Yet it was not that Nature had shed o'er the scene 'Twas that friends, the beloved of my bosom, were near, Sweet vale of Avoca! how calm could I rest In thy bosom of shade, with the friends I love best, ST. SENANUS AND THE LADY. ST. SENANUS. "OH! haste and leave this sacred isle, And I have sworn this sainted sod THE LADY. "O Father! send not hence my bark, Thy morn and evening prayer: The Lady's prayer Senanus spurned; In a metrical life of St. Senanus, which is taken from an old Kilkenny MS., and may be found among the Acta Sanctorum Hibernia, we are told of his flight to the island of Scattery, and his resolution not to admit any woman of the party; he refused to receive even a sister saint, St. Cannera, whom an angel had taken to the island for the express purpose of introducing her to him. The following was the ungracious answer of Senanus, according to his poetical biographer : Cui præsul, quid fœminis See the Acta Sanct. Hib. P. 610. According to Dr. Ledwich, St. Senanus was no less a personage than the river Shannon; but O'Connor and other antiquarians deny this metamorphose indignantly. HOW DEAR TO ME THE HOUR. How dear to me the hour when daylight dies, And memory breathes her vesper sigh to thee. And, as I watch the line of light, that plays Along the smooth wave t'ward the burning west, I long to tread that golden path of rays, And think 'twould lead to some bright isle of rest. TAKE BACK THE VIRGIN PAGE. WRITTEN ON RETURNING A BLANK BOOK. TAKE back the virgin page, Thoughts come as pure as light, Yet let me keep the book; To let wild passion write One wrong wish there. Haply, when from those eyes Worthy those eyes to meet, Thoughts that not burn, but shine, Pure, calm, and sweet. And as, o'er ocean far,. Seamen their records keep, Led by some hidden star Through the cold deep; So may the words I write Tell through what storms I strayYou still the unseen light Guiding my way. THE LEGACY. WHEN in death I shall calm recline, To sully a heart so brilliant and light; Then take my harp to your ancient hall; Where weary travellers love to call.* On lips that beauty hath seldom blessed. To her he adores shall bathe its brim, HOW OFT HAS THE BENSHEE CRIED. Bright links that Glory wove, Sweet bonds entwined by Love! We're fallen upon gloomy days! + Every bright name that shed Light o'er the land is fled. Dark falls the tear of him who mourneth Lost joy, or hope that ne'er returneth : But brighty flows the tear Wept o'er a hero's bier. * In every house was one or two harps, free to all travellers, who were the more caressed the more they excelled in music."-O'Halloran. 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. Quenched are our beacon lights- Tell how they lived and died. WE MAY ROAM THROUGH THIS WORLD. We may roam through this world, like a child at a feast, Are the dearest gifts that Heaven supplies, We never need leave our own green isle, For sensitive hearts, and for sun-bright eyes. Then remember, wherever your goblet is crowned, Through this world whether eastward or westward you roam, When a cup to the smile of dear woman goes round, In England, the garden of Beauty is kept By a dragon of prudery, placed within call; That the garden's but carelessly watched after all. Then remember, wherever your goblet is crowned, Through 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 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 looked when he left the shore. *This designation, which has been applied to Lord Nelson before, is the title given to a celebrated Irish hero in a poem by O'Gnive, the bard of O'Neill, 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!" † Fox, "ultimus Romanorum.' Then remember, wherever your goblet is crowned, Through this world whether eastward or westward you roam, When a cup to the smile of dear woman goes round, EVELEEN'S BOWER. OH! weep for the hour The Lord of the Valley with false vows came; From the heavens that night, And wept behind the clouds o'er the maiden's shame. And heaven smiled again with her vestal flame; When the clouds shall pass away Which that dark hour left on Eveleen's fame. The white snow lay On the narrow pathway When the Lord of the Valley crossed over the moor; On the white snow's tint Showed the track of his footsteps to Eveleen's door. The next sun's ray Every trace on the path where the false Lord came Which alone can remove That stain upon the snow of fair Eveleen's fame. LET ERIN REMEMBER THE DAYS OF OLD. * When Malachi wore the collar of gold Was set in the crown of a stranger. *"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 9. "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 Craoibhe ruadh, or the Knights of the Red Branch, from their chief seat in Emania, adjoining to the palace of the Ulster kings, called |