Deirín dé, deirín dé!
Tá an bunnán donn ag laḃairt san ḃféiṫ;
Deirín dé, deirín dé!
Tá an túirnín lín amuiġ san ḃfraoċ.

Deirín dé, deirín dé!
Ġeoḃaiḋ ba siar le héirġe an lae;
Deirín dé, deirín dé!
Is raġaiḋ mo leanḃ dá ḃfeiġilt ar féar.

Deirín dé, deirín dé!
Éireoċaiḋ gealaċ is raġaiḋ grian fé;
Deirín dé, deirín dé!
Tiocfaiḋ ba aniar le deireaḋ an lae.

Deirín dé, deirín dé!
Leigfead mo leanḃ ag piocaḋ sméar,
Deirín dé, deirín dé!
Aċt codlaḋ go sáṁ go fáinne an lae!

Le n-ar linn féin do rinneaḋ an caoineaḋ sin roṁam, .i. ‘Oċón, a Ḋonnċaḋ,’ ⁊rl. Pádraig Ó hÉigeartaiġ .i. deoraiḋe Gaeḋil ina ċoṁnuiḋe i Springfield, i Stát ‘Massachusetts i n-Ameriocá, do rinne é. Mac múirneaċ leis do báṫaḋ i n-aois a ṡé bliaḋan gur ġaḃ cuṁa an t-aṫair boċt gur ċum sé an caoineaḋ so. Do ċuir sé an caoineaḋ ċugam-sa, agus do ċuireas-sa fá ċló é san g‘Claiḋeaṁ Soluis,’ Aib. 7, 1906. Tuigfear ó líne 3 gurab as Cúige Muṁan do’n aṫair agus gurab ar Cúige Ċonnaċt do ṁáṫair an leinḃ.

Ó ṁnaoi de ṁuinntir mo ṁáṫar do ċualas ‘Deirín dé’ de’n ċéad uair, agus mé im’ leanḃ. Do b’as Conntae na Miḋe ḋi. Tá an t-aṁrán ar fud na Gaeḋealtaċta. Do ḃaineas ḋá ċeaṫraṁain de na ceiṫre ceaṫraṁnaiḃ sin roṁam ar leagan do fuair Aṁlaoiḃ Ó Luingsiġ i gConntae Ċorcaiġe.

A Sleep Song

Deirín dé, deirín dé!
The brown bittern speaks in the bog;
Deirín dé, deirín dé!
The nightjar is abroad on the heath.

Deirín dé, deirín dé!
Kine will go west at dawn of day;
Deirín dé, deirín dé!
And my child will go to the pasture to mind them.

Deirín dé, deirín dé!
Moon will rise and sun will set;
Deirín dé, deirín dé!
Kine will come east at end of day.

Deirín dé, deirín dé!
I will let my child go gathering blackberries,
Deirín dé, deirín dé!
If he sleeps softly till the ring of day!

‘The Keen for the Drowned Child’ was made in America by a poet still living, Patrick Hegarty, of Springfield, Mass. He sent it to me while I was editing An Claidheamh Soluis, and I published it in the issue of 7th April, 1906. Cill na Dromad is the Munster churchyard in which the father had hoped his child would be buried—or else in ‘some grave in the West,’ for its mother was from Connacht. I am more conscious in this than in the previous cases of the inadequacy of my English prose to render either the deep melody of the original or the exquisite delicacy of its phrase.

The Sleep Song which I add as a pendant to the song of childhood and death I have pieced together from my recollection of a song that I heard in my own childhood from the woman to whom I owe all my enthusiasms. Where my memory has failed I have filled in the lacunae from a version of the same lullaby taken down in West Cork by Mr. Amhlaoibh Lynch. The refrain ‘deirín dé’ is the name given by children to the last spark at the end of a burning stick used in certain games. With the thought in stanzas 2 and 3 compare Sappho’s ‘Hesperus, thou bringest back all that daylight scattereth, thou bringest the lamb and the goat to fold, thou bringest the infant to its mother.’