by Thomas Moore
And fill both ends for ever!
Then wreath the bowl
With flowers of soul
The brightest wit can find us;
We’ll take a flight
Towards heaven to-night,
And leave dull earth behind us.
WHENE’ER I SEE THOSE SMILING EYES.
Whene’er I see those smiling eyes,
So full of hope, and joy, and light,
As if no cloud could ever rise,
To dim a heaven so purely bright —
I sigh to think how soon that brow
In grief may lose its every ray,
And that light heart, so joyous now,
Almost forget it once was gay.
For time will come with all its blights,
The ruined hope, the friend unkind,
And love, that leaves, where’er it lights,
A chilled or burning heart behind: —
While youth, that now like snow appears,
Ere sullied by the darkening rain,
When once ’tis touched by sorrow’s tears
Can ever shine so bright again.
IF THOU’LT BE MINE.
If thou’lt be mine, the treasures of air,
Of earth, and sea, shall lie at thy feet;
Whatever in Fancy’s eye looks fair,
Or in Hope’s sweet music sounds most sweet,
Shall be ours — if thou wilt be mine, love!
Bright flowers shall bloom wherever we rove,
A voice divine shall talk in each stream;
The stars shall look like worlds of love,
And this earth be all one beautiful dream
In our eyes — if thou wilt be mine, love!
And thoughts, whose source is hidden and high,
Like streams, that come from heavenward hills,
Shall keep our hearts, like meads, that lie
To be bathed by those eternal rills,
Ever green, if thou wilt be mine, love!
All this and more the Spirit of Love
Can breathe o’er them, who feel his spells;
That heaven, which forms his home above,
He can make on earth, wherever he dwells,
As thou’lt own. — if thou wilt be mine, love!
TO LADIES’ EYES.
To Ladies’ eyes around, boy,
We can’t refuse, we can’t refuse,
Tho’ bright eyes so abound, boy,
’Tis hard to choose, ’tis hard to choose.
For thick as stars that lighten
Yon airy bowers, yon airy bowers,
The countless eyes that brighten
This earth of ours, this earth of ours.
But fill the cup — where’er, boy,
Our choice may fall, our choice may fall,
We’re sure to find Love there, boy,
So drink them all! so drink them all!
Some looks there are so holy,
They seem but given, they seem but given,
As shining beacons, solely,
To light to heaven, to light to heaven.
While some — oh! ne’er believe them —
With tempting ray, with tempting ray,
Would lead us (God forgive them!)
The other way, the other way.
But fill the cup — where’er, boy,
Our choice may fall, our choice may fall,
We’re sure to find Love there, boy,
So drink them all! so drink them all!
In some, as in a mirror,
Love seems portrayed, Love seems portrayed,
But shun the flattering error,
’Tis but his shade, ’tis but his shade.
Himself has fixt his dwelling
In eyes we know, in eyes we know,
And lips — but this is telling —
So here they go! so here they go!
Fill up, fill up — where’er, boy,
Our choice may fall, our choice may fall,
We’re sure to find Love there, boy,
So drink them all! so drink them all!
FORGET NOT THE FIELD.
Forget not the field where they perished,
The truest, the last of the brave,
All gone — and the bright hope we cherished
Gone with them, and quenched in their grave!
Oh! could we from death but recover
Those hearts as they bounded before,
In the face of high heaven to fight over
That combat for freedom once more; —
Could the chain for an instant be riven
Which Tyranny flung round us then,
No, ’tis not in Man, nor in Heaven,
To let Tyranny bind it again!
But ’tis past — and, tho’ blazoned in story
The name of our Victor may be,
Accurst is the march of that glory
Which treads o’er the hearts of the free.
Far dearer the grave or the prison,
Illumed by one patriot name,
Than the trophies of all, who have risen
On Liberty’s ruins to fame.
THEY MAY RAIL AT THIS LIFE.
They may rail at this life — from the hour I began it,
I found it a life full of kindness and bliss;
And, until they can show me some happier planet,
More social and bright, I’ll content me with this.
As long as the world has such lips and such eyes,
As before me this moment enraptured I see,
They may say what they will of their orbs in the skies,
But this earth is the planet for you, love, and me.
In Mercury’s star, where each moment can bring them
New sunshine and wit from the fountain on high,
Tho’ the nymphs may have livelier poets to sing them,
They’ve none, even there, more enamored than I.
And as long as this harp can be wakened to love,
And that eye its divine inspiration shall be,
They may talk as they will of their Edens above,
But this earth is the planet for you, love, and me.
In that star of the west, by whose shadowy splendor,
At twilight so often we’ve roamed thro’ the dew,
There are maidens, perhaps, who have bosoms as tender,
And look, in their twilights, as lovely as you.
But tho’ they were even more bright than the queen
Of that isle they inhabit in heaven’s blue sea,
As I never those fair young celestials have seen,
Why — this earth is the planet for you, love, and me.
As for those chilly orbs on the verge of creation,
Where sunshine and smiles must be equally rare,
Did they want a supply of cold hearts for that station,
Heaven knows we have plenty on earth we could spare,
Oh! think what a world we should have of it here,
If the haters of peace, of affection and glee,
Were to fly up to Saturn’s comfortless sphere,
And leave earth to such spirits as you, love, and me.
OH FOR THE SWORDS OF FORMER TIME!
Oh for the swords of former time!
Oh for the men who bore them,
When armed for Right, they stood sublime,
And tyrants crouched before them:
When free yet, ere courts began
With honors to enslave him,
The best honors worn by Man
Were those which Virtue gave him.
Oh for the swords, etc.
Oh for the kings who flourished then!
Oh for the pomp that crowned them,
When hearts and hands of freeborn men
Were all the ramparts round them.
When, safe built on bosoms true,
The throne was but the centre,
Round which Love a circle drew,
That Treason durst not enter.<
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Oh for the kings who flourished then!
Oh for the pomp that crowned them,
When hearts and hands of freeborn men
Were all the ramparts round them!
ST. SENANUS AND THE LADY.
ST. SENANUS.1
“Oh! haste and leave this sacred isle,
Unholy bark, ere morning smile;
For on thy deck, though dark it be,
A female form I see;
And I have sworn this sainted sod
Shall ne’er by woman’s feet be trod.”
THE LADY.
“Oh! Father, send not hence my bark,
Thro’ wintry winds and billows dark:
I come with humble heart to share
Thy morn and evening prayer;
Nor mine the feet, oh! holy Saint,
The brightness of thy sod to taint.”
The Lady’s prayer Senanus spurned;
The winds blew fresh, the bark returned;
But legends hint, that had the maid
Till morning’s light delayed,
And given the saint one rosy smile,
She ne’er had left his lonely isle.
1 In a metrical life of St. Senanus, which is taken from an old Kilkenny MS., and may be found among the “Acta Sanctorum Hiberniae,” we are told of his flight to the island of Scattery, and his resolution not to admit any woman of the party; he refused to receive even a sister saint, St. Cannera, whom an angel had taken to the island for the express purpose of introducing her to him.
NE’ER ASK THE HOUR.
Ne’er ask the hour — what is it to us
How Time deals out his treasures?
The golden moments lent us thus,
Are not his coin, but Pleasure’s.
If counting them o’er could add to their blisses,
I’d number each glorious second:
But moments of joy are, like Lesbia’s kisses,
Too quick and sweet to be reckoned.
Then fill the cup — what is it to us
How time his circle measures?
The fairy hours we call up thus,
Obey no wand but Pleasure’s.
Young Joy ne’er thought of counting hours,
Till Care, one summer’s morning,
Set up, among his smiling flowers,
A dial, by way of warning.
But Joy loved better to gaze on the sun,
As long as its light was glowing,
Than to watch with old Care how the shadows stole on,
And how fast that light was going.
So fill the cup — what is it to us
How Time his circle measures?
The fairy hours we call up thus,
Obey no wand but Pleasure’s.
SAIL ON, SAIL ON.
Sail on, sail on, thou fearless bark —
Wherever blows the welcome wind,
It cannot lead to scenes more dark,
More sad than those we leave behind.
Each wave that passes seems to say,
“Tho’ death beneath our smile may be,
Less cold we are, less false than they,
Whose smiling wrecked thy hopes and thee.”
Sail on, sail on, — thro’ endless space —
Thro’ calm — thro’ tempest — stop no more:
The stormiest sea’s a resting place
To him who leaves such hearts on shore.
Or — if some desert land we meet,
Where never yet false-hearted men
Profaned a world, that else were sweet, —
Then rest thee, bark, but not till then.
THE PARALLEL.
Yes, sad one of Sion,1 if closely resembling,
In shame and in sorrow, thy withered-up heart —
If drinking deep, deep, of the same “cup of trembling”
Could make us thy children, our parent thou art,
Like thee doth our nation lie conquered and broken,
And fallen from her head is the once royal crown;
In her streets, in her halls, Desolation hath spoken,
And “while it is day yet, her sun hath gone down.”2
Like thine doth her exile, mid dreams of returning,
Die far from the home it were life to behold;
Like thine do her sons, in the day of their mourning,
Remember the bright things that blest them of old.
Ah, well may we call her, like thee “the Forsaken,”3
Her boldest are vanquished, her proudest are slaves;
And the harps of her minstrels, when gayest they waken,
Have tones mid their mirth like the wind over graves!
Yet hadst thou thy vengeance — yet came there the morrow,
That shines out, at last, on the longest dark night,
When the sceptre, that smote thee with slavery and sorrow,
Was shivered at once, like a reed, in thy sight.
When that cup, which for others the proud Golden City4
Had brimmed full of bitterness, drenched her own lips;
And the world she had trampled on heard, without pity,
The howl in her halls, and the cry from her ships.
When the curse Heaven keeps for the haughty came over
Her merchants rapacious, her rulers unjust,
And, a ruin, at last, for the earthworm to cover,5
The Lady of Kingdoms6 lay low in the dust.
1 These verses were written after the perusal of a treatise by Mr. Hamilton, professing to prove that the Irish were originally Jews.
2 1 “Her sun is gone down while it was yet day.” — Jer. xv. 9.
3 “Thou shalt no more be termed Forsaken.” — Isaiah, lxii. 4.
4 “How hath the oppressor ceased! the golden city ceased!” — Isaiah, xiv. 4.
5 “Thy pomp is brought down to the grave . . . and the worms cover thee.” — Isaiah, xiv. 11.
6 “Thou shalt no more be called the Lady of Kingdoms.” — Isaiah, xlvil. 5.
DRINK OF THIS CUP.
Drink of this cup; — you’ll find there’s a spell in
Its every drop ‘gainst the ills of mortality;
Talk of the cordial that sparkled for Helen!
Her cup was a fiction, but this is reality.
Would you forget the dark world we are in,
Just taste of the bubble that gleams on the top of it;
But would you rise above earth, till akin
To Immortals themselves, you must drain every drop of it;
Send round the cup — for oh there’s a spell in
Its every drop ‘gainst the ills of mortality;
Talk of the cordial that sparkled for Helen!
Her cup was a fiction, but this is reality.
Never was philter formed with such power
To charm and bewilder as this we are quaffing;
Its magic began when, in Autumn’s rich hour,
A harvest of gold in the fields it stood laughing.
There having, by Nature’s enchantment, been filled
With the balm and the bloom of her kindliest weather,
This wonderful juice from its core was distilled
To enliven such hearts as are here brought together.
Then drink of the cup — you’ll find there’s a spell in
Its every drop ‘gainst the ills of mortality;
Talk of the cordial that sparkled for Helen!
Her cup was a fiction, but this is reality.
And tho’ perhaps — but breathe it to no one —
Like liquor the witch brews at midnight so awful,
This philter in secret was first taught to flow on,
Yet ’tisn’t less potent for being unlawful.
And, even tho’ it taste of the smoke of that flame,
Which in silence extracted its virtue forbidden —
Fill up — there’s a fire in some hearts I could name,
Which may work too its charm, tho’ as lawl
ess and hidden.
So drink of the cup — for oh there’s a spell in
Its every drop ‘gainst the ills of mortality;
Talk of the cordial that sparkled for Helen!
Her cup was a fiction, but this is reality.
THE FORTUNE-TELLER.
Down in the valley come meet me to-night,
And I’ll tell you your fortune truly
As ever ’twas told, by the new-moon’s light,
To a young maiden, shining as newly.
But, for the world, let no one be nigh,
Lest haply the stars should deceive me;
Such secrets between you and me and the sky
Should never go farther, believe me.
If at that hour the heavens be not dim,
My science shall call up before you
A male apparition, — the image of him
Whose destiny ’tis to adore you.
And if to that phantom you’ll be kind,
So fondly around you he’ll hover,
You’ll hardly, my dear, any difference find
‘Twixt him and a true living lover.
Down at your feet, in the pale moonlight,
He’ll kneel, with a warmth of devotion —
An ardor, of which such an innocent sprite
You’d scarcely believe had a notion.
What other thoughts and events may arise,
As in destiny’s book I’ve not seen them,
Must only be left to the stars and your eyes
To settle, ere morning, between them.
OH, YE DEAD!
Oh, ye Dead! oh, ye Dead!1 whom we know by the light you give
From your cold gleaming eyes, tho’ you move like men who live,
Why leave you thus your graves,
In far off fields and waves,
Where the worm and the sea-bird only know your bed,
To haunt this spot where all
Those eyes that wept your fall,
And the hearts that wailed you, like your own, lie dead?
It is true, it is true, we are shadows cold and wan;
And the fair and the brave whom we loved on earth are gone;
But still thus even in death,
So sweet the living breath
Of the fields and the flowers in our youth we wander’d o’er,
That ere, condemned, we go
To freeze mid Hecla’s snow,
We would taste it awhile, and think we live once more!
1 Paul Zealand mentions that there is a mountain in some part of Ireland, where the ghosts of persons who have died in foreign lands walk about and converse with those they meet, like living people. If asked why they do not return to their homes, they say they are obliged to go to Mount Hecla, and disappear immediately.