I feel like one

Who treads alone

Some banquet-hall deserted,
Whose lights are fled
Whose garlands dead,
And all but he departed!
Thus in the stilly night

Ere slumber's chain has bound me,

Sad Memory brings the light

Of other days around me.

485

486

PRO PATRIA MORI

WHEN he who adores thee has left but the name

Of his fault and his sorrows behind,

O! say wilt thou weep, when they darken the fame
Of a life that for thee was resign'd!

Yes, weep, and however my foes may condemn,

Thy tears shall efface their decree;

For, Heaven can witness, though guilty to them,

I have been but too faithful to thee.

With thee were the dreams of my earliest love;
Every thought of my reason was thine:
In my last humble prayer to the Spirit above
Thy name shall be mingled with mine!

O! blest are the lovers and friends who shall live
The days of thy glory to see;

But the next dearest blessing that Heaven can give
Is the pride of thus dying for thee.

THE MEETING OF THE WATERS

THERE is not in the wide world a valley so sweet
As that vale in whose bosom the bright waters meet;
Oh! the last rays of feeling and life must depart,
Ere the bloom of that valley shall fade from my heart.

Yet it was not that nature had shed o'er the scene
Her purest of crystal and brightest of green;
'Twas not her soft magic of streamlet or hill,
Oh! no-it was something more exquisite still.

'Twas that friends, the beloved of my bosom, were near,
Who made every dear scene of enchantment more dear,
And who felt how the best charms of nature improve,
When we see them reflected from looks that we love.

Sweet vale of Avoca! how calm could I rest

In thy bosom of shade, with the friends I love best, Where the storms that we feel in this cold world should

cease,

And our hearts, like thy waters, be mingled in peace.

487

THE LAST ROSE OF SUMMER

'Tis the last rose of summer
Left blooming alone;
All her lovely companions
Are faded and gone;
No flower of her kindred,
No rosebud is nigh,
To reflect back her blushes,
To give sigh for sigh.

I'll not leave thee, thou lone one!
To pine on the stem;

Since the lovely are sleeping,

Go, sleep thou with them.

Thus kindly I scatter

Thy leaves o'er the bed,
Where thy mates of the garden
Lie scentless and dead.

So soon may I follow,

When friendships decay,

And from Love's shining circle
The gems drop away.

When true hearts lie withered
And fond ones are flown,
Oh! who would inhabit

This bleak world alone?

488 THE HARP THAT ONCE THROUGH TARA's Halls

489

THE harp that once through Tara's halls

The soul of music shed,

Now hangs as mute on Tara's walls
As if that soul were fled.

So sleeps the pride of former days,

So glory's thrill is o'er,

And hearts, that once beat high for praise,
Now feel that pulse no more.

No more to chiefs and ladies bright
The harp of Tara swells:

The chord alone, that breaks at night,
Its tale of ruin tells.

Thus Freedom now so seldom wakes,
The only throb she gives,

Is when some heart indignant breaks,
To show that still she lives.

A CANADIAN BOAT-SONG

FAINTLY as tolls the evening chime

Our voices keep tune and our oars keep time.
Soon as the woods on shore look dim,

We'll sing at St. Anne's our parting hymn.

Row, brothers, row, the stream runs fast,
The Rapids are near and the daylight's past!

Why should we yet our sail unfurl?

There is not a breath the blue wave to curl;
But, when the wind blows off the shore,
Oh! sweetly we'll rest our weary oar.
Blow, breezes, blow, the stream runs fast,
The Rapids are near and the daylight's past!

490

Utawa's tide! this trembling moon
Shall see us float over thy surges soon.
Saint of this green isle! hear our prayers,
Oh, grant us cool heavens and favouring airs.
Blow, breezes, blow, the stream runs fast,
The Rapids are near and the daylight's past!

THE JOURNEY ONWARDS

As slow our ship her foamy track
Against the wind was cleaving,
Her trembling pennant still look'd back
To that dear isle 'twas leaving.
So loth we part from all we love,
From all the links that bind us;
So turn our hearts, as on we rove,
To those we've left behind us!

When, round the bowl, of vanish'd years
We talk with joyous seeming—
With smiles that might as well be tears,
So faint, so sad their beaming;
While memory brings us back again
Each early tie that twined us,
O, sweet's the cup that circles then
To those we've left behind us!

And when, in other climes, we meet
Some isle or vale enchanting,
Where all looks flowery, wild and sweet,
And nought but love is wanting;
We think how great had been our bliss
If Heaven had but assign'd us

To live and die in scenes like this,
With some we've left behind us!

As travellers oft look back at eve
When eastward darkly going,
To gaze upon that light they leave

Still faint behind them glowing,

So, when the close of pleasure's day
To gloom hath near consign'd us,
We turn to catch one fading ray
Of joy that's left behind us.

491

THE YOUNG MAY MOON

THE young May moon is beaming, love,
The glow-worm's lamp is gleaming, love;
How sweet to rove

Through Morna's grove,

When the drowsy world is dreaming, love!
Then awake!-the heavens look bright, my dear,
'Tis never too late for delight, my dear;
And the best of all ways

To lengthen our days

Is to steal a few hours from the night, my dear!

Now all the world is sleeping, love,
But the Sage, his star-watch keeping, love,
And I, whose star

More giorious far

Is the eye from that casement peeping, love.
Then awake!-till rise of sun, my dear,
The Sage's glass we'll shun, my dear,
Or in watching the flight

Of bodies of light

He might happen to take thee for one, my dear!

492

ECHOES

How sweet the answer Echo makes

To Music at night

When, roused by lute or horn, she wakes,

And far away o'er lawns and lakes

Goes answering light!