THE TANE-AWAY.

THE summer sun was sinking

With a mild light calm and mellow,
It shone on my little boy's bonny cheeks,
And his loose locks of yellow.

The robin was singing sweetly,

And his song was sad and tender;

And my little boy's eyes, while he heard the song, Smiled with a sweet soft splendour.

My little boy lay on my bosom,

While his soul the song was quaffing, The joy of his soul had tinged his cheek, And his heart and his eye were laughing.

I sat alone in my cottage,

The midnight needle plying;

I feared for my child, for the rush's light
In the socket now was dying.

There came a hand to my lonely latch,
Like the wind at midnight moaning;

I knelt to pray, but rose again,

For I heard my little boy groaning.

I cross'd my brow, and I cross'd my breast,
But that night my child departed;
They left a weakling in his stead,
And I am broken-hearted.

THE ORPHAN MAID.

Oh! it cannot be my own sweet boy,
For his eyes are dim and hollow,
My little boy is gone to God,

And his mother soon will follow.

The dirge for the dead will be sung
And the mass be chanted meetly;
And I will sleep with my little boy,

for me,

In the moonlight churchyard sweetly.

187

"The woman, in whose character these lines are written, supposes her child stolen by a fairy. I need not mention how prevalent the superstition is in Ireland, which attributes most instances of sudden death to the agency of these spirits."-Translated from the German, by John Anster, Esq.

THE ORPHAN MAID.

NOVEMBER'S hail-cloud drifts away,
November's sun-beam wan

Looks coldly on the castle gray,
When forth comes Lady Anne.

The orphan by the oak was set,
Her arms, her feet were bare,
The hail-drops had not melted yet,
Amid her raven hair.

“And, dame,” she said, "by all the ties

That child and mother know,

Aid one who never knew these joys,

Relieve an orphan's woe."

The lady said, "An orphan's state

Is hard and sad to bear;

Yet worse the widow'd mother's fate,
Who mourns both lord and heir.

"Twelve times the rolling year has sped,
Since, while from vengeance wild
Of fierce Strathallan's chief I fled,
Forth's eddies whelmed my child."

"Twelve times the year its course has born," The wandering maid replied,

"Since fishers on St. Bridget's morn Drew nets on Campsie side.

"St. Bridget sent no scaly spoil

An infant, well nigh dead,

They saved, and rear'd in want and toil,
To beg from you her bread."

That orphan maid the lady kiss'd,—

My husband's looks you bear;

Saint Bridget and her morn be bless'd!

You are his widow's heir."

They've robed that maid, so poor and pale,

In silk and sandals rare;

And pearls, for drops of frozen hail,

Are glistening in her hair.

ANON.

THE BITTER PARTING.-SAILOR BOY. 189

THE BITTER PARTING.

AIR." GRAMACHREE."

ADIEU, my false inconstant love,
My conflict now is o'er,

And peace pervades that stormy breast,
Where passions raged before;
No tenderness my eye illumes,
Nor heaves my feverish breath,
My heart with anguish worn, assumes
A stillness, calm as death.

There was a time, when in my breast,

A mutual flame did burn,
Thou wouldst my kiss unshrinking meet,

My ardent press return;

But scenes of tender heart-felt love,

Now fade upon my view,

And no remembrance memory gives,

Save, thou wert aught but true.

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THE SAILOR BOY.

I loved by the bonny river Clyde,
To wander the lonely shore;

To hear the Sailor's song in the breeze,
And the wild wave's dashing roar.

W. M.

There Willy first told me his tale of love,
And my fond heart beat with joy;

Oh! nought on earth was so sweet to my ear,
As the voice of my Sailor boy.

He told me of far, far distant lands,

And of dangers he braved on the main,

And said he would face them a thousand times o'er, For the sake of his lovely Jane.

But Willy went to sea; and my

heart

No more can throb with joy;

For the hand of death, in a distant land,
Has been laid on my Sailor boy.

And now, by the shores of bonny Clyde,
The Sailor's song and the wave,

Makes

my poor heart chill, for they tell of him That's laid in the cold, cold grave.

I have no home of refuge here,
In poverty, without a friend,
To mix with mine one kindly tear-
Alone, I through the world bend
With Cæsar here, my playful pet,
My little all, and my flageolet.