WILLIAM ALEXANDER.

(1824

WILLIAM ALEXANDER was born at Derry in 1824, and educated at Tunbridge and Oxford, where he received the degrees of D.D. and D.C.L. In 1850 he married Miss Cecil Frances Humphreys, who was destined to succeed in winning distinction for her new name. After holding cures at Upper Fahan and at Strabane he became, in 1867, Bishop of Derry and Raphoe, Archbishop of Armagh in 1896, and in 1897 was called to the Primacy of all Ireland. He has published 'The Death of Jacob,' 1858; Specimens, Poetical and Ĉritical,' 1867; 'Lyrics of Life and Light' (by W. A. and others), 1878; St. Augustine's Holiday,' 1886. Although it was as a poet that he first became known in the intellectual world, the life and duties of a churchman were his first occupation. The very titles of his prose works testify to this-as, for example, The Witness of the Psalms to Christ,' Leading Ideas of the Gospels,' 'Redux Crucis,' and others.

For a long time his poems were not collected in accessible form. The first volume in which his poetic writings were bound together took the shape of 'Specimens,' published in obedience to the demands of a special occasion. In 1853 he wrote the ode in honor of the then Lord Derby's installation, and in 1860 gained the prize for a sacred poem, 'The Waters of Babylon.' In 1867 he was a candidate for the professorship of poetry in Oxford; he was defeated by Sir F. H. Doyle after a close contest.

Dr. Alexander is eminent as a pulpit orator; and there are few preachers of his church who have such power of poetic imagery and graceful expression. He is a frequent contributor to ecclesiastic literature. His cultivated imagination, his feeling for the glory of Nature, his rich but never overloaded rhetoric, and the occasional strains of a wistful pathos which reveal a sensitive human spirit— all these qualities make his contribution to Irish literature one of high worth and distinction.

INSCRIPTION

ON THE STATUE ERECTED TO CAPTAIN BOYD IN ST. PATRICK'S CATHEDRAL, DUBLIN.

Oh! in the quiet haven, safe for aye,
If lost to us in port one stormy day,

Borne with a public pomp by just decree,

Heroic sailor! from that fatal sea,

A city vows this marble unto thee.

And here, in this calm place, where never din
Of earth's great waterfloods shall enter in,
Where to our human hearts two thoughts are given-
One Christ's self-sacrifice, the other Heaven-
Here it is meet for grief and love to grave
The Christ-taught bravery that died to save,
The life not lost, but found beneath the wave.

VERY FAR AWAY.

One touch there is of magic white,
Surpassing southern mountain's snow
That to far sails the dying light

Lends, where the dark ships onward go
Upon the golden highway broad
That leads up to the isles of God.

One touch of light more magic yet,
Of rarer snow 'neath moon or star,
Where, with her graceful sails all set.
Some happy vessel seen afar,
As if in an enchanted sleep

Steers o'er the tremulous stretching deep.

O ship! O sail! far must ye be

Ere gleams like that upon ye light.
O'er golden spaces of the sea,

From mysteries of the lucent night,
Such touch comes never to the boat
Wherein across the waves we float.

O gleams, more magic and divine,
Life's whitest sail ye still refuse,
And flying on before us shine

Upon some distant bark ye choose.
By night or day, across the spray,
That sail is very far away.

BURIAL AT SEA.

Lines from 'The Death of an Arctic Hero.'

How shall we bury him?

Where shall we leave the old man lying?
With music in the distance dying-dying,
Among the arches of the Abbey grand and dim,
There if we might, we would bury him;

And comrades of the sea should bear the pall;
And the great organ should let rise and fall
The requiem of Mozart, the Dead March in Saul-
Then, silence all!

And yet far grander will we bury him.
Strike the ship-bell slowly-slowly-slowly!
Sailors! trail the colors half-mast high;
Leave him in the face of God most holy,
Underneath the vault of Arctic sky.
Let the long, long darkness wrap him round,
By the long sunlight be his forehead crowned.
For cathedral panes ablaze with stories,
For the tapers in the nave and choir,
Give him lights auroral-give him glories

Mingled of the rose and of the fire.

Let the wild winds, like chief mourners, walk,

Let the stars burn o'er his catafalque.

Hush! for the breeze, and the white fog's swathing sweep,

I cannot hear the simple service read;

Was it "earth to earth," the captain said,

Or "we commit his body to the deep,

Till seas give up their dead"?

WILLIAM ALLINGHAM.

(1824-1889.)

In this

WILLIAM ALLINGHAM was born in 1824, at Ballyshannon, County Donegal, a place of primitive and kindly folk-in a country of haunting loveliness which is often referred to in his poems. He was educated at his native place, and at the age of fourteen became a clerk in the bank, of which his father was manager. employment he passed seven years, during which his chief delight was in reading and in acquiring a knowledge of foreign literature. He then found employment in the Customs Office, and after two years' preliminary training at Belfast he returned to Ballyshannon as Principal Officer.

In 1847 he visited London, and the rest of his life was largely spent in England, where he held various government appointments. He retired from the service in 1870, and became sub-editor, under Mr. Froude, of Fraser's Magazine, succeeding him in 1874. Some years before, he had been granted a pension for his literary services. In the same year (1874) he married. He died at Hampstead in 1889. Allingham was a fairly prolific writer, in both verse and prose : his first volume appeared in 1850, and there is a posthumous edition of his works in six volumes. No Life of him has been written, but the 'Letters of Dante Gabriel Rossetti to William Allingham,' edited and annotated by Dr. Birkbeck Hill, with a valuable introduction, record the chief facts of his life and literary friendships.

Allingham's principal volumes are: Poems,'' Day and Night Songs,' The Music Master, &c.' (containing Rossetti's illustration of The Maids of Elfinmere,' which moved Burne-Jones to become a painter), Fifty Modern Poems,''Laurence Bloomfield in Ireland,' 'A Modern Poem,'' With Songs, Ballads, and Stories,' Evil MayDay,' Ashby Manor,' 'A Play,'' Flower Pieces,' 'Life and Phantasy,' 'Blackberries."

·

Mr. Lionel Johnson in 'A Treasury of Irish Poetry' says: "His lyric voice of singular sweetness, his Muse of passionate or pensive meditation, his poetic consecration of common things, his mingled aloofness and homeliness, assure him a secure place among the poets of his land and the Irish voices which never will fall silent. And though the Irish cause' receives from him but little direct encouragement or help, let it be remembered that Allingham wrote this great and treasurable truth:

"We're one at heart, if you be Ireland's friend,
Though leagues asunder our opinions tend:
There are but two great parties in the end.'

"We chiefly remember him as a poet whose aerial, Æolian melodies steal into the heart-a poet of twilight and the evening star, and the sigh of the wind over the hills and the waters of an Ireland

that broods and dreams. His music haunts the ear with its perfect simplicity of art and the cunning of its quiet cadences. Song upon song makes no mention, direct or indirect, of Ireland; yet an Irish atmosphere and temperament are to be felt in almost all."

LOVELY MARY DONNELLY.

Oh, lovely Mary Donnelly, it's you I love the best!
If fifty girls were round you I'd hardly see the rest.
Be what it may the time of day, the place be where it will,
Sweet looks of Mary Donnelly, they bloom before me still.

Her eyes like mountain water that's flowing on a rock, How clear they are, how dark they are! and they give me many a shock.

Red rowans warm in sunshine and wetted with a show'r, Could ne'er express the charming lip that has me in its pow'r.

Her nose is straight and handsome, her eyebrows lifted up,
Her chin is neat and pert, and smooth, just like a china cup,
Her hair's the brag of Ireland, so weighty and so fine;
It's rolling down upon her neck, and gathered in a twine.

The dance o' last Whit-Monday night exceeded all before,
No pretty girl for miles about was missing from the floor;
But Mary kept the belt of love, and O but she was gay!
She danced a jig, she sung a song, that took my heart away.

When she stood up for dancing, her steps were so complete,
The music nearly killed itself to listen to her feet;
The fiddler moaned his blindness, he heard her so much praised,
But blessed his luck to not be deaf when once her voice she
raised.

And evermore I'm whistling or lilting what you sung,

Your smile is always in my heart, your name beside my

tongue;

But you 've as many sweethearts as you'd count on both your hands,

And for myself there's not a thumb or little finger stands.

Oh, you 're the flower o' womankind in country or in town;
The higher I exalt you, the lower I'm cast down.