Walking On Sunshine

I know not which is the most

Here then is a specimen of Irish poetry, which, by the bye, is generally the effusion of some blind itinerant bard, or some rustic minstrel, into whose breast the genius of his country has breathed inspiration, as he patiently drove the plough, or laboriously worked in the bog.I. u My love, when she floats on the mountains brow is like the dewy cloud on the summer’s loveliest evening. Her forehead is as a pearl; her spiral locks are gold; and I grieve that I cannot banish her from my memory. Miss Brook, in her elegant version of the works of some of the Irish Bards, says, ” ‘Tis scarcely possible that any language can be more adapted to lyric poetry than the Irish; so great is the smoothness and harmony of its numbers: it is also possessed of a refined delicacy, a descriptive power, and |H exquisite tender simplicity of expression : two or three little artless words, or perhaps a single epithet, will sometimes convey such an image of sentiment or suffering to the mind, that one lays down the book to look at the picture. ” When she entert m forest like the bounding doe, dispersing the dew with her aiiy steps, her mantle on her arm, the axe in hand, to cut the branches of flame; noblethe King of the Saxons, or Cathlien Nolan.”This little song is of so ancient a date, that Glorvina assures me, neither the name of the composer for the melody is exquisitely beautiful nor the poet have escaped the oblivion of time. But, if we may judge of the rank of the poet’by that of his mistress, it must havebeen of a very humble degree; for it is evident that the fair Cathlien, whose form is compared, in splendour, to that of the Saxon monarch, is represented as cutting wood for the ire.The following songs, however, are by the most celebrated of all the modern Irish bards, Turloch Carolan,f and the airs to which he has composed The King of England if still called by the common Irish, Riagh Sasseanach.f He was born in the village of Nobber, county of Westmeath, in If , and died in . He never regretted the loss of sight, but used gaily to say, u My eyes are only transplanted into my ears. Of his poetry, the reader may form some judgment from these examples;