Bid her not shed one tear of sorrow To sully a heart so brilliant and light; To bathe the relic from morn till night. Then take my harp to your ancient hall; Where weary travellers love to call.* On lips, that beauty hath seldom blest! To her he adores shall bathe its brim, HOW OFT HAS THE BENSHEE CRIED. How oft has the Benshee cried! Sweet bonds, entwin'd by love! We're fallen upon gloomy days,t Star after star decays, Every bright name, that shed Light o'er the land, is fled. Dark falls the tear of him who mourneth Lost joy, or hope that ne'er returneth, But brightly flows the tear, * In every house was one or two harps, free to all travellers, who were the more caressea the more they excelled in music.-O'Halloran. I have endeavoured here, without losing that Irish character which it is my object to presave throughout this work, to allude to the sad and ominous fatality, by whici England has been deprived of so many great and good men, at a moment when she most requires all the aids of talent and integrity. Oh! quench'd are our beacon lights— Tell how they liv'd and died. WE MAY ROAM THRO' THIS WORLD. WE may roam thro' this world, like a child at a feast Are the dearest gifts that heaven supplies, For sensitive hearts, and for sun-bright eyes. Then remember, wherever your goblet is crown'd, Thro' this world whether eastward or westward you roam, When a cup to the smile of dear woman goes round, Oh! remember the smile which adorns her at home. In England, the garden of 'beauty is kept By a dragon of prudery, plac'd within call; That the garden's but carelessly watch'd after all. Then remember, wherever your goblet is crown'd, Thro' this world, whether eastward or westward you roam, When a cup to the smile of dear woman goes round, Oh! remember the smile which adorns her at home. In France, when the heart of a woman sets sail, On the ocean of wedlock its fortune to try This designation, which has been applied to Lord Nelson before, is the title given to a celebrated Irish hero, in a poem by O'Gnive, the bard of O'Neil, which is quoted in the Philosophical Survey of the South of Ireland, page 433:-"Con, of the hundred fights, sleep in thy grass-grown tomb, and upbraid not our defeats with thy victories!" tFox,-"Ultimus Romanorum." Love seldom goes far in a vessel so frail, But just pilots her off, and then bids her good-bye! While the daughters of Erin keep the boy Ever smiling beside his faithful oar, Through billows of woe, and beams of joy The same as he look'd, when he left the shore. Then remember, wherever your goblet is crown'd Thro' this world, whether eastward or westward you roam, When a cup to the smile of dear woman goes round, Oh! remember the smile which adorns her at home. EVELEEN'S BOWER. OH! weep for the hour, The lord of the valley with false vows came; From the heavens that night, And wept behind her clouds o'er the maiden's shame. From the chaste cold moon, And Heaven smil'd again with her vestal flame; When the clouds shall pass away, Which that dark hour left upon Eveleen's fame. The white snow lay On the narrow path-way, When the lord of the valley crost over the moor; On the white snow's tint Shew'd the track of his footstep to Eveleen's door. Soon melted away Every trace on the path where the false lord came; Which alone can remove That stain upon the snow of fair Eveleen's fame. THE SONG OF FIONNUALA.* SILENT, oh Moyle! be the roar of thy water, Sadly, oh Moyle! to thy winter wave weeping, LET ERIN REMEMBER THE DAYS OF OLD. LET Erin remember the days of old, To make this story intelligible in a song would require a much greater number of verses than any one is authorized to inflict upon an audience at once; the reader must therefore be content to learn, in a note, that Fionnuala, the daughter of Lir, was, by some supernatural power, transformed into a swan, and condemned to wander, for many hundred years, over certain lakes and rivers in Ireland, till the coming of Christianity, when the first sound of the mass-bell was to be the signal of her release. I found this fanciful fiction among some manuscript translations from the Irish, begun under the direction of the late Countess of Moira. This brought on an encounter between Malachi (the monarch of Ireland in the tenth century) and the Danes, in which Malachi defeated two of their champions, whom he encountered successively hand to hand, taking a collar of gold from the neck of one, and carrying off the sword of the other, as trophies of his victory.-Warner's Hist. of Ireland, vol. i. book ix. Military orders of knights were very early established in Ireland: long before the birth of Christ we find an hereditary order of chivalry in Ulster, called Curaidhe na Craiobhe ruadh, or the Knights of the Red Branch, from their chief seat in Emania, adjoining to the palace of the Ulster kings, called Teagh na Craiobhe ruadh, or the Academy of the Red Branch; and contiguous to which was a large hospital, founded for the sick knights and soldiers, called Bron-bhearg, or the house of the sorrowful soldier. O'Halloran's Introduction, &c., part i. chap. v. Ere the emerald gem of the western world On Lough Neagh's bank as the fisherman strays,* COME, SEND ROUND THE WINE. COME, send round the wine, and leave points of belief This moment's a flower too fair and brief, To be wither'd and stain'd by the dust of the schools. Your glass may be purple, and mine may be blue, But, while they are fill'd from the same bright bowl, The fool, who would quarrel for difference of hue, Deserves not the comfort they shed o'er the soul. Shall I ask the brave soldier, who fights by my side In the cause of mankind, if our creeds agree? Shall I give up the friend I have valued and tried, If he kneel not before the same altar with me? From the heretic girl of my soul shall I fly, To seek somewhere else a more orthodox kiss? No! perish the hearts, and the laws that try Truth, valour, or love by a standard like this! SUBLIME WAS THE WARNING. SUBLIME was the warning which Liberty spoke. * It was an old tradition, in the time of Giraldus, that Lough Neagh had been originally a fountain, by whose sudden overflowing the country was inundated, and a whole region, like the Atlantis of Plato, overwhelmed. He says, that the fishermen, in clear weather, used to point out to strangers the tall ecclesiastical towers under the water. |