Commingled accents!-I have stood and watched
The step-dame grinning o'er the phial's brim,
Which lovely innocents were doomed to sip!
But what of them? Go, view yon dusky cave,
Where midnight massacres howl forth their moans,
And fiends do gnash their teeth in mockery;
And serpents hiss for vengeance;—while the worm
Deep seated at the heart, holds on his revel,
With tooth insatiate! Fly-oh fly the Cave!
Hark! rings the note of discord through its vaults!
Lo! sulpherous flames evanish in its gloom;
Spectres all pale;-ghosts muttering from their
shrouds ;

It is it is the CAVERN OF DESPAIR!

PLEON.

IDYLLIUM.

O FORTUNATÆ pecudes quanto meliora
Jactatis nostris sunt gaudia quæque tenetis!
Nam remanent dum vos vitales carpitis auras,
Nostra autem fugient velox ut noctis imago,
Aut sopitos quæ derident somnia sensus.
Sub custode canis vigilis fiidique locatæ
In nostros campos tondetis gramina læta,
Haud avido sævoque luporum dente timentes.
Ambitionis amor, laudumque arrecta cupido
(Quæ circumrodunt ferventia corda virorum),

In vestro nunquam sedem sibi sumere corde
Tentarunt; miseras nostras non invideatis
Divitias, varià curarum mole prementes
Pectora, perpetuas illas volumus remanere,
Non censentes nos atque illas mox purituras!
Nil sempiternum his in terris sistere nobis
Di concedunt, ni longi tormenta doloris.

Pascite nunc mixtis rodolentes floribus herbas.
O pecudes; vestris concedunt gaudia nostra.

GRANDPIETENSIS ESQ.

THE FAIRY KING.

THE legend from which the subsequent metrical tale is extracted, possesses an infinite abundance of romance, and is, by no means of the ordinary cast of Irish storie.

O'Donoghue, chief of a powerful and ancient line in the southern parts of Munster, was gifted with the supernatural power of assuming, like the fabled Proteus, any shape that his imagination might suggest. Like all diabolical immunities, his was subjected to certain conditions: and the one in question was, that if a female shrieked, while looking at O'D. in any of his transformations, he was to forego his privileges, and surrender himself to the arch enemy. This induced the magician to be particularly guarded in not exhibiting any of his metamor

phoses, before the "womankind," as the Antiquary would call them; yet he allowed himself to be persuaded by his wife to indulge the curiosity natural to her sex. When she saw him suspended in the air, in an assumed form, her conjugal affection stifling her prudence, she screamed, when the chieftain bounded into the lake, that extended beneath him, and was never after seen on terra firma. Tradition however says, that, at the revolve of every seventh summer, he appears on the blue waves of Lough Lane, mounted on a steed of incomparable whiteness, and surrounded by all his fairy train.— Numbers will say that they have actually seen the vision; be this as it may, I, although a great deal on the bosom of these Lakes, have never been favored by the apparition. However, the story so forcibly struck the imagination of a young lady of powerful fancy and exquisite beauty, that she fell in love with the shadowy monarch, and excited by the violence of her passion, precipitated herself into the Lake, to visit him in his mossy halls.

This forms the ground work of my tale; and although Miss Landon has made use of the same subject in her "Golden Violet," I do not mean to acknowledge any obligation to her delightfully poetic little book. The truth is, the idea had struck me long before she published, and, at the time that I met her work, was in part executed; and as I did not feel inclined to destroy the M. S. I do not consider that there is any apology due from me, either to the public or the fair authoress.

T

THE poets sing of citron isles,

Where days of bliss and nights of love,
Embalmed in fields of rosy smiles,

On downy pinion softly move;
Where fluttering on its dulcet feet,
Young music holds its vocal seat;
Where lute and harp, in heavenliest tone,
Give voice and song to pleasure's throne;
Where every sylph is passing bright-
Within those isles of glorious light!
Who would not love these Eden lands,
Where every orb is fair;

Where all are bound with sparkling bands,
Like dew-drops hung on air?
Who would not dwell within those halls,
Where splendour keeps its festivals,
And Suns are ever warm?—
Where perfume lives upon the breeze,
Like balm, that dimples Indian seas;
Where careless youth, in gayest mood,
And maddening mirth's enchanting flood,
Assume their gentlest form?

The years

swim on a ruby sea

Of blush-dyed waves and kindling tide;

And every bark bounds smilingly,
Across its wreaths of feathery pride.
The dark full eye of maiden bloom,
Like Autumn skies o'er ocean's foam,
Is lit with bliss for every fay,
That rides upon the mantling spray—
Their floating locks, like mermaid's hair,
Of sea-green hue or glistening die,
Are straying down, as wild and fair,
As ought that maidens love to tie !
A nightless length of joyous hours,
As full of sweets, as summer showers,
Preserve the sway of pleasure here,
Where noon-tide time is all the year!
This fairest land that ever Sun

Hath shed its orient beams upon,—
Who would not live in such a spot,
And deem him blessed in his lot?
For thus have bards, in elder times,

Oft

sung of Houris' native climes; Where every sound that Peris fling, Comes rolling from the minstrel's string! The bard may strike his wakening tale, -His wild chords hymning to the galeAnd he may fancy all, that song

Can feign of thrilling pleasure;

His gifted notes may still prolong,

The full and swelling measure;

While echo mocks the breathing strings,

And every rock an answer brings.

But who will thank his syren strain,