If thus the cold world now wither
Each feeling that once was dear :-
Come, child of misfortune, come hither,
I'll weep with thee, tear for tear.
NO, NOT MORE WELCOME.
No, not more welcome the fairy numbers
Of music fall on the sleeper's ear,
When, half awakening from fearful slumbers.
He thinks the full choir of heaven is near-
Than came that voice, when, all forsaken,
This heart long had sleeping lain,
Nor thought its cold pulse would ever waken
To such benign, blessed sounds again.
Sweet voice of comfort! 'twas like the stealing Of summer wind through some wreathed shellEach secret winding, each inmost feeling
Of all my soul echoed to its spell !—
'Twas whispered balm-'twas sunshine spoken — I'd live years of grief and pain
To have my long sleep of sorrow broken
By such benign, blessed sounds again.
WHEN FIRST I MET THEE..
WHEN first I met thee, warm and young,
There shone such truth about thee,
And on thy lip such promise hung,
I did not dare to doubt thee.
I saw thee change, yet still relied,
Still clung with hope the fonder,
And thought, though false to all beside,
From me thou couldst not wander.
But go, deceiver! go,-
The heart, whose hopes could make it
Trust one so false, so low,
Deserves that thou shouldst break it.
When every tongue thy follies named,
I fled the unwelcome story;
Or found, in even the faults they blamed,
Some gleams of future glory.
I still was true, when nearer friends
Conspired to wrong, to slight thee;
The heart, that now thy falsehood rends,
Would then have bled to right thee.
But go, deceiver! go.
Some day, perhaps, thou'lt waken
From pleasure's dream, to know
The grief of hearts forsaken.
Even now, though youth its bloom has shed,
No lights of age adorn thee:
The few who loved thee once have fled,
And they who flatter scorn thee.
Thy midnight cup is pledged to slaves,
No genial ties enwreathe it ;
The smiling there, like light on graves,
Has rank cold hearts beneath it.
Go-go-though worlds were thine,
I would not now surrender
One taintless tear of mine
For all thy guilty splendour!
And days may come, thou false one! yet,
When even those ties shall sever;
When thou wilt call, with vain regret,
On her thou'st lost for ever;
On her who, in thy fortune's fall,
With smiles had still received thee,
And gladly died to prove thee all
Her fancy first believed thee.
Go-go-'tis vain to curse,
'Tis weakness to upbraid thee;
Hate cannot wish thee worse
Than guilt and shame have made thee.
WHILE HISTORY'S MUSE.
WHILE History's Muse the memorial was keeping
Of all that the dark hand of Destiny weaves,
Beside her the Genius of Erin stood weeping,
For hers was the story that blotted the leaves.
But oh! how the tear in her eyelids grew bright,
When, after whole pages of sorrow and shame,
She saw History write,
That illumed the whole volume, her Wellington's name!
"Hail, Star of my Isle!" said the Spirit, all sparkling With beams such as break from her own dewy skies'Through ages of sorrow, deserted and darkling,
I've watched for some glory like thine to arise. For though Heroes I've numbered, unblest was their lot, And unhallowed they sleep in the cross-ways of Fame ;But oh! there is not
On the wreath that encircles my Wellington's name !
"Yet still the last crown of thy toils is remaining,
The grandest, the purest, even thou hast yet known;
Though proud was thy task, other nations unchaining,
Far prouder to heal the deep wounds of thy own.
At the foot of that throne for whose weal thou hast stood.
Go, plead for the land that first cradled thy fame-
And, bright o'er the flood
Of her tears and her blood,
Let the rainbow of Hope be her Wellington's name!"
* This alludes to a kind of Irish fairy, which is to be met with, they say, in the fields at dusk. As long as you keep your eyes upon him, he is fixed and in your power; but the moment you look away (and he is ingenious in furnishing some inducement), he vanishes. I had thought that this was the sprite which we call the Leprechaun, but a high authority upon such subjects, Lady Morgan (in a note upon her national and interesting novel, “O'Donnell ") has given a very different account of that goblin.
OH, WHERE'S THE SLAVE.
OH, where's the slave so lowly
Condemned to chains unholy,
Who, could he burst
His bonds at first,
Would pine beneath them slowly?
What soul, whose wrongs degrade it,
Would wait till time decayed it,
When thus its wing
At once may spring
To the throne of Him who made it?
Farewell, Erin,-farewell, all
Who live to weep our fall.
Less dear the laurel growing
Alive, untouched, and blowing,
Than that whose braid
Is plucked to shade
The brows with victory glowing.
We tread the land that bore us,
Her green flag glitters o'er us,
The friends we've tried
Are by our side,
And the foe we hate before us.
Farewell, Erin,—farewell, all
Who live to weep our fall.
COME, REST IN THIS BOSOM.
COME, rest in this bosom, my own stricken deer;
Though the herd have fled from thee, thy home is still here:
Here still is the smile that no cloud can o'ercast,
And a heart and a hand all thy own to the last.
Oh! what was love made for, if 'tis not the same
Through joy and through torment, through glory and shame
I know not, I ask not, if guilt's in that heart,
I but know that I love thee, whatever thou art.
Thou hast called me thy Angel in moments of bliss,
And thy Angel I'll be, 'mid the horrors of this,
Through the furnace, unshrinking, thy steps to pursue,
And shield thee, and save thee, or perish there too.
'TIS GONE, AND FOR EVER.
'Tis gone, and for ever, the light we saw breaking,
Like Heaven's first dawn o'er the sleep of the dead-
When Man, from the slumber of ages awaking,
Looked upward, and blessed the pure ray, ere it fled.
'Tis gone, and the gleams it has left of its burning
But deepen the long night of bondage and mourning
That dark o'er the kingdoms of earth is returning,
And darkest of all, hapless Erin, o'er thee.
For high was thy hope, when those glories were darting
Around thee through all the gross clouds of the world,
When Truth, from her fetters indignantly starting,
At once like a Sun-burst* her banner unfurled.
Oh! never shall earth see a moment so splendid-
Then, then-had one Hymn of Deliverance blended
The tongues of all nations-how sweet had ascended
The first note of Liberty, Erin, from thee!
But shame on those tyrants who envied the blessing!
And shame on the light race unworthy its good,
Who, at Death's reeking altar, like furies caressing
The young hope of Freedom, baptized it in blood!
Then vanished for ever that fair, sunny vision,
Which, spite of the slavish, the cold heart's derision.
Shall long be remembered, pure, bright, and elysian,
As first it arose, my lost Erin, on thee.
I SAW FROM THE BEACH.
I SAW from the beach, when the morning was shining,
A bark o'er the waters move gloriously on;
I came when the sun o'er that beach was declining,
The bark was still there, but the waters were gone.
And such is the fate of our life's early promise,
So passing the spring-tide of joy we have known;
Each wave, that we danced on at morning, ebbs from us,
And leaves us, at eve, on the bleak shore alone.
Ne'er tell me of glories serenely adorning
The close of our day, the calm eve of our night:-
Give me back, give me back the wild freshness of Morning!
Her clouds and her tears are worth Evening's best light.
Oh who would not welcome that moment's returning,
When passion first waked a new life through his frame,
And his soul-like the wood that grows precious in burning-
Gave out all its sweets to love's exquisite flame!
FILL THE BUMPER FAIR.
FILL the bumper fair!
Every drop we sprinkle
O'er the brow of Care
Smooths away a wrinkle.
was the fanciful name given by the ancient Irish to the
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