And when the tocsin sounds alarms,
And mountain watchfires call to arms,
Then I descend, I join my king;
My sword I wave, my lay I sing!
The mountain boy am I!
The lightnings far beneath me lie,
High stand I here in clear blue sky;
I know them, and to them I call,
"In quiet leave my father's hall!'
The mountain boy am I!
From the German of Uhland.
THE MINSTREL BOY.
The minstrel boy to the war is gone!
In the ranks of death you'll find him,
His father's sword he has girded on,
And his wild harp slung behind him.
"Land of song!" said the warrior bard,
"Though all the world betray thee,
One sword, at least, thy rights shall guard;
One faithful harp shall praise thee!"
The minstrel fell! but the foemen's chain
Could not bring his proud soul under :
The harp he loved ne'er spake again
For he rent its chords asunder,
And said, "No chains shall sully thee,
Thou soul of love and bravery;
Thy songs were made for the pure and free,
They shall never sound in slavery!"
There came to the beach a poor exile of Erin,
The dew on his thin robe was heavy and chill:
For his country he sighed, when at twilight repairing
To wander alone by the wind-beaten hill:
But the day-star attracted his eye's sad devotion,
For it rose o'er his own native isle of the ocean,
Where once in the fire of his youthful emotion,
He sang the bold anthem of Erin go bragh!
"Sad is my fate," said the heart-broken stranger;
"The wild deer and wolf to a covert can flee;
But I have no refuge from famine and danger
A home and a country remain not to me.
Never again, in the green sunny bowers,
Where my forefathers lived, shall I spend the sweet hours,
Or cover my harp with the wild-woven flowers,
And strike to the numbers of Erin go bragh!
"Erin, my country! though sad and forsaken, In dreams I revisit thy sea-beaten shore; But alas! in a far foreign land I awaken,
And sigh for the friends who can meet me no more!
Oh, cruel fate! wilt thou never replace me
In a mansion of peace, where no perils can chase me? Never again shall my brothers embrace me;
They died to defend me, or live to deplore!
"Where is my cabin-door, fast by the wild wood?
Sisters and sire! did ye weep for its fall?
Where is the mother that looked on my childhood,
And where is the bosom-friend, dearer than all ?
O my sad heart, long abandoned by pleasure,
Why did it dote on a fast-fading treasure?
Tears, like the raindrop, may fall without measure,
But rapture and beauty they cannot recall.
"Yet, all its sad recollections suppressing,
One dying wish my lone bosom can draw:
Erin! an exile bequeaths thee his blessing!
Land of my forefathers, Erin go bragh!
Buried and cold, when my heart stills her motion,
Green be thy fields, sweetest isle of the ocean!
And thy harp-striking bards sing aloud with devotion,-
Erin mavourneen-Erin go bragh!"
The war-god did not wake to strife
The strong men of our forest-land;
No red hand grasped the battle-knife
At Areouski's high command:
We held no war-dance by the dim
And red light of the creeping flame;
Nor warrior-yell, nor battle-hymn,
Upon the midnight breezes came.
There was no portent in the sky,
No shadow on the round bright sun;
With light, and mirth, and melody,
The long fair summer days came on.
We were a happy people then,
Rejoicing in our hunter-mood;
No footprints of the pale-faced men,
Had marred our forest solitude.
The land was ours. -this glorious land With all its wealth of wood and streams; Our warriors strong of heart and handOur daughters beautiful as dreams. When wearied, at the thirsty noon,
We knelt us where the spring gushed up, To taste our Father's blessed boon,
Unlike the white man's poison-cup.
There came unto my father's hut
A wan weak creature of distress;
(The Red man's door is never shut
Against the lone and shelterless ;)
And when he knelt before his feet,
My father led the stranger in;
gave him of his hunter-meat-
Alas! it was a deadly sin.
The stranger's voice was not like ours;
His face at first was sadly pale,
Anon, 't was like the yellow flowers
Which tremble in the meadow gale.
And when he laid him down to die,
And murmured of his fatherland,
My mother wiped his tearful eye,
My father held his burning hand.
He died at last—the funeral yell
Rang upward from his burial sod, And the old Pow-wah knelt to tell
The tidings of the white man's God.
The next day came-my father's brow
Grew heavy with a fearful pain;
He did not take his hunting-bow,
He never saw the woods again !
He died even as the white man died.
My mother, she was smitten too;
My sisters vanished from my side
Like diamonds from the sun-lit dew.
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