To hang on hope's pale setting ray,
To hear in ev'ry breeze a sigh ;
To end at last the weary way,
Then disappointment meet-and die!

If this, oh! poesy, thy meed,

Whose bosom, sympathy's sole throne,
Must oft for other's anguish bleed,
And ever, ever, for its own:

Quick tear thy sad illusions hence,
(Illusions sad indeed, yet dear!)
Unroot each tender-twining sense,
And freeze on pity's cheek the tear,

Oh let that cheek be marble cold

To friendship or affection's kiss, And let each child of song be told Insensibility is Bliss!

THE UNION.

Totamque infusa per artus

Mens agitat molem, & magno se corpore miscet.

STRIKE the glitt'ring harp again,
Loud let Erin's cliffs resound;
Once more the Muse's old domain

Is with celestial concord crown'd.
Her palmy hand she lifts sublime;
She spreads her radiant pinion round;
And from each giant mountain shade-embrown'd,
Midway on whose flinty breast

The flagging eaglet builds his nest,

Is heard the choral swell of Druid-rhime.

Spirits of woe, who in yon crimson cloud
Brood o'er the pale decline of drooping day,
And to the sun's weak westering ray
Flash each your sanguinary shroud,

Bend not on yon bleak hill the mournful brow
Where madd'ning brother against brother fought;
But, oh! let blessings blooming on the now
Misguided martyrs, balm each pensive thought ;

Exhale from Pity's lid th' ascending tear,
And hail with saintly song the bright, absolving year.
Majestic months, your prosp'rous march pursue;
The sword, in olives twin'd, securely sleeps.
Lo! with maternal fondness Mercy weeps,
Oh! catch, oh! venerate the holy dew.
One drop from that refulgent sluice,

Can wash from Murder's pall the deepest dye,
And more than angel-purity produce;
War owns the influence of that dovelike eye:
War owns; and stooping from his iron car,
On adamantine axle borne,

His rough breast trench'd with many a scar,
With many a gash all rudely torn,

Receives the balm its sov'reign pow'rs infuse,
To every feeling op'd, and every beauteous muse..

Still let the Gallic vulture sweep

With ruthless sway the realms around,
While riding on the subject deep
Severe the Bri ish thunders sound;
Still let barbarian rage o'erturn
The poet's tomb, the hero's urn,*

• The campaigns in Italy.

Still bathe the guilty wreath in blood,
Whose purple honours soon shall fade,
And fast by yellow Tyber's angry flood
Profane each venerable glade;

Each sacred haunt with living laurel hung,
Where godlike Tully thought, or softer Virgil sung.

Still, as his native deserts wild,

Where young-eyed Science never smil❜d,

Still let the rade Siberian storm,

His mind unfashion'd as his form :

Each arbitrary vaunt is vain,

When issuing from this hallow'd shore,

Our naval force, a dauntless train,
Intent on high emprize, explore

The limits of the watery plain,

From Danger's front the meed of glory tear,
Fling to the winds each vulgar fear;

And, mid the general wreck of Nature, brave
The missile carnage, and the yawning wave.

Oh! for the aid of that celestial youth,*
Clad in the shining panoply of Truth,
Who turn'd the foes of fair Judæa pale,
Stretch'd his white arm, and shook his silver mai!.

• See Apocrypha, chap. xi. ver. &

Then should the shrine of Virtue, rise
In all its decent pomp again;

Then, swelling to th' attentive skies,
Should breathe the bliss-requited strain,

And seraphs, stooping from their tuneful sphere,
Lend to the Son of Earth, a fond, propitious ear.

What time the purple twilight slowly sails
O'er dusk Marino's fairy-fading vales,
And yon dim isle, as moving on the main,
Seems bound by Ocean in a golden chain;
Full in the midst, of awful size,

Methinks, I see a warrior-spectre rise,

With many a wound his stately semblance gor'd; Bright from the beach his kingly front he rears, And still, ah! still, his looks betray

Clontarf's ill-fated memorable day,

Recent from ruin mid the lapse of years.

"Tis be!-'tis Munster's Lord!*

Yet still, a faint, a shadowy smile I trace,
Like moon-light, hov'ring on his rev'rend face;

* Brian Boroimh, (or, as it is pronounced) Boru, the magnanimous King of Munster, who with the greatest part of his army, and all his captains, was slain at the renowned battle of Clontarf, near Dublin.