I might have said,
My mountain maid,

A father's right was never given

True hearts to curse

With tyrant force

That have been blest in heaven.
But then I said, "In after years,

When thoughts of home shall find her,
My love may mourn with secret tears
Her friends thus left behind her."
Sing, Gile machree, etc.

Oh, no, I said,

My own dear maid,

For me, though all forlorn, forever

That heart of thine
Shall ne'er repine

O'er slighted duty-never.

From home and thee, though wandering far, A dreary fate be mine, love;

I'd rather live in endless war

Than buy my peace with thine, love.
Sing, Gile machree, etc.

Far, far away,

By night and day,

I toiled to win a golden treasure;

And golden gains
Repaid my pains

In fair and shining measure.

I sought again my native land,
Thy father welcomed me, love;

I poured my gold into his hand,
And my guerdon found in thee, love.

Sing, Gile machree,

Sit down by me,

We now are joined and ne'er shall sever;

And

This hearth's our own,

Our hearts are one, peace is ours forever!

HY-BRASAIL: THE ISLE OF THE BLEST

N the ocean that hollows the rocks where ye dwell,

ON

A shadowy land has appeared, as they tell; Men thought it a region of sunshine and rest, And they called it Hy-Brasail, the isle of the blest. From year unto year on the ocean's blue rim, The beautiful spectre showed lovely and dim; The golden clouds curtained the deep where it lay, And it looked like an Eden, away, far away!

A peasant who heard of the wonderful tale,
In the breeze of the Orient loosened his sail;
From Ara, the holy, he turned to the west,
For though Ara was holy, Hy-Brasail was blest.
He heard not the voices that called from the shore-
He heard not the rising wind's menacing roar ;
Home, kindred, and safety, he left on that day,
And he sped to Hy-Brasail, away, far away!

Morn rose on the deep, and that shadowy isle,
O'er the faint rim of distance, reflected its smile;
Noon burned on the wave, and that shadowy shore
Seemed lovelily distant, and faint as before;

Lone evening came down on the wanderer's track,
And to Ara again he looked timidly back;
Oh! far on the verge of the ocean it lay,
Yet the isle of the blest was away, far away!

Rash dreamer, return! O ye winds of the main,
Bear him back to his own peaceful Ara again.
Rash fool! for a vision of fanciful bliss,
To barter thy calm life of labor and peace.
The warning of reason was spoke in vain;
He never revisited Ara again!

Night fell on the deep, amidst tempest and spray,
And he died on the waters away, far away!

THE WAKE OF THE ABSENT

HE dismal yew and cypress

tall

T Wave o'er the churchyard lone,

Where rest our friends and fathers all,

Beneath the funeral stone.

Unvexed in holy ground they sleep,

Oh! early lost! o'er thee

No sorrowing friend shall ever weep,
Nor stranger bend the knee.
Mo Chuma !1 lorn am I!
Hoarse dashing rolls the salt sea wave
Over our perished darling's grave.

The winds the sullen deep that tore
His death-song chanted loud,

1 Mo Chuma: My grief; or, Woe is me.

The weeds that line the clifted shore
Were all his burial shroud.
For friendly wail and holy dirge,
And long lament of love,
Around him roared the angry surge,
The curlew screamed above.
Mo Chuma! lorn am I !

My grief would turn to rapture now,
Might I but touch that pallid brow.

The stream-born bubbles soonest burst
That earliest left the source;
Buds earliest blown are faded first
In Nature's wonted course.
With guarded pace her seasons creep,

By slow decay expire;

The young above the aged weep,

The son above the sire.

Mo Chuma! lorn am I !

That death a backward course should hold, To smite the young and spare the old.

STEPHEN LUCIUS GWYNN

(Living)

A LAY OF OSSIAN AND PATRICK

I

TELL you an ancient story
Learnt on an Irish strand
Of lonely Ossian returning
Belated from fairyland

To a land grown meek and holy,
To a land of mass and bell,
Under the hope of heaven,
Under the dread of hell:

It tells how the bard and warrior,
Last of a giant race,
Wrestled a year with Patrick,
Answering face to face,

Mating the praise of meekness,

With vaunt of the warrior school, And the glory of God the Father With the glory of Finn MacCool;

Until at last the hero,

Through fasting and through prayer, Came to the faith of Christians,

And turned from the things that were.