No more thy harp swells with enraptured emotion, Thy wild gleams of fancy for ever are fled, No longer thy minstrelsy charms this rude ocean, That rolls near the green turf that pillows thy head. Yet vigour and youth with bright visions had fired thee, And rose-buds of health have blown deep on thy cheek; The songs of the sweet bards of Erin inspired thee, And urged thee to wander like laurels to seek. Yes, oft hast thou sung of our kings crown’d with glory, Or, sighing, repeated the lover’s fond lay; And oft hast thou sung of the bards famed in story, Whose wild notes of rapture have long past away. Thy grave shall be screen’d from the blast and the billow, Around it a fence shall posterity raise; Erin’s children shall wet with their tears thy cold pillow, Her youths shall lament thee, and carol thy praise. * * * * * This is the eve of the Epiphany, or Twelfth-night eve, and is a night of preparation in some parts of England for the merriments which, to the present hour, distinguish Twelfth-day. Dr. Drake mentions that it was a practice formerly for itinerant minstrels to bear a bowl of spiced-wine to the houses of the gentry and others, from whom they expected a hospitable reception, and, calling their bowl a wassail-bowl, to drink wassail to their entertainers. These merry sounds of mirth and music are not extinct. There are still places wherein the wandering blower of a clarionet, and the poor scraper of as poor a fiddle, will this evening strain their instruments, to charm forth the rustic from his dwelling, and drink to him from a jug of warm ale, spiced with a race of ginger, in the hope of a pittance for their melody, and their wish of wassail. Of the wassail-bowl, much will appear before the reader in the after pages of this work. In certain parts of Devonshire, the farmer, attended by his workmen, with a large pitcher of cider, goes to the orchard this evening; and there, encircling one of the best bearing trees, they drink the following toast three times: “Here’s to thee, old apple-tree, hence thou mayst bud, and whence thou mayst blow! And whence thou mayst bear apples enow! Hats full! caps full! Bushel--bushel--sacks full, And my pockets full too! Huzza!”