Long may the curse

Of his people pursue them :
Scully that sold him,

And soldier that slew him!
One glimpse of heaven's light
May they see never!
May the hearthstone of hell

Be their best bed for ever!

In the hole which the vile hands Of soldiers had made thee, Unhonour'd, unshrouded,

And headless they laid thee;

No sigh to regret thee,

No eye to rain o'er thee,

No dirge to lament thee,

No friend to deplore thee!

Dear head of my darling,
How gory and pale
These aged eyes see thee,

High spiked on their gaol! That cheek in the summer sun Ne'er shall grow warm; Nor that eye e'er catch light, But the flash of the storm.

A curse, blessed ocean,

Is on thy green water,

From the haven of Cork

To Ivera of slaughter:

Since thy billows were dyed

With the red wounds of fear,

Of Muiertach Oge,

Our O'Sullivan Bear!

THE CONVICT OF CLONMEL

(FROM THE IRISH)

How hard is my fortune,

And vain my repining!

The strong rope of fate

For this young neck is twining.

My strength is departed,

My cheek sunk and sallow,
While I languish in chains

In the gaol of Clonmala.1

No boy in the village

Was ever yet milder.
I'd play with a child,

And my sport would be wilder ;
I'd dance without tiring

From morning till even,

And the goal-ball I'd strike
To the lightning of heaven.

At my bed-foot decaying,
My hurlbat is lying;
Thro' the boys of the village
My goal-ball is flying;
My horse 'mong the neighbours
Neglected may fallow,

While I pine in my chains
In the gaol of Clonmala.

Next Sunday the patron

At home will be keeping,
And the young active hurlers
The field will be sweeping;
With the dance of fair maidens

The evening they'll hallow,
While this heart, once so gay,

Shall be cold in Clonmala.

Cluain meala (Field of honey'): Irish of Clonmel.'

GOUGAUNE BARRA

THERE is a green island in lone Gougaune Barra,
Where Allua of songs rushes forth as an arrow,

In deep-vallied 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 the 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 highland,
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 clefts of thy rocks or the depth of thy heather,
They fled from the Saxon'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 glean'd each grey legend that darkly was sleeping
Where the mist and the rain o'er their beauty were creeping.

Least bard of the hills! were it mine to inherit
The fire of thy harp and the wing of thy spirit,

H

With the wrongs which, like thee, to our country have bound me,
Did your mantle of song fling its radiance around me,
Still, still in those wilds might young Liberty rally,
And send her strong shout over mountain and valley,
The star of the West might yet rise in its glory,
And the land that was darkest be brightest in story.

I too shall be gone; but my name shall be spoken
When Erin awakes and her fetters are broken;
Some minstrel will come, in the summer eve's gleaming,
When Freedom's young light on his spirit is beaming,
And bend o'er my grave with a tear of emotion,
Where calm Avon-Bwee seeks the kisses of ocean,
Or plant a wild wreath from the banks of that river
O'er the heart and the harp that are sleeping for ever.

THE OUTLAW OF LOCH LENE

FROM THE IRISH

OH, many a day have I made good ale in the glen,
That came not of stream or malt, like the brewing of men.

My bed was the ground, my roof the greenwood above,

And the wealth that I sought, one fair kind glance from my love.

Alas! on that night when the horses I drove from the field,
That I was not near from terror my angel to shield.

She stretched forth her arms-her mantle she flung to the wind-
And swam o'er Loch Lene her outlawed lover to find.

Oh, would that a freezing, sleet-winged tempest did sweep,
And I and my love were alone far off on the deep!

I'd ask not a ship, or a bark, or pinnace to save;

With her hand round my waist I'd fear not the wind or the wave.

'Tis down by the lake where the wild tree fringes its sides
The maid of my heart, the fair one of heaven, resides;
I think as at eve she wanders its mazes along

The birds go to sleep by the sweet, wild twist of her song.

EDWARD WALSH

EDWARD WALSH was born in Londonderry, 1805, and became a school-teacher. He was appointed a schoolmaster to convicts on Spike Island, and died in 1850. When John Mitchel was on his way to penal servitude at the Bermudas he stopped at Spike Island and saw Walsh there, a tall gentleman-like person in black but rather over-worn clothes. . . . I knew his face, but could not at first remember who he was; he was Edward Walsh, author of " Mo craoibhin cno" and other sweet songs, and of some very musical translations from old Irish ballads. Tears stood in his eyes as he told me he had contrived to get an opportunity of seeing and shaking hands with me before I should leave Ireland. . . . He stooped down and kissed my hands. "Ah!" said he, "you are now the man of all Ireland most to be envied." Mitchel certainly did not envy Walsh, whose life was a constant struggle with penury, and who must have found a daily torture in the cruelly inappropriate employment forced on his fine genius and sensitive nature.

Walsh's chief mission as a poet was to collect and make known the waifs and strays of Gaelic poetry preserved among the people. He was a frequent contributor to The Nation up to 1848, but is, on the whole, rather to be ranged with Callanan in this book than placed among the poets whose fame is closely identified with that of the organ of Young Ireland. RELIQUES OF IRISH JACOBITE POETRY, 1844; IRISH POPULAR SONGS, with translations and notes, 1847.

MO CRAOIBHIN CNO1

My heart is far from Liffey's tide
And Dublin town;

It strays beyond the southern side
Of Cnoc-maol-Donn,"

Mo craoibhin cno literally means my cluster of nuts'; but it figuratively signifies my nut-brown maid.' It is pronounced Ma Creeveen Kno. * Cnoc-maol-Donn (the brown bare hill '), Knockmealdown: a lofty mountain between the county of Tipperary and that of Waterford, commanding a glorious prospect.