Her nose is straight and handsome, her eyebrows lifted up,

Her chin is very neat and pert, and smooth like a china cup, Her hair's the brag of Ireland, so weighty and so fine;

It's rolling down upon her neck, and gathered in a twine.

The dance o' last Whit-Monday night exceeded all before;

No pretty girl for miles about was missing from the floor;

But Mary kept the belt of love, and O, but she was gay!

She danced a jig, she sung a song, that took my heart away.

When she stood up for dancing, her steps were 30 complete

The music nearly killed itself to listen to her feet;

The fiddler moaned his blindness, he heard her so much praised, But blessed himself he wasn't deaf when once her voice she raised.

And evermore I'm whistling or lilting what you sung,

Your smile is always in my heart, your name beside my tongue;

But you've as many sweethearts as you'd count on both your hands, And for myself there's not a thumb or little finger stands.

O, you're the flower o' womankind in country or in town;

The higher I exalt you, the lower I'm cast down.

If some great lord should come this way, and see your beauty bright, And you to be his lady, I'd own it was but right.

O, might we live together in a lofty palace hall,

Where joyful music rises, and where scarlet curtains fall!

O, might we live together in a cottage mean and small;

With sods of grass the only roof, and mud the only wall!

O lovely Mary Donnelly, your beauty's my distress;

It's far too beauteous to be mine, but I'll never wish it less.

The proudest place would fit your face, and I am poor and low;

But blessings be about you, dear, where ever you may go!

THE FAIRIES.

Up the airy mountain,
Down the rushy glen,
We daren't go a nunting

For fear of little men;
Wee folk, good folk,

Trooping all together; Green jacket, red cap,

And white owl's feather!

Down along the rocky shore

Some make their home,
They live on crispy pancakes
Of yellow tide-foam;
Some in the reeds

Of the black mountain-lake, With frogs for their watch-dogs, All night awake.

High on the hill-top

The old King sits;
He is now so old and gray

He's nigh lost his wits.
With a bridge of white mist
Columbkill he crosses,
On his stately journeys

From Slieveleague to Rosses; Or going up with music

On cold starry nights, To sup with the queen

Of the gay Northern Lights.

They stole little Bridget

For seven years long; When she came down again

Her friends were all gone. They took her lightly back,

Between the night and morrow; They thought that she was fast asleep, But she was dead with sorrow.

THE SEA-LIMITS.

CONSIDER the sea's listless chime:

Time's self it is, made audible,

The murmur of the earth's own shell. Secret continuance sublime

Is the sea's end: our sight may pass No furlong further. Since time was, This sound hath told the lapse of time.

No quiet, which is death's, it hath
The mournfulness of ancient life,
Enduring always at dull strife.
As the world's heart of rest and wrath,
Its painful pulse is in the sands.
Last utterly, the whole sky stands,
Gray and not known, along its path.

Listen alone beside the sea,

Listen alone among the woods; Those voices of twin solitudes Shall have one sound alike to thee: Hark where the murmurs of thronged

men

Surge and sink back and surge again,

Still the one voice of wave and tree.

1830

MAUDE CLARE.

OUT of the church she followed them
With a lofty step and mien:
His bride was like a village maid,
Maude Clare was like a queen.

'Son Thomas," his lady mother said,
With smiles, almost with tears:
May Nell and you but live as true
As we have done for years;

'Your father thirty years ago
Had just your tale to tell;
But he was not so pale as you,
Nor I so pale as Nell."

My lord was pale with inward strife,

And Nell was pale with pride; My lord gazed long on pale Maude Clare Or ever he kissed the bride.

And what you spurn I'll wear;
For he's my lord for better and worse,
And him I love, Maude Clare.

"Yea, though you're taller by the head,
More wise, and much more fair;
I'll love him till he loves me best,
Me best of all, Maude Clare."

UP-HILL.

DOES the road wind up-hill all the way? Yes, to the very end.

Will the day's journey take the whole long day?

From morn to night, my friend.

But is there for the night a resting-place? A roof for when the slow dark hours

begin.

May not the darkness hide it from my face?

You cannot miss that inn.

Shall I meet other wayfarers at night? Those who have gone before.