If some great lord should come this way, and see your beauty

bright,

And you to be his lady, I'd own it was but right.

O might we live together in a lofty palace hall,
Where joyful music rises, and where scarlet curtains fall!
O might we live together in a cottage mean and small;
With sods of grass the only roof, and mud the only wall!

O lovely Mary Donnelly, your beauty 's my distress.
It's far too beauteous to be mine, but I'll never wish it less.
The proudest place would fit your face, and I am poor and low;
But blessings be about you, dear, wherever you may go!

ABBEY ASAROE.

Gray, gray is Abbey Asaroe, by Ballyshanny town,

It has neither door nor window, the walls are broken down;
The carven stones lie scattered in briars and nettle-bed;
The only feet are those that come at burial of the dead.
A little rocky rivulet runs murmuring to the tide,
Singing a song of ancient days, in sorrow, not in pride;
The bore-tree and the lightsome ash across the portal grow,
And heaven itself is now the roof of Abbey Asaroe.

It looks beyond the harbor-stream to Gulban mountain blue;
It hears the voice of Erna's fall,-Atlantic breakers too;
High ships go sailing past it; the sturdy clank of oars
Brings in the salmon-boat to haul a net upon the shores;
And this way to his home-creek, when the summer day is done,
Slow sculls the weary fisherman across the setting sun;
While green with corn is Sheegus Hill, his cottage white
below;

But gray at every season is Abbey Asaroe.

There stood one day a poor old man above its broken bridge;
He heard no running rivulet, he saw no mountain ridge;
He turned his back on Sheegus Hill, and viewed with misty
sight

The abbey walls, the burial-ground with crosses ghostly white;
Under a weary weight of years he bowed upon his staff,
Perusing in the present time the former's epitaph;

For, gray and wasted like the walls, a figure full of woe,
This man was of the blood of them who founded Asaroe.

From Derry to Bundrowas Tower, Tirconnell broad was theirs;

Spearmen and plunder, bards and wine, and holy abbot's prayers;

With chanting always in the house which they had builded high

To God and to Saint Bernard,-whereto they came to die.

At worst, no workhouse grave for him! the ruins of his race Shall rest among the ruined stones of this their saintly place. The fond old man was weeping; and tremulous and slow Along the rough and crooked lane he crept from Asaroe.

ACROSS THE SEA.

I walked in the lonesome evening,

And who so sad as I,

When I saw the young men and maidens

Merrily passing by.

To thee, my love, to thee

So fain would I come to thee!

While the ripples fold upon sands of gold
And I look across the sea.

J stretch out my hands; who will clasp them?
I call, thou repliest no word:

O why should heart-longing be weaker
Than the waving wings of a bird!
To thee, my love, to thee-

So fain would I come to thee!

For the tide's at rest from east to west,
And I look across the sea.

There's joy in the hopeful morning,

There's peace in the parting day,
There's sorrow with every lover
Whose true-love is far away,

To thee, my love, to thee

So fain would I come to thee!

And the water's so bright in a still moonlight,

As I look across the sea.

FOUR DUCKS ON A POND.

Four ducks on a pond,
A grass-bank beyond,
A blue sky of spring,
White clouds on the wing:
What a little thing
To remember for years,

To remember with tears!

THE LOVER AND BIRDS.

Within a budding grove,

In April's ear sang every bird his best,

But not song to pleasure my unrest,

Or touch the tears unwept of bitter love; Some spake, methought, with pity, some as if in jest. To every word,

Of every bird,

I listened or replied as it behove.

Screamed Chaffinch, "Sweet, sweet, sweet!
Pretty lovey, come and meet me here!"
"Chaffinch," quoth I, "be dumb awhile, in fear
Thy darling prove no better than a cheat
And never come, or fly, when wintry days appear."
Yet from a twig,

With voice so big,

The little fowl his utterance did repeat.

Then I, "The man forlorn,

Hears earth send up a foolish noise aloft."

"And what'll he do? What 'll he do?" scoffed

The Blackbird, standing in an ancient thorn, Then spread his sooty wings and flitted to the croft, With cackling laugh,

Whom, I, being half

Enraged, called after, giving back his scorn.

Worse mocked the Thrush, "Die! die!

Oh, could he do it? Could he do it? Nay!

Be quick! be quick! Here, here, here!" (went his lay) "Take heed! take heed!" then, "Why? Why? Why? Why? Why?

See-See now! ee-ee now! (he drawled) "Back! Back! Back! R-r-r-run away!"

Oh, Thrush, be still,

Or at thy will

Seek some less sad interpreter than I!

"Air! air! blue air and white!

Whither I flee, whither, O whither, O whither I flee!"

(Thus the Lark hurried, mounting from the lea)

"Hills, countries, many waters glittering bright

Whither I see, whither I see! Deeper, deeper, deeper, whither I see, see, see!"

"Gay Lark," I said,

"The song that's bred

In happy nest may well to heaven take flight!"

"There's something, something sad,

I half remember," piped a broken strain;

Well sung, sweet Robin! Robin, sing again.

Spring's opening cheerily, cheerily! be we glad!"
Which moved, I wist not why, me melancholy mad,
Till now, grown meek,

With wetted cheek,

Most comforting and gentle thoughts I had.

AMONG THE HEATHER.

One morning, walking out, I o'ertook a modest colleen,
When the wind was blowing cool and the harvest leaves were

falling.

"Is our road perchance the same? Might we travel on to

gether?"

"Oh, I keep the mountain-side," she replied,

heather."

"Your mountain air is sweet when the days are long and

sunny,

When the grass grows round the rocks, and the whin-bloom

smells like honey;

But the winter 's coming fast with its foggy, snowy weather, And you'll find it bleak and chill on your hill among the heather."

She praised her mountain home, and I'll praise it too with

reason,

For where Molly is there's sunshine and flowers at every

season.

Be the moorland black or white, does it signify a feather? Now I know the way by heart, every part among the heather.

The sun goes down in haste, and the night falls thick and stormy,

Yet I'd travel twenty miles for the welcome that's before me; Singing "Hi for Eskydun!" in the teeth of wind and weather, Love 'll warm me as I go through the snow among the heather.

THE BAN-SHEE.

A BALLAD OF ANCIENT ERIN.

"Heard'st thou over the Fortress wild geese flying and crying? Was it a gray wolf's howl? wind in the forest sighing? Wail from the sea as of wreck? Hast heard it, Comrade?" "Not so.

Here, all's still as the grave, above, around, and below.

"The Warriors lie in battalion, spear and shield beside them, Tranquil, whatever lot in the coming fray shall betide them. See, where he rests, the Glory of Erin, our Kingly Youth! Closed his lion's eyes, and in sleep a smile on his mouth."

"The cry, the dreadful cry! I know it-louder and nearer, Circling our Dun-the Ban-shee!-my heart is frozen to hear her!

Saw you not in the darkness a spectral glimmer of white
Flitting away?—I saw it!-evil her message to-night.

"Constant, but never welcome, she, to the line of our Chief; Bodeful, baleful, fateful, voice of terror and grief. Dimly burneth the lamp-hush! again that horrible cry!If a thousand lives could save thee, Tierna, thou shouldest not die."

"Now! what whisper ye, Clansmen? I wake. Be your words of me?

Wherefore gaze on each other? I too have heard the Ban-shee.