MISCELLANEOUS POEMS.

PREFACE.

This volume contains, besides the poems published in 1850 and 1857,1 the odes written for the centenary celebrations in honour of O'Connell in 1875, and of Moore in 1879. To these are added several sonnets and miscellaneous poems now first collected, and the episode of "Ferdiah" translated from the Tain Bó Cuailgné.

Born in Dublin,2 May 26th, 1817, my father, while still very young, showed a decided taste for literature. The course of his boyish reading is indicated in his "Lament." Some verses from his pen, headed "My Wishes," appeared in the Dublin Satirist, April 12th, 1834. This was, as far as I can discover, the earliest of his writings published. To the journal just mentioned he frequently contributed, both in prose and verse, during the next two years. The following are some of the titles:—"The Greenwood Hill;" "Songs of other Days" (Belshazzar's Feast—Thoughts in the Holy Land—Thoughts of the Past); "Life," "Death," "Fables" (The Zephyr and the Sensitive Plant—The Tulip and the Rose—The Bee and the Rose); "Songs of Birds" (Nightingale—Eagle—Phœnix—Fire-fly); "Songs of the Winds," &c.