The electronic version of this text has been created as a part of the "Publishing in Irish America: 1820-1922" project that is being undertaken by the CUNY Institute for Irish- American Studies. Project: Publishing in IA Date: Created: 9/2012005 ObjectlD: 000000041 Object Name: Poems of Ireland Author: Samuel Lover Dale Published: 1858 Publisher: WlII'd. Lock and Co. Donor: lona College: POE1\18 OF I~ELAND. - POEMS OF IRELAND. EDITED AND ANNOTATED BY S A !vI IT ELL 0 V E R, ? AUTHOR OF U HANDY ANDY," "BOBY O'MORE," ETC. oroWBIca IS ADDED, "LOVER'S METRIOAL TALES." WAR~ LOC~ AND C~ LONJ?ON: WARWICK HOUSE, SALISBURY SQUAltE, 10- NEW YORK: :BOND STREET. ) Q" /-....1 / l PREFAOE. -- A GENERAL collection of Irish Lyrics, carefully selected, affording the best specimens of various authors, and in various styles, has been a long-existing want in the library, and that it l~asbeen. so, is presnmptive evidence of the task of producing such a work being difficult. I felt this when first invited to become Editor of such a collection, and it was only repeated reqnests, after some lapso of time, and arguments which my love of country could not resist, that overcame my reluctance to engage in editorial duty -a duty quite new to me-and if I have failed in it, I can plead in extenuation that I did not rush into the difficulty pre- sumptuously; and I can add, with equal truth, and having un- dertaken what the judgment of others intrusted me with, I have made every endeavour to discharge the onerous duties of my post becomingly. Having said thus much in mitigation of any editorial errors whereof I may be guilty, I will offer a few re- marks upon the subject-matter of this book. Two volumes of national songs have, at short intervals, pre- ceded this-a book of English and a book of Scotch songs; aud with these this volume must come into immediate comparison. That comparison, I think, must prove singularly honourable to Ireland, if the disadvantageous circnmstances be considered under which she appears in literary competition with the other portions of the united kingdom. To those whosejudgment may not award her a high place, the consideration I solicit will afford sufficient cause for the supposed inferiority; while, if the judgment be on the other hand, it will conduce the more to bel' vi PREFACE. honour. I will ask it, then, to be remembered, going no further back than the time of Elizabeth, that England, in the fulness of prosperity, had her Shakspeare, Spenser, Sidney, Bacon, and many others, great in letters; while in Ireland, at the same time, the Euo-lishb lano-uacretl 1::1 was a stmnrrer-tongue........ outside the pale, the eouutry yet unconquered, and undergoing the horrors of war. At this very period, Spenser, an eye-witness of those horrors, deprecating the charge of inefficiencymade against tbl English clergy in Ireland, uses these memorable words- ~It is ill time to preach among sW/Yrds." If it was an ill time to preach, it was also an ill time for literary culture, and It sufficient reason why Ireland cannot be expected to compete with England in literary honours. So far from expecting this, we may rather wonder that Ireland, in an interim far from peacefnl, should have done so much, more particularly in a language which she had yet to learn. :With respect to Scotland, her literature, in general, has done her the highest honour. As for her songs, a large amount are of the first mark; but Scotland has been more favourably cir- cumstanced for literary pursuits than Ireland. She has not suffered the penalties of political strife so heavily, nor so re- cently ; she Bas not been shaken by internal convulsion for the last century; while in Ireland, within abo:1thalf the period, raged a rebellion that drenched her in blood, since which she h~ had many a. political throe-in fact, it is not quite thirty years since that large question, Catholic Emancipation, which kept her so long disturbed, wassettled. Such a state of things made fiery orators, and produced the fierce outpouring of political invective in prose and verse, mingled with the wild wail of national grief, or the sudden burst of pent-up gall that sense of wrong and hope deferred engender; but, for the W1Uter flowersof poesy, there was small chance of their spring- ing in 80 unl'Ongeniala soil; and even in the vindicative verse of that time of strife there was not much merit. The shafts that ftew fast and thick, from both sides, were unpoIillhed- PREFACE. but that mattered not j-they were meant less to dazzle than to wound. It was not until 1807 that the lyric muse of Ireland might spread her wing in a somewhat calmer atmosphere, and sing of gentler themes j and then appeared that work, not only the crowning wreath of its author, but among the glories of the land that gave him birth-I need scarcelysay I mean" Moore's Irish Melodies." To the finest national music in the world he wrote the finest lyrics; and if Ireland never produced, nor should ever produce, another lyric poet, sufficientfor her glory is the name of Thomas Moore. Why, then, fear to meet any poetic rivals in the field1 Why the deprecatory tone in which I commencemy preface1 Be- cause the songs of Moore are not at UlYcommand. If they were, such a book of the collected lyrics of Ireland might be made as could scarcely be matched-certainly not excelled; but the strictness with which the proprietors of Moore's works guard the copyright-a strictness that cannot in the least be blamed however much it may be lamented in the present case- forbids me the use of those exquisite lyrics; and yet, even without these, I hope this volume will be consideredhonourable to the lyric genius of Ireland. How mu<:hwould not a collec- tion of Scottish Songs suffer, wanting the lays of Burns! what, then, must not an Irish collection lose in wanting Moore's1 Ireland thus competes with England and Scotland at the greatest disadvantage: her battle is like that of the Greeks without A.chilles. As to the arrangement of the following collection, I Celt bound to follow that of the two preceding volumes in the series, which classes the songs under different heads; and this created a difficulty in my editorial task, though no such difficulty existed in compiling the former volumes, with ample stores to select from. But even this difficulty in my "labour of love" (for such the editing of this book became, after my being some time engaged in it) had its reward; for, in dia- viii PREFACE. tributing the contents into sections, I found a remarkable and rather interesting coincidence between the Scottish Songs and the Irish, in three particulars-namely, that while in the Book of English Songs there are distinct sections for pastoral and rural, sea, and sporting songs, there are no such sections in the Book of Scottish Songs; nor in this did such a section become necessary. So remarkable a coincidence suggested some mental inquiry as to the cause; for Scotland and Ireland, being both pastoral countries, why this absence of pastoral songs 1 I then found that many of the pastoral songs of England arose out of a fashion that sprung up, at one period in that country, iu Literature and in the Fine Arts, to affect the rural ;-when city gallants made love under the names of Corydon and Amintor to their Sylvias and Daphnes; kings and queens were represented on canvas as Endymions and Dianas; while dukes and duchesses took the humbler forms of shepherds and shepherdesses. This was unreal ruralism, whereas the pastoral feeling of both Scot- land and Ireland was genuine, and is manifested not osten- tatiously, but accidentally and naturally, as may befit or illustrate the subject of the lyric; and as regards the Songs of Ireland, it may be observed that mere allusion is often made to pastol'l\l pursuits, and that images derived from nature are more frequent ill the songs translated from the native tongue. Why Sporting Songs do not so much abound in Scottish and Irish composition was not so easily accounted for, as the Celts of old passionately loved the chase-a love as passionately in- herited by their descendants; and yet we do not find the chase specially treated as a theme by the Celtic lyrist. Like the pastoral lays before alluded to, songs of the chase have been cultivated, in England, as a peculiar style of composition, while in the lyrics of Scotland and Ireland the love of the chase only appears incidenta.lly. Again, I asked myself, "Why is this t " And memory gave me the answer, by calling up be- fore Cle that charming seene in the Lady of the Lake, where PRBFACE. Douglas on meeting his daughter, who had been anxiously awaiting his return, accounts for his absence by saying- " My child, the ,chase I followed far ;- 'Tis mimicry of noble war." And this, I think, is the answer to the question. The Celt looked upon the chase as but the mimicry of war-and as he had the real article but too often on his hands, he did not care much about the bardic celebration of the mimicry. With respect to Sea-Songs, the solution is sufficiently easy. That England, the Mistress of the Seas, should be great in maritime ode and song-that she should revel, as it were, ill such a subject, and leave little to be done by any other portion of the United Kingdom, is quite natural.