Now all the world is sleeping, love,
But the sage, his star-watch keeping, love,
And I, whose star,

More glorious far,

Is the eye from that casement peeping, love.
Then awake!-till rise of sun, my dear!
The sage's glass we'll shun, my dear;
Or, in watching the flight

Of bodies of light,

He might happen to take thee for one, my dear!

THE MINSTREL BOY.

Air-"The Moreen."

THE minstrel-boy to the war is gone,
In the ranks of death you'll find him;
His father's sword he has girded on,

And his wild harp slung behind him,
"Land of Song!" said the warrior-bard,
"Though all the world betrays thee,
ONE sword, at least, thy rights shall guard,
ONE faithful harp shall praise thee."

The minstrel fell! but the foeman's chain
Could not bring his proud soul under;
The harp he lov'd ne'er spoke again,
For he tore its chords asunder;
And said, "No chains shall sully thee,
Thou soul of love and bravery!

Thy songs were made for the pure and frce,
They shall never sound in slavery."

THE SONG OF O'RUARK, PRINCE OF
BREFFNI.*

Air-"The pretty girl milking her cow."

THE valley lay smiling before me,

Where lately I left her behind;

Yet I trembled and something hung o'er me,
That sadden'd the joy of my mind.

"The

* These stanzas are founded upon an event of most melancholy importance to Ireland; if, as we are told by our Irish historians, it gave England the first opportunity of dividing, conquering, and enslaving us. The following are the circumstances, as related by O'Halloran. King of Leinster had long conceived a violent affection for Dearbhorgil, daughter to the King of Meath, and though she had been for some time married to O'Ruark, Prince of Breffni, yet it could not restrain his passion. They carried on a private correspondence, and she informed him that O'Ruark intended soon to go on a pilgrimage (an act of piety frequent in those days), and conjured him to embrace that opportunity of conveying her from a husband she detested, to a lover she adored. Mac Murchad too punctually obeyed the summons, and had the lady conveyed to his capital of Ferns." The monarch Roderic espoused the cause of O'Ruark; while Mac Murchad fled to England, and obtained the assistance of Henry

II.

"Such," adds Giraldus Cambrensis (as I find in an old translation), "is the variable and fickle nature of women, by whom all mischief in the world (for the most part) do happen and come, as may appear by Marcus Antonius, and by the destruction of Troy."

I look'd for the lamp which she told me
Should shine when her pilgrim return'd;
But though darkness began to infold me,
No lamp from the battlements burn'd.

I flew to the chamber-'twas lonely
As if the lov'd tenant lay dead!-
Ah, would it were death, and death only!
But no-the young false one had fled.
And there hung the lute that could soften
My very worst pains into bliss,

While the hand that had wak'd it so often,
Now throbb'd to my proud rival's kiss.

There was a time, falsest of women!

When BREFFNI's good sword would have sought
That man, through a million of foemen,
Who dar'd but to doubt thee in thought.
While now-oh! degenerate daughter
Of Erin, how fall'n is thy fame!

And, through ages of bondage and slaughter,
Thy country shall bleed for thy shame.

Already the curse is upon her,

And strangers her valleys profane;
They come to divide-to dishonour,
And tyrants they long will remain!
But, onward!-the green banner rearing,
Go, flesh ev'ry sword to the hilt;
On our side is VIRTUE and ERIN,
On their's is the SAXON and GUILT.

OH! HAD WE SOME BRIGHT LITTLE ISLE OF OUR OWN.

Air-" Sheela Na Guira."

OH! had we some bright little isle of our own,
In a blue summer ocean, far off and alone;
Where a leaf never dies in the still-blooming bow'rs,
And the bee banquets on thro' a whole year of flow'rs;
Where the sun loves to pause

With so fond a delay,
That the night only draws
A thin veil o'er the day;

Where simply to feel that we breathe, that we live,
Is worth the best joy that life elsewhere can give.

There, with souls ever ardent and pure as the clime We should love as they lov'd in the first golden time; The glow of the sunshine, the balm of the air, Would steal to our hearts, and make all summer there!

With affection, as free

From decline as the bowers;

And with hope, like the bee,
Living always on flowers,

Our life should resemble a long day of light,
And our death come on holy and calm as the night.