In England the garden of beauty is kept That the garden's but carelessly watch'd after all. Then remember, wherever your goblet is crown'd, Through this world, whether eastward or westward you roam, When a cup to the smile of dear woman goes round, Oh! remember the smile which adorns her at home. In France, when the heart of a woman sets sail 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 Through this world, whether eastward or westward you roam, When a cup to the smile of dear woman goes round, Oh! remember the smile which adorns her at home. EVELEEN'S BOWER. OH! weep for the hour When to Eveleen's bower The lord of the valley with false vows came; From the heavens that night, And wept behind her clouds o'er the maiden's shame. From the chaste old moon, And heaven smiled again with her vestal flame; When the clouds shall pass away Which that dark hour left upon Eveleen's fame. The white snow lay On the narrow pathway When the lord of the valley crost over the moor; On the white snow's tint Shew'd the track of his footstep to Eveleen's door. The next sun's ray Soon melted away Every trace on the path where the false lord came; Which alone can remove That stain upon the snow of fair Eveleen's fame. THE SONG OF FIONNUALA.* SILENT, O Moyle! be the roar of thy water, When will heaven, its sweet bell ringing, Sadly, O Moyle! to thy winter wave weeping, LET ERIN REMEMBER THE DAYS OF OLD. LET Erin remember the days of old, Which he won from her proud invader; *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 of 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, begun under the direction of the late Countess of Moira. "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 Hist. of Ireland, vol. i., book ix. When her kings with standard of green unfurl'd Ere the emerald gem of the western world * On Lough Neagh's bank as the fisherman strays,+ Thus shall memory often, in dreams sublime, COME, SEND ROUND THE WINE. COME, send round the wine, and leave points of belief This moment's a flower too fair and brief To be wither'd and stain'd by the dust of the schools. To seek somewhere else a more orthodox kiss? Truth, valour, or love by a standard like this! *"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 Craiobhe 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. v. † 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. He says, that the fishermen, in clear weather, used to point out to strangers the tall ecclesiastical towers under the water. |