Those gentry who so grand?—who are seated now a-horse, Were trenchers of the black earth and cutters of the gorse : By the right hand of my father, you'd not touch them with your toe When the true and gallant Gael were a n-Erin beo. But that flag that o'er our bravest spread red ruin in the North O'er the whole of Inisfeilin like a cloud is now hung forth. Ah, flag of gloomy change! thou hadst caused most bitter woe When the true and gallant Gael were a n-Erin beo. When the true and gallant Gael were alive in the land, Fame was fanned and flourished and the deeds of heroes grand, Sages and sweet poets saw a brilliant guerdon glow, But I'll cease me now from lauding their chivalry so gay: Unless it pleaseth Christ, our Lord, to smite the fiend at length, And restore unto our mother land her freedom and her strength, To scourge the ghastly Gall from our sullied shores, and, oh! Bring the true and gallant Gael back a n-Erin beo. # YOUGHALL HARBOR. ANON. TRANS. BY SIR SAMUEL FERGUSON. ONE Sunday morning into Youghall walking Her little mouth sweet as fairy music, Her soft cheeks blushing like dawn of day; I laid a bold hand upon her bosom, And ask 'd a kiss; but she answered, "No: Fair sir, be gentle; do not tear my mantle; "T is none in Erin my grief can know. ""T is but a little hour since I left Youghall, Into Cappoquin, a poor girl forlorn. Then do not tempt me; for, alas! I dread them Who with tempting proffers teach girls to roam, Who'd first deceive us, then faithless leave us, And send us shamefaced and barefoot home." "My heart and hand here! I mean you marriage! I have loved like you and known love's pain; If you turn back now to Youghall Harbor, You ne'er shall want house or home again. You shall a lace cap like any lady, Cloak and capuchin, too, to keep you warm, 9 your THE FISHERMAN'S KEEN FOR HIS SONS. ANON. TRANS. by MRS. ELLEN FITZ SIMON. The specimen of the keen is described as the lamentation of a man named O'Donoghue, of Affadown, or Roaring Water, in the west of the County Cork, for his three sons and son-in-law, who were drowned, but it is doubtful if it was his own composition. O, LOUDLY wailed the winter wind, the driving sleet fell fast. The ocean billows wildly heaved beneath the bitter blast; My three fair sons at break of day to fish had left the shore, The tempest burst forth in its wrath, — they ne'er returned more. Cormac, 'neath whose unerring aim the wild duck fell in flight, The plover of the lonesome hills, the curlew swift as light! My first-born child, - the flower of youth, the dearest and the best! O, would that thou wert spared to me though I had lost the rest! And thou, my handsome Felix! in whose eye so dark and bright The soul of courage and of wit looked forth in laughing light! And Daniel too, my fair-haired boy, the gentle and the brave, All, all my stately sons were whelmed beneath the foaming wave. Upon the shore, in wild despair, your aged father stood, And gazed upon his Daniel's corse, too late snatched from the flood, I saw him pale and lifeless lie, no more to see the light,And cold and dumb and motionless my heart grew at the sight. My children, my loved children! do you view my bitter grief? Look down upon your poor old sire, whose woe knows no relief. The sunshine of mine eyes is gone, heart; the comfort of my My life of life, my soul of soul, I've seen from earth depart. - What am I now? An aged man, to earth by sorrow bowed, I weep within a stranger's home, alone e'en in a crowd; There is no sorrow like to mine, no grief like mine appears, My once blithe Christmas is weighed down with anguish and with tears. My sons, my sons! abandoned to the fury of the waves! Would I could reach the two who lie in ocean's darksome cayes! 'T would bring some comfort to my heart in earth to see them laid, And hear in Affadown the wild lamentings for them made. O, would that, like the gay wild geese, my sons had left the land, From their poor father in his age, to seek a foreign strand; Then might I hope the Lord of heaven in mercy would restore My brave and good and stately sous some time to me once more. THE FAIRY NURSE. ANON. TRANS. BY EDWARD WALShe. A girl is supposed to be led into the fairy fort of Lissoe, where she sees her little brother, who had died about a week before, laid in a rich cradle, and a young woman singing as she rocks him to sleep. Translator's note. SWEET babe, a golden cradle holds thee, And soft the snow-white fleece enfolds thee; Where branching boughs to the winds are sweeping. When mothers languish broken-hearted, They weep some time-worn fairy only. Shuheen sho, lulo lo! Within our magic halls of brightness Rest thee, babe! I love thee dearly, And as thy mortal mother nearly; Ours is the swiftest steed and proudest, That moves where the tramp of the host is loudest ; Shuheen sho, lulo lo! *Sleagh shie, fairy host. |