Farewell to thy grave, Mac Caura,
Where the slanting sunbeams shine,
And the briar and waving fern
Over thy slumbers twine;
Thou, whose gathering summons
Could waken the sleeping glen;
Mac Caura! alas for thee and thine,
'Twill never be heard again.

Here, for a third time in this volume, Mrs. Downing makes the Clan Carthy the theme of her song, and always with effect. The name Mac Carthy, as spelt in Irish, would be (represented in Roman characters) Mac Cartha. But it would be pronounced Mac Caura the th, or dotted t, having, in the Irish tongue, the soft sound of h.

ST. PATRICK'S DAY IN MY OWN PARLOUR.
J. F. WALLer.

Air, "St. Patrick's Day."

THE white and the orange, the blue and the green, boys,
We'll blend them together in concord to-night;
The orange most sweet amid green leaves is seen, boys—
The loveliest pansy is blue and white.

The light of the day

As it glides away,

Paints with orange the white clouds that float in the west,
And the billows that roar

Round our own island shore

Lay their green heads to rest on the blue heaven's bosom,
Where sky and sea meet in the distance away.
As Nature thus shows us how well she can fuse 'em,
We'll blend them in love on St. Patrick's Day.

The hues of the prism, philosophers say, boys,

Are nought but the sunlight resolved into parts;
They're beauteous, no doubt, but I think that the ray, boys,
Unbroken, more lights up and warms our hearts.
Each musical tone,
Struck one by one,

Makes melody sweet, it is true, on the ear-
But let the hand ring

All at once every string

And, oh! there is harmony now that is glorious,
In unison pealing to heaven away;

For union is beauty, and strength, and victorious,
Of hues, tones, or hearts, on St. Patrick's Day.

Those hues in one bosom be sure to unite, boys;

Let each Irish heart wear those emblems so true;
Be fresh as the green, and be pure as the white, boys,—
Be bright as the orange, sincere as the blue.
I care not a jot

Be your scarf white or not,

If you love as a brother each child of the soil;
I ask not your creed,

If you'll stand in her need

To the land of your birth in the hour of her dolours,
The foe of her foes, let them be who they may;

66

Then, FUSION OF HEARTS, AND CONFUSION OF COLOURS!"
Be the Irishman's toast on St. Patrick's Day.

AVONDHU.
CALLANAN.

The following lines are but an extract from a larger poem, in which the poet gives expression to a sentiment common to us all-a tender recollection of our native land, more particularly of the places wherein the joyous days of youth were spent. But Callanan gives that sentiment with a graphic detail for which his writings are remarkable, and the fondness with which he particularizes the "whereabouts" shows how deeply-rooted were his local attachments. Not only are hill and glen, rill and river, distinctly noted, but their varied aspects under different circumstances-whether they are shrouded in mist, or bathed in the glow of sunset or pale gleam of moonlight. Even the voice of the wind, or, to use his own words, the

"Wild minstrel of the dying trees,"

had a loving echo in the heart of Callanan :-all are endeared to the poet who bids them -and her who, possibly, made "each scene of enchantment more dear"-his passionate farewell. It is evident he thought Avondhu worthy of special remark, by the following note being appended to his poem :

"Avondhu means the Blackwater (Avunduff of Spenser). There are several rivers of this name in the counties of Cork and Kerry, but the one here mentioned is by far the most considerable. It rises in a boggy mountain called Meenganine, in the latter county, and discharges itself into the sea at Youghal. For the length of its course and the beauty and variety of scenery through which it flows, it is superior, I believe, to any river in Munster."

Он, Avondhu, I wish I were,

As once, upon that mountain bare,

Where thy young waters laugh and shine
On the wild breast of Meenganine.
I wish I were by Cleada's* hill,
Or by Glenruachra's rushy rill;
But no! I never more shall view
Those scenes I loved by Avondhu.

* Cleada and Cahirbearna (the hill of the four gaps) form part of the chain of mountains

which stretches westward from Mill-street to Killarney.

Farewell, ye soft and purple streaks
Of evening on the beauteous Reeks ;*
Farewell, ye mists, that loved to ride
On Cahirbearna's stormy side.
Farewell, November's moaning breeze,
Wild minstrel of the dying trees:
Clara! a fond farewell to you,
No more we meet by Avondhu.

No more-but thou, O glorious hill,
Lift to the moon thy forehead still;
Flow on, flow on, thou dark swift river,
Upon thy free wild course for ever.
Exult, young hearts, in lifetime's spring,
And taste the joys pure love can bring;
But, wanderer, go, they're not for you-
Farewell, farewell, sweet Avondhu.

* Macgillicuddy's Reeks, in the neighbourhood of Killarney.

So much for the love of the living; but it would seem that this love of native land is so superlative in the Irish, that it survives this life; and Moore, in the "Irish Melodies," avails himself of the following strange note from Paul Zealand, stating that there is a mountain in Ireland, where the ghosts of persons who have died in foreign lands, walk about and converse with those they meet, like living people. If asked why they do not return to their homes, they say they are obliged to go to mount Hecla, and disappear immediately. This strange legend is beautifully wrought by Moore in his song "Oh, ye Dead!" where the ghosts, after being accosted, thus answer:

"It is true, it is true, we are shadows cold and wan,

And the fair and the brave whom we lov'd on earth are gone;

But still thus, e'en in death,

So sweet the living breath

Of the fields and the flow'rs in our youth we wander'd o'er,
That ere, condemn'd, we go

To freeze 'mid Hecla's snow,

We would taste it awhile, and think we live once more!"

A SIGH FOR KNOCKMANY.

WILLIAM CARLETON.

Here is another of the great names in Irish literature, and here, as in the "Avondhu of Callanan, we see strong love of the native sod; we find the man who has achieved celebrity, and, to use his own words, "given his name to future time," tenderly looking back on the past, yearning for the unambitious boyhood-the echoes of his native mountains, rather than those of fame. Of the latter he has had enough, but not more than he

deserves; and though sometimes he may be accused of carelessness, or exaggeration, or coarseness, into which hurry, and party spirit, and excessive vigour have betrayed him, nevertheless, his works, considered in general, are among the highest of their class; his descriptions of Irish life, and delineation of Irish character, being full of truth, and power, and tenderness. It is needless to enumerate them-they are tolerably well known to the world; but for exhibiting the qualities particularized, the tales of "The Black Prophet," "Fardarougha the Miser," and "The Poor Scholar," are good examples. William Carleton has dealt less with verse than prose, wherein his great power lies; but the following lines are full of feeling.

TAKE, proud ambition, take thy fill

Of pleasures won through toil or crime;
Go, learning, climb thy rugged hill,
And give thy name to future time:
Philosophy, be keen to see

Whate'er is just, or false, or vain,
Take each thy meed, but, oh! give me
To range my mountain glens again.

Pure was the breeze that fann'd my cheek,
As o'er Knockmany's brow I went ;
When every lonely dell could speak
In airy music, vision sent:

False world, I hate thy cares and thee,

I hate the treacherous haunts of men;
Give back my early heart to me,

Give back to me my mountain glen.

How light my youthful visions shone,
When spann'd by Fancy's radiant form;
But now her glittering bow is gone,

And leaves me but the cloud and storm.
With wasted form, and cheek all pale-
With heart long seared by grief and pain;
Dunroe, I'll seek thy native gale,

I'll tread my mountain glens again.

Thy breeze once more may fan my blood,
Thy valleys all are lovely still;
And I may stand, where oft I stood,
In lonely musings on thy hill.
But, ah! the spell is gone ;-no art
In crowded town, or native plain,
Can teach a crush'd and breaking heart
To pipe the song of youth again.

VOICES OF THE PAST.

Miss HERBERT.

THERE'S a weary voice of sighing
In the murmurs of the breeze-
There's a dream of grief undying
In the foaming of the seas

as!

There's a whispering from our mountains,

From our valleys, and our streams!

And a moaning from our fountains

Like the grief of troubled dreams.

Oh! that voice-it is the sighing
Of the spirits of the dead,
Down by vale and dingle lying,
Where the free-born fought and bled;
In the forest breezes stealing,
And the murmurs of the sea,
From their lonely graves appealing
To the spirits of the free.

Isle of mist, and bardic story,
Isle of many a hero lay,
Where is all thine ancient glory?

Have thine honours passed away?

Oh! that sigh, it is for freedom,
Freedom to thy fathers' graves:

Has the voice of Heaven decreed them,
E'en in ashes, to be slaves ?

These lines remind us of Moore's more vigorous song, "Where shall we bury our shame?” -that passionate outburst of indignation supposed to be made by a Neapolitan patriot. The concluding quatrain has great similarity of idea.

"Thus to live cowards and slaves!

Oh, ye free hearts that lie dead,
Do you not, e'en in your graves,
Shudder as o'er you we tread ?"

"Alas! poor ghosts!"-King Bomba still reigns.