Though your horsemen stand with their bridles in hand
And your sentinels walk around-

Though your matches flare in the midnight air,
And your brazen trumpets sound;

Oh! the Orator's tongue shall be heard among
These listening warrior men;

And they'll quickly say, "Why should we slay
Our friends of the Voice and Pen ?"

When the Lord created the earth and sea,
The stars and the glorious sun,

The Godhead spoke, and the universe woke-
And the mighty work was done!
Let a word be flung from the Orator's tongue,
Or a drop from the fearless Pen,
And the chains accurs'd asunder burst,
That fettered the minds of men!

Oh! these are the swords with which we fight,
The arms in which we trust;

Which no tyrant hand will dare to brand,
Which time cannot dim or rust!

When these we bore, we triumphed before,
With these we'll triumph again-

And the world will say, "No power can stay
The Voice and the fearless Pen!"

Hurrah!

Hurrah! for the Voice and Pen!

For

LXVII.—THE FAIRY THORN.-Samuel Ferguson.

"GET up, our Anna dear, from the weary spinning-wheel; your father's on the hill, and your mother is asleep: Come up above the crags, and we'll dance a highland reel Around the fairy thorn on the steep."

At Anna Grace's door 'twas thus the maidens cried,
Three merry maidens fair in kirtles of the green;
And Anna laid the rock and the weary wheel aside,
The fairest of the four, I ween.

They're glancing through the glimmer of the quiet eve,
Away in milky wavings of neck and ankle bare;
The heavy-sliding stream in its sleepy song they leave,
And the crags in the ghostly air:

And linking hand in hand, and singing as they go,

The maids along the hill-side have ta'en their fearless way, Till they come to where the rowan-trees in lonely beauty grow, Beside the Fairy Hawthorn gray.

The hawthorn stands between the ashes tall and slim,
Like matron with her twin grand-daughters at her knee;
The rowan berries cluster o'er her low head

In ruddy kisses sweet to see.

gray and dim,

The merry maidens four have ranged them in a row,
Between each lovely couple a stately rowan-stem;
And away in mazes wavy, like skimming birds they go-
Oh, never carolled bird like them!

But solemn is the silence of the silvery haze

That drinks away their voices in echoless repose;
And dreamily the evening has stilled the haunted braes,
And dreamier the gloaming grows.

And sinking one by one, like lark-notes from the sky
When the falcon's shadow saileth across the open shaw,
Are hushed the maidens' voices, as cowering down they lie
In the flutter of their sudden awe.

For, from the air above, and the grassy ground beneath, And from the mountain-ashes, and the old white-thorn between,

A power of faint enchantment doth through their beings breathe,

And they sink down together on the green.

Thus clasped and prostrate all, with their heads together bowed,
Soft o'er their bosoms' beating-the only human sound-
They hear the silky footsteps of the silent fairy crowd,
Like a river in the air, gliding round.

Nor scream can any raise, nor prayer can any say,
But wild, wild, the terror of the speechless three-
For they feel fair Anna Grace drawn silently away;
By whom, they dare not look to see!

They feel their tresses twine with her parting locks of gold,
And the curls elastic falling, as her head withdraws,
They feel her sliding arms from their tranced arms unfold,
But they dare not look to see the cause:

For heavy on their senses the faint enchantment lies,
Through all that night of anguish and perilous amaze;
And neither fear nor wonder can ope their quivering eyes,
Or their limbs from the cold ground raise.

Till out of Night the Earth has rolled her dewy side,

With every haunted mountain and streamy vale below; When, as the mist dissolves in the yellow morning tide, The maidens' trance dissolveth so.

Then fly the ghastly three as swiftly as they may,

And tell their tale of sorrow to anxious friends in vain; They pined away and died within the year and day— And ne'er was Anna Grace seen again!

THERE is a green island in lone Gougaune Barra,
Where Allua of songs rushes forth as 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 high land,
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 foemen'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 only awoke your wild harp from its slumber,
And mingled once more with the voice of those fountains
The songs even Echo forgot on her mountains;

And gleaned each gray legend, that darkly was sleeping
Where the mist and the rain o'er their beauty were creeping.

Least bard of the hills! 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 has bound me;
Did your mantle of song fling its radiance round 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 too shall be gone;-but my name shall 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,
And bend o'er my grave with a tear of emotion,
Where calm Avon-Buee seeks the kisses of ocean;
Or plant a wild wreath, from the banks of that river,
O'er the heart, and the harp, that are sleeping for ever.

LXIX.—SIR TURLOUGH, OR THE CHURCH-YARD BRIDE. -W. Carleton. THE bride she bound her golden hair

Killeevy, O Killeevy!

And her step was light as the breezy air
When it bends the morning flowers so fair,
By the bonnie green woods of Killeevy.
And oh, but her eyes they danced so bright,
As she longed for the dawn of to-morrow's light,
Her bridal vows of love to plight.

The bridegroom is come with youthful brow,
To receive from his Eva her virgin vow;
"Why tarries the bride of my bosom now ?"
A cry! a cry!-'twas her maidens spoke,
"Your bride is asleep-she has not awoke;
And the sleep she sleeps will never be broke."
Sir Turlough sank down with a heavy moan,
And his cheek became like the marble stone-
"Oh, the pulse of my heart is for ever gone!"
The keen is loud, it comes again,
And rises sad from the funeral train,
As in sorrow it winds along the plain.
And oh, but the plumes of white were fair,
When they fluttered all mournful in the air,
As rose the hymn of the requiem prayer.

There is a voice that but one can hear;
And it softly pours from behind the bier,
Its note of death on Sir Turlough's ear.
The keen is loud, but that voice is low,
And it sings its song of sorrow slow,
And names young Turlough's name with woe.
Now the grave is closed, and the mass is said,
And the bride she sleeps in her lonely bed,
The fairest corpse among the dead!

The wreaths of virgin-white are laid,
By virgin hands, o'er the spotless maid;

And the flowers are strewn, but they soon will fad.

"Oh! go not yet not yet away,

Let us feel that life is near our clay,"

The long-departed seem to say.

But the tramp and the voices of life are gone,
And beneath each cold forgotten stone,

The mouldering dead sleep all alone.

But who is he that lingereth yet?

The fresh green sod with his tears is wet,
And his heart in the bridal grave is set.

Oh, who but Sir Turlough, the young and brave,
Should bend him o'er that bridal grave,
And to his death-bound Eva rave?

"Weep not-weep not:" said a lady fair,
"Should youth and valour thus despair,
And pour their vows to the empty air ?"
There's charmed music upon her tongue,
Such beauty-bright, and warm, and young-
Was never seen the maids among.

A laughing light, a tender grace,
Sparkled in beauty around her face,

That grief from mortal heart might chase.

"The maid for whom thy salt tears fall,
Thy grief or love can ne'er recall;
She rests beneath that grassy pall.

"My heart it strangely cleaves to thee,
And now that thy plighted love is free,
Give its unbroken pledge to me."