I'm biddin' you a long farewell,
My Mary-kind and true!"
But I'll not forget you, darling,

In the land I'm goin' to:

They say there's bread and work for all,
And the sun shines always there-
But I'll not forget Old Ireland,
Were it fifty times as fair!

And often in those grand old woods
I'll sit and shut my eyes,

And my heart will travel back again
To the place where Mary lies;
And I'll think I see the little stile

Where we sat side by side,

And the springin' corn, and the bright May morn, When first you were my bride.

TERENCE'S FAREWELL

So, my Kathleen, you're going to leave me
All alone by myself in this place,
But I'm sure you will never deceive me
Oh no, if there's truth in that face.
Though England's a beautiful city,

Full of illigant boys-oh, what then? You would not forget your poor Terence ; You'll come back to Ould Ireland again.

Och, those English, deceivers by nature,
Though maybe you'd think them sincere,
They'll say you're a sweet charming creature,
But don't you believe them, my dear.
No, Kathleen, agra! don't be minding
The flattering speeches they'll make ;
Just tell them a poor boy in Ireland

Is breaking his heart for your sake.

It's folly to keep you from going,

Though, faith, it's a mighty hard case—
For, Kathleen, you know, there's no knowing
When next I shall see your sweet face.
And when you come back to me, Kathleen—
None the better will I be off then-
You'll be spaking such beautiful English,
Sure, I won't know my Kathleen again.

Eh, now, where's the need of this hurry?
Don't flutter me so in this way!
I've forgot, 'twixt the grief and the flurry,
Every word I was maning to say.
Now just wait a minute, I bid ye-
Can I talk if you bother me so?—
Oh, Kathleen, my blessing go wid ye
Ev'ry inch of the way that you go.

ANONYMOUS

MUSIC IN THE STREET

This striking poem appeared in an Irish-American paper about 1864, and was suggested by hearing the 69th Irish regiment play Irish airs through the New York streets.

IT rose upon the sordid street,

A cadence sweet and lone;

Through all the vulgar din it pierced,

That low melodious tone.

It thrilled on my awakened ear

Amid the noisy mart,

Its music over every sound

Vibrated in my heart.

I've heard full oft a grander strain

Through lofty arches roll,

That bore on the triumphant tide

The rapt and captive soul.

In this the breath of my own hills
Blew o'er me soft and warm,
And shook my spirit, as the leaves
Are shaken by the storm.

As sounds the distant ocean wave
Within a hollow shell,

I heard within this far-off strain
The gentle waters swell
Around my distant island shore,

And glancing through the rocks,
While o'er their full and gliding wave
The sea-birds wheeled in flocks.

There, through the long delicious eves
Of that old haunted land

The Naiads, in their floating hair,
Yet dance upon the strand;

Till near and nearer came the sound,
And swelled upon the air,

And still strange echoes trembled through
The magic music there.

It rose above the ceaseless din,

It filled the dusty street,

As some cool breeze of freshness blows

Across the desert's heat.

It shook their squalid attic homes—
Pale exiles of our race-
And drew to dingy window-panes

Full many a faded face,

And eyes whose deep and lustrous light
Flashed strangely, lonely there,
And many a young and wistful brow

Beneath its soft brown hair;

And other eyes of fiercer fire,

And faces rough and dark

Brave souls that bore thro' all their lives

The tempests on their bark.

In through the narrow rooms it poured,
That music sweeping on,

And perfumed all their heavy air
With flowers of summers gone,
With waters sparkling to the lips,
With many a summer breeze,
That woke into one rippling song
The shaken summer trees.

In it, along the sloping hills
The blue flax-blossoms bent;
In it, above the shining streams
The Fairy Fingers' leant ;
In it, upon the soft green Rath,

There bloomed the Fairy Thorn ;
In their tired feet they felt the dew
Of many a harvest morn.

In it, the ripe and golden corn
Bent down its heavy head;

In it, the grass waved long and sweet

Above their kindred dead;

In it, the voices of the loved

They might no more behold

Came back and spoke the tender words

And sang the songs of old.

Sometimes there trembled through the strain

A song like falling tears,

And then it rose and burst again

Like sudden clashing spears;

And still the faces in the street
And at the window-panes

Would cloud or lighten, gloom or flash
With all its changing strains.

But, ah! too soon it swept away,

That pageantry of soundAgain the parted tide of life

Closed darkly all around,

As in the wake of some white bark,
In sunshine speeding on,

Close in the dark and sullen waves,
The darker where it shone.

The faces faded from my view,
Like faces in a dream;
To its dull channel back again

Crept the subsiding stream.
And I, too, starting like the rest,
Cast all the spell aside,
And let the fading music go-
A blossom down the tide.

DION BOUCICAULT

THIS noted actor and dramatist was born in Dublin, of French parentage, on December 26, 1822. His Irish plays are extremely popular, but he wrote an enormous number of other dramas, comedies, and farces. He lived in America during the latter part of his life, and died there in September 1890. The following is supposed to be sung by a young woman, an exile, whose baby had died in her old home.

I'm very happy where I am,

Far across the say—

I'm very happy far from home,
In North Amerikay.

It's lonely in the night when Pat
Is sleeping by my side.

I lie awake, and no one knows
The big tears that I've cried.

For a little voice still calls me back
To my far, far counthrie,

And nobody can hear it spake

Oh nobody but me.