All, alas! and well-away! "Oh, sister Ellen, sister sweet, Come with me to the hill I pray, And I will prove that blessed freet!" They rose with soft and silent feet, They left their mother where she lay, Their mother and her care discreet, (All, alas! and well-away!) And soon they reached the Fairy Well, The mountain's eye, clear, cold, and grey, Wide open in the dreary fell: How long they stood 'twere vain to tell, At last upon the point of day, Bawn Una bares her bosom's swell, (All, alas! and well-away!) Thrice o'er her shrinking breasts she laves Of subtly-streaming fairy waves:-- And now the charm three brackens craves, She plucks them in their fring'd array:-- Now round the well her fate she braves, All, alas! and well-away! Save us all from Fairy thrall! Ellen sees her face the rim Twice and thrice, and that is all-- Fount and hill and maiden swim All together melting dim! "Una! Una!" thou may'st call, Sister sad! but lith or limb (Save us all from Fairy thrall!) Never again of Una bawn, Where now she walks in dreamy hall, Shall eye of mortal look upon! Oh! can it be the guard was gone, The better guard than shield or wall? Who knows on earth save Jurlagh Daune? (Save us all from Fairy thrall!) Behold the banks are green and bare, No pit is here wherein to fall: Aye--at the fount you well may stare, But nought save pebbles smooth is there, And small straws twirling one and all. Hie thee home, and be thy pray'r, Save us all from Fairy thrall. TEIG O'KANE (TADHG O CÁTHÁN) AND THE CORPSE.[4] LITERALLY TRANSLATED FROM THE IRISH BY DOUGLAS HYDE. [I found it hard to place Mr. Douglas Hyde's magnificent story. Among the ghosts or the fairies? It is among the fairies on the grounds that all these ghosts and bodies were in no manner ghosts and bodies, but _pishogues_--fairy spells. One often hears of these visions in Ireland. I have met a man who had lived a wild life like the man in the story, till a vision came to him in County ---- one dark night--in no way so terrible a vision as this, but sufficient to change his whole character. He will not go out at night. If you speak to him suddenly he trembles. He has grown timid and strange. He went to the bishop and was sprinkled with holy water. "It may have come as a warning," said the bishop; "yet great theologians are of opinion that no man ever saw an apparition, for no man would survive it."--ED.]