Page:Beside the Fire - Douglas Hyde.djvu/32

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That would set in sound lasting sleep The whole great world, With the sweetness of the calming tunes That the champion would play."

The Irish run is as follows:—

Again, when the kerne approaches anyone, his gait is thus described half-rythmically by the Scotch narrator:—"A young chap was seen coming towards them, his two shoulders through his old coat, his two ears through his old hat, his two squat kickering tatter-y shoes full of cold roadway-ish water, three feet of his sword sideways in the side of his haunch after the scabbard was ended."

The Irish writer makes him come thus:—"And he beheld the slender grey kerne approaching him straight, and half his sword bared behind his haunch, and old shoes full of water sousing about him, and the top of his ears out through his old mantle, and a short butt-burned javelin of holly in his hand."

These few specimens, which could be largely