HOW OFT HAS THE BANSHEE CRIED.

How oft has the Banshee cried,

How oft has death untied

Bright links that Glory wove,

Sweet bonds entwined by Love!

Peace to each manly soul that sleepeth;

Rest to each faithful eye that weepeth;

Long may the fair and brave

Sigh o'er the hero's grave.

We're fallen upon gloomy days![1]

Star after star decays,

Every bright name, that shed

Light o'er the land, is fled.

Dark falls the tear of him who mourneth

Lost joy, or hope that ne'er returneth;

But brightly flows the tear,

Wept o'er a hero's bier.

Quenched are our beacon lights--

Thou, of the Hundred Fights![2]

Thou, on whose burning tongue

Truth, peace, and freedom hung!

Both mute,--but long as valor shineth,

Or Mercy's soul at war repineth,

So long shall Erin's pride

Tell how they lived and died.

[1] I have endeavored here, without losing that Irish character, which it

is my object to preserve throughout this work, to allude to the sad and

ominous fatality, by which England has been deprived of so many great and

good men, at a moment when she most requires all the aids of talent and

integrity.

[2] This designation, which has been before applied to Lord Nelson, is the

title given to a celebrated Irish Hero, in a Poem by O'Guive, the bard of

O'Niel, which is quoted in the "Philosophical Survey of the South of

Ireland," page 433. "Con, of the hundred Fights, sleep in thy grass-grown

tomb, and upbraid not our defeats with thy victories."