beyond on the hill, Beinn Edair? I a poor soldier with
King James. I was last year in arms and in dress, but this year I
am asking alms--Och ochone!'

There are other symbolic songs besides the 'Visions.' Mangan's fine
translation of Kathleen ni Houlihan is well known; and it is likely the
king is calling to Ireland in '_Ceann dubh deelish_,' that is beautiful
in all translations. This is _An Craoibhin's_:--

'The women of the village are in madness and trouble,
Pulling their hair and letting it go with the wind;
They will not take a boy of the men of the country
Till they go into the rout with the boys of the king.

'Black head, darling, darling, darling,
Black head, darling, move over to me;
Black head brighter than swan and than seagull,
It's a man without heart gives not love to thee.'

But most of the translations have been in the affected style of the
early part of the last century twisting the sense to give what was
thought to be a romantic turn. A verse of Seaghan Clarach's, for
instance, the lament of a farmer 'who has been wrestling with the
world': 'The two that belong to me are without shelter, and my yoke of
cattle without grass, without growth; there is misery on my people and
their elbows without sound clothes,' is turned into:--

'The loved ones my life would have nourished
Are foodless, and bare, and cold.
My flocks by their fountain that flourished
Decay on the mountain wold.'

But there is one mistranslation for whose sake we must forgive many
others, for it has given the sad refrain that has often been on Irish
lips:--

'Seaghan O'Dwyer a Gleanna,
We're worsted in the game!'

Here are one or two of the many verses sung to the Little Black Rose by
her lovers, poor or royal:--

'There is love through and through me for you all the length of a
year; sore love, vexing love, lasting love, love that left me
without health, without a road, without running; and for ever,
ever, without any sway at all over my Fair Black Rose.

'I would travel through Munster with you, and the boundaries of the
hills, if I thought I could find your secret, or a part of your
love. O branch of the tree, it seems to me that you love me; that
the flower of kind women is my Fair Black Rose.'

'My heart leaps up with my bright Stuart!' James and Charles are, I
think, the only English kings whose name