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"And now I'm in the world alone,
Upon the wide, wide sea;

But, why should I for others groan,
When none will sigh for me?

"Perchance my dog will whine in vain,
Till fed by stranger hands;
But, long ere I come back again,
He'd tear me where he stands.

"With thee, my bark, I'll swiftly go
Athwart the foaming brine;

Nor care what land thou bear'st me to,
So not again to mine!

"Welcome, welcome, ye dark blue waves!
And, when you fail my sight,
Welcome, ye deserts and ye caves!
My native land, good-night!"

ST. PETER'S IN ROME.

LORD BYRON.

BUT thou, of temples old, or altars new,
Standest alone, with nothing like to thee,
Worthiest of God, the holy and the true.
Since Zion's desolation, when that He
Forsook his former city, what could be,
Of earthly structures, in his honour piled,
Of a sublimer aspect? Majesty,

Power, Glory, Strength, and Beauty, all are aisled

In this eternal ark of worship undefiled.

Enter! Its grandeur overwhelms thee not-
And why? It is not lessen'd; but thy mind,
Expanded by the genius of the spot,
Has grown colossal, and can only find

AN ANGEL IN THE HOUSE.

A fit abode wherein appear enshrined
Thy hopes of immortality; and thou

Shalt one day, if found worthy, so defined,
See thy God face to face, as thou dost now,
His Holy of Holies, nor be blasted by his brow.

207

Thou movest-but increasing with the advance,
Like climbing some great Alp, which still doth rise,
Deceived by its gigantic elegance;

Vastness which grows, but grows to harmonise,
All musical in its immensities;

Rich marbles, richer painting, shrines where flame
The lamps of gold, and haughty dome which vies
In air with earth's chief structures, though their
fame

Sits on the firm-set ground-and this the clouds must claim.

AN ANGEL IN THE HOUSE.

LEIGH HUNT.

How sweet it were, if without feeble fright,
Or dying of the dreadful beauteous sight,
An angel came to us; and we could bear
To see him issue from the silent air

At evening in our room, and bend on ours
His divine eyes, and bring us from his bowers
News of dear friends, and children who have never
Been dead indeed, as we shall know for ever.
Alas! we think not what we daily see
About our hearths-angels that are to be,
Or may be, if they will and we prepare
Their souls and ours to meet in happy air,-
A child, a friend, a wife, whose soft heart sings
In unison with ours, breeding its future wings.

THE CHIMNEY SWEEPER.

W. BLAKE.

WHEN my mother died I was very young,
And my father sold me while yet my tongue
Could scarcely cry, 'weep! 'weep! 'weep! 'weep!
So your chimneys I sweep, and in soot I sleep.

There's little Tom Dacre, who cried when his head, That curled like a lamb's back, was shaved; so I said, Hush, Tom! never mind it, for when your head's

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bare,

You know that the soot cannot spoil your white hair."

And so he was quiet; and that very night,
As Tom was a-sleeping, he had such a sight,
That thousands of sweepers, Dick, Joe, Ned, and
Jack,

Were all of them lock'd up in coffins of black.

And by came an angel, who had a bright key,
And he open'd the coffins and set them all free;
Then down a green plain, leaping, laughing, they run,
And wash in a river, and shine in the sun.

Then naked and white, all their bags left behind,
They rise upon clouds, and sport in the wind;
And the angel told Tom, if he'd be a good boy,
He'd have God for his father, and never want joy.

And so Tom awoke; and we rose in the dark,
And got with our bags and our brushes to work;
Though the morning was cold, Tom was happy and

warm:

So, if all do their duty, they need not fear harm.

THE GERALDINES.

209

THE GERALDINES.

THOMAS DAVIS.

THE Geraldines, the Geraldines! 'Tis full a thousand

years

Since, 'mid the Tuscan vineyards, bright flashed their battle spears:

When Capet seized the crown of France their iron shields were known;

And their sabre-dint struck terror on the banks of the Garonne ;

Across the downs of Hastings they spurred hard by William's side,

And those gray sands of Palestine with Moslem blood they dyed:

But never then, nor ever yet, has falsehood or disgrace Been seen to soil Fitzgerald's plume, or mantle in his face.

The Geraldines, the Geraldines! 'Tis true in Strongbow's van

By lawless force, as conquerors, their Irish reign began;

And, oh! through many a dark campaign they proved their prowess stern

On Leinster's plains, in Munster's vales, on king, and chief, and kerne:

But noble was the cheer within the halls so rudely

won,

And generous was the steel-gloved hand that had such slaughter done;

How gay their laugh, how proud their micn! You'd ask no herald's sign

Among a thousand you had known the princely Geraldine!

Those Geraldines, those Geraldines! Not long our air they breathed,

Not long they fed on venison in Irish waters seethed,

Not often had their children been by Irish mothers

nursed,

When from their full and genial hearts an Irish feeling burst!

The English monarchs strove in vain, by law, and force, and bribe

To win from Irish thoughts and ways this " more than

Irish" tribe;

For still they clung to fosterage, to Brehon, cloak, and bard;

What king dare say to Geraldine, "Your Irish wife discard!"

Ye Geraldines, ye Geraldines! how royally ye reigned O'er Desmond broad and rich Kildare, and English arts disdained;

Your sword made knights; your banner waved; free rang your bugle's call

By Glyn's green slopes, and Dingle's tide, from Barrow's banks to Youghal.

What gorgeous shrines, what Brehon lore, what minstrel feasts there were

In and around Maynooth's gray keep, and palacefilled Adare!

But not for rite or feast ye stayed when friend or kin was pressed;

And foemen fled when "Crom Abú" bespoke your lance in rest.

Ye Geraldines, ye Geraldines! Since Silken Thomas

flung

King Henry's sword on council board, the English Thanes among,

Ye never ceased to battle on against the English sway, Though axe, and brand, and treachery, your proudest

cut away.

Of Desmond's blood, through woman's veins passed on th' exhausted tide;

His title lives-a Sacsanach churl usurps the lion's

hide;

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