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The queen has lands and gold, mother,
The queen has lands and gold,

While you are forced to your empty breast

A skeleton babe to hold,

A babe that is dying of want, mother,
As I am dying now,

With a ghastly look in its sunken eye,
And famine upon its brow.

What has poor Ireland done, mother,
What has poor Ireland done,

That the world looks on, and sees us starve,
Perishing, one by one?

Do the men of England care not, mother,

The great men and the high,

For the suffering sons of Erin's isle,

Whether they live or die?

There is many a brave heart here, mother,

Dying of want and cold,

While only across the Channel, mother,

Are many that roll in gold;

There are rich and proud men there, mother,
With wondrous wealth to view,

And the bread they fling to their dogs to-night,
Would give life to me and you.

Come nearer to my side, mother,
Come nearer to my side,
And hold me fondly, as you held

My father when he died;

Quick, for I cannot see you, mother;
My breath is almost gone;
Mother! dear mother! ere I die,

Give me three grains of corn.

Mrs. A. M. Edmond.

ONCE

CXCIII.

TELL'S APOSTROPHE TO LIBERTY.

NCE more I breathe the mountain air; once more
I tread my own free hills! My lofty soul
Throws all its fetters off; in its proud flight,
"Tis like the new-fledged eaglet, whose strong wing
Soars to the sun it long has gazed upon
With eye undazzled. O! ye mighty race
That stand like frowning giants, fixed to guard
My own proud land; why did ye not hurl down
The thundering avalanche, when at your feet
The base usurper stood? A touch, a breath,
Nay, even the breath of prayer, ere now, has brought
Destruction on the hunter's head;
and yet

The tyrant passed in safety. God of heaven!
Where slept thy thunderbolts?

O LIBERTY!

Thou choicest gift of Heaven, and wanting which
Life is as nothing; hast thou then forgot

Thy native home? Must the feet of slaves
Pollute this glorious scene? It cannot be.

Even as the smile of Heaven can pierce the depths
Of these dark caves, and bid the wild flowers bloom
In spots where man has never dared to tread;
So thy sweet influence still is seen amid

These beetling cliffs. Some hearts still beat for thee,
And bow alone to Heaven; thy spirit lives,

Ay, and shall live, when even the very name

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Upon the mist that wreathes yon mountain's brow,

The sunbeam touches it, and it becomes

A crown of glory on his hoary head;

O! is not this a presage of the dawn

Of freedom o'er the world? Hear me, then, bright

And beaming Heaven! while kneeling thus, I vow
To live for Freedom, or with her to die!

O! with what pride I used

To walk these hills, and look up to my God
And bless Him that it was so. It was free,-
From end to end, from cliff to lake 't was free, —
Free as our torrents are, that leap our rocks,
And plow our valleys, without asking leave;
Or as our peaks, that wear their caps of snow,
In very presence of the regal sun!

How happy was I in it then! I loved

Its very storms! Yes, I have sat and eyed
The thunder breaking from His cloud, and smiled
To see Him shake His lightnings o'er my head,
And think I had no master save His own!

Ye know the jutting cliff, round which a track
Up hither winds, whose base is but the brow
To such another one, with scanty room
For two abreast to pass? O'ertaken there
By the mountain blast, I've laid me flat along,
And while gust followed gust more furiously,
As if to sweep me o'er the horrid brink,

And I have thought of other lands, whose storms

Are summer flaws to those of mine, and just

Have wished me there, the thought that mine was free, Has checked that wish, and I have raised my head,

And cried in thraldom to that furious wind,

BLOW ON!

THIS IS THE LAND OF LIBERTY!

CXCIV.

J. S. Knowles.

WILLIAM TELL AMONG THE MOUNTAINS.
WILLIAN

YE crags and peaks: I'm with you once again!

I hold to you the hands ye first beheld,

To show they still are free. Methinks I hear
A spirit in your echoes answer me,

And bid your tenant welcome to his home

Again! O sacred forms, how proud you look!
How high you lift your heads into the sky!

How huge you are! how mighty, and how free!

Ye are the things that tower, that shine, whose smile
Makes glad, whose frown is terrible, whose forms,
Robed or unrobed, do all the impress wear
Of awe divine. Ye guards of liberty,

I'm with you once again! — I call to you
With all my voice! I hold my hands to you,
To show they still are free. I rush to you
As though I could embrace you!

Scaling yonder peak,

I saw an eagle wheeling near its brow
O'er the abyss: his broad-expanded wings
Lay calm and motionless upon the air,
As if he floated there without their aid,
By the sole act of his unlorded will,
That buoyed him proudly up. Instinctively
I bent my bow; yet kept he rounding still
His airy circle, as in the delight

Of measuring the ample range beneath

And round about; absorbed, he heeded not
The death that threatened him. I could not shoot!
'Twas Liberty! - I turned my bow aside,
And let him soar away!

J. S. Knowles.

CXCV.

THE BARON'S LAST BANQUET.

O'ER a low couch the setting sun had thrown its latest ray,

Where, in his last, strong agony, a dying warrior lay, The stern old Baron Rudiger, whose frame had ne'er been bent By wasting pain, till time and toil its iron strength had spent.

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'They come around me here, and say my days of life are o’er, — That I shall mount my noble steed and lead my band no more;

They come, and, to my beard, they dare to tell me now that I, Their own liege lord and master born, that I — ha! ha! must die.

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"And what is death? I've dared him cft, before the Paynim

spear;

Think he's entered at my gate ye has come to seek me here? I've met him, faced him, scorned him, when the fight was raging

hot;

I'll try his might, I'll brave his power! - defy—and fear him

not!

"Ho! sound the tocsin from my tower, and fire the culverin ; Bid each retainer arm with speed; call every vassal in.

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Up with my banner on the wall, the banquet board prepare,Throw wide the portal of my hall, and bring my armor there!"

An hundred hands were busy then; the banquet forth was spread,
And rung the heavy oaken floor with many a martial tread ;
While from the rich, dark tracery, along the vaulted wall,
Lights gleamed on harness, plume and spear, o'er the proud old
Gothic hall.

Fast hurrying through the outer gate, the mailed retainers poured, On through the portal's frowning arch, and thronged around the

board;

While at its head, within his dark, carved, oaken chair of state, Armed cap-à-pie, stern Rudiger, with gilded falchion, sat.

"Fill every beaker up, my men! pour forth the cheering wine! There's life and strength in every drop, thanksgiving to the vine!

Are ye all there, my vassals true? - mine eyes are waxing dim: Fill round, my tried and fearless ones, each goblet to the brim!

--

“Ye're there, but yet I see you not! — forth draw each trusty

sword,

And let me hear your faithful steel clash once around my board!
I hear it faintly! - louder yet! What clogs my heavy breath?
Up, all!
- and shout for Rudiger, 'Defiance unto death!'"

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