[from Collected Works, T.E.Brown]

FO’C’S’LE YARNS

SECOND SERIES

DEDICATION

DEAR COUNTRYMEN, whate'er is left to us
Of ancient heritage—
Of manners, speech, of humours, polity
The limited horizon of our stage—
Old love, hope, fear,
All this I fain would fix upon the page;
That so the coming age,
Lost in the empire’s mass,
Yet haply longing for their fathers, here
May see, as in a glass,
What they held dear—
May say, " ‘Twas thus and thus
They lived " ; and, as the time-flood onward rolls,
Secure an anchor for their Keltic souls.

1887.