IRISH POETS

BOOK I

THERE are two classes of anonymous poems-those which seem to have grown up among the people, often perhaps the work of more than one hand, and reflecting the spirit rather of a class or of a race than of an individual; and those which are distinctly individual and are only anonymous by the accident that no author's name has ever been affixed to them. The former class of poems are represented in the first and briefest book of this Anthology. They represent, mainly, the earliest attempts of the Irish peasantry to express themselves in poetic form in the English language.

Multitudes of such attempts must have been made and lost. Now and then a stray line or two has by virtue of its pathetic music caught the ear of some man of letters and found its way into print. Sir Charles Duffy has recorded his early recollection of a rude ballad of this description, at the singing of which he saw a whole dinner company dissolved in tears, and in which the warm-hearted reception given by Belfast to Wolfe Tone and the Catholic envoys of 1793 on their way to plead for the freedom of their faith was thus spoken of :

The Lord in His mercy be kind to Belfast:

The poor Irish exile she soothed as he passed.

Many such things there must have been, many more than ever found their way into print, and many which were printed as ballad sheets and are now lost for ever. But some have

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survived in chapbooks, anthologies, old newspapers, stray records of every kind, and of these a selection is here given. In some the grandiloquent phrase of the hedge-schoolmaster is noticeable, some are pieces of wild irresponsible humour, some have a tender and unconscious grace, or are animated by a grotesque vitality, or express with rude fervour the patriotic devotion of the peasant. A peasant-poetry of far greater beauty and elevation was in process of creation at the time when the majority of these pieces were written-the eighteenth century and the beginning of the nineteenth-but this was in the Gaelic tongue, then the language of the masses of the people. In his "Love Songs" and "Religious Songs" of Connacht, Dr. Douglas Hyde has turned much of this popular poetry into English verse, retaining the characteristic traits of the original. Specimens of this will be found under his name in Book V. Here, however, we present only the first stammerings of the Irish spirit in the new tongue which, about the beginning of this century, began to be the language of Irish literature.

THE WEARIN' O' THE GREEN

The finest of Irish street-ballads, and described by a writer in the Athenæum in 1887 as probably the finest street-ballad ever written. One of its numerous variants sung in a play of Boucicault's has given rise to the belief that he wrote it, but it appears to date from about the year 1798. It deserves to be called the Irish National Anthem, if any piece of poetry can claim that title.

OH, Paddy dear! an' did ye hear the news that's goin' round?
The shamrock is by law forbid to grow on Irish ground
No more St. Patrick's Day we'll keep, his colour can't be seen,
For there's a cruel law agin the wearin' o' the green!

I met wid Napper Tandy, and he took me by the hand,

And he said, 'How's poor Ould Ireland, and how does she stand?' She's the most disthressful country that iver yet was seen,

For they're hangin' men and women there for wearin' o' the green.

An' if the colour we must wear is England's cruel red,
Let it remind us of the blood that Ireland has shed;
Then pull the shamrock from your hat, and throw it on the sod,—
And never fear, 'twill take root there, tho' under foot 'tis trod !

When law can stop the blades of grass from growin' as they grow,
And when the leaves in summer-time their colour dare not show,
Then I will change the colour, too, I wear in my caubeen,
But till that day, plaze God, I'll stick to wearin' o' the green.

THE SORROWFUL LAMENTATION OF CALLAGHAN, Greally AND MULLEN

KILLED AT THE FAIR OF TURLOUGHMORE

A STREET-BALLAD

This is a genuine ballad of the people, written and sung among them. The reader will see at once how little resemblance it bears to the pseudo Irish songs of the stage, or even to the street-ballads manufactured by the balladsingers. It is very touching, and not without a certain unpremeditated grace. The vagueness, which leaves entirely untold the story it undertook to recount, is a common characteristic of the Anglo-Irish songs of the people. The circumstance on which it is founded took place in 1843, at the fair of Darrynacloughery, held at Turloughmore. A faction-fight having occurred at the fair, the arrest of some of the parties led to an attack on the police; after the attack had abated or ceased, the police fired on the people, wounded several, and killed the three men whose names stand at the head of the ballad. They were indicted for murder, and pleaded the order of Mr. Brew, the stipendiary magistrate, which was admitted as a justification. Brew died before the day appointed for his trial.-Note by Sir Charles Gavan Duffy, Ballad Poetry of Ireland.

'COME, tell me, dearest mother, what makes my father stay, Or what can be the reason that he's so long away?'

'Oh! hold your tongue, my darling son, your tears do grieve me

sore;

I fear he has been murdered in the fair of Turloughmore.

Come, all you tender Christians, I hope you will draw near;

It's of this dreadful murder I mean to let you hear,

Concerning those poor people whose loss we do deplore

(The Lord have mercy on their souls) that died at Turloughmore.

It is on the First of August, the truth I will declare,

Those people they assembled that day all at the fair ;

But little was their notion what evil was in store,
All by the bloody Peelers at the fair of Turloughmore.

Were you to see that dreadful sight 'twould grieve your heart, I

know,

To see the comely women and the men all lying low;

God help their tender parents, they will never see them more,
For cruel was their murder at the fair of Turloughmore.

It's for that base bloodthirsty crew, remark the word I say,
The Lord He will reward them against the judgment-day ;
The blood they have taken innocent, for it they'll suffer sore,
And the treatment that they gave to us that day at Turloughmore.

The morning of their trial as they stood up in the dock, The words they spoke were feeling, the people round them flock: 'I tell you, Judge and Jury, the truth I will declare,

It was Brew that ordered us to fire that evening at the fair.'

Now to conclude and finish this sad and doleful fray,

I hope their souls are happy against the judgment-day;

It was little time they got, we know, when they fell like new-mowed hay,

May the Lord have mercy on their souls against the judgmentday.

THE LAMENTATION OF HUGH REYNOLDS

A STREET-BALLAD

I copied this ballad from a broad-sheet in the collection of Mr. Davis; but could learn nothing of its date, or the circumstances connected with it. It is clearly modern, however, and founded on the story of an abduction, which terminated differently from the majority of these adventures. The popular sympathy in such cases is generally in favour of the gallant, the impression being that an abduction is never attempted without at least a tacit consent on the part of the girl. Whenever she appears as a willing witness for the prosecution it is said she has been tampered with by her friends, and public indignation falls upon the wrong object. The Lamentation' was probably written for or by the ballad-singers; but it is the best of its bad class.

The student would do well to compare with the other street-ballads in the collection; and with the simple old traditional ballads, such as Shule Aroon' and Peggy Bawn,' that he may discover if possible, where the charm lies that recommends strains so rude and naked to the most cultivated minds. These ballads have done what the songs of our greatest lyrical poets have not