I thank you for the patient smile
When your heart was fit to break,
When the hunger-pain was gnawin' there,
And you hid it for my sake;

I bless you for the pleasant word
When your heart was sad and sore
Oh! I'm thankful you are gone, Mary,
Where grief can't reach you more!

I'm biddin' you a long farewell,
My Mary-kind and true!
But I'll not forget you, darling,

In the land I'm goin' to:

They say there's bread and work for all,

And the sun shines always there

But I'll not forget Old Ireland,
Were it fifty times as fair!

And often in those grand old woods
I'll sit and shut my eyes,
And my heart will travel back again.
To the place where Mary lies;

And I'll think I see the little stile

Where we sat side by side,

And the springin' corn, and the bright May morn, When first you were my bride.

C

THOMAS DUFFET

(Circa 1676)

COME ALL YOU PALE LOVERS

OME all you pale lovers that sigh and complain, While your beautiful tyrants but laugh at your pain,

Come practice with me

To be happy and free,

In spite of inconstancy, pride, or disdain.
I see and I love, and the bliss I enjoy
No rival can lessen nor envy destroy.

My mistress so fair is, no language or art
Can describe her perfection in every part;
Her mien's so genteel,

With such ease she can kill,

Each look with new passion she captures my heart.

Her smiles, the kind message of love from her eyes, When she frowns 'tis from others her flame to disguise. Thus her scorn or her spite

I convert to delight,

As the bee gathers honey wherever he flies.

My vows she receives from her lover unknown,
And I fancy kind answers although I have none.

How blest should I be

If our hearts did agree,

Since already I find so much pleasure alone. I see and I love, and the bliss I enjoy No rival can lessen nor envy destroy.

G

SIR CHARLES GAVAN DUFFY
(1816-1903)

INNISHOWEN

OD bless the gray mountains of dark Donegal,
God bless Royal Aileach, the pride of them

all;

For she sits evermore like a queen on her throne,
And smiles on the valley of Green Innishowen.

And fair are the valleys of Green Innishowen,
And hardy the fishers that call them their own
A race that nor traitor nor coward have known
Enjoy the fair valleys of Green Innishowen.

Oh! simple and bold are the bosoms they bear,
Like the hills that with silence and nature they share;
For our God, who hath planted their home near his

own,

Breathed his spirit abroad upon fair Innishowen.
Then praise to our Father for wild Innishowen,
Where fiercely forever the surges are thrown
Nor weather nor fortune a tempest hath blown
Could shake the strong bosoms of brave In-
nishowen.

See the bountiful Couldah' careering along-
A type of their manhood so stately and strong

1 Couldah, Culdaff, the chief river in the Innishowen mountains.

On the weary forever its tide is bestown,

So they share with the stranger in fair Innishowen. God guard the kind homesteads of fair Innishowen. Which manhood and virtue have chos'n for their

own;

Not long shall that nation in slavery groan,

That rears the tall peasants of fair Innishowen.

Like that oak of St. Bride which nor Devil nor Dane, Nor Saxon nor Dutchman could rend from her fane, They have clung by the creed and the cause of their

Own

Through the midnight of danger in true Innishowen.
Then shout for the glories of old Innishowen,
The stronghold that foemen have never o'er-
thrown

The soul and the spirit, the blood and the bone,
That guard the green valleys of true Innishowen.

No purer of old was the tongue of the Gael,
When the charging aboo made the foreigner quail;
When it gladdens the stranger in welcome's soft tone.
In the home-loving cabins of kind Innishowen,

Oh! flourish, ye homesteads of kind Innishowen,
Where seeds of a people's redemption are sown;
Right soon shall the fruit of that sowing have
grown,

To bless the kind homesteads of green Innishowen.

When they tell us the tale of a spell-stricken band,
All entranced, with their bridles and broadswords in

hand,

Who await but the word to give Erin her own,