"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!

Let it not your wonder move,
Less your laughter, that I love.
Though I now write fifty years,
I have had, and have, my peers;
Poets, though divine, are men,
Some have lov'd as old again.
And it is not always face,
Clothes, or fortune, gives the grace;
Or the feature, or the youth.
But the language and the truth,
With the ardour and the passion,
Gives the lover weight and fashion.
If you then will read the story,
First prepare you to be sorry
That you never knew till now
Either whom to love or how;
But be glad, as soon with me,
When you know that this is she
Of whose beauty it was sung;
She shall make the old man young,
Keep the middle age at stay,
And let nothing high decay,
Till she be the reason why
All the world for love m...

Between the rail of woven brass,
That hides the "Strangers' Pew,"
I hear the gray-haired vicar pass
From Section One to Two.

And somewhere on my left I see--
Whene'er I chance to look--
A soft-eyed, girl St. Cecily,
Who notes them--in a book.

Ah, worthy GOODMAN,--sound divine!
Shall I your wrath incur,
If I admit these thoughts of mine
Will sometimes stray--to her?

I know your theme, and I revere;
I hear your precepts tried;
Must I confess I also hear
A sermon at my side?

Or how explain this need I feel,--
This impulse prompting me
Within my secret self to kneel
To Faith,--to Purity!

One dignity delays for all,
One mitred afternoon.
None can avoid this purple,
None evade this crown.

Coach it insures, and footmen,
Chamber and state and throng;
Bells, also, in the village,
As we ride grand along.

What dignified attendants,
What service when we pause!
How loyally at parting
Their hundred hats they raise!

How pomp surpassing ermine,
When simple you and I
Present our meek escutcheon,
And claim the rank to die!

This world that we're a-livin' in
    Is mighty hard to beat,
For you get a thorn with every rose -
    But ain't the roses sweet!

Like a bold, adventurous swain,
Just a year ago to-day,
I launched my bark on a radiant main,
And Hymen led the way:
"Breakers ahead!" he cried,
As he sought to overwhelm
My daring craft in the shrieking tide,
But Love, like a pilot bold and tried,
Sat, watchful, at the helm.

And we passed the treacherous shoals,
Where many a hope lay dead,
And splendid wrecks were piled, like the ghouls
Of joys forever fled.
Once safely over these,
We sped by a fairy realm,
Across the bluest and calmest seas
That were ever kissed by a truant breeze,
With Love still at the helm.

We sailed by sweet, odorous isles,
Where the flowers and trees were one;
Through lakes that vied with the golden smiles
Of heaven's unclouded sun:
Still speeds...

So ancient to myself I seem,
I might have crossed grave Styx's stream
A year ago; -
My word, 'tis so; -
And now be wandering with my sires
In that rare world we wonder o'er,
Half disbelieve, and prize the more!

Yet spruce I am, and still can mix
My wits with all the sparkling tricks,
A youth and girl
At twenty's whirl
Play round each other's bosom fires,
On this brisk earth I once enjoyed: -
But now I'm otherwise employed!

Am I a thing without a name;
A sort of dummy in the game?
"Not young, not old:"
A world is told
Of misery in that lengthened phrase;
Yet, gad, although my coat be smooth,
My forehead's wrinkled, - that's the truth!

I hardly know which road to go.
With youth? Perhaps. With age? Oh no!
Well,...

The snow-flakes fall in showers,

The time is absent still,
When all Spring's beauteous flowers,
When all Spring's beauteous flowers

Our hearts with joy shall fill.

With lustre false and fleeting

The sun's bright rays are thrown;
The swallow's self is cheating:
The swallow's self is cheating,

And why? He comes alone!

Can I e'er feel delighted

Alone, though Spring is near?
Yet when we are united,
Yet when we are united,

The Summer will be here.

Browning, old fellow,
Your leaves grow yellow,
Beginning to mellow
As seasons pass.
Your cover is wrinkled,
And stained and sprinkled,
And warped and crinkled
From sleep on the grass.

Is it a wine stain,
Or only a pine stain,
That makes such a fine stain
On your dull blue,--
Got as we numbered
The clouds that lumbered
Southward and slumbered
When day was through?

What is the dear mark
There like an earmark,
Only a tear mark
A woman let fall?--
As bending over
She bade me discover,
"Who plays the lover,
He loses all!"

With you for teacher
We learned love's feature
In every creature
That roves or grieves;
When winds were brawling,
Or bird-folk calling,
Or leaf-folk fal...

("Mon duc, rien qu'un moment.")

[HERNANI, Act V.]


One little moment to indulge the sight
With the rich beauty of the summer's night.
The harp is hushed, and, see, the torch is dim, -
Night and ourselves together. To the brim
The cup of our felicity is filled.
Each sound is mute, each harsh sensation stilled.
Dost thou not think that, e'en while nature sleeps,
Some power its amorous vigils o'er us keeps?
No cloud in heaven; while all around repose,
Come taste with me the fragrance of the rose,
Which loads the night-air with its musky breath,
While everything is still as nature's death.
E'en as you spoke - and gentle words were those
Spoken by you, - the silver moon uprose;
How that mysterious union of her ray,
With your impassioned...

Ye gentle visitations of calm thought -
Moods like the memories of happier earth,
Which come arrayed in thoughts of little worth,
Like stars in clouds by the weak winds enwrought, -
But that the clouds depart and stars remain,
While they remain, and ye, alas, depart!

        "If in China or among the natives of India, we claimed civil advantages which were connected with religious usages, little as we might value those forms in our hearts, we should think common decency required us to abstain from treating them with offensive contumely; and, though unable to consider them sacred, we would not sneer at the name of Fot, or laugh at the imputed divinity of Visthnou."--Courier, Tuesday. Jan. 16.




Come take my advice, never trouble your cranium,
    When "civil advantages" are to be gained,
What god or what goddess may help to obtain you 'em,
    Hindoo or Chinese, so they're only obtained.

In this world (let me hint in your organ auricular)
    All the good things to good hypocrites fall;
And he who in swallowing creeds i...

So you rode from the range where your brothers “select,”
Through the ghostly grey bush in the dawn
You rode slowly at first, lest her heart should suspect
That you were glad to be gone;

You had scarcely the courage to glance back at her
By the homestead receding from view,
And you breathed with relief as you rounded the spur,
For the world was a wide world to you.

Grey eyes that grow sadder than sunset or rain,
Fond heart that is ever more true
Firm faith that grows firmer for watching in vain
She’ll wait by the sliprails for you.

Ah! The world is a new and a wide one to you,
But the world to your sweetheart is shut,
For a change never comes to the lonely Bush girl
From the stockyard, the bush, and the hut;

And the only relief from the ...

Be void of feeling!
A heart that soon is stirr'd,
Is a possession sad
Upon this changing earth.

Behrisch, let spring's sweet smile
Never gladden thy brow!
Then winter's gloomy tempests
Never will shadow it o'er.

Lean thyself ne'er on a maiden's
Sorrow-engendering breast.
Ne'er on the arm,
Misery-fraught, of a friend.

Already envy
From out his rocky ambush
Upon thee turns
The force of his lynx-like eyes,

Stretches his talons,
On thee falls,
In thy shoulders
Cunningly plants them.

Strong are his skinny arms,
As panther-claws;
He shaketh thee,
And rends thy frame.

Death 'tis to part,
'Tis threefold death
To part, not hoping
Ever to meet again.

Thou wouldst rejoic...

R. C. TRENCH.



"Let us turn hitherward our bark," they cried,
"And, 'mid the blisses of this happy isle,
Past toil forgetting and to come, abide
In joyfulness awhile.

And then, refreshed, our tasks resume again,
If other tasks we yet are bound unto,
Combing the hoary tresses of the main
With sharp swift keel anew."

O heroes, that had once a nobler aim,
O heroes, sprung from many a godlike line,
What will ye do, unmindful of your fame,
And of your race divine?

But they, by these prevailing voices now
Lured, evermore draw nearer to the land,
Nor saw the wrecks of many a goodly prow,
That strewed that fatal strand;

Or seeing, feared not - warning taking none
From the plain doom of all who went before,
Whose ...

Though many suns have risen and set
Since thou, blithe May, wert born,
And Bards, who hailed thee, may forget
Thy gift, thy beauty scorn;
There are who to a birthday strain
Confine not harp and voice,
But evermore throughout thy reign
Are grateful and rejoice!

Delicious odor! music sweet,
Too sweet to pass away!
Oh for a deathless song to meet
The soul's desire, a lay
That, when a thousand year are told,
Should praise thee, genial Power!
Through summer heat, autumnal cold,
And winter's dreariest hour.

Earth, sea, thy presence feel, nor less,
If yon ethereal blue
With its soft smile the truth express,
The heavens have felt it too.
The inmost heart of man if glad
Partakes a livelier cheer;
And eye that cannot but be sad<...

On these white cliffs, that calm above the flood
Uprear their shadowing heads, and at their feet
Hear not the surge that has for ages beat,
How many a lonely wanderer has stood!
And, whilst the lifted murmur met his ear,
And o'er the distant billows the still eve
Sailed slow, has thought of all his heart must leave
To-morrow; of the friends he loved most dear;
Of social scenes, from which he wept to part!
Oh! if, like me, he knew how fruitless all
The thoughts that would full fain the past recall,
Soon would he quell the risings of his heart,
And brave the wild winds and unhearing tide
The World his country, and his GOD his guide.

He whom thou ne'er leavest, Genius,
Feels no dread within his heart
At the tempest or the rain.
He whom thou ne'er leavest, Genius,
Will to the rain-clouds,
Will to the hailstorm,
Sing in reply
As the lark sings,
Oh thou on high!

Him whom thou ne'er leavest, Genius,
Thou wilt raise above the mud-track
With thy fiery pinions.
He will wander,
As, with flowery feet,
Over Deucalion's dark flood,
Python-slaying, light, glorious,
Pythius Apollo.

Him whom thou ne'er leavest, Genius,
Thou wilt place upon thy fleecy pinion
When he sleepeth on the rock,
Thou wilt shelter with thy guardian wing
In the forest's midnight hour.

Him whom thou ne'er leavest, Genius,
Thou wilt wrap up warmly
In the snow-drift;
Tow'...