The Irish standard., 1910-11-19

1S S1OW1y, surely 6luhlu6 1ulO SlltuI
death at last
To live but in the memories Of those
who love tho Past.
The olden tongue is sinking like a
patriarch to rest,
Whose youth beheld the Tyrian on
our Irish shores guest.
Ere the Roman or the Saxon, the
Norman or the Dane
Had first set foot in Britain DER tram.
pied heaps of slain;
Whose manhood saw the Druid rite
by forest tree and rock,
And 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 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 her lib
erty have gone,
Yet their halo fingered round her while
the Gaelic speech lived on.
For mid the desert Of her woe mon.
ument more vast
Than all her pillar towers it stood
that old tongue of the Past!
IT'S leaving and forever, the soil that
gave it birth,
Soon, very soon, its moving tones
shall neer be heard on earth,
Der the island dimly fading as cir.
Gle DER the wave
Receding as it's people lisp the Ian
guage of the slave,
And with it, too, seem fading, as sun
set into night,
The scattered rays of liberty that lin
gered in its light.
For oh! tho long with filial love it
chung TO mOtnerlanQ,
And Irishmen were Irish still in Ian
guage, heart and hand;
To install it's Saxon rival prescribed It
soon became,
And Irishmen are Irish now in moth
ing but in name;
The Saxon chain our rights and
tongues alike doth hold in thrall
Save where among the Connaught
wilds or hills of Donegal
And by the shores Of Munster, like
the broad Atlantic blast,
The olden language fingers yet and
binds us to the Past.
Thro' cold neglect tbs dying nova
stranger on our shore!
No Taras hall re-echoes to its music
as Of yOre-
No Lawrence fires the Celtic clans
round leaguered Athaclee--
No Shannon watts from Limerick's
towers their war songs to the
sea!
All, magic tongue that round us wove
it's spells so soft and dear!
All, pleasant tongue, whose murmurs
were as music to the ear!
All, glorious tongue whose accents
could each Celtic heart enthrall!
All, rushing tongue, that sounded like
the swollen torrents fall!
The tongue that in the senate was
lightning flashing bright.
Whose echo in the battle was the
thunder In It's might!
That tongue which once in chieftain's
hall pour'd loud the minstrel lay,
As chieftain, serf or minstrel old is
silent there today!
That tongue whose shout dismayed
the foe at Cong and Mullgah.
mast.
Like those who nobly persisted there,
is numbered with the Past.
The Celtic Tongue is passing and we
stand idly by ~-
Without pang within the heart, a
tear within the eye
Without one pulse for Freedom stirred
one effort made to save
The Language of our Fathers from
dark oblivion's grave
Oh, Erin! vain your efforts-your
prayers for Freedoms crown
While offered in the language of tho
foe who Glove 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 Gear ne'er stood secure
DER 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