IRISH MELODIES.
41
II.
On Lough Neagh's bank as the fisherman strays*[1],
When the clear, cold eve's declining,
He sees the round towers of other days,
In the wave beneath him shining!
Thus shall memory often, in dreams sublime,
Catch a glimpse of the days that are over;
Thus, sighing, look thro' the waves of time
For the long faded glories they cover!
- ↑ It was an old tradition, in the time of Giraldus, that Lough Neagh had been originally a fountain, by whose sudden over-flowing the country was inundated, and a whole region, like the Atlantis of Plato, overwhelmed. He says that the fishermen, in clear weather, used to point out to strangers the tall ecclesiastical towers under the water. Piscatores aquae illius turres ecclesiasticas, quce more patrice arctce sunt et altae, necnon et rotunda, sub undis manifeste, sereno tempore conspiciunt et extraneis transeuntibus, reique causas admirantibus, frequenter ostendunt.
Topogr. Hib. Dist 2. C. 9.
