Page:The New Monthly Magazine - Volume 097.djvu/439

Rh chair, after perusing a flowing account of the steeple-chase in one of the local papers, "men are greater fools than they are generally taken for, to risk a rush into eternity every time they venture at these insane steeple-chases."

"But this was a particularly insane one," rejoined his gentle sister, who had invariably a kind and excusing word for everybody in the village, old maid though they all called her. "And I think the authorities should have interfered beforehand, and not have allowed these poor, thoughtless lads to risk their necks."

But the authorities had not done so, and the "thoughtless lads" had to reap the consequences of their own temerity.

many a silent moonlit dell

The fairy people used to dwell.

But none so gay as those erewhile

Who made their home in Erin's isle.

On sweet Killarney's flower-clad hills,

Or down by Mallow's gurgling rills,

Or where sweet Shannon's waters roam,

Be sure the fairies made their home.

The bright, the mystic Elfin band

There made their name in Erin's land.

They dwelt where voice was never heard

Save whispering wind, or warbling bird;

And ah! that was a rueful day

When herdsman led his kine that way,—

For if within the fairies' ring

His wandering flock he'd chance to bring,

In danger's path 'twas his to roam,

Who crush'd the flowers of the fairies' home!

Such mystic powers that Elfin band

Possess'd of old, in Erin's land.

But now, where stood those loyely dells,

How many a busy household dwells;

The mystic, dream-like, fairy past

Was all too pure, too bright to last.

'Tis thus in life—can age restore

Youth's beauteous fairy scenes of yore?

No! but in dreams again we roam

Those sunny realms, the faries' home!

There only meet that gentle band

That bless'd young Erin's sunny land!