IRISH MELODIES. DRINK TO HER. It yields not half the tone. At Beauty's door of glass When Wealth and Wit once stood, Hath waked the poet's sigh, 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 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 And that spirit is broken which never would bend ; 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; The sigh of thy harp shall be sent o'er the deep, WHILE GAZING ON THE MOON'S LIGHT. A moment from her smile I turned, * 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;" While brighter eyes unheeded play, The day had sunk in dim showers, But midnight now, with lustre meet, Like hope upon a mourner's cheek. The moon's smile Played o'er a stream, in dimpling bliss), On many brooks; The brook can see no moon but this;"+ ILL OMENS. WHEN daylight was yet sleeping under the billow, For the youth whom she treasured her heart and her soul in And when once the young heart of a maiden is stolen, As she looked in the glass which a woman ne'er misses, A butterfly, fresh from the night flower's kisses, ‡ She brushed him-he fell, alas! never to rise- While she stole through the garden, where heart's-ease was 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 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, No charm for him who lives not free! Midst the dew-fall of a nation's tears. Happy is he o'er whose decline The smiles of home may soothing shine, O'er his watch-fire's fading embers Now the foeman's cheek turns white, A chain like that we broke from then. May we pledge that horn in triumph round!* Many a heart that now beats high, O'er whom a wondering world shall weep! AFTER THE BATTLE. NIGHT closed around the conqueror's way, Stood few and faint, but fearless still! "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, 'TIS SWEET TO THINK. Let it grow where it will, cannot flourish alone, To be sure to find something still that is dear, We've but to make love to the lips we are near. To make light of the rest, if the rose isn't there; 'Twere a pity to limit one's love to a pair. They are both of them bright, but they're changeable too; It will tincture Love's plume with a different hue! To be sure to find something still that is dear, 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. |