N

EMILY LAWLESS
(Living)

A RETORT

From With the Wild Geese.

OT hers your vast imperial mart,

Where myriad hopes on fears are hurled,
Where furious rivals meet and part

To woo a world.

Not hers your vast imperial town,
Your mighty mammoth piles of gain,
Your loaded vessels sweeping down
To glut the main.

Unused, unseen, her rivers flow,
From mountain tarn to ocean tide;
Wide vacant leagues the sunbeams show,
The rain-clouds hide.

You swept them vacant ! Your decree
Bid all her budding commerce cease;
You drove her from your subject sea,
To starve in peace!

Well, be it peace! Resigned they flow,
No laden fleet adown them glides,
But wheeling salmon sometimes show
Their silvered sides.

And sometimes through the long still day
The breeding herons slowly rise,

Lifting gray tranquil wings away,
To tranquil skies.

Stud all your shores with prosperous towns!
Blacken your hillsides, mile on mile!
Redden with bricks your patient downs!
And proudly smile!

A day will come before you guess,
A day when men, with clearer light,
Will rue that deed beyond redress,
Will loathe that sight.

And, loathing, fly the hateful place,
And, shuddering, quit the hideous thing,
For where unblackened rivers race,
And skylarks sing.

For where, remote from smoke and noise,
Old Leisure sits knee-deep in grass;
Where simple days bring simple joys,
And lovers pass.

I see her in those coming days,
Still young, still gay; her unbound hair
Crowned with a crown of starlike rays,
Serenely fair.

I see an envied haunt of peace,

Calm and untouched; remote from roar,
Where wearied men may from their burdens cease
On a still shore.

EDMUND LEAMY

(1848- )

A ROYAL LOVE

I

I

LOVED a love—a royal love —
In the golden long ago;
And she was fair as fair could be,
The foam upon the broken sea,
The sheen of sun, or moon, or star,
The sparkle from the diamond spar,
Not half so rare and radiant are

As my own love-my royal love
In the golden long ago.

II

And she had stately palace halls —

In the golden long ago;

And warriors, men of stainless swords,

Were seated at her festive boards,

Fierce champions of her lightest words,

While hymned the bard the chieftains' praise,

And sang their deeds of battle days,

To cheer my love-my royal love

In the golden long ago.

III

She wore a stately diadem

In the golden long ago,

Wrought by a cunning craftsman's hand
And fashioned from a battle brand;
As fit for the queen of a soldier land,
Her sceptre was a sabre keen,
Her robe a robe of radiant green,

My queenly love-my royal love-
In the golden long ago.

IV

Alas for my love—my royal love

Of the golden long ago!

For gone are all her warrior bands,
And rusted are her battle brands,
And broken her sabre bright and keen,
And torn her robe of radiant green,
A slave where she was stainless queen
My loyal love-my royal love-
Of the golden long ago.

V

But there is hope for my royal love

Of the golden long ago;

Beyond the broad and shining sea
Gathers a stubborn chivalry

That yet will come to make her free,

And hedge her round with gleaming spears, And crown her queen for all the years,

My only love-my royal love

Of the golden long ago.

F

JOSEPH SHERIDAN LE FANU
(1814-1872)

ABHRAIN AN BHUIDEIL

Address of a Drunkard to a Bottle of Whiskey

ROM what dripping cell, through what fairy glen,

Where 'mid old rocks and ruins the fox makes his den,

Over what lonesome mountain,

Acuishle mo chroidhe!

Where gauger never has trod,
Sweet as the flowery sod,

Wild as the breath

Of the breeze on the heath,

And sparkling all o'er like the moon-lighted fountain,

Are you come to me
Sorrowful me?

Dancing-inspiring -
My wild blood firin';
Oh! terrible glory -

Oh! beautiful siren.
Come, tell the old story

Come, light up my fancy, and open my heart.

Oh, beautiful ruin

My life my undoin'—