Page:Irish minstrelsy, vol 2 - Hardiman.djvu/162

150 embarked at the former port with 500 of his faithful followers for Spain.—Original Irish Privy Council Book, 1651—4. On the occasion of his departure the present fine ode was composed, and it has ever since contained a general favourite, being well known in every part of Ireland. The air is an excellent specimen of our plaintive music. The opening of the first stanza describes the peaceable state of the country before the troubles, when a portentous calm prevailed, like the silence of death, or the awful stillness which generally precedes a hurricane, or the bursting of a volcano. The remainder of the stanza alludes to the ravages of the war. By the woman mourning over her geese, was meant Ireland lamenting her exiles, who were called "wild geese," because, like these birds "they flocked together in concert," and made their annual emigration for foreign shores. The cutting down of the woods indicated the downfall of the ancient families. By the playful goat, mentioned in the second stanza, I should suppose was meant some Irish nobleman or leader, or probably, the lascivious exiled King himself. Charles II.

The description of the havoc by the enemy, and the desolation of the country, is throughout conceived in a high strain of poetical feeling.

At the period to which this poem relates, the animosity of the English against their Irish fellow subjects had reached its greatest height. Before this time horrible acts of atrocity are, no doubt, recorded, but they were in general local, or confined for the most part to individual tyranny; but never until now was the whole population of England simultaneously arrayed in deadly enmity against the Irish. A plan was proposed in the English Cabinet, dooming "the entire Irish race to exile or death, and Colonizing the Country with Jews. It was not humanity which checked this plan, but an apprehension that the chosen people of God would rival in commerce their Christian colleagues."—Russel's Letters by Duhigg. This national frenzy was gradually and artfully excited by a few