It may interest my readers, and it will no doubt surprise them, to hear that this prosaic marriage turned out a singularly happy one. The young man was a gentleman with a conscience and a heart. The girl was sensible, high-principled, and affectionate. [They were both sound at heart], and they did their duty by each other. After all, the most romantic union can hardly embark with surer or fairer elements of happiness.
THE LEGENDS OF OISIN, BARD OF ERIN.
BY AUBREY DE VERE.
V.
OISIN’S VISION.
As dim through snowy flakes the dawn
Peered o’er the moorlands frore,
The old, snow-headed Bard, Oisin,[57]
Sat by the convent door.
His chin he propp’d on that clenched hand
Of old in battles feared:
And like a silver flood, far-kenned,
To earth down streamed his beard.
That sun his eyes could see no more
Their thin lids loved to feel:
It rose; and on his cheek a tear
Began to uncongeal.
Then slowly thus he spake: “Three times
This thought has come to me,
Patrick, that I am older thrice
Than I am famed to be: