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“Arran of the many stags—the sea impinges on her very shoulders! an island in which whole companies were fed—and with ridges among which blue spears were reddened! Skittish deer are on her pinnacles, soft blackberries upon her waving heather; cool water there is upon her rivers, and mast upon her russet oaks! Greyhounds there were in her, and beagles; blaeberries and sloes of the blackthorn; dwellings with their backs set close against her woods, and the deer fed scattered by her oaken thickets! A crimson crop grew on her rocks, in all her glades a faultless grass; over her crags affording friendly refuge, leaping went on and fawns were skipping! Smooth were her level spots—her wild swine they were fat; cheerful her fields (this is a tale that may be credited), her nuts hung on her forest hazel’s boughs, and there was sailing of long galleys past her! Right pleasant their condition all when the fair weather sets in: under her rivers’ brinks trouts lie; the sea-gulls wheeling round her grand cliff answer one the other—at every fitting time delectable is Arran!”

Again, most readers will be able to apprehend the delight of the barbaric outlook in compositions such as “Cuchullin in His Chariot,” which has been excerpted from Hector MacLean’s “Ultonian Hero Ballads”; or the fantastic beauty of “The March of the Faerie Host,” as rendered by Prof. Kuno Meyer after the original in “The Book of Lismore”; or the lovely portrait of a beautiful woman, by a Highland poet of old, the “Aisling air Dhreach Mna; or, Vision of a Fair Woman.” Possibly, too, even Celtic scholars may not be displeased to read here English metrical paraphrases, such as Sir Samuel Ferguson’s “Lament of Deirdrê for the Sons of Usnach,”[5] or Mr T. W. Rolleston’s haunting “The Lament of Queen Maev”; or, again, in dubiously authentic fragments such as “Fingal and Ros-crana,” to have an opportunity to trace the “inner self” of many a familiar ballad or legend.

The Breton section, also, is represented equally slightly, though perhaps not inadequately, all things considered. “The Dance of the Sword” is, probably, fundamentally one of the most ancient of Celtic bardic utterances. In the modern selection, it will be a surprise to many readers to encounter names so familiar to lovers of French poetry as Leconte de Lisle and Villiers de l’Isle-Adam. There are many contemporary Breton poets of distinction, but it was feasible to select no more than one or two. Auguste Brizeux and Charles Le Goffic may be taken as typical exemplars of the historically re-creative and the individually impressionistic methods. Unfortunately neither is represented here. It was desirable to select at least one poet who still uses the old Armorican tongue; but in my translation from Leo-Kermorvan’s “Taliesen” (as again in that of Tiercelin’s “By Menec’hi Shore”), I have not attempted a rhymed version, as in the original, or in the French version published in the “Anthologie.” There are very few translators who can be faithful both to the sound and sense, in the attempt concurrently to reproduce identity of form, music, and substance; and, as a rule, therefore, rhythmic prose, or an unrhymed metrical version, is likely to prove more interesting as well as more truly interpretative.

Out of the rich garth of ancient and mediæval Welsh poetry, the Editor has culled only a few blossoms. They contain, at least, something of that lyric love of Nature which is so distinctively Celtic, and is the chief charm of the poetic literature of Wales. It is earnestly to be hoped that some poet-scholar will give us before long, in English, an anthology of the best contemporary Welsh poetry.

Of living poets who write in Gaelic, there are more in Scotland than in Ireland. The Hebrides have been a nest of singers, since Mary Macleod down to the youngest of the Uist poets of to-day; and though there is not at present any Alexander Macdonald or Duncan Bàn Macintyre, there are many singers who have a sweet and fine note, and many writers whose poems have beauty, grace, and distinction. Perhaps the last fine product of the pseudo-antique school is the “Sean Dàna”[6] of Dr John Smith, late in the last century; but occasionally there occurs in our own day a noteworthy instance of the re-telling of the old tales in the old way. In “The Celtic Monthly,” and other periodicals, much good Gaelic verse is to be found, and it is no exaggeration to say that at this moment there are more than a hundred Gaelic singers in Western Scotland whose poetry is as fresh and winsome, and, in point of form as well as substance, as beautiful, as any that is being produced throughout the rest of the realm. The Gaelic Muse has also found a home in Canada, and it is interesting to note that one of the longest of recent Gaelic poems was written by a Highlander in far-away Burmah.

“The Highlander” (and in this and the following passage I quote the words of Professor Mackinnon, from his Inaugural Address on his succession to the Celtic Chair at Edinburgh University) “The Highlander may be truly described as the child of music and song. For many a long year his language is the language, for the most part, of the uneducated classes. And yet, amid surroundings which too often are but mean and wretched, without the advantages of education beyond what his native glen supplied, he has contrived to enliven his lot by the cultivation of such literature as the local bards, the traditions of the clan, and the popular tales of the district supplied. He has attempted, not unsuccessfully, to live not for the day and hour alone, but, in a true sense, to live the life of the spirit! He has produced a mass of lyric poetry which, in rhythmical flow, purity of sentiment, and beauty of expression, can compare favourably with the literature of more powerful and more highly-civilised communities.

“In the highest efforts of Gaelic literature, in the prose of Norman Macleod, in the masterpieces of the lyric poets, in the “Sean Dàna” of Dr Smith, and above all, in the poems of Ossian, whether composed by James Macpherson or the son of Fingal, the intellect of the Scottish Celt, in its various moods and qualities, finds its deepest and fullest expression. Here we have humour, pathos, passion, vehemence, a rush of feeling and emotion not always under restraint, and apt to run into exaggeration and hyperbole—characteristics which enter largely into the mental and spiritual organisation of the people. But above and beneath all these, there is a touch of melancholy, a ‘cry of the weary,’ pervading the spirit of the Celt. Ossian gives expression to this sentiment in the touching line which Matthew Arnold, the most sympathetic and penetrating critic of the Celtic imagination, with the true instinct of genius, prefixes to his charming volume, ‘On the Study of Celtic Literature’:

“‘They went forth to the war, but they always fell.’”

Professor Mackinnon goes on to adduce a familiar legend, which may again be quoted, for we are all now waiting for that longed-for blast which shall arouse the spell-bound trance wherein sleeps “Anima Celtica.” The Féinn, he says, were laid spell-bound in a cave which no man knew of. At the mouth of the cave hung a horn, which if ever any man should come and blow three times, the spell would be broken, and the Féinn would arise, alive and well. A hunter, one day wandering in the mist, came on this cave, saw the horn, and knew what it meant. He looked in and saw the Féinn lying asleep all round the cave. He lifted the horn and blew one blast. He looked in again, and saw that the Féinn had wakened, but lay still with their eyes staring, like those of dead men. He took the horn again, blew another blast, and instantly the Féinn all moved, each resting on his elbow. Terrified at their aspect, the hunter turned and fled homewards. He told what he had seen, and, accompanied by friends, went to search for the cave. They could not find it; it has never again been found; and so there still sit, each resting on his elbow, waiting for the final blast to rouse them into life, the spell-bound heroes of the old Celtic world.

Of the modern and larger section of “Lyra Celtica” I need say little here. To avoid confusion, the Editor has refrained from representing poets whose “Celtic strain” is more or less obviously disputable; hence the wise ignoring of the claims even of Scott and Burns. Byron was more Celtic in blood than in brain, and is represented really by virtue of this accidental kinship.

Ireland, Scotland, Wales, Man, Cornwall, and Brittany are all more or less adequately represented; and among the poets are some whose voices will be new to most readers. One or two writers, also, have been drawn upon as representatives of the distinctively Anglo-Celtic section of England. Finally, “greater Gaeldom”—the realm of the Irish and Scottish Gaels in the United States, Canada, and Australasia—is also represented; and one, at any rate, of these outlanders is a poet who has won distinction on both sides of the Atlantic.

If it be advisable to select one poet, still “with a future,” as pre-eminently representative of the Celtic genius of to-day, I think there can be little doubt that W. B. Yeats’ name is that which would occur first to most lovers of contemporary poetry. He has grace of touch and distinction of form beyond any of the younger poets of Great Britain, and there is throughout his work a haunting beauty, and a haunting sense of beauty everywhere perceived with joy and longing, that make its appeal irresistible for those who feel it at all. He is equally happy whether he deals with antique or with contemporary themes, and in almost every poem he has written there is that exquisite remoteness, that dream-like music, and that transporting charm which Matthew Arnold held to be one of the primary tests of poetry, and, in particular, of Celtic poetry.

As an example of Mr Yeats’ narrative method, with legendary themes, I may quote this from his beautiful “Wanderings of Oisìn” (rather affectedly and quite needlessly altered to Usheen in the latest version)—

“Fled foam underneath us, and round us a wandering and milky smoke,

High as the saddle-girth, covering away from our glances the tide;

And those that fled, and that followed, from the foampale distance broke;

The immortal desire of immortals we saw in their faces, and sighed.

I mused on the chase with the Fenians, and Bran, Sgeolan, Lomair,

And never a song sang Neave, and over my fingertips

Came now the sliding of tears and sweeping of mist-cold hair,

And now the warmth of sighs, and after the quiver of lips.

Were we days long or hours long in riding, when rolled in a grisly peace,

An isle lay level before us, with dripping hazel and oak?

And we stood on a sea’s edge we saw not; for whiter than new washed fleece

Fled foam underneath us, and round us a wandering and milky smoke.

And we rode on the plains of the sea’s edge—the sea’s edge barren and gray,

Gray sands on the green of the grasses and over the dripping trees,

Dripping and doubling landward, as though they would hasten away

Like an army of old men longing for rest from the moan of the seas.

But the trees grew taller and closer, immense in their wrinkling bark;

Dropping—a murmurous dropping—old silence and that one sound;

For no live creatures lived there, no weasels moved in the dark—

Long sighs arose in our spirits, beneath us bubbled the ground.

And the ears of the horse went sinking away in the hollow night,

For, as drift from a sailor slow drowning the gleams of the world and the sun,

Ceased on our hands and our faces, on hazel and oak leaf, the light,

And the stars were blotted above us, and the whole of the world was one.”

Often, too, there occur in his verse new and striking imagery, as in the superb epithetical value of the fourth line in the concluding stanza of “The Madness of King Goll,” one of the most beautiful of his poems—

“And now I wander in the woods

When summer gluts the golden bees,

Or in autumnal solitudes

Arise the leopard-coloured trees;

Or when along the wintry strands

The cormorants shiver on their rocks;

I wander on, and wave my hands,

And sing, and shake my heavy locks.

The gray wolf knows me; by one ear

I lead along the woodland deer;

The hares ran by me growing bold.

They will not hush, the leaves a-flutter

round me, the beech leaves old.”

Indeed, through all his work, “They will not hush; the leaves a-flutter, the beech leaves old”—the mystic leaves of life, touched by the wind of old romance. We can imagine him hearing often that fairy lure which his “Stolen Child” listed and yielded to—

“Come away, O human child!

To the waters and the wild

With a fairy, hand in hand,

For the world’s more full of weeping than

you can understand.”

For him always there is the Beauty of Beauty, the Passion of Passion: the “Rose of the World.”

“Who dreamed that beauty passes like a dream?

For these red lips, with all their mournful pride,

Mournful that no new wonder may betide,

Troy passed away in one high funeral gleam,

And Usna’s children died.

We and the labouring world are passing by:

Amid men’s souls, that waver and give place,

Like the pale waters in their wintry race,

Under the passing stars, foam of the sky,

Lives on this lonely face.”

It is the lonely face that haunts the dreams of poets of all races and ages: that “Lady Beauty” enthroned

“Under the arch of life, where love and death,

Terror and mystery, guard her shrine....”

The vision of which we follow—

“How passionately, and irretrievably,

In what fond flight, how many ways and days!”

And of all races, none has so worshipped the “Rose of the World” as has the Celt.

“No other human tribe,” says Renan, “has carried so much mystery into love. No other has conceived with more delicacy the ideal of woman, nor been more dominated by her. It is a kind of intoxication, a madness, a giddiness. Read the strange mabinogi of ‘Pérédur,’ or its French imitation, ‘Parceval le Gallois’; these pages are dewy, so to say, with feminine sentiment. Woman appears there as a sort of vague vision intermediate between man and the supernatural world. There is no other literature which offers anything analogous to this. Compare Guinevere and Iseult to those Scandinavian furies Gudruna and Chrimhilde, and you will acknowledge that woman, as chivalry conceived her—that ideal of sweetness and beauty set up as the supreme object of life—is a creation neither classic, Christian, nor Germanic, but in reality Celtic.”

And having quoted from Ernest Renan, himself one of the greatest of modern Celts, and a Celt in brain and genius as well as by blood, race, and birth, let me interpolate here a paraphrase of some words of his in that essay on “La Poesie de la Race Celtique,” which was to intellectual France what Matthew Arnold’s essay was to intellectual England.

If, he says, the eminence of races should be estimated according to the purity of their blood and inviolability of national character, there could be none able to dispute supremacy with the Celtic race. Never has human family lived more isolated from the world, nor less affected by foreign admixture.

Restricted by conquest to forgotten isles and peninsulas, the Celtic race has habitually striven to oppose an impassable barrier to all alien influences. It has ever trusted in itself, and in itself alone, and has drawn its mental and spiritual nurture from its own resources.

Hence that powerful individuality, that hatred of the stranger, which up to our day has formed the essential characteristic of the Celtic peoples. The civilisation of Rome hardly reached them, and left among them but few traces. The Germanic invasion flowed back on them, but it did not affect them at all. At the present hour they still resist an invasion, dangerous in quite another way, that of modern civilisation, so destructive of local varieties and national types. Ireland in particular (and there, perhaps, is the secret of her irremediable weakness) is the sole country of Europe where the native can produce authentic documents of his remote unbroken lineage, and designate with certainty, up to pre-historic ages, the race from which he sprang.

One does not enough reflect on how strange it is that an ancient race should continue down to our day, and almost under our eyes, in some islands and peninsulas of the West, its own life, more and more diverted from it, it is true, by the noise from without, but still faithful to its language, its memories, its ideals, and its genius. We are especially apt to forget that this small race, contracted now to the extreme confines of Europe, in the midst of those rocks and mountains where its enemies have driven it, is in possession of a literature, which in the Middle Ages exerted an immense influence, changed the current of European imagination, and imposed upon almost the whole of Christianity its poetical motifs. It is, however, only necessary to open authentic monuments of Celtic genius to convince oneself that the race which created these has had its own original method of thought and feeling; and that nowhere does the eternal illusion dress itself in more seductive colours. In the grand concert of the human species, no family equals this, for penetrating voices which go to the heart. Alas! if it, also, is condemned to disappear, this fading glory of the West! Arthur will not return to his enchanted isle, and Saint Patrick was right in saying to Ossian: “The heroes whom you mourn are dead; can they live again?”

A strange melancholy characterises the genius of the Celtic race. For all the blithe songs and happy abandon of so many Irish singers, the Irish themselves have given us the most poignant, the most hauntingly-sad lyric cries in all modern literature. Renan fully recognises this, and how, even in the heroic age, the melancholy of inappeasible regret, of insatiable longing, is as obvious as in our own day, when spiritual weariness is as an added crown of thorns. Whence comes this sadness, he asks? Take the songs of the sixth century bards; they mourn more defeats than they sing victories. The history of the Celtic race itself is but a long complaint, the lament of exiles, the grief of despairing flights beyond the seas. If occasionally it seems to make merry, a tear ever lurks behind the smile; it rarely knows that singular forgetfulness of the human state and of its destinies which is called gaiety. But, if its songs of joy end in elegies, nothing equals the delicious sadness of these national melodies.

Nevertheless, concludes the most famous of modern Breton writers, we are still far from believing that the Celtic race has said its last word. After having exercised all the godly and worldly chivalries, sought with Pérédur the Holy Graal and the Beautiful, dreamed with Saint Brandan of mystical Atlantides, who knows what the Celtic genius would produce in the domain of the intelligence if it should embolden itself to make its entrance into the world, and if it subjected its rich and profound nature to the conditions of modern thought? Few races have had a poetical infancy as complete as the Celtic—mythology, lyricism, epic, romanesque imagination, religious enthusiasm, nothing have they lacked. Why should philosophic thought be lacking? Germany, which had begun by science and criticism, has finished with poetry; why should not the Celtic races, which began with poetry, not end with a new and vivid criticism of actual life as it now is? It is not so far from the one to the other as we are apt to suppose; the poetical races are the philosophical races, and philosophy is at bottom but a manner of poetry like any other. When one thinks that Germany fronted, less than a century ago, the revelation of its genius; that everywhere national idiosyncrasies, which seemed effaced, have suddenly risen again in our day more alive than ever, one is persuaded that it is rash to set a law for the discontinuances and awakenings of races. Modern civilisation, which seemed made to absorb them, may, perhaps, be but the forcing-house for a new and more superb efflorescence.

No, it is no “disastrous end”: whether the Celtic peoples be slowly perishing or are spreading innumerable fibres of life towards a richer and fuller, if a less national and distinctive existence. From Renan, the high priest of the Breton faith, to the latest of his kindred of the Gael, there is a strange new uprising of hope. It is realised that the Dream is nigh dreamed: and then ...