Wifeless, friendless, flagonless, alone — Oh! this is hard for me to bear, Me, who whilome lived so much en haut, Me, who broke all hearts like China ware, Twenty golden years ago! Perhaps 'tis better-time's defacing waves Such dun duns as Conscience, Thought, and Co., Did I paint a fifth of what I feel, Oh, how plaintive you would ween I was! But I won't, albeit I have a deal More to wail about than Kerner has ! Kerner's tears are wept for withered flowers, Mine for withered hopes-my scroll of woe Dates, alas! from youth's deserted bowers, Twenty golden years ago! Yet, may Deutschland's bardlings flourish long; Sentimentalizing like Rousseau, Oh! I had a grand Byronian soul Twenty golden years ago! Tick-tick, tick-tick !--not a sound save Time's, And the wind-gust as it drives the rain Tortured torturer of reluctant rhymes, Go to bed and rest thine aching brain! Sleep! no more the dupe of hopes or schemes; Soon thou sleepest where the thistles blow Curious anticlimax to thy dreams Twenty golden years ago! WRITTEN IN A NUNNERY CHAPEL1 E hither from moonlight MR A voice ever calls, Where pale pillars cluster And organ tones roll Nor sunlight nor moonlight Here budded and blossomed, Like brief-blooming roses, Now ever embosomed In bliss they abide Oh, may, when life closes, My meed be as sure! 1 From O'Donoghue's "Life of Mangan." C JOHN MARTLEY A BUDGET OF PARADOXES HILD in thy beauty; empress in thy pride; Guiltless of wounding, yet more true than steel; Blushing and shy, yet dread we thy disdain; The days are fresh, the hours are wild and sweet, When spring and winter, dawn and darkness meet; Nymph, with one welcome, thee and these we greet. THE VALLEY OF SHANGANAGH Written for the air "The Wearing of the Green" the Valley of Shanganagh, where the songs of skylarks teem, And the rose perfumes the ocean-breeze, as love the hero's dream, 'Twas there I wooed my Maggie. In her dark eyes there did dwell A secret that the billows knew, but yet could never tell. Oh! light as fairy tread her voice fell on my bounding heart; And like the wild bee to the flower still clinging we would part. "Sweet valley of Shanganagh," then I murmured, "though I die, My soul will never leave thee for the heaven that's in the sky!" In the Valley of Shanganagh, where the sullen seagulls gleam, And the pine-scent fills the sighing breeze as death the lover's dream, 'Twas there I lost my Maggie. Why that fate upon us fell The powers above us knew, perhaps, if only they would tell. Oh! like the tread of mournful feet it fell upon my heart, When, as the wild bee leaves the rose, her spirit did depart. In the Valley still I linger, though it's fain I am to die, But it's hard to find a far-off heaven when clouds are in the sky. A REV. CHARLES P. MEEHAN (Living) BOYHOOD'S YEARS H! why should I recall them—the gay, the joyous years, Ere hope was cross'd or pleasure dimm'd by sorrow and by tears? Or why should mem'ry love to trace youth's glad and sunlit way, When those who made its charms so sweet are gather'd to decay? The summer's sun shall come again to brighten hill and bower The teeming earth its fragrance bring beneath the balmy shower; But all in vain will mem'ry strive, in vain we shed They're gone away and can't return-the friends of boyhood's years! Ah! why then wake my sorrow, and bid me now count o'er The vanished friends so dearly prized-the days to come no more The happy days of infancy, when no guile our bosoms knew, Nor reck'd we of the pleasures that with each moment flew ? |