HARDESS CREGAN TO EILY O’CONNOR.

Sustain me, God! - for mine own sin
Has bound me with a fiery chain,
And - like a corrach drawn within
A vortex on the black’ning main -
The while for fame, for life, for love,
I madly strain with desp’rate oar,
A spectre laughs the helm above,
And mocks my frenzied strokes to shore.
Yet down the wave there beams afar
The fire of thy dear altar, Hope!
And, while I view thy cheering star,
With hell’s dark powers I yet may cope.
Oh yes! though down the lurid wave
They try to drag my shrinking soul -
Though round remorse and vengeance rave.
And shame’s black tides in fury roll -
Be thine the smile, dear Eily, still
To light my path with gentle ray;
And not the banded powers of ill
Again shall lead my soul astray.
And when kind heaven shall cease to frown -
When this dire cloud of death is past -
Before thy feet I’ll throw me down,
In tears of speechless rapture cast             [p.246]
And thoughts that now in gloom must sleep.
From forth my burning soul shall flow,
As rills from frozen Winter leap
To hail the Summer’s golden glow.

HARDRESS CREGAN TO ANNE CHUTE

I dreamed last night that, pillow’d on thy breast,
I heard thee sing a sad yet pleasing strain -
How pride once severed hearts that love possessed,
And how, at length, in tears they met again;