HOW OFT HAS THE BENSHEE CRIED. How oft has the Benshee cried, Sweet bonds entwined by Love! We're fall'n upon gloomy days!1 Dark falls the tear of him who mourneth But brightly flows the tear, 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 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 That the garden's but carelessly watch'd after all yêu roam, When a cup to the smile of dear woman goes round, 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. 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 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." 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, 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 Your glass may be purple, and mine may be blue, 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, Till it move, like a breeze, o'er the waves of the Give the light of your look to each sorrowing spot, 235 The young spirit of Freedom shall shelter their While you add to your garland the Olive of It is not while beauty and youth are thine own, If the fame of our fathers, bequeath'd with their Give to country its charm, and to home its delights, For the Shamrock of Erin and Olive of Spain! Ye Blakes and O'Donnels, whose fathers resign'd That repose which, at home, they had sigh'd for 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; As the sun-flower turns on her god, when he sets, 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, God prosper the cause!-oh, it cannot but thrive, Its devotion to feel, and its rights to maintain; 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. 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.' 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, 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 That instant, his heart at her shrine would lay down 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. |