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What means the spectre? Why intent
To violate the tree,

Thought Eglamore, by which I swore

Unfading constancy?

Here am I, and to-morrow's sun
To her I left shall prove

That bliss is ne'er so surely won
As when a circuit has been run
Of valour, truth, and love.

So from the spot whereon he stood,
He moved with stealthy pace;
And, drawing nigh, with his living eye,
He recognised the face;

And whispers caught, and speeches small,
Some to the green-leaved tree,
Some muttered to the torrent-fall,-
"Roar on, and bring him with thy call;
I heard, and so may he!"

Soul-shattered was the knight, nor knew

If Emma's ghost it were,
Or boding shade, or if the maid
Her very self stood there.

He touched-what followed who shall tell?
The soft touch snapped the thread

Of slumber-shrieking, back she fell,

And the stream whirled her down the dell
Along its foaming bed.

In plunged the knight! when on firm ground The rescued maiden lay,

Her eyes grew bright with blissful light,

Confusion passed away;

She heard, ere to the throne of grace
Her faithful spirit flew,

His voice, beheld his speaking face,
And dying, from his own embrace,
She felt that he was true.

So was he reconciled to life:

Brief words may speak the rest;
Within the dell he built a cell,
And there was Sorrow's guest:
In hermit's weeds repose he found,
From vain temptations free ;
Beside the torrent dwelling-bound
By one deep, heart-controlling sound,
And awed to piety.

Wild stream of Aira, hold thy course,

Nor fear memorial lays,

Where clouds that spread in solemn shade, Are edged with golden rays!

Dear art thou to the light of heaven!

Though minister of sorrow,

Sweet is thy voice at pensive Even;
And thou, in Lovers' hearts forgiven,

Shalt take thy place with Yarrow!

GRATTAN'S LAMENTATION.

MOORE.

SHALL the harp then be silent, when he, who first gave To our country a name, is withdrawn from all eyes? Shall a minstrel of Erin, stand mute by the grave, Where the first-where the last of her patriots lies?

No-faint though the death-song may fall from his lips, Though his harp, like his soul, may with shadows be crost,

Yet, yet shall it sound, 'mid a nation's eclipse,

And proclaim to the world what a star has been lost!

What a union of all the affections and powers,

By which life is exalted, embellished, refined, Was embraced in that spirit-whose centre was ours, While its mighty circumference encircled mankind.

Oh, who that loves Erin-or who that can see
Through the waste of her annals, that epoch sublime-
Like a pyramid raised in the desert-where he
And his glory stand out to the eyes of all time !—

That one lucid interval, snatched from the gloom
And the madness of ages, when, filled with his soul,
A nation o'erleaped the dark bounds of her doom,
And, for one sacred instant, touched Liberty's goal!

Who that ever hath heard him-hath drank at the source Of that wonderful eloquence all Erin's own,

In whose high-thoughted daring, the fire, and the force, And the yet untamed spring of her spirit are shown—

An eloquence, rich-wheresoever its wave

Wandered free and triumphant-with thoughts that shone through,

As clear as the brook's "stone of lustre," and gave
With the flash of the gem, its solidity too.

Who, that ever approached him, when, free from the crowd,

In a home full of love, he delighted to tread

'Mong the trees which a nation had giv'n and which bowed,

As if each brought a new civic crown for his head

That home, where-like him who, as fable hath told, Put the rays from his brow, that his child might

come near

Every glory forgot, the most wise of the old

Became all that the simplest and youngest hold dear.

Is there one, who hath thus, through his orbit of life, But at distance observed him,-through glory, through blame,

In the calm of retreat, in the grandeur of strife, Whether shining or clouded, still high and the same

Such a union of all that enriches life's hour,
Of the sweetness we love and the greatness we praise
As that type of simplicity blended with power,
A child with a thunderbolt only portrays ;-

Oh, no-not a heart that e'er knew him, but mourns, Deep, deep o'er the grave, where such glory is

shrined

O'er a monument Fame will preserve, 'mong the urns Of the wisest, the bravest, the best of mankind!

ODE TO A NIGHTINGALE.

KEATS.

My heart aches, and a drowsy numbness pains
My sense, as though of hemlock I had drunk,
Or emptied some dull opiate to the drains

One minute past, and Lethe-wards had sunk :
'Tis not through envy of thy happy lot,
But being too happy in thine happiness,—
That thou, light-winged Dryad of the trees,
In some melodious plot

Of beechen green, and shadows numberless,
Singest of summer in full-throated ease.

O, for a draught of vintage! that hath been
Cooled a long age in the deep-delved earth,
Tasting of Flora and the country green,

Dance, and Provençal song, and sunburnt mirth! O for a beaker full of the warm South,

Full of the true, the blushful Hippocrene,
With beaded bubbles winking at the brim,
And purple-stained mouth ;

That I might drink, and leave the world unseen,
And with thee fade away into the forest dim:

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