She's death to all things living,
Since the November eve;
And when she dies in autumn
No living thing shall grieve.

THE DEAD AT CLONMACNOIS.

In a quiet watered land, a land of roses,
Stands Saint Kieran's city fair:

And the warriors of Erin in their famous generations
Slumber there.

There beneath the dewy hillside sleep the noblest
Of the clan of Conn,

Each below his stone with name in branching Ogham
And the sacred knot thereon.

There they laid to rest the seven Kings of Tara,
There the sons of Cairbré sleep-

Battle-banners of the Gael, that in Kieran's plain of crosses
Now their final hosting keep.

And in Clonmacnois they laid the men of Teffia,
And right many a lord of Breagh;

Deep the sod above Clan Creidé and Clan Conaill,
Kind in hall and fierce in fray.

Many and many a son of Conn, the Hundred-Fighter,
In the red earth lies at rest;

Many a blue eye of Clan Colman the turf covers,
Many a swan-white breast.

THE LAST DESIRE.

When the time comes for me to die,
To-morrow, or some other day,
If God should bid me make reply,

"What wilt thou?" I shall say:

"O God, thy world was great and fair!

Have thanks for all my days have seen;
Yet grant me peace from things that were
And things that might have been.

"I loved, I toiled; throve ill and well;
-Lived certain years, and murmured not.
Now give me in that land to dwell
Where all things are forgot.

"I seek not, Lord, thy purging fire,

The loves re-knit, the crown, the palm;
Only the death of all desire

In deep, eternal calm."

SONG OF MAELDUIN.

There are veils that lift, there are bars that fall,
There are lights that beckon, and winds that call-
Good-bye!

There are hurrying feet, and we dare not wait,
For the hour is on us-the hour of Fate,
The circling hour of the flaming gate-
Good-bye-good-bye-good-bye!

Fair, fair they shine through the burning zone-
The rainbow gleams of a world unknown;

Good-bye!

And oh! to follow, to seek, to dare,
When, step by step, in the evening air
Floats down to meet us the cloudy stair!
Good-bye-good-bye-good-bye!

The cloudy stair of the Brig o' Dread

Is the dizzy path that our feet must tread-
Good-bye!

O children of Time-O Nights and Days,
That gather and wonder and stand at gaze,
And wheeling stars in your lonely ways,
Good-bye-good-bye-good-bye!

The music calls and the gates unclose,
Onward and onward the wild way goes—
Good-bye!

We die in the bliss of a great new birth,
O fading phantoms of pain and mirth,
O fading loves of the old green earth—
Good-bye-good-bye-good-bye!

WENTWORTH DILLON, EARL OF ROSCOMMON.

(1633-1684.)

WENTWORTH DILLON, EARL OF ROSCOMMON, born about 1633, was nephew and godson to the Earl of Stafford. He was at the Protestant College at Caen when, by the death of his father, he became Earl of Roscommon, at the age of ten. He remained abroad, traveled in Italy till the Restoration, when he came in with King Charles the Second, became captain of the Band of Pensioners, took for a time to gambling, married, indulged his taste in literature, which was strongly under the French influence, and had a project for an English academy like that of France.

He translated into verse Horace's 'Art of Poetry,' Virgil's sixth Eclogue, one or two Odes of Horace, and a passage from Guarini's 'Pastor Fido. Of his original writing the most important piece is 'An Essay on Translated Verse,' carefully polished in the manner of Boileau, sensible, and often very happy in expression. He died Jan. 17, 1684, after a fervent utterance of two lines from his own version of 'Dies Irae '—

66

"My God, my Father, and my Friend,
Do not forsake me in my end"-

and was buried in Westminster Abbey.

Johnson says "that he is perhaps the only correct writer in verse before Addison," and Pope wrote:

"To him the wit of Greece and Rome was known,
And every author's merit but his own.'

FROM THE ESSAY ON TRANSLATED VERSE.

Each poet with a different talent writes,
One praises, one instructs, another bites,
Horace did ne'er aspire to epic bays,
Nor lofty Maro stoop to lyric lays.
Examine how your humor is inclined,
And which the ruling passion of your mind;
Then seek a poet who your way does bend,
And choose an author as you choose a friend.
United by this sympathetic bond,

You grow familiar, intimate, and fond;

Your thoughts, your words, your styles, your souls agree,

No longer his interpreter, but he . .

Immodest words admit of no defense For want of decency is want of sense.

Yet 't is not all to have a subject good, It must delight as when 't is understood.