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I Von. I.-No. 4.
BELFAST, 3RD APRIL, 1896.
PRICE Twornuon.
A Voice in the Night.
My love! my beautiful! 'tis sad and lorn thou art,
And I watch thee with a heart that acheth sore;
For thou faintest in thy chains,
And hast nought to soothe thy pains,
Save the memory of days that are no more.
0 my pearl! O my heart's desire ! 'tis hard to see thy grief,
And the years bring no relief, but deeper pain,
For the hopes that rise and call,
' Like the leaves in Autumn fall;
And what spring will bring them back to thee again?
Far away are the golden days, when, clad in radiant youth,
Calmly resting on the truth of loyal hearts,
Thou wert glad as singing bird
Thro' the dreaming woodland heard,
When the dawn is come, and gloomy night departs.
Thou wert free as the wildest breeze that roams o'er hill and vale,
Or the proud resistless gale that sweeps the sea;
Kings and heroes round thy feet
‘ Paid their duteous homage meet,
’ Queen and bride, and nursing mother of the free.
0 my Queen! 0 high -hearted One I whom never foe could tame;
But alas! that treachery came within thy fold I
I Would they’d moulder’d into dust
‘ Ere they'd dared betray thy trust
And thy freedom to the scornful stranger sold.
. Yet tho‘ chain'd, wert thou full of hope, and higher rose thy pride
For the brave who at thy side were faithful found,
.Shed their blood to set thee free,
. ' Or but lived to toil for thee
Thro' the weary years that passed and left thee bound.
0 my grief l sorer than thy chains the traitor's poisoned dart
Rankles ever in my heart with torture keen.
Oh to burst the bonds of death!
Once again draw living breath,
Once again to strike for thee, my love, my Queen!
Are the friends, are the lovers stricken deaf and blind and dumb,
That they rise not in their numbers to thine aid?
Can they hear thy anguished cry,
Can they see thee faint and die,
And in listless silence watch thy radiance fade?
Oh, awake, Soul of Liberty, each loyal heart inspire
With the holy ardent tire that never dies.
Purge all coward sloth away,
Call‘ to each and all to-day,
In the name of,Cod and Ireland, wake and fl-Sel
in the North Countrie.
No. II.-BETTY FRYERS.
. HERE are many people yet alive in Ireland
' who remember the fearful storm that
wrought such havoc in the january of ’39,
a storm so terrible in its effects that to this
day it is spoken of throughout the country as
the “ Big Wind.” In “ dark Donegal,” exposed to the
wild breezes sweeping in from the Atlantic, its violence
was peculiarly felt ; but of all who suffered on that night
of woe and death and devastation, no one had so strange
an experience, nor such an extraordinary tale to tell as
old Betty Fryers, of the Finn Valley.
She lived near the high road leading from the town, in
a cabin that stood in a small three-cornered field, all that
remained of a fine freehold property, when an easy-going
father closed his eyes for ever on the world he had
enjoyed to his heart's content. The mother had died,
full of sorrow, many years before, leaving the delicate
daughter to fight her own battle for a livelihood, with the
little field and her wheel as her only available stock-in-
trade. In time she added to this an emaciated goat, to
which the rush-grown demesne gave a scanty susten-
ance; and a frisky white cat-the constant companion
of Betty's solitary days and lonely nights.
In summer evenings, when the young lovers strolled
out along the country road, bordered with flowering
briars, and fragrant with the scent of bean-blossoms
growing in the fields on either side, their voluble confi-
dences would suddenly cease as they neared Betty's
cabin, while in the abrupt silence at crooning song in
Irish, rising and falling with the movegnents of the singer,
would break in upon the thrush’s evening rapture.
Buzz-buzz-buzz-the wheel would go, and in the
brown shadows of the kitchen the old woman's head,
snowy-capped, with frills starched to the consistency of
cardboard, and relieved by the brilliancy of her blue
cotton “ binder," looked like a nodding lily ready to fade
and fall. The white cat, contentedly washing its face,
sat on the doorstep, and gazed contemplatively at the
passers-by, who seemed as if under a spell of mute em-A’
barrassment until they had recovered their wqnted gaiety,
‘fair distance from the little lonely cottag'e.; Z, j ‘