[14] "D' easgadh an pheacaidh, fóríor,
Do sheól sinn faoi dhlighthibh námhad,
Gan flathas Airt, ag pór Gaoidheal,
Gan seóid puinn, gan cion gan áird,
'Sgach bathlach bracach beól-bhuidhe
De'n chóip chríon do rith thar sáil
I gceannas flaîth 's i gcóimh-thigheas
Le Móirín ni Chuillionáin."
This is a verse from the same poem, but not the one above translated.
[15] See "Eachtraidh a' Phrionnsa le Iain Mac Coinnich," p. 270. The poem is by D. B. Mac Leóid. It looks like a later production, but will exemplify a not uncommon metre.
Gu cladach a' chuàin
Ri fuar-ghaoth an Anmoich
Thriall TeArlach gan deAllradh
Air Allaban 's e sgìth,
Gun reull air a bhroIlleach
No freIceadan a fAlbh leis
Ach ainnir nan gòrm-shul
Bu dealbhaiche lìth.
Mar dhaoimean 'san oidhche
Bha(n) mhaighdean fu thùrsa
Si cràiteach mu Thearlach
Bhi fàgail a dhùthcha;
Bu trom air a h-osna,
S bu ghoirt deòir a sùilean
Nuair chonnaic i 'n iùbhrach
A' dlùthadh re tìr.
[CHAPTER XL]
PROSE WRITERS OF THE SEVENTEENTH CENTURY
During the first half of the seventeeth century, the Irish, heavily handicapped as they were, and deprived of the power of printing, nevertheless made tremendous efforts to keep abreast of the rest of Europe in science and literature. It was indeed an age of national scholarship which has never since been equalled. It was this half century that produced in rapid succession Geoffrey Keating, the Four Masters, and Duald Mac Firbis, men of whom any age or country might be proud, men who amid the war, rapine, and conflagration, that rolled through the country at the heels of the English soldiers, still strove to save from the general wreck those records of their country which to-day make the name of Ireland honourable for her antiquities, traditions, and history, in the eyes of the scholars of Europe.
Of these men, Keating, as a prose writer, was the greatest. He was a man of literature, a poet, professor, theologian, and historian, in one. He brought the art of writing limpid Irish to its highest perfection, and ever since the publication of his history of Ireland some two hundred and fifty years ago, the modern language may be said to have been stereotyped.