Though the last glimpse of Erin with sorrow I see,
Yet wherever thou art shall seem Erin to me;
In exile thy bosom shall still be my home,
And thine eyes make my climate wherever we roam.

There came to the beach a poor Exile of Erin, The dew on his thin robe was heavy and chill; For his country he sigh'd, when at twilight repairing. To wander along by the wind-beaten hill. But the day star attracted his eyes' sad devotion, For it rose o'er his own native isle of the ocean, Where once in the fire of his youthful emotion He sang the bold anthem of Erin-go-bragh.

Here bring your wounded hearts, here tell your anguish; Earth has no sorrow that Heaven cannot heal.

Since sorrow never comes too late And happiness too swiftly flies.

Music and dance. What I have written must surely suggest a people cursed by Heaven,... No people on earth, I am persuaded, loves music so well, nor dance, nor oratory, though the music falls strangely on my ears... More than once I have been at Mr. Treacy's when at close of dinner, some traveling harper would be called in, blind as often as not, his fingernails kept long and the mysteries of his art hidden in their horny ridges. The music would come to us with the sadness of a lost world, each note a messenger sent wandering among the Waterford goblets. Riding home late at night, past tavern or alehouse, I would hear harps and violins, thudding feet rising to a frenzy. I have seen them dancing at evening on fairdays, in meadows decreed by custom for such purposes, their bodies swift-moving, and their faces impassive but bright-eyed, intent. I have watched them in silence, reins held loosely in my hand, and have marveled at the stillness of my own body, my shoulders rigid and heavy.

The proud, the cold untroubled heart of stone, / That never mused on sorrow but its own.