Quenched are our beacon lights- Tell how they lived and died. WE MAY ROAM THROUGH THIS WORLD. WE may roam through this world, like a child at a feast, Are the dearest gifts that Heaven supplies, We never need leave our own green isle, For sensitive hearts, and for sun-bright eyes. Then remember, wherever your goblet is crowned, Through this world whether eastward or westward you roam, When a cup to the smile of dear woman goes round, Oh! remember the smile that adorns her at home. In England, the garden of Beauty is kept By a dragon of prudery, placed within call; But so oft this unamiable dragon has slept That the garden's but carelessly watched after all. Oh! they want the wild sweet-briery fence Which warms the touch, while winning the sense, Then remember, wherever your goblet is crowned, Through this world whether eastward or westward you roam, When a cup to the smile of dear woman goes round, In France, when the heart of a woman sets sail But just pilots her off, and then bids her good-bye. Ever smiling beside his faithful oar, Through billows of woe and beams of joy, The same as he looked when he left the shore. *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'Neill, 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!' Fox, "ultimus Romanorum." Then remember, wherever your goblet is crowned, Through this world whether eastward or westward you roam, EVELEEN'S BOWER. OH! weep for the hour When to Eveleen's bower The Lord of the Valley with false vows came; From the heavens that night, And wept behind the clouds o'er the maiden's shame. And heaven smiled again with her vestal flame; When the clouds shall pass away Which that dark hour left on Eveleen's fame. The white snow lay On the narrow pathway When the Lord of the Valley crossed over the moor; On the white snow's tint Showed the track of his footsteps to Eveleen's door. The next sun's ray 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. LET ERIN REMEMBER THE DAYS OF OLD. When her kings, with standard of green unfurled, "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 History of Ireland, vol. i. book 9. "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 Craoibhe ruadh, or the Knights of the Red Branch, from their chief seat in Emania, adjoining to the palace of the Ulster kings, called On Lough Neagh's bank as the fisherman strays, In the wave beneath him shining; THE SONG OF FIONNUALA.† SILENT, O Moyle, be the roar of thy water, Sadly, O Moyle, to thy winter-wave weeping, COME, SEND ROUND THE WINE. COME, send round the wine, and leave points of belief Teagh na Craoibhe 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. 5. 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. "Piscatores aquæ illius turres ecclesiasticas, quæ more patriæ arctæ sunt et altæ, necnon et rotundæ, sub undis manifeste sereno tempore conspiciunt, et extraneis transeuntibus reique causas admirantibus frequenter ostendunt."-Topogr. Hib., dist. ii. c. 9. To make this story intelligible in a song would require a much greater number of verses than any one is authorised 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 Insh, which were begun under the direction of that enlightened friend of Ireland, the late Countess of Moira. This moment's a flower too fair and brief To be withered and stained by the dust of the schools. Your glass may be purple, and mine may be blue; But, while they are filled from the same bright bowl, The fool that would quarrel for difference of hue Deserves not the comfort they shed o'er the soul. To seek somewhere else a more orthodox kiss? SUBLIME WAS THE WARNING. SUBLIME was the warning that Liberty spoke, Till it move, like a breeze, o'er the waves of the west; While you add to your garland the Olive of Spain ! If the fame of our fathers, bequeathed with their rights, Give to country its charm, and to home its delights, If deceit be a wound, and suspicion a stain, Then, ye men of Iberia, our cause is the same. And oh may his tomb want a tear and a name Who would ask for a nobler, a holier death, Than to turn his last sigh into victory's breath For the Shamrock of Erin and Olive of Spain ! Ye Blakes and O'Donnels, whose fathers resigned Its devotion to feel, and its rights to maintain. BELIEVE ME, IF ALL THOSE ENDEARING YOUNG CHAR`IS. BELIEVE me, if all those endearing young charms, Were to change by to-morrow, and fleet in my arms, Thou wouldst still be adored, as this moment thou art, Let thy loveliness fade as it will, And around the dear ruin each wish of my heart It is not while beauty and youth are thine own, That the fervour and faith of a soul can be known As the sun-flower turns on her god, when he sets, ERIN, O ERIN! LIKE the bright lamp that shone in Kildare's holy fane,* The nations have fallen, and thou still art young, Thy star will shine out when the proudest shall fade. Unchilled by the rain, and unwaked by the wind, The lily lies sleeping through winter's cold hour, Till Spring's light touch her fetters unbind, And daylight and liberty bless the young flower.† And the hope that lived through it shall blossom at last. * The inextinguishable fire of St. Bridget, at Kildare, which Giraldus mentions:-"Apud Kildariam occurrit Ignis Sanctæ Brigidæ, quem inextinguibilem vocant; non quod extingui non possit, sed quod tam solicite moniales et sanctæ mulieres ignem, suppetente materiâ, fovent et nutriunt, ut a tempore virginis per tot annorum curricula semper mansit inextinctus."-Girala. Camb. de Mirabil. Hibern, dist. ii. c 34. Mrs. H. Tighe, in her exquisite lines on the lily, has applied this image to a still more important subject. |