Sweet vale of Avoca! how calm could I rest

In thy bosom of shade, with the friends I love best,

Where the storms that we feel in this cold world should

cease,

And our hearts, like thy waters, be mingled in peace.

ST. SENANUS AND THE LADY.
ST. SENANUS.1

"OH! haste and leave this sacred isle,
Unholy bark, ere morning smile;
For on thy deck, though dark it be,
A female form I see;

And I have sworn this sainted sod
Shall ne'er by woman's feet be trod."

THE LADY.

"O Father! send not hence my bark,
Through wintry winds and billows dark;
I come with humble heart to share
Thy morn and evening prayer:
Nor mine the feet, O holy Saint!
The brightness of thy sod to taint."

The Lady's prayer Senanus spurn'd;
The winds blew fresh, the bark return'd;
But legends hint, that had the maid
Till morning's light delay'd,
And given the saint one rosy smile,
She ne'er had left his lonely isle.

1 In a metrical life of St. Senanus, which is taken from an old Kilkenny MS., and may be found among the Acta Sanctorum Hiberniæ, we are told of his flight to the island of Scattery, and his resolution not to admit any woman of the party; he refused to receive even a sister saint, St. Cannera, whom an angel had taken to the island for the express purpose of introducing her to him. The following was the ungracious answer of Senanus, according to his poetical biographer:

Cui præsul, quid fœminis

Commune est cum monachis?
Nec te nec ullam aliam
Admittemus in insulam.

See the Acta Sanct. Hib. p. 610.

According to Dr. Ledwich, St. Senanus was no less a personage than the river Shannon; but O'Connor and other antiquarians deny this metamorphose indignantly.

P

HOW DEAR TO ME THE HOUR. How dear to me the hour when daylight dies, And sunbeams melt along the silent sea, For then sweet dreams of other days arise, And memory breathes her vesper sigh to thee. And, as I watch the line of light, that plays Along the smooth wave t'ward the burning west, I long to tread that golden path of rays,

And think 'twould lead to some bright isle of rest.

TAKE BACK THE VIRGIN PAGE.

WRITTEN ON RETURNING A BLANK BOOK.

TAKE back the virgin page,

White and unwritten still;
Some hand, more calm and sage,
The leaf must fill.

Thoughts come as pure as light,

Pure as even you require;
But oh! each word I write
Love turns to fire.

Yet let me keep the book;
Oft shall my heart renew,
When on its leaves I look,
Dear thoughts of you.
Like you, 'tis fair and bright;
Like you, too bright and fair
To let wild passion write
One wrong wish there.

Haply, when from those eyes
Far, far away I roam,
Should calmer thoughts arise
Towards you and home;
Fancy may trace some line

Worthy those eyes to meet,

Thoughts that not burn, but shine,

Pure, calm, and sweet.

And as, o'er ocean far,

Seamen their records keep,

Led by some hidden star

Through the cold deep;

So may the words I write

Tell through what storms I stray-
You still the unseen light

Guiding my way.

THE LEGACY.

WHEN in death I shall calm recline,
Oh, bear my heart to my mistress dear!
Tell her it lived upon smiles and wine
Of the brightest hue, while it linger'd here.
Bid her not shed one tear of sorrow,

To sully a heart so brilliant and light;
But balmy drops of the red grape borrow,
To bathe the relic from morn till night.
When the light of my song is o'er,

Then take my harp to your ancient hall;
Hang it up at that friendly door,

Where weary travellers love to call.'
Then if some bard, who roams forsaken,
Revive its soft note in passing along,
Oh! let one thought of its master waken
Your warmest smile for the child of song.
Keep this cup, which is now o'erflowing,
To grace your revel when I'm at rest;
Never, oh! never its balm bestowing

On lips that beauty hath seldom bless'd.
But when some warm devoted lover

To her he adores shall bathe its brim,
Then, then my spirit around shall hover,
And hallow each drop that foams for him.

HOW OFT HAS THE BENSHEE CRIED.
How oft has the Benshee cried!
How oft has death united
Bright links that Glory wove,

Sweet bonds entwined by Love!
Peace to each manly soul that sleepeth;
Rest to each faithful eye that weepeth;
Long may the fair and brave

Sigh o'er the hero's grave!

1 "In every house was one or two harps, free to all travellers, who were the more caressed the more they excelled in music."-O'Halloran.

We're fallen upon gloomy days!'
Star after star decays,

Every bright name that shed
Light o'er the land is fled.

Dark falls the tear of him who mourneth
Lost joy, or hope that ne'er returneth:
But brightly flows the tear
Wept o'er a hero's bier.

13

Quench'd are our beacon lights-
Thou, of the Hundred Fights!"
Thou, on whose burning tongue
Truth, peace, and freedom hung!
Both mute, but long as valour shineth,
Or mercy's soul at war repineth,
So long shall Erin's pride

Tell how they lived and died.

WE MAY ROAM THROUGH THIS WORLD.

WE may roam through this world, like a child at a feast,
Who but sips of a sweet, and then flies to the rest;
And, when pleasure begins to grow dull in the east,
We may order our wings, and be off to the west;
But if hearts that feel, and eyes that smile,
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 crown'd,

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 watch'd after all.

1 I have endeavoured here, without losing that Irish character which it is my object to preserve throughout this work, to allude to the sad and ominous fatality by which England has been deprived of so many great and good men at a moment when she most requires all the aids of talent and integrity.

2 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:-"Cor, of the hundred fights, sleep in thy grass-grown tomb, and upbraid nct our defeats with thy victories!"

8 Fox, "ultimus Romanorum."

Oh! they want the wild sweet-briery fence.
Which round the flowers of Erin dwells;
Which warms the touch, while winning the sense,
Nor charms us least when it most repels.

Then remember, wherever your goblet is crown'd,

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 France, when the heart of a woman sets sail
On the ocean of wedlock its fortune to try,
Love seldom goes far in a vessel so frail,

But just pilots her off, and then bids her good-bye.
While the daughters of Erin keep the boy,
Ever smiling beside his faithful oar,

Through billows of woe and beams of joy,

The same as he look'd when he left the shore. Then, remember, wherever your goblet is crown'd,

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.

EVELEEN'S BOWER.

OH! weep for the hour

When to Eveleen's bower

The Lord of the Valley with false vows came;
The moon hid her light

From the heavens that night,

And wept behind the clouds o'er the maiden's shame.
The clouds pass'd soon

From the chaste cold moon,

And heaven smiled again with her vestal flame;
But none will see the day

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 cross'd over the moor;
And many a deep print

On the white snow's tint

Show'd the track of his footsteps to Eveleen's door.