AVENGING AND BRIGHT.

By the red cloud that hung over Conor's dark dwelling, 2

When Ulad's 3 three champions lay sleeping in

gore

By the billows of war, which so often, high swelling, Have wafted these heroes to victory's shore

We swear to revenge them!-nojoy shall be tasted, The harp shall be silent, the maiden unwed,

Our halls shall be mute, and our fields shall lie wasted,

Till vengeance is wreak'd on the murderer's head.

Yes, monarch! tho' sweet are our home recollections, Though sweet are the tears that from tenderness fall;

Though sweet are our friendships, our hopes, our affections,

Revenge on a tyrant is sweetest of all!

WHAT THE BEE IS TO THE FLOWERET.

He.-WHAT the bee is to the flow'ret,

When he looks for honey-dew,
Through the leaves that close embower it,
That, my love, I'll be to you.

She.-What the bank, with verdure glowing,
Is to waves that wander near
Whisp'ring kisses, while they're going,
That I'll be to you, my dear.

She. But they say, the bee's a rover,

Who will fly, when sweets are gone;

The words of this song were suggested by the very ancient Irish story called "Deirdri, or the Lamentable Fate of the Sons of Usnach," which has been translated literally from the Gaelic, by Mr. O'Flanagan (see vol. i. of Transactions of the Gaelic Society of Dublin), and upon which it appears that the "Darthula of Macpherson" is founded. The treachery of Conor, King of Ulster, in putting to death the three sons of Usna, was the cause of a desolating war against Ulster, which terminated in the destruction of Eman. "This story (says Mr. O'Flanagan) has been, from time immemorial, held in high repute as one of the three tragic stories of the Irish. These are, The death of the children of Touran ;' * The death of the children of Lear' (both regarding Tuatha

"HERE we dwell, in holiest bowers, "Where angels of light o'er our orisons bend; "Where sighs of devotion and breathings of flowers "To heaven in mingled odour ascend.

"Do not disturb our calm, oh Love! "So like is thy form to the cherubs above, "It well might deceive such hearts as ours."

Love stood near the Novice and listen'd,

And Love is no novice in taking a hint ; His laughing blue eyes soon with piety glisten'd; His rosy wing turn'd to heaven's own tint.

"Who would have thought," the urchin cries, "That Love could so well, so gravely disguise "His wandering wings and wounding eyes?"

Love now warms thee, waking and sleeping,
Young Novice, to him all thy orisons rise.
He tinges the heavenly fount with his weeping,
He brightens the censer's flame with his sighs.
Love is the Saint enshrin'd in thy breast,
And angels themselves would admit such a
guest,

If he came to them cloth'd in Piety's vest.

THIS LIFE IS ALL CHEQUER'D WITH PLEASURES AND WOES.

THIS life is all chequer'd with pleasures and woes, That chase one another like waves of the deep,

de Danans), and this,' The death of the children of Usnach,' which is a Milesian story." It will be recollected, that, in the Second Number of these Melodies, there is a ballad upon the story of the children of Lear or Lir; "Silent, oh Moyle!"

&c.

Whatever may be thought of those sanguine claims to antiquity, which Mr. O'Flanagan and others advance for the literature of Ireland, it would be a lasting reproach upon our nationality, if the Gaelic researches of this gentleman did not meet with all the liberal encouragement they so well merit.

2"Oh Nasi! view that cloud that I here see in the sky! I see over Eman-green a chilling cloud of blood-tinged red." Deirdri's Song. 3 Ulster.

Each brightly or darkly, as onward it flows,
Reflecting our eyes, as they sparkle or weep.
So closely our whims on our miseries tread,
That the laugh is awak'd ere the tear can be
dried;

And, as fast as the rain-drop of Pity is shed,

The goose-plumage of Folly can turn it aside. But pledge me the cup-if existence would cloy, With hearts ever happy, and heads ever wise, Be ours the light Sorrow, half-sister to Joy, And the light, brilliant Folly that flashes and dies.

When Hylas was sent with his urn to the fount, Through fields full of light, and with heart full of play,

Light rambled the boy, over meadow and mount, And neglected his task for the flowers on the way.1

Thus many, like me, who in youth should have

tasted

The fountain that runs by Philosophy's shrine, Their time with the flowers on the margin have wasted,

And left their light urns áll as empty as mine. But pledge me the goblet; - while Idleness weaves These flow'rets together, should Wisdom but see One bright drop or two that has fall'n on the leaves, From her fountain divine, 'tis sufficient for me.

As softly green

As emeralds seen

Through purest crystal gleaming.

Oh the Shamrock, the green, immortal Shamrock!

Chosen leaf,

Of Bard and Chief,

Old Erin's native Shamrock!

AT THE MID HOUR OF NIGHT.

AT the mid hour of night, when stars are weeping, I fly

To the lone vale we lov'd, when life shone warm

in thine eye;

And I think oft, if spirits can steal from the re

gions of air,

To revisit past scenes of delight, thou wilt come to me there,

And tell me our love is remember'd, even in the sky.

"Proposito florem prætulit officio."

PROPERT. lib. i. eleg. 20.

2 It is said that St. Patrick, when preaching the Trinity to the Pagan Irish, used to illustrate his subject by reference

to that species of trefoil called in Ireland by the name of the Shamrock; and hence, perhaps, the Island of Saints adopted this plant as her national emblem. Hope, among the ancients, was sometimes represented as a beautiful child, standing upon tiptoes, and a trefoil of three-coloured grass in her hand.

These stanzas are founded upon an event of most melancholy importance to Ireland; if, as we are told by our Irish historians, it gave England the first opportunity of profiting by our divisions and subduing us. The following are the circumstances, as related by O'Halloran :- "The king of Leinster had long conceived a violent affection for Dearbhorgil, daughter to the king of Meath, and though she had been for some time married to O'Ruark, prince of Breffni, yet it could not restrain his passion. They carried on a private correspondence, and she informed him that O'Ruark intended soon to go on a pilgrimage (an act of piety frequent in those days), and conjured him to embrace that opportunity

OH! HAD WE SOME BRIGHT LITTLE ISLE OF OUR OWN.

OH! had we some bright little isle of our own,
In a blue summer ocean, far off and alone,
Where a leaf never dies in the still blooming
bowers,

And the bee banquets on through a whole year of flowers;

of conveying her from a husband she detested to a lover she adored. Mac Murchad too punctually obeyed the summons, and had the lady conveyed to his capital of Ferns.”—The monarch Roderick espoused the cause of O'Ruark, while Mac Murchad fled to England, and obtained the assistance of Henry II.

"Such," adds Giraldus Cambrensis (as I find him in an old translation), “is the variable and fickle nature of woman, by whom all mischief in the world (for the most part) do happen and come, as may appear by Marcus Antonius, and by the destruction of Troy."

Where the sun loves to pause

With so fond a delay,

That the night only draws

A thin veil o'er the day;

Which come in the night-time of sorrow and care, And bring back the features that joy used to wear. Long, long be my heart with such memories fill'd!

Like the vase, in which roses have once been distill'dif you

will,