The Legends of Oisin, Bard of Erin [pp. 320-322]

Tze Legends of Oisin, Bard of Erin.
"They could not hide him in the ground
Though hand and heart were chill,
For round his lips the smile avouched
The soul was in him still.
"Then lo! a man of God came by
And stood beside the bier,
And spake,' A pagan house is this;
And yet a saint lies here!
"'God shaped this child his praise to sing
To a blind and pagan race;
And till that song is sung, in heaven
He may not see God's face.'
"Then thrice around that child he moved
WVith circling censer-cloud,
And touched with censer fire his tongue,
And the dead child sang aloud.
"Oisin! like larks beside thy Lee,
So loud he sang his hymn:
And straight baptized he was, and died;
And, dead, his face grew dim.
"So then, since Christ had caught to heaven
The fair soul washed from sin,
A little grave they dug, and laid
The little saint therein.
"And ever as fell the night, that grave
Shone like the Shepherds' star,
With happy beam that homeward drew
The wanderer from afar.
"Oisin! thy Land is as that child!
Thou call'st her dead-thy Land;
For cold is Fionn, thy sire; and he,
He was her strong right hand!
"And cold is Oscar now, thy son:
Her mighty heart was he Oisin! let dead at last be dead;
Let living, living be!
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