Poets and Dreamers Part 8

'It is with the people I was, It is not with the law I was; But they took me in my sleep, On the side of Cnoc-na-Feigh; And so To-morrow they will hang me.'

'I am weak in my body, I am vexed in my heart, And to-morrow I will be hanged; Lying beneath the clay, My sorrow, Lying beneath the clay.

'May G.o.d give pardon To my vexed, sorrowful soul; May G.o.d give mercy To me now and forever, Amen!

To me now and forever.'

But translation is poor work. Even if it gives a glimpse of the heart of a poem, too much is lost in losing the outward likeness. Here are the last lines of the lament of a felon's brother:--

'Now that you are stretched in the cold grave May G.o.d set you free: It's vexed and sorry and pitiful are my thoughts; It's sorrowful I am to-day!'

I look at them and read them; and wonder why when I first read them, their sound had hung about me for days like a sobbing wind; but when I look at them in their own form, the sob is in them still:

Nois ann san uaigh fhuair o ta tu sinte Go saoraigh Dia thu Is buaidhcartha, bronach bocht ata mo smaointe Is bronach me andhiu.

BOER BALLADS IN IRELAND

Yesterday I asked a woman on the Echtge hills, if any of her neighbours had gone to the war. She said: 'No; but I know a great many that went to America when the war began--even boys that had business to do at home; they were afraid of being brought away by the Press.' On another part of the Echtge hills, where a rumour had come that the police were to be sent to the war, an old woman said to a policeman I know: 'When you go out there, don't be killing the people of my religion.' He said: 'The Boers are not of your religion'; but she said: 'They are; I know they must be Catholics, or the English would not be against them.' Others on that wild range think that this is the beginning of the great war that will end in the final rout of the enemies of Ireland. Old prophecies say this war is to come at the meeting of these centuries; and there is an old Irish verse which seems to allude to this, and which has been thus translated:--

'When the Lion shall lose its strength, And the bracket Thistle begin to pine, The Harp shall sound sweet, sweet, at length, Between the eight and the nine.'

Lonely Echtge still keeps old prophecies and old songs and some of the old speech, and but few newspapers are seen there; but on the lowland, sympathy with the Boers, and prophecies of their victory, are put into the doggerel English verse that must be poor in form, because a ballad, more than another song, must have a long tradition of folk-thought and folk-expression behind it; and in Ireland this tradition does not belong to the English language. Even the beautiful air of 'The Wearing of the Green' cannot give poetic charm to such verses as these, which, like the others that follow, have been sung and sold by ballad-singers in market-towns and at fairs, and at country race-meetings, during the last year:--

'Oh! Paddy dear, and did ye hear The news that's going round?

No cheers for brave Paul Kruger Must be heard on Irish ground.

No more the English tourist at Killarney will be seen, Unless you join the pirate's cause, And chant "G.o.d save the Queen."'

Or this other, sung during the siege of Ladysmith:--

'And I met with White the General, And he's looking thin enough; And he says the boys in Ladysmith Are running short of stuff.

Faith, the dishes need no was.h.i.+ng, Now they're left so nice and clean; Oh! it's anything but pleasant To be starving for the Queen!'

The defender of Ladysmith is treated with greater courtesy than some other generals, for, in spite of sympathy with the besiegers, the singer says:--

'But if he gave in to-morrow, I would not think it right To throw the least disparagement On a man like General White.

He is making a bold resistance, As great as could be made, Against their deadly Mauser rifles, And their tremendous cannonade.'

The 'Song of the Transvaal Irish Brigade' has more literary quality:--

'The Cross swings low; the morn is near-- Now, comrades, fill up high; The cannon's voice will ring out clear When morning lights the sky.

A toast we'll drink together, boys, Ere dawns the battle's grey, A toast to Ireland, dear old Ireland!

Ireland far away!

Ireland far away! Ireland far away!

Health to Ireland, strength to Ireland!

Ireland, boys, hurrah!

'Who told us that her cause was dead?

Who bade us bend the knee?

The slaves! Again she lifts her head-- Again she dares be free!

With gun in hand, we take our stand, For Ireland in the fray: We fight for Ireland, dear old Ireland!

Ireland far away!

Ireland far away! Ireland far away!

We fight for Ireland, die for Ireland-- Ireland, boys, hurrah!

'Oh, mother of the wounded breast!

Oh, mother of the tears!

The sons you loved, and trusted best, Have grasped their battle spears.

From Shannon, Lagan, Liffey, Lee, On Afric's soil to-day, We strike for Ireland, brave old Ireland!

Ireland far away!

Ireland far away! Ireland far away!

We smite for Ireland, brave old Ireland!

Ireland, boys, hurrah!'

'The Irish Boy,' which is sung to the air of 'The Minstrel Boy,' is also in honour of the Irish Brigade:--

'While the Irish boy is on the sh.o.r.e, He'll help to crush the stranger; He'll sweep them hence for evermore, And free thy land from danger.

And then he'll pray to G.o.d above, That his courage ne'er shall falter, To guard him to the land he loves-- To Ireland o'er the water.'

Mayo is the county to which John MacBride, the leader of the Irish Brigade, belongs; but I heard of a ballad-singer at Ballindereen, near my Galway home, the other day, whose refrain was:--

'And Erin watches from afar, with joy and hope and pride, Her sons who strike for liberty, led on by John MacBride!'

At Galway Railway Station, whence the Connaught Rangers set out for the war, I have heard that wives, saying good-bye, begged their husbands 'not to be too hard on the Boers.' Anyhow, a 'Mother's lament for her son gone to the war,' that was sung at Galway Races the other day, shows more impartiality than most of the ballads:--

'When the battle rages fiercely, our boys are in the van; How I do wish the blows they struck were for dear Ireland!

But duty calls, they must obey, and fight against the Boer, And many a cheerful Irish lad will fall to rise no more.

'I wish my boy was home again! Oh! how I'd welcome him, With sorrow I'm broken-hearted, my eyes are growing dim; The war is dark and cruel, but whoever wins the fight, I pray to save my n.o.ble lad, and G.o.d defend the right!'

But it is the small farmers of Ireland who look with special sympathy on their fellows in the Transvaal. They give them a warning:--

'England sends her grabbers, From far across the sea, To rob you of your friends and home, Likewise your liberty.'

And the Boers say in answer:--

'When we came to this country, 'Twas but a barren plain; But the honest hand of labour Was rewarded for its pain.

We found the precious metal, And of it we have great store; But Britain came to rob us As she often done before.

As she thought to do before, As she thought to do before; But Britain comes to rob us, As she often done before.'

Another ballad explains:--

'Those Boers can't be blamed, as you might understand; They are trying to free their own native land, Where they toil night and day by the sweat of their brow, Like the farmers in Ireland that follow the plough.

Farewell to Old Ireland, we are now going away, To fight the brave Boers in South Africa; To fight those poor farmers we are not inclined: G.o.d be with you, Old Ireland, we are leaving behind.'

Some verses--'The Boer's Prayer'--that I have not seen on a ballad-sheet, but in a weekly paper, give better expression to this feeling of farmer sympathy:--