THE SILVERY LEE.

The Lee has had the power of inspiration over her neighbouring poets. Here are some very pretty lines by an anonymous votary of the Muses and the Lee. It is seldom such good lines are to be found in a broadside, whence this was taken, bearing date, Cork, 1818.

RIVERS are there great and small,

Romantic, too, the course of many,
With coated crag and foamy fall;
But never river saw I any

Half so fair, so dear to me
As my own, my silvery Lee.

Much I've heard about the Rhine,

With vineyards gay, and castles stately;
But those who think I care for wine
Or lofty towers, mistake me greatly :
A thousand times more dear to me
Is whiskey by the silvery Lee.

The Tagus, with its golden sand,

The Tiber, full of ancient glory,
The Danube, though a river grand,
The Seine and Elbe, renowned in story,
Can never be so dear to me

As the pure and silvery Lee.

"Tis not the voice that tongues the stream,
In winter hoarse, in spring-time clearer—
That makes my own sweet river seem
Above all other rivers dearer;

But 'tis her voice, who whispers me,-
"How lovely is the silvery Lee!"

But it is not merely for its beauties, which appeal to the eye and touch the spiritual nature of the poet, that the Lee is famous: the creature considerations of the gourmand may be tickled by the thought of the unseen stores within its depths-though not unseen either, if we trust an Irish poet, who sings

"Of salmon and gay speckled trout

It holds such a plentiful store,

That thousands are forced to leap out,

By the multitude jostled on shore."

Think o'that! ye Cockney punters, who spend your days on the Thames, and feel yourselves lucky if you get a nibble. In another version of this old Irish ballad, entitled "Cormac Oge," the river is celebrated as "the trout-loving Lee;" and the hyperbole gracing the foregoing verse is given in this high-sounding line-

"The fish burst their banks and leap high on the shore."

CORMAC OGE.

From the Irish.

THE pigeons coo-the spring's approaching now,
The bloom is bursting on the leafy bough;
The cresses green o'er streams are clustering low,
And honey-hives with sweets abundant flow.

Rich are the fruits the hazely woods display-
A slender virgin, virtuous, fair, and gay ;
With steeds and sheep, of kine a many score,
By trout-stor❜d Lee whose banks we'll see no more,

The little birds pour music's sweetest notes,
The calves for milk distend their bleating throats;
Above the weirs the silver salmon leap,

While Cormac Oge and I all lonely weep!

The above is the ballad alluded to in "Hardiman's Irish Minstrelsy," as noticed in the "Silvery Lee," and translated by Mr. Edward Walshe. A sufficient resemblance exists among all the versions to show they have been derived from the same original source, and all go to establish the fame of the river for the plenteousness of its finny tribes. In this last version it is true they do not

'Play such fantastic tricks before high heaven,"

as the former one quoted-but there they are.

Having given so many poetic notices of this very lovely river, it wou'd argue carelessness if I failed to notice that it has been celebrated by another poet, and that poet, "though last," most certainly "not least." The "divine" Spenser has celebrated the Lee, as he has many other natural beauties and qualities of Ireland, in his undying verse; and his notice is topographically correct to minuteness. The Lee divides as it approaches Cork, and after sweeping round the insular point on which the greater part of the city stands, reunites and forms that far-famed estuary, the Cove of Cork. Spenser gives but two lines-but even two lines from Spenser confer fame :

"The spreading Lee, that, like an island fair.
Encloseth Cork with his divided flood.'

VIRTUE.

GOLDSMITH.

VIRTUE, on herself relying,
Every passion hush'd to rest,
Loses every pain of dying,
In the hope of being blest.

Every added pang she suffers

Some increasing good bestows;

Every shock that malice offers
Only rocks her to repose.

OLD TIMES.

GERALD GRIFFIN.

Old times! old times! the gay old times!
When I was young and free,

And heard the merry Easter chimes
Under the sally tree.

My Sunday palm beside me placed,*
My cross upon my hand;

A heart at rest within my breast,

And sunshine on the land!

Old times! old times!

It is not that my fortunes flee,
Nor that my cheek is pale;
I mourn whene'er I think of thee,
My darling native vale !

A wiser head I have, I know,
Than when I loitered there;
But in my wisdom there is woe,
And in my knowledge, care.

Old times! old times!

I've lived to know my share of joy,
To feel my share of pain,

To learn that friendship's self can cloy,

To love, and love in vain ;

To feel a pang and wear a smile,
To tire of other climes,

To like my own unhappy isle,
And sing the gay old times!
Old times! old times!

And sure the land is nothing changed,

The birds are singing still;

The flowers are springing where we ranged,

There's sunshine on the hill;

The sally waving o'er my head

Still sweetly shades my frame,

But ah, those happy days are fled,
And I am not the same !

Old times! old times!

* In celebration of Palm Sunday, small sprigs of yew (as representative of palm) are worn by the Roman Catholics in Ireland, and their places of worship dressed with branches of the same. The sprig of palm is reverently preserved throughout the week, as the lines imply; for the Palm Sunday is past-it is the Easter chimes he listens to.

Oh, come again, ye merry times!
Sweet, sunny, fresh, and calm;
And let me hear those Easter chimes,
And wear my Sunday palm.
If I could cry away mine eyes,
My tears would flow in vain ;

If I could waste my heart in sighs,

They'll never come again!

Old times! old times!

In these beautiful lines we see the first appearance of that melancholy which darkened the poet's worldly path. He says—

"It is not that my fortunes flee."

No; it is that the world-experience of a sensitive man brought more of pain than pleasure,

"-in my wisdom there is woe,

And in my knowledge, care."

The tint of melancholy colours all he thinks of. When he speaks of his own isle, it is— --my own unhappy isle."

Yet still, in the last verse, there is the "longing, lingering look behind" to past pleasure;

"Oh, come again, ye merry times!"

He was not quite tired of the world; but, ere long, the past was nothing to him-he retired, as stated elsewhere, to a monastery, and thought and lived but for the future. Even in this retirement, however, there were times of recreation, when Brother Joseph (the poet's monastic title) was asked to sing a song; and I confess it is a great pleasure to me to know that at such a time one of mine found favour in that enlightened mind and affectionate heart, as the following extract will show. "At eight he joined in recreation, during which he seemed a picture of happiness. He conversed freely and livelily, and often amused us with a song; 'Those Evening Bells' and 'The Baby lay sleeping' (The Angel's Whisper) being great favourites."-Life of Gerald Grifin, by his brother, p. 460.

HOPE.

GOLDSMITH. From the Oratorio of "The Captivity."

The wretch condemned with life to part,
Still! still! on hope relies ;

And every pang that rends the heart,
Bids expectation rise.

Hope, like the glimmering taper's light,
Adorns, and cheers the way:

And still, as darker grows the night,
Emits a brighter ray.

KNOW YE NOT THAT LOVELY RIVER?

GERALD GRIFFIN.

The following exquisite verses were written at the request of the author's sister, then living in America. The Scotch air "Roy's Wife," was a favourite of hers, and she wished for some lines to sing to it, not liking any that had been adapted to that very sweet melody. It is not an easy air to write to, being, from its peculiarly Scottish structure, more suited to instrumentation than vocalisation. I do not mean this remark to apply to Scotch airs in general, all the flowing ones being as fine as any in the world for the purposes of song; but in "Roy's Wife" there is something of a lilting character unfavourable to song. Even Burns, that great master of musical measure, was not as happy as usual in his verses to this melody. The melody is often called "Garnavilla in the south of Ireland, from a song called "Kate of Garnavilla," very popular some half century ago, and though of no great literary merit, perhaps it sings better than any other to the melody. In point of poetic beauty and intensity of feeling, Griffin's verses far surpass any ever written to the air, but they partake of the character of an ode rather than of a song. The river thus dearly remembered is the Ovaan, or White River, which sports in great variety of character through a romantic glen, where the poet loved to wander.

There's music in each wind that blows
Within our native valley breathing;
There's beauty in each flower that grows
Around our native woodland wreathing.
The memory of the brightest joys

In childhood's happy morn that found us,
Is dearer than the richest toys,

The present vainly sheds around us.
Know ye not, &c.

Oh, sister! when 'mid doubts and fears
That haunt life's onward journey ever,

I turn to those departed years,

And that beloved and lovely river;