Then why, dearest! so long THE RABBINICAL ORIGIN OF WOMEN. Let the sweet moments fly over ? THEY tell us that Woman was made of a rib Though now, blooming and young, Just pick'd from a corner so snug in the side; Thou hast me devoutly thy lover, But the Rabbins swear to you this is a fib, Yet time from both, in his silent lapse, And 't was not so at all that the sex was supplied. Some treasure may steal or borrow; Derry down, down, down derry down. Thy charms may be less in bloom, perhaps, Or I less in love to-morrow. For old Adam was fashion'd, the first of his kind, With a tail like a monkey, full yard and a span; And when Nature cut off this appendage behind, Why—then woman was made of the tail of the Man. WHEN ON THE LIP THE SIGH DELAYS. Derry down, down, down derry down. When on the lip the sigh delays, If such is the tie between women and men, As if 't would linger there for ever; The ninny who weds is a pitiful elf; When eyes would give the world to gaze For he takes to his tail, like an idiot, again, Yet still look down, and venture never; When, though with fairest nymphs we rove, There's one we dream of more than any If all this is not real love, Yet, if we may judge as the fashions prevail, 'T is something wondrous like it, Fanny! Every husband remembers the original plan, And, knowing his wife is no more than his tail, To think and ponder, when apart, On all we've got to say at meeting; Sit mute, and listen to their beating : The only moon, where stars are many- If all this is not downright love, I prithee say what is, my Fanny! When Hope foretels the brightest, best, Though Reason on the darkest reckons; When Passion drives us to the west, Though Prudence to the eastward beckons; When all turns round, below, above, And our own heads the most of any- If this is not stark, staring love, Then you and I are sages, Fanny. Farewell, Bessy! HERE, TAKE MY HEART. HERE, take my heart, 't will be safe in thy keeping, When I think I stray from thee, While I go wandering o'er land and o'er sea; Round the world that quiet seeking Smiling or sorrowing, waking or sleeping, What need I care, so my heart is with thee? If, in the race we are destined to run, love, They who have light hearts the happiest bem Calm to peace thy lover's bosom Happier still must be they who have none, love, Can it, dearest! must it be? Thou within an hour shalt lose him, And that will be my case when mine is with thee : No matter where I may now be a rover, No matter how many bright eyes Should Venus' self come and ask me to love her, I'd tell her I could not-my heart is with thee! There let it lie, growing fonder and fonder- And should Dame Fortune turn truant to me, To-Day, dearest! is ours; Why,-let her go-I've a treasure beyond her, Why should Love carelessly lose it? As long as my heart's out at interest with thee! This life chines or lowers Just as we, weak mortals, use it. 'T is time enough, when its flowers decay, To think of the thorns of Sorrow; OH! CALL IT BY SOME BETTER NAME. And Joy, if left on the stem to-day, Oh! call it by some better name, For Friendship is too cold, see ; And Love is now a worldly flame, Whose shrine must be of gold; And passion, like the sun at noon, That burns o'er all he sees, Awhile as warm, will set as soon, Oh! call it none of these. With zephyrs always playing Through gardens always bright. Then now, oh May! be sweeter That ere thou 'st been before; Let sighs from roses meet her When she comes near our shore. Imagine something purer far, More free from stain of clay, Yet human still as they : No mortal word can frame, And call it by that name! PALE BROKEN FLOWER! PALE broken flower! what art can now recover thee? Torn from the stem that fed thy rosy breath- In vain the sun-beams seek To warm that faded cheek! The dews of heaven, that once like balm fell over thee, Now are but tears, to weep thy early death! POOR WOUNDED HEART! Poor wounded heart, farewell ! Less bitter far will be, This life has been to thee- So droops the maid whose lover hath forsaken her; Thrown from his arms, as lone and lost as thou; In vain the smiles of all Like sun-beams round her fallThe only smile that could from death awaken her, That smile, alas ! is gone to others now There-broken heart, Poor broken heart, farewell! Like waves whose strife is past, Thou sleep’st in peace at last- THE PRETTY ROSE-TREE. Being weary of love, I few to the grove, And chose me a tree of the fairest; Saying, “ Pretty Rose-tree, thou my mistress shalt be, I'll worship each bud that thou bearest. For the hearts of this world are hollow, And fickle the smiles we follow; To have a pure love to fly to: And the only one now I shall sigh to.” When the beautiful hue of thy cheek through the dew Of morning is bashfully peeping, “Sweet tears," I shall say (as I brush them away) At least there's no art in this weeping." Although thou shouldest die to-morrow, 'T will not be from pain or sorrow, And the thorns of thy stem are not like them With which hearts wound each other: So, my pretty Rose-tree, thou my mistress shalt be, And I 'll ne'er again sigh to another. THE EAST INDIAN. COME May, with all thy flowers, Thy sweetly-scented thorn, Thy cooling evening showers, Thy fragrant breath at morn: When May-flies haunt the willow, When May-buds tempt the bee, Then o'er the shining billow My love will come to me. From Eastern Isles she's winging Through wat'ry wilds her way, And on her cheek is bringing The bright sun's orient ray: Oh! come and court her hither, Ye breezes mild and warmOne winter's gale would wither So soft, so pure a form. The fields where she was straying Are blest with endless light, SHINE OUT, STARS! SHINE out, Stars ! let heaven assemble Round us every festal ray, Lights that move not, lights that tremble, All to grace this eve of May. Let the flower-beds all lie waking, And the odours shut up there, From their downy prisons breaking, Fly abroad through sea and air. And would Love too bring his sweetness, With our other joys to weave, True as the lute that no sighing can waken, And blooming for ever unchanged as the tree' Oh, what glory, what completeness, Then would crown this bright May eve, Shine out, Stars ! let night assemble Round us every festal ray, Lights that move not, lights that tremble, To adorn this eve of May. THE YOUNG MULETEERS OF GRENADA. Oh! the joys of our evening posada, When, resting at the close of day, Sit and sing the last sunshine away! Which hung around us seem gone, Again beguile them on. In sleep is still breathing the sigh, Half breaks from our lips as we lie. Again we're up and gone- Beguiles the rough way on. NIGHTS OF MUSIC. Nights of music, nights of loving, Lost too soon, remember'd long, When we went by moon-light roving, Hearts all love, and lips all song. All my spirit felt to thee, Worth whole years of fame to me! Nights of song, and nights of splendour, Fill'd with joys too sweet to lastJoys that, like your star-light tender, While they shone, no shadow cast : From my fading memory fly, Not a beam, a leaf, shall die! TELL HER, OH TELL HER. Tell her, oh tell her, the lute she left lying Beneath the green arbour, is still lying there; Breezes, like lovers, around it are sighing, But not a soft whisper replies to their prayer. Tell her, oh tell her, the tree that, in going, Beside the green arbour she playfully set, Lovely as ever is blushing and blowing, And not a bright leaflet has fallen from it yet. So while away from that arbour forsaken, The maiden is wandering, oh! let her be OUR FIRST YOUNG LOVE. Our first young love resembles That short but brilliant ray, Which smiles, and weeps, and trembles Through April's earliest day. No, no—all life before us, Howe'er its lights may play, Like that first April ray. A blaze serener, grander, Of heaven, die calm away: Bring all the light it may, 'T will shed no lustre o'er us Like that first trembling ray MISCELLANEOUS POEMS. A MELOLOGUE As blithe as if the blessed light Of vernal Phæbus burn'd upon his brow. Oh Music! thy celestial claim Is still resistless, still the same; THESE verses were written for a Benefit at the And, faithful as the mighty sea Dublin Theatre, and were spoken by Miss Smith, To the pale star that o'er its realm presides, with a degree of success, which they owed solely to The spell-bound tides her admirable manner of reciting them. I wrote Of human passion rise and fall for thee! them in haste ; and it very rarely happens that Greek Air. poetry, which has cost but little labour to the writer, List ! 't is a Grecian maid that sings, is productive of any great pleasure to the reader. Under this impression, I should not have published While, from Ilyssus' silvery springs, them if they had not found their way into some of She draws the cool lymph in her graceful urn; the newspapers, with such an addition of errors to And by her side, in music's charm dissolving, their own original stock, that I thought it but fair to Some patriot youth, the glorious past revolving, limit their responsibility to those faults alone which Dreams of bright days that never can return! really belong to them. When Athens nursed her olive-bough, With respect to the title which I have invented for With hands by tyrant power unchain'd, this Poem, I feel even more than the scruples of the And braided for the muses' brow Emperor Tiberius, when he humbly asked pardon of A wreath by tyrant touch unstain'd. the Roman senate for using “the outlandish term When heroes trod each classic field monopoly.” But the truth is, having written the Where coward feet now faintly falter; Poem with the sole view of serving a Benefit, I When every arm was Freedom's shield, thought that an unintelligible word of this kind And every heart was Freedom's altar! would not be without its attraction for the multitude, Flourish of Trumpet. with whom, “if 't is not sense, at least 't is Greek.” Hark! 't is the sound that charms To some of my readers, however, it may not be The war-steed's waking ears ! superfluous to say, that, by “Melologue,” I mean Oh! many a mother folds her arms that mixture of recitation and music, which is fre- Round her boy-soldier when that call she hears ; quently adopted in the performance of Collins's Ode And, though her fond heart sink with fears, on the Passions, and of which the most striking ex Is proud to feel his young pulse bound ample I can remember is the prophetic speech of With valour's fever at the sound ! Joad in the Athalie of Racine. See! from his native hills afar Careless for what, for whom he fights, For slave or despot, wrongs, or rights ; THERE breathes a language, known and felt A conqueror oft--a hero neverFar as the pure air spreads its living zone; Yet lavish of his life-blood still, Wherever rage can rouse, or pity melt, As if 't were like his mountain rill, And gush'd for ever! Oh Music! here, even here, Amid this thoughtless, wild career, And call'd his distant love with such sweet power, Thy soul-felt charm asserts its wondrous power. That, when she heard the lonely lay, There is an air, which oft among the rocks Not worlds could keep her from his arms away;' Of his own loved land, at evening hour, To the bleak climes of polar night, Is heard, when shepherds homeward pipe their flocks ; Where, beneath a sunless sky, The Lapland lover bids his rein-deer fly, Oh! every note of it would thrill his mind And sings along the lengthening waste of snow, With tenderest thoughts—would bring around his knees 1 "A certain Spaniard, one night late, met an Indian The rosy children whom he left behind, woman in the streets of Cozco, and would have taken her And fill each little angel eye to his home, but she cried out, 'For God's sake, Sir, let me go; for that pipe, which you hear in yonder tower, calls me With speaking tears, that ask him why with great passion, and I cannot refuse the summons; for He wander'd from his hut for scenes like these? love constrains me to go, that I may be his wife, and he my Vain, vain is then the trumpet's brazen roar; husband.'”-Garcilasso de la Vega, in Sir Paul Rycaut's translation sweet notes of home-of love-are all he hears, And the stern eyes, that look'd for blood before, His children might still have been bless'd with his Now melting, mournful, lose themselves in tears ! love, And England would ne'er have been cursed with Swiss Air“ Ranz des Vaches." his sway. But, wake the trumpet's blast again, And rousc the ranks of warrior-men! Oh War! when truth thy arm employs, LINES And Freedom's spirit guides the labouring storm, On the Death of Sh-r-d-n. Principibus placuisse viris.- Hor. Yes, grief will have way—but the fast-falling tear Shall be mingled with deep execrations on those And the first hymn that man, awaking Who could bask in that spirit's meridian career, From Slavery's slumber, breathes to Liberty ! And yet leave it thus lonely and dark at its close : Whose vanity flew round him only while fed By the odour his fame in its summer-time gave ; Like the ghole of the East, comes to feed at his Like morning's music on the air ! grave! Oh! it sickens the heart to see bosoms so hollow And spirits so mean in the great and high-born; To think what a long line of titles may follow The relics of him who died-friendless and lorn! How proud they can press to the funeral array Of one whom they shunn'd in his sickness and Whose pall shall be held up by nobles to-morrow! Which shuts so close the book of Europe's rightWhat song shall then in sadness tell And thou, too, whose life, a sick epicure's dream, Of broken pride, of prospects shaded, Incoherent and gross, even grosser had pass'd, Of buried hopes, remember'd well, Were it not for that cordial and soul-giving beam Of ardour quench’d, and honour faded ? Which his friendship and wit o'er thy nothingness cast: What Muse shall mourn the breathless brave, In sweetest dirge at Memory's shrine ? No, not for the wealth of the land that supplies thee No, not for the riches of all who despise thee, mine sorrow: Would I suffer what-even in the heart that thou hast- All mean as it is—must have consciously burn'd, In the dirge we sung o'er him no censure was heard, When the pittance, which shame had wrung from Unembitter'd and free did the tear-drop descend; thee at last, We forgot in that hour how the statesman had err’d, And which found all his wants at an end, was reAnd wept for the husband, the father, and friend. turn'd!! “ Was this, then, the fate”-future ages will say, Oh! proud was the meed his integrity won, When some names shall live but in history's curse; And generous indeed were the tears that we shed, When Truth will be heard, and these lords of a day When in grief we forgot all the ill he had done, Be forgotten as fools, or remember'd as worseAnd, though wrong'd by him living, bewail'd him when dead. “Was this, then, the fate of that high-gifted man, The pride of the palace, the bower, and the hall, Even now, if one harsher emotion intrude, The orator-dramatist-minstrel,—who ran "T is to wish he had chosen some lowlier state Through each mode of the lyre, and was master of Had known what he was, and, content to be good, all ! Had ne'er, for our ruin, aspired to be great. 1 The sum was two hundred pounds-offered when So, left through their own little orbit to move, Sh-r-d-n could no longer take any sustenance, and declined, His vears might have roll'd inoffensive away; for him, by his friends. |