'Sir Knight! I feel not the least alarm,
No son of Erin will offer me harm:
For, though they love women al golden store,
Sir Knight! they love honour and virtue more."
On she went, and her maiden smile
In safety lighted her round the green isle ;
And blest for ever is she who relied
Upon Erin's honour and Erin's pride.
AS A BEAM O'ER THE FACE OF THE WATERS
MAY GLOW.
As a beam o'er the face of the waters may glow,
While the tide runs in darkness and coldness below,
So the cheek may be tinged with a warm sunny smile,
Though the cold heart to ruin runs darkly the while.
One fatal remembrance, one sorrow that throws
Its bleak shade alike o'er our joys and our woes,
To which life nothing darker or brighter can bring,
For which joy has no balm and affliction no sting:
'Oh! this thought in the midst of enjoyment will stay,
Like a dead leafless branch in the summer's bright ray,
The beams of the warm sun play round it in vain,
It may smile in his light, but it blooms not again.
THE MEETING OF THE WATERS.'
THERE is not in the wide world a valley so sweet,
As that vale in wh e bosom the bright waters meet;1
Oh! the last rays of feeling and life must depart,
Ere the bloom of that valley shall fade from my heart.
Yet it was not that Nature had shed o'er the scene
Her purest of crystal and brightest of green;
'Twas not her soft magic of streamlet or hill,
Oh! no-it was something more exquisite still.
'Twas that friends, the beloved of my bosom, were near,
Who made every dear scene of enchantment more dear,
And who felt how the best charms of Nature improve,
When we see them reflected from looks that we love.
1 "The Meeting of the Waters" forms a part of that beautiful scenery which lies between Rathdrum and Arklow, in the county of Wicklow, and these lines were suggested by a visit to this romantic spot in the summer of the year 1807. 2 The rivers Avon and Avoca.