Rome has fallen, ye see it lying
Heaped in undistinguished ruin:
Nature is alone undying.

        "The widow of Nethercoat is appointed jailer of Loughrea, in the room of her deceased husband."--Limerick Chronicle.


Whether as queens or subjects, in these days,
    Women seem formed to grace alike each station:--
As Captain Flaherty gallantly says,
    "You ladies, are the lords of the creation!"

Thus o'er my mind did prescient visions float
    Of all that matchless woman yet may be;
When hark! in rumors less and less remote,
    Came the glad news o'er Erin's ambient sea,
The important news--that Mrs. Nethercoat
    Had been appointed jailer of Loughrea;
Yes, mark it, History--Nethercoat is dead,
And Mrs. N. now rules his realm instead;
Hers the high task to wield the uplocking keys,
To rivet rogues and reign o'er Rapparees!

Hence vain deluding joyes,
The brood of folly without father bred,
How little you bested,
Or fill the fixèd mind with all your toyes;
Dwell in some idle brain,
And fancies fond with gaudy shapes possess,
As thick and numberless
As the gay motes that poeple the Sun Beams,
Or likest hovering dreams
The fickle Pensioners of Morpheus train.
But hail thou Goddess, sage and holy,
Hail divinest Melancholy,
Whose Saintly visage is too bright
To hit the Sense of human sight;
And therefore to our weaker view,
Ore laid with black staid Wisdoms hue.
Black, but such as in esteem,
Prince Memnons sister might beseem,
Or that starr’d Ethiope Queen that strove
To set her beauties praise above
The Sea Nymphs, and their powers offended,
Yet thou art high...

True, we must tame our rebel will:
True, we must bow to Nature’s law:
Must bear in silence many an ill;
Must learn to wait, renounce, withdraw.

Yet now, when boldest wills give place,
When Fate and Circumstance are strong,
And in their rush the human race
Are swept, like huddling sheep, along;

Those sterner spirits let me prize,
Who, though the tendence of the whole
They less than us might recognize,
Kept, more than us, their strength of soul.

Yes, be the second Cato prais’d!
Not that he took the course to die
But that, when ’gainst himself he rais’d
His arm, he rais’d it dauntlessly.

And, Byron! let us dare admire,
If not thy fierce and turbid song,
Yet that, in anguish, doubt, desire,
Thy fiery courage still was strong....

To thy unhappy courts a lonely guest
I come, corroding Melancholy, where,
Sequester'd from the world, this woe-worn breast
May yet indulge a solitary tear!
For what should cheer the wretch's struggling heart;
What lead him thro' misfortunes gloomy shades;
When retrospection wings her keenest dart,
And hope's dim land in misery's ocean fades?
Adieu, for ever! visionary joys,
Delusive shadows of a short-liv'd hour;
The rod of woe invincible, destroys
The light, the fairy fabric of your pow'r!
How short of bliss the sublunary reign,
How long the clouded days of misery and pain!

        When the first sere leaves of the year were falling,
    I heard, with a heart that was strangely thrilled,
        Out of the grave of a dead Past calling,
    A voice I fancied forever stilled.

        All through winter and spring and summer,
        Silence hung over that grave like a pall,
        But, borne on the breath of the last sad comer,
    I listen again to the old-time call.

        It is only a love of a by-gone season,
    A senseless folly that mocked at me
        A reckless passion that lacked all reason,
    So I killed it, and hid it where none could see.

        I smothered it first to stop its crying,
    Then stabbed it through with a good sharp blade,
        And cold and pallid I saw it lying,
    And deep - ah' ...

Destruction of the Ram Albermarle by the Torpedo-Launch.
(October, 1864.)


Palely intent, he urged his keel
Full on the guns, and touched the spring;
Himself involved in the bolt he drove
Timed with the armed hull's shot that stove
His shallop - die or do!
Into the flood his life he threw,
Yet lives - unscathed - a breathing thing
To marvel at.

He has his fame;
But that mad dash at death, how name?

Had Earth no charm to stay the Boy
From the martyr-passion? Could he dare
Disdain the Paradise of opening joy
Which beckons the fresh heart every where?
Life has more lures than any girl
For youth and strength; puts forth a share
Of beauty, hinting of yet rarer store;
And ever with unfathomable eyes,
Which baffingly entice,...

Beloved, thou art like a tune that idle fingers
    Play on a window-pane.
The time is there, the form of music lingers;
    But O thou sweetest strain,
Where is thy soul? Thou liest i' the wind and rain.

Even as to him who plays that idle air,
    It seems a melody,
For his own soul is full of it, so, my Fair,
    Dead, thou dost live in me,
And all this lonely soul is full of thee.

Thou song of songs!-not music as before
    Unto the outward ear;
My spirit sings thee inly evermore,
    Thy falls with tear on tear.
I fail for thee, thou art too sweet, too dear.

Thou silent song, thou ever voiceless rhyme,
    Is there no pulse to move thee,
At windy dawn, with a wild heart beating time,
    And falling tears above thee,
O musi...

This Little, Silent, Gloomy Monument,
Contains all that was sweet and innocent ;
The softest pratler that e'er found a Tongue,
His Voice was Musick and his Words a Song ;
Which now each List'ning Angel smiling hears,
Such pretty Harmonies compose the Spheres;
Wanton as unfledg'd Cupids, ere their Charms
Has learn'd the little arts of doing harms ;
Fair as young Cherubins, as soft and kind,
And tho translated could not be refin'd ;
The Seventh dear pledge the Nuptial Joys had given,
Toil'd here on Earth, retir'd to rest in Heaven ;
Where they the shining Host of Angels fill,
Spread their gay wings before the Throne, and smile.

Margaret. Faust.

MARGARET.

DOST thou believe in God?

FAUST.


            Doth mortal live

Who dares to say that he believes in God?
Go, bid the priest a truthful answer give,

Go, ask the wisest who on earth e'er trod,
Their answer will appear to be
Given alone in mockery.

MARGARET.

Then thou dost not believe? This sayest thou?

FAUST.

Sweet love, mistake not what I utter now!
Who knows His name?
Who dares proclaim:
Him I believe?
Who so can feel
His heart to steel
To sari believe Him not?
The All-Embracer,
The All-Sustained,
Holds and sustains He not
Thee, me, Himself?

Hang not the heavens their arch overhead?
Lies not the earth beneath us, firm?<...

Gods, what a black, fierce day! The clouds were iron,
Wrenched to strange, rugged shapes; the red sun winked
Over the rough crest of the hairy wood
In angry scorn; the grey road twisted, kinked,
Like a sick serpent, seeming to environ
The trees with magic. All the wood was still --

Cracked, crannied pines bent like malicious cripples
Before the gusty wind; they seemed to nose,
Nudge, poke each other, cackling with ill mirth --
Enchantment's days were over -- sh! -- Suppose
That crouching log there, where the white light stipples
Should -- break its quiet! WAS THAT CRIMSON -- EARTH?

It smirched the ground like a lewd whisper, "Danger!" --
I hunched my cloak about me -- then, appalled,
Turned ice and fire by turns -- for -- someone stirred
The brown, dry ...

TO you, my friends, allow me to detail,
The feats of monks in Catalonia's vale,
Where oft the holy fathers pow'rs displayed,
And showed such charity to wife and maid,
That o'er their minds sweet fascination reigned,
And made them think, they Paradise had gained.

SUCH characters oft preciously advise,
And youthful easy female minds surprise,
The beauteous FAIR encircle with their net,
And, of the feeling heart, possession get:
Work in the holy vineyard, you may guess,
And, as our tale will show, with full success.

IN times of old, when learning 'mong the FAIR,
Enough to read the testament, was rare,
(Times howsoe'er thought difficult to quote,)
A swarm of monks of gormandizing note,
Arrived and fixed themselves within a town,
For young and beau...

1.
When the lamp is shattered
The light in the dust lies dead -
When the cloud is scattered
The rainbow's glory is shed.
When the lute is broken,
Sweet tones are remembered not;
When the lips have spoken,
Loved accents are soon forgot.

2.
As music and splendour
Survive not the lamp and the lute,
The heart's echoes render
No song when the spirit is mute: -
No song but sad dirges,
Like the wind through a ruined cell,
Or the mournful surges
That ring the dead seaman's knell.

3.
When hearts have once mingled
Love first leaves the well-built nest;
The weak one is singled
To endure what it once possessed.
O Love! who bewailest
The frailty of all things here,
Why choose you the frailest
For your cradle, yo...

    She was taught desire in the street,
    Not at the angels' feet.
    By the good no word was said
    Of the worth of the bridal bed.
    The secret was learned from the vile,
    Not from her mother's smile.
    Home spoke not.    And the girl
    Was caught in the public whirl.
    Do you say "She gave consent:
    Life drunk, she was content
    With beasts that her fire could please?"
    But she did not choose disease
    Of mind and nerves and breath.
    She was trapped to a slow, foul death.
    The door was watched so well,
    That the steep dark stair to hell
    Was the only escaping way . . .
    "She gave consent," you say?

    Some think she was meek and good,
    Only lost in the wood
    Of youth, and deceived in...

Two flowers upon one parent stem
Together bloomed for many days.
At length a storm arose, and one
Was blighted, and cut down at noon.

The other hath transplanted been,
And flowers fair as herself hath borne;
She too has felt the withering storm,
Her strength's decayed, wasted her form.

May he who hears the mourner's prayer,
Renew her strength for years to come;
Long may He our Lilly spare,
Long delay to call her home.

But when the summons shall arrive
To bear this lovely flower away,
Again may she transplanted be
To blossom in eternity.

There may these sisters meet again,
Both freed from sorrow, sin, and pain;
There with united voices raise,
In sweet accord their hymns of praise;
Eternally his na...

Watchman!    What of the night?
No light we see,--
Our souls are bruised and sickened with the sight
Of this foul crime against humanity.
The Ways are dark----
            "I SEE THE MORNING LIGHT!"

--The Ways are dark;
Faith folds her wings; and Hope, in piteous plight,
Has dimmed her radiant lamp to feeblest spark.
Love bleeding lies----
            "I SEE THE MORNING LIGHT!"

--Love bleeding lies,
Struck down by this grim fury of despight,
Which once again her Master crucifies.
He dies again----
            "I SEE THE MORNING LIGHT!"

--He dies again,
By evil slain!    Who died for man's respite
By man's insensate rage again is slain.
O woful sight!----
            "I SEE THE MORNING LIGHT!

--Beyond the war-clo...

A dark, shadow grey moth
rests along the grim hue of brick,
its spattered orange cream underwings scream a Halloween defiance
to the bleariness of stone and city.

And before each fold of its wings,
there rests beyond all the pale fire
and din of a thousand slow eyed
empires, feeling the seethe
of their existence spent
in a fidgeting cauldron
where mediocrity camps
with her dangerous throne.

I hate the very noise of troublous man
Who did and does me all the harm he can.
Free from the world I would a prisoner be
And my own shadow all my company;
And lonely see the shooting stars appear,
Worlds rushing into judgment all the year.
O lead me onward to the loneliest shade,
The darkest place that quiet ever made,
Where kingcups grow most beauteous to behold
And shut up green and open into gold.
Farewell to poesy--and leave the will;
Take all the world away--and leave me still
The mirth and music of a woman's voice,
That bids the heart be happy and rejoice.