political party. O'Hagan wrote,

'Beloved and honoured,' as his friend

With a sphere

Of proud exertion widening near,

In manhood's power and might arrayed,
Cold in the grave we saw him laid.

Not dying, as he yearned to die,
Keened by his country's victor-cry ;
But struck by swift and stern disease.

How strange to man are God's decrees!

Davis's prose writings were edited in 1845 by C. G. Duffy, and in 1889 an enlarged edition was brought out by Walter Scott, London. His poems have been collected and edited by T. Wallis, with an excellent introduction (James Duffy, Dublin). His Life has been written by Sir Charles Gavan Duffy (Kegan Paul).

CELTS AND SAXONS

WE hate the Saxon and the Dane,

We hate the Norman men

We cursed their greed for blood and gain,

We curse them now again.

Yet start not, Irish-born man!

If you're to Ireland true,

We heed not blood, nor creed, nor clan

We have no curse for you.

We have no curse for you or yours,
But Friendship's ready grasp,
And Faith to stand by you and yours
Unto our latest gasp-

To stand by you against all foes,

Howe'er or whence they come,
With traitor arts, or bribes, or blows,
From England, France, or Rome.

What matter that at different shrines
We pray unto one God?

What matter that at different times

Our fathers won this sod?

In fortune and in name we're bound
By stronger links than steel;
And neither can be safe nor sound
But in the other's weal.

As Nubian rocks and Ethiop sand,
Long drifting down the Nile,
Built up old Egypt's fertile land
For many a hundred mile :
So Pagan clans to Ireland came,
And clans of Christendom,

Yet joined their wisdom and their fame

To build a nation from.

Here came the brown Phoenician,
The man of trade and toil-
Here came the proud Milesian,
A-hungering for spoil;

And the Firbolg and the Cyniry,
And the hard, enduring Dane,
And the iron Lords of Normandy,
With the Saxons in their train.

And oh it were a gallant deed
To show before mankind,
How every race and every creed
Might be by love combined-
Might be combined, yet not forget
The fountains whence they rose,

As, filled by many a rivulet,

The stately Shannon flows.

Nor would we wreak our ancient feud On Belgian or on Dane,

Nor visit in a hostile mood

The hearths of Gaul or Spain;

But long as on our country lies
The Anglo-Norman yoke,
Their tyranny we'll stigmatise,

And God's revenge invoke.

We do not hate, we never cursed,
Nor spoke a foeman's word
Against a man in Ireland nursed,
Howe'er we thought he erred.
So start not, Irish-born man!

If you're to Ireland true,

We heed not race, nor creed, nor clan

We've hearts and hands for you.

1

LAMENT FOR THE DEATH OF EOGHAN RUADH O'NEILL 1

Time.-November 10, 1649. Scene. -Ormond's Camp, County Waterford. Speakers. A veteran of Eoghan O'Neill's clan, and one of the horsemen, just

arrived with an account of his death.

'DID they dare-did they dare, to slay Owen Roe O'Neill?' 'Yes, they slew with poison him they feared to meet with steel.' * May God wither up their hearts! May their blood cease to flow! May they walk in living death who poisoned Owen Roe!

'Though it break my heart to hear, say again the bitter words.'
'From Derry, against Cromwell, he marched to measure swords;
But the weapon of the Sacsanach met him on his way,
And he died at Cloch Uachtar3 upon St. Leonard's Day.

'Wail, wail ye for the Mighty One! Wail, wail, ye for the Dead!
Quench the hearth, and hold the breath-with ashes strew the head.
How tenderly we loved him! How deeply we deplore!
Holy Saviour! but to think we shall never see him more!

'Sagest in the council was he, kindest in the hall:
Sure, we never won a battle-'twas Owen won them all.
Had he lived-had he lived, our dear country had been free;
But he's dead-but he's dead, and 'tis slaves we'll ever be.

Commonly called Owen Roe O'Neill. The Life of this great general and noble Irishman has been admirably written for the New Irish Library' by Mr. J. F. Taylor, Q.C. (Fisher Unwin).

2 This is an anachronism. Poison was freely employed against the Irish in Elizabethan but not in Cromwellian times. Yet the suspicion lives among the people even to the present day--witness the street-ballad By Memory Inspired,' Book I.

Clough Oughter.

'O'Farrell and Clanrickarde, Preston and Red Hugh,
Audley and MacMahon, ye are valiant, wise, and true;
But what-what are ye all to our darling who is gone?
The Rudder of our ship was he--our Castle's corner-stone!

'Wail, wail him through the island! Weep, weep for our pride!
Would that on the battlefield our gallant chief had died!
Weep the victor of Beinn Burb--weep him, young men and old !
Weep for him, ye women-your Beautiful lies cold!

'We thought you would not die-we were sure you would not go,
And leave us in our utmost need to Cromwell's cruel blow-
Sheep without a shepherd, when the snow shuts out the sky-
Oh! why did you leave us, Owen? Why did you die?

'Soft as woman's was your voice, O'Neill! Bright was your eye.
Oh! why did you leave us, Owen? Why did you die?
Your troubles are all over; you're at rest with God on high:
But we're slaves, and we're orphans, Owen! Why did you die?'

This was the last poem written by Thomas Davis. As a specimen of his power in a narrative poem it seems far superior to his perhaps better-known ballad on Fontenoy. Miss Mitford in her MEMOIRS wrote of it: Not only is it full of spirit and melody. but the artistic merit is so great. There is no careless line or a word out of place; and how the epithets paint-" fibrous sod," "heavy balm," "shearing sword"!'

THE summer sun is falling soft on Carbery's hundred isles;
The summer sun is gleaming still through Gabriel's rough defiles;

Baltimore is a small seaport in the barony of Carbery, in South Munster. It grew up round a ' astle of O'Driscoll's, and was, after his ruin, colonised by the English. On June 20, 1631, the crew of two Algerine galleys landed in the dead of the night, sacked the town, and bore off into slavery all who were not too old or too young or too fierce for their purpose. The pirates were steered up the intricate channel by one Hackett, a Dungarvan fisherman, whom they had taken at sea for the purpose. Two years after he was convicted and executed for the crime. Baltimore never recovered this. To the artist, the antiquary, and the naturalist, its neighbourhood is most interesting. (See THE ANCIENT AND PRESent State of THE COUNTY AND CITY OF CORK, by Charles Smith, M.D.)

Old Inisherkin's crumbled fane looks like a moulting bird;
And in a calm and sleepy swell the ocean tide is heard ;
The hookers lie upon the beach; the children cease their play;
The gossips leave the little inn; the households kneel to pray ;
And full of love and peace and rest-its daily labour o'er-
Upon that cosy creek there lay the town of Baltimore.

A deeper rest, a starry trance, has come with midnight there;
No sound, except that throbbing wave, in earth or sea or air.
The massive capes and ruined towers seem conscious of the
calm ;

The fibrous sod and stunted trees are breathing heavy balm.

So still the night, these two long barques round Dunashad that glide

Must trust their oars-methinks not few-against the ebbing tide. Oh! some sweet mission of true love must urge them to the shore

They bring some lover to his bride, who sighs in Baltimore!

All, all asleep within each roof along that rocky street,
And these must be the lover's friends, with gently gliding feet—
A stifled gasp! a dreamy noise ! 'The roof is in a flame!'
From out their beds, and to their doors, rush maid and sire and

dame

And meet, upon the threshold stone, the gleaming sabre's fall,
And o'er each black and bearded face the white or crimson shawl;
The yell of 'Allah' breaks above the prayer and shriek and roar-
Oh, blessed God! the Algerine is lord of Baltimore !

Then flung the youth his naked hand against the shearing sword; Then sprung the mother on the brand with which her son was gored;

Then sunk the grandsire on the floor, his grand-babes clutching wild;

Then fled the maiden, moaning faint, and nestled with the child. But see, yon pirate strangled lies, and crushed with splashing

heel,

While o'er him in an Irish hand there sweeps his Syrian steel-Though virtue sink and courage fail, and misers yield their store, There's one hearth well avengéd in the sack of Baltimore !