1

"Sire of witches and of wizards,
To thee give we nine cocks' gizzards,
Legs, and livers, wings and hearts,
Gills and combs, and other parts;
Chosen cocks of plumage red,
Which at market cross, we bled,
At the hour of midnight dread.
Also twice nine peacocks' eyes;
Mighty Nicholas arise!"

At that name a gloom
O'erspreadeth the room,

And who could imagine such magic in chicken-flesh,
Or in peacock's eyes-
In a horrible guise

Before the three hags up starts old Nick in flesh,
And coolly standing erect in the fire,

Asks the old ladies what they require.

Each of the crones presents him a broom,
Three of them lay in Dame Alice's room,)
And said "We are thine to the crack of doom,
If thou but grease

The handles of these,

To bear us whither our fancies please;
"Twixt the midnight hour and the morning light,
With speed that passes the lightning's flight,
And givest to us, as a fiendish dower

Over the broom and broomstick power."
"Agreed!" cries Satan-" the bargain's made
By broom and broomstick be ye obeyed,
Try we a flight,

Through the air to night,

Start we together-together alight!".

The words are scarce said when they're all out of sight,
Sailing away 'neath the moonbeams bright,
They may talk of the rate

Done on railways of late,

But that old Atmospheric' surpasses them quite.
Riding a hunt or riding a race,

Riding a desperate hard steeple-chase,

Talk not about them-they're "all in my eye,"

To riding a hard-pulling broom through the sky!
And never on hard-pulling racer did groom stick

More closely than Dame Alice sticks to her broomstick.
Of a pretty good seat in truth she had need, i
Borne through the air at such desperate speed,
For it takes her not quite a minute to flit
From Ormonde tower to the Devil's Bit.
I never could manage to follow her flight,
So here for the present I bid her good-night.

One William Utlaw dwells by the Newre,
He cheats the rich, and he grinds the poor,
Coffers he hath of wealth untold,
Hoards of silver and hoards of gold,
And worst of all, this greatest of sharks,
Has purchased the whole of the city parks;
For he shrewdly foresees,

For the produce of these

What a price from the cits he can manage to squeeze,

And he chuckles each day,

At the sums they must pay,

Nor cares he a jot what about him they say.
If they ask him for alms, with a growl he'll refuse,
Even to the church he won't pay his dues,
He seeks not pleasure, he seeks not health,
He seeks for nothing in fact but wealth.
He's a fellow that all the citizens shun,
And is Dame Alice Kettle's only son;
And she, to render him still more rich,
Has bartered her soul, and set up as a witch;
A pretty business for which some day,
She'll certainly have "the Devil to pay."

Again has midnight's gloomy hour,
In shadow wrapped the Ormonde's tower,
Again do wakeful noses keep

Their vigils while their owners sleep;
Again do weary cits repose,

And dream away their cares and woes ;
Again do caterwauling cats,

Strike terror into roving rats;
Again-no further time to lose-

Kilkenny takes its nightly snooze.
But what do I hear,

Comes a voice in my ear,

Speaking in accents unearthly and queer,
"Hie all the wealth of Kilkenny town
Unto the house of William my son !"
And mark, as the voice the couplet repeats
Brooms of all sorts are scouring the streets,
Sweeping the yards, the alleys, the lanes,
Sweeping the sewers, the markets, the drains;
Never was town so supremely well swept,
As Kilkenny, while all its inhabitants slept.

The golden hues of morning streak
Proud Ard na h' Erin's* highest peak,
The red-deer quits his midnight lair,
And sniffs again the dewy air;
The lark exulting cleaves the sky,
And wakes his matin chant on high.
Oh! thou who, wasting joy and health,
Still toilest on in search of wealth,
Go forth, and on the mountain side,
Behold the morning in its pride;
And ask of thine own sordid soul,
If wealth indeed be man's great goal,
To seek which he was formed by heaven,
For what are all these glories given?
If not to gladden human eye,
Why glow with beauty, earth and sky?
If not to gladden human ear,
Why thrills with music all our sphere?
Thouds't clip the spirit's soaring wings,
And bind it down to useful things.

Ard na h' Erin—“The height of Ireland”—a name given to the Slieve Bloom mountains (in which the Nore has its rise, as have also the Suir and Barrow), from a popular idea that they are the highest chain in Ireland.

Poor scoffer!-dost thou never dream,

How words like these heaven's works blaspheme?
How dar'st thou say in God's great plan,

Aught enters not of use to man?
Go forth, and learn to see His power,
In earth and sky, in star and flower,
To know that he did not impart
Vain longings to the human heart;
But while immortal hopes he gave
Of higher bliss beyond the grave,
Still made to harmonize his plan-
Man fit for earth, and earth for man!

Never did folk open wider their eyes,

Than do those of Kilkenny, next morn when they rise.
The whole city swept clean-

What the deuce can it mean?

The manure for their crops with such carefulness kept,
Carried off by some villainous thieves while they slept.
They had borne for whole weeks with its odours unsavory,
And 'tis lost in one night by some vile piece of knavery.
From morning till night the whole town's in commotion,
But who swept the streets, not a soul has a notion.
But "murder will out," yes! and all improprieties,
An old maxim, and true besides, you may rely it is,
Some vigilant cits, at the dead of night peeping,
Get glimpses of this supernatural sweeping;
And one of them sees, with a petrified stare,
Dame Alice herself on her broom in the air,
(A vision, which but that he chanced to be drunk
At the time, might have lost him his senses from funk,)
For 'tis fearsome enough, one may fairly presume,
To see an old lady,

When skies have grown shady,

Playing pranks in the air on a mettlesome broom;
By degrees through the city, the fact grows notorious,
And the rage of the people becomes most uproarious ;
So the Bishop of Ossory summons Dame Alice,
To give an account of her magic and malice.

Now, one must confess, in a civilized nation,

There were few things less pleasant than such a citation,
For mostly old dames who denied they were witches,
Were ducked well in horse ponds, and beaten with switches;
Thrown into rivers, tied neck and limb,

When, if they were witches, they surely would swim;

And if they were not, it was easily found,

Because in that case the old ladies were drowned.

Whereas if they escaped, as some dozen at most did,
Then the old ladies were sure to be roasted.

So, if any old lady ungraciously frowned,

'Twas ten chances to one she was roasted or drowned,
And very wise judges, with very wise saws,
"Top sawyers," in truth at expounding the laws,
Hanged many old ladies for this very cause.

But this is digression-the day of the trial
Comes on, and the dame to the charge gives denial;
The judge therefore calls on the bishop for evidence,
Who produces of witnesses 'gainst her a bevy dense.
And the end of it is that his lordship decides

"That 'tis proved beyond doubt on a broomstick she rides,

That 'tis devilish to make of a broomstick a horse, or he
Can't comprehend what is devilish in sorcery,

That thus against all Christian laws having spurned,
At the market-place cross she must next day be burned."

Their notions were horridly coarse in those olden days,
We only hang folk by the neck in our golden days,-
A much cheaper plan for a rope will hang twenty,
Whereas burning is costly when fuel's not plenty.

The Court having risen,

Dame Kettle is taken in fetters to prison,

And the bishop and judge having 'done for' the sinner,
With the calmestof consciences go to their dinner.
Why not, when they felt their sublime Christianity
Was free from the taint of the slightest humanity.

'Tis morn-at the gate of the judge there's a knocking,
That awakes all the inmates-the cause must be shocking-
For never did man wear a countenance paler,

Than the man who thus knocks-and that man is the gaoler. 'Tis perfectly clear something dreadful's the matter,

His limbs do so shake, and his teeth do so chatter;

Such a shivering sight you would scarce through a winter view,
And he vows with the judge he at once wants an interview.
We must try and find out
What it can be about,

For 'tis something excedingly strange I've no doubt.

"Gone off with the devil!-eloped with old Nick-
Escaped from her cell, through stone, mortar, and brick,
That dreadful old woman!" "They went like the wind,
The devil before-the old woman behind.'

That's enough to be told--'tis a regular sell,
The old woman has done them, and gone off to Hell.

A VERY SERIOUS ADVICE TO THE READER.

Lest this story may leave on your innocent mind
An impression for which it was never designed,
I'd have you to know you are not to suppose
That every old lady who has a long nose
Or a very sharp chin,

Or a very odd grin,

Or hair on her lip, or a squint in her eye,
Is able to fly

On a broomstick, or otherwise, up to the sky;

The fact is, they can't, and what's more, they don't try ;

So whether they're good or whether they're bold,

No matter that stories about them are told

Whether they're poor, or whether they're rich,

Don't fancy that any old lady's a witch

But this I must add-though it seem superstition,
There are young ones of whom I'd give that definition,
Whose witchery lies

In their lips and their eyes,

In glances and whispers, and kisses, and sighs,

Who, do what we can to keep safe, make a jest of us,
And, in fact, play the devil at times with the best of us.

IRELAND SIXTY YEARS AGO.

THIRD ARTICLE-CONCLUSION.*

See ante, Vol. XXII., p. 655.