Through purest crystal gleaming. O the Shamrock, the green, immortal Shamrock! Chosen leaf Of Bard and Chief, Old Erin's native Shamrock ! Says Valour," See, The triple leaves, And cries, "Oh! do not sever Three godlike friends, Love, Valour, Wit, for ever!" O the Shamrock, the green, immortal Shamrock! Of Bard and Chief, Old Erin's native Shamrock! So firmly fond May last the bond They wove that morn together, And ne'er may fall One drop of gall On Wit's celestial feather! May Love, as twine His flowers divine, Of thorny falsehood weed 'em! May Valour ne'er His standard rear Against the cause of Freedom! O the Shamrock, the green, immortal Shamrock! Chosen leaf Of Bard and Chief, Old Erin's native Shamrock ! * Saint Patrick is said to have made use of that species of trefoil to which in Ireland we give the name of Shamrock, in explaining the doctrine of the Trinity to the pagan Irish. I do not know if there be any other reason for our adoption of this plant as a national emblem. Hope, among the ancients, was sometimes represented as a beautiful child, "standing upon tip-toes, and a trefoil, or three-coloured grass, in her hand." AT THE MID HOUR OF NIGHT. AT the mid hour of night, when stars are weeping, I fly Then I sing the wild song 'twas once such pleasure to hear, ONE BUMPER AT PARTING. ONE bumper at parting !-though many Remains to be crowned by us yet. It dies, do we know half its worth. They die 'midst the tears of the cup. As onward we journey, how pleasant Those few sunny spots, like the present, That 'mid the dull wilderness smile! But Time, like a pitiless master, Cries "Onward!" and spurs the gay hours Ah! never doth time travel faster, Than when his way lies among flowers. We saw how the sun looked in sinking, His beam o'er a deep billow's brim "There are countries," says Montaigne, "where they believe the souls of the happy live in all manner of liberty in delightful fields; and that it is those souls, repeating the words we utter, which we call Echo." So, fill up, let's shine at our parting, 'TIS THE LAST ROSE OF SUMMER. To reflect back her blushes, To give sigh for sigh. I'll not leave thee, thou lone one, Since the lovely are sleeping, Thy leaves o'er the bed, Where thy mates of the garden So soon may I follow, When friendships decay, Oh! who would inhabit This bleak world alone? THE YOUNG MAY MOON. THE Young May moon is beaming, love, Through Morna's grove," When the drowsy world is dreaming, love! And the best of all ways To lengthen our days Is to steal a few hours from the night, my dear. "Steals silently to Morna's Grove." See a translation from the Irish, in Mr. Bunting's collection, by John Brown, one of my earliest college companions and friends, whose death was as singu larly melancholy and unfortunate as his life had been amiable, honourabie, aur exemplary. Now all the world is sleeping, love, More glorious far, Is the eye from that casement peeping, love. Of bodies of light, He might happen to take thee for one, my dear. THE MINSTREL-BOY. THE Minstrel-boy to the war is gone, And his wild harp slung behind him.- And said, "No chains shall sully thee, Thou soul of love and bravery! Thy songs were made for the brave and free, THE SONG OF O'RUARK, PRINCE OF BREFFNI.* THE valley lay smiling before me, Yet I trembled, and something hung o'er me 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 profiting by our divisions and subduing us. The following are the circumstances, as related by O'Halloran:-"The 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 Roderick 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 him in an old translation), "is the variable and fickle nature of women, by whom all mischiefs in the world for the most part) do happen and come, as may appear by Marcus Antonius, and by the destruction of Troy." I looked for the lamp which, she told me, I flew to her chamber-'twas lonely, While the hand that had waked it so often There was a time, falsest of women! When Breffni's good sword would have sought Of Erin, how fallen is thy fame! And through ages of bondage and slaughter, Already the curse is upon her, And strangers her valleys profane; On theirs is the Saxon and Guilt. OH! HAD WE SOME BRIGHT LITTLE ISLE OF OUR OWN. 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 bowers, With so fond a delay A thin veil o'er the day; Where simply to feel that we breathe, that we live, There with souls ever ardent and pure as the clime, Would steal to our hearts, and make all summer ther From decline as the bowers, |