Come here, Banathee, sit beside me awhile, And the pulse of your heart let me read in your smile. But the youngest of all is the white-headed boy, He's as good as the priest at his Latin, I hear, And to college, please God, we will send him next year. And what's that to any man whether or no? Your hands, then, old neighbor, one cup more we'll drain, And cead mille failthe, again and again. May discord and treason keep far from our shore, And union and peace light our homes evermore! He's the king of good fellows, the poor, honest man, So we'll live and be merry as long as we can. O, we'll cling to old Ireland through weal and through woe, And what's that to any man whether or no? SIR SIR SAMUEL FERGUSON. 99 IR SAMUEL FERGUSON, one of the most accomplished scholars in ancient Irish literature, and one of the most original and national of Irish poets, was born in Belfast, in 1810, and spent his youth at the family residence in Collon House, in the county of Antrim. He was educated at Trinity College, Dublin, and became a member of the circle of young men, including Lord O'Hagan, Dr. George Petrie, John O'Donovan, Eugene Curry, and others, who devoted themselves to the cultivation of ancient Irish literature, and who have done so much to elucidate and illustrate it. In his twenty-second year he wrote "The Forging of the Anchor," which was recited by Christopher North at one of the symposia of the "Noctes Ambrosianæ with high praise, and which by its vigor of rhythmical melody and force of imagination has become one of the familiar poems of the English language. He studied for the bar, to which he was admitted in 1838, and acquired a successful practice of a sound and business character, which he retained until his retirement from the profession in 1867, when he was appointed Deputy Keeper of the Records of Ireland, an office which he now holds. On St. Patrick's day, 1879, he received the honor of knighthood from the Duke of Marlborough, Lord Lieutenant. His contributions to literature in the pages of Blackwood and the Dublin University Magazine, during the period of the practice of his profession, were marked, if not numerous. They included various poems and translations from the Irish, a series of tales relating to early Irish history, afterward collected into a volume under the title of "Hibernian Nights' Entertainments"; "Father Tom and the Pope," a piece of Rabelaisian humor, long unacknowledged, and attributed to Dr. Maginn and other Irish Tory writers; and various papers on the history and archæological remains of Ireland in the Transactions of the Royal Irish Academy. He also published a valuable essay on "The Commercial Capabilities of Ireland." In 1865 he published a collection of his poems under the title of "Lays of the Western Gael"; in 1867, the epic poem of "Congal"; and in 1880, a volume containing ballads and lyrics, and a poem in dramatic form, Deirdre," illustrating the episode in Irish romance of that name. In the collection of his poems he has been very fastidious, and rejected several pieces that have received popular approval, and which refuse to be ignored in Irish literature. The characteristics of Sir Samuel Ferguson's poetry, aside from its nationality, are a remarkable strength of rhythm, a happy boldness of epithet, and broad touches of description, that rival Campbell's most powerful effects. It is thoroughly manly in spirit and expression, and its lyrical faculty is frequently of the sort that touches the nerves, as may be particularly noticed in the rude vigor of the concluding stanzas of "The Widow's Cloak," one of his latest poems. His epic poem of "Congal," as has been said, rivals Chapman's Homer in its sweeping strength of rhythm and the felicity of its adjective epithets. His national poetry is thoroughly saturated with the spirit of the ancient bards, and reproduces with a faithfulness and vividness unequalled in the restoration of an ancient form of literature in another language. His nationality has a different partisan and religious complexion from that of most of those who are called national Irish poets, so far as modern poetry is concerned; but it is noticeable in the lack of political allusion rather than otherwise, and it is entirely free from bitterness or vindictiveness. THE HEALING OF CONALL CARNACH. O'ER Slieve Few, with noiseless tramping through the heavy drifted snow, Beälcu, Connacia's champion, in his chariot tracks the foe; And anon far off discerneth, in the mountain hollow white, Slinger Keth and Conall Carnach mingling hand to hand in fight. Swift the charioteer his coursers urged across the wintry glade; Hoarse the cry of Keth and hoarser seemed to come, demanding aid; But through wreath and swollen runnel ere the car could reach anigh, Keth lay dead, and mighty Conall, bleeding, lay at point to die. Whom beholding spent and pallid, Beälcu exulting cried, "O thou ravening wolf of Uladh, where is now thy Northern pride? What can now that crest audacious, what that pale, defiant brow, Once the bale star of Connacia's ravaged fields, avail thee now?" "Taunts are for reviling women," faintly Conall made reply; "Wouldst thou play the manlier foeman, end my pain, and let me die. Neither deem thy blade dishonored that with Keth's a deed it share, For the foremost two of Connaught feat enough and fame to spare." "No, I will not; bard shall never in Dunseverick hall make boast, That to quell one Northern riever needed two of Croghan's host; But because that word thou 'st spoken, if but life enough remains, Thou shalt hear the wives of Croghan clap their hands above thy chains. "Yea, if life enough but linger that the leech may make thee whole, Meet to satiate the anger that beseems a warrior's soul, Best of leech-craft I'll purvey thee, make thee whole as healing can, And in single combat slay thee, Connaught man to Ulster man." Binding him in fivefold fetter, wrists and ankles, wrists and neck, To his car's uneasy litter Beälcu upheaved the wreck Of the broken man and harness; but he started with amaze When he felt the Northern war-mace, what a weight it was to raise. Westward then through Breiffny's borders, with his captive and his dead, Tracked by bands of fierce applauders, wives and shrieking widows, sped; |