So charged the stormy chivalry of Erin in her ire Their shock the roll of ocean, their swords electric fire. They rose like banded billows that, when wintry tempests blow, The trembling shore, with stunning roar and dreadful wreck o'erflow, And where they burst tremendously, upon the bloody groun', Both horse and man, from rear to van, like shiver'd barques went down. Leave your costly Milan hauberks, haughty nobles of the Pale, And your snowy ostrich feathers as a tribute to the Gael. Fling away gilt spur and trinket, in your hurry, knight and squire, They will make our virgins ornaments or decorate the lyre. spears. Go! tell the Royal virgin that O'Moore, McHugh, O'Neill Will smite the faithless stranger while there's steel in Innisfail. From age to age consuming, it shall blaze a quenchless fire, sire. By our sorrows, songs and battles-by our cromleachs, raths and tow'rs By sword and chain, by all our slain-between your race and ours By naked glaives and yawning graves, and ceaseless tears and gore, Till battle's flood wash out in blood your footsteps from the shore! THE EXTERMINATION. Dominus pupillum et viduam suscipiet.-Ps. 145. When tyranny's pampered and purple-clad minions My baby is sick-I am feeble and poor; In the cold winter blast, from the hut if you tear me, Tis vain-for the despot replies but with laughter, And she crawls o'er the mountain, sick, weeping and cold. Her thinly-clad child on the stormy hill shivers— The thunders are pealing dread anthems around— Loud roar in their anger the tempest-lashed rivers And the loosened rocks down with the wild torrent bound. Vainly she tries in her bosom to cherish Her sick infant boy, 'mid the horrors around, Till faint and despairing, she sees her babe perish--- Then, lifeless she sinks on the snow-covered ground. Though the children of Ammon, with trumpets and psalters, Let them blush from deep hell at the far redder altars And the Moloch of tyranny reels on the throne. BARTHOLOMEW DOWLING AUTHOR OF "THE BRIGADE AT FONTENOY." HE subjoined article on Mr. Dowling was written, at our request, by a gentleman who for more than twenty years enjoyed the personal friendship of the deceased poet: The author of that beautiful ballad, The Brigade at Fontenoy,' was a native of Listowel, County Kerry, Ireland. While Bartholomew Dowling was yet a boy, his parents emigrated to Canada, where they remained for some years, and where the future poet and patriot received a part of his education. Returning to Ireland, after the death of the father, the family settled in Limerick. This circumstance has given, unjustly, to the 'City of the Violated Treaty' the honor of Mr. Dowling's birth. His parents were, however, from the Kingdom of Kerry, and there he himself was born about the year 1823, as near as I can judge. 'In a review of a recent publication, A Chaplet of Verse by California Catholic Writers,' the Boston Pilot desired to get information regarding the subject of this sketch. My attention has also been called to a similar inquiry in the Irish Monthly, published in Dublin by Rev. Mathew Russell, who takes an active interest in everything that concerns the literature of his native land. In his brief mention the reverend editor gives Mr. Dowling a very high rank in the brilliant galaxy of gifted young Irishmen who threw themselves and their fortunes, heart and soul, into the movement inaugurated by the Dublin Nation, and which culminated in the disaster of 1848, scattering their hopes and making voluntary exiles of those who escaped penal servitude at the hands of the Government they had labored to overthrow. The writer of this brief biography was then a boy, and can now go back in vivid memory to the monster meetings of the Repeal Association, and again almost feel with what eagerness he looked forward to the weekly issue of the Dublin Nation and the alacrity with which he read its lessons of Nationality in prose and verse. Standing to-day on this peaceful shore, far from the scenes of so many ardent aspirations and unrealized hopes, after the flight of many years-years that have changed the sand dunes of San Francisco into a beautiful city of wonderful resources and glorious energy-as I turn over the pages of Ireland's ballad poetry, it is with the feelings of one who wanders through a cemetery, reading the names of dead friends. Through the kind courtesy of one who is himself a gifted poet as well as a practical patriot, I am afforded this opportunity of supplying the information asked for by Father Russell and the distinguished editor of the Pilot, and doing my part towards resuscitating the memory of a good and gifted man who was very dear to me. "The writer of whom I treat here had the cares and responsibilities of life shifted on to his shoulders, while yet a mere youth, by the death of his father; and well did he sustain the burden, cheering and comforting his mother to the day of her death, and aiding his younger brothers and a sister till time fitted them for the battle of life. The lives of the good are generally devoid of sensation, and he enjoyed an average share of such blessings. |