RHYMED POETRY
been the language of the Garden of Eden for it
was such a ‘“soothering tongue” that it must have
constituted the speech with which Adam first made
love to Eve. He seemed to have an idea that an-
other modern tongue had been spoken also in the
Garden of Eden and that it was easy to see what
it was and who spoke it from the number of hissing
sounds there are in the Sassenach (English). How-
ever that may be there is no doubt that the old
Gaelic first lent itself to that wondrous addition to
poetry which is constituted by rhyme and that the
music-loving minds of Irish poets, lovingly fashioned
their speech until it responded in musical numbers.
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