Once again she raised her head, contending
For her children's birthright as of old;
Once again the old fight had the old ending,
All her hopes and dreams were Fairy Gold.

Now my work is done and I am dying,

Lone, an exile on a foreign shore;

But in dreams I roam with my love that's lying
Lonely in the old land I'll see no more.
Buttercups and daisies in the meadows

When I'm gone will bloom; new hopes for old
Comfort her with sunshine after shadows,
Fade no more away like Fairy Gold.

LONGING

THE sunshine of old Ireland, when it lies
On her woods and on her waters;
And gleams through her soft skies,

Tenderly as the lovelight in her daughters'

Gentle eyes!

O the brown streams of old Ireland, how they leap
From her glens, and fill their hollows

With wild songs, till charmed to sleep

By the murmuring bees in meadows, where the swallows

my

Glance and sweep!

home there in old Ireland-the old ways We had, when I knew only

Those ways of one sweet place;

Ere afar from all I loved I wandered lonely,

Many days!

The sweet air, the old place, the trees, the cows, the thrushes

Mad with glee.

I'm weary for old Ireland-once again
To see her fields before me,

In sunshine or in rain!

And the longing in my heart when it comes o'er me Stings like pain.

B

SONG

RING from the craggy haunts of birch and pine
Thou wild wind, bring,

Keen forest odors from that realm of thine,
Upon thy wing!

O wind, O mighty, melancholy wind,

Blow through me, blow!

Thou blowest forgotten things into my mind
From long ago.

THE WAVES' LEGEND OF THE STRAND OF

BALA

HE sea moans on the strand,

THE

Moans over shingle and shell.

O moaning sea! what sorrowful story Do thy wild waves tell?

Ever they moan on the strand,

And my ear, like a sounding shell,
Chants to me the sorrowful story
The moaning billows tell.

For Bala the Sweet-Voiced moan!
Here on the lonely strand
Fell Bala, Prince of the Race of Rury,
Slain by no foeman's hand.

Sweet was thy tongue, O Bala,

To win man's love! Thy voice Made sigh for thee the maids of Eman; But nobler was thy choice.

She

gave for thy heart her heart Warm in her swan-white breast, Aillin of Laigen, Lugah's daughter, The fairest bird of her nest.

Their pledge was here by the shore
To meet, come joy or pain;

And swift in his war-car Bala from Eman
Sped o'er Muirthemne plain.

He found her not by the shore,

Gloom was o'er sea and sky,

And a man of the Shee with dreadful face On a blast from the South rushed by.

Said Bala: "Stay that man!

Ask him what word he brings?"

"A woe on the Dun of Lugah! a woe On Eman of the Kings!

"Wail for Aillin the Fair!

Wail for him her feet

Were swift to meet on the lonely strand
Where they shall never meet!

"Swift were her feet on the way,
Till me she met on her track,
A hound of swiftness, a shape of fear,
A tiding to turn her back.

"Swift are the lover's feet,

But swifter our malice flies!

I told her: Bala is dead; and dead
In her sunny house she lies.”

He scowled on Bala, and rose

A wraith of the mist, and fled

Like a wind-rent cloud; and suddenly Bala With a great cry fell dead.

Mourn for all lovers true,

Mourn for all beautiful things, Vanished, faded away, forgotten With dead forgotten Springs !

So moans the sea on the strand,
Moans over shingle and shell.
Gray sea, of many and many a sorrow
Thy sad waves tell.

WAITING

L

ONE is my waiting here under the tree,

Under our tree of the woods, where I wait

and wait;

Why tarry those white little feet that would bring you

to me,

Where are the warm sweet arms that are leaving me desolate ?

Oona, asthore machree?

Oona, the woods are sighing-they sigh and say: "The wind of Summer will pass like a lover's sigh,

And love's glad hour as lightly passes away:

Come to me then, ere my longing hope of despair

shall die,

Oona, asthore machree!