cullenaun.
The Only shE the ARch-gOing
The dARk-flOwing fairy fawn,
With sOulful glEE the lARks sOaring
Like spARks O'er her lit the lawn."[14]