The gorgeous sky is loud With the ringing voice of mirth, And the sounds of joy have overflowed This fair and fruitful earth: Would ye not look once more Ye answer not! The flowers Of spring are glancing fair, Nursed by the warm and welcome showers The wild bird's mellow song, All, all around us seems To the sinless hermit show: Joy is over the earth, Joy is over the sky, Would ye not mix with the sons of mirth, And the festal revelry? What, silent still? May none Of these things win your praise? Not the smiling earth, nor the glittering sun, Nor the wild birds' sweetest lays? The friends ye prized of old, May not they your greeting crave; Or waxeth the hand of friendship cold In the chill and cheerless grave? Long ye not yet to press To your hearts each once loved form, Arise! arise! for they Invite to the banquet hall; Rend, then, your mouldering shrouds away, And burst the charnel's thrall! Ye linger! Sleep ye yet In the narrow house of fear? The feast is spread, and the guests are met, But still ye come not here! The young, the fair, are sped The song of pleasure rings And the minstrel wakes the golden strings Would ye not know the mirth That lights each burning soul? Then shake off the weary weight of earth, Still silent! Then 'tis vain To pass the bourne of death again, And retrace life's shining track. As the rainbow is consumed, And vanisheth away, So were ye in your spring-time doomed To sink in that dark sea, Slumber then, yet, ye dead!. Till the hour when earth and sky Shall echo the angel's voice of dread, And the tyrant Death must die! PROGRESS. NICHOLAS MICHELL. PROGRESS! progress! all things cry; . Learn in Nature's wondrous school: Rough may be the mountain-road Broad the tract that lies before us; Slave! your fetters shake till free; Onward!-Orient nations know Which should flash around the earth, 'Tis a word of heavenly birth; (Copyright-contributed.) THE FAIRY THORN. SAMUEL FERGUSON, M.R.I.A. [Mr. Samuel Ferguson is a native of Belfast, a Queen's counsel, and one of the leaders of the Irish North East Circuit. His reputation as a poet of the very highest order has long been established; his poetry is distinguished for its vigour and tenderness, the truthful minuteness of its descriptive passages, the fertility of its imagery, and its exquisite finish generally. As a translator he is known most favourably for the efficient way in which he has cast the rude materials of Irish historical and romantic story into forms not un worthy of their really heroic character. About twenty years since Mr. Ferguson contributed pretty largely to "Blackwood" and "The Dublin University Magazine," and he still contributes occasional papers on archæological subjects to the transactions and proceedings of the Royal Irish Academy, of which he is a member. The University of Dublin has lately conferred on him the honorary degree of Doctor of Laws. Mr. Ferguson is now a resident of Dublin. We are glad to find that a new edition of his collected writings has recently been published by Messrs. Bell & Daldy, London.] "GET up, our Anna dear, from the weary spinningwheel; For your father's on the hill, and your mother is asleep: ! Come up above the crags, and we'll dance a highland reel Around the fairy thorn on the steep." At Anna Grace's door 'twas thus the maidens cried, Three merry maidens fair in kirtles of the green; And Anna laid the rock and the weary wheel aside, The fairest of the four, I ween. They're glancing through the glimmer of the quiet eve, And linking hand in hand, and singing as they go, way, Till they come to where the rowan-trees in lonely beauty grow Beside the Fairy Hawthorn grey. The hawthorn stands between the ashes tall and slim, Like matron with her twin grand-daughters at her knee; The rowan berries cluster o'er her low head gray and dim, In ruddy kisses sweet to see. The merry maidens four have ranged them in a row, Between each lovely couple a stately rowan-stem; And away in mazes wavy, like skimming birds they |