II. Shepherd kind, oh! lead us back; Christe eleison! Wrest us from our dangerous track, Christe eleison! Lest the wolves thy flock attack; Christe eleison! III. Ope for us again thy fold, Kyrie eleison! Night approaches, drear and cold; Kyrie eleison! Death, perchance, and woes untold; Kyrie eleison! Richard Storrs Willis. ---------- {32} The Modern Street-ballads Of Ireland. The home of the street-ballad, pure and simple, is in Ireland. It has nearly vanished in England, destroyed by the penny newspaper, which contains five times as highly spiced food for the money. In Ireland it still exists and supplies the place of the newspaper, not only in appeals to the passion or reason, but as a general chronicle of every event of importance, local or national, Very often both are combined, and the leading article and the account of political insult will be run into rude rhyme together, and the story of a murder be interspersed with reflections on its sin. The quantity of ballads is, of course, enormous, and to expect that any but a small portion should possess more poetry than a newspaper article would be unreasonable. But all are not of this prosaic class, and some possess the genuine spirit of poetry under their rude but often spirited diction. The first question naturally asked is, Whence comes this enormous flood of ballads? Who are the poets who produce them on every imaginable subject, even the most verse-defying public meeting, or in praise of humblest of politicians? Like the immortal Smiths and Joneses, that make the thunder of the _Times_, their names never appear, and though the ballad or the leading article--and both have done so--may influence the fate of nations, it will bring to the author only his stipulated hire. At present, the street-ballads of Ireland are mostly composed by the singers themselves. In ancient days, the weavers and tailors and the hedge-schoolmasters used to be a fruitful source of supply, the sedentary occupations of the former being popularly supposed to foster the poetic talent, The latter class has vanished, and if here and there one exists, it is in the shape of a red-nosed, white-haired veteran, who is entertained in farmers' houses and country _shebeens_, in memory of his ancient glory, when sesquipedalian, long words and "cute" problems made him the monarch of the parish next to the priest himself. However, the singer of the ballad is, in most instances, the writer, who is only anxious for a subject of interest on which to exercise his muse, and generally turns out half-a-dozen verses of the established pattern in half an hour. This he takes to the publisher, who not only allows him no copyright, but does not even make a discount in the price of his stock in trade, for which he pays the same as his brother bards, who, finding his ballad popular, will straightway strain their voices to it. But