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The Mountain Minstrel.

THE

MOUNTAIN MINSTREL.

A MAY MORNING IN GLEN-SHIRA.

Lo, dawning o'er yon mountain grey
The rosy birth-day of the May!
Glen-Shira knoweth well 'tis Beltane's blissful day.

The Maum has donned its brightest green,
The hawthorn whitens round Kilblane,

And shews Dunchorvil's crest its own heath-purpling sheen.

Hark! from yon grove that thrilling gush

Of song from linnet, merle, and thrush!

To hear herself so praised the morning well may blush.

An

The lark, yon crimson clouds among,

Rains down a very flood of song;

age, that song to list, would not seem lost or long.

Yon cushat by Cuilvocan's stream

The spirit of some bard you'd deem—

One who had lived and died in love's delicious dream.

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Thrice welcome minstrel ! now at hand,

The cuckoo joins the tuneful band:

A choir like this might grace the bowers of fairy-land!

Now is the hour by Duloch's tide

To scent the birch that decks its side,

And watch the snow-white swans o'er its calin bosom glide.

Now is the hour a minstrel might

Be blameless if, in his delight,

He Druid-like adored the sun that crowns yon height !

O May! thou'rt an enchantress rare—
Thy presence maketh all things fair;
Thou wavest but thy wand, and joy is everywhere.

Thou comest and the clouds are not—

Rude Boreas has his wrath forgot

The gossamer again is in the air afloat.

The foaming torrent from the hill

Thou changest to a gentle rill

A thread of liquid pearl, that faintly murmurs still.

Thine is the blossom-laden tree

The meads that white with lambkins be— Thine too the nether world that in each lake we see.

Cheer'd by thy smile, the herd-boy gay

Oft sings the rock-repeated lay,

And wonders who can be the mocker in his way.

Thou givest fragrance to the breeze,
A gleaming glory to the seas,

Nor less thy grace is seen in yonder emerald leas.

Around me in this dewy den

Wild flowers imparadise the scene,—
Some look up to the Sun-his worshippers, I ween:

Some here and there, with modest grace,
Yield to the butterfly's embrace,

While others coyly share the bee's more rude caress.

Above around me-all things seem

So witching that I almost deem

Myself asleep, and these, creations of a dream!

But cease, my muse ambitious ! frail

Thy skill in fitting strains to hail

The morn that makes a heaven of Shira's lovely vale.

MY OWN NATIVE COT.

My own native Cot, aye so dear unto me—
Whose hearth to the homeless was always so free,—
Though long from it roaming, and far from it too,
That home of my childhood is always in view:

That home where the stranger found welcome unbought,
That home where sweet fancies came to me unsought,-
Its place in my heart nothing else e'er can fill:

God bless the old Cot at the foot of the hill!