What a union of all the affections and powers,

By which life is exalted, embellished, refined,
Was embraced in that spirit, whose centre was ours,
While its mighty circumference circled mankind!
Oh, who that loves Erin, or who that can sec,
Through the waste of her annals, that epoch sublime—
Like a pyramid raised in the desert-where he

And his glory stand out to the eyes of all time!—

That one lucid interval snatched from the gloom

And the madness of ages, when, filled with his soul,
A nation o'erleaped the dark bounds of her doom,
And, for one sacred instant, touched liberty's goal!

Who, that ever hath heard him-hath drank at the source
Of that wonderful eloquence, all Erin's own,

In whose high-thoughted daring, the fire, and the force,
And the yet untamed spring of her spirit, are shown ;-

An eloquence, rich-wheresoever its wave

Wandered free and triumphant-with thoughts that shone through As clear as the brook's 'stone of lustre,' and gave,

With the flash of the gem, its solidity too ;

Who, that ever approached him, when, free from the crowd,
In a home full of love, he delighted to tread

'Mong the trees which a nation had giv'n, and which bowed,

As if each brought a new civic crown for his head,—

That home, where-like him who, as fable hath told,

Put the rays from his brow, that his child might come nearEvery glory forgot, the most wise of the old

Became all that the simplest and youngest hold dear :

Is there one who has thus, through his orbit of life,

But at distance observed him, through glory, through blame,

In the calm of retreat, in the grandeur of strife,

Whether shining or clouded, still high and the same?

Such a union of all that enriches life's hour,

Of the sweetness we love and the greatness we praise, As that type of simplicity blended with power,

A child with a thunderbolt, only portrays.—

Oh no-not a heart that e'er knew him but mourns,
Deep, deep, o'er the grave where such glory is shrined-
O'er a monument Fame will preserve 'mong the urns
Of the wisest, the bravest, the best of mankind ↓

'TWAS ONE OF THOSE DREAMS.

"TWAS one of those dreams that by music are brought,
Like a light summer haze, o'er the poet's warm thought,
When, lost in the future, his soul wanders on,

And all of this life but its sweetness is gone

The wild notes he heard o'er the water were those
To which he had sung Erin's bondage and woes,
And the breath of the bugle now wafted them o'er
From Denis' green isle to Glena's wooded shore

He listened-while high o'er the eagle's rude nest
The lingering sounds on their way loved to rest;
And the echoes sung back from their full mountain quire,
As if loth to let song so enchanting expire.

It seemed as if every sweet note that died here
Was again brought to life in some airier sphere,
Some heaven in those hills where the soul of the strain,
That had ceased upon earth, was awaking again '

Oh forgive, if, while listening to music whose breath
Seemed to circle his name with a charm against death,
He should feel a proud spirit within him proclaim-
'Even so shalt thou live in the echoes of Fame:

'Even so, though thy memory should now die away,
"Twill be caught up again in some happier day,
And the hearts and the voices of Erin prolong,
Through the answering future, thy name and thy song!'

FAIREST! PUT ON AWHILE.

FAIREST! put on awhile

These pinions of light I bring thee,
And o'er thy own green isle

In fancy let me wing thee.
Never did Ariel's plume,
At golden sunset hover
O'er such scenes of bloom

As I shall waft thee over.
Fields, where the Spring delays,
And fearlessly meets the ardour
Of the warm Summer's gaze,
With but her tears to guard her.

Rocks, through myrtle boughs,
In grace majestic frowning-
Like some warrior's brows

That Love hath just been crowning.

Islets so freshly fair

That never hath bird come nigh them, But, from his course through air,

Hath been won downward by them1Types, sweet maid, of thee,

Whose lcok, whose blush inviting, Never did Love yet see

From heaven, without alighting.

In describing the Skeligs (islands of the barony of Forth) Dr. Keating says: "There is a ertain attractive virtue in the soil, which draws down all the birds that attem-t to fly over it, nd obliges them to light upon the rock.'

AND doth not a meeting like this make amends
For all the long years I've been wandering away?
To see thus around me my youth's early friends,
As smiling and kind as in that happy day!
Though haply o'er some of your brows, as o'er mine,
The snow-fall of Time may be stealing-what then?
Like Alps in the sunset, thus lighted by wine,
We'll wear the gay tinge of youth's roses again.

What softened remembrances come o'er the heart,
In gazing on those we've been lost to so long!
The sorrows, the joys, of which once they were part,
Still round them, like visions of yesterday, throng.

1 'Nennius, a British writer of the ninth century, mentions the abundance of pearls in Ireland. Their princes, he says, hung them behind their ears. and this we find confirmed by a

present made, A.D. 1094, by Gilbert Bishop of Limerick to Anselm Archbishop of Canterbury, of a considerable quantity of Irish pearls,'O'Halloran.

As letters some hand hath invisibly traced,

When held to the flame will steal out on the sight, So many a feeling, that long seemed effaced

The warmth of a meeting like this brings to light.

And thus, as in Memory's bark we shall glide
To visit the scenes of our boyhood anew-
Though oft we may see, looking down on the tide,
The wreck of full many a hope shining through-
Yet still, as in fancy we point to the flowers,

That once made a garden of all the gay shore,
Deceived for a moment, we'll think them still ours,

And breathe the fresh air of Life's morning once more.

So brief our existence, a glimpse, at the most,

Is all we can have of the few we hold dear;

And oft even joy is unheeded and lost,

For want of some heart, that could echo it near.
Ah, well may we hope, when this short life is gone,
To meet in some world of more permanent bliss ;
For a smile, or a grasp of the haud, hastening on,
Is all we enjoy of each other in this.

But come-the more rare such delights to the heart,

The more we should welcome, and bless them the more : They're ours when we meet-they are lost when we part, Like birds that bring summer, and fly when 'tis o'er. Thus circling the cup, hand in hand, ere we drink,

Let sympathy pledge us, through pleasure, through pain, That fast as a feeling but touches one link,

Her magic shall send it direct through the chain.

THE MOUNTAIN SPRITE.

IN yonder valley there dwelt, alone,

A youth, whose life all had calmly flown,

Till spells came o'er him, and, day and night,

He was haunted and watched by a Mountain Sprite.

As he, by moonlight, went wandering o'er

The golden sands of that island shore,

A footprint sparkled before his sight,

'Twas the fairy foot of the Mountain Sprite.

Beside a fountain, one sunny day,

As, looking down on the stream, he lay,

Behind him stole two eyes of light,

And he saw in the clear wave the Mountain Sprite.

He turned-but lo, like a startled bird,

The Spirit fled-and he only heard