But thou wast lying prone upon the sand, Death-wounded, blind with blood, and gasping: 'Go! Two swords are somewhat; join the rest. I know Another charge will beat them from the land.' So when the slaughter of the Danes was done, We kissed thee, one by one, lamenting sore: Men's tears have washed the blood-stain from thy brow; Thy spear and sword and our dear love hast thou : We have thy name and fame for evermore. So sang the warriors to their clouded star, King Ivor, as they heapt his cairn on high; A landmark to the sailor sailing by, A warning to the spoiler from afar. KING AILILL'S DEATH FROM THE EARLY MIDDLE IRISH Book of Leinster, fol. 214 I KNOW who won the peace of God, King Ailill, called 'the Beardless Man ;' Who fought beyond the Irish Sea All day against a Connaught clan. His host was broken as he fled The slayers, are they drawing near?' The boy looks back. The west wind blows He heard the war-shout of his foes, The foes came darting from the height, And spake 'The slaughter is full red, But we may still be saved by flight.' Then groaned the king: No sin of theirs Falls on my people here to-night : 'No sin of theirs, but sin of mine, 'Draw rein, and turn the chariot round : They drew, and turned. Down came the foe, MAN OCTIPARTITE FROM THE MIDDLE IRISH Cod. Clarend. (Mus. Brit.), vol. xv. fol. 7a, col. 1 THUS sang the sages of the Gael A thousand years ago well-nigh: 'Hearken how the Lord on high Wrought man, to breathe and laugh and wail, To hunt and war, to plough and sail, To love and teach, to pray and die !' Then said the sages of the Gael : 'Of parcels eight was Adam built. The first was earth, the second sea, The third and fourth were sun and cloud, Then sang the sages of the Gael : 'Man's body, first, was built of earth 'Now, if the earthiness redound, Discerns the inmost heart, and then And they are truer, gentler, more 'But he on whom the Light Divine 'Of each of those eight things decreed So sang the sages of the Gael. JOHN TODHUNTER DR. TODHUNTER'S gifts and tastes are very various. While it is not quite certain whether his versatility has been the most favourable ally of his poetic genius, that it has contributed charms to his poetic productions is unquestionable. Few poets have been able to interpret the emotions of music in another art more effectively than he. His In a Gondola' (written in Trinity College Park, when he was an undergraduate) exhibits this power to a remarkable degree, and he has written no more genuine poems than the series in which he describes the essential characteristics of the music of Mendelssohn, Beethoven, and Rossini. In these poems he conducts the reader into a region of imagination to which no man who is not a poet ever finds his way alone. His eye for colour and form enables him to describe the objects of Nature with extreme minuteness-a faculty which recalls that of Keats, united with a manner which, no doubt, has been suggested by Keats. The rhythmic swing and verbal melody which abound in some of his poems make us miss them all the more in poems in which he seems deliberately to neglect them. His love of the stage, his intelligent appreciation of the greatest works of the greatest dramatists, and his eye for stage grouping and stage effects, have induced him to write dramas; but there is little doubt that he has excelled most in his lyrical poems. His humour asserts itself most successfully-certainly most agreeably-in Laurella,' which, though closely following Paul Heyse's tale, is yet an original and delightful narrative poem. In this poem the difficult ottava rima is handled, frequently after the fashion of 'Beppo' and 'Don Juan,' with skill and dexterity; and the narrative is so condensed, so well proportioned, and so well arranged, that one cannot help thinking that the author, if he had chosen, might have developed into one of the brightest and pleasantest of our story-tellers in verse. Until about the year 1888 he does not seem to have turned his attention to his native country. In his principal poems on Irish themes he has discarded rhyme in his regular lyrical measures-a dangerous experiment until something better and more pleasing to the ear can be provided as a substitute for it. Dr. Todhunter possesses a priceless gift, without which no man need ever hope to be a poet of the highest order he is a thinker; all that he has written in verse and prose bears upon it the attractive impress of a mind |