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IRISH MELODIES.

DRINK TO HER.
DRINK to her who long
Hath waked the poet's sigh,
The girl who gave to song
What gold could never buy.
Oh! woman's heart was made
For minstrel hands alone;
By other fingers played,

It yields not half the tone.
Then here's to her who long
Hath waked the poet's sigh,
The girl who gave to song
What gold could never buy.

At Beauty's door of glass

When Wealth and Wit once stood,
They asked her, which might pass?
She answered, he who could.
With golden key Wealth thought
To pass-but 'twould not do:
While Wit a diamond brought,
Which cut his bright way through.
So here's to her who long

Hath waked the poet's sigh,
The girl who gave to song
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.
Then drink to her who long
Hath waked the poet's sigh,
The girl who gave to song
What good could never buy.

OH! BLAME NOT THE BARD.*

OH! blame not the bard, if he fly to the bowers

Where Pleasure lies, carelessly smiling at Fame;—

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."

He was born for much more, and in happier hours
His soul might have burned with a holier flame;
The string that now languishes loose o'er the lyre
Might have bent a proud bow to the warrior's dart ;*
And the lip which now breathes but the song of desire
Might have poured the full tide of a patriot's heart.
But alas for his country!-her pride has gone by,

And that spirit is broken which never would bend ;
O'er the ruin her children in secret must sigh,

For 'tis treason to love her, and death to defend. Unprized are her sons, till they've learned to betray; Undistinguished they live, if they shame not their sires; And the torch that would light them through dignity's way Must be caught from the pile where their country expires. Then blame not the bard, if in pleasure's soft dream

He should try to forget what he never can heal;

Oh! give but a hope-let a vista but gleam

Through the gloom of his country, and mark how he'll feel! That instant, his heart at her shrine would lay down

Every passion it nursed, every bliss it adored;
While the myrtle, now idly entwined with his crown,
Like the wreath of Harmodius, should cover his sword. +
But though glory be gone, and though hope fade away,
Thy name, loved Erin, shall live in his songs;
Not even in the hour when his heart is most gay,
Will he lose the remembrance of thee and thy wrongs.
The stranger shall hear thy lament on his plains;

The sigh of thy harp shall be sent o'er the deep,
Till thy masters themselves, as they rivet thy chains,
Shall pause at the song of their captive, and weep!

WHILE GAZING ON THE MOON'S LIGHT.
WHILE gazing on the moon's light,

A moment from her smile I turned,
To look at orbs, that, more bright,
In lone and distant glory burned.
But too far

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* It is conjectured by Wormius, that the name of Ireland is derived from yr, the Runic for a bow, in the use of which weapon the Irish were once very expert. This derivation is certainly more creditable to us than the following:So that Ireland (called the land of Ire, for the constant broils therein for 400 years) was now become the land of concord."-Lloyd's State Worthies, art. the Lord Grandison.

4 See the Hymn, attributed to Alcaeus, Εν μυρτοι κλαδι το ξιφος φορηρω "I will carry my sword, hidden in myrtles, like Harmodius and Aristogiton," &c

Which near our planet smiling came;"
Thus, Mary, be but thou my own;

While brighter eyes unheeded play,
I'll love those moonlight looks alone
That bless my home and guide my way.

The day had sunk in dim showers,

But midnight now, with lustre meet,
Illumed all the pale flowers,

Like hope upon a mourner's cheek.
I said (while

The moon's smile

Played o'er a stream, in dimpling bliss),
"The moon looks

On many brooks;

The brook can see no moon but this;"+
And thus, I thought, our fortunes run,
For many a lover looks to thee,
While oh! I feel there is but one,
One Mary in the world for me.

ILL OMENS.

WHEN daylight was yet sleeping under the billow,
And stars in the heavens still lingering shone,
Young Kitty, all blushing, rose up from her pillow,
The last time she e'er was to press it alone.

For the youth whom she treasured her heart and her soul in
Had promised to link the last tie before noon;

And when once the young heart of a maiden is stolen,
The maiden herself will steal after it soon.

As she looked in the glass which a woman ne'er misses,
Nor ever wants time for a sly glance or two,

A butterfly, fresh from the night flower's kisses, ‡
Flew over the mirror and shaded her view.
Enraged with the insect for hiding her graces,

She brushed him-he fell, alas! never to rise-
"Ah! such," said the girl, "is the pride of our faces,
For which the soul's innocence too often dies."

While she stole through the garden, where heart's-ease was
growing,

She culled some, and kissed off its night-fallen dew;

"Of such celestial bodies as are visible, the sun excepted, the single moon, as despicable as it is in comparison to most of the others, is much more beneficial than they all put together."-Whiston's Theory, &c.

In the Entretiens d'Ariste, among other ingenious emblems, we find a starry sky without a moon, with the words, "Non mille quod absens."

This image was suggested by the following thought, which occurs somewhere in Sir William Jones's works:-"The moon looks upon many night flowers, the night flowers see but one moon.'

An emblem of the soul.

And a rose further on looked so tempting and glowing
That, spite of her haste, she must gather it too;
But, while o'er the roses too carelessly leaning

Her zone flew in two and the heart's-ease was lost :

"Ah! this means," said the girl (and she sighed at its meaning),

"That love is scarce worth the repose it will cost!"

BEFORE THE BATTLE.

By the hope within us springing,
Herald of to-morrow's strife;
By that sun, whose light is bringing
Chains or freedom, death or life-
Oh! remember life can be

No charm for him who lives not free!
Like the day-star in the wave,
Sinks a hero in his grave,

Midst the dew-fall of a nation's tears.

Happy is he o'er whose decline

The smiles of home may soothing shine,
And light him down the steep of years-
But oh! how blessed they sink to rest,
Who close their eyes on victory's breast!

O'er his watch-fire's fading embers

Now the foeman's cheek turns white,
When his heart that field remembers
Where we tamed his tyrant might !
Never let him bind again

A chain like that we broke from then.
Hark! the horn of combat calls-
Ere the golden evening falls,

May we pledge that horn in triumph round!*

Many a heart that now beats high,
In slumber cold at night shall lie,
Nor waken even at victory's sound —
But oh! how blessed that hero's sleep

O'er whom a wondering world shall weep!

AFTER THE BATTLE.

NIGHT closed around the conqueror's way,
And lightnings showed the distant hill,
Where those who lost that dreadful day

Stood few and faint, but fearless still!
The soldier's hope, the patriot's zeal,
For ever dimmed, for ever crossed-

"The Irish Corna was not entirely devoted to martial purposes.

In the

heroic ages, our ancestors quaffed Meadh out of them, as the Danish hunters

do their beverage at this day."-Walker.

Oh! who shall say what heroes feel,
When all but life and honour's lost?
The last sad hour of freedom's dream,
And valour's task, moved slowly by,
While mute they watched, till morning's beam
Should rise and give them light to die.
There's yet a world where souls are free,
Where tyrants taint not nature's bliss;
If death that world's bright opening be,
Oh! who would live a slave in this?

'TIS SWEET TO THINK.
'TIS sweet to think that, where'er we rove,
We are sure to find something blissful and dear,
And that, when we're far from the lips we love,
We've but to make love to the lips we are near !*
The heart, like a tendril, accustomed to cling,

Let it grow where it will, cannot flourish alone,
But will lean to the nearest and loveliest thing
It can twine in itself, and make closely its own.
Then oh! what pleasure, where'er we rove,

To be sure to find something still that is dear,
And to know, when far from the lips we love,

We've but to make love to the lips we are near.
'Twere a shame, when flowers around us rise,

To make light of the rest, if the rose isn't there;
And the world's so rich in resplendent eyes,

'Twere a pity to limit one's love to a pair.
Love's wing and the peacock's are nearly alike;

They are both of them bright, but they're changeable too;
And wherever a new beam of beauty can strike,

It will tincture Love's plume with a different hue!
Then oh! what pleasure, where'er we rove,

To be sure to find something still that is dear,
And to know, when far from the lips we love,
We've but to make love to the lips we are near.

THE IRISH PEASANT TO HIS MISTRESS. + THROUGH grief and through danger thy smile hath cheered my way,

Till hope seemed to bud from each thorn that round me lay;

* I believe it is Marmontel who says, "Quand on n'a pas ce que l'on aime, il faut aimer ce que l'on a." There are so many matter-of-fact people who take such jeux d'esprit as this defence of inconstancy to be the actual and genuine sentiments of him who writes them, that they compel one, in self-defence, to be as matter-of-fact as themselves, and to remind them that Democritus was not the worst physiologist for having playfully contended that snow was black; nor Erasmus in any degree the less wise for having written an ingenious encomium of folly.

Meaning allegorically the ancient church of Ireland.

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