He sleeps, the great O'Sullivan, where thunder cannot rouse— Then ask yourself, should you be proud, good Woman of Three Cows!

O'Ruark, Maguire, those souls of fire, whose names are shrined in story

Think how their high achievements once made Erin's greatest glory

Yet now their bones lie mouldering under weeds and cypress boughs, And So, for all your pride, will yours, O, Woman of Three Cows!

Th' O'Carrolls also, famed when Fame was only for the boldest,
Rest in forgotten sepulchres with Erin's best and oldest;
Yet who so great as they of yore in battle or carouse?

Just think of that, and hide your head, good Woman of Three Cows!

Your neighbour's poor, and you it seems are big with vain ideas, Because, forsooth, you've got three cows, one more, I see, than she has;

That tongue of yours wags more at times than Charity allows, But, if you're strong, be merciful, great Woman of Three Cows!

THE SUMMING UP.

Now, there you go! You still, of course, keep up your scornful bearing,

And I'm too poor to hinder you; but, by the cloak I'm wearing,
If I had but four cows myself, even tho' you were my spouse,
I'd thwack you well to cure your pride, my Woman of three Cows!

THE LOVER'S COMPLAINT.

OH! don't be beguilin' my heart with your wilin',
You've tried that same thrick far too often before,

And by this blest minnit an' day that is in it,

I'll take right good care that you'll try it no more! You thought that so slily you walked with O'Reilly, By man and by mortal unheard and unseen,

While your hand he kept squeezin', and you looked so pleasin', Last Saturday night in your father's boreen.

His thricks and his schamin' has set you a dhramin'
That any one blessed with their eyesight may see,
You're not the same crature you once war by nature,
And they that are thraitors won't do, faith, for me!
Tho' it is most distressin' to think that a blessin'
Was just about fallin' down plump on the scene,
When a cunning culloger, as black as an ogre,
Upsets all your hopes in a dirty boreen.

And 'tis most ungrateful, unkind, and unfaithful,
When you very well know how I gave the go-by,
Both to pride and to pleasure, temptation and treasure,
To dress all my looks by the light of your eye.
Oh! 'tis Mary Mullally, that lives in the valley-
"Tis she that would say how ill-used I have been,
And she's not the deludher to smile and to soother,
And then walk away to her father's boreen.

I send you your garter, for now I'm a martyr,

And keepsakes and jims are the least of my care, So when things are exchangin', since you took to rangin' I'll trouble you, too, for the lock of my hair.

I know by its shakin', my heart is a-breakin',

You'll make me a corpse when I'd make you a queen, But as sure as I'm livin', it's you I'll be givin' A terrible fright, when I haunt the boreen!

THE POET'S PROPHECY.

BY GERALD GRIFFIN.

IN the time of my boyhood I had a strange feeling,
That I was to die in the noon of my day;

Not quietly into the silent grave stealing,
But torn, like a blasted oak, sudden away.

That, even in the hour when enjoyment was keenest,
My lamp should quench suddenly hissing in gloom,
That even when mine honours were freshest and greenest,
A blight should rush over and scatter their bloom.

It might be a fancy--it might be the glooming
Of dark visions taking the semblance of truth,
And it might be the shade of the storm that is coming,
Cast thus in its morn through the sunshine of youth.

But be it a dream or a mystic revealing,

The bodement has haunted me year after year,
And whenever my bosom with rapture was filling,
I paused for the footfall of fate at mine ear.

With this feeling upon me all feverish and glowing,
I rushed up the rugged way panting to Fame,
I snatched at my laurels while yet they were growing,
And won for my guerdon the half of a name.

My triumphs I viewed from the least to the brightest,
As gay flowers pluck'd from the fingers of Death,
And whenever Joy's garments flowed richest and lightest,
I looked for the skeleton lurking beneath.

O friend of my heart! if that doom should fall on me,
And thou shouldst live on to remember my love-
Come oft to the tomb when the turf lies upon me,
And list to the even wind mourning above.

Lie down by that bank where the river is creeping
All fearfully under the still autumn tree,
When each leaf in the sunset is silently weeping,
And sigh for departed days-thinking of me.

But when, o'er the minstrel, thou'rt lonelily sighing,
Forgive, if his failings should flash on thy brain,
Remember the heart that beneath thee is lying
Can never awake to offend thee again.

Remember how freely that heart that to others,
Was dark as the tempest-dawn frowning above,
Burst open to thine with the zeal of a brother's,
And showed all its hues in the light of thy love.

THE SISTER OF MERCY.

BY REV. DR. PATRICK MURRAY.

We live in our lonely cells,

We live in our cloisters gray,

And the warning chime of the convent bells
Tolls our silent life away.

The loud world's busy hum
Murmuring evermore,
Breaks on our dim old walls,
As waves break on the shore.
Like the voices we used to hear
Long ago in childhood's prime,
Are the ties of a long dead world,
The thoughts of a long past time.

They tell of life's sparkling sea,
Of its dancing billows where
The voyager's laugh rings merrily,
From a heart as light as air.
But they tell not of the storms
That swell its angry waves,
The sunken rocks, the hideous forms
That lie in the ocean caves;

The wrecks that toss in the gale,

The lost that are buried beneath,

The struggle, the gasp, the drowning wail, That follow so oft the sunbright sail,

O'er the pitiless realms of death.

They number us with the dead,
With our hearts so cold and dry;

For us the sky is a roof of lead,
And earth is like the sky.

But the sinless soul hath wings to soar
Above these prison bars

To a glorious home of its own,

Beyond the golden stars.

The light of this seeming, dying life,

Faded out from the eye of clay,

Glows in the franchised spirit,

Never to feel or fear decay.

They speak of a mother's delight,
They tell of wedded bliss,

They paint a world so warm and bright,
And say that world is this.

But the true world we sometimes see,
Life in its house of withering bones,

Life on its couch of agony,

As it heaves and weeps and groans; The father's broken heart,

The mother's about to break, The crushing blow, the stinging smart, Oh wedded love, we've seen what thou art, And not what dreamers make!

We live in our lonely cells,

We live in our cloisters gray,

And sweet as the chime of the convent bells,
Glides our life with God away.
In the roar of a maddened world,
In battling passions' thrill,
Martha's work and Mary's part
Our endless portion still.
Could you but a moment share
The bliss, like that above,
Of a life of silent prayer,
A life of working love;

The glory of earth would seem
Black as the trodden leaf,
False as the dream of a dream,

As the flash of the lightning brief.

All must pass away,

And wither and die and rot;

But the love of God abides and burns

In the heart that deserts him not.

Then leave us here to pray,

Then leave us here to love,

Our prayer will be that you may rise
With us to God above!