With thee were the dreams of my earliest love;
Every thought of my reason was thine;
In my last humble prayer to the Spirit above,
Thy name shall be mingled with mine.

Oh! blest are the lovers and friends who shall live
The days of thy glory to see;

But the next dearest blessing that Heaven can give Is the pride of thus dying for thee.

THE HARP THAT ONCE THROUGH TARA'S HALLS.

THE harp that once through Tara's halls

The soul of music shed,

Now hangs as mute on Tara's walls,

As if that soul were fled.

So sleeps the pride of former days,

So glory's thrill is o'er,

And hearts, that once beat high for praise, Now feel that pulse no more.

No more to chiefs and ladies bright
The harp of Tara swells;

The chord alone, that breaks at night,
Its tale of ruin tells.

Thus Freedom now so seldom wakes, The only throb she gives,

Is when some heart indignant breaks, To show that still she lives.

FLY NOT YET.

FLY not yet, 'tis just the hour,

When pleasure, like the midnight flower That scorns the eye of vulgar light, Begins to bloom for sons of night,

And maids who love the moon. 'Twas but to bless these hours of shade That beauty and the moon were made; "Tis then their soft attractions glowing Set the tides and goblets flowing. Oh! stay,-Oh! stay,Joy so seldom weaves a chain Like this to-night, that oh! 'tis pain To break its links so soon.

1 Solis Fons, near the Temple of Ammon.

Nor expect that the heart beaming smile of to-night Will return with to-morrow to brighten my brow. No:-life is a waste of wearisome hours,

Which seldom the rose of enjoyment adorns; And the heart that is soonest awake to the flowers, Is always the first to be touch'd by the thorns. But send round the bowl, and be happy awhileMay we never meet worse, in our pilgrimage here, Than the tear that enjoyment may gild with a smile, And the smile that compassion can turn to a tear.

The thread of our life would be dark, Heaven knows!

If it were not with friendship and love intertwin'd;

And I care not how soon I may sink to repose, When these blessings shall cease to be dear to

my mind.

But they who have lov'd the fondest, the purest, Too often have wept o'er the dream they believ'd; And the heart that has slumber'd in friendship securest,

Is happy indeed if 'twas never deceiv'd. But send round the bowl; while a relic of truth Is in man or in woman, this prayer shall be mine,

That the sunshine of love may illumine our youth, And the moonlight of friendship console our de

cline.

On she went, and her maiden smile

Oh! this thought in the midst of enjoyment will stay,

Like a dead, leafless branch in the summer's bright ray;

1 "In the twenty-eighth year of the reign of Henry VIII. an Act was made respecting the habits, and dress in general, of the Irish, whereby all persons were restrained from being shorn or shaven above the ears, or from wearing Glibbes, or Coulins (long locks), on their heads, or hair on their upper lip, called Crommeal. On this occasion a song was written by one of our bards, in which an Irish virgin is made to give the preference to her dear Coulin (or the youth with the flowing locks) to all strangers (by which the English were meant), or those who wore their habits. Of this song, the air alone has reached us, and is universally admired." — Walker's Historical Memoirs of Irish Bards, p. 134. Mr. Walker informs us also, that, about the same period, there were some harsh measures taken against the Irish Minstrels.

2 This ballad is founded upon the following anecdote:

It may smile in his light, but it blooms not again.

THE MEETING OF THE WATERS.3

THERE is not in the wide world a valley so sweet As that vale in whose bosom the bright waters meet ; +

Oh! the last rays of feeling and life must depart, Ere the bloom of that valley shall fade from my heart.

Yet it was not that Nature had shed o'er the scene Her purest of crystal and brightest of green;

"The people were inspired with such a spirit of honour, virtue, and religion, by the great example of Brien, and by his excellent administration, that, as a proof of it, we are informed that a young lady of great beauty, adorned with jewels and a costly dress, undertook a journey alone, from one end of the kingdom to the other, with a wand only in her hand, at the top of which was a ring of exceeding great value; and such an impression had the laws and government of this Monarch made on the minds of all the people, that no attempt was made upon her honour, nor was she robbed of her clothes or jewels."" Warner's History of Ireland, vol. i. book x.

3" The Meeting of the Waters" forms a part of that beautiful scenery which lies between Rathdrum and Arklow, in the county of Wicklow, and these lines were suggested by a visit to this romantic spot, in the summer of the year 1807. 4 The rivers Avon and Avoca.

When a cup to the smile of dear woman goes round, Oh! remember the smile which adorns her at

home.

In England, the garden of Beauty is kept

By a dragon of prudery placed within call; But so oft this unamiable dragon has slept,

That the garden's but carelessly watch'd after all. Oh! they want the wild sweet-briery fence,

Which round the flowers of Erin dwells; Which warns the touch, while winning the sense, Nor charms us least when it most repels. Then remember, wherever your goblet is crown'd, Thro' this world, whether eastward or westward

you roam,

When a cup to the smile of dear woman goes round. Oh! remember the smile that adorns her at home.

In France, when the heart of a woman sets sail, On the ocean of wedlock its fortune to try, Love seldom goes far in a vessel so frail,

But just pilots her off, and then bids her good-bye. While the daughters of Erin keep the boy, Ever smiling beside his faithful oar, Through billows of woe, and beams of joy,

The same as he look'd when he left the shore. Then remember, wherever your goblet is crown'd, Thro' this world, whether eastward or westward

you roam,

When a cup to the smile of dear woman goes round, Oh! remember the smile that adorns her at home.

WE MAY ROAM THROUGH THIS

WORLD.

WE may roam through this world, like a child at a feast,

Who but sips of a sweet, and then flies to the rest;

And, when pleasure begins to grow dull in the east,

EVELEEN'S BOWER.

OH! weep for the hour,

When to Eveleen's bower

The Lord of the Valley with false vows came;

The moon hid her light
From the heavens that night,

We never need leave our own green isle,

For sensitive hearts, and for sun-bright eyes. Then remember, wherever your goblet is crown'd, Thro' this world, whether eastward or westward you roam,

1 I have endeavoured here, without losing that Irish character, which it is my object to preserve throughout this work, to allude to the sad and ominous fatality, by which England has been deprived of so many great and good men, at a moment when she most requires all the aids of talent and integrity.

This designation, which has been before applied to Lord

The clouds pass'd soon

From the chaste cold moon,

And heaven smil'd again with her vestal flame; But none will see the day,

When the clouds shall pass away, Which that dark hour left upon Eveleen's fame.

Nelson, is the title given to a celebrated Irish Hero, in a Poem by O'Guive, the bard of O'Niel, which is quoted in the "Philosophical Survey of the South of Ireland," page 433. "Con, of the Hundred Fights, sleep in thy grass-grown tomb, and upbraid not our defeats with thy victories." 3 Fox, "Romanorum ultimus."

N

The white snow lay

On the narrow path-way,

When the Lord of the Valley crost over the moor;

And many a deep print

On the white snow's tint

THE SONG OF FIONNUALA.+

SILENT, oh Moyle, be the roar of thy water, Break not, ye breezes, your chain of repose,

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. 3

"This brought on an encounter between Malachi (the Monarch of Ireland in the tenth century) and the Danes, in which Malachi defeated two of their champions, whom he encountered successively, hand to hand, taking a collar of gold from the neck of one, and carrying off the sword of the other, as trophies of his victory."— Warner's History of Ireland, vol. i. book ix.

2" Military orders of knights were very early established in Ireland; long before the birth of Christ we find an hereditary order of Chivalry in Ulster, called Curaidhe na Craiobhe ruadh, or the Knights of the Red Branch, from their chief seat in Emania, adjoining to the palace of the Ulster kings, called Teagh na Craiubhe ruadh, or the Academy of the Red Branch; and contiguous to which was a large hospital, founded for the sick knights and soldiers, called Brondhearg, or the House of the Sorrowful Soldier." · O'Halloran's Introduction, &c., part 1. chap. 5.

3 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,

To be wither'd and stain'd by the dust of the schools.

Your glass may be purple, and mine may be blue, But, while they are fill'd from the same bright

bowl,

The fool, who would quarrel for diff'rence of hue,

Deserves not the comfort then shed o'er the soul.

like the Atlantis of Plato, overwhelmed. He 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. 2. c. 9. 4 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.