You woman there, my brother's wife-you woman with dry eyes,

You woman who are deaf and dumb, nor heed a sister's

eries,

Go home-go home-go any where-your husband leave to me,

And I will mourn my brother's loss and keen him bitterly.—

You woman there, who in that chair, with tearless eye

is seen,

Come down, come down, and I will sing for you a

proper keen,

A husband you, if young enough, perhaps may find

another,

But I can never find again, a dear and darling brother.

KEEN ON MR. SAMUEL HODDER.

TRANSLATED FROM THE IRISH BY THE EDITOR.

And taken down by him from the recitation of Mrs. Leary, April 1829, at Blackrock, near Cork. According to Mrs. Leary, it was composed about twelve or fourteen years before, by Mrs. Mary Hodder, on the death of her husband, Mr. Samuel Hodder, of (the name has escaped my memory), near Carrigaline, who was generally called Frank, and is so designated in the keen, probably after his father, to distinguish him from some other Samuel Hodder-a name which abounds in that district.

To explain the circumstances alluded to, it may be necessary to state, that Mr. Hodder was killed by a fall from his horse at the fair of Carrigaline, a small village in the county of Cork;

and that Mrs. Hodder having gone there soon after, with the intention of joining him, made her way towards a crowd, near which she saw her husband's horse standing, when she found that it had collected around his dead body. On the corpse being laid out in the evening for “waking,” she is said to have spoken the following keen, which is singular, because the Hodder family hold a highly respectable rank among the gentry of the county, and, at that time, the custom of keening had fallen into disrepute, and was practised only by the peasantry.

This keen has been printed in Fraser's Magazine, No. II, for March 1830. The first verse of the original, according to its sound on the English ear, may be found at p. xi. of the Introduction.

My heart's love and darling,
My horseman so fearless,

Whose good word has redeemed

From the stone pound so cheerless

There are ladies so stately,

In rich silken dresses,

With sweet smiles on their lips, And with beautiful tresses. There is mirth and there's feasting, There's all that's entrancing—

The sweetest of music,

And the gayest of dancing.

From that house hath departed
Its strength and its splendour,
Since the loss of my darling,

With his eyes full and tender.

The flowers of the valley

In sadness they languish ;

Their heads droop with dew-tears

Of sorrow and anguish.

The cuckoo is silent,

Though the summer's returning—

The fish in the river

Partake of the mourning;

And all that was pleasant,

And made sport and rejoicing,

Lies still-for that mansion

There's now no lord's voice in.

Frank, my heart's love and darling,
I saw you this morning,
With your head neatly powdered,

Your fine horse adorning.

From Cork to Ivera

That horse would have bounded; But before the day's ended,

With grief I'm surrounded.

Then came the strong struggle Between silence and weeping ;

No sound could I utter

For the blow sunk too deep in! And that which looked brightly Now seem'd my eyes dim inAll, all was unsightly,

And reeling and swimming.

At last, when I roused me
And burst into sorrow,
No mock-grief I needed
From keeners to borrow.
I looked on my husband-
I looked on him only-
And I thought on his children,
With me left so lonely.

Frank, my own love and darling,
You had every blessing-

A wife and two daughters

Your bosom to press in ;

A plentiful table,

With green China dishes,

And a cellar of wine

That could answer all wishes.

The best bed and blankets,

The finest of sheeting,

And a quilt richly covered

With birds and flowers meeting.

You might lie of a morning,

Asleep, or in seeming,

Till the sun's light came in

Through each small crevice streaming.

You did not forget me

At the Spaw,* when near dying,

*Of Mallow.