THE GOBBAN SAER
BY T.D. M'GEE.
[In Petrie's "Round Towers," there is a short account of "the Goggan Saer" - their builder. He is there supposed to have lived in the first Christian age of Ireland - the 6th century, but his birth, life, and death, are involved in great obsecurity and many legends. He is perhaps, after Finn and St. Patrick, the most popular personage in the ancient period of Irish history.]
He stept a man out on the ways of men,
And no one knew his sept, or rank, or name -
Like a strong stream far issuing from a glen,
From some source unexplor'd, the Master came;
Gossips there were, who, wondrous keen of ken,
Surmis'd that he should be a child of shame!
Others, declared him of the Druids - then,
Through Patrick's labours fallen from power and fame.
He lived apart wrapt up in many plans -
He woo'd not women, tasted not of wine -
He shunn'd the sports and councils of the clans -
Nor ever knelt at a frequented shrine.
His orisons were old poetic ranns,
Which the new Ollaves deem'd an evil sign;
To most he seem'd one of those Pagan Khans,
Whose mystic vigour knows no cold decline.
He was the builder of the wondrous Towers,
Which tall, and straight, and exquisitely round,
Rise monumental round the isle once ours;
Index-like, marking spots of holy ground -
In gloaming glens, in lowland bowers -
On rivers' banks, these Cloiteachs old abound:
Where Art, enraptured, meditates long hours,
And Science flutters like a bird spell-bound!
Lo! wheresoe'er these pillar-towers aspire,
Heroes and holy men repose below -
The bones of some glean'd from the Pagan pyre,
Others in armour lie, as for a foe:
It was the mighty Master's life-desire,
To chronicle his great ancestors, so;
What holier duty, what achievement higher
Remains to us, than this he thus doth show?
Yet he, the builder, died an unknown death:
His labours done, no man beheld him more -
'Twas thought his body faded like a breath -
Or like a sea-mist, floated off Life's shore
Doubt overhangs his fate, and faith, and birth,
His works alone attest his life, and lore -
They are the only witness he hath -
All else Egyptian darkness covers o'er.
Men call'd him Gobban Saer, and many a tale
Yet lingers in the bye-ways of the land,
Of how he cleft the rock, and down the vale
Led the bright river, child-like, in his hand:
Of how on giant ships he spread great sail,
And many marvels else by him first plann'd -
But though these legends fade - in Innisfail
His name and Towers for centuries shall stand.
http://www.archive.org/stream/stmoling00stokuoft/stmoling00stokuoft_djvu.txt
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