SONG OF THE TRANSPLANTED SHAMROCK.
"One of the Royal servants brought with him to the train a sod of shamrock which had been dug up in the grounds attached to the Viceregal Lodge. A porcelain pot received the plant, which, as it had been obtained at the special request of Her Majesty, is probably destined to be transplanted to some of the Royal grounds, and cultivated as a memento of a visit which will be long memorable in Ireland."—Dublin Daily Express.
Erin mavourneen, torn up from thy green,
Lonely, withered, and drooped for a while,
Though planted in porcelain, and nursed by a Queen,
I was sick at the roots for my own pleasant isle;
Where the winds came so gently to kiss me and love me,
There was tenderness e'en in the breath of the north;
Where the kind clouds would fling their soft shadows above me,
When the hot sun of summer came scorchingly forth.
I pined for those tender grey eyes, whose black lashes
Veil a tear and a smile alike ready to start;
I longed for the mirth, whose unquenchable flashes
Hold a struggle with gloom in the Irishman's heart.
White hands were about me, but not my own people's,
Kind hearts, too, but not the kind hearts I had known;
The bells that I heard rang in Sassenach steeples,
And wanted the music I loved in my own.
An' I fancied they scorned me, the poor plant of Erin,
Them roses so gaudy, them thistles so tall;
An' I thought as they tossed their proud heads, it was sneerin'
At my poor lowly leaflets, wid no flower at all.
But by little and little I felt that about me
The soil gathered cheery, and kindly, and warm;
And the illigant flowers that I thought meant to flout me
When I larnt what they said, sure they meant me no harm.
The hands I thought cold I found true in their tending,
The hearts I thought hard, sure, were soft at the core;
So I opened my leaves with less fear of offending,
And the longer I knew I loved England the more.
For my Queen is a mistress that's gentle and tender,
And oft my poor leaflet her bosom adorns;
She says I've my sweetness, if roses their splendour,
An' if I've no blossoms, why, sure I've no thorns.
Motto for the Leader of the Chinese Revolution.—Heads I win, Tails you lose.