THE YOUNG MAY MOON.

THE Young May moon is beaming, love,
The glow-worm's lamp is gleaming, love,

How sweet to rove

Through Morna's grove *,

When the drowsy world is dreaming, love!

Then awake! the heavens look bright, my dear,

'Tis never too late for delight, my dear,

And the best of all ways

To lengthen our days,

Is to steal a few hours from the night, my dear!

Now all the world is sleeping, love,

But the Sage, his star-watch keeping, love,

See, in Mr. Bunting's

*"Steals silently to Morna's grove." collection, a poem translated from the Irish, by the late John Brown, one of my earliest college companions and friends, whose death was as singularly melancholy and unfortunate as his life had been amiable, honourable, and exemplary.

And I, whose star,

More glorious far,

Is the eye from that casement peeping, love.
Then awake! - till rise of sun, my dear,

The Sage's glass we'll shun, my dear,

Or, in watching the flight

Of bodies of light,

He might happen to take thee for one, my dear.

THE MINSTREL-BOY.

THE Minstrel-Boy to the war is gone,
In the ranks of death you'll find him;
His father's sword he has girded on,

And his wild harp slung behind him. "Land of song!" said the warrior-bard, "Tho' all the world betrays thee,

"One sword, at least, thy rights shall guard, "One faithful harp shall praise thee!"

The Minstrel fell! - but the foeman's chain Could not bring his proud soul under; The harp he lov'd ne'er spoke again,

For he tore its chords asunder;

And said, "No chains shall sully thee, "Thou soul of love and bravery!

"Thy songs were made for the pure and free,

66

They shall never sound in slavery."

THE SONG OF O'RUARK,

PRINCE OF BREFFNI.*

THE valley lay smiling before me,
Where lately I left her behind;

Yet I trembled, and something hung o'er me,
That saddened the joy of my mind.

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 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

I look'd for the lamp which, she told me,
Should shine, when her Pilgrim return'd;
But, though darkness began to infold me,
No lamp from the battlements burn'd!

I flew to her chamber- 'twas lonely,
As if the lov'd tenant lay dead;

Ah, would it were death, and death only!

But no, the young

false one

had fled.

And there hung the lute that could soften

My very worst pains into bliss;

While the hand, that had wak'd it so often,
Now throbb'd to a proud rival's kiss.

There was a time, falsest of women,

When Breffni's good sword would have sought

That man, thro' a million of foemen,

Who dar'd but to wrong thee in thought!

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."