Need we say that Maurice loved her,
And that no blush reproved her,
When her throbbing bosom moved her
To give the heart she gave ?
That by dawn-light and by twilight,
And, O blessed moon, by thy light,
When the twinkling stars on high light
The wanderer o'er the wave,
Along Glengariff's sea;
And crowds in many a galley
To the happy marriage rally
Of the maiden of the valley
And the youth of Céim-an-eich;
Old eyes with joy are weeping, as all ask on bended knee,
A blessing, gentle Alice, upon thee.
DENIS FLORENCE MACCARTHY.
TO A LADY BEFORE MARRIAGE.
O, FORMED by Nature, and refined by Art,
With charms to win, and sense to fix the heart!
By thousands sought, Clotilda, canst thou free
Thy crowd of captives and descend to me?
Content in shades obscure to waste thy life,
A hidden beauty and a country wife?
O, listen while thy summers are my theme!
Ah! soothe thy partner in his waking dream!
In some small hamlet on the lonely plain,
Where Thames through meadows rolls his mazy
train,
Or where high Windsor, thick with greens arrayed,
Waves his old oaks, and spreads his ample shade,
Fancy has figured out our calm retreat;
Already round the visionary seat
Our limes begin to shoot, our flowers to spring,
The brooks to murmur, and the birds to sing.
Where dost thou lie, thou thinly peopled green,
Thou nameless lawn, and village yet unseen,
Where sons, contented with their native ground,
Ne'er travelled further than ten furlongs round,
And the tanned peasant and his ruddy bride
Were born together, and together died,
Where early larks best tell the morning light,
And only Philomel disturbs the night ?
Midst gardens here my humble pile shall rise,
! With sweets surrounded of ten thousand dyes;
All savage where th' embroidered gardens end,
The haunt of echoes, shall my woods ascend;
And oh! if Heaven th' ambitious thought approve,
A rill shall warble 'cross the gloomy grove,
![[ocr errors]](https://books.google.com.mm/books/content?id=FjbPAAAAMAAJ&output=html_text&pg=PA123&img=1&zoom=3&hl=en&q=&cds=1&sig=ACfU3U3X17vfqQs6MtENIEhi2k1tYiv0ww&edge=0&edge=stretch&ci=491,1073,5,7)
A little rill, o'er pebbly beds conveyed,
Gush down the steep, and glitter through the glade.
What cheering scents these bordering banks exhale!
How loud that heifer lows from yonder vale!
That thrush how shrill! his note so clear, so high,
He drowns each feathered minstrel of the sky.
His steps unconscious led him where Glengariff's Here let me trace beneath the purpled morn
Each mossy bank and cave.
The sun his gold is flinging,
The happy birds are singing,
And bells are gayly ringing
The deep-mouthed beagle and the sprightly horn,
Or lure the trout with well-dissembled flies,
Or fetch the fluttering partridge from the skies.
Nor shall thy hand disdain to crop the vine,
The downy peach, or flavored nectarine;
Or rob the beehive of its golden hoard,
And bear th' unbought luxuriance to thy board.
Her feet beneath her petticoat,
Like little mice, stole in and out,
As if they feared the light;
But O, she dances such a way!
No sun upon an Easter-day
Is half so fine a sight.
Her cheeks so rare a white was on,
No daisy makes comparison;
Who sees them is undone;
For streaks of red were mingled there,
Such as are on a Cath'rine pear,
The side that's next the sun.
Her lips were red; and one was thin,
'Compared to that was next her chin.
Some bee had stung it newly;
But, Dick, her eyes so guard her face,
I durst no more upon them gaze,
Than on the sun in July.
Her mouth so small, when she does speak,
Thou'dst swear her teeth her words did break,
That they might passage get;
But she so handled still the matter,
They came as good as ours, or better,
And are not spent a whit.
THEN before All they stand,
And ring of gold, no fond illusions now,
Bind her as his. Across the threshold led,
And every tear kissed off as soon as shed,
His house she enters, there to be a light,
Shining within, when all without is night;
A guardian angel o'er his life presiding,
Doubling his pleasures and his cares dividing,
Winning him back when mingling in the throng,
Back from a world we love, alas! too long,
To fireside happiness, to hours of ease,
Blest with that charm, the certainty to please.
How oft her eyes read his; her gentle mind
To all his wishes, all his thoughts inclined;
Still subject, -ever on the watch to borrow
Mirth of his mirth and sorrow of his sorrow!
The soul of music slumbers in the shell,
Till waked and kindled by the master's spell,
And feeling hearts- touch them but rightly -
A thousand melodies unheard before!
![[blocks in formation]](https://books.google.com.mm/books/content?id=FjbPAAAAMAAJ&output=html_text&pg=PA125&img=1&zoom=3&hl=en&q=&cds=1&sig=ACfU3U3w0YKAvdivd-rU4KmdjvTLqNs8WA&edge=0&edge=stretch&ci=578,723,203,55)
BUT happy they! the happiest of their kind! Whom gentler stars unite, and in one fate Their hearts, their fortunes, and their beings blend. "T is not the coarser tie of human laws, Unnatural oft, and foreign to the mind, That binds their peace, but harmony itself, Attuning all their passions into love; Where friendship full-exerts her softest power, Perfect esteem enlivened by desire
Ineffable, and sympathy of soul;
Thought meeting thought, and will preventing
will,
With boundless confidence: for naught but love
Can answer love, and render bliss secure.
Meantime a smiling offspring rises round,
And mingles both their graces. By degrees,
The human blossom blows; and every day,
Soft as it rolls along, shows some new charm,
The father's lustre and the mother's bloom.
Then infant reason grows apace, and calls
For the kind hand of an assiduous care.
To teach the young idea how to shoot,
Delightful task! to rear the tender thought,
To pour the fresh instruction o'er the mind,
To breathe the enlivening spirit, and to fix
generous purpose in the glowing breast.
O, speak the joy! ye whom the sudden tear
Surprises often, while you look around,
And nothing strikes your eye but sights of bliss,
All various Nature pressing on the heart;
An elegant sufficiency, content,
Retirement, rural quiet, friendship, books,
Ease and alternate labor, useful life,
Progressive virtue, and approving Heaven.
These are the matchless joys of virtuous love;
And thus their moments fly. The Seasons thus,
As ceaseless round a jarring world they roll,
Still find them happy; and consenting Spring
Sheds her own rosy garland on their heads:
Till evening comes at last, serene and mild;
When after the long vernal day of life,
Enamored more, as more remembrance swells
With many a proof of recollected love,
Together down they sink in social sleep;
Together freed, their gentle spirits fly
To scenes where love and bliss immortal reign.
JAMES THOMSON.
MY WIFE'S A WINSOME WEE THING,
SHE is a winsome wee thing,
She is a handsome wee thing,
She is a bonnie wee thing,
This sweet wee wife o' mine.
I never saw a fairer,
I never lo'ed a dearer,
And neist my heart I'll wear her,
For fear my jewel tine.
She is a winsome wee thing,
She is a handsome wee thing,
She is a bonnie wee thing,
This sweet wee wife o' mine.
The warld's wrack we share o't,
The warstle and the care o't:
Wi' her I'll blythely bear it,
And think my lot divine.
Air, "A TRIP TO THE COTTAGE."
O THE banks of the Lee, the banks of the Lee, And love in a cottage for Mary and me! There's not in the land a lovelier tide,
My Love, I have no fear that thou shouldst die ;
Albeit I ask no fairer life than this,
Whose numbering-clock is still thy gentle kiss,
While Time and Peace with hands unlocked fly,-
And I'm sure that there's no one so fair as my bride. Yet care I not where in Eternity
She's modest and meek,
There's a down on her cheek,
And her skin is as sleek
As a butterfly's wing;
Then her step would scarce show
On the fresh-fallen snow,
And her whisper is low,
But as clear as the spring.
O the banks of the Lee, the banks of the Lee,
And love in a cottage for Mary and me!
I know not how love is happy elsewhere,
I know not how any but lovers are there.
O, so green is the grass, so clear is the stream,
So mild is the mist and so rich is the beam,
That beauty should never to other lands roam,
But make on the banks of our river its home!
When, dripping with dew,
The roses peep through,
"T is to look in at you
They are growing so fast;
While the scent of the flowers
Must be hoarded for hours,
'T is poured in such showers
When my Mary goes past.
O the banks of the Lee, the banks of the Lee,
And love in a cottage for Mary and me!
O, Mary for me, Mary for me,
We live and love, well knowing that there is
No backward step for those who feel the bliss
Of Faith as their most lofty yearnings high:
Love hath so purified my being's core,
Meseems I scarcely should be startled, even,
To find, some morn, that thou hadst gone before;
Since, with thy love, this knowledge too was
given,
Which each calm day doth strengthen more and
That they who love are but one step from Heaven.
I CANNOT think that thou shouldst pass away,
Whose life to mine is an eternal law,
A piece of nature that can have no flaw,
A new and certain sunrise every day;,
But, if thou art to be another ray
About the Sun of Life, and art to live
Free from all of thee that was fugitive,
The debt of Love I will more fully pay,
Not downcast with the thought of thee so high,
But rather raised to be a nobler man,
And more divine in my humanity,
As knowing that the waiting eyes which scan
My life are lighted by a purer being,
And 't is little I'd sigh for the banks of the Lee! And ask meek, calm-browed deeds, with it agree
|