God of mercy! must this last ?
Is this land preordained,

For the present, and the past,
And the future to be chained,

To be ravaged, to be drained,
To be robbed, to be spoiled,

To be hushed, to be whipped,
Its soaring pinions clipt,
And its every effort foiled?

Do our numbers multiply
But to perish and to die?

Is this all our destiny below, —

That our bodies, as they rot,

May fertilize the spot,

Where the harvests of the stranger grow?

If this be indeed our fate,

Far, far better now, though late,

That we seek some other land, and try some other zone;
The coldest, bleakest shore

Will surely yield us more

Than the storehouse of the stranger that we dare not call our

own.

THE PARADISE OF BIRDS.

FROM THE "VOYAGE OF ST. BRANDAN."

COLOR and form may be conveyed by words,

But words are weak to tell the heavenly strains

That from the throats of these celestial birds

Rang through the woods and o'er the echoing plains;

There was the meadow-lark with voice as sweet,
But robed in richer raiment than our own;
And as the moon smiled on his green retreat,
The painted nightingale sang out alone.

Words cannot echo music's winged note,

One bird alone exhausts their utmost power; "T is that strange bird, whose many voiced throat Mocks all his brethren of the woodland bower, To whom indeed the gift of tongues is given, The musical rich tongues that fill the grove, Now like the lark dropping his notes from heaven, Now cooing the soft notes of the dove.

Oft have I seen him scorning all control,
Winging his arrowy flight rapid and strong, .
As if in search of his evanished soul,
Lost in the gushing ecstasy of song;
And as I wandered on and upward gazed,
Half lost in admiration, half in fear,
I left the brothers wondering and amazed,
Thinking that all the choir of heaven was near.

Was it a revelation or a dream?

That these bright birds as angels once did dwell In heaven with starry Lucifer supreme,

Half sinned with him, and with him partly fell; That in this lesser paradise they stray,

Float through its air and glide its streams along, And that the strains they sing each happy day Rise up to God like morn and even song.

THE IRISH WOLF-HOUND.

FROM "THE FORAY OF CON O'DONNELL."

As fly the shadows o'er the grass,

He flies with step as light and sure, He hunts the wolf through Tostan pass, And starts the deer by Lisanoure. The music of the Sabbath bells,

O Con! has not a sweeter sound

Than when along the valley swells
The cry of John Mac Donnell's hound.

His stature tall, his body long,

His back like night, his breast like snow, His fore-leg pillar-like and strong,

His hind-leg like a bended bow; Rough curling hair, head long and thin, His ear a leaf so small and round d; Not Bran, the favorite dog of Fin,

Could rival John Mac Donnell's hound.

ALFRED PERCIVAL GRAVES.

NE of the most original and national, as the youngest,

ONE

of the modern Irish poets, is Mr. Alfred Percival Graves. He is the son of the Bishop of Limerick, of the disestablished Irish Church, and, although educated in and now a resident of England, has made a thorough and loving study of Irish peasant character, and the indigenous poetry and music of Ireland. The locality of his country scenes is chiefly in the beautiful region of the mountains of Kerry, but his characters are thoroughly representative of the universal Celtic nature. Many of his lyrical poems first appeared in the London Spectator, and attracted a wide attention for their remarkable melody, fine finish, and graceful and delicate spirit. These were collected in a small volume, "The Songs of Killarney," which has been followed by a larger one, "Irish Songs and Ballads." Mr. Graves has been thoroughly imbued with the spirit of Irish music, and has reproduced the delicate weirdness and wildness of its spirit, as well as its more prevailing and obvious characteristics, with the utmost perfection. His songs are not only written to the melody of the airs, but they reproduce their spirit, as is felt at once by those familiar with Irish music in such examples as "The Foggy Dew," to the air of that name, "Kitty Bhan," and many others; and their inspiration is more genuine and perfect than those of any other Irish poet who has endeavored to interpret the native airs. Mr. Graves's pic

tures of peasant life and character are delicate as well as true, racy rather than rank of the soil, and with a fine spirit of humor as well as pathos. The turn of thought and expression of the Celtic peasant is reproduced, as well as the dialect, and their faithfulness and delicacy as genre pictures are perfect. Mr. Graves has also done to some extent for the peasant poetry of Ireland what Burns did for that of Scotland, that is, taken the country ballads, removed their clumsy expressions and vulgarisms, stripped them of excrescences, and completed them where imperfect, at the same time leaving them in their original form, and as far as possible as they were written. He has had less material for the reason that has been previously explained, that the native poetry of Ireland in the English language is less in quantity and quality than the Celtic, and much more imperfect in expression; but the few flowers of poetry which Mr. Graves has found have been trimmed and finished to perfect expression. Some translations from the Celtic are also added to Mr. Graves's original contributions to Irish poetry, and his whole work is the most national, as among the most valuable, of the modern poetry of Ireland.