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 hazly 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 would 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. Speuser 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.

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!

Öld 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

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 Griffin, 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.