’O Lord, let there fall
      Straight down on her head
    The curse of the peoples
      That have fallen with us.

    ’The curse of the mean,
      And the curse of the small,
    The curse of the weak,
      And the curse of the low.

    ’The Lord does not listen
      To the curse of the strong,
    But He will listen
      To sighs and to tears.

    ’He will always listen
      To the crying of the poor,
    And the crying of thousands
      Is abroad to-night.

    ’That crying will rise up
      To God that is above;
    It is not long till every curse
      Comes to His ears.

    ’The crying will be put away;
      Tears will be put away,
    When they come to God,
      These prayers to His kingdom.

    ’He will make for England
      Strong chains, very heavy;
    He will pay her wages
      With strong, heavy chains.

1901.

A SORROWFUL LAMENT FOR IRELAND

The Irish poem I give this translation of was printed in the Revue Celtique some years ago, and lately in An Fior Clairseach na h-Eireann, where a note tells us it was taken from a manuscript in the Gottingen Library, and was written by an Irish priest, Shemus Cartan, who had taken orders in France; but its date is not given.  I like it for its own beauty, and because its writer does not, as so many Irish writers have done, attribute the many griefs of Ireland only to ’the horsemen of the Gall,’ but also to the faults and shortcomings to which the people of a country broken up by conquest are perhaps more liable than the people of a country that has kept its own settled rule.

A SORROWFUL LAMENT FOR IRELAND.

    My thoughts, alas! are without strength;
    My spirit is journeying towards death;
    My eyes are as a frozen sea;
    My tears my daily food;
    There is nothing in my life but only misery;
    My poor heart is torn,
    And my thoughts are sharp wounds within me,
    Mourning the miserable state of Ireland,
    Without ease, without mirth for any person
    That is born on the plains of Emer. 
    And here I give you the heavy story,
    And the tale of all the remnant of her deeds.

      She lost her pomp and her strength together
    When her strong men were banished across the sea;
    Her churches are as holds of pain,
    Without altars, without Mass, without bowing of knees;
    Stables for horses—­this story is pitiful—­
    Or without a stone of their stones together.