ST. PATRICK AND OSSIAN.

'TWAS thus the Fenian bard began,
"Where is thy God, thou puny man?
Thou who ne'er braved the battle's roar,
Nor ever pressed its purple floor;
Who never reaped with shearing sword
The joys sublime which wars afford.
Show me a Dun like Allen's, where

Thy boasted God hath placed his chair."

PATRICK.

See'st thou the sky, which broad and grand
O'ercanopies this evening land,

Which towers so high and spreads so far,
Beyond the sun or vesper star,

That radiant sphere, all pomp and gold,
Through which the fleecy clouds are rolled,
That boundless arch is but the floor

Of his great hall whom I adore.

The stars that burn when night prevails
Are clenchings of the golden nails.
That splendid arch, that radiant dome,
Is but the outside of his home,

Where, throned above the highest height,
His shadow beams, the solar light.

Traverse the forest, frowning high,
That climbs the hills to reach the sky;
Which solemn, silent, grim, and drear,
Is viewed with awe, and trod with fear.
My God within that forest dwells,
And every leaf his wisdom tells.
Thou hear'st him in the moaning breeze,
That stirs and sways the giant trees;
Thou hear'st him in the surgings dread,
When wild the woodland waves its head.

Thou hear'st him in the crashing roar,

When down the heavens the tempests pour;

Thou hear'st him in the voices loud

That clamor in the thundercloud;

He's clearly heard when, armed with fire,

The tempest wakes old ocean's ire;

He's likewise heard when, hoarse and hoar, The madd'ning billows lash the shore; And in the silence of the night,

When golden planets, calm and bright,

Are circling round the glowing pole,
He's heard within the awe-struck soul.

But, though his realm is broad and grand,
Embracing worlds of sea and land,
Though vast his reign, the tiniest mote
Thou'st ever seen in sunbeams float
Could not through his dominions fly
Unnoticed by his searching eye.

OSSIAN.

It was not so with noble Finn,
Ten thousand knights might loiter in
And revel in his palace high,

And Finn would never ask them why.
Oh! give me back the battle's roar,
That rent the skies on Ventry's shore,
And all those fearless men of might,
Where Finn, my father, led the fight.
However great thy God may be,
I tell thee, priest, He could not see
On hill or mountain, sea or land,
The equals of our Fenian band.
Oh! give me back their hunter train,
Encamped upon an evening plain,

The blackbird's song, that, sweet and clear,
With warbled music wooed the ear.

And give me back the rapturous cry,
The shouts that made the hills reply,

And thrilled with life the trembling grounds,-
The fierce wild music of the hounds.

They loved the chase; they loved the song,

And knightly conflict, stern and long,
The chessboard and the purple wine,
And rosy smiles of nymphs divine.

And, hadst thou known those knightly men,
Thou'dst never talk of saints again.

I ask not heaven; I will not try,
With fasts and tears, to mount the sky.
But give me back those comrade men,
My falchion and my youth again!

PATRICK.

'Twas God who gave thy comrades might ; 'Twas God who framed those fields of light. He shed those sunbeams through the air, And draped the trees with blossoms fair.

Despite their valor, power, and bloom,
He swept thy comrades to the tomb.
Like mists that dim the mountain's brow,
Thy Fenian friends are vanished now;
Their deeds are done, their triumphs past,
Like withered leaves that strew the blast,
While He survives; the moon and sun
Are trophies of what He has done.
And all the stars that crowd the sky.
Are monuments to God on high.
Oh! Ossian, He is mightier far
Than sword or mace or battle-car.
That linnet, in its leafy bower,
Which warbles through this sultry hour,
For Him it tunes its guileless song
In falls harmonious, wild, and long.
Shall it be told that you withstood
That warbling witness of the wood?
Oh! can you hear its siren tongue,
So like the lyre that Aoife strung,
Which testifies to God on high
With more persuasive voice than I?
Can minstrel hear it, and refuse

The mission of that sylvan muse?

Kneel down and join those hands in prayer,—

A seraph's voice is warbling there.

The wondering bard grew still and pale;
He felt his iron spirit quail;

He stood aghast, in mute surprise,

With trembling lips and streaming eyes;
A minstrel of celestial birth

Was speaking to the bard of earth

In tones so thrilling, sweet, and clear,
That all the world seemed hushed to hear.
'Twas not the priest, 'twas music's tone
Which changed the minstrel's heart alone,
When through his trembling breast was rolled
Persuasion sheathed in sounds of gold.
And Ossian, stern, whose battle-song
Had waked to war th' heroic throng,
The glorious bard profoundly felt
That heaven within his bosom dwelt;

For He who fills unbounded space
Will choose at times the tiniest place,

And, spreading through the empyrean wide,
Will in the human heart abide,

As in some bower, retired and coy,
And fill it full of rapturous joy;
Which music, with her magic lyre
And chords of gold can ne'er inspire.

And lo! the old man knelt and prayed,
And clasped those hands which war had made
Familiar with the trenchant blade.

And now the bard above the sky
Sits on a dazzling throne on high,
And tunes in the celestial choir
To holier themes, his battle lyre.

One of the noblest traditions in the world is that of Ossian, "son of daring Cumhal." He was beguiled into the magic land of eternal youth by the enchanting beauty of the fascinating queen of Tir-na-n-og, in whose rosy bowers, intoxicated by her immortal loveliness, he spent, in the delights and dalliances of love, nearly two hundred years. He finally got tired of this land of enchantments, because, when gazing from "Magic casements opening on the foam

Of perilous seas in fairy-land forlorn,"

he could not see Erin. His love of Ireland surpassed his affection for his mistress, and he broke away from the enchantress. When he reached his native country he found St. Patrick zealously engaged in preaching to "the Scots believing in Christ;" and the bard accompanied the Apostle in his devious excursions through the grassy hills and romantic vales of "matchless Erin." In these two men-the Irish minstrel and the Catholic missioner-we have an epitome of the history of Ireland. They are the incarnation of two ideas which appear embodied in these representative individuals. Ossian is the type of the warlike Celts, who, ever marching from West to East, are found battling, retreating, fighting, or conquering, in those great marauding expeditions which for so many ages harried the entire surface of Europe. Ossian the bard represents these warlike Celts, whose metropolis was Eire, but whose expeditions were world-wide. Alexander meets them on the Danube, Cæsar encounters them on the Rhone, and St. Paul addresses them in Galatia. Speaking of one of these Celts an Irish manuscript says: “Agus aibhlichthear ar Daire Sirchreactach cor gabhastair neart iarthair Eorpa, agus a deiread eolaich, cor gabh an domhan uile." "And it is boasted concerning Daire, that he obtained sway over all the west of Europe, and some of the learned say that he won the whole world." St. Patrick represents the Christian era of Irish history. He is a type of scholars and missioners, the martyrs and philosophers, and great schoolmen who obtained for Eire the honorable epithet of insula sanctorum et doctorum. He represents the pious fervor as Ossian represents the martial ardor of ancient Erin, a nation which was alternately sacerdotal and military, “now priest, now soldier.

Fionn McCumhall resided at Allen, in the County Kildare. In Macpherson's Ossian this chief is described as residing in the "hall of Selma," under the name of Fingal. But we may well pardon this inaccuracy for the sake of the magnificent description Macpherson gives us in Carric Thura of Fionn's return to his hall from some military expedition: "Let a thousand lights arise to the sound of the harps of Selma! Let the beam spread in the hall, the king of shells is returned! The war of Crona is past like sounds that are no more! Raise the song, O bards, the king is returned with his fame," etc. This quotation gives us a lofty idea of the majesty of Fionn's residence, which Macpherson terms Selma, but which was really Allen, in the County Kildare.

Livy's description of the Celts in general is perfectly applicable to the Fenians in particular: "Their lofty forms, their long, reddish hair, their vast shields, their long swords, the war songs they intoned when closing with the enemy, their loud shouts and the horrible clangor of their arms when beating their shields in the manner of their country, everything about them was calculated to fill their enemies with confusion and terror.'

"

That angels sometimes assume the appearance of birds is an idea familiar to the readers of Irish hagiography. We read in Adamnan's Life of Columkille, that one day a monk, armed with an axe, quitted his monastery and sallied forth to cut wood in the adjacent forest, where he was tempted to suspend his toil by the ravishing sweetness of a strange song-bird that, perched on the tree above his head, charmed his ear by its melody, and secured his attention by its brilliancy of plumage. He lost a whole hour in listening, and then resumed his axe and went on with his work. When his task was accomplished he tied up his fagots, threw them on his back, and plodded homewards to the monastery. He found its appearance

strangely altered and its inmates entirely unknown to him. He gazed on them with astonishment, and they perused him with equal surprise. In answer to their questions he told them his story. He had quitted the convent that very morning; had been three hours in the forest, and had cut the fagots with which his shoulders were burdened. It appeared, from the chronicle of the monastery, that a monk of his name had disappeared a hundred years previously and had never been since heard of. This was the monk in question. He had spent a hundred years in listening to the warblings of an angel, and had deemed it only a single hour.

VOL. XII.-2