by Thomas Moore
To grace your revel, when I’m at rest;
Never, oh! never its balm bestowing
On lips that beauty has seldom blest.
But when some warm devoted lover
To her he adores shall bathe its brim,
Then, then my spirit around shall hover,
And hallow each drop that foams for him.
1 “In every house was one or two harps, free to all travellers, who were the more caressed, the more they excelled in music.” — O’Halloran.
HOW OFT HAS THE BANSHEE CRIED.
How oft has the Banshee cried,
How oft has death untied
Bright links that Glory wove,
Sweet bonds entwined by Love!
Peace to each manly soul that sleepeth;
Rest to each faithful eye that weepeth;
Long may the fair and brave
Sigh o’er the hero’s grave.
We’re fallen upon gloomy days!1
Star after star decays,
Every bright name, that shed
Light o’er the land, is fled.
Dark falls the tear of him who mourneth
Lost joy, or hope that ne’er returneth;
But brightly flows the tear,
Wept o’er a hero’s bier.
Quenched are our beacon lights —
Thou, of the Hundred Fights!2
Thou, on whose burning tongue
Truth, peace, and freedom hung!
Both mute, — but long as valor shineth,
Or Mercy’s soul at war repineth,
So long shall Erin’s pride
Tell how they lived and died.
1 I have endeavored here, without losing that Irish character, which it is my object to preserve throughout this work, to allude to the sad and ominous fatality, by which England has been deprived of so many great and good men, at a moment when she most requires all the aids of talent and integrity.
2 This designation, which has been before applied to Lord Nelson, is the title given to a celebrated Irish Hero, in a Poem by O’Guive, the bard of O’Niel, which is quoted in the “Philosophical Survey of the South of Ireland,” page 433. “Con, of the hundred Fights, sleep in thy grass-grown tomb, and upbraid not our defeats with thy victories.”
WE MAY ROAM THROUGH THIS WORLD.
We may roam thro’ this world, like a child at a feast,
Who but sips of a sweet, and then flies to the rest;
And, when pleasure begins to grow dull in the east,
We may order our wings and be off to the west;
But if hearts that feel, and eyes that smile,
Are the dearest gifts that heaven supplies,
We never need leave our own green isle,
For sensitive hearts, and for sun-bright eyes.
Then remember, wherever your goblet is crowned,
Thro’ this world, whether eastward or westward you roam,
When a cup to the smile of dear woman goes round,
Oh! remember the smile which adorns her at home.
In England, the garden of Beauty is kept
By a dragon of prudery placed within call;
But so oft this unamiable dragon has slept,
That the garden’s but carelessly watched after all.
Oh! they want the wild sweet-briery fence,
Which round the flowers of Erin dwells;
Which warns the touch, while winning the sense,
Nor charms us least when it most repels.
Then remember, wherever your goblet is crowned,
Thro’ this world, whether eastward or westward you roam,
When a cup to the smile of dear woman goes round,
Oh! remember the smile that adorns her at home.
In France, when the heart of a woman sets sail,
On the ocean of wedlock its fortune to try,
Love seldom goes far in a vessel so frail,
But just pilots her off, and then bids her good-by.
While the daughters of Erin keep the boy,
Ever smiling beside his faithful oar,
Thro’ billows of woe, and beams of joy,
The same as he looked when he left the shore.
Then remember, wherever your goblet is crowned,
Thro’ this world, whether eastward or westward you roam,
When a cup to the smile of dear woman goes round,
Oh! remember the smile that adorns her at home.
EVELEEN’S BOWER.
Oh! weep for the hour,
When to Eveleen’s bower
The Lord of the Valley with false vows came;
The moon hid her light
From the heavens that night.
And wept behind her clouds o’er the maiden’s shame.
The clouds past soon
From the chaste cold moon,
And heaven smiled again with her vestal flame:
But none will see the day,
When the clouds shall pass away,
Which that dark hour left upon Eveleen’s fame.
The white snow lay
On the narrow path-way,
When the Lord of the Valley crost over the moor;
And many a deep print
On the white snow’s tint
Showed the track of his footstep to Eveleen’s door.
The next sun’s ray
Soon melted away
Every trace on the path where the false Lord came;
But there’s a light above,
Which alone can remove
That stain upon the snow of fair Eveleen’s fame.
LET ERIN REMEMBER THE DAYS OF OLD.
Let Erin remember the days of old.
Ere her faithless sons betrayed her;
When Malachi wore the collar of gold,1
Which he won from her proud invader.
When her kings, with standard of green unfurled,
Led the Red-Branch Knights to danger;2
Ere the emerald gem of the western world
Was set in the crown of a stranger.
On Lough Neagh’s bank as the fisherman strays,
When the clear cold eve’s declining,
He sees the round towers of other days
In the wave beneath him shining:
Thus shall memory often, in dreams sublime,
Catch a glimpse of the days that are over;
Thus, sighing, look thro’ the waves of time
For the long-faded glories they cover.3
1 “This brought on an encounter between Malachi (the Monarch of Ireland in the tenth century) and the Danes, in which Malachi defeated two of their champions, whom he encountered successively, hand to hand, taking a collar of gold from the neck of one, and carrying off the sword of the other, as trophies of his victory.” — Warner’s “History of Ireland,” vol. i. book ix.
2 “Military orders of knights were very early established in Ireland; long before the birth of Christ we find an hereditary order of Chivalry in Ulster, called Curaidhe na Craiobhe ruadh, or the Knights of the Red Branch, from their chief seat in Emania, adjoining to the palace of the Ulster kings, called Teagh na Craiobhe ruadh, or the Academy of the Red Branch; and contiguous to which was a large hospital, founded for the sick knights and soldiers, called Bronbhearg, or the House of the Sorrowful Soldier.” — O’Halloran’s Introduction, etc., part 1, cha.
3 It was an old tradition, in the time of Giraldus, that Lough Neagh had been originally a fountain, by whose sudden overflowing the country was inundated, and a whole region, like the Atlantis of Plato, overwhelmed. He says that the fishermen, in clear weather, used to point out to strangers the tall ecclesiastical towers under the water.
THE SONG OF FIONNUALA.1
Silent, oh Moyle, be the roar of thy water,
Break not, ye breezes, your chain of repose,
While, murmuring mournfully, Lir’s lonely daughter
Tells to the night-star her tale of woes.
When shall the swan, her death-note
singing,
Sleep, with wings in darkness furled?
When will heaven, its sweet bell ringing,
Call my spirit from this stormy world?
Sadly, oh Moyle, to thy winter wave weeping,
Fate bids me languish long ages away;
Yet still in her darkness doth Erin lie sleeping,
Still doth the pure light its dawning delay.
When will that day-star, mildly springing,
Warm our isle with peace and love?
When will heaven, its sweet bell ringing,
Call my spirit to the fields above?
1 To make this story intelligible in a song would require a much greater number of verses than any one is authorized to inflict upon an audience at once; the reader must therefore be content to learn, in a note, that Fionnuala, the daughter of Lir, was, by some supernatural power, transformed into a swan, and condemned to wander, for many hundred years, over certain lakes and rivers in Ireland, till the coming of Christianity, when the first sound of the mass-bell was to be the signal of her release, — I found this fanciful fiction among some manuscript translations from the Irish, which were begun under the direction of that enlightened friend of Ireland, the late Countess of Moira.
COME, SEND ROUND THE WINE.
Come, send round the wine, and leave points of belief
To simpleton sages, and reasoning fools;
This moment’s a flower too fair and brief,
To be withered and stained by the dust of the schools.
Your glass may be purple, and mine may be blue,
But, while they are filled from the same bright bowl,
The fool, who would quarrel for difference of hue,
Deserves not the comfort they shed o’er the soul.
Shall I ask the brave soldier, who fights by my side
In the cause of mankind, if our creeds agree?
Shall I give up the friend I have valued and tried,
If he kneel not before the same altar with me?
From the heretic girl of my soul should I fly,
To seek somewhere else a more orthodox kiss?
No, perish the hearts, and the laws that try
Truth, valor, or love, by a standard like this!
SUBLIME WAS THE WARNING.
Sublime was the warning that Liberty spoke,
And grand was the moment when Spaniards awoke
Into life and revenge from the conqueror’s chain.
Oh, Liberty! let not this Spirit have rest,
Till it move, like a breeze, o’er the waves of the west —
Give the light of your look to each sorrowing spot,
Nor, oh, be the Shamrock of Erin forgot
While you add to your garland the Olive of Spain!
If the fame of our fathers, bequeathed with their rights,
Give to country its charm, and to home its delights,
If deceit be a wound, and suspicion a stain,
Then, ye men of Iberia; our cause is the same!
And oh! may his tomb want a tear and a name,
Who would ask for a nobler, a holier death,
Than to turn his last sigh into victory’s breath,
For the Shamrock of Erin and Olive of Spain!
Ye Blakes and O’Donnels, whose fathers resigned
The green hills of their youth, among strangers to find
That repose which, at home, they had sighed for in vain,
Join, join in our hope that the flame, which you light,
May be felt yet in Erin, as calm, and as bright,
And forgive even Albion while blushing she draws,
Like a truant, her sword, in the long-slighted cause
Of the Shamrock of Erin and Olive of Spain!
God prosper the cause! — oh, it cannot but thrive,
While the pulse of one patriot heart is alive.
Its devotion to feel, and its rights to maintain;
Then, how sainted by sorrow, its martyrs will die!
The finger of Glory shall point where they lie;
While, far from the footstep of coward or slave.
The young spirit of Freedom shall shelter their grave
Beneath Shamrocks of Erin and Olives of Spain!
BELIEVE ME IF ALL THOSE ENDEARING YOUNG CHARMS.
Believe me, if all those endearing young charms,
Which I gaze on so fondly today,
Were to change by to-morrow, and fleet in my arms,
Like fairy-gifts fading away,
Thou wouldst still be adored, as this moment thou art.
Let thy loveliness fade as it will.
And around the dear ruin each wish of my heart
Would entwine itself verdantly still.
It is not while beauty and youth are thine own,
And thy cheeks unprofaned by a tear,
That the fervor and faith of a soul can be known,
To which time will but make thee more dear;
No, the heart that has truly loved never forgets,
But as truly loves on to the close,
As the sun-flower turns on her god, when he sets,
The same look which she turned when he rose.
ERIN, OH ERIN.
Like the bright lamp, that shone in Kildare’s holy fane,1
And burn’d thro’ long ages of darkness and storm,
Is the heart that sorrows have frowned on in vain,
Whose spirit outlives them, unfading and warm.
Erin, oh Erin, thus bright thro’ the tears
Of a long night of bondage, thy spirit appears.
The nations have fallen, and thou still art young,
Thy sun is but rising, when others are set;
And tho’ slavery’s cloud o’er thy morning hath hung,
The full noon of freedom shall beam round thee yet.
Erin, oh Erin, tho’ long in the shade,
Thy star will shine out when the proudest shall fade.
Unchilled by the rain, and unwaked by the wind,
The lily lies sleeping thro’ winter’s cold hour,
Till Spring’s light touch her fetters unbind,
And daylight and liberty bless the young flower.
Thus Erin, oh Erin, thy winter is past,
And the hope that lived thro’ it shall blossom at last.
1 The inextinguishable fire of St. Bridget, at Kildare, which Giraldus mentions.
DRINK TO HER.
Drink to her, who long,
Hath waked the poet’s sigh.
The girl, who gave to song
What gold could never buy.
Oh! woman’s heart was made
For minstrel hands alone;
By other fingers played,
It yields not half the tone.
Then here’s to her, who long
Hath waked the poet’s sigh,
The girl who gave to song
What gold could never buy.
At Beauty’s door of glass,
When Wealth and Wit once stood,
They asked her ‘which might pass?”
She answered, “he, who could.”
With golden key Wealth thought
To pass — but ’twould not do:
While Wit a diamond brought,
Which cut his bright way through.
So here’s to her, who long
Hath waked the poet’s sigh,
The girl, who gave to song
What gold could never buy.
The love that seeks a home
Where wealth or grandeur shines,
Is like the gloomy gnome,
That dwells in dark gold mines.
But oh! the poet’s love
Can boast a brighter sphere;
Its native home’s above,
Tho’ woman keeps it here.
Then drink to her, who long
Hath waked the poet’s sigh,
The girl, who gave to song
What gold could never buy.
OH! B
LAME NOT THE BARD.1
Oh! blame not the bard, if he fly to the bowers,
Where Pleasure lies, carelessly smiling at Fame;
He was born for much more, and in happier hours
His soul might have burned with a holier flame.
The string, that now languishes loose o’er the lyre,
Might have bent a proud bow to the warrior’s dart;2
And the lip, which now breathes but the song of desire,
Might have poured the full tide of a patriot’s heart.
But alas for his country! — her pride is gone by,
And that spirit is broken, which never would bend;
O’er the ruin her children in secret must sigh,
For ’tis treason to love her, and death to defend.
Unprized are her sons, till they’ve learned to betray;
Undistinguished they live, if they shame not their sires;
And the torch, that would light them thro’ dignity’s way,
Must be caught from the pile, where their country expires.
Then blame not the bard, if in pleasure’s soft dream,
He should try to forget, what he never can heal:
Oh! give but a hope — let a vista but gleam
Thro’ the gloom of his country, and mark how he’ll feel!
That instant, his heart at her shrine would lay down
Every passion it nurst, every bliss it adored;
While the myrtle, now idly entwined with his crown,
Like the wreath of Harmodius, should cover his sword.
But tho’ glory be gone, and tho’ hope fade away,
Thy name, loved Erin, shall live in his songs;
Not even in the hour, when his heart is most gay,
Will he lose the remembrance of thee and thy wrongs.
The stranger shall hear thy lament on his plains;
The sigh of thy harp shall be sent o’er the deep,
Till thy masters themselves, as they rivet thy chains,
Shall pause at the song of their captive, and weep!
1 We may suppose this apology to have been uttered by one of those wandering bards, whom Spenser so severely, and perhaps, truly, describes in his State of Ireland, and whose poems, he tells us, “were sprinkled with some pretty flowers of their natural device, which have good grace and comeliness unto them, the which it is great pity to see abused to the gracing of wickedness and vice, which, with good usage, would serve to adorn and beautify virtue.”