We met her on the hillside green
    Below old Castle Blarney;
    Her name, she whispered, was Eileen,
    Her home it was Killarney.

    I see her yet, her Irish eyes
    Blue gray as seas in summer,
    And hear her welcome, on this wise,
    Vouchsafed to each new-comer:

    "I'll guide ye up the stairway steep,
    And naught will ye be missing
    O' battlement or donjon keep,
    Or blarney stone for kissing.

    "The tower that was McCarthy's pride,
    The scene o' battles thrilling,
    And where the Desmond kept his bride -
    Me fee is but a shilling.

    "Here's for ye, now, a keepsake charm" -
    Her low tones grow caressing -
    "A bit o' shamrock green and warm,
    To bring ye luck and blessing."

Fled are the frosts, and now the fields appear
Reclothed in fresh and verdant diaper;
Thaw'd are the snows; and now the lusty Spring
Gives to each mead a neat enamelling;
The palms put forth their gems, and every tree
Now swaggers in her leafy gallantry.
The while the Daulian minstrel sweetly sings
With warbling notes her Terean sufferings.
What gentle winds perspire! as if here
Never had been the northern plunderer
To strip the trees and fields, to their distress,
Leaving them to a pitied nakedness.
And look how when a frantic storm doth tear
A stubborn oak or holm, long growing there,
But lull'd to calmness, then succeeds a breeze
That scarcely stirs the nodding leaves of trees;
So when this war, which tempest-like doth spoil
Our salt, our corn, our hon...

Its a long time sin thee an' me have met befoor, owd lad, -
Soa pull up thi cheer, an sit daan, for ther's noabdy moor welcome nor thee:
Thi toppin's grown whiter nor once, - yet mi heart feels glad,
To see ther's a rooas o' thi cheek, an a bit ov a leet i' thi e'e.

Thi limbs seem to totter an shake, like a crazy owd fence,
'At th' wind maks to tremel an creak; but tha still fills thi place;
An it shows 'at tha'rt bless'd wi' a bit o' gradely gooid sense,
'At i' spite o' thi years an thi cares, tha still wears a smile o' thi face.

Come fill up thi pipe - for aw knaw tha'rt reight fond ov a rick, -
An tha'll find a drop o' hooam-brew'd i' that pint up o'th' hob, aw dar say;
An nah, wol tha'rt tooastin thi shins, just scale th' foir, an aw'll side thi owd stick,
Then aw'll t...

What bashful wildness in those crystal eyes,
    Fair Zillia! - Ah! more dear to LOVE the gaze
    That dwells upon its object, than the rays
    Of that vague glance, quick, as in summer skies
The lightning's lambent flash, when neither rise
    Thunder, nor storm. - I mark, while transport plays
    Warm in thy Lover's eye, what dread betrays
    Thy throbbing heart: - yet why from his soft sighs
Fleet'st thou so swift away? - like the young Hind[1],
    That bending stands the fountain's brim beside,
    When, with a sudden gust, the western wind
Rustles among the boughs that shade the tide:
    See, from the stream, innoxious and benign,
    Starting she bounds, with terror vain as thine!

1: "Vitas hinnuleo me similis Chloe." HORACE.

The wide, bright temple of the world I found,
And entered from the dizzy infinite
That I might kneel and worship thee in it;
Leaving the singing stars their ceaseless round
Of silver music sound on orbed sound,
For measured spaces where the shrines are lit,
And men with wisdom or with little wit
Implore the gods that mercy may abound.
Ah, Aphrodite, was it not from thee
My summons came across the endless spaces?
Mother of Love, turn not thy face from me
Now that I seek for thee in human faces;
Answer my prayer or set my spirit free
Again to drift along the starry places.

Emblem of blasted hope and lost desire,
No finger ever traced thy yellow page
Save Time's. Thou hast not wrought to noble rage
The hearts thou wouldst have stirred. Not any fire
Save sad flames set to light a funeral pyre
Dost thou suggest. Nay,--impotent in age,
Unsought, thou holdst a corner of the stage
And ceasest even dumbly to aspire.

How different was the thought of him that writ.
What promised he to love of ease and wealth,
When men should read and kindle at his wit.
But here decay eats up the book by stealth,
While it, like some old maiden, solemnly,
Hugs its incongruous virginity!

Tell me the witching tale again,
    For never has my heart or ear
Hung on so sweet, so pure a strain,
    So pure to feel, so sweet to hear.

Say, Love, in all thy prime of fame,
    When the high heaven itself was thine;
When piety confest the flame,
    And even thy errors were divine;

Did ever Muse's hand, so fair,
    A glory round thy temple spread?
Did ever lip's ambrosial air
    Such fragrance o'er thy altars shed?

One maid there was, who round her lyre
    The mystic myrtle wildly wreathed;--
But all her sighs were sighs of fire,
    The myrtle withered as she breathed.

Oh! you that love's celestial dream,
    In all its purity, would know,
Let not the senses' ardent beam
    Too strongly through the visio...

I am Raftery the poet, full of hope and love; my eyes without light, my gentleness without misery. Going west on my journey with the light of my heart; weak and tired to the end of my road.

I am now, and my back to a wall, playing music to empty pockets.

Search thou my heart;
If there be guile,
It shall depart
Before thy smile.

Search thou my soul;
Be there deceit,
'T will vanish whole
Before thee, sweet.

Upon my mind
Turn thy pure lens;
Naught shalt thou find
Thou canst not cleanse.

If I should pray,
I scarcely know
In just what way
My prayers would go.

So strong in me
I feel love's leaven,
I 'd bow to thee
As soon as Heaven!

I know!    I know!--
The ceaseless ache, the emptiness, the woe,--
The pang of loss,--
The strength that sinks beneath so sore a cross.
"--Heedless and careless, still the world wags on,
And leaves me broken ...    Oh, my son!    my son!"

Yet--think of this!--
Yea, rather think on this!--
He died as few men get the chance to die,--
Fighting to save a world's morality.
He died the noblest death a man may die,
Fighting for God, and Right, and Liberty;--
And such a death is Immortality.

"He died unnoticed in the muddy trench."
Nay,--God was with him, and he did not blench;
Filled him with holy fires that nought could quench,
And when He saw his work below was done,
He gently called to him,--"My son!    My son!
I need thee for a...

1
Would that the winds might only blow
As they blew in the golden long ago!
Laden with odors of Orient isles
Where ever and ever the sunshine smiles,
And the bright sands blend with the shady trees,
And the lotus blooms in the midst of these.

2
Warm winds won from the midland vales
To where the tress of the Siren trails
O'er the flossy tip of the mountain phlox
And the bare limbs twined in the crested rocks,
High above as the seagulls flap
Their lopping wings at the thunder-clap.

3
Ah! That the winds might rise and blow
The great surge up from the port below,
Bloating the sad, lank, silken sails
Of the Argo out with the swift, sweet gales
That blew from Colchis when Jason had
His love's full will and his heart was glad -
Wh...

The past is like a story
I have listened to in dreams
That vanished in the glory
Of the Morning's early gleams;
And - at my shadow glancing -
I feel a loss of strength,
As the Day of Life advancing
Leaves it shorn of half its length.

But it's all in vain to worry
At the rapid race of Time -
And he flies in such a flurry
When I trip him with a rhyme,
I'll bother him no longer
Than to thank you for the thought
That "my fame is growing stronger
As you really think it ought."

And though I fall below it,
I might know as much of mirth
To live and die a poet
Of unacknowledged worth;
For Fame is but a vagrant -
Though a loyal one and brave,
And his laurels ne'er so fragrant
As when scattered o'er the grave.

We will not speak of years to-night, -
For what have years to bring
But larger floods of love and light,
And sweeter songs to sing?

We will not drown in wordy praise
The kindly thoughts that rise;
If Friendship own one tender phrase,
He reads it in our eyes.

We need not waste our school-boy art
To gild this notch of Time; -
Forgive me if my wayward heart
Has throbbed in artless rhyme.

Enough for him the silent grasp
That knits us hand in hand,
And he the bracelet's radiant clasp
That locks our circling band.

Strength to his hours of manly toil!
Peace to his starlit dreams!
Who loves alike the furrowed soil,
The music-haunted streams!

Sweet smiles to keep forever bright
The sunshine on his lips,
And fa...

Poets are strange -- not always understood
By many is their gift,
Which is for evil or for mighty good --
To lower or to lift.

Upon their spirits there hath come a breath;
Who reads their verse
Will rise to higher life, or taste of death
In blessing or in curse.

The Poet is great Nature's own high priest,
Ordained from very birth
To keep for hearts an everlasting feast --
To bless or curse the earth.

They cannot help but sing; they know not why
Their thoughts rush into song,
And float above the world, beneath the sky,
For right or for the wrong.

They are like angels -- but some angels fell,
While some did keep their place;
Their poems are the gates of heav'n or hell,
And God's or Satan's face

Looks thro' their ...

BOMBAY

Royal and Dower-royal, I the Queen
Fronting thy richest sea with richer hands,
A thousand mills roar through me where I glean
All races from all lands.


CALCUTTA

Me the Sea-captain loved, the River built,
Wealth sought and Kings adventured life to hold.
Hail, England! I am Asia, Power on silt,
Death in my hands, but Gold!


MADRAS

Clive kissed me on the mouth and eyes and brow,
Wonderful kisses, so that I became
Crowned above Queens, a withered beldame now,
Brooding on ancient fame.


RANGOON

Hail, Mother! Do they call me rich in trade?
Little care I, but hear the shorn priest drone,
And watch my silk-clad lovers, man by maid,
Laugh 'neath my Shwe Dagon.


SINGAPORE

Father, I cry to thee for bread
    With hungred longing, eager prayer;
Thou hear'st, and givest me instead
    More hunger and a half-despair.

0 Lord, how long? My days decline,
    My youth is lapped in memories old;
I need not bread alone, but wine--
    See, cup and hand to thee I hold!

And yet thou givest: thanks, O Lord,
    That still my heart with hunger faints!
The day will come when at thy board
    I sit, forgetting all my plaints.

If rain must come and winds must blow,
    And I pore long o'er dim-seen chart,
Yet, Lord, let not the hunger go,
    And keep the faintness at my heart.

It is done!
Clang of bell and roar of gun
Send the tidings up and down.
How the belfries rock and reel!
How the great guns, peal on peal,
Fling the joy from town to town!

Ring, O bells!
Every stroke exulting tells
Of the burial hour of crime.
Loud and long, that all may hear,
Ring for every listening ear
Of Eternity and Time!

Let us kneel:
God's own voice is in that peal,
And this spot is holy ground.
Lord, forgive us! What are we
That our eyes this glory see,
That our ears have heard this sound!

For the Lord
On the whirlwind is abroad;
In the earthquake He has spoken;
He has smitten with His thunder
The iron walls asunder,
And the gates of brass are broken!

Loud and long
Lift the old exultin...

Does the road wind up-hill all the way?
    Yes, to the very end.
Will the day's journey take the whole long day?
    From morn to night, my friend.

But is there for the night a resting-place?
    A roof for when the slow dark hours begin.
May not the darkness hide it from my face?
    You cannot miss that inn.

Shall I meet other wayfarers at night?
    Those who have gone before.
Then must I knock, or call when just in sight?
    They will not keep you standing at that door.

Shall I find comfort, travel-sore and weak?
    Of labour you shall find the sum.
Will there be beds for me and all who seek?
    Yea, beds for all who come.