Yes, fold us closer-closer, love-
In me thou hast old Ireland yet;
I tell thee any land shall prove

Thy eyes are wet

Native to us.
This great heart swells against my own,
Its holy anguish pleads for me—
Ah! could ye leave us here alone,

To perish looking on that sea?"

Breathless she gazed into his face,

And lifted from her heart the child-
Relieved from her too fond embrace,

The boy looked up and softly smiled.
The convict turned. They should not know
How close the tears rose to his eyes--
How sweet the love-how deep the woe,
Brought to his soul by this surprise.

"Advance!" Again that dread command.
Rolls, trumpet-like, along the shore;
Guarded by England's soldier band,
They leave old Ireland evermore.

They stood together on that gloomy deck,
Straining each gaze to catch another sight
Of that dim shore that, like a cloudy speck,
Lay dark and sombre in the morning light.
Ah! it was very mournful. All around

The weltering sea heaved with a hollow moan, And from the hold arose the dreary sound

Of smothered tears and many a broken groan;

For that old battered prison-ship was full,

And freighted deep with misery and tears, From the tall spars down to the creaking hull

She reeled and trembled as with human fears. They stood together, silently and still,

Their eyes turned shoreward, with a dreary

gaze;

The winds swept wailing by them, fierce and chill,

And there lay Ireland, mourning in the haze. Then all at once his mustering grief awoke : "Oh, for a grave beneath my native sod!" Thus on the wailing air his anguish broke, “I ask but this—but this, Almighty God!"

As if the heavens themselves had heard
The passion of that cry,

The moaning deep was fiercely stirred;
The waves rose white and high.

The clouds, in one broad thunder-fold,
Swept blackly through the air,
Like a great pall of death unrolled
By angels answering there.

Blacker and blacker glooms the front of heaven,
And in its wrath sweeps the recoiling sea;

Hither and yon the angry waves are driven,
Like routed war steeds, rushing to be free.
In mad battalions, with their white manes stream-

ing,

They trample down the bosom of the deep; Sharp, fiery lances through the clouds are gleaming,

And strike the waters, where they foam and leap.

And then was torn that inky cloud,
With storms of lurid rain;

And heaven's artillery thundered loud
Above the heaving main.
It seemed as if the stars at last,
Retreating in their ire,

Had poured upon the raging blast
Great cataracts of fire.

Like a wild desert steed, beneath the lash,
The tortured vessel plunges madly on;
The masts have fallen with a smothered crash,
Her guards are broken and her strength is

gone.

The waves leap, rioting, across her deck,

The helpless crew are swept from where they clung,

With a faint death-hold, to the plunging wreck, Her tattered canvas to the storm is flung.

Onward, still onward, anchorless and bare,

She reels and toils toward the rocky shore; Her hold sends forth its shrieks of fell despair, Like fiery arrows piercing through the roar.

The exiles kneel together. His embrace
Girds in the unconscious boy and pallid wife,
A mighty gladness brightens on his face,

Hope comes with death and slavery with life.

It comes! it comes! that rushing mountain, now, And lifts the shuddering vessel on its breast. Quick, vivid flashes curl around her prow,

And wreathe the masts with many a fiery crest. A plunge, a quick recoil, one fearful cry!

She strikes-she strikes-the rock-O God— the rock!

Amid the waters raging to the sky,

That clinging group go downward with the shock.

'Tis over-from behind that parted cloud

The frightened moon sheds down a timid gleam.

With the white foam around her, like a shroud, Through which her golden locks all dimly

stream,

That gentle mother clasps her lifeless child,
Folded upon the marble of her breast.
There in his pallid death the infant smiled,
As if he lay caressing and caressed.

With his cold face half veiled beneath her hair, Cast to her side by a relenting wave,

The sire and husband had his answered prayerThe Irish Patriot filled an Irish Grave.

Mrs. Ann S. Stephens.

THE LADY OF CASTLENORE.

(A.D. 1700.)

BRETAGNE had not her peer. In the Province far

or near,

There were never such brown tresses, such a faultless hand:

She had youth, and she had gold, she had jewels all untold,

And many a lover bold wooed the Lady of the Land.

But she with queenliest grace, bent low her pallid face,

And, "Woo me not for mercy's sake, fair gentlemen," she said.

If they wooed then, with a frown she would strike their passion down:

She might have wed a crown to the ringlets on her head.

From the dizzy castle-tips, hour by hour she watched the ships,

Like sheeted phantoms coming and going ever

more,

While the twilight settled down on the sleepy seaport-town,

On the gables peaked and brown, that had sheltered kings of yore.

Dusky belts of cedar-wood partly clasped the widening flood;