Classic Poem

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.