For they that earliest taste life's holiest feast

Must early fast, lest, grown too bold, they dare

Of them that follow after seize the share."

Then, though my pulse's beat forever ceased,

If where I slumbered thou shouldst chance to pass

Though grave-bound, I thy presence should discern. Heedless of coffin-lid and tangled grass,

Upward to kiss thy feet my lips would yearn;

And did one spark of love thy heart inflame,

With the old rapture I should call thy name.

DEPENDENCE.

WHAT would life keep for me if thou shouldst go? Beloved, give me answer; for my

art

Is pledged unto thy service, and my heart

Apart from thee nor joy nor grace doth know.

No arid desert, no wide waste of snow,

Looks drearier to exiled ones who

start

On their forced journey than, shouldst thou depart, This fair green earth to my dead hope would show. And like a drowning man who struggling clings With stiffened fingers to the rope that saves.

Thrown out to meet his deep need from the land,

So to thy thought I hold when sorrow's wings

Darken the sky, and 'mid the bitter

est waves

Of fate am succored by thy friendly hand.

Our

barque with skill, the proud waves seem to bear No nearer to that goal, and everywhere

Stretches an endless circle wide and dim,

So we do dream, treading the narrow path

Of life, between the bounds of day and night,

To-morrow turns this page so often conned.

But when to-morrow cometh, lo! it hath

The Still lies far off the unknown heaven beyond.

limits of to-day, and in its light

We sail the centre of a ceaseless round,

Forever circled by the horizon's rim; And fondly deem that from that faroff brim

Some sign will rise or some glad tidings sound.

But no

word comes, nor aught to

break the bound Of sea and sky all day with distance dim,

And

vanished quite when darkness, chill and grim, About the deep her sable shroud has wound.

So on the seas of life and time we drift, Within the circling limits of our fate, Expectant ever

breath.

of some solving

But no sound comes, no pitying hand doth lift

ROBERT DWYER JOYCE.

KILCOLEMAN CASTLE.

KILCOLEMAN CASTLE, an ancient and very picturesque ruin, once the residence of Spenser, hes on the shore of a small lake, about two miles to the west of Doneraile, in the county of Cork. It belonged once to the Earls of Desmond, and was who was hated by the Irish in consequence burned by their followers in 1598. Spenser, of his stringent advices to the English about the management of the refractory chiefs and minstrels, narrowly escaped unfortunately left behind, was burnt to with his life, and an infant child of his, death in the flames.

No sound of life was coming

From glen or tree or brake,
Save the bittern's hollow booming
Up from the reedy lake;
The golden light of sunset

Was swallowed in the deep, And the night came down with a sullen frown,

On Houra's craggy steep.

And Houra's hills are soundless:
But hark, that trumpet blast!
It fills the forest boundless,
Rings round the summits vast;
'Tis answered by another

From the crest of Corrin Mór,
And hark again the pipe's wild strain
By Bregoge's caverned shore!

Oh, sweet at hush of even

The trumpet's golden thrill; Grand 'neath the starry heaven The pibroch wild and shrill; Yet all were pale with terror,

The fearful and the bold,
Who heard its tone that twilight lone
In the poet's frowning hold!

Well might their hearts be beating;
For up the mountain pass,
By lake and river meeting

Came kern and galloglass,
Breathing of vengeance deadly,
Under the forest tree,

To the wizard' man who had cast the

ban

On the minstrels bold and free!

They gave no word of warning,
Round still they came, and on,
Door, wall, and ramparts scorning,
They knew not he was gone!
Gone fast and far that even,
All secret as the wind,

His treasures all in that castle tall,
And his infant son behind!

All still that castle hoarest;

Their pipes and horns were still, While gazed they through the forest, Up glen and northern hill; Till from the Brehon circle,

On Corrin's crest of stone,

A sheet of fire like an Indian pyre
Up to the clouds was thrown.

Then, with a mighty blazing,
They answered-to the sky;
It dazzled their own gazing,

So bright it rolled and high;
The castle of the poet-

The man of endless fameSoon hid its head in a mantle red Of fierce and rushing flame.

Out burst the vassals, praying
For mercy as they sped,
"Where was their master staying,
Where was the poet fled ?"
But hark! that thrilling screaming,
Over the crackling din,-
'Tis the poet's child in its terror wild,
The blazing tower within!

There was a warlike giant

Amid the listening throng; He looked with face defiant

On the flames so wild and strong; Then rushed into the castle,

And up the rocky stair,
But alas, alas! he could not pass
To the burning infant there!

The wall was tottering under,
And the flame was whirring round,
The wall went down in thunder,

And dashed him to the ground;
Up in the burning chamber

Forever died that scream.

And the fire sprang out with a wilder shout

And a fiercer, ghastlier gleam!