THE BURIAL OF SIR JOHN MOORE. Nor a drum was heard, not a funeral note, As his corse to the rampart we hurried; Not a soldier discharged his farewell shot O'er the grave where our hero we buried. We buried him darkly at dead of night, No useless coffin enclosed his breast, Not in sheet or in shroud we wound him; But he lay like a warrior taking his rest, With his martial cloak around him. Few and short were the prayers we said, But we steadfastly gazed on the face that was dead, We thought, as we hollowed his narrow bed, That the foe and the stranger would tread o'er his head, Lightly they'll talk of the spirit that's gone, But little he'll reck, if they 'll let him sleep on But half of our heavy task was done, When the clock struck the hour for retiring; And we heard the distant and random gun That the foe was sullenly firing. Slowly and sadly we laid him down, From the field of his fame fresh and gory; We carved not a line and we raised not a stone, But we left him alone with his glory. O, SAY NOT THAT MY HEART IS COLD. O, SAY not that my heart is cold To aught that once could warm it, – For those who made it dearer still, Still oft those solemn scenes I view, Stern duty rose, and frowning flung With iron look and sullen tongue "The mountain breeze, the boundless heaven, Unfit for toil the creature; These for the free alone are given; And what have slaves with Nature?" This song is adapted to the pathetic Irish air of Grammachree, and in his account of its composition Wolfe said that on one occasion "I sung the air over and over until I burst into a flood of salt tears, in which mood I composed the song"; but it is also known that he was engaged to Mary Grierson, a beautiful girl of Dublin, who died young, to whose name the exquisite elegy would apply. IF I had thought thou couldst have died, I might not weep for thee; But I forgot, when by thy side, That thou couldst mortal be; It never through my mind had passed And I on thee should look my last, And still upon that face I look, But when I speak, thou dost not say What thou ne'er left'st unsaid, And now I feel, as well I may, Sweet Mary! thou art dead. If thou wouldst stay e'en as thou art, I still might press thy silent heart, I do not think, where'er thou art, And I perhaps may soothe this heart, Yet there was round thee such a dawn Of light ne'er seen before, As fancy never could have drawn, And never can restore. JEREMIAH JOSEPH CALLANAN. EREMIAH JOSEPH CALLANAN, who was the first to JERE translate ancient Irish poetry with real spirit and faithfulness to the idiom, and whose original poems entitle him to be mentioned among the poets of Ireland, was born in Cork, in 1795, of humble parentage, his father being servant to a physician. He was sent to Maynooth College to be educated for the priesthood, but abandoned it after two years' stay, and betook himself to Dublin with the idea of a career in literature. He became a tutor for the purpose of maintaining himself while he studied in Trinity College, where he obtained credit for two prize poems. Being reduced to poverty through shiftlessness, he enlisted as a private in the Royal Irish regiment, from which he was discharged, in the Isle of Wight, after a brief term of service, by the intervention of his friends. He obtained a tutorship in a family living in the western part of the County Cork, and while there wrote his local poems, inspired by the beautiful scenery of Lake Killarney, the Muskerry mountains, and the sources of the Lee. With a number of these he returned to Cork, with the idea of publishing them by subscription, but abandoned his purpose, ostensibly because it was not a dignified method, and probably also from want of energy and perseverance. He became an assistant in the school of Dr. Maginn, who introduced him to Blackwood's Magazine, in which some of his poems and translations from the Irish |