DENIS FLORENCE MACCARTHY.

of time!

[Denis Florence Mac Carthy was born in These grey old pillar temples-these conquerors 1817. One of his finest and most spirit-stirring poems describes the glories of the Clan of Mac Caura, and Mr. Mac Carthy can claim descent from the great Irish sept, of which he

is the poet. To the Nation in its early days Mr. Mac Carthy was a constant contributor, and some of his finest and best poems belong to that period. In 1850 the first collected edition of his works appeared, under the title Ballads, Poems, and Lyrics. In addition to the original pieces there were translations from most of the European languages, Mr. Mac Carthy, like Mangan, Lady Wilde, and several other Irish singers, being a student of For the proudest works of man, as certainly, but other literatures besides his own. In 1853 he

Beside these grey old pillars, how perishing and

weak

The

Roman's arch of triumph, and the temple of And the gold domes of Byzantium, and the pointed Gothic spires:

the Greek,

All are gone, one by one, but the temples of our

sires!

slower,

gave further proof of both his poetic talents Pass like the grass at the sharp scythe of the mower! and linguistic attainments by publishing trans

mirth,

On the wing of the Spring comes the goddess of the Earth;

lations of Calderon's dramas, a work which But the grass grows again, when, in majesty and received eulogies, not only from the judgment of his countrymen, but from the less partial estimates of English critics. In 1857 appeared a second collection of poems under the title Under-Glimpses and other Poems, and in the same year was also published the Bell-founder and other Poems. A prose work, Shelley's Early Life from Original Sources (1872), brought out some highly interesting facts in reference to the great English poet, especially as to that period of his youth when he for a while threw himself into the struggles of Ireland for the amelioration of her laws. "Waiting for the May" is one of Mr. Mac Carthy's The names of their founders have vanished in the best known and most admired lyrics.1 In the Centenary of Moore he was naturally chosen to take a leading part, and composed an ode which was fully worthy of the great occasion. Mr. Mac Carthy has also edited an excellent sclection of Irish ballads.]

stand

By the lakes and rushing rivers, through the valleys of our land!

In mystic file, through the isle, they lift their heads sublime,

The column, with its capital, is level with the dust, And the proud halls of the mighty, and the calm homes of the just;

This poem was erroneously attributed to James Clarence Mangan by Samuel Lover, and was so printed in a part of the early impression of vol. iii. of the Cabinet.

But for man, in this world, no spring-tide e'er re

turns

To the labours of his hands or the ashes of his urns!

Two favourites hath Time-the pyramids of Nile,
And the old mystic temples of our own dear isle;
As the breeze o'er the seas, where the halcyon has

its nest,

Thus Time o'er Egypt's tombs and the temples of the West!

gloom,

Like the dry branch in the fire or the body in the tomb;

But to-day, in the ray, their shadows still they

cast

Around these walls have wandered the Briton and the Dane

THE PILLAR TOWERS OF IRELAND.

The captives of Armorica, the cavaliers of SpainThe pillar towers of Ireland, how wondrously they Phoenican and Milesian, and the plundering Nor

These temples of forgotten gods-these relics of the past!

man peersAnd the swordsmen of brave Brian, and the chiefs of later years.

How many different rites have these grey old temples known!

To the mind, what dreams are written in these chronicles of stone!

What terror and wnat error, what gleams of love And stately the mansions whose pinnacles glance

and truth,

Through the elms of Old England and vineyards of France;

Have flashed from these walls since the world was
in its youth!

Many have fallen, and many will fall—
Good men and brave men have dwelt in them all-
But as good and as brave men, in gladness and
sorrow,

Have dwelt in the halls of the princely Mac Caura!

Here blazed the sacred fire, and when the sun was
gone,

As a star from afar to the traveller it shone;
And the warm blood of the victim have these grey
old temples drunk,

Montmorency, Medina, unheard was thy rank

And the death-song of the Druid, and the matin By the dark-eyed Iberian and light-hearted Frank, And your ancestors wandered, obscure and unknown,

of the Monk.

Here was placed the holy chalice that held the sacred wine,

By the smooth Guadalquivir, and sunny Garonne

And the gold cross from the altar, and the relics Ere Venice had wedded the sea, or enrolled from the shrine, The name of a Doge in her proud "Book of Gold;" And the mitre shining brighter with its diamonds When her glory was all to come on like the morrow, than the East, There were chieftains and kings of the clan of Mac And the crozier of the Pontiff, and the vestments Caura! of the Priest!

Proud should thy heart beat, descendant of Heber, 3 Where blazed the sacred fire, rung out the vesper Lofty thy head as the shrines of the Guebre, bell,Like them are the halls of thy forefathers shattered,

Where the fugitive found shelter, became the her

mit's cell;

Like theirs is the wealth of thy palaces scattered. And hope hung out its symbol to the innocent and Their fire is extinguished-your banner long furledFor the Cross o'er the moss of the pointed summit But how proud were ye both in the dawn of the stood! world!

good,

There may it stand for ever, while this symbol doth impart

ages,
Whose deeds are inscribed on the pages of story,
There for ever to live in the sunshine of glory-
Heroes of history, phantoms of fable,
Charlemagne's champions, and Arthur's Round
Table-

Oh! but they all a new lustre could borrow
From the glory that hangs round the name of Mac
Caura!

temples last,

To the mind one glorious vision, or one proud throb
to the heart;
While the breast needeth rest may these grey old What a moment of glory to cherish and dream on,
When far o'er the sea came the ships of Heremon,
Bright prophets of the future, as preachers of the With Heber, and Ir, and the Spanish patricians,
To free Inis-Fail from the spells of magicians.
Oh! reason had these for their quaking and pallor,
For what magic can equal the strong sword of
valour?

past!

Thy waves, Manzanares, wash many a shrine,
And proud are the castles that frown o'er the Rhine,

THE CLAN OF MAC CAURA.1

Oh bright are the names of the chieftains and

sages,

That shine like the stars through the darkness of From that hour a Mac Caura had reigned in his

pride

O'er Desmond's green valleys and rivers so wide.
From thy waters, Lismore, to the torrents and rills

1 Mac Carthy-Mac Cartha (the correct way of spelling the name in Roman characters)-is pronounced in Irish Mac Caura, the th or dotted t having in that language the soft sound of h.

And should both fade away, oh! what heart would not sorrow

O'er the towers of the Guebre-the name of Mac
Caura!

Better than spells are the axe and the arrow,
When wielded or flung by the hand of Mac Caura!4

2 Montmorency and Medina are respectively at the head of the French and Spanish nobility.-The first⚫ Doge elected in Venice in 709. Voltaire considered the families whose names were inscribed in The Book of Gold at the founding of the city as entitled to the first place in European nobility.-Burke's Commoners.

3 The Mac Carthys trace their origin to Heber Fionn, the eldest son of Milesius, King of Spain, through Oilioll Olium, King of Munster, in the third century.- Shrines of the Guebre, the Round Towers.

Heremon and Ir were also the sons of Milesius.-The people who were in possession of the country when the Milesians invaded it, were the Tuatha de Danaans, so called, says Keating, “from their skill in necromancy, of whom some were so famous as to be called gods."

That are leaping for ever down Brandon's brown | In thy story's bright garden the one spot of bleakhills;

ness

The billows of Bantry, the meadows of Bear,
The wilds of Evaugh, and the groves of Glancare-
From the Shannon's soft shores to the banks of
the Barrow-

All owned the proud sway of the princely Mac
Caura!

In the house of Miodchuart,1 by princes surrounded,

How noble his step when the trumpet was sounded,
And his clansmen bore proudly his broad shield
before him,

And hung it on high in that bright palace o'er him;
On the left of the monarch the chieftain was seated, The chiefs of your house of Lough Lene and Clan
And happy was he whom his proud glances

Awley,

Flashed bright as the sun on the walls of Eamhain-
There Dathy and Niall bore trophies of war,
From the peaks of the Alps and the waves of the
Loire: 3

But no knight ever bore from the hills of Ivaragh
The breast-plate or axe of a conquered Mac Caura!

greeted;

O'Donogh, Mac Patrick, O'Driscoll, MacAwley, 'Mid monarchs and chiefs at the great Feis of O'Sullivan More from the towers of Dunkerron,

Tara

Oh! none was to rival the princely Mac Caura!

And O'Mahon the chieftain of green Ardinterran? As the sling sends the stone, or the bent bow the arrow,

To the halls of the Red Branch, when conquest Every chief would have come at the call of Mac
was o'er,
Caura!

The champions their rich spoils of victory bore, 2
And the sword of the Briton, the shield of the
Dane,

In chasing the red-deer what step was the fleetest, In singing the love-song what voice was the sweetest

Through ages of valour the one hour of weakness! Thou, the heir of a thousand chiefs, sceptred and royal

Thou, to kneel to the Norman and swear to be loyal!

Oh! a long night of horror, and outrage, and

sorrow,

Have we wept for thy treason, base Diarmid Mac
Caura!

1 The house of Miodchuart was an apartment in the palace of Tara, where the provincial kings met for the despatch of public business, at the Feis (pronounced as one syllable), or parliament of Tara, which assembled then once in every three years: the ceremony alluded to is described in detail by Keating. See Petrie's "Tara."

2 The house of the Red Branch was situated in the stately palace of Eamhain (or Emania), in Ulster; here the spoils taken from the foreign foe were hung up, and the chieftains who won them were called Knights of the Red Branch.

Oh! why, ere you thus to the foreigner pandered, Did you not bravely call round your Emerald standard,

3 Dathy was killed at the Alps by lightning, and Niall (his uncle and predecessor) by an arrow fired from the opposite side of the river by one of his own generals as he sat in his tent on the banks of the Loire in France.

Mac Caura, the pride of thy house is gone by,

5

What breast was the foremost in courting the But its name cannot fade, and its fame cannot die— Though the Arigideen, with its silver waves, shine

danger-

What door was the widest to shelter the stranger-
In friendship the truest, in battle the bravest-
In revel the gayest, in council the gravest-
A hunter to-day, and a victor to-morrow?
Oh! who but a chief of the princely Mac Caura!

Soon, soon, didst thou pay for that error in woe-4
Thy life to the Butler-thy crown to the foe-
Thy castles dismantled, and strewn on the sod—
And the homes of the weak, and the abbeys of God!
No more in thy halls is the wayfarer fed-
Nor the rich mead sent round, nor the soft heather
spread-

Around no green forests or castles of thine-
Though the shrines that you founded no incense
doth hallow,

Nor hymns float in peace down the echoing
Allo5_

But, oh! proud Mac Caura, what anguish to One treasure thou keepest-one hope for the

touch on

morrow

The one fatal stain of thy princely escutcheon

True hearts yet beat of the clan of Mac Caura!

Nor the clairsech's sweet notes, now in mirth, now

in sorrow

All, all have gone by, but the name of Mac Caura!

THE SEASONS OF THE HEART.

The different hues that deck the earth
All in our bosoms have their birth-
'Tis not in blue or sunny skies,
'Tis in the heart the Summer lies!

Diarmid Mac Carthy, King of Desmond, and Daniel O'Brien, King of Thomond, were the first of the Irish princes to swear fealty to Henry the Second.

5 The Arigdeen means the little silver stream, and