at Spezzia.]

By many a soft Ligurian bay
The myrtles glisten green and bright,
Gleam with their flowers of snow by day,
And glow with fire-flies through the night,
And yet, despite the cold and heat,
Are ever fresh, and pure, and sweet.

There is an island in the West,
Where living myrtles bloom and blow,
Hearts where the fire-fly Love my rest
Within a paradise of snow--
Which yet, despite the cold and heat,
Are ever fresh, and pure, and sweet.

Deep in that gentle breast of thine--
Like fire and snow within the pearl--
Let purity and love combine,
O warm, pure-hearted Irish girl!
And in the cold and in the heat
Be ever fresh, and pure, and sweet.

Thy bosom bears as pure a snow
As e'er Italia's bowers can boast,
And though no fire-fly lends its glow--
As on the soft Ligurian coast--
'Tis warmed by an internal heat
Which ever keeps it pure and sweet.

The fire-flies fade on misty eves--
The inner fires alone endure;
Like rain that wets the leaves,
Thy very sorrows keep thee pure--
They temper a too ardent heat--
And keep thee ever pure and sweet.

La Spezzia, 1862.

THE IRISH EMIGRANT'S MOTHER.

"Oh! come, my mother, come away, across the sea-green water;
Oh! come with me, and come with him, the husband of thy daughter;
Oh! come with us, and come with them, the sister and the brother,
Who, prattling climb thy ag'ed knees, and call thy daughter--mother.

"Oh come, and leave this land of death--this isle of desolation--
This speck upon the sunbright face of God's sublime creation,
Since now o'er all our fatal stars the most malign hath risen,
When Labour seeks the poorhouse, and Innocence the prison.

"'Tis true, o'er all the sun-brown fields the husky wheat is bending;
'Tis true, God's blessed hand at last a better time is sending;
'Tis true the island's aged face looks happier and younger,
But in the best of days we've known the sickness and the hunger.

"When health breathed out in every breeze, too oft we've known the
fever--
Too oft, my mother, have we felt the hand of the bereaver:
Too well remember many a time the mournful task that brought him,
When freshness fanned the summer air, and cooled the glow of autumn.

"But then the trial, though severe, still testified our patience,
We bowed with mingled hope and fear to God's wise dispensations;
We felt the gloomiest time was both a promise and a warning,
Just as the darkest hour of night is herald of the morning