That we perish of despair
In this land, on this soil,
Where our destiny is set,
Which we cultured with our toil,
And watered with our sweat?
We have ploughed, we have sown
But the crop was not our own;
We have reaped, but harpy hands
Swept the harvest from our lands;
We were perishing for food,
When lo! in pitying mood,
Our kindly rulers gave
The fat fluid of the slave,

While our corn filled the manger
Of the war-horse of the stranger!

God of mercy! must this last?
Is this land preordained,
For the present and the past

And the future, to be chained,-
To be ravaged, to be drained,

To be robbed, to be spoiled,

To be hushed, to be whipt, Its soaring pinions clipt, And its every effort foiled?

Do our numbers multiply
But to perish and to die?

Is this all our destiny below,

That our bodies, as they rot,

May fertilize the spot

Where the harvests of the stranger grow?

If this be, indeed, our fate,

Far, far better now, though late,

That we seek some other land and try some other

zone;

The coldest, bleakest shore

Will surely yield us more

Than the storehouse of the stranger that we dare not call our own.

Kindly brothers of the West,

Who from Liberty's full breast

Have fed us, who are orphans beneath a stepdame's frown,

Behold our happy state,

And weep your wretched fate

That you share not in the splendors of our empire and our crown!

Kindly brothers of the East,

Thou great tiaraed priest,

Thou sanctified Rienzi of Rome and of the

earth,

Or thou who bear'st control

Over golden Istambol,

Who felt for our misfortunes and helped us in

our dearth,—

Turn here your wondering eyes,

Call your wisest of the wise,

Your muftis and your ministers, your men of deepest lore;

Let the sagest of your sages

Ope our island's mystic pages,

And explain unto your highness the wonders of

our shore.

A fruitful, teeming soil,

Where the patient peasants toil

Beneath the summer's sun and the watery winter sky;

Where they tend the golden grain

Till it bends upon the plain,

Then reap it for the stranger, and turn aside to die;

Where they watch their flocks increase,

And store the snowy fleece

Till they send it to their masters to be woven o'er the waves;

Where, having sent their meat

For the foreigner to eat,

Their mission is fulfilled, and they creep into their graves.

"T is for this they are dying where the golden corn is growing,

"T is for this they are dying where the crowded herds are lowing,

'T is for this they are dying where the streams of life are flowing,

And they perish of the plague where the breeze of health is blowing!

DENIS FLORENCE MAC CARTHY.

5

IRELAND.

A SEASIDE PORTRAIT.

A GREAT, Still Shape, alone,

She sits (her harp has fallen) on the sand,
And sees her children, one by one, depart:—
Her cloak (that hides what sins beside her own!)
Wrapped fold on fold about her. Lo,
She comforts her fierce heart,

As wailing some, and some gay-singing go,
With the far vision of that Greater Land
Deep in the Atlantic skies,

Saint Brandan's Paradise!
Another Woman there,

Mighty and wondrous fair,

Stands on her shore-rock:-one uplifted hand Holds a quick-piercing light

That keeps long sea-ways bright;

She beckons with the other, saying “Come,
O landless, shelterless,

Sharp-faced with hunger, worn with long dis

tress

Come hither, finding home!

Lo, my new fields of harvest, open, free,

By winds of blessing blown,

Whose golden corn-blades shake from sea to seaFields without walls that all the people own!"

JOHN JAMES PIATT.

EXILE OF ERIN.

THERE came to the beach a poor exile of Erin, The dew on his thin robe was heavy and chill; For his country he sighed, when at twilight repairing

To wander alone by the wind-beaten hill. But the day-star attracted his eye's sad devotion, For it rose o'er his own native isle of the ocean, Where once, in the fire of his youthful emotion, He sang the bold anthem of Erin go bragh.

Sad is my fate! said the heart-broken stranger;
The wild deer and wolf to a covert can flee,
But I have no refuge from famine and danger,
A home and a country remain not to me.
Never again in the green sunny bowers
Where my forefathers lived shall I spend the sweet
hours,

Or cover my harp with the wild-woven flowers,
And strike to the numbers of Erin go bragh!

Erin, my country! though sad and forsaken,
In dreams I revisit thy sea-beaten shore;
But, alas! in a far foreign land I awaken,

And sigh for the friends who can meet me no more!

O cruel fate! wilt thou never replace me

In a mansion of peace, where no perils can chase me?

Never again shall my brothers embrace me?

They died to defend me, or live to deplore!