You saw how he finish'd, by darting His beam o'er a deep billow's brim- "TIS THE LAST ROSE OF SUMMER. AIR.-Groves of Blarney. I. 'Tis the last rose of summer Left blooming alone; II. I'll not leave thee, thou lone one! To pine on the stem; Since the lovely are sleeping, Go, sleep thou with them; Thus kindly I scatter Thy leaves o'er the bed, III. So soon may I follow, When friendships decay, The gems drop away! And fond ones are flown, Oh! who would inhabit G THE YOUNG MAY-MOON. I. THE Young May-moon is beaming, love, Through MORNA's grove,* While the drowsy world is dreaming, love! To lengthen our days Is to steal a few hours from the night, my dear! Now all the world is sleeping, love, But the Sage, his star-watch keeping, love, More glorious far, Is the eye from that casement peeping, love! Or, in watching the flight Of bodies of light, He might happen to take thee for one, my dear! THE MINSTREL-BOY. AIR.-The Moreen. I. THE Minstrel-Boy to the war is gone, * "Steals silently to Morna's Grove." See a translation from the Irish, in Mr. Bunting's collection, by JOHN BROWN, one of my earliest college companions and friends, whose death was as singularly melancholy and unfortunate as his life had been amiable, honourable, and exemplary. II. The Minstrel fell!-but the foeman's chain For he tore its chords asunder; THE SONG OF O'RUARK, PRINCE OF BREFFNI.* AIR.-The pretty Girl milking her Cow. I. THE Valley lay smiling before me, Yet I trembled, and something hung o'er me, I look'd for the lamp which, she told me, No lamp from the battlements burn'd! * These stanzas are founded upon an event of most melancholy importance to Ireland; if, as we are told by our Irish historians, it gave England the first opportunity of profiting by our divisions and subduing us. The following are the circumstances, as related by O'Halloran. "The king of Leinster had long conceived a violent affection for Dearbhorgil, daughter to the king of Meath, and though she had been for some time married to O'Ruark, prince of Breffni, yet it could not restrain his passion. They carried on a private correspondence, and she informed him that O'Ruark intended soon to go on a pilgrimage (an act of piety frequent in those days), and conjured him to embrace that opportunity of conveying her from a husband she detested, to a lover she adored. Mac Murchad too punctually obeyed the summons, and had the lady conveyed to his capital of Ferns."-The monarch Roderic espoused the cause of O'Ruark, while Mac Murchad fled to England, and obtained the assistance of Henry II. 66 Such," "adds Giraldus Cambrensis (as I find him in an old translation)," is the variable and fickle nature of woman, by whom all mischief in the world (for the most part) do happen and come, as may appear by Marcus Antonius, and by the destruction of Troy." II. I flew to her chamber-'twas lonely While the hand that had wak'd it so often, There was a time, falsest of women! When BREFFNI's good sword would have sought That man, thro' a million of foemen, Who dar'd but to doubt thee in thought! While now-oh degenerate daughter Of ERIN, how fall'n is thy fame; And, thro' ages of bondage and slaughter, Already, the curse is upon her, And strangers her valleys profane; On theirs is THE SAXON and GUILT. OH! HAD WE SOME BRIGHT LITTLE ISLE OF OUR OWN. AIR.-Sheela na Guira. I. OH! had we some bright little Isle of our own, In a blue summer ocean, far off and alone, Where a leaf never dies in the still-blooming bowers, With so fond a delay, That the night only draws A thin veil o'er the day; Where simply to feel that we breathe, that we live, II. There, with souls ever ardent and pure as the clime, Would steal to our hearts, and make all summer there! From decline as the bowers, And, with Hope, like the bee, Our life should resemble a long day of light, FAREWELL!-BUT, WHENEVER YOU WELCOME THE HOUR. AIR.-Moll Roone. I. FAREWELL!-but, whenever you welcome the hour, And still on that evening, when pleasure fills up Let Fate do her worst, there are relics of joy, Bright dreams of the past, which she cannot destroy; |