'Twas the Banshee's lonely wailing, Thro' the holy Mother Mary, And her babe-our Saviour bless'd, THE SMITH'S KEEN. TRANSLATED FROM THE IRISH BY THE EDITOR. THE original was obtained from Mrs. Harrington, in 1818, and is here versified after the prose translation which appeared in "Researches in the South of Ireland," where the following introduction was prefixed to it :-"The account given of this lamentation, called 'the Smith's Keenan,' is at once simple and romantic. A young man (a smith), left his widowed mother and sisters, who resided at Killavullen on the Blackwater, and married in a distant part of the country. Some time after, one of his sisters, hearing that he was ill, set out to see him; but before she reached her destination, the night came on, which compelled her, being ignorant of the way, to seek shelter at a cottage on the road side; here she found the inmates preparing to proceed to a wake in the village where her brother resided, and going forward with them, on arrival discovered it to be her brother's wake, at the sight of whose lifeless body she burst into the following exclamations. The conclusion is singular, nor is it possible for a translation to do justice to the strain of powerful sarcasm of the original, directed against the wife of the deceased." The Editor has found it impossible to convey in verse the conclusion of this Keen, which in plain prose stands thus after the line "But I can never find again, a dear and darling brother." ("The priest comes forward and speaks.) "Hold your tongue, stubborn stranger. Why will you provoke your brother's wife? (She answers.) "Hold your tongue, stubborn priest! read your Litany and Confiteor; earn your half-crown and begone.-I will keen my brother." OH, brother dear! oh, brother dear! your absence long from home It did not raise you into ease-you left us but to roam, And found a wife-to plague your life, who knew not how to prize Your mother's boy, your sister's joy-the darling of our eyes. Come from afar, unknown you are-unknown your family, For those who stand, on either hand, are strangers all to me; They only know you were a Smith, and of a Smith the son, And that he dwelt where Blackwater* her beauteous course doth run. "Swift Awniduff, which of the Englishman Is called Blackwater." Spenser. Oh if I had, your cold limbs sad—by the Blackwater's side, Or on the banks of the Awbeg,* or by the gentle Bride,† Then Mary, Kate, and Julia would, cry for your sad downfall, Your mother too, would sweetly cry—and I'd than all. cry more Oh brother dear-oh brother dear, I might have guessed my woes When brother dear, I did not hear, your strong and heavy blows, Fall sharp and quick, and close and thick, upon the anvil's head, Oh brother dear-oh brother here-I should have thought you dead. My darling one-my hope that's gone-you had the cruel mark Of a bad wife-who lived in strife-she left the dark; you in In summer dry, in winter cold, without a sunday dress, And fasting long-with patient song, your sorrow to express. *The Mulla of Spenser. "And Mulla mine whose waves I whilom taught to weep." ‡ Called the North Bride, to distinguish it from another river of the same name, in the county of Cork, which falls into the Lee. You woman there, my brother's wife-you woman with dry eyes, You woman who are deaf and dumb, nor heed a sister's cries, Go home-go home-go any where-your husband leave to me, And I will mourn my brother's loss and keen him bitterly. You woman there, who in that chair, with tearless eye is seen, Come down, come down, and I will sing for you a proper keen, A husband you, if young enough, perhaps may find another, But I can never find again, a dear and darling brother. KEEN ON MR. SAMUEL HODDER. TRANSLATED FROM THE IRISH BY THE EDITOR. And taken down by him from the recitation of Mrs. Leary, April 1829, at Blackrock, near Cork. According to Mrs. Leary, it was composed about twelve or fourteen years before, by Mrs. Mary Hodder, on the death of her husband, Mr. Samuel Hodder, of (the name has escaped my memory), near Carrigaline, who was generally called Frank, and is so designated in the keen, probably after his father, to distinguish him from some other Samuel Hodder-a name which abounds in that district. To explain the circumstances alluded to, it may be necessary to state, that Mr. Hodder was killed by a fall from his horse at the fair of Carrigaline, a small village in the county of Cork; and that Mrs. Hodder having gone there soon after, with the intention of joining him, made her way towards a crowd, near which she saw her husband's horse standing, when she found that it had collected around his dead body. On the corpse being laid out in the evening for "waking,” she is said to have spoken the following keen, which is singular, because the Hodder family hold a highly respectable rank among the gentry of the county, and, at that time, the custom of keening had fallen into disrepute, and was practised only by the peasantry. This keen has been printed in Fraser's Magazine, No. II, for March 1830. The first verse of the original, according to its sound on the English ear, may be found at p. xi. of the Introduction. My heart's love and darling, From the stone pound so cheerless The poor widow's cattle, And has saved from the halter Young men, who their courses From evil would alter. I see you, my darling, In the hall of your mansion, To your heart in expansion. I see you surrounded By the guests you've invited, Are joyously lighted. |