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Show AN ANCIENT IRISH WELL. Denis A. McCarthy in Rosary Maga- ' zine. When the cruel son is glaring on the city's Avails and ways, And the stricken land is staring blankly blank-ly upward in the blaze: When the parching plants are drooping and the thirsty birds are still, And the faithful cattle, stooping, stagger on Avith Aveakened will; When there's nothing sAAeet or cheery in the voices of the street, When my head and heart are Aveary of the struggle and the heat, . Then my thoughts are backward going go-ing to a cool, sequestered dell, . Where a lisping stream is flowing from an ancient Irish well! Then indeed my mind retraces many a mile of spreading foam. And I Bee in dreams the places once T used to know, at home See again the sloping meadows and the cool, dark Avoods afar. Rest again within the shadows where the Avhortleberries are. Here again the gentle crooning of the Avaters as they flow (Like 'a fairy minstrel tuning in the days of long aeo.) And I stoop my forehead blindly, and my parching lips that swell For a draught, long, 1 cool -and kindly, from that ancient Irish well! By the Suir's shining river is that crystal foutnain fond. And the country-side forever blesses "Tbubber-a-nA-ground," : For Avhen clear Clareen" is flooded IT1 " wlth the river's brackish tide. Hither, cloaked and shaAvled and hooded, come the people, far and wide; ! -Hither then Avith vessels laden come the thoughless and the sage Hither then come youth and maiden prattling childhood, talking age And there's merry laughter ringing, Ly, ant there's many a tale to tell, Vhere the limpid water's springing in . . that ancient Irish well. ' Thus it is when on the city falls the vengeance or the sun, When the long day shoAvs no pity and . the night is showing none, That my heart goes back to Erin, j back across-the Aveary years (For the exile has his share in all his mother's joys and tears.) And I see again the faces that I used to know and love, And J mark the shady places Avhere the meadow meets the grove; But of all the dreams elysian on Avhose charms I love to dAvelJ First and best I deem the vision of that ancient Irish well! Tobar-na-O'Creann. The Avell of the tree. Pronounced as above by the 5 re? TS?ins up without a knowledge knowl-edge of Irish. -Clareeii is the name of a famous well in Carrick-on-Suir, which is occasionally oc-casionally flooded by high tides in the Shure." Suir is .Pronounced ' - . |