THE CELTIC TONGUE.

- Proofing in Progress -

'Tis fading, oh, 'tis fading!  like leaves upon the trees!
In murmuring tone 'tis dying, like the wail upon the breeze!
'Tis swiftly disappearing, as footprints on the shore
Where the Barrow, and the Erne, and Loch Swilly's waters roar--
Where the parting sunbeam kisses Loch Corrib in the West,
And Ocean, like a mother, clasps the Shannon to her breast!
The language of old Erin, of her history and name--
Of her monarchs and her heroes--her glory and her fame--
The sacred shrine where rested, thro' sunshine and thro' gloom,
The spirit of her martyrs, as their bodies in the tomb.
The time-wrought shell, where murmur'd 'mid centuries of wrong,
The secret voice of Freedom in annal and in song--
Is slowly, surely sinking, into silent death at last,
To live but in the memories of those who love the Past.

The olden tongue is sinking like a patriarch to rest,
Whose youth beheld the Tyrian [1] on our Irish coasts a guest;
Ere the Roman or the Saxon, the Norman or the Dane,
Had first set foot in Britain, o'er trampled heaps of slain;
Whose manhood saw the Druid rite at forest-tree and rock,
And savage tribes of Britain round the Shrines of Zernebock; [2]
And for generations witnessed all the glories of the Gael,
Since our Celtic sires sung war-songs round the sacred fires of Baal;
The tongues that saw its infancy are ranked among the dead,
And from their graves have risen those now spoken in their stead.
The glories of old Erin, with their liberty have gone,
Yet their halo linger'd round her, while the Gaelic speech liv'd on;
For 'mid the desert of her woe, a monument more vast
Than all her pillar-towers, it stood--that old Tongue of the Past!

'Tis leaving, and for ever, the soil that gave it birth,
Soon,--very soon, its moving tones shall ne'er be heard on earth,
O'er the island dimly fading, as a circle o'er the wave,
Receding, as its people lisp the language of the slave, [3]
And with it too seem fading as sunset into night
The scattered rays of liberty that lingered in its light,
For ah!  tho' long, with filial love, it clung to mother-land,
And Irishmen were Irish still, in language, heart and hand;
T'instal its Saxon Rival, [4] proscribed it soon became,
And Irishmen are Irish now in nothing but in name;
The Saxon chain our rights and tongues alike doth hold in thrall,
Save where amid the Connaught wilds and hills of Donegal--
And by the shores of Munster, like the broad Atlantic blast,
The olden language lings yet, and binds us to the Past.

Thro' cold neglect 'tis dying now; a stranger on our shore!
No Tara's hall re-echoes to its music as of yore--
No Lawrence [5] fires the Celtic clans round leaguered Athaclee [6]--
No Shannon wafts from Limerick's towers their war-song to the sea.
Ah!  magic Tongue, that round us wove its spells so soft and dear!
Ah!  pleasant Tongue, whose murmurs were as music to the ear.
Ah!  glorious Tongue, whose accents could each Celtic heart enthral!
Ah!  rushing Tongue, that sounded like the swollen torrent's fall!
The tongue that in the Senate was lightning flashing bright--
Whose echo in the battle was the thunder in its might!
That Tongue, which once in chieftain's hall poured loud the minstrel lay,
As chieftain, serf, or minstrel old is silent there to-day!
That Tongue whose shout dismayed the foe at Kong and Mullaghmast, [7]
Like those who nobly perished there is numbered with the Past!

The Celtic Tongue is passing, and we stand coldly by,
Without a pang within the heart, a tear within the eye--
Without one pulse for Freedom stirred, one effort made to save
The Language of or Fathers from dark oblivion's grave!
Oh, Erin!  vain your efforts--your prayers for Freedom's crown,
Whilst offered in the language of the foe that clove it down;
Be sure that tyrants ever with an art from darkness sprung,
Would make the conquered nation slaves alike in limb and tongue;
Russia's great Czar ne'er stood secure o'er Poland's shatter'd frame,
Until he trampled from her heart the tongue that bore her name.
Oh, Irishmen, be Irish still!  stand for the dear old tongue
Which, as ivy to a ruin, to your native land has clung!
Oh, snatch this relic from the wreck!  the only and the last,
And cherish in your heart of hearts the language of the Past!

1. beheld the Tyrian   An old Irish tradition says that during the commerce of the Tyrians with Ireland, on of the Princes of Tyre was invited over by the Monarch of Ireland, and got married to one of the Irish princesses during his sojourn there.
2. Shrines of Zernebock   Zernebrock and Odin were two of the gods of the early Britons.
3. language of the slave   Tacitus says,--"The language of the conqueror in the mouth of the conquered is ever the language of the slave."--Germania.
4. Saxon Rival   Acts of Parliament were enacted to destroy the Irish, and to encourage the growth of the English language.
5. Lawrence   St. Lawrence O'Toole, Archbishop of Dublin, succeeded in organizing the Irish chieftains under Roderick O'Connor, King of Connaught, against the first band of adventurers under Strongbow.
6. Athaclee   Athacleith, the Irish name of Dublin.  Baile-ath-Cliath, literally means the Town of the ford of hurdles.
7. Kong and Mullaghmast   "Nothing so affrighted the enemy at the raid of Mullaghmast, as the unintelligible password in the Irish tongue, with which the Irish troops burst upon the foe."--Green Book.

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