And yet, though the tragic deed was planned,

By a dastard and demon mind,

The victims were not of the Saxon's land,

Nor were they of his kin and kind;

And he had been taught from his early days

To hate with a deadly hate,

And to believe that the hand which unsparingly slays

Merits most of the king and State.

I've been told that the fierce, ferocious Dane

Devastated our lands long ago,

And gave churches and villages up to the flame;
And caused torrents of blood to flow,
Round the altars' steps, in the convent cell,
By the caves in the mountain's side;
Wherever they swept, like blasts from hell,
All withered, and shrunk, and died.

But they deemed them usurpers that long had dwelt
In their own magic isle of the waves,
And thought it a virtue to slay the Celt

On the moss of their forefathers' graves!
But the infidel, Saxon, and furious Dane,
Were not of their victims' race,

They held no intercourse with the slain,
And but seldom saw their face.

It were those who had lived for many years

Near the poor man's humble cot

That had quenched their fires 'mid sighs and tears, And drove them from that cherished spot,

To wander like sheeted ghosts above
The graves of their buried store,
Where scarce a trace of the place they love
Can ever cheer them more.

Ah, yes! it was he who well knew them all,
From the time of their childhood's years,
That heartlessly over them cast a pall

'Mid their cries, and prayers, and tears. But he heeded not, heard not, would not let go His grasp on his victim's heart,

Until the last life-drops' crimson flow

Was wrung from each suffering part.
In the eye of the law he did them no wrong,
He could do as he liked with his own:

Here might was right, and the arm of the strong
Was upheld by the State and throne!

Oh, was it for this God made our fair land ?—
For a mushroom aristocracy,

For the drummers of Cromwell's cut-throat band,
And their greedy and proud progeny !

Odes of Ancient Ireland.

ODE I.

TO HEAR THE MINSTRELS ONCE MORE PLAY.

Introductory.

I,

To hear the minstrels once more play
I've wandered far to Croghan's height;"

'Twas there I heard the people say

They met in that black year of night,65 To raise the wail

O'er hill and dale,

And pour in one wild burst of grief

The Ullaghone,

For thousands gone

Oh, sure it was a dismal sight!

But since that day

They did not play

In session held by bardic chief.

64.

II.

And where are they, the faithful band,66
The children of the harp and lyre ?
Did they forsake their native land,
Or have they lost their wonted fire?
I've sought them where

Their footsteps were,

By lonely hill and Druid's stone,

Where once the song

Gushed sweet along,

And each one struck his sounding wire; But now the breeze

Sighs through the trees.

With a dismal and a dying moan.

III.

Of all who woke those glorious strains
By mountain wold or haunted vale,
Not one lone lingerer remains

To tell his own or brother's tale!
Yes; there is one

Who has not gone

An old majestic bard is he :

One of the few

Bright souls still true

To Erin, who so e'er assail

One who still guards

The path of bards

With spells wrought by his minstrelsy.

IV.

He stood upon his lonely hill,

And leaned upon the "Dead Man's Chair,"67 As moonlight, trembling in a rill,

Appeared his flowing beard and hair;
But majesty

Was in that free,

Untamed, unconquered soul, which shone
Like mellow rays

Of autumn days,

Dreamily bright and mildly fair!

Retaining still,

Through good and ill,

That light when all things else were gone!

V.

And who is he with vacant gaze,

Lone wanderer of the heathy hill,
Whose thoughts are with long bygone days,
And with old forms he lov'd so well?
What brings him where

The "Dead Man's Chair "

Frowns a dark, dreary canopy?—

Does Ossian's form

Ride on the storm,

Does he rise from his hall of shell ?

Ah, no!-'tis one

Who still lives on,

'Tis he, the last old Senachie!

68