English

PART VI.

I.

A S on this world the young man turns his eyes,
When forced to try the dark sea of the grave,
Thus did we gaze upon that Paradise,
Fading, as we were borne across the wave
And, as a brighter world dawns by degrees
Upon Eternity's serenest strand,
Thus, having passed through dark and gloomy seas,
At length we reached the long-sought Promised Land.

II.

PART V.

I.

I T was the fairest and the sweetest scene —
The freshest, sunniest, smiling land that e'er
Held o'er the waves its arms of sheltering green
Unto the sea and storm-vexed mariner: —
No barren waste its gentle bosom scarred,
Nor suns that burn, nor breezes winged with ice,
Nor jagged rocks (Nature's grey ruins) marred
The perfect features of that Paradise.

II.

PART IV.

I.

Beside that giant stream, that foams and swells
Betwixt Hy Conaill and Moyarta's shore,
And guards the isle where good Senanus dwells,
A gentle maiden dwelt, in days of yore.
She long has passed out of Time's aching womb,
And breathes Eternity's favonian air;
Yet fond Tradition lingers o'er her tomb,
And paints her glorious features as they were: —

II.

PART III.

I.

A T length the long-expected morning came,
When from the opening arms of that wild bay,
Beneath the hill that bears my humble name,
Over the waves we took our untracked way:
Sweetly the morn lay on tarn and rill,
Gladly the waves played in its golden light,
And the proud top of the majestic hill
Shone in the azure air — serene and bright.

II.

PART II.

I.

Hearing how blessed Enda lived apart,
Amid the sacred caves of Ara-mhor,
And how beneath his eye, spread like a chart,
Lay all the isles of that remotest shore;
And how he had collected in his mind
All that was known to man of the Old Sea,
I left the Hill of Miracles behind,
And sailed from out the shallow sandy Leigh.

II.

PART I.

I.

O I IA ! mother of my heart and mind —
My nourisher — my fosterer — my friend,
Who taught me first, to God's great will resigned,
Before his shining altar-steps to bend.
Who poured his word upon my soul like balm,
And on mine eyes, what pious fancy paints —
And on mine ear the sweetly-swelling psalm,
And all the sacred knowledge of the saints.

II.

Thus I awakede, wot God, when I wonede in Cornehille,
Kitte and I in a cote, y-clothed as a lollare,
And litel y-let by, leveth me for soothe,
Amonges lollares of Londone and lewede hermites;
For I made of tho men as Resoun me taughte.
For as I cam by Consience, with Resoun I mette,
In an hot hervest, whenne I hadde myn hele,
And limes to labory with, and lovede wel-fare,
And no dede to do but to drinke and to slepe.
In hele and in inwitt, one me apposede,
Rominge in remembraunce thus Resoun me aratede:

Where are the swains, who, daily labour done,
With rural games play'd down the setting sun;
Who struck with matchless force the bounding ball
Or made the pond'rous quoit obliquely fall;
While some huge Ajax, terrible and strong,
Engaged some artful stripling of the throng,
And fell beneath him, foil'd, while far around
Hoarse triumph rose, and rocks return'd the sound?
Where now are these? — Beneath yon cliff they stand
To show the freighted pinnace where to land;
To load the ready steed with guilty haste,

Theirs is yon house that holds the parish poor,
Whose walls of mud scarce bear the broken door;
There, where the putrid vapors flagging play,
And the dull wheel hums doleful through the day;
There children dwell who know no parents' care;
Parents, who know no children's love, dwell there;
Heart-broken matrons on their joyless bed,
Forsaken wives and mothers never wed;
Dejected widows with unheeded tears,
And crippled age with more than childhood-fears;
The lame, the blind, and — far the happiest they! —

The village life, and every care that reigns
O'er youthful peasants and declining swains;
What labour yields, and what, that labour past,
Age, in its hour of languor, finds at last;
What forms the real picture of the poor;
Demands a song--the Muse can give no more.
Fled are those times, if e'er such times were seen,
When rustic poets praised their native green;
No shepherds now, in smooth alternate verse,
Their country's beauty or their nymphs' rehearse;
Yet still for these we frame the tender strain,