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"Of her tears and her blood,

"Let the rainbow of Hope be her WELLINGTON'S name!"

THE TIME I'VE LOST IN WOOING.

AIR.-Peas upon a Trencher.

I.

THE time I've lost in wooing,

In watching and pursuing

The light that lies

In Woman's eyes,
Has been my heart's undoing.

Though Wisdom oft has sought me,
I scorn'd the lore she brought me,
My only books

Were Woman's looks,

And folly's all they've taught me.

II.

Her smile when Beauty granted,
I hung with gaze enchanted,

!

Like him, the Sprite,*
Whom maids by night

Oft meet in glen that's haunted.
Like him, too, Beauty won me,

But while her eyes were on me—
If once their ray

Was turn'd away,

Oh! winds could not outrun me.

III.

And are those follies going?

And is my proud heart growing

Too cold or wise

For brilliant eyes
Again to set it glowing?

No-vain, alas! th' endeavour

* This alludes to a kind of Irish Fairy, which is to be met with, they say, in the fields, at dusk ::—as long as you keep your eyes upon him, he is fixed and in your power; but the moment you look away (and he is ingenious in furnishing some inducement) he vanishes. I had thought that this was the sprite which we call the Leprechaun; but a high authority upon such subjects, Lady MORGAN (in a note upon her national and interesting Novel, O'Donnel) has given a very different account of that Goblin.

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"OH! haste and leave this sacred isle,

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* In a metrical life of St. Senanus, which is taken from an old Kilkenny MS. and may be found among the Acta Sanctorum Hiberniæ, we are told of his flight to the island of Scattery, and his resolution not to admit any woman of the party; he refused to receive even a sister saint, St. Cannera, whom an angel had taken to the island, for the express purpose of introducing her to him. The following was the ungracious answer of Senanus, according to his poetical biographer:

Cui Præsul, quid foeminis
Commune est cum monachis?

"For on thy deck, though dark it be.

"A female form I see;

"And I have sworn this sainted sod

"Shall ne'er by woman's feet be trod!"

THE LADY.

"Oh! Father, send not hence my bark
"Through wintry winds and billows dark
"I come with humble heart to share
"Thy morn and evening prayer;
"Nor mine the feet, oh! holy Saint,
"The brightness of thy sod to taint.”

The Lady's prayer SENANUS spurn'd;
The winds blew fresh, the bark return'd.
But legends hint, that had the maid

Till morning's light delay'd,
And given the saint one rosy smile,
She ne'er had left his lonely isle.

Nec te nec ullam aliam

Admittemus in insulam.

See the Acta Sanct. Hib. page 610.

According to Dr. Ledwich, St. Senanus was no less a personage than the river Shannon; but O'Connor, and other Antiquarians, deny this metamorphose indignantly.

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