On hearing The Last Rose of Summer'—a melody on which Sweet mourner, cease that melting strain, Too well it suits the grave's cold slumbers; Charles Wolfe was the son of Theobald Wolfe, a landowner of the County Kildare, of the same family as the hero of Quebec, now represen'ed by Richard Wolfe, Esq., of Forenaghts, County Kildare. One of Theobald Wolfe's tenants was Peter Tone, a coachmaker of Dublin, who called his eldest son after his landlord Theobald Wolfe--and thus caused the name to be written deep in Irish history. Charles Wolfe was born in 1791, and was educated at Winchester, and Trinity College, Dublin, where he was distinguished for high intellectual attainments and successes. He took orders in 1817 (the year in which the Burial Ode' was published), and held curacies at Drumclog and Castle Caulfield, County Tyrone. He was intensely beloved by all conditions of people among his flock, for whom he ruined his weak constitution in devoted work. He died of consumption in 1823, after a vain attempt to restore his health by a voyage to France. His LIFE AND REMAINS have been published (1825) by the Rev. Archdeacon Russell. THE BURIAL OF SIR JOHN MOORE NOT a drum was heard, not a funeral note. We buried him darkly at dead of night, No useless coffin enclosed his breast, Not in sheet or in shroud we wound him IV Few and short were the prayers we said, And we spoke not a word of sorrow; V We thought, as we hollow'd his narrow bed, And smooth'd down his lonely pillow, That the foe and the stranger would tread o'er his head, VI Lightly they'll talk of the spirit that's gone. VII But half of our heavy task was done When the clock struck the hour for retiring, And we heard the distant and random gun That the foe was sullenly firing. VIII Slowly and sadly we laid him down From the field of his fame fresh and gory; SONNET WRITTEN DURING HIS RESIDENCE IN COLLEGE My spirit's on the mountains, where the birds In wild and sportive freedom wing the air, It is my joy to tread the pathless hills, This is delusion, but it is so sweet That I could live deluded. Let me be Persuaded that my springing soul may meet The eagle on the hills-and I am free. Who'd not be flatter'd by a fate like this? To fancy is to feel our happiness. LINES WRITTEN TO MUSIC IF I had thought thou couldst have died That thou couldst mortal be: And I on thee should look my last, And still upon that face I look, And still the thought I will not brook, And now I feel, as well I may, If thou wouldst stay e'en as thou art, I still might press thy silent heart, I do not think, where'er thou art, And I perhaps may soothe this heart Yet there was round thee such a dawn As Fancy never could have drawn, LUKE AYLMER CONOLLY It THE following poem is frequently printed as anonymous. was written by Conolly, and is in his LEGENDARY TALES IN VERSE, published anonymously in Belfast in 1813. He was born at Ballycastle, County Antrim, graduated at Trinity College, Dublin, in 1806, and entered the Church. in or about 1833. THE ENCHANTED ISLAND To Rathlin's Isle I chanced to sail That oft I wished it could be true. They said, at eve, when rude winds sleep, A mermaid rises from the deep, And sweetly tunes her magic shell. And while she plays, rock, dell, and cave, As if some choral spirits gave Their aid to swell her witching strain. Then, summoned by that dulcet note, A fairy island seems to float With tints of many a gorgeous hue. And glittering fanes, and lofty towers, He died And as it moves, the western sky Glows with a thousand varying rays; They also say, if earth or stone From verdant Erin's hallowed land But when for this some little boat MARGUERITE A. POWER NIEC of Lady Blessington, and a clever writer of verse. Landor praised her poems on more than one occasion. She was born about 1815, and died in July 1867. She wrote much poetry for periodicals (such as The Irish Metropolitan Magazine, 1857-8) edited by herself, her aunt, and others, and also several novels and a book of travel. The following is from her best poem, 'Virginia's Hand,' which was separately published in 1860: A HIDDEN ROSE-TREE LATE at morning's prime I roved, Where erst a garden bloomed, where now a waste Held sole pre-eminence-or so I deemed Till, turning from an alley long untrod, And densely sheltered by o'er-arching boughs, Upon a little space hedged closely round |