He's all a knave or half a slave

Who slights his country thus : But a true man, like you, man,

Will fill your glass with us.

We drink the memory of the brave,
The faithful and the few—
Some lie far off beyond the wave,
Some sleep in Ireland, too;
All, all are gone-but still lives on
The fame of those who died;
And true men, like you, men,
Remember them with pride.

Some on the shores of distant lands
Their weary hearts have laid,
And by the stranger's heedless hands
Their lonely graves were made;
But though their clay be far away
Beyond the Atlantic foam,

In true men, like you, men,
Their spirit's still at home.

The dust of some is Irish earth;
Among their own they rest;

And the same land that gave them birth
Has caught them to her breast;

And we will pray that from their clay

Full many a race may start

Of true men, like you, men,
To act as brave a part.

They rose in dark and evil days
To right their native land;
They kindled here a living blaze

That nothing shall withstand.

Alas! that Might can vanquish Right-
They fell, and passed away ;
But true men, like you, men,
Are plenty here to-day.

Then here's their memory-may it be
For us a guiding light,

To cheer our strife for liberty,

And teach us to unite!

Through good and ill, be Ireland's still,
Though sad as theirs, your fate;

And true men, be you, men,

Like those of Ninety-Eight.

MARTIN MACDERMOTT

He

MARTIN MACDERMOTT was born in Dublin in 1823. contributed much graceful verse to The Nation, and has recently edited the NEW SPIRIT OF THE NATION, a volume which has been of much help towards this Anthology. He took part in the political movements of the '48 period, being deputed to represent the leaders of the attempted insurrection. in Paris. He has served for some years as Chief Architect to the Office of Works of the Khedive of Egypt, and now lives in England. He has taken some part in the work of the Irish Literary Society of London.

'Tis by its curve, I know,

Love fashioneth his bow,

And bends it--ah, even so!

Oh, girl of the red mouth, love me!

Girl of the blue eye,

Love me Love me!

Girl of the dew eye,

Love me!

Worlds hang for lamps on high;
And thought's world lives in thy
Lustrous and tender eye-

Oh, girl of the blue eye, love me!

Girl of the swan's neck,

Love me! Love me!

Girl of the swan's neck,
Love me!

As a marble Greek doth grow
To his steed's back of snow,

Thy white neck sits thy shoulder so,—
Oh, girl of the swan's neck, love me !

Girl of the low voice,

Love me ! Love me!

Girl of the sweet voice,

Love me !

Like the echo of a bell,—

Like the bubbling of a well

Sweeter ! Love within doth dwell,

Oh, girl of the low voice, love me!

RICHARD DALTON WILLIAMS

THE Munster War-Song' was sent to The Nation by Williams when a schoolboy at Carlow. He was born in the County Tipperary, 1821. He was tried for treason-felony in 1848, but acquitted. In 1849 he took his medical degree in Edinburgh, practised in Dublin for a couple of years, and then emigrated to the U.S.A. He became Professor of Belles Lettres in Mobile (Ala.), and in 1856 took up practice as a physician at New Orleans. He died in 1862. A monument has been raised to him by a regiment of Irish-American soldiers who happened to encamp near his grave during the Civil War. Williams wrote a great deal of humorous as well as patriotic verse for The Nation. With much grace, pathos, and energy, he had the

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'fatal facility' of many Irish verse-writers, and never achieved all that he was capable of. His 'Dying Girl' is, however, a piece of verse which will not easily be forgotten. His poems have been collected and published by P. A. Sillard, Dublin.

THE MUNSTER WAR-SONG

BATTLE OF AHERLOW, A.D. 1190

CAN the depths of the ocean afford you not graves,
That you come thus to perish afar o'er the waves--
To redden and swell the wild torrents that flow
Through the valley of vengeance, the dark Aherlow?1

The clangour of conflict o'erburthens the breeze,
From the stormy Slieve Bloom to the stately Galtees;
Your caverns and torrents are purple with gore,
Slievenamon, Glen Colaich, and sublime Galtee Mor!

The Sunburst that slumbered, embalmed in our tears,
Tipperary shall wave o'er thy tall mountaineers!
And the dark hill shall bristle with sabre and spear
While one tyrant remains to forge manacles here.

The riderless war-steed careers o'er the plain
With a shaft in his flank and a blood-dripping mane;
His gallant breast labours, and glare his wild eyes;
He plunges in torture-falls-shivers and dies.

Let the trumpets ring triumph! The tyrant is slain !
He reels o'er his charger deep-pierced through the brain;
And his myriads are flying, like leaves on the gale—
But who shall escape from our hills with the tale?

For the arrows of vengeance are show'ring like rain,
And choke the strong rivers with islands of slain,
Till thy waves, lordly Shannon, all crimsonly flow,
Like the billows of hell, with the blood of the foe.

Aberlow Glen, County Tipperary.

Ay! the foemen are flying, but vainly they fly-
Revenge with the fleetness of lightning can vie;
And the septs of the mountains spring up from each rock
And rush down the ravines like wolves on the flock.

And who shall pass over the stormy Slieve Bloom,
To tell the pale Saxon of tyranny's doom,

When, like tigers from ambush, our fierce mountaineers Leap along from the crags with their death-dealing spears?

They came with high boasting to bind us as slaves,
But the glen and the torrent have yawned on their graves.
From the gloomy Ardfinnan to wild Temple Mor-
From the Suir to the Shannon-is red with their gore.

By the soul of Heremon! our warriors may smile,
To remember the march of the foe through our isle ;
Their banners and harness were costly and gay,
And proudly they flashed in the summer sun's ray;

The hilts of their falchions were crusted with gold,
And the gems of their helmets were bright to behold ;
By Saint Bride of Kildare! but they moved in fair show-
To gorge the young eagles of dark Aherlow!

THE DYING GIRL

FROM a Munster vale they brought her,

From the pure and balmy air;
An Ormond peasant's daughter,
With blue eyes and golden hair
They brought her to the city,
And she faded slowly there.
Consumption has no pity

For blue eyes and golden hair.

When I saw her first reclining

Her lips were mov'd in pray'r,
And the setting sun was shining
On her loosen'd golden hair.