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The International Library of Famous Literature
The International Library of Famous Literature Author:Andrew Lang Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: KING DATHY'S DEATH. (Translated from the Irish by James Clarence Mangan.) [james Clarence Mangan, an Irish poet, was born in Dublin, May 1, 1803. As a boy ... more »he was a copyist and attorney's clerk, and worked at the former trade intermittently all his life. Extreme poverty, overwork, bohemian irregularity and exposure, and opium, made him a physical wreck; and he died of cholera June 20, 1849. Several partial editions of his poems have been published. The bulk of them, and his best work, are translations.] King Dathy assembled his Druids and Sages, And thus he spake them : " Druids and Sages! What of King Dathy ? What is revealed in Destiny's pages Of him or his ? Hath he Aught for the Future to dread or to dree ? Good to rejoice in, or evil to flee? Is he a foe of the Gall — Fitted to conquer or fated to fall ? " And Beirdra, the Druid, made answer as thus, — A priest of a hundred years was he: — " Dathy! thy fate is not hidden from us! Hear it through me! — Thou shalt work thine own will! Thou shalt slay, thou shalt prey, And be Conqueror still! Thee the Earth shall not harm 1 Thee we charter and charm From all evil and ill! Thee the laurel shall crown! Thee the wave shall not drown! Thee the chain shall not bind! Thee the spear shall not find! Thee the sword shall not slay I Thee the shaft shall not pierce! Thou, therefore, be fearless and fierce! And sail with thy warriors away To the lands of the Gall, There to slaughter and sway, And be Victor o'er all!" So Dathy he sailed away, away, Over the deep resounding sea; Sailed with his hosts in armor gray Over the deep resounding sea, Many a night and many a day; And many an islet conquered he, He and his hosts in armor gray. And the billow d...« less