Two Muleteers," he has also translated.  To these must be added, besides several shorter ballads from Duran's Romancero General, "The Poem of the Cid," "The Romance of Gayferos," and "The Infanta of France."  The last is a metrical tale of the fourteenth or fifteenth century, presenting analogies with the "Thousand and One Nights," and probably drawn from an Oriental source.  His translations from the Latin, chiefly of mediæval hymns, are also numerous.

In inserting the poem of "Ferdiah" I was influenced by its subject as well as by the wish of friends.  A few extracts appeared in a magazine several years ago, and it was afterwards completed without any view to publication.  It follows the present Irish text⁸ as closely as the laws of metre will allow.  Since these pages were in the printer's hands Mr. Aubrey de Vere has given to the world his treatment of the same theme,⁹ adorning as usual all that he touches.  As he well says: "It is not in the form of translation that an ancient Irish tale of any considerable length admits of being rendered in poetry.  What is needed is to select from the original such portions as are at once the most essential to the story, and the most characteristic, reproducing them in a condensed form, and taking care that the necessary additions bring out the idea, and contain nothing that is not in the spirit of the original."  (Preface, p. vii.)  The "Tale of Troy Divine" owes its form, and we may never know how much of its tenderness and grace, to its Alexandrian editor.  However, the present version may, from its very literalness, have and interest for some readers.

Many of the earlier poems here collected have been admirably rendered into French by the late M. Ernest de Chatelain.¹⁰  The Moore Centenary Ode has been translated into Latin by the Rev. M. J. Blacker, M. A.

My thanks are due to the Rev. Matthew Russell, S. J., for his kind assistance in preparing this book for the press, and to the Publishers for the accuracy and speed with which it has been produced.

I cannot let pass this opportunity of expressing my gratitude for the self-sacrificing labours of the committee formed at the suggestion of Mr. William Lane Joynt, D. L., to honour my father's memory, and for the generous response his friends have made to their appeal.¹¹

Blackrock, Dublin, August, 1882.

¹ "Ballads, Poems, and Lyrics, Original and Translated:"  Dublin, 1850.  "The Bell-Founder, and other Poems," "Underglimpses, and other Poems:" London, 1857.  A few pieces which seemed not to be of abiding interest have been omitted.

² At 24 Lower Sackville-street.  The house, with others adjoining, was pulled down several years ago.  Their site is now occupied by the Imperial Hotel.

³ The subjective view of nature developed in these Poems has been censured as remote from human interest.  Yet a critic of deep insight, George Gilfillan, declares his special admiration for "the joyous, sunny, lark-like carols on May, almost worthy of Shelley, and such delicate, tender, Moore-like trifles (shall I call them?) as All Fool's Day.  The whole" he adds, "is full of a beautiful poetic spirit, and rich resources both of fancy and language."  I may be permitted to transcribe here an extract from some unpublished comments by Sir William Rowan Hamilton on another poem of the same class.  His remarks are interesting in themselves, as coming from one illustrious as a man of science, and, at the same time, a true poet—a combination which may hereafter become more frequent, since already in the vast regions of space and time brought within human ken, imagination strives hard to keep pace with established fact.  In a manuscript volume now in the Library of Trinity College, Dublin, he writes, under date, May, 1848:—

"The University Magazine for the present month contains a poem which delights one, entitled 'The Bridal of the Year.'  It is signed 'D. F. M. C.,' as is also a shorter, but almost a sweeter piece immediately following it, and headed, 'Summer Longings.'"

Sir William goes through the whole poem, copying and criticising every stanza, and concludes as follows:—

"After a very pretty ninth stanza respecting the 'fairy phantoms' in the poet's 'glorious visions seen,' which the author conceives to 'follow the poet's steps beneath the morning's beam,' he burst into rapture at the approach of the Bride herself—

"Her eyes are heaven, her robes are sunbeams, and with these physical aspects of the May, how well does the author of this ode (for such, surely, we may term the poem, so rich in lyrical enthusiasm and varied melody) conceive the combination as bridesmaids, as companions to the bride; of those mental feelings, those new buddings of hope in the heart which the season is fitted to awaken.  The azure eyes glitter back to ours, for the planets shine upon us from the lovely summer night; but lovelier still are those 'dreams delicious, joys from some serener star,' which at the same sweet season float down invisibly, and win their entrance to our souls.  The image of a bridal is happily and naturally kept before us in the remaining stanzas of this poem, which well deserve to be copied here, in continuation of these notes—the former for its cheerfulness, the latter for its sweetness.  I wish that I knew the author, or even that I were acquainted with his name.—Since ascertained to be D. F. MacCarthy."

⁴ The following are the titles and dates of publication:  In 1853, "The Constant Prince," "The Secret in Words," "The Physician of his own Honour," "Love after Death," "The Purgatory of St. Patrick," "The Scarf and the Flower."  In 1861, "The Greatest Enchantment," "The Sorceries of Sin," "Devotion of the Cross."  In 1867, "Belshazzar's Feast," "The Divine Philothea" (with Essays from the German of Lorinser, and the Spanish of Gonzales Pedroso).  In 1870, "Chrysanthus and Daria, the Two Lovers of Heaven."  In 1873, "The Wonder-working Magician," "Life is a Dream," "The Purgatory of St. Patrick" (a new translation entirely in the assonant metre).  Introductions and notes are added to all these plays.  Another, "Daybreak in Copacabana," was finished a few months before his death, and has not been published.

⁵ When the author of "Evangeline" visited Europe for the last time in 1869, they met in Italy.  The sonnets at p. 174 refer to this occasion.

⁶ The "Campo de Estio," described in the lines "Not Known."

⁷ A fortnight after that of Longfellow.  His attached friend and early associate, Thomas D'Arcy M'Gee, perished by assassination at Ottawa on the same day and month fourteen years ago.

⁸ Edited by his friend Br. W. K. Sullivan, President of Queen's College, Cork, who, I may add, has in preparation a paper on the "Voyage of St. Brendan," and on other ancient Irish accounts of voyages, of which he finds an explanation in Keltic mythology.  The paper will appear in the Transactions of the American Geographical Society.

⁹ "The Combat at the Ford" being Fragment III. of his "Legends of Ireland's Heroic Age."  London, 1882.

¹⁰ In his "Beautés de la Poesie Anglaise, Rayons et Reflets,"