THE MAID OF ERIN.

TUNE-" The maid of Lodi."

My thoughts delight to wander
Upon a distant shore,
Where, lovely, fair, and tender,
Is she whom I adore;
May Heav'n its blessings sparing,
On her bestow them free,
The lovely Maid of Erin!
Who sweetly sung to me,

Had fortune fix'd my station,
In some propitious hour,
The monarch of a nation,

Endow'd with wealth and pow'r;

communicating such pieces to the public; for, if we are not mistaken in our judgment, they will be found worthy of being preserved, and will ultimately rank with those lyrics which are destined to become the themes of a future age. In the piece immediately before us every reader of taste will, we think, recognise the hand of a genuine poet-of one in whom the polish of a well informed mind, and a correct taste, are united with a heart feelingly alive, as well to the finer sympathies of life, as to the grand and striking features of external nature, and a fancy capable of embodying all the charms of both in the most soul-touching strains. The sentiments of this piece breathe a sensibility which is peculiar only to the poet of nature, while there is spread over the expressions, the allusions, and the imagery, a sort of classical charm, that proves the whole to be the offspring of a very refined muse. In short, though we know it to be a hasty and careless performance, we may without hesitation assert, that it would do no discredit to the first lyrical bards of our country, and that its author, if he only equal them in industry and application, will one day or other dispute with them their title to the laurels they have acquired.

That wealth and power sharing,
My peerless queen should be
The lovely Maid of Erin!
Who sweetly sung to me.

Altho' the restless ocean
May long between us roar,
Yet while my heart has motion,
She'll lodge within its core;
For artless and endearing,
And mild and young is she,
The lovely Maid of Erin!
Who sweetly sung to me.

When fate gives intimation,
That my last hour is nigh,
With placid resignation

I'll lay me down and die;
Fond hope my bosom cheering,
That I in Heav'n shall see

The lovely Maid of Erin!

Who sweetly sung to me.

MY MUSE, LET US WAKE.

TUNE-" Moll Roone."

My Muse, let us wake Erin's harp from its slumbers-
The shades of our fathers are flitting around-
It grieves them to think that its sweet flowing numbers
Should cease in fair Erin's green vallies to sound.
Their sorrow is loud in the storm of the mountain,-
It swells in the din of the blustering gale;-
'Tis heard in the plaints of the murmuring fountain,
And softly repines in the breeze of the vale.

But waken the wild notes, and pleas'd they will hear them When silence no longer their melody shrouds;And sweetly the sounds will enliven and cheer them, As, list'ning, they bend from their light fleecy clouds Twill joy them to hear us tell over the story

That sheds an immortal renown on their name,How honour's star guided, and led them to glory, Till, dying, they fell on the bosom of fame.

Their sons-'twill with heartfelt devotion inspire them To see the bright annals of Erin unroll'd;They'll think of her wrongs, and the thought it will fire them,

To copy the deeds of their fathers of old: And heroes like these, who will never surrender The honour and rights of their emerald isle, Will guard her in peace, and in battle defend her, Till freedom again on old Erin shall smile. *

*My Muse, let us wake, is by the gentleman who favoured us with the supplement to " See the ship in the bay is riding,” p. 112, of this Vol. There is a sublimity in the poetry which we think incredible, in what he styles his first assay with the lyric muse; certainly a delicacy and originality of thought runs through it, on which it would be difficult for ordinary genius even to stumble in this age of imitation, when all the graceful epithets have been worn to threadbareness by every croaking scribbler who, in the last stages of his lunacy, conceives himself a poet. We are cer tainly warranted to indulge the hope, that, when the faculties he is attempting to rouse, under this auspicious opening, have been awakened to that power of which they seem susceptible, the soft airs of Erin will be the vehicles of the warmest sensibility,—the transcendent beauty of her landscape will receive a heightening glow from the improvement of her minstrelsy,-the pathos of her music will be no longer condemned to grovel amid the wretched mechanism of bull-stringers, but her hero and her bard shall with equal right slumber "on the bosom of fame."

THE SONG OF THE LAST HARPER.

TUNE-"Erin go Bragh."

AH! dark are the halls where your ancestors revell'd,
And mute is the harp that enliven'd the day;
The tow'rs that they dwelt in are awfully levell'd,
The signs of their greatness are sunk in dec. y.
Where is the chief that strode forward to glory?
Where is the bard that told valour's dread story?
Alas! they are gone, and the years now before ye
Are faintly illumin'd by Fame's setting ray.

0 Erin! whilst life in this bosom is swelling,
Shall I neglect thee, the land of my birth?

On thy mountains I'll hold with sweet Friendship my dwelling,

And hymn forth thy praises, thou favourite earth. Beauty shall weave rosy garlands beside me,

Peace round thy shores shall with plenty provide me: In thy prosperous hour, O my country I'll pride me, And the trials that point to the nations thy worth.

THE MOON DIMM'D HER BEAMS.

TUNE-"Young Terence M·Donough."

THE moon dimm'd her beams in a feathery cloud,
As she sail'd thro' the star-studded vault of the sky,
And slowly the moss-cover'd branches all bow'd
To the breezes of night moaning dismally by:
When o'er the long grass of her love's narrow bed,
The dew-sprinkled daughter of Dargo reclin'd;
Forlorn on the grey stone she rested her head,
And sadly she sigh'd to each gust of the wind.
VOL. II.
Q

"Oh! where is the warrior that awfully rose

In his might like the wide-spreading oak on the heath? Alas! the bright eye that flash'd fire on his foes For ever is clos'd in the slumber of death! In his hall not a string of the harp is now stirr'd, The bards sit around, wrapt in silence and grief, And only the sobs of his father are heard:—

Who shall comfort the sorrowing soul of the chief? Oh! where are the blood-crusted spear and the shield? In indolent rest 'neath the wall they recline; And where are his dogs that were fierce in the field? Round his grass-tufted hillock they lingering whine O hear me! thou spirit of Crothal, attend!

In pity look down on the house of thy rest; For thee doth the fast-falling tear-drop descend, And thine the last sigh that escapes from my breast."

WHEN WAR WAS HEARD.
TUNE-"The Hermit of Killarney.”

WHEN war was heard, and Erin's call
Arous'd me from thy side,
No danger could my heart appal,
For thee I would have died.
But when our moments sweetly flew,
Beneath the spreading tree,
The secret charm of life I knew,
To live for love and thee.

When gloomy care disturb'd thy rest,
Or sorrow dimm'd thine eye,
Oh, did not then this tender breast
Return thee sigh for sigh?

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