No More Learning

No Cuirass o'er that glowing heart
The deadly bullet turned apart:
Love had bestowed a richer Mail,
Like Thetis on her Son;
But hers at last was vain, and thine could fail--
The hero's and the lover's race was run.
Thy worshipped portrait, thy sweet face,
_Without_ that bosom kept it's place
As Thou _within_.
Oh! enviously destined Ball!
Shivering thine imaged charms and all
Those Charms would win:
Together pierced, the fatal Stroke hath gored
Votary and Shrine, the adoring and the adored.
That Heart's last throb was thine, that blood
Baptized thine Image in it's flood,
And gushing from the fount of Faith
O'erflowed with Passion even in Death,
Constant to thee as in it's hour
Of rapture in the secret bower.
Thou too hast kept thy plight full well,
As many a baffled Heart can tell.

[From an autograph MS. in the possession of Mr. Murray, now for the
first time printed. ]




THE IRISH AVATAR. [ir][592]

"And Ireland, like a bastinadoed elephant, kneeling to receive the
paltry rider. "--[_Life of Curran_, ii. 336. ]


1.
Ere the daughter of Brunswick is cold in her grave,[593]
And her ashes still float to their home o'er the tide,
Lo! George the triumphant speeds over the wave,
To the long-cherished Isle which he loved like his--bride.

2.

True, the great of her bright and brief Era are gone,
The rain-bow-like Epoch where Freedom could pause
For the few little years, out of centuries won,
Which betrayed not, or crushed not, or wept not her cause.

3.

True, the chains of the Catholic clank o'er his rags,
The Castle still stands, and the Senate's no more,
And the Famine which dwelt on her freedomless crags
Is extending its steps to her desolate shore.

4.

To her desolate shore--where the emigrant stands
For a moment to gaze ere he flies from his hearth;
Tears fall on his chain, though it drops from his hands,
For the dungeon he quits is the place of his birth.

5.

But he comes! the Messiah of Royalty comes!
Like a goodly Leviathan rolled from the waves;
Then receive him as best such an advent becomes,[is]
With a legion of cooks,[594] and an army of slaves!

6.

He comes in the promise and bloom of threescore,
To perform in the pageant the Sovereign's part--[it]
But long live the Shamrock, which shadows him o'er!
Could the Green in his _hat_ be transferred to his _heart! _

7.