NOTES

New Zealand Tablet, Volume LII, Issue 52, 30 December 1925, Page 34

NOTES

Anglo-Irish Poetry There is . this difference between English and Irish verse: the former is a rhythm of stressed and unstressed syllables with the unstressed under-emphasised and slurred; the latter allows for the clear pronunciation of: the syllables between the stresses. The Irish stressed verses are not hammered out as in English, and this produces that lingering, wavering line which weds so sweetly .with the music in our Irish lyrics. Irish songs are more musical when played to the words, but English airs are often dragged out of place and setting to fit the words. One has to understand this difference well before it is possible to read the best AngloIrish poetry correctly and with appreciation. Read in the English manner the rich music of the lines of Mangan, Callanan, Sigerson, Yeats, and Pearse is completely lost. There have been English poets, too, who caught the Gaelic mode, and because critics did not understand some of their loveliest lines were condemned. An instance of this is found in a poem by Emily Bronte: Tell me, what is the present hour? A green a feathery spray, Where a young bird sits, gathering it? power, To mount and fly away. In the same way, that beautiful little poem, The Lake Isle of Inisfree, must be read like a chant, with due value for the lingering and wavering melody of the lines, in order to do it justice. To read it with English stresses would ruin it: I will arise and go now, and go to Inisfree, And a small cabin build there, of clay and wattles made; Nine bean rows will I have there, a hive for the honey bee, And live alone in the bee-loud glade. And I shall have some peace there, for peace comes dropping slow, Dropping from the veils of morning to where the cricket sings; • There midnight's all a glimmer, and noon a purple glow, And evening full of linnets' wings. I will arise and go now, for always night and day I hear lake water lapping with low sounds by the shore While I stand on the roadway, or on the pavements gray, I hear it in the heart's deep core. Irish verse follows Irish music and forbids inversions and unnatural turns of speech. The true Anglo-Irish poet attains spontaneously the simplicity and directness which Wordsworth found it difficult to secure with much labor. The words sway wtih the music quite naturally; and, perhaps, to be able to read our true poets at all one must have

been familiar from youth with the old air that were almost sung by the breezes in Ireland in our youth. When these airs, the Foggy Dew, the Coolin, S'Avoumin Deelish, etc., are in the brain and heart one will instinctively read correctly the English lines which try to translate the old songs. To read them otherwise is a mistake. All their melody and emotion are lost, and the effort to stress the feet in the English way makes a sorry thing of the verses that are really so lovely. Anybody can see this who tries to read that poem by Yeats according to English scansion. As we said before, critics who failed to understand how Emily Bronte was influenced by Irish airs failed also to appreciate the most beautiful poem she wrote. It ought not to be forgotten that .in the case of the best Anglo-Irish verse, the air was there before the words: the words can only conform to it when the Irish music is put into the reading of them. Some Examples One of the best instances of the Gaelic mode in Anglo-Irish verse is found in the poem, "Cashel of Minister," by Sir Samuel Ferguson : I'd wed you without herds, without money, or rich array. And I'd wed you on a dewy morning at daydawn gray; My bitter woe it is, love, that we are not far away In Cashel town, though the bare deal board were our marriage bed this day! Another good example is the song "Have You Been at Carrick?". by Edward Walsh: Have you been at Carrick, and saw my true love there? And saw you her features, all beautiful, bright, and fair? Saw you the most fragrant, flowering, sweet apple-tree Oh, saw you my loved one, and pines she in grief for me? Callanan's "Outlaw of Loch Lene" has stanzas that illustrate beautifully the Gaelic mode: 'Tis down by the. lake where the wild-tree fringes its sides, The maid of my heart, my fair one of Heaven resides; — I think as at eve she wanders its mazes along, The birds go to sleep by the sweet twist of her song. The translation of Donall Oge is faulty, but it gives some idea of the great poem that the original was. Many of the verses, even in the English, are real' poetry:

My heart is a, cluster of nuts with every kernel dropped, My heart is the ice on the pond above, where the mill has stopped; A mournful sadness is breaking over my running, laughter Like the mirth of a maid at her marriage and the heavy sorrow after. You have taken the East from me, and you have taken the West; You have taken the path before me, and " the path that is behind; The moon is gone from me by night and the sun is gone by day, Alas! I greatly dread you have stolen my God away. And Raftery's little poem on his own blindness is, even in the rough rendering, a gem : I am Raftery the Poet Full of hope and love, With eyes that have no light, • With gentleness that has no misery. Going west upon my pilgrimage By the light of my heart, Feeble and tired To the end of my road. Behold me now, And my face to the Avail, A-playing music Unto empty pockets. In conclusion here is a stanza of the loveliest of all the old airs: Oh, had you seen the Coolin, walking down by the cuckoo's street, With the dew of the meadow shining on her milk-white twinkling feet, My love she is, and my cailin og, and she dwells in Balnagar, And she bears the palm of beauty bright, from the fairest that in Erin are. In Balnagar is the Coolin, like the berry on the bough her cheek;' Bright beauty dwells forever on her fair neck and ringlets sleek; Oh, sweeter is her mouth's soft music than the lark or thrush at dawn, Or the blackbird in the greenwood singing farewell to the setting sun. " & RECTOR OF HOLY CROSS COLLEGE HONORED Advice has just been received from Rome that the Doctorate of Divinity has been conferred on the Very -Rev. Cecil Morkane, Rector of Holy Cross College, Mosgiel. We join with Dr. Morkane's numerous friends throughout the Dominion in offering congratulations to him on the dignity he has received. IRISH HISTORY FUND Rev. J. Kelly, Newtown £lO 0 "Friend," Palmerston North .'.' 10 0 "Friend," Dunedin ... ... 010 Q