Dedication (Second Series)

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.