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OUR LADY OF LISLEE

(Unpublished Poem of Denis Florence MacCarthy.)

The following lines are dated in Mr. MacCarthy's autograph "Dec. 23, 1868." They were written at the request of the Rev. Terence Donnelly, P.P., of the Diocese of Ross, who got them printed; but they have not been published before.

YE'sons of toil who plough the soil,

Oh! ye who dare the dangerous sea,
Come let us praise in simple lays
Our Lady of Lislee.

Come let us raise our hearts in praise
To her the Star of Life's dark sea.

Oh! through our night send down thy light,
Dear Lady of Lislee.

The waters flow round Barryroe,

The ripples shoreward laugh with glee;
With murmurings sweet they kiss thy feet,
O Lady of Lislee!

The birds' sweet song the whole day long

Sounds clear and glad from tower and tree.

Well may it be: they sing to thee,
Sweet Lady of Lislee.

In morning skies, thy votaries rise,
Aves who Aves sing to thee;
When sunbeams fail their vespers hail
Our Lady of Lislee.

Oh! will not man do what he can
To rival thus the birds and sea,
And build a fane wherein may reign
Our Lady of Lislee ?

Wherein may float the organ's note

Heavenwards, like breath of bird and bee; Wherein may reign from main to main Our Lady of Lislee.

Here in old days was sung her praise,

Grey Timoleague, what dreams for thee? Here on this shore we'll praise once more Our Lady of Lislee.

Here on this shore MacCarthy More
And many a chief as proud as he,
Thought it true fame to love thy name,
Dear Lady of Lislee.

Shall, then, their race their sires disgrace,
Nor vow upon the bended knee
That once again the Queen shall reign,
The Lady of Lislee?

Flake after flake we know doth make
The avalanche, the frozen sea;
And thus shall be our work for thee,
O Lady of Lislee!

Mite after mite, toil day and night,
Stone after stone, until we see
The cross of fire crown thy tall spire,
Sweet Lady of Lislee.

Oh! may we share her powerful prayer When death comes down on thee and me, May we then claim to breathe thy name, Sweet Lady of Lislee !

UNPUBLISHED LETTERS OF AUBREY DE

TH

VERE

VI

HE series, of which the present is the sixth instalment, has been interrupted so long that a few words by way of preface to this resumption will not be out of place. The first instalment opened the July number of 1911; and batches of letters appeared at intervals until February, 1912. But for Father Russell's death, the remainder would probably have seen the light during that year; and various causes have since delayed them till late in this, the poet's centenary year. The letters are, for the most part, addressed to Father Russell. He and Aubrey de Vere were close friends for a great many years; their correspondence had commenced before the foundation of the IRISH MONTHLY in 1873, and it continued for some twenty or thirty years. As one might expect the letters are concerned largely with literature and the makers of literature. quote again here an estimate of Aubrey de Vere's poetry from the Spectator of October 25th, 1884, so ably edited then by Richard Holt Huttor; it is one of a number of several such extracts which introduced the first batch of letters, and which were intended to enable some readers to turn to the letters with greater interest:

We may

"No poet of our time has done more to rouse his readers from petty and passing interests; no poet has struggled with nobler perseverance to make his readers look up towards the fountains of poetry. If the air of those heights be somewhat cold and rare for modern lotus-eaters, we trust that some are yet able to bear its tonic purity. They will be rewarded by wider horizons and visions of nobler forms than have been presented to them by any other poet of our day, though it may be that one or two other poets have sung more beautifully of less worthy themes."

In the following letter de Vere manifests his desire that

Irish poets should turn their attention to our noble old Irish legends.

CURRAGH CHASE,
ADARE,

Nov. 9, 1886.

MY DEAR FATHER RUSSELL,

I am most truly obliged to you for sending me O'Hagan's very beautiful and touching tribute to your Uncle. It presents a very vivid and a very beautiful image of him.

I liked Miss Rosa Mulholland's lines on that lovely old legend, the Children of Lir, very much indeed-better even than when I read them in MS. As I then mentioned to her, my attention had been particularly directed to that subject not long previously; for, by an odd coincidence, during last winter and spring I wrote two narrative poems, one on the "Children of Lir," and one on the "Sons of Usnach," at a time when, not improbably she and Sir S. Ferguson were treating the same themes. Mine are narrative poems of about 50 pages each. I am very glad to see that Ireland's poets are at last turning their attention to those noble old Irish legends. I wish that a few more of the nobler and earlier among them were translated. A large field would then be opened both to those readers of prose and writers of verse who do not know Irish.

I enclose you two Sonnets, which I dare say you may like to publish in the IRISH MONTHLY, as Sir W. Hamilton's name must excite interest in Ireland. If you publish them, would you send me, as soon as the printers can conveniently manage it, a proof. I should like to have three copies of that proof.

Yours very sincerely,

AUBREY DE VERE.

Along with some generous references to poems of his contemporaries, John O'Hagan and D. F. MacCarthy, he expresses vigorous views on "Mr. Swinburne's detestable Tristram '"— just what might be expected from a man of his high and uncompromising moral character.

CURRAGH CHASE,

Oct. II, '82.

MY DEAR FATHER RUSSELL,

The present punctuation of that line is certainly incorrect, though the mistake is probably my own, not a misprint. The

right punctuation would be either that you suggest, or else a dash) or a note of admiration, at the close of the penultimate line (in place of the comma), thus making the line interjectional, and fragmentary.

Of course there cannot be the least objection to any critical remarks on my new vol., and I daresay the writer you speak of may be quite right about “The Children of Lir.” I am myself disposed to give it the last place among those three poems. As always happens, each is thought the best, and each the worst, by some readers.

In the Academy there was a curious review of Father Ryder's excellent vol. by a Mr. Simcox. The praise was good and discriminative: a mixture of blame with praise would have done the book no harm, and been (if also discriminative) but just. But the adverse part of the criticism was not criticism at all, but mere flippant impertinence, and frivolous dogmatism.

I have as yet seen no critique that does justice to Mr. Swinburne's detestable "Tristram." That justice would be the severest and most contemptuous exposure of its vile moral tone. Such works must do infinite mischief, far more than "Don Juan," which was not admitted into decent houses.

I am delighted to see that O'Hagan's beautiful "Song of Roland" is coming out in a new edition; I am also very much pleased with the selected vol. from MacCarthy's poems. It seems to me most skilfully compiled and is his best monument. It was quite right that it should include his version of "The Combat at the Ford.” I more than once urged him to publish it in a vol. and not leave it buried alive in an extinct magazine. Presenting but a single incident in the "Tain" it became possible for him to present it in its completeness, and literally (especially as that incident is the best thing in the old poem) and, thus given, this close illustration of ancient Irish Literature has great value, literary and archæological. Pray tell her son how much I have been pleased by the book. Her Preface, too, I thought excellent.

You were not far wrong in your guess about the two notices of the first vol. but I should not wish my name to be mentioned.

Yours very sincerely,

AUBREY DE Vere.

It would be no harm if some present-day poets would adopt and act upon the opinion regarding the lucidity desirable in short poems which he gives expression to in the following,

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