It was spoken ere the Grecian or the Persian felt the chain, Ere Christianity's light arose to educate and tame The fierceness of the pagan, and free the world again. Its youth beheld the Semite on Irish coasts a guest, Whose manhood saw the empire of the Cæsars sink to rest In its old age, as a patriarch sinks silently to rest. In royal hall and peasant home its accents oft had rung; Oft the glories of his native land the enraptured minstrel sung, To king and nobles gathered round, in his wild, sweet, native tongue. Ah, sacred tongue, that oft has borne the message from above! Ah, pleasing tongue, whose murmurs soft, like the cooing of the dove, To patriots united it bore words of sweetest love. It was the tongue the apostle spoke in the days of long ago; In it the priest advised his flock in the penal days of woe; Its wild huzza at Fontenoy dismayed and beat the foe. Our Keltic tongue is dying and we stand coldly by, Without a pang within the heart, or a tear fall from the eye, Without a care to save it, or e'en a mournful sigh, To see it thus receding as the sunlight on the sea. Oh, rescue it 'ere 'tis too late; oh, raise your might to free The language of our fathers, from dark oblivion's sea. Shall it no more be spoken on Eire's fertile plain? Shall not her sons aspire no more to rend the iron chain, And light the fires of freedom that smouldered in its train? Oh, mute, forsaken tongue, must a captive's fate be thine, Crushed by a despot's sceptre, but to be the sign Of a ruined country, a desecrated shrine. Phenix of the fire and storm, shall it arising in its strength, Spurning the galling, servile yoke, gloriously be at length, Immortal and unconquerable, the language of Juvent. Worcester, Mass. J. SULLIVAN. A Chapter of Irish History in Boston.