God of mercy! must this last? 
    Is this land preordained,
  For the present and the past
    And the future, to be chained,—­
    To be ravaged, to be drained,
  To be robbed, to be spoiled,
    To be hushed, to be whipt,
    Its soaring pinions clipt,
  And its every effort foiled?

  Do our numbers multiply
  But to perish and to die? 
    Is this all our destiny below,—­
  That our bodies, as they rot,
  May fertilize the spot
    Where the harvests of the stranger grow? 
    If this be, indeed, our fate,
    Far, far better now, though late,
  That we seek some other land and try some other zone;
    The coldest, bleakest shore
    Will surely yield us more
  Than the storehouse of the stranger that we dare not call our own.

    Kindly brothers of the West,
    Who from Liberty’s full breast
  Have fed us, who are orphans beneath a step-dame’s frown,
    Behold our happy state,
    And weep your wretched fate
  That you share not in the splendors of our empire and our crown!

    Kindly brothers of the East,—­
    Thou great tiaraed priest,
  Thou sanctified Rienzi of Rome and of the earth,—­
    Or thou who bear’st control
    Over golden Istambol,
  Who felt for our misfortunes and helped us in our dearth,—­

    Turn here your wondering eyes,
    Call your wisest of the wise,
  Your muftis and your ministers, your men of deepest lore;
    Let the sagest of your sages
    Ope our island’s mystic pages,
  And explain unto your highness the wonders of our shore.

    A fruitful, teeming soil,
    Where the patient peasants toil
  Beneath the summer’s sun and the watery winter sky;
    Where they tend the golden grain
    Till it bends upon the plain,
  Then reap it for the stranger, and turn aside to die;

    Where they watch their flocks increase,
    And store the snowy fleece
  Till they send it to their masters to be woven o’er the waves;
    Where, having sent their meat
    For the foreigner to eat,
  Their mission is fulfilled, and they creep into their graves.

  ’Tis for this they are dying where the golden corn is growing,
  ’Tis for this they are dying where the crowded herds are lowing,
  ’Tis for this they are dying where the streams of life are flowing,
  And they perish of the plague where the breeze of health is blowing!

DENIS FLORENCE MACCARTHY.

* * * * *

IRELAND.

A SEASIDE PORTRAIT.

  A great, still Shape, alone,
   She sits (her harp has fallen) on the sand,
  And sees her children, one by one, depart:—­
  Her cloak (that hides what sins beside her own!)
   Wrapped fold on fold about her.  Lo,
    She comforts her fierce heart,