Chapter XIV

“Him grant a grave to, ye pitying noble,
Deep in your bosoms! There let him dwell!
He, too, had tears for all souls in trouble,
Here and in hell.”

The burden of all his song is sad, and in his translations he has chosen chiefly themes which echoed the harpings of his own soul. He began life as a copying clerk in an attorney’s office, and had for some time to support wholly, or in the main, a mother and sister. In Mitchel’s preface there are many passages almost as fine as the verse of the poet. Here is one, long as it is, that must find a place. Mitchel is speaking of the days when Mangan was in the attorney’s office:--

“At what age he devoted himself to this drudgery, at what age he
left it, or was discharged from it, does not appear; for his whole
biography documents are wanting, the man having never, for one
moment, imagined that his poor life could interest any surviving
human being, and having never, accordingly, collected his
biographical assets, and appointed a literary executor to take care
of his posthumous fame. Neither did he ever acquire the habit,
common enough among literary men, of dwelling upon his own early
trials, struggles, and triumphs. But those who knew him in after
years can remember with what a shuddering and loathing horror he
spoke--when at rare intervals he could be induced to speak at
all--of his labours with the scrivener and attorney. He was shy and
sensitive, with exquisite sensibilities and fine impulses; eye,
ear, and soul open to all the beauty, music, and glory of heaven
and earth; humble, gentle, and unexacting; modestly craving nothing
in the world but celestial, glorified life, seraphic love, and a
throne among the immortal gods (that’s all); and he was eight or
ten years scribbling deeds, pleadings, and bills in Chancery.”

There is, I believe, but one portrait of him in existence, and a copy of it hangs on the wall of the room in which I am writing, a few feet in front of my eyes. It is not a face easy to describe. Beauty is the chief characteristic of it. But it is not the beauty that men admire or that inspires love in women. It is not the face of a poet or a visionary or a thinker. There is no passion in it; not even the passionate sadness of his own verse. It is not the face of a man who has suffered greatly, or rejoiced in ecstasy. It is the face of a fleshless, worn man of forty, with hair pressed back from the forehead and ear. I have been looking at it for a long time, trying to find out something positive about it, and I have failed. It is not interesting. It is the face of a man who is done with the world and humanity. It is the face of a dead man whose spirit has passed away, while the body remains alive. The eyes are open, and have light in them; the face would be more complete if the light were out, and the lids drawn down and composed for the blind tomb.

He gives a picture of his mental attitude at about the time this portrait was taken:--

TWENTY GOLDEN YEARS AGO.