TAKE BACK THE VIRGIN PAGE. WRITTEN ON RETURNING A BLANK BOOK. TAKE back the virgin page, White and unwritten still; The leaf must fill. Yet let me keep the book; Haply, when from those eyes And as, o'er ocean far, So may the words I write THE LEGACY. WHEN in death I shall calm recline, To sully a heart so brilliant and light; When the light of my song is o'er, Where weary travellers love to call.1 Keep this cup, which is now o'erflowing, On lips that beauty hath seldom bless'd. To her he adores shall bathe its brim, And hallow each drop that foams for him. 1 '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. HOW OFT HAS THE BENSHEE CRIED. How oft has the Benshee cried! We're fallen upon gloomy days!1 Dark falls the tear of him who mourneth Quench'd 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, But if hearts that feel, and eyes that smile, We never need leave our own green isle, For sensitive hearts, and for sun-bright eyes. Then remember, wherever your goblet is crown'd, Through this world, whether eastward or westward you roam, 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. 2 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 !' 3 Fox, "ultimus Romanorum." 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 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-byc. 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 that adorns her at home. 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. The clouds pass'd soon 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 When the Lord of the Valley cross'd over the moor; On the white snow's tint Show'd the track of his footsteps to Eveleen's door. The next sun's ray Soon melted away Every trace on the path where the false Lord came But there's a light above, That stain upon the snow of fair Eveleen's fame. LET ERIN REMEMBER THE DAYS OF OLD. LET Erin remember the days of old, On Lough Neagh's bank as the fisherman strays, Thus shall memory often, in dreams sublime, THE SONG OF FIONNUALA.4 SILENT, O Moyle, be the roar of thy water, 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 Teagh na Craoibhe 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. 5. 3 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. 'Piscatores aquæ illius turres ecclesiasticas, quæ more patriæ arctæ sunt et altæ, necnon et rotundæ, sub undis manifeste, sereno tempore conspiciunt et extraneis transeuntibus, reique causas admirantibus frequenter ostendunt.'-Topogr. Hib., dist. ii. c. 9. 4 To make this story intelligible in a song would require a much greater number of verses than any one is authorized 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 in Ireland till the coming of Christianity, when the first sound of the massbell was to be the signal of her release. I found this fanciful fiction among some manuscript translations from the Irish, which were begun under the direction of that enlightened friend of Ireland, the late Countess of Moira. When shall the swan, her death-note singing, 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 stained by the dust of the schools. Your glass may be purple, and mine may be blue, But, while they are fill'd from the same bright bowl, The fool, that would quarrel for difference of hue, Deserves not the comfort they shed o'er the soul. Shall I ask the brave soldier who fights by my side In the cause of mankind, if our creeds agree? Shall I give up the friend I have valued and tried, If he kneel not before the same altar with me? From the heretic girl of my soul should I fly, To seek somewhere else a more orthodox kiss? No, perish the hearts, and the laws that try Truth, valour, or love, by a standard like this? SUBLIME WAS THE WARNING. SUBLIME was the warning that Liberty spoke, Till it move, like a breeze, o'er the waves of the west; While you add to your garland the Olive of Spain ! If the fame of our fathers, bequeathed with their rights, |