Oh! never shall earth see a moment so splendid-
Then, then-had one Hymn of Deliverance blended
The tongues of all nations-how sweet had ascended
The first note of Liberty, Erin, from thee!
But shame on those tyrants who envied the blessing!
And shame on the light race unworthy its good,
Who, at Death's reeking altar, like furies caressing
The young hope of Freedom, baptized it in blood!
Then vanish'd for ever that fair, sunny vision.
Which, spite of the slavish, the cold heart's derision,
Shall long be remember'd, pure, bright, and elysian,
As first it arose, my lost Erin, on thee.
I SAW FROM THE BEACH.
I SAW from the beach, when the morning was shining,
A bark o'er the waters move gloriously on;
I came when the sun o'er that beach was declining,
The bark was still there, but the waters were gone.
And such is the fate of our life's early promise,
So passing the spring-tide of joy we have known;
Each wave, that we danced on at morning, ebbs from us,
And leaves us, at eve, on the bleak shore alone.
Ne'er tell me of glories serenely adorning
The close of our day, the calm eve of our night :-
Give me back, give me back the wild freshness of Morning,
Her clouds and her tears are worth Evening's best light.
Oh, who would not welcome that moment's returning,
When passion first waked a new life through his frame,
And his soul- like the wood that grows precious in burning-
Gave out all its sweets to love's exquisite-flame !
Every drop we sprinkle O'er the brow of Care Smooths away a wrinkle. Wit's electric flame
Ne er so swiftly passes, As when through the frame
It shoots from brimming glasses
Fill the bumper fair!
Every drop we sprinkle
O'er the brow of Care
Smooths away a wrinkle. Sages can, they say,
Grasp the lightning's pinions,
And bring down its ray
From the starr'd dominions :So we, Sages, sit
And 'mid bumpers brightening,
From the heaven of Wit
Draw down all its lightning.
Wouldst thou know what first
Made our souls inherit
This ennobling thirst
For wine's celestial spirit?
It chanced upon that day,
When, as bards inform us,
Prometheus stole away
The living fires that warm us,
The careless Youth, when up
To Glory's fount aspiring,
Took nor urn nor cup
To hide the pilfer'd fire in.-
But oh, his joy! when, round
The halls of heaven spying,
Among the stars he found
A bowl of Bacchus lying.
Some drops were in that bowl,
Remains of last night's pleasure,
With which the Sparks of Soul
Mix'd their burning treasure.
Hence the goblet's shower
Hath such spells to win us;
Hence its mighty power
O'er that flame within us.
Fill the bumper fair!
Every drop we sprinkle
O'er the brow of Care
Smooths away a wrinkle.
DEAR Harp of my Country! in darkness I found thee,
The cold chain of silence had hung o'er thee long,1
When proudly, my own Island Harp, I unbound thee,
And gave all thy chords to light, freedom, and song!
The warm lay of love and the light note of gladness
Have waken'd thy fondest, thy liveliest thrill;
But so oft hast thou echoed the deep sigh of sadness,
That even in thy mirth it will steal from thee still.
Dear Harp of my Country! farewell to thy numbers,
This sweet wreath of song is the last we shall twine.
Go, sleep with the sunshine of Fame on thy slumbers,
Till touch'd by some hand less unworthy than mine •
If the pulse of the patriot, soldier, or lover,
Have throbb'd at our lay, 'tis thy glory alone;
It was but as the wind, passing heedlessly over,
And all the wild sweetness I waked was thy own.
MY GENTLE HARP.
My gentle Harp! once more I waken
The sweetness of thy slumbering strain;
In tears our last farewell was taken,
And now in tears we meet again.
No light of joy hath o'er thee broken,
But-like those harps whose heavenly skill
Of slavery, dark as thine, hath spoken-
Thou hang'st upon the willows still.
In that rebellious but beautiful song, When Erin first rose,' there is, if I recollect right, the following line:
The dark chain of silence was thrown o'er the deep.'
The Chain of Silence was a sort of practical figure of rhetoric among the ancient Irish.
Walker tells us of a celebrated contention for
precedence between Finn and Gaul, near Finn's
palace at Almhaim, where the attending bards,
anxious, if possible, to produce a cessation of
hostilities, shook the Chain of Silence, and flung
themselves among the ranks.'-See also the Ode
to Gaul, the son of Morni, in Miss Brooke's Re-
[liques of Irish Poetry.
And yet, since last thy chord resounded,
An hour of peace and triumph came,
And many an ardent bosom bounded
With hopes-that now are turned to shame.
Yet even then, while Peace was singing
Her halcyon song o'er land and sea,
Though joy and hope to others bringing,
She only brought new tears to thee.
Then who can ask for notes of pleasure,
My drooping harp! from chords like thine?
Alas, the lark's gay morning measure
As ill would suit the swan's decline!
Or how shall I, who love, who bless thee,
Invoke thy breath for freedom's strains,
When even the wreaths in which I dress thee
Are sadly mixed-half flowers, half chains!
But come-if yet thy frame can borrow
One breath of joy-oh, breathe for me,
And show the world, in chains and sorrow,
How sweet thy music still can be ;
How gaily, even 'mid gloom surrounding,
Thou yet canst wake at pleasure's thrill-.
Like Memnon's broken image, sounding,
'Mid desolation, tuneful still!
As slow our ship her foamy track
Against the wind was cleaving,
Her trembling pennant still looked
To that dear isle 'twas leaving.
So loth we part from all we love,
From all the links that bind us;
So turn our hearts, where'er we rove,
To those we've left behind us!
When round the bowl of vanished years
We talk, with joyous seeming,-
With smiles, that might as well be
tears,
So faint, so sad their beaming;
While memory brings us back again
Each early tie that twined us,
Oh, sweet's the cup that circles then
To those we've left behind us!
And when, in other climes, we meet
Some isle or vale enchanting,
Where all looks flowery, wild, and
And nought but love is wanting,
We think how great had been our bliss,
If Heaven had but assigned us
To live and die in scenes like this,
With some we've left behind us!
As travellers oft look back, at eve,
When eastward darkly going,
To gaze upon that light they leave
Still faint behind them glowing,-
So, when the close of pleasure's day
To gloom hath near consigned us,
We turn to catch one fading ray
Of joy that's left behind us.
In the morning of life, when its cares are unknown,
And its pleasures in all their new lustre begin,
When we live in a bright-beaming world of our own,
And the light that surrounds us is all from within;
Oh, it is not, believe me, in that happy time
We can love as in hours of less transport we may :Of our smiles, of our hopes, 'tis the gay sunny prime, But affection is warmest when these fade away.
When we see the first glory of youth pass us by,
Like a leaf on the stream that will never return;
When our cup, which had sparkled with pleasure so high,
First tastes of the other, the dark flowing urn;
Then, then is the moment affection can sway
With a depth and a tenderness joy never knew;
Love nursed among pleasures is faithless as they,
But the Love born of sorrow, like sorrow, is true!
In climes full of sunshine, though splendid their dyes,
Yet faint is the odour the flowers shed about;
'Tis the clouds and the mists of our own weeping skies
That call the full spirit of fragrancy out.
So the wild glow of passion may kindle from mirth,
But 'tis only in grief true affection appears ;-
And even though to smiles it may first owe its birth,
All the soul of its sweetness is drawn out by tears.
WHEN cold in the earth lies the friend thou hast loved,
Be his faults and his follies forgot by thee then ;
Or if from their slumber the veil be removed,
Weep o'er them in silence, and close it again.
And, oh! if 'tis pain to remember how far
From the pathways of light he was tempted to roam,
Be it bliss to remember that thou wert the star
That arose on his darkness and guided him home.
From thee and thy innocent beauty first came
The revealings that taught him true Love to adore,
To feel the bright presence, and turn him with shame
From the idols he blindly had knelt to before.
O'er the waves of a life, long benighted and wild,
Thou camest, like a soft golden calm o'er the sea ;
And if happiness purely and glowingly smiled
On his evening horizon, the light was from thee.
And though sometimes the shade of past folly would rise,
And though Falsehood again would allure him to stray,
He but turned to the glory that dwelt in those eyes,
And the folly, the falsehood, soon vanished away.
As the Priests of the Sun, when their altar grew dim,
At the day-beam alone could its lustre repair,
So, if virtue a moment grew languid in him,
He but flew to that smile, and rekindled it there.
REMEMBER thee! yes, while there's life in this heart,
It shall never forget thee, all lorn as thou art;
More dear in thy sorrow, thy gloom, and thy showers,
Than the rest of the world in their sunniest hours.
Wert thou all that I wish thee,-great, glorious, and free—
First flower of the earth, and first gem of the sea,-
I might hail thee with prouder, with happier brow,
But, oh! could I love thee more deeply than now?
No thy chains as they raukle, thy blood as it runs,
But make thee more painfully dear to thy sons-
Whose hearts, like the young of the desert-bird's nest,
Drink love in each life-drop that flows from thy breast!
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