There Honour shines through passions dire,
There beauty blends with mirth--
Wild hearts, ye never did aspire
Wholly for things of earth!
Cold, cold this thousand years--yet still
On many a time-stained page
Your pride, your truth, your dauntless will,
Burn on from age to age.
And still around the fires of peat
Live on the ancient days;
There still do living lips repeat
The old and deathless lays.
And when the wavering wreaths ascend,
Blue in the evening air,
The soul of Ireland seems to bend
Above her children there.
BARDIC ROMANCES
CHAPTER I
The Story of the Children of Lir
Long ago there dwelt in Ireland the race called by the name of De
Danaan, or People of the Goddess Dana. They were a folk who delighted
in beauty and gaiety, and in fighting and feasting, and loved to go
gloriously apparelled, and to have their weapons and household vessels
adorned with jewels and gold. They were also skilled in magic arts,
and their harpers could make music so enchanting that a man who heard
it would fight, or love, or sleep, or forget all earthly things, as
they who touched the strings might will him to do. In later times the
Danaans had to dispute the sovranty of Ireland with another race, the
Children of Miled, whom men call the Milesians, and after much
fighting they were vanquished.
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