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STORIES OF
" ' I am asleep, -without rocking, through this quarter of the night, I am asleep, and do not waken me ; O kindly, dear mother, get up and make light for me, For 1 am sick and evil has happened m e . ' "
And so on. An Irish poet is wanted to make the fragment into a song. The melody is also given in Walker's " Irish Bards," 1786.
The Jacobite relic," The Blackbird," deserves mention not only on account of its Irish character, but because, as far as can be ascertained, it is the first Irish lyric of any kind written in English. It dates from 1715, the year that the " Black-bird" made his Scotch attempt to prove his cause. In Ramsay's " Tea-Table Miscellany" it is given as taken down from an Irishman who had participated in the 1715 revolt The melody is very ancient, and is given by Bunting in his " Ancient Music of Ireland," who says that the words were written during the war, 1688-90. The Irish name was " An Londubh."
One very eminent essence in all the old Irish songs was the sweetness and tenderness of the airs. Take any of the street and peasant songs, and this will at once be acknowledged. " The Wearing of the Green," "The Pretty Girl Milk-ing the Cows," " Willy Reilly," and " Drimin Dubh," a most pathetic tune, to give only one or
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