Sad is my fate! said the heart-broken stranger; Where my forefathers lived, shall I spend the sweet hours, And strike to the numbers of Erin go bragh! Erin, my country! though sad and forsaken, And sigh for the friends who can meet me no more! In a mansion of peace, where no perils can chase me? They died to defend me, or live to deplore! Where is my cabin-door, fast by the wild wood? Tears, like the rain-drop, may fall without measure, Yet, all its sad recollections suppressing, Land of my forefathers! Erin go bragh! Buried and cold, when my heart stills her motion, LORD ULLIN'S DAUGHTER. A CHIEFTAIN, to the Highlands bound, "Now who be ye, would cross Lochgyle, "And fast before her father's men "His horsemen hard behind us ride; Out spoke the hardy Highland wight, * Ireland my darling, Ireland forever. "And by my word! the bonny bird So, though the waves are raging white, By this the storm grew loud apace, But still as wilder blew the wind, "O haste thee, haste!" the lady cries, Though tempests round us gather; I'll meet the raging of the skies, But not an angry father!" The boat has left a stormy land, When, O! too strong for human hand, And still they rowed amidst the roar Lord Ullin reached that fatal shore, His wrath was changed to wailing.— For sore dismayed, through storm and shade, His child he did discover: One lovely hand she stretched for aid, And one was round her lover. "Come back! come back!" he cried, in grief, "Across this stormy water: And I'll forgive your Highland chief, My daughter! O my daughter!" 'T was vain : the loud waves lashed the shore, Return or aid preventing: The waters wild went o'er his child, And he was left lamenting. ODE TO THE MEMORY OF BURNS. SOUL of the Poet! wheresoe'er, Her wings of immortality: Suspend thy harp in happier sphere, And fly like fiends from secret spell, For he was chief of bards that swell And love's own strain to him was given, To warble all its ecstasies With Pythian words unsought, unwilled, Love, the surviving gift of Heaven, The choicest sweet of Paradise, In life's else bitter cup distilled. Who that has melted o'er his lay Nor skilled one flame alone to fan: Grow beautiful beneath his touch. Him, in his clay-built cot, the Muse As o'er the heroic turf he ploughs, With all the spirit of his sires, And all their scorn of death and chains? And see the Scottish exile, tanned By many a far and foreign clime, In memory of his native land, With love that scorns the lapse of time, And ties that stretch beyond the deep. |