THE SONG OF O'RUARK,

PRINCE OF BREFFNI.1

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

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

1 These stanzas are founded upon an event king of Leinster had long conceived a violent of most melancholy importance to Ireland, if, as affection for Dearbhorgil, daughter to the king we are told by our Irish historians, it gave Eng-of Meath, and though she had been for some land the first opportunity of profiting by our di visions and subduing us. The following are the circumstances, as related by O'Halloran:-'The

time married to O'Ruark, prince of Breffni, yet it could not restrain his passion. They carried on a private correspondence, and she informed

I look'd for the lamp which, she told me,
Should shine when her pilgrim return'd;
But, though darkness began to enfold me,
No lamp from the battlements 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 a proud rival's kiss.

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 wrong thee in thought!
While now--O degenerate daughter

Of Erin, how fallen is thy fame!

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

Already the curse is upon her,

And strangers her valleys profane;
They come to divide--to dishonour,
And tyrants they long will remain.
But onward!- the green banner rearing,
Go, flesh every sword 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.

OH! 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 joy that life elsewhere can give.

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 punctually obeyed the summons, and had the lady conveyed to his capital of Ferns.' The monarch Roderick espoused the cause of O'Ruark, while Mac Mur

chad fled to England, and obtained the assis tance of Henry 11.

'Such,' adds Giraldus Cambrensis (as I find him in an old translation), 'is the variable and fickle nature of women, by whom all mischiefs in the world (for the most part) do happen and come, as may appear by Marcus Antonius, and by the destruction of Troy.'

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 bowers,
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.

FAREWELL!--but whenever you welcome the hour
That awakens the night-song of mirth in your bower,
Then think of the friend who once welcomed it too,
And forgot his own griefs to be happy with you.
His griefs may return, not a hope may remain
Of the few that have brighten'd his pathway of pain,
But he ne'er will forget the short vision that threw
Its enchantment around him, while lingering with you.

And still on that evening, when pleasure fills up
To the highest top sparkle each heart and each cup,
Where'er my path lies, be it gloomy or bright,
My soul, happy friends, shall be with you that night;
Shall join in your revels, your sports, and your wiles,
And return to me beaming all o'er with your smiles-
Too blest, if it tells me that, 'mid the gay cheer,
Some kind voice had murmur'd, 'I wish he were here!'

Let Fate do her worst; there are relics of joy,
Bright dreams of the past, which she cannot destroy;
Which come in the night-time of sorrow and care,
And bring back the features that joy used to wear.
Long, long be my heart with such memories fill'd!
Like the vase, in which roses have once been distill'd-
You may break, you may shatter the vase if you will,
But the scent of the roses will hang round it still.

OH! DOUBT ME NOT.

OH! doubt me not-the season
Is o'er, when Folly made me rove,
And now the vestal, Reason,

Shall watch the fire awaked by Love.
Although this heart was early blown,
And fairest hands disturb'd the tree,
They only shook some blossoms down,
Its fruit has all been kept for thee.

Then doubt me not-the season
Is o'er when Folly made me rove,
And now the vestal, Reason,

Shall watch the fire awaked by Love.

And though my lute no longer
May sing of Passion's ardent spell,
Yet, trust me, all the stronger
I feel the bliss I do not tell.
The bee through many a garden roves,
And hums his lay of courtship o'er,
But, when he finds the flower he loves,
He settles there, and hums no more.
Then doubt me not-the season

Is o'er when folly kept me free,
And now the vestal, Reason,

Shall guard the flame awaked by thee.

YOU REMEMBER ELLEN.1

You remember Ellen, our hamlet's pride,
How meekly she bless'd her humble lot,
When the stranger, William, had made her his bride,
And love was the light of their lowly cot.
Together they toil'd through winds and rains,
Till William at length in sadness said.
'We must seek our fortune on other plains;'.
Then, sighing, she left her lowly shed.

They roam'd a long and a weary way,

Nor much was the maiden's heart at ease,
When now, at the close of one stormy day,

They see a proud castle among the trees.
"To-night,' said the youth, we'll shelter there;
The wind blows cold, and the hour is late :'
So he blew the horn with a chieftain's air,

And the porter bow'd as they pass'd the gate.

'Now, welcome, lady,' exclaim'd the youth,

'This castle is thine, and these dark woods all!' She believed him crazed, but his words were truth, For Ellen is Lady of Rosna Hall!

And dearly the Lord of Rosna loves

What William the stranger woo'd and wed;
And the light of bliss, in these lordly groves,
Shines pure as it did in the lowly shed.

This ballad was suggested by a well-known and interesting story, told of a certain noble family in England.