Billeder på siden
PDF
ePub

HOW OFT HAS THE BENSHEE CRIED.

How oft has the Benshee cried,
How oft has death untied
Bright links that Glory wove,

Sweet bonds entwined by Love!
Peace to each manly soul that sleepeth;
Rest to each faithful eye that weepeth;
Long may the fair and brave
Sigh o'er the hero's grave.

We're fall'n upon gloomy days!1
Star after star decays,
Every bright name, that shed
Light o'er the land, is fled.

Dark falls the tear of him who mourneth
Lost joy, or hope that ne'er returneth;

But brightly flows the tear,
Wept o'er a hero's bier.

Quench'd are our beacon lightsThou, of the Hundred Fights!" Thou, on whose burning tongue Truth, peace, and freedom hung ! Both mute, but long as valor shineth, Or mercy's soul at war repineth,

So long shall Erin's pride
Tell how they lived and died.

When a cup to the smile of dear woman goes round, Oh! remember the smile which adorns her at home.

In England, the garden of Beauty is kept
By a dragon of prudery placed within call;
But so oft this unamiable dragon has slept,

That the garden's but carelessly watch'd after all
Oh! they want the wild sweet-briery fence,
Which round the flowers of Erin dwells;
Which waris the touch, while winning the sense,
Nor charms us least when it most repels.
Then remember, wherever your goblet is crown'd,
Thro' this world, whether eastward or westward

yêu roam,

When a cup to the smile of dear woman goes round,
Oh! 1emember the smile that adorns her at home
In France, when the heart of a woman see sail,
On the ocean of wedlock its fortune to try,
Love seldom goes far in a vessel so frail,

But just pilots her off, and then bids her good-by. While the daughters of Erin keep the boy,

Ever smiling beside his faithful oar, Through billows of wo, and beams of joy,

The same as he look'd when he left the shore. Then remember, wherever your goblet is crown'd, Thro' this world, whether eastward or westward

you roam,

When a cup to the smile of dear woman goes round, Oh! remember the smile that adorns her at home.

[blocks in formation]

Who but sips of a sweet, and then flies to the The Lord of the Valley with false vows came;

rest;

And, when pleasure begins to grow dull in the east,

The moon hid her light
From the heavens that night,

We may order our wings, and be off to the west; And wept behind her clouds o'er the maiden's shame

But if hearts that feel, and eyes that smile,

Are the dearest gifts that heaven supplies,

We never need leave our own green isle,

For sensitive hearts, and for sun-bright eyes. Then remember, wherever your goblet is crown'd, Thro' this world, whether eastward or westward you roam,

J I have endeavored here, without losing that Irish character which it is my object to preserve throughout this work, to allude to the sad and ominous fatality, by which England has been deprived of so many great and good men, at a moment when she most requires all the aids of talent and integrity.

* This designation, which has been before applied to Lorti

The clouds pass'd soon

From the chaste cold moon,

And heaven smiled again with her vestal flame; But none will see the day,

When the clouds shall pass away, Which that dark hour left upon Eveleen's fame.

Nelson, is the title given to a celebrated Irish Hero, in a Poem by O'Guive, the bard of O'Niel, which is quoted in the "Philosophical Survey of the South of Ireland," page 433. "Con, of the Hundred Fights, sleep in thy grass-grown tomb and upbraid not our defeats with thy victories."

Fox, "Romanorum ultimus."

[blocks in formation]

On Lough Neagh's bank, as the fisherman strays, This moment's a flower too fair and brief,

When the clear cold eve's declining,

He sees the round towers of other days

In the wave beneath him shining;

Thus shall memory often, in dreams sublime,
Catch a glimpse of the days that are over;
Thus, sighing, look through the waves of time
For the long faded glories they cover.3

1 "This brought on an encounter between Mainchi (the Monarch of Ireland in the tenth century) and the Danes, in which Malachi defeated two of their champions, whom he encountered successively, hand to hand, taking a collar of gold from the neck of one, and carrying off the sword of the other, as trophies of his victory."— Warner's History of Ireland, vol. i. book ix.

To be wither'd and stain'd by the dust of the
schools.

Your glass may be purple, and mine may be blue,
But while they are fill'd from the same bright

bowl,

The fool who would quarrel for diff'rence of hue,

Deserves not the comfort they shed o'er the soul.

region, like the Atlantis of Plato, overwhelmed. He says that the fishermen, in clear weather, used to point out to strangers the tall ecclesiastical towers under the water. Piscatores aquæ illius turres ecclesiasticas, quæ more patria arcta sunt et altæ, necnon et rotunda, sub undis manifeste sereno tempore conspiciunt, et extraneis transeuntibus, reique causas admirantibus, frequenter ostendunt.-Topogr. Hib. dist. 2, c. 9.

To make this story intelligible in a song would require a much greater number of verses than any one is authorized to inflict upon an audience at once; the reader must therefore be content to learn, in a note, that Fionnuala, the daughter of Lir, was, by some supernatural power, transformed into a swan, and condemned to wander, for many hundred years, over certain lakes and rivers in Ireland, till the coming of

2 "Military, orders of knights were very early established in Ireland: long before the birth of Christ we find an hereditary order of Chivalry in Ulster, called Curaidhe na Craiobhe ruadh, or the Knights of the Red Branch, from their chief seat in Emania, adjoining to the palace of the Ulster kings, called Teagh na Craiobhe ruadh, or the Academy of the Red Branch; and contiguous to which was a large hospital, founded for the sick knights and soldiers, called Bronbhearg, or the House of the Sorrowful Soldier."-O'Hallo- | Christianity, when the first sound of the mass-bell was to ran's Introduction, &c., part i. chap. 5.

It was an old tradition, in the time of Giraldus, that Lough Neagh had been originally a fountain, by whose sudden overflowing the country was inundated, and a whole

be the signal of her release.-I found this fanciful fiction among some inanuscript translations from the Irish, which were begun under the direction of that enlightened friend of Ireland, the late Countess of Moira.

Shall I ask the brave soldier, who fights by my side | While, far from the footstep of coward or slave,

In the cause of mankind, if our creeds agree? Shall I give up the friend I have valued and tried, If he kneel not before the same altar with me? From the heretic girl of my soul should I fly,

To seek somewhere else a more orthodox kiss? No: perish the hearts, and the laws that try Truth, valor, or love, by a standard like this!

SUBLIME WAS THE WARNING.

SUBLIME was the warning that Liberty spoke,
And grand was the moment when Spaniards awoke
Into life and revenge from the conqueror's chain.
Oh, Liberty! let not this spirit have rest,

Till it move, like a breeze, o'er the waves of the
west-

Give the light of your look to each sorrowing spot,
Nor, oh, be the shamrock of Erin forgot

235

The young spirit of Freedom shall shelter their

[blocks in formation]

While you add to your garland the Olive of It is not while beauty and youth are thine own,
Spain !

If the fame of our fathers, bequeath'd with their
rights,

Give to country its charm, and to home its delights,
If deceit be a wound, and suspicion a stain,
Then, ye men of Iberia, our cause is the same!
And oh may his tomb want a tear and a name,
Who would ask for a nobler, a holier death,
Than to turn his last sigh into victory's breath,

For the Shamrock of Erin and Olive of Spain!

Ye Blakes and O'Donnels, whose fathers resign'd
The green hills of their youth, among strangers to
find

That repose which, at home, they had sigh'd for
in vain,

And thy cheeks unprofaned by a tear

That the fervor and faith of a soul can be known,

To which time will but make thee more dear;
No, the heart that has truly loved never forgets,
But as truly loves on to the close,

As the sun-flower turns on her god, when he sets,
The same look which she turn'd when he rose.

ERIN, OH ERIN.

LIKE the bright lamp, that shone in Kildare's holy

fane,1

And burn'd thro' long ages of darkness and storm,

Join, join in our hope that the flame, which you Is the heart that sorrows have frown'd on in vain,

light,

May be felt yet in Erin, as calm, and as bright,
And forgive even Albion while blushing she draws,
Like a truant, her sword, in the long-slighted cause
Of the Shamrock of Erin and Olive of Spain!

God prosper the cause!-oh, it cannot but thrive,
While the pulse of one patriot heart is alive,

Its devotion to feel, and its rights to maintain;
Then, how sainted by sorrow, its martyrs will die!
The finger of glory shall point where they lie;

The inextinguishable fire of St. Bridget, at Kildare, which Giraldus mentions:-" Apud Kildariam occurrit ignis Sancte Brigidæ, quem inextinguibilem vocant; non quod extingui non possit, sed quod tam solicite moniales et sanctæ

Whose spirit outlives them, unfading and warm.
Erin, oh Erin, thus bright thro' the tears
Of a long night of bondage, thy spirit appears.

[ocr errors]
[blocks in formation]
[blocks in formation]

1 Mrs. H. Tighe, in her exquisite lines on the Lily, has applied this image to a still more important object.

OH! BLAME NOT THE BARD.'
Ca! blame not the bard, if he fly to the bowers,
Where Pleasure lies, carelessly smiling at Fame;
He was born for much more, and in happier hours
His soul might have burn'd with a holier flame.
The string, that now languishes loose o'er the lyre,
Might have bent a proud bow to the warrior's

dart ;

And the lip, which now breathes but the song <f desire,

Might have pour'd the full tide of a patriot's heart.

But alas for his country!-her pride is gone by,
And that spirit is broken, which never would

bend;

O'er the ruin her children in secret must sigh,

For 'tis treason to love her, and death to defend. Unprized are her sons, till they've learn'd to betray; Undistinguish'd they live, if they shame not their

sires;

And the torch, that would light them thro' dignity's way,

Must be caught from the pile, where their country expires.

Then blame not the bard, if in pleasure's soft dream,

He should try to forget what he never can heal: Oh! give but a hope-let a vista but gleam

Through the gloom of his country, and mark how
he'll feel!

That instant, his heart at her shrine would lay down
Every passion it nursed, every bliss it adored; *
While the myrtle, now idly entwined with his crown,
Like the wreath of Harmodius, should cover his
sword.

It is conjectured by Wormius, that the name of Ireland is derived from Yr, the Runic for a bow, in the use of which 2 We may suppose this apology to have been uttered by weapon the Irish were once very expert. This derivation is one of those wandering bards, whom Spenser so severely, certainly more creditable to us than the following: “So that and, perhaps, truly, describes in his State of Ireland, and Ireland, called the land of Ire, from the constant broils whose poems, he tells us, "were sprinkled with some pretty therein for 400 years, was now become the land of conflowers of their natural device, which have good grace and cord."-Lloyd's State Worthies, art. The Lord Grandison. comeliness unto them, the which it is great pity to see 4 See the Hymn, attributed to Alcæus, Ev pvprov Kλadi Te abused to the gracing of wickedness and vice, which, with | Eidos popnow"I will carry my sword, hidden in myrtles good usage, would serve to adorn and beautify virtue."

like Harmodius, and Aristogiton," &c.

[blocks in formation]
« ForrigeFortsæt »