Lays of the Western Gael. By Samuel Ferguson. (Bell and
Daldy.)-- The greater number, though not quite the whole, of these poems are either founded on Irish traditions or versions of Irish poems. The former are the more valuable. They have a genuine smack of antiquity, as the lays called "The Abdication of Fergus Mac Roy" and "The Welshman of Tirawley "abundantly prove. But the Irish songs of a later date have, as Mr. Ferguson admits, but little vigour of thought, and their wild pathos eludes translation. It is more a sentiment than a passion, and has an evanescent delicacy which cannot be separated from the language in which it was first expressed. Here are a few stanzas from a "Lament" by O'Grieve, the Bard of O'Neill, circa 1580 :—
These lines are a fair specimen of the character of the songs, and of the author's power of versification, which in troth is not very great. "My heart is in woe, And my soul deep in trouble, For the mighty are low And abased are the noble.
"The Gael cannot tell, In the uprooted wild-wood And red ridgy dell, The old nurse of his childhood.
"The nurse of his youth Is in doubt, as she views him, If the wan wretch in truth, Be the child of her bosom.
"We starve by the board, And we thirst amid wassail— For the guest is the lord, And the host is the vassal.
"Through the woods let us roam, Through the wastes wild and barren ; We are strangers at home We are exiles in Erin !"
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