as though their existence was but freshly registered in the annate of recollection.
In short, infected by my antiquarian conversation with the Prince, and having fallen in with some of those monkish histories which, on the strength of Druidical tradition, trace a series of wise and learned Irish monarchs before the flood, I am beginning to have as much faith in antediluvian records as Dr. Parsons himself, who accuses Adam of authorship, or Thomas Bangius, who almost gives fac similies of the hand-writing of Noah’s progenitors.
Seriously, however, I enter on my new studies with avidity, and read from the morning’s first dawn till the usual hour of breakfast, which is become to me as much the banquet of the heart, as the Roman supper was to the Agustan wits “the feast of reason and the flow of soul,”—for it is the only meal at which Glorvina presides.
Two hours each day does the kind priest devote to my philological pursuits, while Glorvina, who is frequently present on these occasions makes me repeat some short poem or song after her, that I may catch the pronunciation, (which is almost unattainable,) then translates them into English, which I word for word write down. Here then is a specimen of Irish poetry, which is almost always the effusion of some blind itinerent bard, or some rustic minstrel, into whose breast the genius of his country has breathed inspiration, as he patiently drove the plough, or laboriously worked in the bog. *
CATHBEIN NOLAN.
I.
“My love, when she floats on the mountain’s brow, is like the dewy cloud of the summer’s loveliest evening. Her forehead is asa pearl; her spiral locks are of gold; and I grieve that I cannot banish her from my memory.”
II.
“When she enters the forest like the bounding doe, dispersing the dew with her airy steps, her mantle on her arm, the axe in her hand to cut the branches of flame; I know not which is the most noble—the King of the Saxons, ** or Cathbein Nolan.”
* Miss Brooks, in her elegant version of the works of some
of the Irish Bards, says, “’Tis scarcely possible that any
language can be more adapted to lyric poetry than the Irish;
so great is the smoothness and harmony of its numbers; it is
also possessed of a refined delicacy, a descriptive power,
and an exquisite tender simplicity of expression: two or
three little artless words, or perhaps a single epithet,
will sometimes convey such an image of sentiment or
suffering to the mind, that one lays down the book to look
at the picture.”
** The King of England is called by the common Irish “Riagh
Sasseanach.”