To watch him with silent rapture,
To cheer him with happy noise,—
My one little fair-faced daughter
And four brown romping boys.

Leaving the sheltering arms

That fain would bid him rest Close to the love and the longing, Near to the mother's breast,Wild with daring and laughter, Looking askance at me,

He stumbled across through the shadows To rest at his father's knee.

Baby, my dainty darling,
Stepping so brave and bright
With flutter of lace and ribbon
Out of my arms to-night,
Helped in thy pretty ambition
With tenderness blessed to see,
Sheltered, upheld, and protected
How will the last steps be?

See, we are all beside you,
Urging and beckoning on,
Watching lest aught betide you
Till the safe, near goal is won,
Guiding the faltering footsteps
That tremble and fear to fall
How will it be, my darling,

With the last sad step of all?

Nay shall I dare to question,
Knowing that One more fond
Than all our tenderest loving

Will guide the weak feet beyond!
And knowing beside, my dearest,

That whenever the summons, 'twill be But a stumbling step through the shadow Then rest at the Father's knee!

DION BOUCICAULT

(1822-1890)

SONG

Supposed to be sung by a young woman, whose child had died in Ireland.

''M very happy where I am,

I'

Far across the say

I'm very happy far from home,
In North Amerikay.

It's lonely in the night when Pat
Is sleeping by my side.

I lie awake, and no one knows
The big tears that I've cried.

For a little voice still calls me back
To my far, far counthrie,
And nobody can hear it spake –
Oh! nobody but me.

There is a little spot of ground
Behind the chapel wall;
It's nothing but a tiny mound,
Without a stone at all;

It rises like my heart just now,
It makes a dawny hill;

It's from below the voice comes out,
I cannot kape it still.

Oh! little Voice, ye call me back To my far, far counthrie,

And nobody can hear ye spake — Oh! nobody but me.

W

TO THE LEANÁN SIDHE1

HERE is thy lovely perilous abode ?
In what strange phantom-land
Glimmer the fairy turrets whereto rode
The ill-starred poet band?

Say, in the Isle of Youth hast thou thy home,
The sweetest singer there,

Stealing on winged steed across the foam
Through the moonlit air?

Or, where the mists of bluebell float beneath

The red stems of the pine,

And sunbeams strike thro' shadow, dost thou breathe

The word that makes him thine?

Or by the gloomy peaks of Erigal,
Haunted by storm and cloud,

Wing past, and to thy lover there let fall
His singing-robe and shroud?

Or is thy palace entered thro' some cliff
When radiant tides are full,

And round thy lover's wandering, starlit skiff,
Coil in luxurious lull?

1 Leanán Sidhe (Lenawn Shee), "The Fairy Bride."