“Oh! Blame Not the Bard”
Description
Don't blame the bard for his songs of love rather than glory. Don't blame him if he "should try to forget what he never can heal." "But though glory be gone, and though hope fade away, Thy name, loved Erin! shall live in his songs"
Notes
Zimmermann p. 77 is a fragment; broadside Bodleian 2806 b.9(281) is the basis for the description.
Zimmermann [uses] this song to illustrate his point that "the mission of the bard is to weep for his country." - BS
Broadsides
- Bodleian, 2806 b.9(281), "Oh! Blame not the Bard" ("Oh, blame not the bard, if he fly to the bowers"), unknown, n.d.
References
- Zimmermann, p. 77, "Oh! Blame Not the Bard" (1 fragment)
- ADDITIONAL: Edward Hayes, The Ballads of Ireland (Boston, 1859), Vol I, pp. 180-181, "O, Blame Not The Bard"
- Kathleen Hoagland, editor, One Thousand Years of Irish Poetry (New York, 1947), pp. 375-376, "Oh Blame not the Bard" (1 text)
- ADDITIONAL: Thomas Kinsella, _The New Oxford Book of Irish Verse_ (Oxford, 1989), pp. 269-270, (no title) (1 text)
- BI, BrdOBNtB