THE LAST DAYS OF OISIN, THE BARD. BY AUBREY DE VERE.

“O Patrick! taught by him, the Unknown, These questions answer ere I die:— Why, when the trees at evening moan, Why must an old man sigh? “No kinsmen of my stock are they, Though reared was I in sylvan cell: Love-whispers once they breathed: this day They mutter but ‘farewell.’ “What mean the floods? Of old they said, ‘Thus, thus, ye chiefs, ye clans, sweep on!’ They whiten still their rocky bed: Those chiefs and clans are gone. “What Power is that which daily heaves O’er earth’s dark verge the rising sun, As large, the Druid, Alph, believes, As Tork or Maugerton? “A woman once, in youthful flower, An infant laid upon my knee: What was it shook my heart that hour? I live—Where now is he? “What thing is youth, which speeds so fast? What thing is life, which lags so long? Trapped, trapped we are by age at last, In a net of fraud and wrong! “I cheated am by Eld—or cheat— Heart-young as leaves in sun that bask: Is that fresh heart a counterfeit, Or this gray shape a mask? “Some say ‘tis folly to be moved. ‘The dog, he dieth—why not thou?’ They lie! We loved! The ill reproved!— Is Oscar nothing now? “O Patrick of the crosier staff, The wondrous Book, the anthems slow! If thou the riddle know’st but half, Help those who nothing know! “Who made the worlds? the Soul? Man’s race? The man that knoweth, he is Man! I, once a prince, will serve in place Clansman of that man’s clan!”