The murmuring streams, and groves, And meadows, mildly bright, Invite to converse sweet the timid loves Beneath thy kinder light. And fays, as poet's fain, and fairy throng, In gaudy troops to ride o'er flood or fen, But when the rose of morn, with blushing light, To rocky dens retreating Break off their airy show; And then fond lovers, endless vows repeating At parting, fonder grow. THE BELLS OF SHANDON, As here introduced according to alphabetical arrangement, refer to "The spreading LEE, that, like an island fair, Encloseth Cork with his divided flood." SPENSER'S Faery Queen, ii. 4. The steeple of the Church of St. Anne, or Upper Shandon, in which hang the bells celebrated in the following song, is 120 feet high, and, being built upon a consider able eminence, appears a remarkable object in every point of view of the city of Cork; but especially from what Moore has termed "its noble sea avenue," the River Lee. The building of this church was commenced in 1722, and its steeple was constructed of the hewn stone from the Franciscan Abbey, where James II. heard mass, and from the ruins of Lord Barry's castle, which had been the official residence of the lords president of Munster, and from whence this quarter of the city takes its name,Shandon (rean dun) signifying, in Irish, the old fort or castle. But as the demolished abbey had been built of limestone, and the castle of redstone, the taste of the architect of Shandon steeple led him to combine the discordant materials which ecclesiastic and civic revolution had placed at his disposal, by constructing three sides of his work of white, and the remaining side of red stone; a circumstance which has occasioned many local jokes and observations, the most memorable of which are some rhymes commencing Party-coloured, like the people, Red and white stands Shandon steeple," said to have been addressed to Dr. Woodward, bishop of Cloyne, by the famous Father O'Leary. Fitzgerald has chronicled, in his "Cork Remembrancer," that Shandon bells were put up in the summer of 1752. The first joyful peal they rung was for the marriage of the present (1783) burgess, Henry Harding (mayor of Cork in 1789, and who died in office), with Miss Catherine Dorman, on Thursday, December 7th. Dr. De la Cour, whose song on Blackpool has been quoted at p. 176, lies buried in the churchyard of Upper Shandon. The author of the lyric now given upon the bells of that church, is the Reverend Francis Mahony. It was originally published in "Fraser's Magazine" for 1834, and is reprinted in "The Reliques of Father Prout," i. 255, where the reverend author, after indulging in his usual strain of facetiousness, speaks really from his heart. A discussion, about the melody of bells, is thus concluded: "All these matters, we agreed, were very fine; but there is nothing, after all, like the associations which early infancy attaches to the well-known and longremembered chimes of our own parish steeple; and no music can equal on our ear, when returning after long absence in foreign, and perhaps happier countries." With thy bells of Shandon, Of the river Lee. I've heard bells chiming Cathedral shrine, While at a glibe rate Brass tongues would vibrate; But all their music Spoke naught like thine. For memory, dwelling The pleasant waters Of the river Lee. I've heard bells tolling Their thunder rolling From the Vatican, Of Notre Dame; But thy sounds were sweeter Than the dome of Peter Flings o'er the Tiber, Pealing solemnly. Oh! the bells of Shandon The pleasant waters Of the river Lee. There's a bell in Moscow, While on tower and kiosk O! In Saint Sophia The Turkman gets, And loud in air Calls men to prayer From the tapering summit. Of tall minarets. Such empty phantom But there is an anthem More dear to me,"Tis the bells of Shandon, That sound so grand on The pleasant waters Of the river Lee. |