NOTES
Page xxi, lines 21 to 25. [A well-known poet] of the Fenian times has made the curious boast—'Talking of work—since Sunday, two cols. notes, two cols. London gossip, and a leader one col., and one col. of verse for the Nation. For Catholic Opinion, two pages of notes and a leader. For Illustrated Magazine, three poems and a five col. story.'
Page 1. '[The deserted village]' is Lissoy, near Ballymahon, and Sir Walter Scott tells of a hawthorn there which has been cut up into toothpicks by Goldsmith enthusiasts; but the feeling and atmosphere of the poem are unmistakably English.
Page xix. Some verses in 'The Epicurean' were put into French by Théophile Gautier for the French translation, and back again into English by Mr. Robert Bridges. If any Irish reader who thinks [Moore] a great poet, will compare his verses with the results of this double distillation, and notice the gradual disappearance of their vague rhythms and loose phrases, he will be the less angry with the introduction to this book. Moore wrote as follows—
You, who would try
Yon terrible track,
To live or to die,
But ne'er to turn back.
You, who aspire
To be purified there,
By the terror of fire,
Of water, and air,—
If danger, and pain,
And death you despise,
On—for again
Into light you shall rise:
Rise into light
With the secret divine,
Now shrouded from sight
By a veil of the shrine.
These lines are certainly less amazing than the scrannel piping of his usual anapæsts; but few will hold them to be 'of their own arduous fullness reverent'! Théophile Gautier sets them to his instrument in this fashion,
Vous qui voulez courir
La terrible carrière,
Il faut vivre ou mourir,
Sans regard en arrière: