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Best beloved of ancient stories
Are our Diarmid's woes to me.
Like a mist, by breezes broken,
So this tale of olden glories
Floats in fragments, as a token
Of the song of Ireland's sea.
...

A moment's pause before we play our parts,
To speak the thought that reigns within your hearts.--
Now from the Future's hours, and unknown days,
Affection turns, and with the Past delays;...

O fortress city, bathed by streams
Majestic as thy memories great,
Where mountains, floods, and forests mate
The grandeur of the glorious dreams,
Born of the hero hearts who died...

1.

We have poled our staunch canoe
Many a boiling torrent through;
Paddling where the eddies drew,
Athwart the roaring flood we flew.

Chorus
Dip your paddles! make them leap,...

Wet, cheerless was our bivouac last eve, but still we spoke
Of fighting and of winning, to-morrow, when day broke:
That day the thundering echoes of cannon in our front...

Grey-cowled monk, whose faith so earnest
Guides these Indians' childlike hearts,
As their hands to toil thou turnest,
Teaching them the Builder's arts,
Speak thy thought! as now they gather...

[Note: The Gaelic spelt as by Dewar.]

Do reir beulaithris ann an linn Righ Artair bhi ann an Duneidean,
bha Triath urramach Eirinneach a chuir tigh d'dean air...

Here Rose and Magnolia
Our dearest enshrine,
The prayer of the south wind
Is thine and is mine,
For Child and for Mother
Here sweetly twice isled,
Brave Seamen are praying...

Not home to land and kindred wast thou brought,
Nor laid 'mid trampled dead of battle won,--
Nor after long life filled with duty done
Was thine such death as thou thyself had'st sought!...

An ancient cannon, finely cast.
Of bronze, all smooth and green with age,
A by-gone actor on the stage,
Yet fit to take, as in the past
A role in war, and be the last
Dread argument of kings!
...

I.

Where the snow-world of the mountains
Fronts the sea-like world of sward,
And encamped along the prairies
Tower the white peaks heavenward;
Where they stand by dawn rose-coloured...

[Taken from "Leabhar na Feinne," and a prose version written down from oral recitation by J. Dewar.]

OSSIAN.

This vale of Peace, this glen close by,
Where deer and elk would often cry,...

For strife against the ocean tribe
The Mohawks' war array
Comes floating down, where broad St. John
Reflects the dawning day.

A camp is seen, and victims fall,
And none are left to flee;...

Now of the hard strait of the Feinne this legend's verse shall tell:
When Fionn's men had fought and won, and all with them was well,
And victory on Erin's shores had given spoil which they...

Look not for me at eventide,
I cannot come when work is done;
I go to wander far and wide,
For 'tis not here that gold is won.
Perchance where'er I go, these hands
May find me what I need to live;...

"They sow in tears who reap in joy,"
Was truly said of old:
We wandered far, but round us still
Stretched God Almighty's fold.

'Twas He who led us forth; our grief
Discerned His chastening hand,...

Bright are the countless isles which crest
With waving woods wide Huron's breast,--
Her countless isles, that love too well
The crystal waters whence they rise,
Far from her azure depths to swell,...

A brother's eye had seen the grief
That Duart's lady bore;
His boat with sail half-raised flies down
The sound by green Lismore.
Ahaladah, Ahaladah!
Why speeds your boat so fast?...

(Keewatin.)

A land untamed, whose myriad isles
Are set in branching lakes that vein
Illimitable silent woods,
Voiceful in Fall, when their defiles,
Rich with the birch's golden rain,...

Colin, Chief of Diarmid's kin,
Strode alone to Ederlinn.

Night, and heath, and deep morass
Hear the chain-mailed warrior pass.

Ambushed lay the treacherous foe,...