“Egg-shells, deary! I am brewing, Cock’s broth for my babe I’m stewing. When I skim off all the dripping, Then it will be fit for sipping.” XI. “Though five hundred years I’m chewing, Egg-shells never saw I brewing; Though five centuries I’m cheating, Ne’er have I seen cock’s broth eating.” XII. Quick the poker Nelly seizes; To the cradle now she races; Red-hot down its throat she crams it; With her might and main she rams it. XIII. Gone like lightning is the fairy; In its stead, there lies her deary— Her brave boy—her darling Terry, With his lip and cheek of cherry. JAMES CLARENCE MANGAN. THE FAIRY NURSE. Sweet babe! a golden cradle holds thee, And soft the snow-white fleece enfolds thee; In airy bower I’ll watch thy sleeping. Where branchy trees to the breeze are sweeping. Shuheen, sho, lulo lo! When mothers languish broken-hearted, When young wives are from husbands parted, Ah! little think the keeners lonely, They weep some time-worn fairy only. Shuheen, sho, lulo lo! Within our magic halls of brightness, Trips many a foot of snowy whiteness; Stolen maidens, queens of fairy— And kings and chiefs a sluagh shee airy. Shuheen, sho, lulo lo! Rest thee, babe! I love thee dearly, And as thy mortal mother nearly; Ours is the swiftest steed and proudest, That moves where the tramp of the host is loudest. Shuheen, sho, lulo lo! Rest, thee, babe! for soon thy slumbers Shall flee at the magic Koelshie’s numbers; In airy bower I’ll watch thy sleeping, Where branchy trees to the breeze are sweeping. Shuheen, sho, lulo lo! EDWARD WALSH. THE FAIRY THORN. AN ULSTER BALLAD. “Get up, our Anna dear, from the weary spinning wheel; For your father’s on the hill, and your mother is asleep: Come up above the crags, and we’ll dance a highland reel Around the fairy thorn on the steep.” At Anna Grace’s door ’twas thus the maidens cried, Three merry maidens fair in kirtles of the green; And Anna laid the rock and the weary wheel aside, The fairest of the four, I ween. They’re glancing through the glimmer of the quiet eve, Away in milky wavings of the neck and ankle bare; The merry-sliding stream in its sleepy song they leave, And the crags in the ghostly air: And linking hand and hand, and singing as they go, The maids along the hill-side have ta’en their fearless way Till they come to where the rowan trees in lonely beauty grow Beside the Fairy Hawthorn grey. The Hawthorn stands between the ashes tall and slim, Like matron with her twin grand-daughters at her knee; The rowan berries cluster o’er her low head grey and dim, In ruddy kisses sweet to see.