flow'ret gleams
Than the heart that is fed with its wither'd dreams,
And whose love is repelled with scorn,
Like the bee by the rose's thorn.

SWEET MAY.

The summer is come!--the summer is come!
With its flowers and its branches green,
Where the young birds chirp on the blossoming boughs,
And the sunlight struggles between:
And, like children, over the earth and sky
The flowers and the light clouds play;
But never before to my heart or eye
Came there ever so sweet a May
As this--
Sweet May! sweet May!

Oh! many a time have I wandered out
In the youth of the opening year,
When Nature's face was fair to my eye,
And her voice was sweet to my ear!
When I numbered the daisies, so few and shy,
That I met in my lonely way;
But never before to my heart or eye,
Came there ever so sweet a May
As this--
Sweet May! sweet May!

If the flowers delayed, or the beams were cold,
Or the blossoming trees were bare,
I had but to look in the poet's book,
For the summer is always there!
But the sunny page I now put by,
And joy in the darkest day!
For never before to my heart or eye,
Came there ever so sweet a May
As this--
Sweet May! sweet May!

For, ah! the belov'ed at length has come,
Like the breath of May from afar;
And my heart is lit with gentle eyes,
As the heavens by the evening star.
'Tis this that brightens the darkest sky,
And lengthens the faintest ray,
And makes me feel that to the heart or eye
There was never so sweet a May
As this--
Sweet May! sweet May!

FERDIAH;[28]
OR, THE FIGHT AT THE FORD.

An Episode from the Ancient Irish Epic Romance, "The Tain Bo Cuailgne;
or, the Cattle Prey of Cuailgne."

["The 'Tain Bo Cuailgne'" says the late Professor O'Curry, "is to Irish
what the Argonautic Expedition, or the Seven against Thebes, is to
Grecian history." For an account of this, perhaps the earliest epic
romance of Western Europe, see the Professor's "Lectures on the
Manuscript Materials of Irish History."

The Fight of Cuchullin with Ferdiah took place in the modern county of
Louth, at the ford of Ardee, which still preserves the name of the
departed champion, Ardee being the softened form of 'Ath Ferdiah,' or
Ferdiah's Ford.

The circumstance