In Erin our faith is as bright and true
As the steel in the grasp of bold Boru;

Our hopes shall fade, and our trust shall fall,
When fades remembrance of Limerick wall;
When the splendours of Burke are lost in eclipse,
And Moore is a stranger to heart and lips;
When Grattan shall sink to a powerless name,
And Daniel, the Lion shall cease to tame!

This is our faith-that no land on earth

Shall surpass the dear isle of our blood and birth;
No sons shall be braver, more staunch, more sure,
No maidens be fairer, more constant, or pure;
No sunlit shore, no isle of the sea,

Shall be happier, wiser, more true or free:

In genius and worth with all lands she shall copeSuch Ireland's belief and her children's hope.

Faith, without Love, is cold and dead-
Without Love, even Hope will scant bestead:
Dear home of the shamrock, our joy, our pride,
Each zephyr that fans thee, each plash of thy tide,
Is the emblem, the echo, of movement sweet,
Ecstatic as music's soul-searching beat,

Of the throb, the wild pulse, and the yearning breast
To be stilled when pulse, throb, heart, find rest.

Love still we then, while life beats warm,
In joy as in sorrow, in sunshine and storm,
The land ever dearest, that honoured sod
Which our sainted forefathers' feet have trod;
Press may our footprint Australian shore,
Round us the billows may surge and roar,

But o'er waves and winds soars our anthem free:
Green gem of the waters, thy children, we

Waft our Faith and our Hope, and our Love to thee

A1

THE SONG OF THE PEAR-TREE.

FROM THE FRENCH OF PAUL FEVAL.

I.

T the foot of our village stood a large pear-tree; in spring-time it resembled a stack of flowers. Opposite it, at the other side of the road, was the farmer's house with a stone gateway like that of a castle. The farmer's daughter was called Perrine.

We were engaged.

II.

She was sixteen years old. What roses there were on her cheeks! -as many as there were flowers on the pear-tree. It was under this pear-tree that I said to her: "Perrine, my Perrine, when shall our wedding be?"

III.

She laughed merrily. Her hair, which sported with the wind; her figure; her naked feet in her tiny sabots; her hands which pulled down a hanging branch, that she might inhale the sweet perfume of the pear-blossom; her pure forehead; her white teeth between her red lips.

Ah! I loved her so well! "Our wedding would be towards the harvest," she said, "if the emperor did not take me to be a soldier."

IV.

When the conscription came round, I burnt a candle at the shrine; for the idea of going far away from Perrine saddened my heart. Praised be the Holy Mother! I drew the highest number. But Jean, my foster-brother, was unlucky. I found him crying:-"My mother, my poor mother!"

V.

"Cheer up, Jean; I am an orphan." He did not wish to believe me when I said: "I will take your place." Perrine came to me beneath the pear-tree, with reddened eyes. Never had I seen her cry; but her tears were more beautiful than her smile.

She said to me: "Thou hast done well, and thou art good. Go, my Pierre; I shall wait for thee."

VI.

"Right, left; right, left,"-drums beating! "To the front! March!"

And thus we advanced as far as Wagram. Keep firm, Pierre! There is the enemy! I saw a line of fire. Five hundred cannons discharged in a moment, and the smoke was suffocating. My feet slipped on the bloody earth. I was frightened, and thought of the past.

VII.

Behind me lay France, and the village, and the pear-tree, whose flowers were now fruit. I shut my eyes and beheld Perrine praying for me. Praised be God! I shall be brave! To the front! To the front! Right, left! Present! fire! use the bayonet! Ah! ah! The conscript is acting well! "What is thy name, boy?" "Sire, I am called Pierre." "Pierre, I make thee brigadier."

VIII.

Perrine, O my Perrine! Brigadier! Hurrah for war! They are êtes these days of battle!

"Ten thousand thanks, sire!"

And we are before Moscow; but we shall go no further. In the vast tract of snow a road is made by the attenuated soldiery. Here is the river; there the enemy; on both sides death! "Who floated the first pontoon." "It was I, sire !"

"Always you, captain!"

He gave me his chevalier's cross.

IX.

Praised be God! Perrine, my Perrine, thou wilt be proud of me! The campaign is over. I have my leave. Sound the chimes, the bells for our marriage! The road is long, but hope travels quickly. Below, behind that mountain, lies my country.

I recognise the driver of the coach, and he tells me that the bells are ringing.

X.

They are ringing, indeed. But where is the pear-tree which used to bloom so richly in this month of flowers? Formerly its mass of blossoms was visible from a long distance, but now I cannot see it. And here is the place where it stood !-they have cut down the tree of my youthful hopes.

It had borne its flowers, its beautiful bright flowers! But its branches are lying broken and dying on the grass.

XI.

"Why do the chimes ring, Mathieu ?""For a wedding, captain."

Mathieu does not recognise me. A wedding! He spoke truly. The betrothed pair entered the porch of the church. The groom was my foster-brother, Jean. The bride was Perrine, my Perrine, more beautiful than ever.

XII.

The neighbours chatted around me, and told each other how loving the bridal pair were.

"But what of Pierre ?" said I. They had forgotten me.

"What Pierre ?" they asked.

XIII.

I knelt down at the very end of the church, I prayed for Perrine, and I prayed for Jean, both of whom I loved. When Mass was over, I gathered a flower from the pear-tree, a poor dead flower, and I took again the road by which I had returned, without looking behind. Praised be God! They love each other; they will be happy.

XIV.

"Thou art come back, Pierre."

"Yes, sire."

"Thou art twenty-two years of age, thou art colonel, and thou art chevalier. If thou likest, I will give thee a countess as a wife.”

Pierre drew from his bosom the little dead flower, plucked from the ruined pear-tree.

'Sire, my heart is like that blossom. I wish for a place in the vanguard of battle, to die as a Christian soldier."

XV.

He had a place in the front rank. At the foot of the village there is a tomb of a colonel who died at the age of twenty-two, on the day of victory. On the stone, instead of a name, three words are inscribed "Praised be God!"

VERA..

THE NEWEST THING IN RITUALS.

General Booth of the Salvation Army has issued an edict that daily at half-past twelve o'clock, at the call of the bugle and roll of the drum, all "soldiers" shall make the sign of an S.

OW the devil must laugh when this heretic scum

For the Angelus-bell choose the roll of the drum,
And, scorning the Cross of their Saviour to make,
Tell of lying and sin by the sign of the Snake!

THE DITTAMONDO.

BY A DISCURSIVE CONTRIBUTOR.

II.

As already said, I was much struck by the assertion that Fazio degli Uberti in his travels in Ireland saw "certain lakes of various natures." Assuredly, thought I, if the Florentine poet beheld any of the inland waters of Hibernia's isle, his eyes must have rested on

"That dim lake

Where sinful souls their farewell take
Of this vain world, and half-way lie
In Death's cold shadow, ere they die."

No traveller could pass through Ireland in those days without hearing such an account of Lough Derg as would make him deem all his labours worthless unless he should reach its mystic shore. Still less would it have been possible for a man of letters, especially an Italian littérateur, to be ignorant of a legend and unacquainted with a pilgrimage so renowned throughout Europe. Greater lakes no doubt there were, and lovelier sheets of water mirroring the Irish sky; but where in all the world was there a lake to compare in romantic and religious associations with that hid in the wilds of Tyrconnel and bearing on its bosom the rocky isle and its wondrous cave, "where penitential man his soul in life may save."

Not one of the pious legendary beliefs (to quote a writer who has made this subject a special study) which attained a universal popularity among the people of Christendom, was ever so popular or so