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THE

SONG OF O'RUARK,

PRINCE OF BREFFNI. I

THE VALLEY LAY SMILING BEFORE ME.

AIR-The Pretty Girl milking her Cow.

THE valley lay smiling before me;
Where lately left her behind;

Yet I trembled, and something hung o'er me,
That sadden'd the joy of my mind.

I These stanzas are founded upon an event of most melancholy importance to Ireland; if, as we are told by our Irish historians, it gave England the first opportu nity of dividing, conquering, and enslaving us. The fol lowing are the circumstances, as related by O'Halloran. « The King of Leinster had long conceived a violent affection for Dearbhorgil, daughter to the King of Meath, and though she had been for some time married to O'Ruark, Prince of Breffni, yet could it not restrain his

I look'd for the lamp which she told me,
Should shine, when her Pilgrim return'd,
But, though darkness began to infold me,
No lamps from the battlsments burn'd!

I flew to her chamber-'twas lonely
As, if the loved tenant lay dead—
Ah! would it were death, and death only!
But no-the young false one had fled.
And there hung the lute, that could soften
My very worst pains into bliss,

While the hand, that had waked it so often,
Now throbb'd to my proud rival's kiss!

passion. They carried on a private correspondence, and she informed him that O'Ruark intended soon to go on a pilgrimage, (an act of piety frequent in those days) and conjured him to embrace that opportunity of conveying her from a husband she detested to a lover she adored. Mac Murchad too ponctually obeyed the summons, and had the lady conveyed to his capital offerns.» The monarch Roderic espoused the cause of O'Ruark, while Mac Murchad fled to England, and obtained the assistance of Henry II.

<< Such,«< adds Giraldus Cambrensis (as I find him in an old translation,) « is the variable and fickle natura of woman, by whom all mischiefs in the world (for the most part) do happen and come, as may appear by Mar cus Antoninus, and by the destruction of Troy.»

4

There was a time, falsest of women!

When Breffni's good sword would have sought That man through a million of foemen,

Who dared but to doubt thee in thought! While now-oh !degenerate daughter

Of Erin! how fall'n is thy fame!

And, through ages of bondage and slaughter,
Thy country shall bleed for thy shame.

Already, the curse is upon her,

And strangers her vallies profane;
They come to divide to dishonour-
And tyrants they long will remain !
But, onward! -the green banner rearing,
Go, flesh ev'ry brand to the hilt;
On our side is VIRTUE and Erin,
On theirs IS THE SAXON and GUILT.

OH! HAD WE SOME BRIGHT LITTLE ISLE OF OUR OWN

AIR-Sheela na Guira.

On! had we some bright little isle of our own,
In a blue summer ocean far off and alone,
Where a leaf never dies in the still-blooming
bowers,

And the bee banquets on through a whole year of flowers.

Where the sun loves to pause

With so fond a delay,

That the night only draws

A thin veil o'er the day;

Where simply to feel that we breathe, that we

live,

Is worth the best joys that life elsewhere can give!

There, with souls ever ardent and pure as the

clime

We should love, as they loved, in the first golden

time;

The glow of the sunshine, the balm of the air, Would steal to our hearts, and make all summer there!

With affection as free

From decline as the powers;

And with Hope, like the bee,
Living always on flowers;

Our life should resemble a long day of light, And our death come on holy and calm as the night!

FAREWELL!--BUT, WHENEVER YOU WELCOME THE HOUR.

AIR-Moll Roone.

FAREWELL!

hour,

but, whenever you welcome the

That awakens the night-song of mirth in you!

bower,

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