'TIS THE LAST ROSE OF SUMMER. Arr.-Groves of Blarney. I. 'Tis the last rose of summer, Left blooming alone; Are faded and gone; No rose-bud is nigh, Or give sigh for sigh ! II. I'll not leave thee, thou lone one ! To pine on the stem; Since the lovely are sleeping, Go, sleep thou with them ; Thus kindly I scatter Thy leaves o'er the bed, Where thy mates of the garden Lie scentless and dead. III. When friendships decay, The gems drop away! And fond ones are flown, This bleak world alone ? THE YOUNG MAY-MOON. Air.—The Dandy 0! I. How sweet to rove Through Morna's grove, a * “ Steals silently to Morna's Grove." See a translation from the Irish, in Mr. Bunting's collection, by Joun Brown, one of my earliest college companions and friends, whose death was as singularly melancholy and unfortunate as his life had been amiable, honourable, and exemplary. Then awake!-the heavens look bright, my dear! ways II. And I, whose star, More glorious far, Is the eye from that casement peeping, love! Then awake!-till rise of sun, my dear! The Sage's glass we'll shun, my dear! Or, in watching the flight Of bodies of light, THE MINSTREL-BOY. AIR.-The Moreen. I. The Minstrel-Boy to the war is gone, In the ranks of death.you'll find him, His father's sword he has girded on, And his wild harp slung behind him.“ Land of song!” said the warrior-bard, " Though all the world betrays thee, “ One sword, at least, thy rights shall guard, “ One faithful harp shall praise thee!” II. The Minstrel fell !--but the foeman's chain Could not bring his proud soul under ; For he tore its chords asunder; - Thou soul of love and bravery! and free, “They shall never sound in slavery!” pure THE SONG OF O’RUARK, PRINCE OF BREFFNI.* Air.-The pretty Girl milking her Cow. I. The valley lay smiling before me, Where lately I left her behind; * These stanzas are founded upon an event of most melancholy importance to Ireland, if, as we are told by our Irish historians, it gave England the first opportunity of profiting by our divisions and subduing us. The following are the circumstances as related by O'Halloran. “ The King of Leinster had long conceived a violent affection for Dearbhorgil, daughter to the King of Meath, and though she had been for some time married to O’Ruark, Prince of Breffni, yet it could not restrain his passion. They carried on a private correspondence, and she informed him that O’Ruark intended soon to go on a pilgrimage (an act of piety frequent in those days), and conjured him to embrace that opportunity of conveying her from a husband she detested to a lover she adored. Mac Murchad too punctually obeyed the summons, and had the lady conveyed to his capital of Ferns.”—Themonarch Roderic espoused the cause of O'Ruark, while Mac Murchad fled to England, and obtained the assistance of Henry II. “Such,” adds Giraldus Cambrensis (as I find him in an old translation), “is the variable and fickle nature of woman, by whom all mischief in the world (for the most part) do happen and come, as may appear by Marcus Antonius, and by the destruction of Troy." |