[Gerald Griffin was born at Limerick, December 12th, 1803. His father was a respectable farmer, and his mother is described as a woman of extreme piety and of a refined and sensitive nature. This nature her ninth son, Gerald, largely inherited. He commenced his literary career by contributing to the Limerick newspapers. In 1828 he wrote the greatest of Irish novels " The Collegians," or, as it is otherwise called, "The Colleen Bawn." On September 8th, 1838, he joined the order of the Christian Brothers, in Dublin, and removed to Cork the following summer, where he died June 12th, 1840, and was interred in the cemetery of the convent.]

THE FATE OF CATHLEEN.

A WICKLOW STORY.

IN Luggelaw's deep-wooded vale
The summer eve was dying;

On lake, and cliff, and rock, and dale,
A lulling calm was lying;
And virgin saints and holy men

The vesper song were singing,
And sweetly down the rocky glen
The vesper bell was ringing.

Soft gloom fell from the mountain's Upon the lake declining; [breast

And half in gentle shade was drest,

And half like silver shiningAnd by that shore young Kevin stands, His heart with anguish laden; And timid there, with wreathed hands, A fair and gentle maiden.

On friendship's lap it lies reclined, And sighs in Love's own bowers. It shines o'er all the summer skies,

When dews the wild buds cherish; And worst of all, in woman's eyes, Ah, hide them! or I perish.'

The maiden calmly, sadly smiled,

She plucked an opening flower, She gazed along the mountain wild, And on the evening bower. "I've looked," she said, "from east to west, But sin has never found me; I cannot feel it in my breast, Nor see it all around me.

"The light that fills those summer skies,
The laugh that flows the freest,
I've marked with loving ears and eyes,
Nor saw the ill thou seest.

I always thought that morning air
Blew on my bosom purely;
The worst I find in all that's fair
Is that it fades too surely.

"If it be sin to love thy name,

And tire of loving never,
Why am I spared the inward shame
That follows sin for ever?
For I can lift my hands and eyes

To that bright Heaven above me;
And gaze upon the cloudless skies,
And say aloud -- I love thee!
"I had a brother in my home,

I loved — I loved him truly;
With him it was my want to roam
When morn was breaking newly.

With him I've cheered the weary time With cruit* soft or story,

He never spake of secret crime,

Of sin or tainted glory.

* A small harp.

For, oh, she haunts me morn and eve, And I am weak and human."

A counsel woke within his heart,
While yet the youth was kneeling,
It whispered to his soul-"Depart,
And shun the war of feeling.
Courage on battlefields is shown
By fighting firm and dying,
But in the strife with Love alone
The glory lies in flying."

Swift as the sudden wind that sings
Across the storm-roused ocean,
Swift as the silent prayer that springs
Up, warm, from young Devotion,
Swift as the brook, the light, the air,

As death, time, thought, or glory, Young Kevin flies that valley fair, That lake and mountain hoary.

And far away, and far away,

O'er heath and hill he speeds him, While virtue cheers the desert gray,

And light immortal leads him. And far away, and far, and far

From his accustomed fountain, Till quench'd in light the morning star And day was on the mountain.

In Luggelaw's deep wooded vale

The summer dawn was breaking, On lake and cliff and wood and dale Light, life, and joy were waking. The skylark in the ear of morn

His shrilly fife was sounding, With speckled side, and mossy horn,

The deer were up and bounding.

Young Nature now all bustlingly

Stirs from her nightly slumber, And puts those misty curtains by Her mighty couch that cumber.