Couldst thou but call those spirits round.
Who once, in bower and hall,
Sat listening to thy magic sound,
Now mute and mouldering all;—
But, no; they would but wake to weep
Their children's slavery;
Then leave them in their dreamless sleep,
The dead, at least, are free!—
Hush, hush, sad Harp, that dreary tone,
That knell of Freedom's day;
Or, listening to its death-like moan,
Let me, too, die away.
SONG OF THE BATTLE EVE.
TIME—THE NINTH CENTURY.
To-morrow, comrade, we
On the battle-plain must be,
There to conquer, or both lie low!
The morning star is up,—
But there's wine still in the cup,
And we'll take another quaff, ere we go, boy, go;
We'll take another quaff, ere we go.
'Tis true, in manliest eyes
A passing tear will rise,
When we think of the friends we leave lone;
But what can wailing do?
See, our goblet's weeping too!
With its tears we'll chase away our own, boy, our own;
With its tears we'll chase away our own.
But daylight's stealing on;—
The last that o'er us shone
Saw our children around us play;
The next—ah! where shall we
And those rosy urchins be?
But—no matter—grasp thy sword and away, boy, away;
No matter—grasp thy sword and away!
Let those, who brook the chain
Of Saxon or of Dane,
Ignobly by their firesides stay;
One sigh to home be given,
One heartfelt prayer to heaven,
Then, for Erin and her cause, boy, hurra! hurra! hurra!
Then, for Erin and her cause, hurra!
THE WANDERING BARD.
What life like that of the bard can be—
The wandering bard, who roams as free
As the mountain lark that o'er him sings,
And, like that lark, a music brings
Within him, where'er he comes or goes,—
A fount that for ever flows!
The world's to him like some playground,
Where fairies dance their moonlight round;—
If dimmed the turf where late they trod,
The elves but seek some greener sod;
So, when less bright his scene of glee,
To another away flies he!
Oh, what would have been young Beauty's doom,
Without a bard to fix her bloom?
They tell us, in the moon's bright round,
Things lost in this dark world are found;
So charms, on earth long past and gone,
In the poet's lay live on.—
Would ye have smiles that ne'er grow dim?
You've only to give them all to him.
Who, with but a touch of Fancy's wand,
Can lend them life, this life beyond,
And fix them high, in Poesy's sky,—
Young stars that never die!