Poems by Denis Florence MacCarthy Part 41

Waiting for the May. This poem was published under the t.i.tle of "Summer Longings" in "The Bell-Founder and Other Poems," 1857.

Oh! had I the Wings of a Bird. This poem was published under the t.i.tle of "Home Preference" in The Bell-Founder and Other Poems, 1857.

Ferdiah. The ballad between Mave and Ferdiah includes some long lines of text that would require (due to electronic publishing line length standards) occasionally breaking a line ending to make a new line.

Because there is an internal rhyme in these lines, and for more consistent formatting, I have decided to break every line here at the internal rhyme, but not capitalizing the beginning of resultant new line. For example, "Which many an arm less brave than thine, which many a heart less bold, would claim?" is one line of verse in the 1882 edition, but I have formatted it as "Which many an arm less brave than thine, / which many a heart less bold, would claim?" For purposes of recording errata below, I have not numbered these new pseudo-lines. The word "creit" is taken directly from the Irish text untranslated--a roughly equivalent English word is "frame."

The Voyage of St. Brendan. Note 56 refers to a puffin (Anas leucopsis) or 'girrinna.' The bird, at least by 2004 cla.s.sification, is not a puffin but a barnacle goose (Branta leucopsis) and I found one reference to its Irish name as 'ge ghiurain.' As these birds nest in remote areas of the arctic, people were quite free to invent stories of their origins.

The Dead Tribune. The subject of this poem is Daniel O'Connell (1775-1847), an Irish political leader and Minister of Parliament. In ill health, his doctor advised he go to a warmer climate; he died en route to Rome for a pilgrimage. The 1882 edition has the word "knawing"

which is an obsolete variant of "gnawing"; the latter appears in the 1884 edition.

A Mystery. The spelling of "Istambol" is intentional--the current "Istanbul" was not adopted until the twentieth century. The name probably derives from an old nickname for Constantinople, but the complexity of this city's naming is beyond the capacity of a footnote.

To Henry Wadsworth Longfellow. MacCarthy's translation of Calderon's "The Two Lovers of Heaven: Chrysanthus and Daria" has been released as Project Gutenberg e-text #12173.

To Ethna. This poem was published under the listing of "Dedicatory Sonnet" and dated 1850 in The Bell-Founder and Other Poems, 1857.

O'Connell. See note a few lines up on "The Dead Tribune." My correction of the phrase "heaven's high fault" is not based on any other published edition. It is conjectural, based on the illogicality of the phrase and MacCarthy's use of the phrase "heaven's high vault" in his translation of Calderon's "The Purgatory of St. Patrick" (Project Gutenberg e-text #6371) published two years before this poem was written.

Moore. The subject of this poem is Thomas Moore (1779-1852). A collection of his poems has been released as Project Gutenberg e-text #8187, but note that the biographical sketch therein mistakenly lists 1780 as his birth year. In this poem "Shakspere" is not misspelt; it is one of many variants used during and after the bard's lifetime (my favorite is "Shaxpere" from 1582).

To Ethna. This poem bears the same t.i.tle as a sonnet, also in this collection of poems.

The Irish Emigrant's Mother. This poem was published under the t.i.tle of "The Emigrants" in The Bell-Founder and Other Poems, 1857.