Thomas Moore- Collected Poetical Works
Page 29
2 It is conjectured by Wormius, that the name of Ireland is derived from Yr, the Runic for a bow in the use of which weapon the Irish were once very expert. This derivation is certainly more creditable to us than the following: “So that Ireland, called the land of Ire, from the constant broils therein for 400 years, was now become the land of concord.” Lloyd’s “State Worthies,” art. The Lord Grandison.
WHILE GAZING ON THE MOON’S LIGHT.
While gazing on the moon’s light,
A moment from her smile I turned,
To look at orbs, that, more bright,
In lone and distant glory burned.
But too far
Each proud star,
For me to feel its warming flame;
Much more dear
That mild sphere.
Which near our planet smiling came;
Thus, Mary, be but thou my own;
While brighter eyes unheeded play,
I’ll love those moonlight looks alone,
That bless my home and guide my way.
The day had sunk in dim showers,
But midnight now, with lustre meet.
Illumined all the pale flowers,
Like hope upon a mourner’s cheek.
I said (while
The moon’s smile
Played o’er a stream, in dimpling bliss,)
“The moon looks
“On many brooks,
“The brook can see no moon but this;”1
And thus, I thought, our fortunes run,
For many a lover looks to thee,
While oh! I feel there is but one,
One Mary in the world for me.
1 This image was suggested by the following thought, which occurs somewhere In Sir William Jones’s works: “The moon looks upon many night- flowers, the night flower sees but one moon.”
ILL OMENS.
When daylight was yet sleeping under the billow,
And stars in the heavens still lingering shone.
Young Kitty, all blushing, rose up from her pillow,
The last time she e’er was to press it alone.
For the youth! whom she treasured her heart and her soul in,
Had promised to link the last tie before noon;
And when once the young heart of a maiden is stolen
The maiden herself will steal after it soon.
As she looked in the glass, which a woman ne’er misses.
Nor ever wants time for a sly glance or two,
A butterfly,1 fresh from the night-flower’s kisses.
Flew over the mirror, and shaded her view.
Enraged with the insect for hiding her graces,
She brushed him — he fell, alas; never to rise:
“Ah! such,” said the girl, “is the pride of our faces,
“For which the soul’s innocence too often dies.”
While she stole thro’ the garden, where heart’s-ease was growing,
She culled some, and kist off its night-fallen dew;
And a rose, further on, looked so tempting and glowing,
That, spite of her haste, she must gather it too:
But while o’er the roses too carelessly leaning,
Her zone flew in two, and the
heart’s-ease was lost:
“Ah! this means,” said the girl
(and she sighed at its meaning),
“That love is scarce worth the
repose it will cost!”
1 An emblem of the soul.
BEFORE THE BATTLE.
By the hope within us springing,
Herald of to-morrow’s strife;
By that sun, whose light is bringing
Chains or freedom, death or life —
Oh! remember life can be
No charm for him, who lives not free!
Like the day-star in the wave,
Sinks a hero in his grave,
Midst the dew-fall of a nation’s tears.
Happy is he o’er whose decline
The smiles of home may soothing shine
And light him down the steep of years: —
But oh, how blest they sink to rest,
Who close their eyes on victory’s breast!
O’er his watch-fire’s fading embers
Now the foeman’s cheek turns white,
When his heart that field remembers,
Where we tamed his tyrant might.
Never let him bind again
A chain; like that we broke from then.
Hark! the horn of combat calls —
Ere the golden evening falls,
May we pledge that horn in triumph round!1
Many a heart that now beats high,
In slumber cold at night shall lie,
Nor waken even at victory’s sound —
But oh, how blest that hero’s sleep,
O’er whom a wondering world shall weep!
1 “The Irish Corna was not entirely devoted to martial purposes. In the heroic ages, our ancestors quaffed Meadh out of them, as the Danish hunters do their beverage at this day.” — Walker.
AFTER THE BATTLE.
Night closed around the conqueror’s way,
And lightnings showed the distant hill,
Where those who lost that dreadful day,
Stood few and faint, but fearless still.
The soldier’s hope, the patriot’s zeal,
For ever dimmed, for ever crost —
Oh! who shall say what heroes feel,
When all but life and honor’s lost?
The last sad hour of freedom’s dream,
And valor’s task, moved slowly by,
While mute they watcht, till morning’s beam
Should rise and give them light to die.
There’s yet a world, where souls are free,
Where tyrants taint not nature’s bliss; —
If death that world’s bright opening be,
Oh! who would live a slave in this?
‘TIS SWEET TO THINK.
’Tis sweet to think, that, where’er we rove,
We are sure to find something blissful and dear.
And that, when we’re far from the lips we love,
We’ve but to make love to the lips, we are near.
The heart, like a tendril, accustomed to cling,
Let it grow where it will, can not flourish alone,
But will lean to the nearest and loveliest thing
It can twine with itself and make closely its own.
Then oh! what pleasure, where’er we rove,
To be sure to find something still that is dear,
And to know, when far from the lips we love,
We’ve but to make love to the lips we are near.
‘Twere a shame, when flowers around us rise.
To make light of the rest, if the rose isn’t there;
And the world’s so rich in resplendent eyes,
‘Twere a pity to limit one’s love to a pair.
Love’s wing and the peacock’s are nearly alike,
They are both of them bright, but they’re changeable too,
And, wherever a new beam of beauty can strike,
It will tincture Love’s plume with a different hue.
Then oh! what pleasure, where’er we rove,
To be sure to find something still that is dear,
And to know, when far from the lips we love,
We’ve but to make love to the lips we are near.
THE IRISH PEASANT TO HIS MISTRESS.1
Thro’ grief and thro’ danger thy smile hath cheered my way,
Till hope seemed to bud from each thorn that round me lay;
The darker our fortune, the brighter our pure love burned,
Till shame into glory, till fear into zeal was turned;
Yes, slave as I was, in thy arms my spirit felt free,
And blest even the sorrows that made me more dear to thee.
Thy rival was honored, while thou wert wronged and sc
orned,
Thy crown was of briers, while gold her brows adorned;
She wooed me to temples, while thou lay’st hid in caves,
Her friends were all masters, while thine, alas! were slaves;
Yet cold in the earth, at thy feet, I would rather be,
Than wed what I loved not, or turn one thought from thee.
They slander thee sorely, who say thy vows are frail —
Hadst thou been a false one, thy cheek had looked less pale.
They say, too, so long thou hast worn those lingering chains,
That deep in thy heart they have printed their servile stains —
Oh! foul is the slander, — no chain could that soul subdue —
Where shineth thy spirit, there liberty shineth too!2
1 Meaning, allegorically, the ancient Church of Ireland.
2 “Where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is liberty” — St. Paul’s Corinthians ii., l7.
ON MUSIC.
When thro’ life unblest we rove,
Losing all that made life dear,
Should some notes we used to love,
In days of boyhood, meet our ear,
Oh! how welcome breathes the strain!
Wakening thoughts that long have slept;
Kindling former smiles again
In faded eyes that long have wept.
Like the gale, that sighs along
Beds of oriental flowers,
Is the grateful breath of song,
That once was heard in happier hours;
Filled with balm, the gale sighs on,
Tho’ the flowers have sunk in death;
So, when pleasure’s dream is gone,
Its memory lives in Music’s breath.
Music, oh how faint, how weak,
Language fades before thy spell!
Why should Feeling ever speak,
When thou canst breathe her soul so well?
Friendship’s balmy words may feign,
Love’s are even more false than they;
Oh! ’tis only music’s strain
Can sweetly soothe, and not betray.
IT IS NOT THE TEAR AT THIS MOMENT SHED.1
It is not the tear at this moment shed,
When the cold turf has just been laid o’er him,
That can tell how beloved was the friend that’s fled,
Or how deep in our hearts we deplore him.
’Tis the tear, thro’ many a long day wept,
’Tis life’s whole path o’ershaded;
’Tis the one remembrance, fondly kept,
When all lighter griefs have faded.
Thus his memory, like some holy light,
Kept alive in our hearts, will improve them,
For worth shall look fairer, and truth more bright,
When we think how we lived but to love them.
And, as fresher flowers the sod perfume
Where buried saints are lying,
So our hearts shall borrow a sweetening bloom
From the image he left there in dying!
1 These lines were occasioned by the loss of a very near and dear relative, who had died lately at Madeira.
THE ORIGIN OF THE HARP.
’Tis believed that this Harp, which I wake now for thee,
Was a Siren of old, who sung under the sea;
And who often, at eve, thro’ the bright waters roved,
To meet, on the green shore, a youth whom she loved.
But she loved him in vain, for he left her to weep,
And in tears, all the night, her gold tresses to steep;
Till heaven looked with pity on true-love so warm,
And changed to this soft Harp the sea-maiden’s form.
Still her bosom rose fair — still her cheeks smiled the same —
While her sea-beauties gracefully formed the light frame;
And her hair, as, let loose, o’er her white arm it fell,
Was changed to bright chords uttering melody’s spell.
Hence it came, that this soft Harp so long hath been known
To mingle love’s language with sorrow’s sad tone;
Till thou didst divide them, and teach the fond lay
To speak love when I’m near thee, and grief when away.
LOVE’S YOUNG DREAM.
Oh! the days are gone, when Beauty bright
My heart’s chain wove;
When my dream of life, from morn till night,
Was love, still love.
New hope may bloom,
And days may come,
Of milder, calmer beam,
But there’s nothing half so sweet in life
As love’s young dream;
No, there’s nothing half so sweet in life
As love’s young dream.
Tho’ the bard to purer fame may soar,
When wild youth’s past;
Tho’ he win the wise, who frowned before,
To smile at last;
He’ll never meet
A joy so sweet,
In all his noon of fame,
As when first he sung to woman’s ear
His soul-felt flame,
And, at every close, she blushed to hear
The one lov’d name.
No, — that hallowed form is ne’er forgot
Which first love traced;
Still it lingering haunts the greenest spot
On memory’s waste.
’Twas odor fled
As soon as shed;
’Twas morning’s winged dream;
’Twas a light, that ne’er can shine again
On life’s dull stream:
Oh! ’twas light that ne’er can shine again
On life’s dull stream.
THE PRINCE’S DAY.1
Tho’ dark are our sorrows, to-day we’ll forget them,
And smile thro’ our tears, like a sunbeam in showers:
There never were hearts, if our rulers would let them,
More formed to be grateful and blest than ours.
But just when the chain
Has ceased to pain,
And hope has enwreathed it round with flowers,
There comes a new link
Our spirits to sink —
Oh! the joy that we taste, like the light of the poles,
Is a flash amid darkness, too brilliant to stay;
But, tho’ ‘twere the last little spark in our souls,
We must light it up now, on our Prince’s Day.
Contempt on the minion, who calls you disloyal!
Tho’ fierce to your foe, to your friends you are true;
And the tribute most high to a head that is royal,
Is love from a heart that loves liberty too.
While cowards, who blight
Your fame, your right,
Would shrink from the blaze of the battle array,
The Standard of Green
In front would be seen, —
Oh, my life on your faith! were you summoned this minute,
You’d cast every bitter remembrance away,
And show what the arm of old Erin has in it,
When roused by the foe, on her Prince’s Day.
He loves the Green Isle, and his love is recorded
In hearts, which have suffered too much to forget;
And hope shall be crowned, and attachment rewarded,
And Erin’s gay jubilee shine out yet.
The gem may be broke
By many a stroke,
But nothing can cloud its native ray:
Each fragment will cast
A light, to the last, —
And thus, Erin, my country tho’ broken thou art,
There’s a lustre within thee that ne’er will decay;
A spirit, which beams thro’ each suffering part,
And now smiles at all pain on the Prince’s Day.
1 This song was written for a fête in honor of the Prince of Wales’s Birthday, given by my friend,
Major Bryan, at his seat in the county of Kilkenny.
WEEP ON, WEEP ON.
Weep on, weep on, your hour is past;
Your dreams of pride are o’er;
The fatal chain is round you cast,
And you are men no more.
In vain the hero’s heart hath bled;
The sage’s tongue hath warned in vain; —
Oh, Freedom! once thy flame hath fled,
It never lights again.
Weep on — perhaps in after days,
They’ll learn to love your name;
When many a deed may wake in praise
That long hath slept in blame.
And when they tread the ruined isle,
Where rest, at length, the lord and slave,
They’ll wondering ask, how hands so vile
Could conquer hearts so brave?
“’Twas fate,” they’ll say, “a wayward fate
“Your web of discord wove;
“And while your tyrants joined in hate,
“You never joined in love.
“But hearts fell off, that ought to twine,
“And man profaned what God had given;
“Till some were heard to curse the shrine,
“Where others knelt to heaven!”
LESBIA HATH A BEAMING EYE.
Lesbia hath a beaming eye,
But no one knows for whom it beameth;
Right and left its arrows fly,
But what they aim at no one dreameth.
Sweeter ’tis to gaze upon
My Nora’s lid that seldom rises;
Few its looks, but every one,
Like unexpected light, surprises!
Oh, My Nora Creina, dear,
My gentle, bashful Nora Creina,
Beauty lies
In many eyes,
But love in yours, My Nora Creina.
Lesbia wears a robe of gold,
But all so close the nymph hath laced it,
Not a charm of beauty’s mould
Presumes to stay where nature placed it.
Oh! my Nora’s gown for me,
That floats as wild as mountain breezes,
Leaving every beauty free
To sink or swell as Heaven pleases.
Yes, my Nora Creina, dear.
My simple, graceful Nora Creina,
Nature’s dress
Is loveliness —
The dress you wear, my Nora Creina.
Lesbia hath a wit refined,