Many a homeward-bound, as they lift the frowning Foreland, Pants to leap the league to his desolate Gweedore. There about the ways God's air is free and spacious : Warm are chimney-corners there, warm the kindly heart. There the soul of man takes root, and through its travail Grips the rocky anchorage till the life-strings part. CHARLES GRAHAM HALPINE (1829-1868) NOT A STAR FROM THE FLAG SHALL FADE Ο CH! a rare ould flag was the flag we bore, 'Twas a bully ould flag, an' nice; It had sthripes in plenty, an' shtars galore'Twas the broth of a purty device. Faix, we carried it South, an' we carried it far, An' we swore by the shamrock that never a shtar Ay, this was the oath, I tell you thrue, That was sworn in the souls of our Boys in Blue. The fight it grows thick, an' our boys they fall, An' the flag-it is torn by many a ball, An' again the brigade, like to one man swears, 'Twas the deep, hot oath, I tell you thrue, That lay close to the hearts of our Boys in Blue. Shure, the fight it was won afther many a year, That flag from their wives and sweethearts dear They died by the bullet-disease had power, Then they said their pathers and aves through, But now they tell us some shtars are gone, That the shtars we fought for, the states we won, May their sowls in the dioul's hot kitchen glow By the dead in their graves, it shall not be so All the shtars in our flag shall still shine through Ο BULMER HOBSON (Living) THE DELUGE NCE Manannan Mac Lir his deep blue mantle cast Over the hearts of men, and over all the land; And he came to the land of men, borne on an icy blast. The wind drifted the waves, and the waves washed on the strand Till water and earth were blent. The pale sky and the sea Met on the mountain tops, and the trembling stars were quenched. And the frightened hosts of men thought to the west to flee; But far to the west, and further, all the land was drenched. Then the clans of men were drowned, women and warriors strong; Children tossed on the waves, maidens with loosened hair Drifted about on the waters; and the sea washed for long Over the land where the hosts of men once had a dwelling fair. But Fintan roamed through the flood, and he alone of men Watched the rise of the sea, watched it tower and fall, Ebb, and flow, and fail, and sink from the land again, Leaving the dead in its track, and silence over all. Then he gathered the bodies of men, gathered them one by one From the desolated land; and he built a mighty pyre, And he laid them side by side, wife, and father, and son. And there in the starlight pale he lit the funeral fire. And the smoke-wreath curled away; and over the moonlit sea It went, in the dead of night, till it came to the Isles in the West. And out of the smoke each man took the shape that he used to be; And there they dwell on the sunset's rim, in the sunset roam and rest. ULAD N the north is the strength of the wind, of the whirl IN wind; In the south there are murmuring waters; The east has a caoine for its song; In the west is strengthless love. The waters grow troubled and cease soon, |