102
AN GAODHAL.
THE CELTIC TONGUE.
Composed, in 1855, by the Rev. Michael Mullin,
professor at St. Brendan's Seminary, Loughrea,
while he had been yet a student of Maynooth
College.
We believe, indeed, the soul of that Irishman
dead to all sense of National Sentimeut whose
breast remains passive at the recital of the follow-
ing lines, or who will not exert himself to stay the
national doom which would inevitably follow the
language's decay. Have seven centuries of slave-
ry unmanned the once proud Celt?
All Irishmen should have these lines by heart.
It is fading ! it is fading! like the leaves upon the
trees !
It is dying ! it is dying! like the Western-ocean
breeze !
It is fastly disappearing, as footprints on the shore,
Where the Barrow, and the Erne, and Lough Swil-
ly's waters roar —
Where the parting sunbeam kisses Corrib in the West,
And the ocean like a mother, clasps the Shannon to
its breast!
The language of old Erin, of her history and name,
Of her monarchs and her heroes, of her glory and
her fame —
The sacred shrine where rested, through her sun-
shine and her gloom,
The spirit of her martyrs, as their bodies in the
tomb!
The time-wrought shell where murmured, through
centuries of wrong,
The secret voice of freedom in annal and in song,
Is surely, fastly sinking into silent death at last,
To live but in the memories and relics of the Past!
The olden Tongue is sinking, like a Patriarch to rest,
Whose Youthhood saw the Tyrian, on our Irish
coasts a guest,
Ere the Saxon or the Roman — ere the Norman or
the Dane
Had first set foot in Britain, or the Visigoth in Spain
Whose Manhood saw the druid rite at forest tree
and rock —
The savage tribes of Britain round the shrines of
Zernebock;
And for generations witnessed all the glories of the
Gael,
Since our Celtic sires sung war-songs round the war-
rior-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.
All the glories of old Erin, with her liberty have
gone,
Yet their halo lingered round her while her older
Tongue lived on ;
For ’mid the desert of her woe, a monument more
vast
Than all her pillar-towers, it s'ood—that old Ton-
gue of the Past !
And now ’tis sadly shrinking from the soil that gave
it birth,
Like the ebbing tide from shore, or the spring-time
from the earth ;
O’er the island dimly fading, as a circle o'er the wave,
Still receding, as its people lisp the language of the
slave.
And with it, too, seem fading, as a sunset into night,
All the scattered rays of Freedom, that lingered in
its light!
For, ah! though long with filial love it clung to Mo-
therland,
And Irishmen were Irish still, in tongue, and heart,
and hand !
Before the Saxon tongue, alas ! proscribed it soon
became;
And we are lrishmen to-day, but Irishmen in name!
The Saxon chain our rights and tongue alike doth
hold in thrall,
Save where, amid the Connaught wilds, and hills of
Donegal,
And by the shores of Munster, like the broad At-
lantic blast,
The olden language lingers yet — an echo from the
Past!
Through cold neglect ’tis dying, like a stranger on
our shore.
No Teamhore's halls shall vibrate to its thrilling
tones e’ermore —
No Laurence fire the Celtic clans round leaguered
Athacleith —
No Shannon Waft from Luimneach's towers their
war-songs to the sea.
Ah, the pleasant Tongue, whose accents were music
to the ear !
Ah, the magic tongue, that round us wove its spell
so soft and dear !
Ah, the glorious Tongue, whose murmur could each
Celtic heart enthral !
Ah, the rushing Tongue, that sounded like the
rushing torrent's fall !
The Tongue that in the senate was the lightning
flashing bright,
Whose echo in the battle was the thunder in its
might;
The Tongue that once in chieftain's hall swelled
loud the minstrel’s lay
As chieftain, serf, or minstrel old, is silent there
to-day;
Whose password burst upon the foe at Kong and
Mullaghmast,
Like those who nobly perished there, is number-
ed with the Past !
The Celtic tongue is fading, and we coldly stand-
ing by —
Without a pang witnin the heart, a tear within
the eye —
Without one pulse for freedom stirred, one effort
