The word went forth-the word of woe

The judgment-thunders pealed;
The fiery earthquake blazed below;
Its doom was seal'd.

Now on his halls of ivory

Lie giant weed and ocean slime,

Burying from man's and angel's eye
The land of crime.

This is not a song, it is true; but it partakes sufficiently of the character of an ode to justify its insertion; besides, as some have supposed Ireland to be a fragment of the lost Atlantis, it is the more admissible. Such a trifle cannot display the powers of so distinguished a writer, but it enables me to claim him for our country, and that country, I am delighted to say, has not ceased to be loved by him amid all his successes in England. I witnessed this on a recent occasion of honour done to Dr. Croly by his parishioners of St. Stephen's, Wallbrook, when Sir Francis Graham Moon, then Lord Mayor, opened the Mansion-house to the parishioners as the most fitting place for this demonstration, and, with his accustomed good taste and liberality, invited a distinguished company, among whom were many literati, to be present at the ceremonial of honour, and to partake afterwards of the hospitality for which the civic palace of London has ever been famous. On that occasion Dr. Croly alluded to his native land with much affection, and put forward her claims to honourable recognition in arts, letters, and arms, in a strain of impassioned panegyric; and the generous spirit which prompted that patriotic effusion was met by a spirit as generous on the part of his English auditors. The English love their own land too well not to respect the Irishman who loves his.

HY-BRASAIL THE ISLE OF THE BLEST.
GERALD GRIFFIN.

"The people of Arran fancy that at certain periods they see Hy-Brasail elevated far to the west in their watery horizon. This had been the universal tradition of the ancient Irish, who supposed that a great part of Ireland had been swallowed by the sea, and that the sunken part often rose, and was seen hanging in the horizon! Such was the popular notion. The Hy-Brasail of the Irish is evidently a part of the Atalantis of Plato, who, in his 'Timæus,' says that that island was totally swallowed up by a prodigious earthquake. Of some such shocks the isle of Arran, the promontories of Antrim, and some of the western islands of Scotland, bear evident marks."-O'Flaherty's Sketch of the Island of Arran.

On the ocean that hollows the rocks where ye dwell,
A shadowy land has appeared, as they tell;

Men thought it a region of sunshine and rest,
And they called it Hy-Brasail, the isle of the blest.
From year unto year, on the ocean's blue rim,
The beautiful spectre showed lovely and dim;
The golden clouds curtained the deep where it lay,
And it looked like an Eden,-away, far away!

A peasant who heard of the wonderful tale,
In the breeze of the Orient loosened his sail;
From Ara, the holy, he turned to the west,
For though Ara was holy, Hy-Brasail was blest.
He heard not the voices that called from the shore-
He heard not the rising wind's menacing roar;
Home, kindred, and safety he left on that day,
And he sped to Hy-Brasail, away, far away!

Morn rose on the deep, and that shadowy isle,
O'er the faint rim of distance, reflected its smile;
Noon burned on the wave, and that shadowy shore
Seemed lovelily distant, and faint as before;
Lone evening came down on the wanderer's track,
And to Ara again he looked timidly back;
Oh! far on the verge of the ocean it lay,
Yet the isle of the blest was away, far away!

Rash dreamer, return! O, ye winds of the main,
Bear him back to his own peaceful Ara again.
Rash fool! for a vision of fanciful bliss

To barter thy calm life of labour and peace.
The warning of reason was spoken in vain ;
He never revisited Ara again!

Night fell on the deep, amidst tempest and spray,
And he died on the waters, away, far away!

The above, as a matter of course, is placed in succession to Dr. Croly's "Atlantis." The coincidence between Plato's mysterious story and an Irish tradition cannot fail to strike the reader as remarkable, and might well awake many a curious speculation. I have seen several ballads on the subject, but Griffin's is the most poetical by far, and not only embodies the tradition, but inculcates a moral. In this it resembles Moore's lovely legendary ballad of "The Indian Boat;" and in the third verse of Griffin's, the passing of the different stages of the day without the desired object being reached reminds one of the end of the second verse of Moore's

"Thus on, and on,

Till day was gone,

And the moon thro' heav'n did hie her,
He swept the main,

But all in vain,

That boat seem'd never the nigher."

Popular fancy has a sort of barnacle quality of encrusting tradition with odd figments, and a very strange one has stuck to Hy-Brasail, viz., that, if a stone or piece of earth from the sacred sod of Ireland could be thrown on the fugitive island, it would settle the matter at once; thus says a verse in one of the many ballads on the subject:

"They also say, if earth or stone

From verdant Erin's hallow'd land
Were on this magic island thrown,
For ever fix'd it then would stand."

There is something exceedingly amusing in this getting within stone's-throw of so shy a bird as this flying island,

Gougaune Barra, sublime in the loneliness of its deep lake, shadowed into reflected darkness by the overhanging mountains of the ancient district of "The Desmonds" (now South Cork), is a spot, of all others, to inspire poet or painter with admiration; and Callanan, in the following noble lines, shows how deeply his soul was under the spell of the local influence. In Gougaune Barra the river Lee has its source-the Lee, whose "pleasant waters" have been so celebrated in the exquisite song, "The Bells of Shandon." Truly, it must be a witching water to fascinate two such poets-to inspire two such lyrics. Rare are the rivers that can claim as much:-well may this be called "Allu of songs."

THERE is a green island in lone Gougaune Barra,
Where Allu of songs rushes forth like an arrow;
In deep-valleyed Desmond a thousand wild fountains

Come down to that lake, from their home in the mountains;
There grows the wild ash; and a time-stricken willow
Looks chidingly down on the mirth of the billow,
As, like some gay child, that sad monitor scorning,
It lightly laughs back to the laugh of the morning.

And its zone of dark hills-oh! to see them all bright'ning,
When the tempest flings out its red banner of lightning,
And the waters rush down, 'mid the thunder's deep rattle,
Like clans from their hills at the voice of the battle;
And brightly the fire-crested billows are gleaming,
And wildly from Mullagh the eagles are screaming.
Oh! where is the dwelling in valley, or highland,
So meet for a bard as this lone little island?

How oft, when the summer sun rested on Clara,*
And lit the dark heath on the hills of Ivera,

Have I sought thee, sweet spot, from my home by the ocean,
And trod all thy wilds with a Minstrel's devotion!
And thought of thy bards, when assembling together
In the cleft of thy rocks, or the depth of thy heather,
They fled from the Saxon's dark bondage and slaughter,
And waked their last song by the rush of thy water!

High sons of the lyre, oh! how proud was the feeling,
To think, while alone through that solitude stealing,
Though loftier minstrels green Erin can number,
I fearlessly wak'd your wild harp from its slumber,
And glean'd the gray legend that long had been sleeping
Where oblivion's dull mist o'er its beauty was creeping,
From the love which I felt for my country's sad story,
When to love her was shame to revile her was glory!

Last bard of the free!† were it mine to inherit
The fire of thy harp, and the wing of thy spirit-

With the wrongs which, like thee, to our country have bound me--
Did
your mantle of song fling its radiance around me,
Still, still in those wilds might young liberty rally,
And send her strong shout over mountain and valley ;
The star of the west might yet rise in its glory,
And the land that was darkest be brightest in story!

I soon shall be gone ;--but my name may be spoken
When Erin awakes, and her fetters are broken;
Some Minstrel will come, in the summer eve's gleaming,
When Freedom's young light on his spirit is beaming,
To bend o'er my grave with a tear of emotion,
Where calm Avon-Buee seeks the kisses of ocean,
And plant a wild wreath, from the banks of that river,
O'er the heart, and the harp, that are silent for ever.‡

* Cape Clear.

He must have meant Moore, from the context.

This melancholy aspiration of the patriot poet was not realised; his grave is in a foreign land.

THE BELLS OF SHANDON.*

Rev. FRANCIS MAHONY.

Here, as a matter of course, follows the lyric alluded to in the initiatory note to the foregoing song. Like the fabled jewel in the head of the toad, or the garnet in some uncouth lump of granite, great beauty may be concealed where we least expect it; and no one looking at Shandon church would imagine it could inspire such exquisite lines as these that follow. But it was not the church, after all: the inspiration lay in "the bells" and "the pleasant waters" over which their chimes are wafted. An editor must be excused in dilating, somewhat, on the best bits in his mosaic work; and there is so much to admire in this, that he might be open to the charge of insensibility if he had passed by in silence its numerous beauties; the charming sentiment-the felicitous versification-the variety of illustration so indicative of scholarship without pedantry-the bold and ingenious rhymes ringing in attractive triple succession, so appropriate to the subject, and so peculiarly Irish. WITH deep affection

And recollection

I often think of

Those Shandon bells,

Whose sounds so wild would,
In the days of childhood,

Fling round my cradle
Their magic spells.

On this I ponder

Where'er I wander,
And thus grow fonder,

Sweet Cork, of thee;
With thy bells of Shandon,
That sound so grand on
The pleasant waters

Of the river Lee.

I've heard bells chiming,
Full many a clime in,
Tolling sublime in

Cathedral shrine;

While at a glibe rate
Brass tongues would vibrate;
But all their music

Spoke naught like thine.
For memory, dwelling
On each proud swelling
Of thy belfry, knelling
Its bold notes free,
Made the bells of Shandon
Sound far more grand on

The pleasant waters

Of the river Lee.

* Shandon Church is an odd-looking old structure in the City of Cork.