While thoughts like these come rushing o’er our mind, Oh! may we still indulgence hope to find! Brave sons of Erin! whose distinguish’d name Shines with such brilliance in the page of Fame, And you, fair daughters of the Emerald Isle! View our weak efforts with approving smile! School’d in rough camps, and still disdaining art, Ill can the soldier act a borrow’d part; The march, the skirmish, in this warlike age, Are his rehearsals, and the field his stage; His theatre is found in every land, Where wave the ensigns of a hostile band: Place him in danger’s front--he recks not where-- Be your own Wellington his prompter there, And on that stage he trusts, with fearful mien, He’ll act his part in glory’s tragic scene. Yet here, though friends are gaily marshall’d round, And from bright eyes alone he dreads a wound, Here, though in ambush no sharpshooter’s wile Aims at his breast, save hid in beauty’s smile; Though all unused to pause, to doubt, to fear, Yet his heart sinks, his courage fails him here. No scenic pomp to him its aid supplies, No stage effect of glittering pageantries: No, to your kindness he must look alone To realise the hope he dares not own; And trusts, since here he meets no cynic eye, His wish to please may claim indemnity. And why despair, indulgence when we crave From Erin’s sons, the generous and the brave? Theirs the high spirit, and the liberal thought, Kind, warm, sincere, with native candour fraught; Still has the stranger, in their social isle, Met the frank welcome and the cordial smile, And well their hearts can share, though unexpress’d, Each thought, each feeling, of the soldier’s breast. [5] These verses were written about the same time as the preceding humorous epitaphs. [As, in the present collected edition of the writings of Mrs Hemans, chronological arrangement has been for the first time strictly attended to, a selection from her Juvenile compositions has been given, chiefly as a matter of curiosity--for her real career as an authoress cannot be said to have commenced before the publication of the section which immediately follows.