The next sun's ray 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. LET Erin remember the days of old, On Lough Neagh's bank as the fisherman strays, Thus shall memory often, in dreams sublime, 1 "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. 2 "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_Craibhe ruadh, or the Knights of the Red Branch, from their chief seat in Emania, adjoining to the palace of the Ulster kings, called 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. 3 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. 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, This moment's a flower too fair and brief, To be wither'd and stain'd by the dust of the schools. To seek somewhere else a more orthodox kiss? Truth, valour, or love, by a standard like this! To make this story intelligible in a song would require a much greater number of verses than any one is authorized 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 Irish, which were begun under the direction of that enlightened friend of Ireland, the late Countess of Moira. 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 resign'd The green hills of their youth, among strangers to find That repose, which at home they had sigh'd for in vain, Join, join in our hope that the flame which you light May be felt yet in Erin, as calm and as bright, And forgive even Albion while blushing she draws, Like a truant, her sword, in the long-slighted cause Of the Shamrock of Erin and Olive of Spain ! Its devotion to feel, and its rights to maintain. BELIEVE ME, IF ALL THOSE ENDEARING 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, 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,' And burn'd through long ages of darkness and storm, Is the heart that sorrows have frown'd on in vain, Whose spirit outlives them, unfading and warm. Thy star will shine out when the proudest shall fade. And daylight and liberty bless the young flower.2 And the hope that lived through it shall blossom at last. DRINK TO HER. DRINK to her who long Hath waked the poet's sigh, For minstrel hands alone; 1 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 materia, fovent et nutriunt ut a tempore virginis per tot annorum curricula semper mansit inextinctus."-Girald. Camb. de Mirabil. Hibern. dist. ii. c. 34. 2 Mrs. H. Tighe, in her exquisite lines on the lily, has applied this image to a still more important subject. By other fingers play'd, At Beauty's door of glass When Wealth and Wit once stood, What gold could never buy. The love that seeks a home Where wealth and grandeur shines, Is like the gloomy gnome That dwells in dark gold mines. But oh! the poet's love Can boast a brighter sphere; Its native home's above, Though woman keeps it here. OH! BLAME NOT THE BARD.' OH! blame not the bard, if he fly to the bowers 1 We may suppose this apology to have been uttered by one of those wandering bards whom Spencer so severely, and perhaps truly, describes in his State of Ireland, and whose poems, he tells us, "Were sprinkled with some pretty flowers of their natural device, which gave good grace and comeliness unto them, the which it is great pity to see abused to the gracing of wickedness and vice, which, with good usage, would serve to adorn and beautify virtue." |