rainbow shone.

His coat seem'd fashion'd of the threads of

gold,

That intertwine the clouds at sun-set hour, And, certes, Iris with her shuttle bold Wove the rich garment in her lofty bower; To form its buttons were the Pleiads old Pluck'd from their sockets by some geniepower,

And sew'd upon the coat's resplendent hem; Its neck was lovely green; each cuff a sapphire gem.

And never, since she first began to hop Up Heav'n's blue causeway, of her beams profuse,

Shone there a dawn so glorious and so gay, As shines the merry dawn of ANSTER Marketday.

Round through the vast circumference of sky One speck of small cloud cannot eye behold, Save in the East some fleeces bright of die, That stripe the hem of heav'n with woolly gold,

Whereon are happy angels wont to lie Lolling, in amaranthine flow'rs enroll'd, That they may spy the precious light of God Flung from the blessed East o'er the fair Earth abroad.

The fair Earth laughs through all her boundless range,

Heaving her green hills high to greet the beam;

City and village, steeple, cot and grange, Gilt as with nature's purest leaf-gold seem; The heaths and upland muirs, and fallows, change

Their barren brown into a ruddy gleam, And, on ten thousand dew-bent leaves and sprays,

Twinkle ten thousand suns and fling their petty rays.

Up from their nests and fields of tender corn Right merrily the little sky-larks spring, And on their dew-bedabbled pinions borne, Mount to the heav'n's blue key-stone flickering;

They turn their plume-soft bosoms to the

For, when the first up-sloping ray was flung On ANSTER Steeple's swallow-harb'ring top, It's bell and all the bells around were rung Sonorous, jangling loud without a stop, For toilingly each bitter beadle swung, Ev'n till he smok'd with sweat, his greasy rope,

And almost broke his bell-wheel, ush'ring in The morn of ANSTER-FAIR with tinkle-tankling din.

And, from our steeple's pinnacle out-spread,
The town's long colours flare and flap on high,
Whose anchor, blazon'd fair in green and red,
Curls pliant to each breeze that whistles by;
Whilst, on the boltsprit, stern, and topmast-
head

Of brig and sloop that in the harbour lie,
Streams the red gaudery of flags in air,
All to salute and grace the morn of ANSTER-
FAIR.

Then rose, in burst of hideous symphony. Of pibrochs and of tunes one mingled roar Discordantly the pipes squeal'd sharp and high,

The drones alone in solemn concord snore;

Five hundred fingers, twinkling funnily, Play twiddling up and down on hole and barr Now passage to the shrilly wind denying. And now a little rais'd to let it out a-sighing

Then rung the rocks and caves of Billyness
Reverberating back that concert's sound,
And half the lurking Echoes that possess
The glens and hollows of the Fifan ground
Their shadowy voices strain'd into excess
Of out-cry, loud huzzaing round and res%
To all the Dryads of Pitkirie wood,
That now they round their trees should d
in frisky mood

As when the sportsman with repart of 2a
Alarms the sea-fowl of the isle of May.
Ten thousand mews and gulis that s
the sun
Come flapping down in terrible dismay,

away;

Scarce can the boatman hear his plashing oar; Yell caves and eyries all, and rings each

With weeping flowers, or white cypresswreath,

The lone couch of his everlasting sleep:Gentle, and brave, and generous, -- no lorn bard Breathed o'er his dark fate one melodious sigh:

He lived, he died, he sang, in solitude. Strangers have wept to hear his passionate notes,

And virgins, as unknown he past, have pined And wasted for fond love of his wild eyes. The fire of those orbs has ceased to burn, And silence, too enamoured of that voice, Locks its mute music in her rugged cell.

Rugged and dark, winding among the springs
Of fire and poison, inaccessible
To avarice or pride. their starry domes
Of diamond and of gold expand above
Numberless and immeasurable halls,
Frequent with crystal column, and clear
shrines

Of pearl, and thrones radiant with chrysolite.
Nor had that scene of ampler majesty
Than gems or gold, the varying of heaven
And the green earth lost in his heart its claims
To love and wonder; he would linger long
In lonesome vales, making the wild his home,
Until the doves and squirrels would partake
From his innocuous hand his bloodless food,
Lured by the gentle meaning of his looks;
And the wild antelope, that starts whene'er
The dry leaf rustles in the brake, suspend
Her timid steps to gaze upon a form
More graceful than her own. His wandering
step,
Obedient to high thoughts, has visited
The awful ruins of the days of old :
Athens, and Tyre, and Balbec, and the waste
Where stood Jerusalem, the fallen towers
Of Babylon, the eternal pyramids,
Memphis and Thebes, and whatsoe'er of
strange
Sculptured on alabaster obelisk,
Or jasper tomb, or mutilated sphynx,
Dark Aethiopia in her desert hills
Conceals. Among the ruined temples there,
Stupendous columns, and wild images
Of more than man, where marble daemons
watch

The Zodiac's brazen mystery, and dead men Hang their mute thoughts on the mute walls around,

He lingered, poring in memorials Of the world's youth; through the long burning day

deathless voice pauses among mankind!

If there must be no response to my cryIf men must rise and stamp with fury blind On his pure name who loves them,-thou and I,

Two tranquil stars, while clouds are passing by,

Which wrap them from the foundering seaman's sight,

That burn from year to year with unextinguished light.

LINES

WRITTEN AMONG THE EUGANEAN HILLS.

SUN-GIRT City, thou hast been
Ocean's child, and then his queen;
Now is come a darker day,
And thou soon must be his prey,
If the power that raised thee here
Hallow so thy watery bier.
A less drear ruin then than now,
With thy conquest-branded brow
Stooping to the slave of slaves
From thy throne, among the waves
Wilt thou be, when the sea-mew
Flies, as once before it flew,
O'er thine isles depopulate,
And all is in its antient state,
Save where many a palace-gate
With green sea-flowers overgrown
Like a rock of ocean's own,
Topples o'er the abandoned sea
As the tides change sullenly.
The fisher on his watery way,
Wandering at the close of day,
Will spread his sail and seize his oar
Till he pass the gloomy shore,
Lest thy dead should, from their sleep
Bursting o'er the starlight deep,
Lead a rapid masque of death
O'er the waters of his path.

Those who alone thy towers behold Quivering through aerial gold, As I now behold them here, Would imagine not they were Sepulchres, where human forms, Like pollution-nourished worms, To the corpse of greatness cling, | Murdered, and now mouldering: But if Freedom should awake In her omnipotence, and shake From the Celtic Anarch's hold All the keys of dungeons cold, Where a hundred cities lie Chained like thee, ingloriously,