OCR Text |
Show i : Irish Funeral Cry. The well known custom so long used in Ireland, of keening, or lamenting over tbe dead, is of the. most remote antiquity. History informs us that it was known to the (? reeks and Romans, who, ho'.v-j ho'.v-j ever, seem to have borrowed it from the eastern na-t na-t lions, among whom, probably, it had its origin; and from the Scriptures we learn that it was practiced j by tbe Israelites. Dr. O'Brien tells us that the word in the Irish language, as originally and more correctly cor-rectly written, is cine, and not. as modern orlhoep-ists orlhoep-ists have it. caoine; and this makes it almost identical iden-tical with the Hebrew word cina, which signifies lamentation or weeping with clapping of hands. The following "lament of Iorian Shehone for Miss j Mary Bmirke." which is literally translated from j the original Irish, has much pathos and beauty: I "Silence prevaiU; it is an awful silence. The ! voice of Mary is lvard no longer in the valley.'' j ''Ves. thou art gone. 0 Mary; but Morian Shehone will raise the song of woe and bewail thy fate." "Snow white was lhy virtue, the youths gazed on J ihee with rapture and old age listened with pleas-! pleas-! ure to tbe soft muic of thy tonirue." ''Thy beauty I was brighter than the sun which shone around thee, ! 0 Mary; but lhy sun is set. and has left the soul j of thy friend in darkness." "Sorrow for thee is dumb, save in the wailings of Morian Shehone ; and j grief has not yet lears to sdiod for Mary." lI have i cried over the. rich man; but when the stone was j laid upon his grave, my grief wa at an end. Not so with my heart's darlinjr; ibe grave cannot hide i Mary from the view of Morian Shehone." "1 see i her in ibe four corners of her habitation, which j was once gilded by iter presence."' ."Thou didst not fall off like a withered leaf which hangs trembling and insecure; no. it was a rude blast. which brought j thee to the dust. 0 Mary. Iladst,thou not friends? IJadst thou not. bread to eat, and raiment to put onf"' 'Tfadst thou not youth and beauty, Mary? Then mightest thou not have been happy f But the spoiler came and disordered my peace! The grim tyrant has taken away my only support in Mary' i ''In thv state of probation, thou wort kind hearted to all. and none envied thee thy good fortune. Oh. i that the lamentations of lhy friends. Oh, that the burning tears of Morian Shehone could bring back from the grave the peerless Mary." ''But, alas! this cannot be. Then twice in every year, while the virgins vir-gins of ibe valley celebrate the birth and death of "Mary, under the wide-spreading elm. let her spirit hover round them and teach ihem to emulate her virtues." "So falls into the depth' of silence the lament of Morian Shehone." This was published in the first volume of the Dublin Fenny Journal in 1S32. - |