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 8. Some verses in 'The Epicurean' were put into French by Theophile
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 anapaests; but few will hold them to be 'of their own arduous
fullness reverent'! Theophile Gautier sets them to his instrument in
this fashion,
Vous qui voulez courir
La terrible carriere,
Il faut vivre ou mourir,
Sans regard en arriere:
Vous qui voulez tenter
L'onde, l'air, et la flamme,
Terreurs a surmonter
Pour epurer votre ame,
Si, meprisant la mort,
Votre foi reste entiere,
En avant!--le coeur fort
Reverra la lumiere.
Et lira sur l'autel
Le mot du grand mystere,
Qu'au profane mortel
Derobe un voile austere.
Then comes Mr. Robert Bridges, and lifts them into the rapture and
precision of poetry--
O youth whose hope is high,
Who dost to truth aspire,
Whether thou live or die,
O look not back nor tire.
Thou that art bold to fly
Through tempest, flood, and fire,
Nor dost not shrink to try
Thy heart in torments dire:
If thou canst Death defy,
If thy faith is entire,
Press onward, for thine eye
Shall see thy heart's desire.
Beauty and love are nigh,
And with their deathless quire--
Soon shall thine eager cry
Be numbered and expire.
Page 27. 'Dark Rosaleen' is one of the old names of Ireland. Mangan's
translation is very free; as a rule when he tried to translate
literally, as in 'The Munster Bards,' all glimmer of inspiration left
him.
Page 32, line 20. 'This passage is not exactly a blunder, though at
first it may seem one: the poet supposes the grave itself transferred to
Ireland, and he naturally includes in the transference the whole of the
immediate locality about the grave' (Mangan note).
Page 47, line 6. The two Meaths once formed a distinct province.
Page 55, line 7. This poem is an account of Mangan's own life, and is, I
think, redeemed out of rhetoric by its intensity. The following poem,
'Siberia,' describes, perhaps, his own life under a symbol.
Page 59. Hy Brasail, or Teer-Nan-Oge, is the island of the blessed, the
paradise of ancient Ireland. It is still thought to be seen from time to
time glimmering far off.
Page 61. _Mo Craoibhin Cno_ means my cluster of nuts, and is pronounced
_Mo Chreevin Kno_.
Page 64. Mr. O'Keefe has sent the writer a Gaelic version of this poem,
possibly by Walsh himself. A correspondent of his got it from an old
peasant who had not a word of English. A well-known Gaelic scholar
pronounces it a translation, and not the original of the present poem.
_Mairgread ni Chealleadh_ is pronounced _Mairgred nei Kealley_. The
_Ceanabhan_, pronounced _Kanovan_, is the bog cotton, and the _Monadan_
is a plant with a red berry found on marshy mountains.
Page 69. _A cuisle geal mo chroidhe_, pronounced _A cushla gal mo chre_,
means 'bright pulse of my heart.'