• The Harp that once through Tara’s halls
      The soul of music shed,
    Now hangs as mute on Tara’s walls
      As if that soul were fled.
    So sleeps the pride of former days,
      So glory’s thrill is o’er,
    And hearts that once beat high for praise
      Now feel that pulse no more!

    No more to chiefs and ladies bright
      The harp of Tara...

  • As by the shore, at break of day,
    A vanquished chief expiring lay,
    Upon the sands, with broken sword,
      He traced his farewell to the free;
    And there the last unfinished word
      He dying wrote, was “Liberty!”

    At night a sea-bird shrieked the knell
    Of him who thus for freedom fell:
    The words he wrote, ere evening came,
      ...

  • From “The Fire-Worshippers”
    “HOW sweetly,” said the trembling maid,
    Of her own gentle voice afraid,
    So long had they in silence stood,
    Looking upon that moonlight flood,—
    “How sweetly does the moonbeam smile
    To-night upon yon leafy isle!
    Oft in my fancy’s wanderings,
    I ’ve wished that little isle had wings,
    And we, within...

  • Robert Emmet
    O, BREATHE not his name! let it sleep in the shade,
    Where cold and unhonored his relics are laid;
    Sad, silent, and dark be the tears that we shed,
    As the night-dew that falls on the grave o’er his head.

    But the night-dew that falls, though in silence it weeps,
    Shall brighten with verdure the grave where he sleeps;
    And the...

  • Mr. Orator PUFF had two tones in his voice,
      The one squeaking thus, and the other down so;
    In each sentence he uttered he gave you your choice,
      For one half was B alt, and the rest G below.
        O! O! Orator Puff,
        One voice for an orator ’s surely enough.

    But he still talked away, spite of coughs and of frowns,
      So distracting...

  •   GOOD reader, if you e’er have seen,
        When Phœbus hastens to his pillow,
        The mermaids with their tresses green
      Dancing upon the western billow;
      If you have seen at twilight dim,
        When the lone spirit’s vesper hymn
        Floats wild along the winding shore,
    The fairy train their ringlets weave
      Glancing along the...