But send round the bowl, and be happy awhile--
May we never meet worse, in our pilgrimage here,
Than the tear that enjoyment may gild with a smile,
And the smile that compassion can turn to a tear.
The thread of our life would be dark, Heaven knows!
If it were not with friendship and love intertwined:
And I care not how soon I may sink to repose,
When these blessings shall cease to be dear to my mind.
But they who have loved the fondest, the purest.
Too often have wept o'er the dream they believed;
And the heart that has slumbered in friendship, securest,
Is happy indeed if 'twas never deceived.
But send round the bowl; while a relic of truth
Is in man or in woman, this prayer shall be mine,--
That the sunshine of love may illumine our youth,
And the moonlight of friendship console our decline.
THO' THE LAST GLIMPSE OF ERIN WITH SORROW I SEE.
Tho' the last glimpse of Erin with sorrow I see,
Yet wherever thou art shall seem Erin to me;
In exile thy bosom shall still be my home,
And thine eyes make my climate wherever we room.
To the gloom of some desert or cold rocky shore,
Where the eye of the stranger can haunt us no more,
I will fly with my Coulin, and think the rough wind
Less rude than the foes we leave frowning behind.
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