by Thomas Moore
O’DONOHUE’S MISTRESS.
Of all the fair months, that round the sun
In light-linked dance their circles run,
Sweet May, shine thou for me;
For still, when thy earliest beams arise,
That youth, who beneath the blue lake lies,
Sweet May, returns to me.
Of all the bright haunts, where daylight leaves
Its lingering smile on golden eyes,
Fair Lake, thou’rt dearest to me;
For when the last April sun grows dim,
Thy Naïads prepare his steed1 for him
Who dwells, bright Lake, in thee.
Of all the proud steeds, that ever bore
Young plumed Chiefs on sea or shore,
White Steed, most joy to thee;
Who still, with the first young glance of spring,
From under that glorious lake dost bring
My love, my chief, to me.
While, white as the sail some bark unfurls,
When newly launched, thy long mane2 curls,
Fair Steed, as white and free;
And spirits, from all the lake’s deep bowers,
Glide o’er the blue wave scattering flowers,
Around my love and thee.
Of all the sweet deaths that maidens die,
Whose lovers beneath the cold wave lie,
Most sweet that death will be,
Which, under the next May evening’s light,
When thou and thy steed are lost to sight,
Dear love, I’ll die for thee.
1 The particulars of the tradition respecting Donohue and his White Horse, may be found in Mr. Weld’s Account of Killarney, or more fully detailed in Derrick’s Letters. For many years after his death, the spirit of this hero is supposed to have been seen on the morning of Mayday, gliding over the lake on his favorite white horse to the sound of sweet unearthly music, and preceded by groups of youths and maidens, who flung wreaths of delicate spring flowers in his path.
2 The boatmen at Killarney call those waves which come on a windy day, crested with foam, “O’Donohue’s White Horses.”
ECHO.
How sweet the answer Echo makes
To music at night,
When, roused by lute or horn, she wakes,
And far away, o’er lawns and lakes,
Goes answering light.
Yet Love hath echoes truer far,
And far more sweet,
Than e’er beneath the moonlight star,
Of horn or lute, or soft guitar,
The songs repeat.
’Tis when the sigh, in youth sincere,
And only then, —
The sigh that’s breath’d for one to hear,
Is by that one, that only dear,
Breathed back again!
OH BANQUET NOT.
Oh banquet not in those shining bowers,
Where Youth resorts, but come to me:
For mine’s a garden of faded flowers,
More fit for sorrow, for age, and thee.
And there we shall have our feast of tears,
And many a cup in silence pour;
Our guests, the shades of former years,
Our toasts to lips that bloom no more.
There, while the myrtle’s withering boughs
Their lifeless leaves around us shed,
We’ll brim the bowl to broken vows,
To friends long lost, the changed, the dead.
Or, while some blighted laurel waves
Its branches o’er the dreary spot,
We’ll drink to those neglected graves,
Where valor sleeps, unnamed, forgot.
THEE, THEE, ONLY THEE.
The dawning of morn, the daylight’s sinking,
The night’s long hours still find me thinking
Of thee, thee, only thee.
When friends are met, and goblets crowned,
And smiles are near, that once enchanted,
Unreached by all that sunshine round,
My soul, like some dark spot, is haunted
By thee, thee, only thee.
Whatever in fame’s high path could waken
My spirit once, is now forsaken
For thee, thee, only thee.
Like shores, by which some headlong bark
To the ocean hurries, resting never,
Life’s scenes go by me, bright or dark,
I know not, heed not, hastening ever
To thee, thee, only thee.
I have not a joy but of thy bringing,
And pain itself seems sweet when springing
From thee, thee, only thee.
Like spells, that naught on earth can break,
Till lips, that know the charm, have spoken,
This heart, howe’er the world may wake
Its grief, its scorn, can but be broken
By thee, thee, only thee.
SHALL THE HARP THEN BE SILENT.
Shall the Harp then be silent, when he who first gave
To our country a name, is withdrawn from all eyes?
Shall a Minstrel of Erin stand mute by the grave,
Where the first — where the last of her Patriots lies?
No — faint tho’ the death-song may fall from his lips,
Tho’ his Harp, like his soul, may with shadows be crost,
Yet, yet shall it sound, mid a nation’s eclipse,
And proclaim to the world what a star hath been lost; — 1
What a union of all the affections and powers
By which life is exalted, embellished, refined,
Was embraced in that spirit — whose centre was ours,
While its mighty circumference circled mankind.
Oh, who that loves Erin, or who that can see,
Thro’ the waste of her annals, that epoch sublime —
Like a pyramid raised in the desert — where he
And his glory stand out to the eyes of all time;
That one lucid interval, snatched from the gloom
And the madness of ages, when filled with his soul,
A Nation o’erleaped the dark bounds of her doom,
And for one sacred instant, touched Liberty’s goal?
Who, that ever hath heard him — hath drank at the source
Of that wonderful eloquence, all Erin’s own,
In whose high-thoughted daring, the fire, and the force,
And the yet untamed spring of her spirit are shown?
An eloquence rich, wheresoever its wave
Wandered free and triumphant, with thoughts that shone thro’,
As clear as the brook’s “stone of lustre,” and gave,
With the flash of the gem, its solidity too.
Who, that ever approached him, when free from the crowd,
In a home full of love, he delighted to tread
‘Mong the trees which a nation had given, and which bowed,
As if each brought a new civic crown for his head —
Is there one, who hath thus, thro’ his orbit of life
But at distance observed him — thro’ glory, thro’ blame,
In the calm of retreat, in the grandeur of strife,
Whether shining or clouded, still high and the same, —
Oh no, not a heart, that e’er knew him, but mourns
Deep, deep o’er the grave, where such glory is shrined —
O’er a monument Fame will preserve, ‘mong the urns
Of the wisest, the bravest, the best of mankind!
1 These lines were written on the death of our great patriot, Grattan, in the year 1820. It is only the two first verses that are either intended or fitted to be sung.
OH, THE SIGHT ENTRANCING.
Oh, the sight entrancing,
When morning’s beam is glancing,
O’er files arrayed
With helm and blade,
And plumes, in the gay wind dancing!
When hearts are all high beatin
g,
And the trumpet’s voice repeating
That song, whose breath
May lead to death,
But never to retreating.
Oh the sight entrancing,
When morning’s beam is glancing
O’er files arrayed
With helm and blade,
And plumes, in the gay wind dancing.
Yet, ’tis not helm or feather —
For ask yon despot, whether
His plumed bands
Could bring such hands
And hearts as ours together.
Leave pomps to those who need ’em —
Give man but heart and freedom,
And proud he braves
The gaudiest slaves
That crawl where monarchs lead ’em.
The sword may pierce the beaver,
Stone walls in time may sever,
’Tis mind alone,
Worth steel and stone,
That keeps men free for ever.
Oh that sight entrancing,
When the morning’s beam is glancing,
O’er files arrayed
With helm and blade,
And in Freedom’s cause advancing!
SWEET INNISFALLEN.
Sweet Innisfallen, fare thee well,
May calm and sunshine long be thine!
How fair thou art let others tell, —
To feel how fair shall long be mine.
Sweet Innisfallen, long shall dwell
In memory’s dream that sunny smile,
Which o’er thee on that evening fell,
When first I saw thy fairy isle.
’Twas light, indeed, too blest for one,
Who had to turn to paths of care —
Through crowded haunts again to run,
And leave thee bright and silent there;
No more unto thy shores to come,
But, on the world’s rude ocean tost,
Dream of thee sometimes, as a home
Of sunshine he had seen and lost.
Far better in thy weeping hours
To part from thee, as I do now,
When mist is o’er thy blooming bowers,
Like sorrow’s veil on beauty’s brow.
For, though unrivalled still thy grace,
Thou dost not look, as then, too blest,
But thus in shadow, seem’st a place
Where erring man might hope to rest —
Might hope to rest, and find in thee
A gloom like Eden’s on the day
He left its shade, when every tree,
Like thine, hung weeping o’er his way.
Weeping or smiling, lovely isle!
And all the lovelier for thy tears —
For tho’ but rare thy sunny smile,
’Tis heaven’s own glance when it appears.
Like feeling hearts, whose joys are few,
But, when indeed they come divine —
The brightest light the sun e’er threw
Is lifeless to one gleam of thine!
‘TWAS ONE OF THOSE DREAMS.1
’Twas one of those dreams, that by music are brought,
Like a bright summer haze, o’er the poet’s warm thought —
When, lost in the future, his soul wanders on,
And all of this life, but its sweetness, is gone.
The wild notes he heard o’er the water were those
He had taught to sing Erin’s dark bondage and woes,
And the breath of the bugle now wafted them o’er
From Dinis’ green isle, to Glenà’s wooded shore.
He listened — while, high o’er the eagle’s rude nest,
The lingering sounds on their way loved to rest;
And the echoes sung back from their full mountain choir,
As if loath to let song so enchanting expire.
It seemed as if every sweet note, that died here,
Was again brought to life in some airier sphere,
Some heaven in those hills, where the soul of the strain
They had ceased upon earth was awaking again!
Oh forgive, if, while listening to music, whose breath
Seemed to circle his name with a charm against death,
He should feel a proud Spirit within him proclaim,
“Even so shalt thou live in the echoes of Fame:
“Even so, tho’ thy memory should now die away,
‘Twill be caught up again in some happier day,
And the hearts and the voices of Erin prolong,
Through the answering Future, thy name and thy song.”
1 Written during a visit to Lord Kenmare, at Killarney.
FAIREST! PUT ON AWHILE.
Fairest! put on awhile
These pinions of light I bring thee,
And o’er thy own green isle
In fancy let me wing thee.
Never did Ariel’s plume,
At golden sunset hover
O’er scenes so full of bloom,
As I shall waft thee over.
Fields, where the Spring delays
And fearlessly meets the ardor
Of the warm Summer’s gaze,
With only her tears to guard her.
Rocks, thro’ myrtle boughs
In grace majestic frowning;
Like some bold warrior’s brows
That Love hath just been crowning.
Islets, so freshly fair,
That never hath bird come nigh them,
But from his course thro’ air
He hath been won down by them; — 1
Types, sweet maid, of thee,
Whose look, whose blush inviting,
Never did Love yet see
From Heaven, without alighting.
Lakes, where the pearl lies hid,2
And caves, where the gem is sleeping,
Bright as the tears thy lid
Lets fall in lonely weeping.
Glens,3 where Ocean comes,
To ‘scape the wild wind’s rancor,
And harbors, worthiest homes
Where Freedom’s fleet can anchor.
Then, if, while scenes so grand,
So beautiful, shine before thee,
Pride for thy own dear land
Should haply be stealing o’er thee,
Oh, let grief come first,
O’er pride itself victorious —
Thinking how man hath curst
What Heaven had made so glorious!
1 In describing the Skeligs (islands of the Barony of Forth), Dr. Keating says, “There is a certain attractive virtue in the soil which draws down all the birds that attempt to fly over it, and obliges them to light upon the rock.”
2 “Nennius, a British writer of the ninth century, mentions the abundance of pearls in Ireland. Their princes, he says, hung them behind their ears: and this we find confirmed by a present made A.C. 1094, by Gilbert, Bishop of Limerick, to Anselm, Archbishop of Canterbury, of a considerable quantity of Irish pearls.” — O’Halloran.
3 Glengariff.
QUICK! WE HAVE BUT A SECOND.
Quick! we have but a second,
Fill round the cup, while you may;
For Time, the churl, hath beckoned,
And we must away, away!
Grasp the pleasure that’s flying,
For oh, not Orpheus’ strain
Could keep sweet hours from dying,
Or charm them to life again.
Then, quick! we have but a second,
Fill round the cup while you may;
For Time, the churl, hath beckoned,
And we must away, away!
See the glass, how it flushes.
Like some young Hebe’s lip,
And half meets thine, and blushes
That thou shouldst delay to sip.
Shame, oh shame unto thee,
If ever thou see’st that day,
When a cup or lip shall woo thee,
And turn u
ntouched away!
Then, quick! we have but a second,
Fill round, fill round, while you may;
For Time, the churl, hath beckoned,
And we must away, away!
AND DOTH NOT A MEETING LIKE THIS.
And doth not a meeting like this make amends,
For all the long years I’ve been wandering away —
To see thus around me my youth’s early friends,
As smiling and kind as in that happy day?
Tho’ haply o’er some of your brows, as o’er mine,
The snow-fall of time may be stealing — what then?
Like Alps in the sunset, thus lighted by wine,
We’ll wear the gay tinge of youth’s roses again.
What softened remembrances come o’er the heart,
In gazing on those we’ve been lost to so long!
The sorrows, the joys, of which once they were part,
Still round them, like visions of yesterday, throng,
As letters some hand hath invisibly traced,
When held to the flame will steal out on the sight,
So many a feeling, that long seemed effaced,
The warmth of a moment like this brings to light.
And thus, as in memory’s bark we shall glide,
To visit the scenes of our boyhood anew,
Tho’ oft we may see, looking down on the tide,
The wreck of full many a hope shining thro’;
Yet still, as in fancy we point to the flowers,
That once made a garden of all the gay shore,
Deceived for a moment, we’ll think them still ours,
And breathe the fresh air of life’s morning once more.
So brief our existence, a glimpse, at the most,
Is all we can have of the few we hold dear;
And oft even joy is unheeded and lost,
For want of some heart, that could echo it, near.
Ah, well may we hope, when this short life is gone,
To meet in some world of more permanent bliss,
For a smile, or a grasp of the hand, hastening on,
Is all we enjoy of each other in this.
But, come, the more rare such delights to the heart,
The more we should welcome and bless them the more;