On Lough Neagh's bank as the fisherman strays,
When the clear cold eve's declining,
He sees the round towers of other days

In the wave beneath him shining;
Thus shall memory often, in dreams sublime,
Catch a glimpse of the days that are over;
Thus, sighing, look through the waves of time
For the long-faded glories they cover.*

THE SONG OF FIONNUALA.†

SILENT, O Moyle, be the roar of thy water,
Break not, ye breezes, your chain of repose,
While, murmuring mournfully, Lir's lonely daughter,
Tells to the night-star her tale of woes.
When shall the swan, her death-note singing,
Sleep, with wings in darkness furled?
When will heaven, its sweet bells ringing,
Call my spirit from this stormy world?

Sadly, O Moyle, to thy winter-wave weeping,
Fate bids me languish long ages away;
Yet still in her darkness doth Erin lie sleeping,
Still doth the pure light its dawning delay.
When will that day-star, mildly springing,
Warm our isle with peace and love?
When will heaven, its sweet bells ringing,
Call my spirit to the fields above?

COME, SEND ROUND THE WINE.

COME, send round the wine, and leave points of belief
To simpleton sages and reasoning fools;

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.

He

* 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. 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.

To make this story intelligible in a song would require a much greater number of verses than any one is authorised 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.

This moment's a flower too fair and brief

To be withered and stained by the dust of the schools. Your glass may be purple, and mine may be blue;

But, while they are filled from the same bright bowl, The fool that would quarrel for difference of hue

Deserves not the comfort they shed o'er the soul.
Shall I ask the brave soldier who fights by my side
In the cause of mankind, if our creeds agree?
Shall I give up the friend I have valued and tried,
If he kneel not before the same altar with me?
From the heretic girl of my soul should I fly,

To seek somewhere else a more orthodox kiss?
No, perish the hearts and the laws that try
Truth, valour, or love, by a standard like this!

SUBLIME WAS THE WARNING.

SUBLIME was the warning that Liberty spoke,
And grand was the moment when Spaniards awoke
Into life and revenge from the conqueror's chain.
O Liberty! let not this spirit have rest,

Till it move, like a breeze, o'er the waves of the west;
Give the light of your look to each sorrowing spot,
Nor oh be the Shamrock of Erin forgot,

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 resigned
The green hills of their youth, among strangers to find
That repose which at home they had sighed 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 !
God prosper the cause !-oh it cannot but thrive,
While the pulse of one patriot heart is alive,

Its devotion to feel, and its rights to maintain.
Then, how sainted by sorrow its martyrs will die!
The finger of Glory shall point where they lie;
While far from the footstep of coward or slave,
The young spirit of Freedom shall shelter their grave
Beneath Shamrocks of Erin and Olives of Spain !

BELIEVE ME, IF ALL THOSE ENDEARING YOUNG CHARMS.

BELIEVE me, if all those endearing young charms,
Which I gaze on so fondly to-day,

Were to change by to-morrow, and fleet in my arms,
Like fairy-gifts fading away,

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
Would entwine itself verdantly still.

It is not while beauty and youth are thine own,
And thy cheeks unprofaned by a tear,
That the fervour and faith of a soul can be known
To which time will but make thee more dear;
No, the heart that has truly loved never forgets,
But as truly loves on to the close;

As the sun-flower turns on her god, when he sets,
The same look which she turned when he rose.

ERIN, O ERIN!

LIKE the bright lamp that shone in Kildare's holy fane,*
And burned through long ages of darkness and storm,
Is the heart that sorrows have frowned on in vain,
Whose spirit outlives them, unfading and warm.
Erin, O Erin! thus bright through the tears
Of a long night of bondage thy spirit appears.

The nations have fallen, and thou still art young,
Thy sun is but rising, when others are set :
And though slavery's cloud o'er thy morning hath hung,
The full noon of freedom shall beam round thee yet.
Erin, O Erin! though long in the shade,

Thy star will shine out when the proudest shall fade.

Unchilled by the rain, and unwaked by the wind,

The lily lies sleeping through winter's cold hour,

Till Spring's light touch her fetters unbind,

And daylight and liberty bless the young flower.†
Thus Erin, Ō Erin! thy winter is past,

And the hope that lived through it shall blossom at last.

*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 materiâ, fovent et nutriunt, ut a tempore virginis per tot annorum curricula semper mansit inextinctus."-Girald. Camb. de Mirabil. Hibern, dist. ii. c. 34.

Mrs. H. Tighe, in her exquisite lines on the lily, has applied this image to a still more important subject.

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

* 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.

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