Making music roars the gale—

Now it slumbers without motion,

On the ocean sleeps the sail.

Men grow mighty in the May,

Proud and gay the maidens grow;

Fair is every wooded height,

Fair and bright the plain below.

A bright shaft has smit the streams,

With gold gleams the water-flag;

Leaps the fish, and on the hills

Ardour thrills the flying stag;

And you long to reach the courses

Where the slim swift horses race,

And the crowd is ranked applauding

Deep about the meeting-place.

Carols loud the lark on high,

Small and shy, his tireless lay,

Singing in wildest, merriest mood

Of delicate-hued, delightful May.

[5] I am much indebted to the beautiful prose translation of this song by Dr. Kuno Meyer which appears in Ériu (the Journal of the School of Irish Learning), vol. i., Part ii. In my free poetic version an attempt has been made to render the rhyming and metrical effect of the original, which is believed to date from about the ninth century.

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