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I.

Sons of Erin, march on-grasp your swords, shields, and lances

Whirl around the swift sling-draw the death-shafted bow-

And spur the bold steed, that impatiently prances
To trample in slaughter the bands of the foe-
For see! o'er your lines,
How gloriously shines

The "SUN-BURST," resplendently blazing on high!
And a thousand harps sound

Their loud notes around,

That call on the valiant to conquer or die!

II.

On, on, to the charge-Lochlin's chiefs set in motion,
Her myriads from Alba to Thyle's icy shore ;3

But, though countless, the waves of that vast raging ocean Shall meet with the rocks they've been dashed from before:

Maolmorda may bring,

'Gainst his country and king,

Yon barbarous invaders that darken the field;

Their glory, ere night,

Shall vanish in flight,

For Freedom's our spear and Religion our shield.

'The signal for engaging, among the ancient Irish, was given by elevating the royal standard, called Gall-grena, or the "blazing-sun."

Bright waving from its staff on air,
Gall-grena high was raised,

With gems that India's wealth declare,

In radiant pomp it blazed.

Miss Brooke's Reliques of Ancient Irish Poetry, p. 58.

2 "The word Alba, not Albin, is the Irish name for Scotland."O'Reilly, Transactions of the Royal Irish Academy, vol. xvI. part ii. p. 186.

3 Thule, or Iceland, according to the opinion of many eminent authorities, was well known to, and visited by, the Irish, even so early as the fifth century. They called it Inis-Thyle, the island of Thyle.-See Lanigan, Eccles. Hist. vol. 1. p. 401, and vol. 111. p. 220, and 224

to 228.

III.

Hark! that wide-clashing signal!—the foe calls on Odin !(Grim fiend, on whose altars what thousands have bled!)2 But Erin still boasts the same valour that glowed in Her sons, when by Brian to victory led: 'Tis true, that no more

The king we adore

Can lead us, to scatter the Infidel's might;
Yet is Murrough not here?

And, what heart can know fear,

While that "sword of his country" is brandished in fight?

IV.

In vain, to his chieftains, dark Broder engages
To give thy green fields to the plundering Dane ;3
Beloved island of heroes, of saints and of sages!
Thou never shalt crouch to a conqueror's chain !

I Mallet, speaking of the ancient Scandinavians, says, "When they were going to join battle, they raised great shouts, they clashed their arms together, they invoked with a great noise the name of Odin, and sometimes sung hymns in his praise."-Northern Antiquities, vol. 1. chap. ix. p. 237.

2 For an account of the human sacrifices of the Heathen Danes, Norwegians, and Swedes, see Mallet, vol. 1. chap. vii. p. 132 to 139.

3 The following vivid and characteristic description of the famous Broder, who slew the monarch Brian, is literally translated from an old Scandinavian annalist. "Broder, after having embraced Christianity, and having been advanced even to deacon's orders, had apostatized, and, turning a blasphemer of God, became a worshipper of the deities of the Gentiles. He far surpassed every other person in the knowledge of magic, and, when arrayed in military armour, he was able to ward off any weapon. Moreover, he was of great stature and powerful strength; and his hair, the black colour of which darkened his countenance, he wore of such a length that he could have covered it with his belt."(Johnstone's Antiquitates Celto-Scandicæ, p. 113.) Of the sanguinary and rapacious resolution of the Pagan Danes, in case of success, with regard to the Milesian Irish, the following account is given from a Latin chronicle of a contemporary French writer, Ademar, a monk of St. Eparchius of Angouleme. "About this period," says the annalist, "the Northmen already mentioned, undertaking an enterprise, the victorious conclusion of which their forefathers never presumed upon, invaded, with an innumerable fleet, and accompanied with their wives, their children, and their Christian captives, whom they reduced to be their slaves, the island Hibernia, likewise called Irlanda, in order that, THE IRISH BEING

EXTERMINATED, THEY MIGHT COLONIZE THAT MOST OPULENT COUN

TRY FOR THEMSELVES."-Labbe, Nov. Bibl. MSS. libr. tom. 2, ap. Lanigan, Eccles. Hist. vol. 111. p. 423.

Our fathers defied,

And humbled the pride

Of Rome's haughty legions that vanquished the world;1 Then, Canute ! send forth

All the powers of the North!

Thy spell-woven RAVEN to earth shall be hurled !"

V.

Oh THOU! Who this day upon Calvary suspended,
Expired on the cross for the sins of mankind;
Oh THOU! Who when ruin o'er Israel impended,
From five mighty monarchs for vengeance combined,
Caused the sun to stand still,

O'er Gibéon's bright hill,

Till the hosts of the Gentile lay writhing in dust;3
Then, Lord! let THY name

Fill yon Heathens with shame,

For in THEE is our refuge, our hope, and our trust!

1 According to the combined testimony of Irish and Roman history, the numerous defeats and final expulsion of the "lords of the world" from Britain, were chiefly attributable to the valour of the Irish, then styled Scots, in conjunction with their dependent allies, the Picts. Opposed to their united attack, the enormous barrier of the Roman wall, which stretched from sea to sea across the island, proved unavailing; and, while their Saxon confederates ravaged the coasts of England by sea, the Scots and Picts extended their predatory incursions through the interior of the province. Nor are the maritime invasions of Britain and Gaul by several of the ancient kings of Ireland-especially those of Crimthan or Criomthan I., Nial the Great, and Dathy-less celebrated. -See O'Conor's Introduction to Dissertations on the History of Ireland, sect. xiv. p. 23.

2 The ensign of the ancient Danes was a raven. On the defeat of Hubba, the Dane, in the reign of the great Alfred, Hume relates that Oddune, Earl of Devonshire, captured "the famous Reafen, or enchanted standard, in which the Danes put great confidence. It contained the figure of a raven, which had been enwoven by the three sisters of Hinguar and Hubba, with many magical incantations, and which, by its different movements, prognosticated, as the Danes believed, the good or bad success of any enterprise." The same ill-omened bird continued to be the Danish ensign in the age of Brian Boru. "At their disembarkation on the English coast," says M. Thierry, of Sweyn's successful expedition against England, "the Danes, formed into battalions, displayed a banner of white silk, in the centre of which was embroidered a raven opening his beak and spreading his wings."-Hist. of the Norman Conquest, vol. 1. p. 136.

3 Joshua, chap. x.

VI.

Sons of Erin, march on-grasp your swords, shields, and lances

Whirl around the swift sling, draw the death-shafted bow

And spur the bold steed, that impatiently prances
To trample in slaughter the bands of the foe--
For see! o'er your lines,

How gloriously shines

The "SUN-BURST," resplendently blazing on high!
And a thousand harps sound

Their loud notes around,

That call on the valiant to conquer or die!
January 10th, 1829.

FAREWELL TO MY BOOK.

Here goes for a swim on the stream of old Time,
On those buoyant supporters, the bladders of rhyme!
If our weight breaks them down, and we sink in the flood,
We are smother'd, at least, in respectable mud.-BYRON.

My dear little volume, it seems you are grown
Old enough, as they say, for a will of your own;
And, no longer content to be kept for the pleasure
Of myself, or a friend, in our moments of leisure,
You wish, though the danger of print I've foretold,
To aim at a suit of morocco and gold.

Well, take your own way, since no effort can stop
Your rage to be seen in the bookseller's shop.

But, as soon as yourself and your parent are slandered,
In the Mail, and the Packet, the Times, and the Standard;
Magazines and reviews all unite to decry you,

And others, to still meaner uses, apply you ;1

1 From dusty shops neglected authors come,
Martyrs of pies, &c.-DRYDEN.

You'll think on the silly career you have run,
And, comparing yourself with the prodigal son,
Lament that you cannot, like him, to your cost,
By repentance regain what by folly you lost.
Yet why thus debate? since my warning you mock,
Like your brother in rashness, the obstinate cock,
Who, laughing at all his good parent could tell,
Disobeyed her advice, and was drowned in the well.
Then go but when Edinburgh's critic appears,
Beneath ev'ry slice of whose merciless shears
The "membra disjecta poetæ❞ are lopped,
As Melanthius of old by Ulysses was cropped,1
Like Hassan, the Persian, when cursing the day
That led him from Shiraz through deserts to stray,"
With feelings of deep but unpitied regret,
You'll wish you remained in my custody yet.
January, 1839.

1 See the Odyssey, book xxii. v. 510, &c., by Pope, whose modest paraphrase of the original Greek is preferable to the more literal indelicacy of Cowper's version.

2 Sad was the hour, and luckless was the day,
When first from Shiraz' walls I bent my way!

COLLINS'S Hassan, or the Camel-Driver.

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