EDINBURGH

CITY of mist and rain and blown gray spaces,
Dashed with wild wet color and gleam of tears,
Dreaming in Holyrood halls of the passionate faces

Lifted to one Queen's face that has conquered the years, Are not the halls of thy memory haunted places?

Cometh there not as a moon (where the blood-rust sears Floors a-flutter of old with silks and laces),

Gliding, a ghostly Queen, through a mist of tears?

Proudly here, with a loftier pinnacled splendor,

Throned in his northern Athens, what spells remain
Still on the marble lips of the Wizard, and render
Silent the gazer on glory without a stain!

Here and here, do we whisper, with hearts more tender,
Tusitala wandered through mist and rain;
Rainbow-eyed and frail and gallant and slender,
Dreaming of pirate-isles in a jewelled main.

Up the Cannongate climbeth, cleft asunder

Raggedly here, with a glimpse of the distant sea Flashed through a crumbling alley, a glimpse of wonder, Nay, for the City is throned on Eternity!

Hark! from the soaring castle a cannon's thunder

Closes an hour for the world and an æon for me, Gazing at last from the martial heights whereunder Deathless memories roll to an ageless sea.

Alfred Noyes [1880

SWEET INNISFALLEN

SWEET Innisfallen, fare thee well,.
May calm and sunshine long be thine!
How fair thou art let others tell,-
To feel how fair shall long be mine.

Sweet Innisfallen, long shall dwell
In memory's dream that sunny smile,
Which o'er thee on that evening fell,
When first I saw thy fairy isle.

'Twas light, indeed, too blest for one,
Who had to turn to paths of care-
Through crowded haunts again to run,
And leave thee bright and silent there;

No more unto thy shores to come,
But, on the world's rude ocean tossed,
Dream of thee sometimes, as a home
Of sunshine he had seen and lost.

Far better in thy weeping hours
To part from thee, as I do now,
When mist is o'er thy blooming bowers,
Like sorrow's veil on beauty's brow.

For, though unrivalled still thy grace,
Thou dost not look, as then, too blest,
But thus in shadow seem'st a place
Where erring man might hope to rest.—

Might hope to rest, and find in thee
A gloom like Eden's, on the day
He left its shade, when every tree,

Like thine, hung weeping o'er his way.

Weeping or smiling, lovely isle!
And all the lovelier for thy tears,
For though but rare thy sunny smile,
'Tis heaven's own glance when it appears.

Like feeling hearts, whose joys are few,
But, when indeed they come, divine—

The brightest light the sun e'er threw
Is lifeless to one gleam of thine!

Thomas Moore [1779-1852]

"AH, SWEET IS TIPPERARY "

Ан, sweet is Tipperary in the springtime of the year,
When the hawthorn's whiter than the snow,

When the feathered folk assemble and the air is all a-tremble
With their singing and their winging to and fro;

When queenly Slievenamon puts her verdant vesture on, And smiles to hear the news the breezes bring;

When the sun begins to glance on the rivulets that danceAh, sweet is Tipperary in the spring!

Ah, sweet is Tipperary in the springtime of the year,
When the mists are rising from the lea,

When the Golden Vale is smiling with a beauty all beguiling,

And the Suir goes crooning to the sea;

When the shadows and the showers only multiply the flowers
That the lavish hand of May will fling;

When in unfrequented ways, fairy music softly plays-
Ah, sweet is Tipperary in the spring!

Ah, sweet is Tipperary in the springtime of the year,

When life like the year is young,

When the soul is just awaking like a lily blossom breaking,

And love words linger on the tongue;

When the blue of Irish skies is the hue of Irish eyes,

And love-dreams cluster and cling

Round the heart and round the brain, half of pleasure, half

of pain

Ah, sweet is Tipperary in the spring!

Denis Aloysius McCarthy [1871

THE GROVES OF BLARNEY

THE groves of Blarney they look so charming,
Down by the purling of sweet, silent brooks,
All decked with posies, that spontaneous grow there
Planted in order in the rocky nooks.

'Tis there the daisy, and the sweet carnation,

The blooming pink, and the rose so fair;
Likewise the lily, and the daffodilly-

All flowers that scent the sweet, fragrant air.

'Tis Lady Jeffers owns this plantation,
Like Alexander, or like Helen fair;
There's no commander in all the nation

For regulation can with her compare.

Such walls surround her, that no nine-pounder
Could ever plunder her place of strength;
But Oliver Cromwell, he did her pommel,
And made a breach in her battlement.

There's gravel walks there for speculation
And conversation, in sweet solitude;
'Tis there the lover may hear the dove, or
The gentle plover, in the afternoon.
And if a lady should be so engaging

As to walk alone in those shady bowers,
'Tis there her courtier, he may transport her
Into some fort, or all under ground.

For 'tis there's a cave where no daylight enters,
But cats and badgers are forever bred;
Being mossed by nature which makes it sweeter
Than a coach-and-six, or a feather bed.
'Tis there the lake is, well-stored with perches,
And comely eels in the verdant mud;
Besides the leeches, and the groves of beeches,
All standing in order for to guard the flood.

There's statues gracing this noble place in,
All heathen gods and nymphs so fair:
Bold Neptune, Plutarch, and Nicodemus,
All standing naked in the open air.
So now to finish this brave narration,
Which my poor genii could not entwine;
But were I Homer or Nebuchadnezzar,
'Tis in every feature I would make it shine.
Richard Alfred Millikin [1767–1815]

THE BELLS OF SHANDON

Sabbata pango;
Funera plango;
Solemnia clango.

INSCRIPTION ON AN OLD BELL

WITH deep affection and recollection

I often think of the Shandon bells,

Whose sounds so wild would, in the days of childhood, Fling round my cradle their magic spells.

On this I ponder where'er I wander,

And thus grow fonder, Sweet Cork, of thee,-
With thy bells of Shandon,

That sound so grand on

The pleasant waters of the river Lee.

I've heard bells chiming full many a clime in,
Tolling sublime in cathedral shrine,

While at a glib rate brass tongues would vibrate;
But all their music spoke naught to thine.
For memory, dwelling on each proud swelling
Of thy belfry, knelling its bold notes free,
Made the bells of Shandon

Sound far more grand on

The pleasant waters of the river Lee.

I've heard bells tolling “Old Adrian's Mole" in,
Their thunder rolling from the Vatican,—
And cymbals glorious, swinging uproarious
In the gorgeous turrets of Notre Dame;

But thy sounds were sweeter than the dome of Peter Flings o'er the Tiber, pealing solemnly.

O, the bells of Shandon

Sound far more grand on

The pleasant waters of the river Lee.

There's a bell in Moscow, while on tower and Kiosko In St. Sophia the Turkman gets,

And loud in air, calls men to prayer,

From the tapering summit of tall minarets.
Such empty phantom I freely grant them;

But there's an anthem more dear to me,—
'Tis the bells of Shandon,

That sound so grand on

The pleasant waters of the river Lee.

Francis Sylvester Mahony [1804-1866]

"DE GUSTIBUS-"

YOUR ghost will walk, you lover of trees,

(If our loves remain)

In an English lane,