FROM THE IRISH-GAELIC OF TADHG GAOLACH O SUILLIOBHAIN

The Database of Ornament

            ROSE of the Universality, holy and heavenly leader,
            Thou of thy flock on the mountains, the comforter,
                     carer, and feeder,
            Save me, protect me, preserve me, on mountains
                     a perilous wanderer,
            Aid me and keep me and steer me, and shield
                     me from death and the plunderer.
            From famine, from dread, and from darkness, from death and
                     destruction and danger,
            Guard me that ultimate day of the Universe, be not a stranger.
            From the bursting and burning and flashing of livid-red light-
                     ning and thunder.
            From war and from tumult of Nature, and elements riving
                     asunder.
                       .               .               .               .               .              .
            Day of a terrible judgment, imposing an end on all nations,
            Black day of wrath and of anger, and fury on earth’s habita-
                     tions.
            Sorrowful, spiritless day of grey grief and of loud lamentation,
            Day of the treading the wine-press of wrath and of red desola-
                     tion.

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            With thunderbolts’ crash, and with bursting of billows, and
                     tempest, and clangour,
            Heaven shall shake, and the elements blazing shall quake at
                     His anger.
            Blood-red and crimson the moon shall be turned when the
                     might of His power
            Shall shake down the sun from his seat, and the doud-face of
                     darkness shall lower.
            Woods and all forests and mountains and crags with a thunder
                     appalling.
            Islands and cities and countries all melting, dissolving, and
                     falling,
            Darkness and fog through the world, with confusion, and fury,
                     and fighting,
            And hurling of hailstones from heaven, and fragments of firma-
                     ments smiting.
                       .               .               .               .               .              .
            Then both His sign shall be seen, and His word shall be heard,
                     and the wicked
            Furious and fearful and fipng shall hide them in cave and in
                     thicket.
            Then shall the seas from their barriers break with a mighty
                     commotion,
            Tumult on earth and in air, and tumultuous tumult in ocean.
            Michael shall stand, a serene one, arrayed in majestical splen-
                     dour,
            Warning with sound of a trumpet he cometh, an holy avenger;
            With a loud brazen blare of a clarion, from heaven to hell it is
                     pealing,
            Bursting the bars of the bondage of Death, and His vengeance
                     revealing.
                       .               .               .               .               .              .

                                                                              DOUGLAS HYDE, LL.D.
                                                                                           (An Chraoibhin Aoibhinn).