But you've as many sweethearts as you'd count on both your hands, And for myself there's not a thumb or little finger stands. O, you're the flower o' womankind in country or in town! The higher I exalt you, the lower I'm cast down. If some great lord should come this way, and see your beauty bright, And you to be his lady, I'd own it was but right. O might we live together in a lofty palace hall, Where joyful music rises, and where scarlet curtains fall! O might we live together in a cottage mean and small, With sods of grass the only roof, and mud the only wall! O lovely Mary Donnelly, your beauty 's my distress! low; But blessings be about you, dear, wherever you may go! THE LEPRECAUN, OR FAIRY SHOEMAKER. A RHYME FOR CHILDREN. LITTLE Cow-boy, what have you heard, Singing in sultry fields around? Chary, chary, chary, chee-e! Only the grasshopper and the bee? "Tip-tap, rip-rap, Tick-a-tack-too! Scarlet leather, sewn together, This will make a shoe. Do you not catch the tiny clamor, Voice of the Leprecaun singing shrill And a quarter in height. Get him in sight, hold him fast, You watch your cattle the summer day, How should you like to roll in your carriage And look for a duchess's daughter in marriage? Seize the shoemaker, so you may! "Big boots a hunting, Sandals in the hall, White for a wedding feast, And pink for a ball, This way, that way, So we make a shoe, Getting rich every stitch, Nine and ninety treasure crocks Hid in mountain, wood, and rocks, From times of old Guarded by him; Each of them filled Full to the brim I caught him at work one day myself, In the castle ditch where the foxglove grows; Leather apron, shoe in his lap; "Rip-rap, tip-tap, Tick-tack-too! A grig stepped upon my cap, Pay me well, pay me well, When the job's done." The rogue was mine beyond a doubt, He took a long pinch, looked better pleased, Offered the box with a whimsical grace, Pouf! he flung the dust in my face, And, while I sneezed, Was gone! The Leprecaun is a fairy in the shape of a little old shoemaker, who, if surprised and caught, can be compelled to show the locality of hidden treasure, unless he can induce his captor by some surprise or stratagem to take his eyes from him, in which case he vanishes. Irish folk-lore has a great number of legends relating to the Leprecaun. A AUBREY DE VERE. N Irish poet representing the highest type of the modern Catholic spirit, and of rare and spiritual refinement, is Aubrey Thomas De Vere. He is the third son of Sir Aubrey De Vere, author of "Mary Tudor," an historical drama, and other poems, and was born at the ancestral residence, Curragh Chase, in the county of Limerick, in 1814. He was educated at Trinity College, Dublin, and the record of his life has been that of religious and literary culture, with extended travel and residence in Rome, and its only events proper for a living biography have been the publication of his poems. They consist of "The Waldenses, or The Fall of Lora," a lyrical tale published in 1842; "The Search after Proserpine, Recollections of Greece, and Other Poems," in 1843; "Poems, Miscellaneous and Sacred," in 1856; "May Carols," in 1857; "The Sisters, Inisfail, and Other Poems," in 1861;"Irish Odes and Other Poems," in 1869; "The Legends of St. Patrick," in 1872; and "Alexander the Great," in 1874. He is also the author of several prose pamphlets on religious and national questions. A volume of selections from his poems has been published by his authority by the Catholic Publication Society in the United States. The distinguishing feature of Mr. De Vere's literary production has been its devotion to the Roman Church, and he is a thorough representative of the spirit of modern Catholic culture associated with the names of Cardinal Newman and the Comte de Montalembert. His poetry is thoroughly saturated with a spirit of devotion, and he has reached his highest power in the interpretation of the mystic symbolism of the Church, and in the expression of the feelings of personal adoration associated with its ceremonials. His "May Carols" are a series of poems to the Virgin Mother, breathing a mystical fervor and a mediæval purity and strength of devotion, and in almost all his poetry the religious flavor is apparent. As a nationalist, he is also primarily a Catholic, not in any narrow or political sense, but with a constant reference to the higher claims of the Church, and the spirit of religion, which it inculcates, to guide and inform all national action. In style his poetry is mystic and fervid. His landscapes are fraught with the imaginative spirit of Shelley, and the aspects of nature are painted with the mystic emanations of spiritual meaning, when not peopled with the actual forms of spiritual inhabitants, as may be seen in a single example from many equally striking, from "An Autumnal Ode.” "A sacred stillness hangs upon the air, A sacred stillness. Distant shapes draw nigh; And all articulate in its symmetry, With here and there a branch that from on high Far flashes washed as in a watery gleam ; Beyond the glossy lake lies calm, a beam Upheaved, as if in sleep, from its slow central stream." Some of his devotional odes and sonnets have a flavor of the clear and fervid piety of the "Vita Nuova," and many of his classic poems show a thoroughly Grecian simplicity and sharpness of outline. He is not calculated to be ever popular, and has less of strength when endeavoring to depict the immediate wrongs and sufferings of the Famine year; and the mystic element intrudes into such tales of common life as "The |