Fair is this isle—­this dear child of the ocean—­
Nurtured with more than a mother’s devotion;
For see! in what rich robes has nature arrayed her,
From the waves of the west to the cliffs of Ben Hader,[17]
By Glengariff’s lone islets—­Lough Lene’s fairy water,[18]
So lovely was each, that then matchless I thought her;
But I feel, as I stray through each sweet-scented alley,
Less wild but more fair is this soft verdant valley! 
    Sweetest of vales is the Vale of Shanganah! 
    Greenest of vales is the Vale of Shanganah! 
    No wide-spreading prairie, no Indian savannah,
    So dear to the eye as the Vale of Shanganah!

How pleased, how delighted, the rapt eye reposes
On the picture of beauty this valley discloses,
From the margin of silver, whereon the blue water
Doth glance like the eyes of the ocean foam’s daughter! 
To where, with the red clouds of morning combining,
The tall “Golden Spears"[19] o’er the mountains are shining,
With the hue of their heather, as sunlight advances,
Like purple flags furled round the staffs of the lances! 
    Sweetest of vales is the Vale of Shanganah! 
    Greenest of vales is the Vale of Shanganah! 
    No lands far away by the swift Susquehannah,
    So tranquil and fair as the Vale of Shanganah!

But here, even here, the lone heart were benighted,
No beauty could reach it, if love did not light it;
’Tis this makes the earth, oh! what mortal could doubt it? 
A garden with it, but a desert without it! 
With the lov’d one, whose feelings instinctively teach her
That goodness of heart makes the beauty of feature. 
How glad, through this vale, would I float down life’s river,
Enjoying God’s bounty, and blessing the Giver! 
    Sweetest of vales is the Vale of Shanganah! 
    Greenest of vales is the Vale of Shanganah! 
    May the accents of love, like the droppings of manna,
    Fall sweet on my heart in the Vale of Shanganah!

16.  Lying to the south of Killiney-hill, near Dublin.

17.  Hill of Howth.

18.  Killarney.

19.  The Sugarloaf Mountains, county Wicklow, were called in Irish, “The Spears of Gold.”

THE PILLAR TOWERS OF IRELAND.

The pillar towers of Ireland, how wondrously they stand
By the lakes and rushing rivers through the valleys of our land;
In mystic file, through the isle, they lift their heads sublime,
These gray old pillar temples, these conquerors of time!

Beside these gray old pillars, how perishing and weak
The Roman’s arch of triumph, and the temple of the Greek,
And the gold domes of Byzantium, and the pointed Gothic spires,
All are gone, one by one, but the temples of our sires!

The column, with its capital, is level with the dust,
And the proud halls of the mighty and the calm homes of the just;
For the proudest works of man, as certainly, but slower,
Pass like the grass at the sharp scythe of the mower!