Few, few, shall part when many meet!
The snow shall be their winding-sheet,
And every turf beneath their feet
Shall be a soldier's sepulchre.

THE EXILE OF ERIN.

THERE came to the beach a poor Exile of Erin, The dew on his thin robe was heavy and chill: For his country he sigh'd, when at twilight repairing

To wander alone by the wind-beaten hill.
But the day-star attracted his eye's sad devotion,
For it rose o'er his own native isle of the ocean,
Where once,
in the fire of his youthful emotion,
He sang the bold anthem of Erin go bragh.

Sad is my fate! said the heart-broken stranger,
The wild deer and wolf to a covert can flee;
But I have no refuge from famine and danger-
A home and a country remain not to me.
Never again, in the green sunny bowers,
Where my forefathers lived, shall I spend the
sweet hours,

Or cover my harp with the wild-woven flowers,
And strike to the numbers of Erin go bragh!

Erin, my country! though sad and forsaken,
In dreams I revisit thy sea-beaten shore;
But, alas! in a far foreign land I awaken,

And sigh for the friends who can meet me no

more.

Oh cruel fate! wilt thou never replace me In a mansion of peace-where no perils can chase me?

Never again shall my brothers embrace me?

They died to defend me, or live to deplore!

Where is my cabin door, fast by the wild wood?
Sisters and sire! did ye weep for its fall?
Where is the mother that look'd on my childhood?
And where is the bosom-friend, dearer than all?
Oh! my sad heart! long abandon'd by pleasure,
Why did it dote on a fast-fading treasure?
Tears, like the rain-drop, may fall without

measure,

But rapture and beauty they cannot recall.

Yet all its sad recollections suppressing,

One dying wish my lone bosom can draw; Erin! an exile bequeaths thee his blessing!

Land of my forefathers! Erin go bragh! Buried and cold, when my heart stills her motion, Green be thy fields,-sweetest isle of the ocean! And thy harp-striking bards sing aloud with devotion,

Erin mavournin-Erin go bragh!*

LORD ULLIN'S DAUGHTER.
A CHIEFTAIN, to the Highlands bound,
Cries, "Boatman, do not tarry!
And I'll give thee a silver pound,
To row us o'er the ferry."-

Ireland my darling,-Ireland for ever.

Yet, prophet-like, that lone one stood,
With dauntless words and high,
That shook the sere leaves from the wood
As if a storm pass'd by,

Saying, We are twins in death, proud Sun,
Thy face is cold, thy race is run,

'Tis Mercy bids thee go;

For thou ten thousand thousand years
Hast seen the tide of human tears,
That shall no longer flow.

What though beneath thee man put forth
His pomp, his pride, his skill;
And arts that made fire, flood, and earth
The vassals of his will ;-
Yet mourn I not thy parted sway,
Thou dim discrowned king of day:

For all those trophied arts

And triumphs that beneath thee sprang,
Heal'd not a passion or a pang
Entail'd on human hearts.

Go-let oblivion's curtain fall
Upon the stage of men,
Nor with thy rising beams recall
Life's tragedy again.

Its piteous pageants bring not back,
Nor waken flesh, upon the rack

Of pain anew to writhe;
Stretch'd in disease's shapes abhorr'd,
Or mown in battle by the sword,
Like grass beneath the scythe.

Ev'n I am weary in yon skies
To watch thy fading fire;
Test of all sumless agonies,
Behold not me expire.

My lips that speak thy dirge of death-
Their rounded gasp and gurgling breath

To see thou shalt not boast.

The eclipse of Nature spreads my pall,-
The majesty of darkness shall
Receive my parting ghost!

This spirit shall return to Him

That gave its heavenly spark; Yet think not, Sun, it shall be dim When thou thyself art dark! No! it shall live again, and shine In bliss unknown to beams of thine; By him recall'd to breath, Who captive led captivity, Who robb'd the grave of Victory,And took the sting from Death!

Go, Sun, while Mercy holds me up
On Nature's awful waste,

To drink this last and bitter cup

Of grief that man shall tasteGo, tell the Night that hides thy face, Thou saw'st the last of Adam's race,

On Earth's sepulchral clod, The dark'ning universe defy To quench his Immortality,

Or shake his trust in God!

ODE TO WINTER.

WHEN first the fiery-mantled Sun
His heavenly race began to run,
Round the earth and ocean blue,
His children four the Seasons flew.
First, in green apparel dancing,

The young Spring smiled with angel grace; Rosy Summer next advancing,

Rush'd into her sire's embrace:
Her bright-hair'd sire, who bade her keep
For ever nearest to his smiles,
On Calpe's olive-shaded steep,

On India's citron-cover'd isles:
More remote and buxom-brown

The Queen of vintage bow'd before his throne;

A rich pomegranate gemm'd her crown,
A ripe sheaf bound her zone.

But howling Winter fled afar,
To hills that prop the polar star,
And loves on deer-borne car to ride,
With barren darkness by his side.
Round the shore where loud Lofoden
Whirls to death the roaring whale,
Round the hall where Runic Odin

Howls his war-song to the gale;
Save when adown the ravaged globe
He travels on his native storm,
Deflow'ring Nature's grassy robe,
And trampling on her faded form:-
Till light's returning lord assume

The shaft that drives him to his polar field, Of power to pierce his raven plume, And crystal-cover'd shield.

O sire of storms! whose savage ear
The Lapland drum delights to hear,
When Frenzy, with her blood-shot eye,
Implores thy dreadful deity,
Archangel! power of desolation!

Fast descending as thou art,
Say, hath mortal invocation

Spells to touch thy stony heart? Then, sullen Winter, hear my prayer, And gently rule the ruin'd year; Nor chill the wanderer's bosom bare,

Nor freeze the wretch's falling tearTo shuddering want's unmantled bed Thy horror-breathing agues cease to lend, And gently on the orphan head Of innocence descend.

But chiefly spare, O king of clouds!
The sailor on his airy shrouds;

When wrecks and beacons strew the steep,
And spectres walk along the deep.
Milder yet thy snowy breezes

Pour on yonder tented shores,

Where the Rhine's broad billow freezes
Or the dark-brown Danube roars.
Oh, winds of Winter! list ye there

To many a deep and dying groan;
Or start, ye demons of the midnight air,

At shrieks and thunders louder than your

own.

Alas! ev'n your unhallow'd breath May spare the victim fallen low; But man will ask no truce to death,No bounds to human woe.*

REULLURA.†

STAR of the morn and eve,

Reullura shone like thee,

And well for her might Aodh grieve,
The dark-attired Culdee.

Peace to their shades! the pure Culdees
Were Albyn's earliest priests of God,
Ere yet an island of her seas

By foot of Saxon monk was trode, Long ere her churchmen by bigotry

Were barr'd from holy wedlock's tie, 'Twas then that Aodh, famed afar,

In Iona preach'd the word with power, And Reullura, beauty's star,

Was the partner of his bower.

But, Aodh, the roof lies low,

And the thistle-down waves bleaching, And the bat flits to and fro

Where the Gael once heard thy preaching; And fallen is each column'd aisle

Where the chiefs and the people knelt.
'Twas near that temple's goodly pile
That honour'd of men they dwelt.
For Aodh was wise in the sacred law,
And bright Reullura's eyes oft saw
The veil of fate uplifted.
Alas, with what visions of awe

Her soul in that hour was gifted

When pale in the temple and faint,
With Aodh she stood alone
By the statue of an aged Saint!
Fair sculptured was the stone,

It bore a crucifix;

Fame said it once had graced
A Christian temple, which the Picts
In the Britons' land laid waste:

The Pictish men, by St. Columb taught,
Had hither the holy relic brought.
Reullura eyed the statue's face,

And cried, "It is he shall come
Even he, in this very place,
To avenge my martyrdom.

This ode was written in Germany, at the close of 1800, before the conclusion of hostilities.

+ Reullura, in Gaelic, signifies "beautiful star." The Culdees were the primitive clergy of Scotland, and apparently her only clergy from the sixth to the eleventh century. They were of Irish origin; and their monastery, on the island of Iona or Icolmkill, was the seminary of Christianity in North Britain. Presbyterian writers have wished to prove them to have been a sort of Presbyters, strangers to the Roman Church and Episcopacy. It seems to be established that they were not enemies to Episcopacy; but that they were not slavishly subjected to Rome, like the clergy of later periods, appears by their resisting the Papal ordinances respecting the celibacy of religious men, on which account they were ultimately displaced by the Scottish sovereigns to make way for more Popish canons.

"Ah! knowest thou not, my bride,"

The holy Aodh said,

"That the Saint whose form we stand beside Has for ages slept with the dead ?"

"He liveth, he liveth," she said again,
"For the span of his life tenfold extends
Beyond the wonted years of men.

He sits by the graves of well-loved friends
That died ere thy grandsire's grandsire's birth;
The oak is decayed with old age on earth,
Whose acorn-seed had been planted by him;
And his parents remember the day of dread
When the sun on the cross look'd dim,
And the graves gave up their dead.

The sun, now about to set,

Was burning o'er Tiriee, And no gathering cry rose yet

O'er the isles of Albyn's sea. Whilst Reullura saw far rowers dip Their oars beneath the sun, And the phantom of many a Danish slup, Where ship there yet was none. And the shield of alarm was dumb, Nor did their warning till midnight come, When watch-fires burst from across

From Rona and Uist and Skey, To tell that the ships of the Dane

And the red-hair'd slayers were nigh.