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Blest be that strain of high belief,

More heavenlike, more sublime,
Which says, that souls who part in grief
Part only for a time!

That, far beyond this speck of pain,
Far o'er the gloomy grave's domain,

There spreads a brighter clime-
Where care, and toil, and trouble o'er,
Friends meet, and meeting, weep no more!

LXIV. TO A SEA GULL.-Gerald Griffin.

WHITE bird of the tempest! O beautiful thing,
With the bosom of snow, and the motionless wing;
Now sweeping the billow, now floating on high,
Now bathing thy plumes in the light of the sky;
Now poising o'er ocean thy delicate form,
Now breasting the surge with thy bosom so warm;
Now darting aloft, with a heavenly scorn,
Now shooting along, like a ray of the morn;
Now lost in the folds of the cloud-curtained dome,
Now floating abroad like a flake of the foam;
Now silently poised o'er the war of the main,
Like the Spirit of Charity brooding o'er pain;
Now gliding with pinion all silently furled,
Like an Angel descending to comfort the world!
Thou seem'st to my spirit, as upward I gaze,
And see thee, now clothed in mellowest rays,
Now lost in the storm-driven vapours, that fly
Like hosts that are routed across the broad sky,
Like a pure spirit, true to its virtue and faith,
'Mid the tempests of nature, of passion, and death!
Rise! beautiful emblem of purity, rise,

On the sweet winds of Heaven, to thine own brilliant skies;
Still higher! still higher! till, lost to our sight,

Thou hidest thy wings in a mantle of light;

And I think how a pure spirit gazing on thee,
Must long for that moment-the joyous and free-
When the soul, disembodied from Nature, shall spring
Unfettered, at once to her Maker and King;
When the bright day of service and suffering past,
Shapes, fairer than thine, shall shine round her at last,
While, the standard of battle triumphantly furled,
She smiles like a victor serene on the world!

LIV. THE STAR OF HEAVEN.-Callanan.

SHINE on, thou bright beacon, unclouded and free,
From thy high place of calmness, o'er life's troubled sea;
Its morning of promise, its smooth waves are gone,
And the billows roar wildly; then, bright one, shine on.

The wings of the tempest may rush o'er thy ray;
But tranquil thou smilest, undimmed by its sway;
High, high o'er the worlds where storms are unknown,
Thou dwellest all beauteous, all glorious,-alone.

From the deep womb of darkness the lightning-flash leaps,
O'er the bark of my fortunes each mad billow sweeps
From the port of her safety by warring-winds driven;
And no light o'er her course-but yon lone one of Heaven.
Yet fear not, thou frail one, the hour may be near,
When our own sunny head-land far off shall appear;
When the voice of the storm shall be silent and past,
In some island of heaven we may anchor at last.
But, bark of eternity, where art thou now?
The wild waters shriek o'er each plunge of thy prow
On the world's dreary ocean thus shatter'd and tost;-
Then, lone one, shine on! "If I lose thee, I'm lost!"

LXVI. THE VOICE AND PEN.-D. F. M'Carthy.

OH! the orator's Voice is a mighty power
As it echoes from shore to shore-

And the fearless Pen has more sway o'er men
Than the murderous cannon's roar.

What burst the chain far o'er the main,

And brightens the captive's den?

'Tis the fearless Voice and the Pen of Hurrah! for the Voice and Pen! Hurrah!

power

Hurrah! for the Voice and Pen!
The tyrant knaves who deny our rights,

And the cowards who blanch with fear,
Exclaim with glee, "No arms have ye—
Nor cannon, nor sword, nor spear!

Your hills are ours; with our forts and towers
We are masters of mount and glen."
Tyrants, beware! for the arms we bear
Are the Voice and the fearless Pen!

Though your horsemen stand with their bridles in hand,

And your sentinels walk around

Though your matches flare in the midnight air,
And your brazen trumpets sound;

Oh! the orator's tongue shall be heard among
These listening warrior men;

And they'll quickly say, "Why should we slay
Our friends of the Voice and Pen?"

When the Lord created the earth and sea,
The stars and the glorious sun,

The Godhead spoke, and the universe woke-
And the mighty work was done!

Let a word be flung from the orator's tongue,
Or a drop from the fearless Pen,
And the chains accurs'd asunder burst,
That fettered the minds of men!

Oh! these are the swords with which we fight,
The arms in which we trust;

Which no tyrant hand will dare to brand,
Which time cannot dim or rust!

When these we bore, we triumphed before,
With these we'll triumph again-
And the world will say, "No power can stay
The Voice and the fearless Pen!"

Hurrah!

Hurrah! for the Voice and Pen!

LXVII. THE FAIRY THORN.-Samuel Ferguson.

"GET up, our Anna dear, from the weary spinning wheel;
For your father's on the hill, and your mother is asleep:
Come up
above the crags, and we'll dance a highland reel
Around the fairy thorn on the steep."

At Anna Grace's door 'twas thus the maidens cried,
Three merry maidens fair in kirtles of the green;
And Anna laid the rock and the weary wheel aside,
The fairest of the four, I ween.

They're glancing through the glimmer of the quiet eve,
Away in milky wavings of neck and ankle bare;
The heavy-sliding stream in its sleepy song they leave,
And the crags in the ghostly air:

And linking hand in hand, and singing as they go,

The maids along the hill-side have ta'en their fearless way, Till they come to where the rowan-trees in lonely beauty grow Beside the Fairy Hawthorn gray.

The hawthorn stands between the ashes tall and slim,
Like matron with her twin grand-daughters at her knee;
The rowan berries cluster o'er her low head gray and dim.
In ruddy kisses sweet to see.

The merry maidens four have ranged them in a row,
Between each lovely couple a stately rowan-stem;
And away in mazes wavy, like skimming birds they go-
Oh, never carolled bird like them!

But solemn is the silence of the silvery haze

That drinks away their voices in echoless repose,
And dreamily the evening has stilled the haunted braes,
And dreamier the gloaming grows.

And sinking one by one, like lark-notes from the sky
When the falcon's shadow saileth across the open shaw,
Are hushed the maiden's voices, as cowering down they lie
In the flutter of their sudden awe.

For, from the air above, and the grassy ground beneath, And from the mountain-ashes, and the old white-thorn between,

A power of faint enchantment doth through their beings breathe,

And they sink down together on the green.

Thus clasped and prostrate all, with their heads together bowed,
Soft o'er their bosoms' beating-the only human sound-
They hear the silky footsteps of the silent fairy crowd,
Like a river in the air, gliding round.

Nor scream can any raise, nor prayer can any say,
But wild, wild, the terror of the speechless three-
For they feel fair Anna Grace drawn silently away,
By whom they dare not look to see.

They feel their tresses twine with her parting locks of gold,
And the curls elastic falling, as her head withdraws;
They feel her sliding arms from their tranced arms unfold,
But they dare not look to see the cause:

For heavy on their senses the faint enchantment lies Through all that night of anguish and perilous amaze; And neither fear nor wonder can ope their quivering eyes, Or their limbs from the cold ground raise.

K

Till out of Night the Earth has rolled her dewy side,
With every haunted mountain and streamy vale below;
When, as the mist dissolves in the yellow morning tide,
The maidens' trance dissolveth so.

Then fly the ghastly three as swiftly as they may,
And tell their tale of sorrow to anxious friends in vain;
They pined away and died within the year and day-
And ne'er was Anna Grace seen again.

LXVIII.-GOUGAUNE BARRA.-Callanan.

THERE is a green island in lone Gougaune Barra,
Where Allua of songs rushes forth as an arrow;
In deep-valleyed Desmond:-a thousand wild fountains
Come down to that lake, from their home in the mountains;
There grows the wild ash, and a time-stricken willow
Looks chidingly down on the mirth of the billow;
As, like some gay child, that sad monitor scorning,
It lightly laughs back to the laugh of the morning.
And its zone of dark hills-oh! to see them all bright'ning
When the tempest flings out its red banner of lightning;
And the waters rush down, 'mid the thunder's deep rattle,
Like clans from their hills at the voice of the battle;
And brightly the fire-crested billows are gleaming,
And wildly from Mullagh the eagles are screaming:-
Oh! where is the dwelling in valley, or high land,
So meet for a bard as this lone little island?

How oft, when the summer sun rested on Clara,
And lit the dark heath on the hills of Ivera,

Have I sought thee, sweet spot, from my home by the ocean,
And trod all thy wilds with a minstrel's devotion;
And thought of thy bards, when assembling together
In the cleft of thy rocks, or the depth of thy heather,
They fled from the foemen's dark bondage and slaughter,
And waked their last song by the rush of thy water.
High sons of the lyre, oh! how proud was the feeling,
To think while alone through that solitude stealing,
Though loftier minstrels green Erin can number,
I only awoke your wild harp from its slumber,
And mingled once more with the voice of those fountains
The songs even Echo forgot on her mountains;

And gleaned each gray legend, that darkly was sleeping
Where the mist and the rain o'er their beauty were creeping.

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