Note 14 — Chapter IX
Reading edition
I hope my friend "Desmond" (a true poet and genuine Irishman, whom God long preserve) will allow me to borrow his "graceful spirit people" to elevate to poetical dignity the otherwise unattractive and straggling waters of Lough Lua. It is near the lone and lovely passes of Ceimeneagh, which his genius has invested with graceful immortality, and his
"Children of the earth and sea."
may be sometimes tempted to lave therein.
Lough Lua loses in the comparison suggested by the sublime scenery around it, of which the "green little island," and the pass are immeasurably the greatest. I saw it in no happy frame of mind, as I dragged my weary limbs along the rugged slopes of Shehigh. The only real feature of interest I could discover, was the solitary swan above alluded to, to which an intellect less fanciful than that of my friend could not refuse a claim to be recognised as the genius loci, or spirit of the spot.