"Yet still the last crown of thy toils is remaining,
"The grandest, the purest, even thou hast yet known;
"Tho' proud was thy task, other nations unchaining,
"Far prouder to heal the deep wounds of thy own.
"At the foot of that throne, for whose weal thou hast stood,
"Go, plead for the land that first cradled thy fame,
"And, bright o'er the flood
"Of her tears and her blood,
"Let the rainbow of Hope be her Wellington's name!"
THE TIME I'VE LOST IN WOOING.
The time I've lost in wooing,
In watching and pursuing
The light, that lies
In woman's eyes,
Has been my heart's undoing.
Tho' Wisdom oft has sought me,
I scorned the lore she brought me,
My only books
Were woman's looks,
And folly's all they've taught me.
Her smile when Beauty granted,
I hung with gaze enchanted,
Like him the Sprite,[1]
Whom maids by night
Oft meet in glen that's haunted.
Like him, too, Beauty won me,
But while her eyes were on me,
If once their ray
Was turned away,
O! winds could not outrun me.
And are those follies going?
And is my proud heart growing
Too cold or wise
For brilliant eyes
Again to set it glowing?
No, vain, alas! the endeavor
From bonds so sweet to sever;
Poor Wisdom's chance
Against a glance
Is now as weak as ever.
[1] This alludes to a kind of Irish fairy, which is to be met with, they say, in the fields at dusk. As long as you keep your eyes upon him, he is fixed, and in your power;—but the moment you look away (and he is ingenious in furnishing some inducement) he vanishes. I had thought that this was the sprite which we call the Leprechaun; but a high authority upon such subjects, Lady Morgan, (in a note upon her national and interesting novel, O'Donnel), has given a very different account of that goblin.
WHERE IS THE SLAVE.
Oh, where's the slave so lowly,
Condemned to chains unholy,
Who, could he burst
His bonds at first,
Would pine beneath them slowly?
What soul, whose wrongs degrade it,
Would wait till time decayed it,
When thus its wing
At once may spring
To the throne of Him who made it?
Farewell, Erin.—farewell, all,
Who live to weep our fall!
Less dear the laurel growing,
Alive, untouched and blowing,
Than that, whose braid
Is plucked to shade
The brows with victory glowing
We tread the land that bore us,
Her green flag glitters o'er us,
The friends we've tried
Are by our side,
And the foe we hate before us.