Preparing Mangan's Collected works for the Irish Academic Press, one editor, reasonably fluent in German, could not get over Mangan's fluency at translating the great Romantic poets -- Schiller, Goethe, Uhland, Buerger, to name a few of many -- when Mangan had never left his native Ireland and certainly never traveled to a German-speaking country. Moreover, Mangan could not get a university education; he finished his secondary schooling at some level, and then had to train as a surveyor, so as to earn a living. So Mangan's knowledge of German seems to far outstrip his access to studying German. This is true of other languages from which he translated. Not so true, however, of Irish Gaelic, for which he was dependent on others.

Ernst Ortlepp was by no means a giant in 19th-century German poetry, merely one of many lesser-known poets. Mangan zeroed in on Ortlepp's poem "Sibirien," written in Ortlepp's native German, and protesting the exile to Siberia of Polish dissidents. This English translation is respected and admired no less for the liberties that Mangan takes with the original. Here I contrast Mangan's version with an anonymous English translation from the "Polonia" journal.

First, the Polonia version, for which I can find no translator's name.

I N    S I B E R I A

In Siberia, in Siberia
Cold the mortal breezes blow,
And the land discloses wide
One great tomb of death and woe.

In Siberia, in Siberia
Spring has but a single day,
And the summer but an hour,
And the heart but half its play.

In Siberia, in Siberia
Where to live is daily death,
There, alas! roam noble Poles,
Animate with spectral breath.

In Siberia, in Siberia
Man has but a cipher's name;
Hell -- how dreadful to the tortured!
But far worse Siberia's flame.

In Siberia, in Siberia
Breathing struggles in the breast;
Hottest tears are turn'd to ice,
Joy and grief have equal zest.

In Siberia, in Siberia
Pain and pleasure both are fled;
Only one dark image hovers
O'er that region of the dead.

In Siberia, in Siberia
Friendship's welcome's sought in vain;
No sweet maiden's lip in kisses
Gives and takes the heart again.

In Siberia, in Siberia
Far from wife, and child, and home,
Bitterly the banish'd, weeping,
O'er the deathlike desert roam.

In Siberia, in Siberia
Words of kindness ne'er are known;
Deeper in the brave while living
Than if death had claimed its own.

From Siberia, from Siberia
Sighs of Polish heroes float,
And the nation's hearts responding,
Echo mournful to the note.

In Siberia, in Siberia
O'er the banished Poles afar
Rocks their flinty hearts are rending --
Tearless only is the Czar!

At the risk of redundancy:
The above is NOT by Mangan, but by an English-language sympathizer writing for "Polonia", an English-language journal. The original is in German, and the poet of origin is Ernst Ortlepp. The English interpretation/translation by James Clarence Mangan will follow.