DEAR HARP OF MY COUNTRY.

DEAR Harp of my Country! in darkness I found thee,
The cold chain of silence had hung o'er thee long,*
When proudly, my own Island Harp, I unbound thee,
And gave all thy chords to light, freedom, and song!
The warm lay of love and the light note of gladness
Have wakened thy fondest, thy liveliest thrill;
But so oft hast thou echoed the deep sigh of sadness
That even in thy mirth it will steal from thee still.

Dear Harp of my Country! farewell to thy numbers,
This sweet wreath of song is the last we shall twine.
Go, sleep with the sunshine of Fame on thy slumbers,
Till touched by some hand less unworthy than mine:
If the pulse of the patriot, soldier, or lover,

Have throbbed at our lay, 'tis thy glory alone;
I was but as the wind, passing heedlessly over,
And all the wild sweetness I waked was thy own

THE EAST INDIAN.

COME, May, with all thy flowers,
Thy sweetly-scented thorn,
Thy cooling evening showers,
Thy fragrant breath at morn.

When May-flies haunt the willow,
When May-buds tempt the bee,
Then, o'er the shining billow,
My love will come to me.

From Eastern isles, she wingeth

Through watery wiles her way,
And on her cheek she bringeth
The bright sun's orient ray!
Oh! come and court her hither,
Ye breezes mild and warm;
One winter's gale would wither
So soft, so pure a form.

The fields where she was straying
Are blessed with endless light;
With zephyrs always playing
Through gardens always bright.

• In that rebellious but beautiful song, "When Erin first rose," there is, if I recollect right, the following line :

"The dark chain of silence was thrown o'er the deep."

The Chain of Silence was a sort of practical figure of rhetoric among the ancient Irish. Walker tells us of a celebrated contention for precedence between Finn and Gaul, near Finn's palace at Almhaim, where the attending bards, anxious, if possible, to produce a cessation of hostilities, shook the Chain of Silence, and flung themselves among the ranks."-See also the Ode to Gaul, the son of Morni, in Miss Brooke's Reliques of Irish Poetry.

Then now, O May! be sweeter
Than e'er thou'st been before;
Let sighs from roses meet her,
When she comes near our shore.

DUET.

LOVE, MY MARY, DWELLS WITH THEE.
He.-LOVE, my Mary, dwells with thee,
On thy cheek his bed I see.
She.-No, that cheek is pale with care-
Love can find no roses there.
Both. 'Tis not on the bed of rose

Love can find the best repose:

In my heart his home thoa'lt see,
There he lives, and lives for thee.

He.-Love, my Mary, ne'er can roam,
While he makes that eye his home.
She.-No, the eye with sorrow dim,
Ne'er can be a home for him.
Both.-Yet 'tis not in beaming eyes
Love for ever warmest lies;
In my heart his home thou'lt see;
There he lives, and lives for thee.

ADVERTISEMENT.

THESE verses were written for a Benefit at the Dublin Theatre, and were spoken by Miss Smith, with a degree of success which they owed solely to her admirable manner of reciting them. I wrote them in haste, and it very rarely happens that poetry, which has cost but little labour to the writer, is productive of any great pleasure to the reader. Under this impression, I should not have published them, if they had not found their way into some of the newspapers, with such an addition of errors to their own original stock that I thought it but fair to limit their responsibility to those faults alone which really belong to them.

With respect to the title which I have invented for this Poem, I feel even more than the scruples of the Emperor Tiberius, when he humbly asked pardon of the Roman Senate for using "the outlandish term Monopoly." But the truth is, having written the Poem with the sole view of serving a Benefit, I thought that an unintelligible word of this kind would not be without its attraction for the multitude; with whom, "If 'tis not sense, at least 'tis Greek." To some of my readers, however, it may not be superfluous to say, that by "Melologue" I mean that mixture of recitation and music which is frequently adopted in the performance of Collins's Ode on the Passions, and of which the most striking example I can remember is the prophetic speech of Joad, in the Athalie of Racine.

T. M.

INTRODUCTORY MUSIC-Haydn.
There breathes the language, known and felt
Far as the pure air spreads its living zone;

Wherever rage can rouse, or pity melt,

That language of the soul is felt and known :

From those meridian plains

Where oft, of old, on some high tower,

The soft Peruvian poured his midnight strains,

And called his distant love (with such sweet power

That when she heard the lonely lay,

Not worlds could keep her from his arms away*)
To the bleak climes of polar night,

Where, beneath a sunless sky,

The Lapland lover bids his reindeer fly,
And sings along the lengthening waste of snow,
As blithe as if the blessed light

Of vernal Phoebus burned upon his brow.
O Music! thy celestial claim

Is still resistless, still the same!

And faithful as the mighty sea,

To the pale star that o'er its realm presides,
The spell-bound tides

Of human passion rise and fall for thee!

GREEK AIR.

LIST! 'tis a Grecian maid that sings,
While from Illissus' silvery springs
She draws the cool lymph in her graceful urn;
And by her side, in music's charm dissolving,
Some patriot youth, the glorious past revolving,
Dreams of bright days that never can return;
When Athens nursed her olive bough
With hands by tyrant power unchained,
And braided for the Muse's brow
A wreath by tyrant touch unstained :-
When heroes trod each classic field,
Where coward feet now faintly falter;

When every arm was Freedom's shield,
And every-heart was Freedom's altar.

FLOURISH OF TRUMPET.

HARK! 'tis the sound that charms

The war-steed's wakening ears!—

Oh! many a mother folds her arms

Round her boy-soldier, when that call she hears,
And though her fond heart sink with fears,
Is proud to feel his young pulse bound
With valour's fervour at the sound!

* A certain Spaniard, one night late, met an Indian woman in the streets of Cozco, and would have taken her to his home, but she cried "For God's sake, sir, let me go; for that pipe which you hear in yonder tower calls me with great passion, and I cannot refuse the summons; for love constrains me to go, that I may be his wife and he my husband."-Garcilasso de la Vega, in Sir Paul Rycaul's translation.

See! from his native hills afar,
The rude Helvetian flies to war,
Careless for what, for whom he fights,
For slave or despot, wrongs or rights;
A conqueror oft-a hero never-
Yet lavish of his life-blood still,

As if 'twere like his mountain rill,
And gushed for ever!

O Music! here, even here,

Amid this thoughtless wild career,

Thy soul-felt charm asserts its wondrous power. There is an air which oft among the rocks

Of his own loved land, at evening hour,

Is heard when shepherds homeward pipe their flocks:
Oh! every note of it would thrill his mind

With tenderest thoughts-would bring around his knees
The rosy children whom he left behind,
And fill each little angel eye

With speaking tears that ask him why
He wandered from his hut for scenes like these.
Vain, vain is then the trumpet's brazen roar;
Sweet notes of home-of love-are all he hears,

And the stern eyes, that looked for blood before, Now melting mournful lose themselves in tears!

SWISS AIR.

BUT wake the trumpet's blast again,
And rouse the ranks of warrior men !

O War! when Truth thy arm employs,
And Freedom's spirit guides the labouring storm,
'Tis then thy vengeance takes a hallowed form,
And like heaven's lightning sacredly destroys!
Nor, Music! through thy breathing sphere
Lives there a sound more grateful to the ear
Of him who made all harmony

Than the blest sound of fetters breaking,
And the first hymn that man, awaking

From Slavery's slumber, breathes to Liberty!

SPANISH AIR.

HARK! from Spain, indignant Spain,
Bursts the bold enthusiast strain,

Like morning's music on the air,

And seems in every note to swear,

By Saragossa's ruined streets,

By brave Gerona's deathful story,

That while one Spaniard's life-blood beats,

That blood shall stain the Conqueror's glory!