Ah! little think the keeners lonely
They weep some time-worn fairy only.
Shuheen sho, lulo lo !

Within our magic halls of brightness
Trips many a foot of snowy whiteness;
Stolen maidens, queens of fairy,

And kings and chiefs a sleagh shie,1 airy.
Shuheen sho, lulo lo!

Rest thee, babe! I love thee dearly,
And as thy mortal mother nearly;

Ours is the swiftest steed and proudest,

That moves where the tramp of the host is loudest ; Shuheen sho, lulo lo!

Rest thee, babe! for soon thy slumbers
Shall flee at the magic keol shie's2 numbers;
In airy bower I'll watch thy sleeping,

Where branchy trees to the breeze are sweeping
Shuheen sho, lulo lo!

1 Sleagh shie, fairy host.

2 Keol shie, fairy music.

JOHN WALSH
(1835-1881)

DRIMIN DONN DILIS1

H! drimin donn dilis! the landlord has come, Like a foul blast of death has he swept o'er our home;

He has withered our roof-tree-beneath the cold sky, Poor, houseless, and homeless, to-night must we lie.

My heart it is cold as the white winter's snow;
My brain is on fire, and my blood's in a glow.
Oh! drimin donn dilis, 'tis hard to forgive

When a robber denies us the right we should live.

With my health and my strength, with hard labor and toil,

I dried the wet marsh and I tilled the harsh soil;
I moiled the long day through, from morn until even,
And I thought in my heart I'd a foretaste of heaven.

The summer shone round us above and below,
The beautiful summer that makes the flowers blow:
Oh! 'tis hard to forget it, and think I must bear
That strangers shall reap the reward of my care.

1 Drimin donn dilis, "Dear brown cow."

Your limbs they were plump then-your coat it was silk,

And never was wanted the mether of milk;

For freely it came in the calm summer's noon,
While you munched to the time of the old milking

croon.

How often you left the green side of the hill,
To stretch in the shade and to drink of the rill!
And often I freed you before the gray dawn.
From your snug little pen at the edge of the bawn.

But they racked and they ground me with tax and with rent

Till my heart it was sore and my life-blood was spent: To-day they have finished, and on the wide world With the mocking of fiends from my home I was hurled.

I knelt down three times for to utter a prayer,
But my heart it was seared, and the words were not

there;

Oh! wild were the thoughts through my dizzy head

came,

Like the rushing of wind through a forest of flame.

I bid you, old comrade, a long last farewell;

For the gaunt hand of famine has clutched us too

well;

It severed the master and you, my good cow,

With a blight on his life and a brand on his brow.

TO MY PROMISED WIFE

DE

EAR maiden, when the sun is down,
And darkness creeps above the town,
The woodlands' green is changed to
brown,

And the mild light

Melting beneath the tall hills' frown
Steals into night,

I don an honest coat of gray,
And, setting stupid care at bay,
Across the fields of scented hay
I stroll along,

Humming some quaint old Irish lay
Or simple song.

And when, dear maid, I come to you,
A laughing eye of brightest blue,
And flushing cheek of crimson hue,
Tell whom I greet,

And bounds a little heart as true
As ever beat.

The green grass on the riverside,
The full moon dancing on the tide,
The half-blown rose that tries to hide
Her blush in dew,

Are fair; but none, my promised bride,
As fair as you.

And though, dear love, our gathered store
Of gold is small, the brighter ore
Of love's deep mine we'll seek the more,
And truth shall be

The guard beside our cottage-door,
Astor mo chroidhe!