As if no cloud could ever rise,

To dim a heaven so purely brightI sigh to think how soon that brow

In grief may lose its every ray, And that light heart, so joyous now, Almost forget it once was gay.

For Time will come with all his blights, The ruin'd hope-the friend unkind— The love that leaves, where'er it lights,

A chill'd or burning heart behind! While youth, that now like snow appears, Ere sullied by the darkening rain, When once 't is touch'd by sorrow's tears, Will never shine so bright again!

IF THOU 'LT BE MINE.
AIR-The Winnowing Sheet.
If thou 'It be mine, the treasures of air,
Of earth and sea, shall lie at thy feet;
Whatever in Fancy's eye looks fair,

Or in Hope's sweet music is most sweet,

Shall be ours, if thou wilt be mine, love!

Bright flowers shall bloom wherever we rove,
A voice divine shall talk in each stream,
The stars shall look like worlds of love,
And this earth be all one beautiful dream

In our eyes-if thou wilt be mine, love!

And thoughts, whose source is hidden and high,
Like streams that come from heaven-ward hills,
Shall keep our hearts-like meads, that lie
To be bathed by those eternal rills-
Ever green, if thou wilt be mine, love!

All this and more the Spirit of Love

Can breathe o'er them who feel his spells; That heaven, which forms his home above, He can make on earth, wherever he dwells, And he will-if thou wilt be mine, love!

TO LADIES' EYES.
AIR-Fague a Ballagh.

To ladies' eyes a round, boy,

We can't refuse, we can't refuse, Though bright eyes so abound, boy,

"T is hard to chuse, 't is hard to chuse.

For thick as stars that lighten

Yon airy bowers, yon airy bowers,

The countless eyes that brighten

This earth of ours, this earth of ours.

But fill the cup-where'er, boy,

Our choice may fall, our choice may fall, We're sure to find Love there, boy,

So drink them all! so drink them all!

Some looks there are so holy,

They seem but given, they seem but given,

As splendid beacons solely,

To light to heaven, to light to heaven.

THEY MAY RAIL AT THIS LIFE. AIR-Noch bonin shin doe. THEY may rail at this life-from the hour I began it, I've found it a life full of kindness and bliss; And, until they can show me some happier planet, More social and bright, I'll content me with this. As long as the world has such eloquent eyes, As before me this moment enraptured I see, They may say what they will of their orbs in the skies, But this earth is the planet for you, love, and me.

In Mercury's star, where each minute can bring them New sunshine and wit from the fountain on high,

No VIII.

NE'ER ASK THE HOUR.

AIR-My Husband's a Journey to Portugal gone.
NE'ER ask the hour-what is it to us
How Time deals out his treasures?
The golden moments lent us thus

Are not his coin, but Pleasure's.

If counting them over could add to their blisses,
I'd number each glorious second;
But moments of joy are, like Lesbia's kisses,
Too quick and sweet to be reckon'd.
Then fill the cup-what is it to us
How Time his circle measures?
The fairy hours we call up thus
Obey no wand but Pleasure's!

Young Joy ne'er thought of counting hours,
Till Care, one summer's morning,
Set up among his smiling flowers
A dial, by way of warning.

But Joy loved better to gaze on the sun,

As long as its light was glowing,
Than to watch with old Care how the shadow stole on,
And how fast that light was going.

So fill the cup-what is it to us
How Time his circle measures?
The fairy hours we call up thus
Obey no wand but Pleasure's.

SAIL ON, SAIL ON.
AIR-The Humming of the Ban.
SAIL on, sail on,
thou fearless bark-
Wherever blows the welcome wind,
It cannot lead to scenes more dark,
More sad, than those we leave behind.
Each wave that passes seems to say,

Though death beneath our smile may be,
Less cold we are, less false than they
Whose smiling wreck'd thy hopes and thee..

Sail on, sail on-through endless space--
Through calm-through tempest-stop no more;
The stormiest sea 's a resting-place

To him who leaves such hearts on shore.
Or-if some desert land we meet,

Where never yet false-hearted men Profaned a world that else were sweetThen rest thee bark, but not till then.

Tous les babitans de Mercure sont vifs.- Pluralité des Mondes. * La Terre pourra être pour Vénus l'étoile du berger et la mère des amours, comme Vénus l'est pour nous.-Ib.

THE PARALLEL.

AIR-I would rather than Ireland.

YES, sad one of Sion,'—if closely resembling,
In shame and in sorrow, thy wither'd-up heart-
If drinking, deep, deep, of the same cup of trembling.
Could make us thy children, our parent thou art.

These verses were written after the perusal of a treatise by Mr Hamilton, professing to prove that the Irish were originally Jews.

Like thee doth our nation lie conquer'd and broken,
And fallen from her head is the once royal crown;
In her streets, in her halls, Desolation hath spoken,
And while it is day yet, her sun hath gone down.» '

Like thine doth her exile, 'mid dreams of returning,
Die far from the home it were life to behold;
Like thine do her sons, in the day of their mourning,
Remember the bright things that bless'd them of old!

Ah, well may we call her, like thee, « the Forsaken,»2 Her boldest are vanquish'd, her proudest are slaves; And the harps of her minstrels, when gayest they waken, Have breathings as sad as the wind over graves!

Yet hadst thou thy vengeance-yet came there the mor

row

That shines out at last on the longest dark night, When the sceptre that smote thee with slavery and sor

row

Was shiver'd at once, like a reed, in thy sight.

When that cup, which for others the proud Golden City 3

Had brimm'd full of bitterness, drench'd her own lips, And the world she had trampled on heard, without pity, The howl in her halls and the cry from her ships.

When the curse Heaven keeps for the haughty came over
Her merchants rapacious, her rulers unjust,
And-a ruin, at last, for the earth-worm to cover-4
The Lady of Kingdoms 5 lay low in the dust.

DRINK OF THIS CUP.
AIR-Paddy O'Rafferty.

DRINK of this cup-you 'll find there's a spell in
Its every drop 'gainst the ills of mortality--
Talk of the cordial that sparkled for Helen,

Her was a fiction, but this is reality.
cup

Would you forget the dark world we are in,.
Only taste of the bubble that gleams on the top of it;
But would you rise above earth, till akin

To immortals themselves, you must drain every drop

of it.

Send round the cup-for oh! there's a spell in

Its every drop 'gainst the ills of mortalityTalk of the cordial that sparkled for Helen, Her cup was a fiction, but this is reality.

Never was philter form'd with such power

To charm and bewilder, as this we are quaffing! Its magic began, when, in Autumn's rich hour,

As a harvest of gold in the fields it stood laughing. There having, by Nature's enchantment, been fill'd

With the balm and the bloom of her kindliest weather,

1. Her sun is gone down while it was yet day. Jer. xv. 9.

2 Thou shalt no more be termed Forsaken.-Isaiah, Ixii, 4.

This wonderful juice from its core was distill'd,
To enliven such hearts as are here brought together!
Then drink of the cup-you 'll find there's a spell in
Its every drop 'gainst the ills of mortality-
Talk of the cordial that sparkled for Helen,
Her cup was a fiction, but this is reality.

And though, perhaps but breathe it to no one-
Like cauldrons the witch brews at midnight so awful,
In secret this philter was first taught to flow on,
Yet-'t is n't less potent for being unlawful.
What though it may taste of the smoke of that flame
Which in silence extracted its virtue forbidden-
Fill up there's a fire in some hearts I could name,
Which may work too its charm, though now lawless

and hidden.

So drink of the cup-for oh! there's a spell in
Its every drop 'gainst the ills of mortality-
Talk of the cordial that sparkled for Helen,
Her cup was a fiction, but this is reality.

THE FORTUNE-TELLER. AIR-Open the Door softly. Down in the valley come meet me to-night, And I'll tell you your fortune truly, As ever 't was told, by the new moon's light, Το young maidens shining as newly.

But, for the world, let no one be nigh,
Lest haply the stars should deceive me;
These secrets between you and me and the sky
Should never go farther, believe me.

If at that hour the heavens be not dim, My science shall call up before you A male apparition—the image of him Whose destiny 't is to adore you.

Then to the phantom be thou but kind,

And round you so fondly he 'll hover, You'll hardly, my dear, any difference find "Twixt him and a true living lover.

Down at your feet, in the pale moon-light,

He'll kneel, with a warmth of emotionAn ardour, of which such an innocent sprite You'd scarcely believe had a notion.

What other thoughts and events may arise, As in Destiny's book I've not seen them, Must only be left to the stars and your eyes To settle, ere morning, between them.

OH, YE DEAD. AIR-Plough Tune.

Isaiah, xiv, 4.

4. Thy pomp is brought down to the grave-and the worms cover thee. Isaiah, xiv, 11.

5. Thou shalt no more be called the Lady of Kingdoms. -Isaiah, xlvii, 5.

men who live,

Why leave you thus your graves,

In far off fields and waves,

Where the worm and the sea-bird only know your bed,

To haunt this spot where all

Those eyes that wept your fall,

Most sweet, most sweet, that death will be, Which under the next May-evening's light,

dead!

It is true-it is true-we are shadows cold and wan;
It is true-it is true-all the friends we loved are gone.
But, oh! thus even in death,

So sweet is still the breath

Of the fields and the flowers in our youth we wander'd o'er,

That, ere condemn'd we go

To freeze 'mid Hecla's' snow,

We would taste it awhile, and dream we live once more!

O'DONOHUE'S MISTRESS. 2

AIR-The Little and Great Mountain.

Of all the fair months, that round the sun
In light-link'd dance their circles run,

Sweet May, sweet May, shine thou for me!
For still, when thy earliest beams arise,
That youth who beneath the blue lake lies,
Sweet May, sweet May, returns to me.

Of all the smooth lakes, where daylight leaves His lingering smile on golden eves,

Fair lake, fair lake, thou 'rt dear to me; For when the last April sun grows dim, Thy Naiads prepare his steed for him

Who dwells, who dwells, bright lake, in thee.

Of all the proud steeds, that ever bore
Young plumed chiefs on sea or shore,

White steed, white steed, most joy to thee, Who still, with the first young glance of spring, From under that glorious lake dost bring,

Proud steed, proud steed, my love to me.

While, white as the sail some bark unfurls, When newly launch'd, thy long mane3 curls, Fair steed, fair steed, as white and free; And spirits, from all the lake's deep bowers, Glide o'er the blue wave scattering flowers, Fair steed, around my love and thee.

Of all the sweet deaths that maidens die, Whose lovers beneath the cold wave lie,

Paul Zeland mentions that there is a mountain in some part of Ireland, where the ghosts of persons who have died in foreign lands walk about and converse with those they meet, like living people. 17 asked why they do not return to their bomes, they say they are obliged to go to mount Hecla, and disappear immediately.

* The particulars of the tradition respecting O'Donohue and his white borse, may be found in Mr Weld's Account of Killarney, or more fully detailed in Derrick's Letters. For many years after his death, the spirit of this hero is supposed to have been seen, on the morning of May-day, gliding over the lake on his favourite white horse, to the sound of sweet, unearthly music, and preceded by groups of youths and maidens, who flung wreaths of delicate springflowers in his path.

Among other stories, connected with this Legend of the Lakes, it is said that there was a young and beautiful girl, whose imagination was so impressed with the idea of this visionary chieftain, that she fancied herself in love with him, and at last, in a fit of insanity, on a May-morning, threw herself into the lake.

The boatmen at Killarney call those waves which come on a windy day, crested with foam, O'Donohue's white horses..

Dear love, dear love, I'll die for thee.

ECHO.

AIR-The Wren.

How sweet the answer Echo makes
To music at night,

When, roused by lute or horn, she wakes,
And far away, o'er lawns and lakes,
Goes answering light.

Yet Love hath echoes truer far,

And far more sweet, Than e'er, beneath the moon-light's star, Of horn, or lute, or soft guitar, The songs repeat.

'T is when the sigh in youth sincere,
And only then,-

The sigh, that's breathed for one to hear,
Is by that one, that only dear,
Breathed back again!

OH! BANQUET NOT.
AIR-Planxty Irwine.

OH! banquet not in those shining bowers
Where youth resorts-but come to me,
For mine's a garden of faded flowers,

More fit for sorrow, for age, and thee. And there we shall have our feast of tearsAnd many a cup in silence pourOur guests, the shades of former yearsOur toasts, to lips that bloom no more.

There, while the myrtle's withering boughs
Their lifeless leaves around us shed,
We'll brim the bowl to broken vows,
To friends long lost, the changed, the dead.
Or, as some blighted laurel waves

Its branches o'er the dreary spot,
We'll drink to those neglected graves
Where valour sleeps, unnamed, forgot!

THEE, THEE, ONLY THEE. AIR-The Market-Stake. THE dawning of morn, the day-light's sinking, The night's long hours still find me thinking

Of thee, thee, only thee.

When friends are met, and goblets crown'd,
And smiles are near that once enchanted,
Unreach'd by all that sunshine round,
My soul, like some dark spot, is haunted
By thee, thee, only thee.

Whatever in fame's high path could waken My spirit once, is now forsaken

For thee, thee, only thee.

Like shores, by which some headlong bark

To the ocean hurries-resting never-
Life's scenes go by me, bright or dark,
I know not, heed not, hastening ever
To thee, thee, only thee.

I have not a joy but of thy bringing,
And pain itself seems sweet, when springing
From thee, thee, only thee.

Like spells that nought on earth can break,
Till lips that know the charm have spoken,
This heart, howe'er the world may wake
Its grief, its scorn, can but be broken
By thee, thee, only thee.

SHALL THE HARP THEN BE SILENT?

AIR-Macfarlane's Lamentation.

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?1 No-faint though the death-song may fall from his lips, Though his harp, like his soul, may with shadows be cross'd,

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

And proclaim to the world what a star hath been lost!?

What a union of all the affections and powers,

By which life is exalted, embellish'd, refined,
Was embraced in that spirit—whose centre was ours,
While its mighty circumference circled 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 snatch'd from the gloom

And the madness of ages, when, fill'd with his soul, A nation o'erleap'd the dark bounds of her doom,

And, for one sacred instant, touch'd 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

Wander'd 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 approach'd him, when, free from the

crowd,

In a home full of love, he delighted to tread

'Mong the trees, which a nation had given, and which

bow'd,

As if each brought a new civic crown for his head.

The celebrated Irish orator and patriot, GRATTAN.-Ed tor. It is only these two first verses, that are either fitted or intended to be sung.

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 has 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!

OH, THE SIGHT ENTRANCING.
AIR-Planxty Sudley.

On, the sight entrancing,
When morning's beam is glancing
O'er files, array'd

With helm and blade,

And plumes in the gay wind dancing!
When hearts are all high beating,
And the trumpet's voice repeating
That song, whose breath
May lead to death,

But never to retreating!
Oh, the sight entrancing,
When morning's beam is glancing
O'er files, array'd

With helm and blade,
And plumes in the gay wind dancing!

Yet 't is not helm or feather-
For ask yon despot whether
His plumed bands

Could bring such hands
And hearts as ours together.
Leave pomps to those who need 'em-
Adorn but Man with freedom,

And proud he braves
The gaudiest slaves

That crawl where monarchs lead 'em.
The sword may pierce the beaver,
Stone walls in time may sever;

'Tis heart alone,

Worth steel and stone,

That keeps men free for ever!

Oh, that sight entrancing,

When morning's beam is glancing O'er files, array'd

With helm and blade,

And in Freedom's cause advancing!

Apollo, in his interview with Phaeton, as described by Ovid :Opposuit radios propiusque accedere jussit. »