September, Eighteen-three, Closed this cruel history, When Emmett's blood the scaffold flowed upon O, had their spirits been wise, They might then realize Their freedom--but we drink to Mitchell that is gone, boys, gone: Here's the memory of the friends that are gone! A FOLK VERSE When you were an acorn on the tree top, Then was I an eagle cock; Now that you are a withered old block, Still am I an eagle cock. NOTES Page xxi, lines 21 to 25. A well-known poet of the Fenian times has made the curious boast--'Talking of work--since Sunday, two cols. notes, two cols. London gossip, and a leader one col., and one col. of verse for the _Nation_. For _Catholic Opinion_, two pages of notes and a leader. For _Illustrated Magazine_, three poems and a five col. story.' Page 1. 'The deserted village' is Lissoy, near Ballymahon, and Sir Walter Scott tells of a hawthorn there which has been cut up into toothpicks by Goldsmith enthusiasts; but the feeling and atmosphere of the poem are unmistakably English. Page 8. Some verses in 'The Epicurean' were put into French by Théophile Gautier for the French translation, and back again into English by Mr. Robert Bridges. If any Irish reader who thinks Moore a great poet, will compare his verses with the results of this double distillation, and notice the gradual disappearance of their vague rhythms and loose phrases, he will be the less angry with the introduction to this book. Moore wrote as follows-- You, who would try Yon terrible track, To live or to die, But ne'er to turn back. You, who aspire To be purified there, By the terror of fire, Of water, and air,-- If danger, and pain, And death you despise, On--for again Into light you shall rise: Rise into light With the secret divine, Now shrouded from sight By a veil of the shrine. These lines are certainly less amazing than the scrannel piping of his usual anapæsts; but few will hold them to be 'of their own arduous fullness reverent'! Théophile Gautier sets them to his instrument in this fashion, Vous qui voulez courir La terrible carrière, Il faut vivre ou mourir, Sans regard en arrière: Vous qui voulez tenter L'onde, l'air, et la flamme, Terreurs à surmonter Pour épurer votre âme, Si, méprisant la mort, Votre foi reste entière, En avant!--le coeur fort Reverra la lumière. Et lira sur l'autel Le mot du grand mystère, Qu'au profane mortel Dérobe un voile austère. Then comes Mr. Robert Bridges, and lifts them into the rapture and precision of poetry-- O youth whose hope is high, Who dost to truth aspire, Whether thou live or die, O look not back nor tire. Thou that art bold to fly Through tempest, flood, and fire, Nor dost not shrink to try Thy heart in torments dire: