358
AN GAODHAL.
Sure scenes like these no troubles e'er annoy!
Sure these denote one universal joy!
Are these thy serious thoughts? Ah ! turn thine eyes
Where the poor houseless shiv'ring female lies.
She once, perhaps, in village plenty blest,
Has wept at tales of innocence distrest;
Her modest looks the cottage might adorn,
Sweet as the primose peeps beneath the thorn,
Now lost to all; her friends, her virtue fled,
Near her betrayer's door she lays her head,
And, pinched with cold and shrinking from the
(shower
With heavy heart deplores that luckless hour
When idly first, ambitious of the town,
She left her wheel and robes of country brown.
Do thine, sweet Auburn, thine, the loveliest train:
Do thy fair tribes participate her pain?
E'en now, perhaps, by cold and hunger led,
At proud men's doors they ask a little bread!
Ah! no. To distant climes, a dreary scene,
Where half the convex world intrudes between,
Through torrid tracks with fainting steps they go,
Where wild Altama murmurs to their woe.
Far different there from all that charmed before,
The various terrors of that horrid shore —
Those blazing suns that dart a downward ray
And fiercely shed intolerable day;
Those matted woods where birds forget to sing,
But silent bats in drowsy clusters cling;
Those pois'nous fields, with rank luxuriance crown'd
Where the dark scorpion gathers death around;
Where at each step the stranger fears to wake
The rattling terrors of the vengeful snake;
Where crouching tigers wait their hapless prey,
And savage men more murd'rous still than they ;
While oft in whirls the mad tornado flies,
Mingling the ravag'd landscape with the skies.
Far different these from every former scene —
The cooling brook, the grassy-vested green,
The breezy covert of the warbling grove
That only shelter'd theft of harmless love:
Good heaven ! what sorrows gloom'd that parting
[day
That called them from their native walks away;
When the poor exiles, every pleasure past,
Hung round the bowers and fondly look'd their last,
And took a long farewell, and wish'd in vain
For seats like these beyond the western main;
And shudd'ring still to face the distant deep,
Return'd and wept, and still return'd to weep.
The good old sire, the first prepar'd to go
To new-found worlds, and went for others' woe;
But for himself, in conscious virtue brave,
He only wish'd for world beyond the grave.
His lovely daughter, lovelier in her tears,
The fond companion of his helpless years,
Silent went next, neglectful of her charms,
And left a lover's for her father's arms,
With louder plaints the mother spoke her woes,
And bless'd the cot where every pleasure rose,
And kiss'd her thoughtless babes with many a tear,
And clasped them close, in sorrow doubly dear;
While her fond husband strove to lend relief
In all the silent manliness of grief,
O luxury ! thou curst by heaven's decree,
How ill-exchang'd are things like those for thee!
How do thy potions, with insidious joy,
Diffuse their pleasures only to destroy!
Kingdoms by thee to sickly greatness grown
Boast of a florid vigor not their own.
At every draught more large and large they grow,
A bloated mass of rank, unwiedy woe,
Till, sapp'd their strength and every part unsound,
Down, down they sink and spread a ruin round.
E'en now the devastation is begun,
And half the business of destruction done.
E'en now, me thinks, as pond'ring here I stand,
I see the rural virtues leave the land.
Down where on anchoring vessel spreads her sail,
That, idly waiting, flaps with every gale,
Downward they move, a melancholy band,
Pass from the shore and darken all the strand.
Contented toil and hospitable care
And kind connubial tenderness are there,
And piety, with wishes plac'd above,
And steady loyalty and faithful love.
And thou, sweet Poetry, thou lovliest maid,
Still first to fly where sensual joys invade,
Unfit in these degenerate times of shame
To catch the heart or strike for honest fame;
Dear charming nymph, neglected and decry'd.
My shame in crowds, my solitary pride.
Thou source of all my bliss and all my woe,
That found'st me poor at first and keep'st me so;
Thou guide by which the noble arts excel,
Thou nurse of every virtue, fare the well.
Farewell, and O! where'er thy voice be try'd,
On Torno's cliffs or Pambamarca's side,
Whether where equinoctial fervors glow
Or winter wraps the polar world in snow,
Still let thy voice, prevailing over time,
Redress the rigors of th' inclement clime;
Aid slighted truth with thy persuasive strain;
Teach erring man to spurn the rage of gain;
Teach him that states of native strength possest.
Though very poor, may still be very blest;
That trade's proud empire hastes to swift decay,
As ocean sweeps the labor'd mole away,
While self-dependent power can time defy,
As rocks resist the billows and the sky.
(Conclusion)
The Irishmen of New York and vicinity can ob¬
tain gratuitous instruction in the language of Ire¬
land by calling at the rooms of the P. C. Society,
263 Bowery, on Thursday evenings from 8 to 10,
and on Sunday afternoons from 3 to 6, o'clock.
The Philadelphia Philo-Celtic Society meets at
Philopatrian Hall, 211 S. 12th St., every Sunday
evening, where it impart free instruction to all
who desire to cultivate a knowledge of the Celtic
tongue.
