OH! THINK NOT MY SPIRITS, &c.

Oh! think not my spirits are always as light,
And as free from a pang, as they seem to you now,
Nor expect that the heart-beaming smile of to-night

Will return with to-morrow to brighten my brow;
No, life is a waste of wearisome hours,

Which seldom the rose of enjoyment adorns ; And the heart that is soonest awake to the flowers Is always the first to be touched by the thorns! But send round the bowl, and be happy awhile;

May we never meet worse in our pilgrimage here Than the tear that enjoyment can gild with a smile, And the smile that compassion can turn to a tear!

The thread of our life would be dark, heaven knows,

If it were not with friendship and love intertwined, And I care not how soon I may sink to repose,

When these blessings shall cease to be dear to my mind: But they who have loved the fondest, the purest,

Too often have wept o'er the dream they believed; And the heart that has slumbered in friendship securest, Is happy indeed if 'twas never deceived.

But send round the bowl-while a relic of truth
Is in man or in woman, this prayer shall be mine,
That the sunshine of love may illumine our youth,
And the moonlight of friendship console our decline !

Moore.

GLENARA.

O heard ye yon pibrach sound sad in the gale,
Where a band cometh slowly with weeping and wail ?
'Tis the chief of Glenara laments for his dear;
And her sire, and the people, are called to her bier.

6

Glenara came first with the mourners and shroud;
Her kinsmen they followed, but mourned not aloud;
Their plaids all their bosoms were folded around;
They marched all in silence,-they looked on the ground.

In silence they reached; over mountain and moor;
To a heath, where the oak-tree grew lonely and hoar;

Now here let us place the grey stone of her cairn :

Why speak ye no word ?-said Glenara the stern!

And tell me, I charge you! ye clan of my spouse, Why fold ye your mantles, why cloud ye your brows?

So spake the rude chieftain: No answer is made,
But each mantle unfolding a dagger displayed.

I dreamt of my lady, I dreamt of her shroud,'
Cried a voice from the kinsmen, all wrathful and loud;
And empty that shroud and that coffin did seem:
Glenara! Glenara! now read me my dream!'

O! pale grew the cheek of that chieftain, I ween,
When the shroud was unclosed, and no lady was seen!
When a voice from the kinsmen spoke louder in scorn,
'Twas the youth who had loved the fair Ellen of Lorn :

'I dreamt of my lady, I dreamt of her grief,
I dreamt that her lord was a barbarous chief:
On a rock of the ocean fair Ellen did seem;
Glenara! Glenara! now read me my dream!'

In dust, low the traitor has knelt to the ground,
And the desert revealed where his lady was found
From a rock of the ocean that beauty is borne,-
Now joy to the house of fair Ellen of Lorn.

ODE.

Oh, shame to thee, land of the Gaul ! Oh, shame to thy children and thee! Unwise in thy glory, and base in thy fall, How wretched thy portion shall be ! Derision shall strike thee forlorn,

A mockery that never shall die; The curses of hate, and the hisses of scorn, Shall burthen the winds of thy sky; And, proud o'er thy ruin, for ever be hurled The laughter of triumph, the jeers of the world!

Oh, where is thy spirit of yore,

The spirit that breathed in thy dead,
When gallantry's star was the beacón before,
And honour the passion that led?
Thy storms have awakened their sleep,

They groan from the place of their rest,
And wrathfully murmur, and sullenly weep,
To see the foul stain on thy breast:
For where is the glory they left thee in trust ?-
'Tis scattered in darkness, 'tis trampled in dust ↑

Go, look through the kingdoms of earth, From Indus, all round to the pole, And something of goodness, of honour, and worth, Shall brighten the sins of the soul.

But thou art alone in thy shame,

The world cannot liken thee there; Abhorrence and vice have disfigured thy name

Beyond the low reach of compare :— Stupendous in guilt, thou shalt lend us through time A proverb, a bye-word for treachery and crime.

While conquest illumined his sword,
While yet in his prowess he stood,

Thy praises still followed the steps of thy Lord,
And welcomed the torrent of blood.

Though tyranny sat on his crown,

And withered the nations afar,

Yet bright in thy view was the despot's renown,
Till fortune deserted his car;

Then, back from the chieftain thou slunkest away-
The foremost to insult, the first to betray!

Forgot were the feats he had done,

The toils he had borne in thy cause; Thou turned'st to worship a new rising sun, And waft other songs of applause.