From the Irish.

The arts of Greece, Rome and of Eirin’s fair earth,
If at my sole command they this moment were all,
I’d give, though I’m fully aware of their worth,
Could they back from the dead my lost Mary recall.

I’m distrest every noon, now I sit down alone,
And at morn, now with me she arises no more: 
With no woman alive after Thee would I wive,
Could I flocks and herds gain and of gold a bright store.

Awhile in green Eirin so pleasant I dwelt,
With her nobles I drank to whom music was dear;
Then left to myself, O how mournful I felt
At the close of my life, with no partner to cheer.

My sole joy and my comfort wast thou ’neath the sun,
Dark gloom, now I’m reft of thee, filleth my mind;
I shall know no more happiness now thou art gone,
O my Mary, of wit and of manners refin’d.

TO ICOLMCILL.

From the Gaelic of Mac-Intyre.

On Icolmcill may blessings pour! 
It is the island blest of yore;
Mull’s sister-twin in the wild main,
Owning the sway of high Mac-Lean;
The sacred spot, whose fair renown
To many a distant land has flown,
And which receives in courteous way
All, all who thither chance to stray.

There in the grave are many a King
And duine-wassel {68} slumbering;
And bodies, once of giant strength,
Beneath the earth are stretch’d at length;
It is the fate of mortals all
To ashes fine and dust to fall;
I’ve hope in Christ, for sins who died,
He has their souls beatified.

Now full twelve hundred years, and more,
On dusky wing have flitted o’er,
Since that high morn when Columb grey
Its wall’s foundation-stone did lay;
Images still therein remain
And death-memorials carv’d with pain;
Of good hewn stone from top to base,
It shows to Time a dauntless face.

A man this day the pulpit fill’d,
Whose sermon brain and bosom thrill’d,
And all the listening crowd I heard
Praising the mouth which it proferr’d: 
Since death has seiz’d on Columb Cill,
And Mull may not possess him still,
There’s joy throughout its heathery lands,
In Columb’s place that Dougal stands.

THE DYING BARD.

From the Gaelic.

O for to hear the hunter’s tread
With his spear and his dogs the hills among;
In my aged cheek youth flushes red
When the noise of the chase arises strong.

Awakes in my bones the marrow whene’er
I hark to the distant shout and bay;
When peals in my ear; “We’ve kill’d the deer”—­
To the hill-tops boundeth my soul away;

I see the slug-hound tall and gaunt,
Which follow’d me, early and late, so true;
The hills, which it was my delight to haunt,
And the rocks, which rang to my loud halloo.

I see Scoir Eild by the side of the glen,
Where the cuckoo calleth so blithe in May,
And Gorval of pines, renown’d ’mongst men
For the elk and the roe which bound and play.