O'REILLY, JOHN BOYLE, an Irish-American journalist and poet, born at Dowth Castle, County Meath, Ireland, June 28, 1844; died at Hull, Mass., August 10, 1890. He took part in the revolutionary movement of 1863, and afterward entered a cavalry regiment in the British army. In 1866 he was tried for treason, and sentenced to imprisonment for life. This sentence was subsequently commuted to transportation for twenty years, and he was sent to the penal colony of West Australia. In 1869 he made his escape, by the aid of the captain of an American whaling-vessel. Taking up his residence at Boston, he became editor of the Pilot. He has published Songs from the Southern Seas (1872); Songs, Legends, and Ballads (1878); Moondyne, a Story from the Under-World (1879); Statues in the Block (1881); The Ethics of Boxing and Stories and Sketches (1888).

The Critic is of the impression that "he has considerable poetical talent. His King of The Vapes and The Dukite Snake are the best Australian poems in the language." "His poetry, as a rule," says Leslie Stephen, "is rugged in form, but shows considerable power."

WESTERN AUSTRALIA.

O beauteous Southland! land of yellow air

That hangeth o'er thee slumbering, and doth hold The moveless foliage of thy waters fair

And wooded hills, like aureole of gold'

O thou, discovered ere the fitting time,

Ere Nature in completion turned thee forth!
Ere aught was finished but thy peerless clime,
Thy virgin breath allured the amorous North.

O land! God made thee wondrous to the eye,
But His sweet singers thou hast never heard;
He left thee, meaning to come by and by,
And give rich voice to every bright-winged bird.

He painted with fresh hues the myriad flowers,
But left them scentless. Ah! their woeful dole,
Like sad reproach of their Creator's powers-
To make so sweet, fair bodies, void of soul.

He gave thee trees of odorous, precious wood,
But 'mid them all bloomed not one tree of fruit ;
He looked, but said not that His work was good
When leaving thee all perfumeless and mute.

He blessed thy flowers with honey. Every bell Looks earthward, sunward, with a yearning wist, But no bee-lover ever notes the swell

Of hearts, like lips, a-hungering to be kissed.

O strange land, thou art virgin! thou art more
Than fig-tree barren!

For others' eyes the glory
Where last I saw thee!

Would that I could paint of the shore

But the senses faint

In soft, delicious dreaming when they drain
Thy wine of color. Virgin fair thou art,
All sweetly fruitful, waiting with soft pain

The spouse who comes to wake thy sleeping heart.

DYING IN HARNESS.

Only a falling horse, stretched out there on the road, Stretched in the broken shafts, and crushed by the heavy load;

Only a fallen horse, and a circle of wondering eyes Watching the 'frighted teamster goading the beast to rise.

Hold

for his toil is over-no more labor for him. See the poor neck outstretched, and the paticnt eyes

grow dim ;

See on the friendly stones how peacefully rests the head

Thinking, if dumb beasts think, how good it is to be dead;

After the weary journey, how restful it is to lie

With the broken shafts and the cruel load, waiting only to die.

Watchers, he died in harness-died in the shafts and

straps

Fell, and the burden killed him: one of the day's mis

haps

One of the passing wonders marking the city road— A toiler dying in harness, heedless of call or goad.

Passers, crowding the pathway, staying your steps awhile,

What is the symbol? Only death-why should we cease to smile

At death for a beast of burden? On, through the busy

street,

That is ever and ever echoing the tread of the hurrying feet.

What was the sign? A symbol to touch the tireless will ? Does He who taught in parables speak in parables still? The seed on the rock is wasted-on heedless hearts of

men,

That gather and sow and grasp and lose-labor and sleep-and then

Then for the prize !—a crowd in the street of ever-echoing tread

The toiler, crushed by the heavy load, is there in his harness-dead !

MY NATIVE LAND.

It chanced me upon a time to sail

Across the Southern Ocean to and fro;