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'Tis there's the kitchen hangs many a flitch in,

With the maids a-stitching upon the stair; The bread and biske', the beer and whiskey, Would make you frisky if you were there. 'Tis there you'd see Peg Murphy's daughter A washing praties forenent the door, With Roger Cleary, and Father Healy,

All blood relations to my Lord Donough

more.

There's statues gracing this noble place in,
All heathen goddesses so fair-
Bold Neptune, Plutarch, and Nicodemus,
All standing naked in the open air.
So now to finish this brave narration,
Which my poor geni' could not entwine;
But were I Homer, or Nebuchadnezzar,

'Tis in every feature I would make it shine. RICHARD ALFRED MILLIKEN (1757-1815).

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Too late I stayed-forgive the crime-
Unheeded flew the hours;
How noiseless falls the foot of Time
That only treads on flowers!

And who, with clear account, remarks
The ebbings of his glass,
When all its sands are diamond-sparks,
That dazzle as they pass?

Ah! who to sober measurement
Time's happy swiftness brings,
When birds-of-paradise have lent
Their plumage to his wings?

ROBERT WILLIAM SPENCER (1770-1834).

NIGHT.

MYSTERIOUS Night! when our first Parent knew Thee, from report divine, and heard thy name,

Did he not tremble for this lovely Frame, This glorious canopy of Light and Blue? Yet 'neath a curtain of translucent dew

Bathed in the rays of the great setting Flame,

Hesperus with the Host of Heaven came, And lo! Creation widened on Man's view. Who could have thought such Darkness lay concealed

Within thy beams, O Sun! or who could find, While flower, and leaf, and insect stood revealed, That to such countless Orbs thou mad'st us blind!

Why do we then shun Death with anxious strife? If Light can thus deceive, wherefore not Life? JOSEPH BLANCO WHITE (1773-1840).

THE PAUPER'S DEATHBED.

TREAD Softly! bow the head-
In reverent silence bow!
No passing bell doth toll;
Yet an immortal soul
Is passing now.

Stranger, however great,

With lowly reverence bow! There's one in that poor shedOne by that paltry bedGreater than thou.

Beneath that beggar's roof,

Lo! Death doth keep his state!
Enter!-no crowds attend-
Enter-no guards defend
This palace-gate.

That pavement damp and cold

No smiling courtiers tread;
One silent woman stands,
Lifting with meagre hands
A dying head.

No mingling voices sound-
An infant wail alone;
A sob suppressed-again

That short deep gasp-and then
The parting groan.

Oh! change-oh! wondrous change!
Burst are the prison-bars!
This moment there, so low,
So agonized-and now
Beyond the stars!

The brave sons of the Lord of Clare, they left the land to mourning;

Movrone! for they were banished, with no hope of their returning.

Who knows in what abodes of want those youths were driven to house?

Yet you can give yourself these airs, O Woman of Three Cows!

Oh, think of Donnell of the Ships, the chief whom nothing daunted,-

See how he fell in distant Spain, unchronicled, unchanted!

He sleeps, the great O'Sullivan, where thunder

cannot rouse;

Then ask yourself, should you be proud, good Woman of Three Cows?

O'Ruark, Maguire, those souls of fire, whose
names are shrined in story,-
Think how their high achievements once made
Erin's greatest glory!

Yet now their bones lie mouldering under weeds and cypress-boughs,

And so, for all your pride, will yours, O Woman of Three Cows!

The O'Carrolls also, famed when fame was only for the boldest,

Rest in forgotten sepulchres with Erin's best and oldest;

Yet who so great as they of yore, in battle or carouse?

Just think of that, and hide your head, good Woman of Three Cows!

Your neighbor's poor, and you it seems are big with vain ideas,

Because, forsooth, you've got three cows-one more, I see, than she has;

That tongue of yours wags more at times than charity allows,

But if you're strong be merciful, great Woman of Three Cows!

Now, there you go! You still, of course, keep up your scornful bearing,

And I'm too poor to hinder you; but, by the cloak I'm wearing,

If I had but four cows myself, even though you were my spouse,

I'd thwack you well to cure your pride, my

Woman of Three Cows!

JAMES CLARENCE MANGAN (1803-1849).

THE THREE SONS.

I HAVE a son, a little son, a boy just five years old,

With eyes of thoughtful earnestness, and mind of gentle mould.

They tell me that unusual grace in all his ways

appears,

That my child is grave and wise of heart beyond his childish years.

I cannot say how this may be; I know his face is fair

And yet his chiefest comeliness is his sweet and serious air:

I know his heart is kind and fond; I know he loveth me:

But loveth yet his mother more with grateful fervency.

But

that which others most admire, is the thought which fills his mind, The food for grave inquiring speech he everywhere doth find.

Strange questions doth he ask of me, when we together walk;

He scarcely thinks as children think, or talks as children talk.

Nor cares he much for childish sports, dotes not on bat or ball,

But looks on manhood's ways and works, and aptly mimics all.

His little heart is busy still, and oftentimes perplexed

With thoughts about this world of ours, and thoughts about the next.

He kneels at his dear mother's knee; she teacheth him to pray;

And

strange, and sweet, and solemn then are the words which he will say.

Oh, should my gentle child be spared to manhood's years like me,

A holier and a wiser man I trust that he will be; And when I look into his eyes, and stroke his thoughtful brow,

I dare not think what I should feel, were I to lose him now.

I have a son, a second son, a simple child of three;

I'll not declare how bright and fair his little features be,

How silver sweet those tones of his when he prattles on my knee;

I do not think his light-blue eye is, like his brother's, keen,

Nor his brow so full of childish thought as his But his little heart's a fountain pure of kind hath ever been; and tender feeling;

And his every look's a gleam of light, rich depths of love revealing.

When he walks with me, the country-folk, who pass us in the street,

Will shout for joy and bless my boy, he looks

so mild and sweet.

I have a son, a third sweet son; his age I cannot tell,

For they reckon not by years and months where he is gone to dwell.

To us, for fourteen anxious months, his infant smiles were given;

And then he bade farewell to earth, and went to live in heaven.

I cannot tell what form is his, what looks he weareth now,

Nor guess how bright a glory crowns his shining seraph brow.

The thoughts that fill his sinless soul, the bliss which he doth feel,

Are numbered with the secret things which God will not reveal.

But I know (for God hath told me this) that he is now at rest,

Where other blessed infants be, on their Saviour's loving breast.

I know his spirit feels no more this weary load of flesh,

But his sleep is blessed with endless dreams of joy forever fresh.

I know the angels fold him close beneath their glittering wings,

And soothe him with a song that breathes of heaven's divinest things.

I know that we shall meet our babe (his mother dear and I)

Where God for aye shall wipe away all tears from every eye.

Whate'er befalls his brethren twain, his bliss can never cease;

Their lot may here be grief and fear, but his is certain peace.

It may be that the tempter's wiles their souls from bliss may sever;

But, if our own poor faith fail not, he must be ours forever.

When we think of what our darling is; and what we still must be

When we muse on that world's perfect bliss, and this world's misery

When we groan beneath this load of sin, and feel this grief and pain

Oh! we'd rather lose our other two, than have him here again.

JOHN MOULTRIE (1804).

THE ANNUITY.

I GAED to spend a week in Fife;
An unco week it proved to be,
For there I met a waesome wife

Lamenting her viduity.

Her grief brak' out sae fierce and fell,
I thought her heart wad burst the shell;
An' I was sae left to mysel',

I sell 't her an annuity.

The bargain look it fair eneugh,

She just was turned o' saxty-three;

I couldna guess'd she'd prove so teugh By human ingenuity.

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But
years have come, an' years have gane,
An' there she's yet as stieve's a stane;
The auld wife's growing young again

Since she got her annuity.

She's crined awa' to bane an' skin,
But that it seems is nought to me;
She's like to live, although she's in
The last stage o' tenuity.

She munches wi' her wizen'd gums,
An' stumps about on legs o' thrums,
But comes as sure as Christmas comes
To ca' for her annuity.

She jokes her joke, an' cracks her crack,
As spunkie as a growin' flea;
An' there she sits upon my back
A livin' perpetuity.

She hurkles by her ingleside,

An' toasts an' tans her wrinkled hide;
Wha kens how long she yet may bide,
To ca' for her annuity?

I read the tables drawn wi' care
For an insurance company;
Her chance o' life was stated there
Wi' perfect perspicuity.

But tables here, or tables there,
She's lived ten years beyond her share,
An 's like to live a dozen mair,
To ca' for her annuity.

I gat the loon that drew the deed,
We spell'd it o'er right carefully;
In vain he yerk'd his souple head
To find an ambiguity.

It's dated, tested, a' complete,
The proper stamp, nae word delete;
An' diligence, as on decreet,

May pass for her annuity.

I thought that grief might gar her quit:
Her only son was lost at sea;
But aff her wits behuved to flit,
An' leave her in fatuity.
She threeps, an' threeps he's livin' yet,
For a' the tellin' she can get;
But catch the doited wife forget
To ca' for her annuity!

If there's a sough o' cholera

Or typhus, wha sae gleg as she? She buys up baths, an' drugs, an' a', In siccan superfluity!

She doesna need-she's fever-proof, The pest walked o'er her very roof; She tauld me sae, an' then her loof Held out for her annuity.

Ae day she fell, her arm she brak',
A compound fracture as could be;
Nae leech the cure wad undertak',
Whate'er was the gratuity.
It's cured! she handles 't like a flail,
It does as weel in bits as hale;
But I'm a broken man mysel'
Wi' her an' her annuity.

Her broozled flesh an' broken banes

Are weel as flesh an' banes can be ;