The charm is strong upon Turlough's eye,
His faithless tears are already dry,
And his yielding heart has ceased to sigh.
"To thee," the charmed chief replied,
"I pledge that love o'er my buried bride;
Oh! come, and in Turlough's hall abide."
Again the funeral voice came o'er
The passing breeze, as it wailed before,
And streams of mournful music bore.
"If I to thy youthful heart am dear,
One month from hence thou wilt meet me here,
Where lay thy bridal, Eva's bier."
He pressed her lips as the words were spoken,
And his banshee's wail-now far and broken-
Murmured "Death," as he gave the token.
"Adieu! adieu !" said this lady bright
And she slowly passed like a thing of light,
Or a morning cloud, from Sir Turlough's sight!
Now Sir Turlough has death in every vein,
There are fear and grief o'er his wide domain,
And gold for those who will calm his brain.
"Come, haste thee, leech, right swifty ride,
Sir Turlough the brave, Green Truagha's pride,
Has pledged his love to the Churchyard Bride."
The leech groaned loud, "Come tell me this,
By all thy hopes of weal and bliss,
Has Sir Turlough given the fatal kiss ?"
"The banshee's cry is loud and long,
At eve she weeps her funeral song,
And it floats on the twilight breeze along."
"Then the fatal kiss is given!-the last
Of Turlough's race and name is past,
His doom is sealed, his die is cast!"
"Leech, say not that thy skill is vain ;
Oh, calm the power of his frenzied brain,
And half his lands thou shalt retain."
The leech has failed, and the hoary priest
With pious shrift his soul released;
And the smoke is high of his funeral feast.
The minstrels now are assembled all;
And the songs of praise, in Sir Turlough's hall,
To the sorrowing harp's dark music fall.
And there are trophy, banner, and plume;
And the pomp of death, with its darkest gloom,
O'ershadows the Irish chieftain's tomb.
The month is closed, and Green Truagha's pride,
Killeevy, O Killeevy!
Is married to Death-and, side by side,
He slumbers now with his Churchyard Bride,
By the bonnie green woods of Killeevy.
LXX. THE FORGING OF THE ANCHOR.-Samuel Ferguson. COME, see the Dolphin's anchor forged-'tis at a white heat
The bellows ceased, the flames decreased-though on the forge's brow
The little flames still fitfully play through the sable mound, And fitfully you still may see the grim smiths ranking round; All clad in leathern panoply, their broad hands only bareSome rest upon their sledges here, some work the windlass there.
The windlass strains the tackle chains, the black mound heaves below,
And red and deep a hundred veins burst out at every throe: It rises, roars, rends all outright-Oh, Vulcan, what a glow! "Tis blinding white, 'tis blasting bright-the high sun shines not so!
The high sun sees not, on the earth, such fiery fearful show; The roof-ribs swarth, the candent hearth, the ruddy lurid row Of smiths that stand, an ardent band, like men before the foe: As, quivering through his fleece of flame, the sailing-monster slow
Sinks on the anvil-all about the faces fiery grow.
"Hurrah!" they shout, "leap out-leap out;" bang, bang the sledges go;
Hurrah! the jetted lightnings are hissing high and low-
A hailing fount of fire is struck at every squashing blow;
The leathern mail rebounds the hail, the rattling cinders strow
The ground around: at every bound the sweltering fountains
flow,
And thick and loud the swinking crowd at every stroke pant
Leap out, leap out, my masters; leap out and lay on load!
Let's forge a goodly anchor-a bower thick and broad;
For a heart of oak is hanging on every blow, I bode,
And I see the good ship riding, all in a perilous road—
The low reef roaring on her lee-the roll of ocean poured
From stem to stern, sea after sea; the mainmast by the board;
The bulwarks down, the rudder gone, the boats stove at the
chains!
But courage still, brave mariners-the bower yet remains! And not an inch to flinch he deigns, save when ye pitch skyhigh;
Then moves his head, as tho' he said, "Fear nothing-here am I."
Swing in your strokes in order, let foot and hand keep time;
Your blows make music sweeter far than any steeple's chime.
But while you sling your sledges, sing—and let the burden be,
"The anchor is the anvil king, and royal craftsmen we!"
Strike in, strike in-the sparks begin to dull their rustling red;
Our hammers ring with sharper din, our work will soon besped.
Our anchor soon must change his bed of fiery rich array,
For a hammock at the roaring bows, or an oozy couch of clay;
Our anchor soon must change the lay of merry craftsmen here,
For the "Yeo-heave-o'! and the "Heave-away!" and the
sighing seamen's cheer;
When, weighing slow, at eve they go-far, far from love and home;
And sobbing sweethearts, in a row, wail o'er the ocean foam.
In livid and obdurate gloom he darkens down at last;
A shapely one he is, and strong, as e'er from cat was cast.
O trusted and trustworthy guard, if thou hadst life like me,
What pleasures would thy toils reward beneath the deep green
O deep Sea-diver, who might then behold such sights as thou?
The hoary-monster's palaces! Methinks what joy 't were now
To go plumb plunging down amid the assembly of the whales,
And feel the churn'd sea round me boil beneath their scourging
tails!
Then deep in tangle-woods to fight the fierce sea-unicorn,
And send him foiled and bellowing back, for all his ivory horn;
To leave the subtle sworder-fish of bony blade forlorn;
And for the ghastly-grinning shark to laugh his jaws to scorn;
To leap down on the kraken's back, where 'mid Norwegian isles
He lies, a lubber-anchorage for sudden-shallowed miles;
Till snorting, like an under-sea volcano, off he rolls;
Meanwhile to swing, a-buffetting the far-astonished shoals
Of his back-browsing ocean-calves; or, haply, in a cove,
Shell-strown, and consecrate of old to some Undine's love,
To find the long-haired mermaidens; or, hard by icy lands,
To wrestle with the Sea-serpent, upon cerulean sands.
Obroad-armed Fisher of the deep, whose sports can equal thine?
The Dolphin weighs a thousand tons, that tugs thy cable line;
And night by night, 'tis thy delight, thy glory day by day,
Through sable sea and breaker white, the giant-game to play-
But, shamer of our little sports! forgive the name I gave-
A Fisher's joy is to destroy-thine office is to save.
O Lodger in the sea-kings' halls! couldst thou but understand Whose be the white bones by thy side, or who that dripping band
Slow swaying in the heaving waves, that round about thee bend, With sounds like breakers in a dream blessing their ancient friend
Oh! couldst thou know what heroes glide with larger steps round thee,
Thine iron side would swell with pride; thou'dst leap within the sea!
Give honour to their memories who left the pleasant strand,
To shed their blood so freely for the love of Fatherland—
Who left their chance of quiet age and grassy churchyard grave
So freely, for a restless bed amid the tossing wave!—
Oh! though our anchor may not be all I have fondly sung,
Honour him for their memory, whose bones he goes among!
LXXI. TO THE NIGHTINGALE.- -Keats.
OH, for a draught of vintage! that hath been
Cooled a long age in the deep-delvèd earth,
Tasting of Flora and the country green,
Dance, and Provençal song, and sunburnt Mirth!
Oh, for a beaker full of the warm South,
Full of the true, the blushful Hippocrene,
With beaded bubbles winking at the brim
And purple-stained mouth;
That I might drink, and leave the world unseen,
And with thee fade away into the forest dim;
Fade far away, dissolve, and quite forget
What thou among the leaves hast never known-
The weariness, the fever, and the fret,
Here, where men sit and hear each other groan;
Where Palsy shakes a few, sad, last gray hairs;
Where Youth grows pale, and spectre-thin, and dies;
Where but to think, is to be full of sorrow
And leaden-eyed despairs;
Where Beauty cannot keep her lustrous eyes,
Or new Love pine at them beyond to-morrow.
Away! away! for I will fly to thee,
Not charioted by Bacchus and his pards,But on the viewless wings of Poesy,
Though the dull brain perplexes and retards:
Already with thee! Tender is the night,
And haply the queen Moon is on her throne,
Clustered around by all her starry fays;
But here there is no light,
Save what from heaven is with the breezes blown,
Through verdurous blooms, and winding mossy ways.
Darkling, I listen; and, for many a time,
I have been half in love with easeful Death; Called him soft names in many a musèd rhyme, To take into the air my quiet breath:
Now, more than ever, seems it rich to die,
To cease upon the midnight with no pain;
While thou art pouring forth thy soul abroad
In such an ecstasy!
Still wouldst thou sing, and I have ears in vain—
To thy high requiem become a sod!
Thou wast not born for death, immortal bird!
No hungry generations tread thee down;
The voice I hear this passing night, was heard
In ancient days, by emperor and clown:
Perhaps the self-same song that found a path
Through the sad heart of Ruth, when, sick for home,
She stood in tears amid the alien corn
The same that oft-times hath
Charmed magic casements opening on the foam
Of perilous seas, in fairy lands forlorn.
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