Hang it up at that friendly door,
Where weary travellers love to call. 1
Then if some bard, who roams forsaken,
Revive its soft note in passing along,
Oh! let one thought of its master waken
Your warmest smile for the child of song.
Keep this cup, which is now o'erflowing,
To grace your revel, when I'm at rest;
Never, oh! never its balm bestowing

On lips, that beauty hath seldom blest!
But when some warm devoted lover

To her he adores shall bathe its brim,
Then, then my spirit around shall hover,
And hallow each drop that foams for him.

HOW OFT HAS THE BENSHEE CRIED!

How oft has the Benshee cried,
How oft has Death untied
Bright links that Glory wove,
Sweet bonds, entwin'd 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 fallen upon gloomy days,2
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!

WE MAY ROAM THRO' THIS WORLD.
We may roam thro' this world, like a child at a feast,
Who but sips of a sweet, and then flies to the rest;
And, when pleasure begins to grow dull in the east,
We may order our wings, and be off to the west;

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,

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;

1 "In every house was one or two harps, free to all travellers, who were the more caressed, the more they excelled in music." O'HALLORAN.

2 I have endeavoured 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.

3 This designation, which has been applied to LORD NELSON before, 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!"

4 Fox ultimus Romanorum."

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 warns 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 you roam,
When a cup to the smile of dear woman goes round,

Oh! remember the smile which adorns her at home.

In FRANCE, when the heart of a woman sets 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-bye!
While the daughters of ERIN keep the boy

Ever smiling beside his faithful oar,

Through billows of woe, 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 which adorns her at home.

EVELEEN'S BOWER.

Oh! weep for the hour,

When to EVELEEN's bower,

The Lord of the Valley with false vows came;
The moon hid her light

From the heavens that night,

And wept behind her clouds o'er the maiden's shame.

Shew'd the track of his foot-step to EVELEEN's door.

The next sun's ray

Soon melted away

Every trace on the path where the false Lord came;

But there's a light above,

Which alone can remove

That stain upon the snow of fair EVELEEN's fame.

LET ERIN REMEMBER THE DAYS OF OLD.

LET ERIN remember the days of old,

Ere her faithless sons betray'd her;

When MALACHI wore the collar of gold, 1
Which he won from her proud invader;

When her Kings, with standard of green unfurl'd,

Let the Red-Branch Knights to danger;2

Ere the emerald gem of the western world

Was set in the crown of a stranger.

1 "This brought on an encounter between Malachi (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. 1. Book 9.

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 pa

218

On LOUGH NEAGH's bank as the fisherman strays, 1
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!

THE SONG OF FIONNUALA. 2

SILENT, oh MOYLE! be the roar of thy water,
Break not, ye breezes, your chain of repose,
While, murmuring mournfully, LIR's lonely daughter
Tells to the night-star her tale of woes.
When shall the swan, her death-note singing,
Sleep, with wings in darkness furl'd?
When will heaven, its sweet bell ringing,
Call my spirit from this stormy world?
Sadly, oh MOYLE! to thy winter-wave weeping,
Fade bids me languish long ages away;
Yet still in her darkness doth ERIN lie sleeping,
Still doth the pure light its dawning delay!
When will that day-star, mildly springing,
Warm our isle with peace and love?
When will heaven, its sweet bell ringing,
Call my spirit to the fields above?

COME, SEND ROUND THE WINE.

COME, send round the wine, and leave points of belief
To simpleton sages, and reasoning fools;

This moment's a flower too fair and brief,

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 difference of hue,
Deserves not the comfort they shed o'er the soul.
Shall I ask the brave soldier, who fights by my side
In the cause of mankind, of 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, valour, 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,

lace 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 O' HALLORAN'S INTRODUCTION, &C., Bron-bhearg, or the House of the Sorrowful Soldier."

Part 1. Chap. 5.

1 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 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 aquae illius turres ecclesiasticas, quae more patriae arctae sunt et altae, nec non et rotundae, sub undis manifeste, sereno tempore conspiciunt et extraneis transeuntibus, reique causas admirantibus, frequenter ostendunt. TOPOGR. HIB. DIST. 2. C. 9.

2 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 Christianity, when the first sound of the mass-bell was to be the signal of her release. I found this fanciful fiction among some manuscript translations from the Irish, which were begun under the direction of that enlightened friend of Ireland, the late Countess of Moira.

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,

While you add to your garland the Olive of 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,
Join, join in our hope that the flame, which you 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,
While, far from the foot-step of coward or slave,
The young spirit of Freedom shall shelter their grave
Beneath Shamrocks of ERIN and Olives of SPAIN.

BELIEVE ME, IF ALL THOSE ENDEARING YOUNG CHARMS.

BELIEVE me, if all those endearing young charms,

Which I gaze on so fondly to-day,

Were to change by to-morrow, and fleet in my arms,

Like fairy-gifts fading away!

Thou wouldst still be ador'd as this moment thou art,

Let thy loveliness fade as it will,

And around the dear ruin each wish of my heart

Would entwine itself verdantly still.

It is not while beauty and youth are thine own,
And thy cheeks unprofan'd by a tear,

That the fervour and faith of a soul can be known,
To which time will but make thee more dear!
Oh! the heart that has truly lov'd 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!

IIId No.

ERIN! OH ERIN!

LIKE the bright lamp, that shone in KILDARE's holy fane, *
And burn'd thro' long ages of darkness and storm,

Is the heart, that afflictions have come o'er in vain,
Whose spirit outlives them, unfading and warm!
ERIN! oh ERIN! thus bright, thro' the tears

Of a long night of bondage, thy spirit appears!

* The inextinguishable fire of St. Bridget, at Kildare, which Giraldus mentions, “Apud kildariam occurrit Ignis Sanctae Brigidae, quem inextinguibilem vocant; non quod extingui non possit, sed quod tam sollicite moniales et sanctae mulieres ignem, suppetente materia, favent et nutriunt, ut a tempore virginis per tot anuorum curricula semper mansit inextinctus." Girald. Camb. de Mirabil. Hibern. Dist. 2. c. 34.

The nations have fallen, and thou still art young,
Thy sun is but rising, when others are set;
And, tho' slavery's cloud o'er thy morning hath hung,
The full noon of freedom shall beam round thee yet.
ERIN! oh ERIN! tho' long in the shade,

Thy star will shine out, when the proudest shall fade!
Unchill'd by the rain, and unwak'd by the wind,

The lily lies sleeping thro' winter's cold hour,
Till Spring, with a touch, her dark slumber unbind
And day-light and liberty bless the young flower.
ERIN! oh ERIN! thy winter is past,

And the hope that liv'd thro' it, shall blossom at last.

DRINK TO HER.

DRINK to her, who long
Hath wak'd the poet's sigh;
The girl, who gave to song
What gold could never buy.
Oh! woman's heart was made
For minstrel hands alone;
By other fingers play'd,

It yields not half the tone.
Then, here's to her, who long
Hath wak'd the poet's sigh,
The girl, who gave to song
What gold could never buy!

At Beauty's door of glass

When Wealth and Wit once stood,
They ask'd her "which might pass?"
She answer'd, "he, who could.
With golden key Wealth thought
but 'twould not do:
While Wit a diamond brought,
Which cut his bright way through.

To pass

So here's to her, who long

Hath wak'd the poet's sigh;
The girl, who gave to song
What gold could never buy!

The Love that seeks a home
Where wealth or grandeur shines,

Is like the gloomy gnome,

That dwells in dark gold mines.

But oh! the poet's love

Can boast a brighter sphere;

Its native home's above,

Tho' woman keeps it here!
Then drink to her, who long
Hath wak'd the poet's sigh,
The girl, who gave to song
What gold could never buy.

OH! BLAME NOT THE BARD.2

OH! 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, 3

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

2 We may suppose this apology to have been uttered by one of those wandering bards, whom Spencer so severely, and, perhaps, truly, describes in his State of Ireland, and whose poems, he tells us, "Were sprinkled with some pretty flowers of their natural device, which gave good grace and comeliness unto them, the which it is great pity to see abused to the gracing of wickedness and vice, which, with good usage, would serve to adorn and beautify virtue.'

3 It is conjectured by Wormius, that the name of Ireland is derived from Yr, the Runic for a bow, in the use of which weapon the Irish were once very expert. This derivation is cer