Spirit of wordless Love, that in the lone Bowers of the Poet’s museful soul dost weave Tissues of thought, hued like the skies of eve, Ere the last glories of the sun have shone, How soon--almost before our hearts have known The change--above the ruins of thy throne-- Whose vanished beauty we would fain retrieve With all Earth’s thrones beside--we stand and grieve! We weep not, for the world’s chill breath hath bound In chains of ice the fountains of our tears, But ever-mourning Memory thenceforth rears Her altars upon desecrated ground, And always, with a low despairful sound, Tolls the disastrous bell of all our years! M. THE MANUFACTURE OF CLOTH. In the present limited and daily declining condition of the woollen manufacture in Ireland, so few individuals in the country can be acquainted with the mode of preparing the clothing of the sheep, and altering its form so as to make it suitable and fit for the clothing of man, that we deem a short account of the various processes through which it passes may be acceptable to many of our readers. When the sheep-shearer has taken off the fleece, he ties it up in a peculiar knot, which is not opened again until the wool-sorter takes it in hands. It is his business to open it, and having spread the fleece upon a table, and cast his eye over it, he separates it into the number of sorts required, the wool being of different degrees of fineness upon different parts of the animal. The coarse qualities of fleeces, from which low descriptions of cloths, kerseys, blankets, and friezes are made, are seldom divided into more than three sorts, the finer into four or five, and the finest Saxony into seven, eight, and sometimes nine. With the latter we have little to do in this country, there being but _one_ factory (that of Messrs Willans) where it is worked; and we shall therefore merely follow the progress of a piece of ordinary coarse cloth, there being but little difference between it and the finest in the general detail: indeed very little at all, except in the additional care and expense. The sorted wool having been carefully examined by women, and freed from straws and motes, is taken to the scouring department attached to the dye-house, where it is immersed in a hot ley with soap, and well scoured, after which it is washed in clean water and left to drain.