by Thomas Moore
O’er eyelids long darkened, would bring me but pain.
Fly then, ye visions, that Hope would shed o’er me;
Lost to the future, my sole chance of rest
Now lies not in dreaming of bliss that’s before me.
But, ah — in forgetting how once I was blest.
O SAY, THOU BEST AND BRIGHTEST.
O say, thou best and brightest,
My first love and my last.
When he, whom now thou slightest,
From life’s dark scene hath past,
Will kinder thoughts then move thee?
Will pity wake one thrill
For him who lived to love thee,
And dying loved thee still?
If when, that hour recalling
From which he dates his woes,
Thou feel’st a tear-drop falling,
Ah, blush not while it flows;
But, all the past forgiving,
Bend gently o’er his shrine,
And say, “This heart, when living,
“With all its faults, was mine.”
WHEN NIGHT BRINGS THE HOUR.
When night brings the hour
Of starlight and joy,
There comes to my bower
A fairy-winged boy;
With eyes so bright,
So full of wild arts,
Like nets of light,
To tangle young hearts;
With lips, in whose keeping
Love’s secret may dwell,
Like Zephyr asleep in
Some rosy sea-shell.
Guess who he is,
Name but his name,
And his best kiss
For reward you may claim.
Where’er o’er the ground
He prints his light feet.
The flowers there are found
Most shining and sweet:
His looks, as soft
As lightning in May,
Tho’ dangerous oft,
Ne’er wound but in play:
And oh, when his wings
Have brushed o’er my lyre,
You’d fancy its strings
Were turning to fire.
Guess who he is,
Name but his name,
And his best kiss
For reward you may claim.
LIKE ONE WHO, DOOMED.
Like one who, doomed o’er distant seas
His weary path to measure,
When home at length, with favoring breeze,
He brings the far-sought treasure;
His ship, in sight of shore, goes down,
That shore to which he hasted;
And all the wealth he thought his own
Is o’er the waters wasted!
Like him, this heart, thro’ many a track
Of toil and sorrow straying,
One hope alone brought fondly back,
Its toil and grief repaying.
Like him, alas, I see that ray
Of hope before me perish,
And one dark minute sweep away
What years were given to cherish.
FEAR NOT THAT, WHILE AROUND THEE.
Fear not that, while around thee
Life’s varied blessings pour,
One sigh of hers shall wound thee,
Whose smile thou seek’st no more.
No, dead and cold for ever
Let our past love remain;
Once gone, its spirit never
Shall haunt thy rest again.
May the new ties that bind thee
Far sweeter, happier prove,
Nor e’er of me remind thee,
But by their truth and love.
Think how, asleep or waking,
Thy image haunts me yet;
But, how this heart is breaking
For thy own peace forget.
WHEN LOVE IS KIND.
When Love is kind,
Cheerful and free,
Love’s sure to find
Welcome from me.
But when Love brings
Heartache or pang,
Tears, and such things —
Love may go hang!
If Love can sigh
For one alone,
Well pleased am I
To be that one,
But should I see
Love given to rove
To two or three,
Then — good by Love!
Love must, in short,
Keep fond and true,
Thro’ good report,
And evil too.
Else, here I swear,
Young Love may go.
For aught I care —
To Jericho.
THE GARLAND I SEND THEE.
The Garland I send thee was culled from those bowers
Where thou and I wandered in long vanished hours;
Not a leaf or a blossom its bloom here displays,
But bears some remembrance of those happy days.
The roses were gathered by that garden gate,
Where our meetings, tho’ early, seemed always too late;
Where lingering full oft thro’ a summer-night’s moon,
Our partings, tho’ late, appeared always too soon.
The rest were all culled from the banks of that glade,
Where, watching the sunset, so often we’ve strayed,
And mourned, as the time went, that Love had no power
To bind in his chain even one happy hour.
HOW SHALL I WOO?
If I speak to thee in friendship’s name,
Thou think’st I speak too coldly;
If I mention Love’s devoted flame,
Thou say’st I speak too boldly.
Between these two unequal fires,
Why doom me thus to hover?
I’m a friend, if such thy heart requires,
If more thou seek’st, a lover.
Which shall it be? How shall I woo?
Fair one, choose between the two.
Tho’ the wings of Love will brightly play,
When first he comes to woo thee,
There’s a chance that he may fly away,
As fast as he flies to thee.
While Friendship, tho’ on foot she come,
No flights of fancy trying,
Will, therefore, oft be found at home,
When Love abroad is flying.
Which shall it be? How shall I woo?
Dear one, choose between the two.
If neither feeling suits thy heart
Let’s see, to please thee, whether
We may not learn some precious art
To mix their charms together;
One feeling, still more sweet, to form
From two so sweet already —
A friendship that like love is warm,
A love like friendship steady.
Thus let it be, thus let me woo,
Dearest, thus we’ll join the two.
SPRING AND AUTUMN.
Every season hath its pleasures;
Spring may boast her flowery prime,
Yet the vineyard’s ruby treasures
Brighten Autumn’s soberer time.
So Life’s year begins and closes;
Days tho’ shortening still can shine;
What tho’ youth gave love and roses,
Age still leaves us friends and wine.
Phillis, when she might have caught me,
All the Spring looked coy and shy,
Yet herself in Autumn sought me,
When the flowers were all gone by.
Ah, too late; — she found her lover
Calm and free beneath his vine,
Drinking to the Spring-time over,
In his best autumnal wine.
Thus may we, as years are flying,
To their flight our pleasures suit,
Nor regret the blossoms dying,
While we still may taste the fruit,
Oh, while days like this are ours,<
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Where’s the lip that dares repine?
Spring may take our loves and flowers,
So Autumn leaves us friends and wine.
LOVE ALONE.
If thou wouldst have thy charms enchant our eyes,
First win our hearts, for there thy empire lies:
Beauty in vain would mount a heartless throne,
Her Right Divine is given by Love alone.
What would the rose with all her pride be worth,
Were there no sun to call her brightness forth?
Maidens, unloved, like flowers in darkness thrown,
Wait but that light which comes from Love alone.
Fair as thy charms in yonder glass appear,
Trust not their bloom, they’ll fade from year to year:
Wouldst thou they still should shine as first they shone,
Go, fix thy mirror in Love’s eyes alone.
SACRED SONGS
TO
EDWARD TUITE DALTON, ESQ.
THE FIRST NUMBER
OF
SACRED SONGS
IS INSCRIBED,
BY HIS SINCERE AND AFFECTIONATE FRIEND,
THOMAS MOORE.
Mayfield Cottage, Ashbourne, May, 1816
THOU ART, O GOD.
(Air. — Unknown.)1
“The day is thine, the night is also thine: thou hast prepared the
light and the sun.
“Thou hast set all the borders of the earth: thou hast made summer and
winter.”
— Psalm lxxiv. 16, 17.
Thou art, O God, the life and light
Of all this wondrous world we see;
Its glow by day, its smile by night,
Are but reflections caught from Thee.
Where’er we turn, thy glories shine,
And all things fair and bright are Thine!
When Day, with farewell beam, delays
Among the opening clouds of Even,
And we can almost think we gaze
Thro’ golden vistas into Heaven —
Those hues, that make the Sun’s decline
So soft, so radiant, LORD! are Thine.
When Night, with wings of starry gloom,
O’ershadows all the earth and skies,
Like some dark, beauteous bird, whose plume
Is sparkling with unnumbered eyes —
That sacred gloom, those fires divine,
So grand, so countless, LORD! are Thine.
When youthful Spring around us breathes,
Thy Spirit warms her fragrant sigh;
And every flower the Summer wreaths
Is born beneath that kindling eye.
Where’er we turn, thy glories shine,
And all things fair and bright are Thine.
1 I have heard that this air is by the late Mrs. Sheridan. It is sung to the beautiful old words, “I do confess thou’rt smooth and fair.”
THE BIRD, LET LOOSE.
(AIR. — BEETHOVEN.)
The bird, let loose in eastern skies,1
When hastening fondly home,
Ne’er stoops to earth her wing, nor flies
Where idle warblers roam.
But high she shoots thro’ air and light,
Above all low delay,
Where nothing earthly bounds her flight,
Nor shadow dims her way.
So grant me, GOD, from every care
And stain of passion free,
Aloft, thro’ Virtue’s purer air,
To hold my course to Thee!
No sin to cloud, no lure to stay
My Soul, as home she springs; —
Thy Sunshine on her joyful way,
Thy Freedom in her wings!
1 The carrier-pigeon, it is well known, flies at an elevated pitch, in order to surmount every obstacle between her and the place to which she is destined.
FALLEN IS THY THRONE.
(AIR. — MARTINI.)
Fallen is thy Throne, oh Israel!
Silence is o’er thy plains;
Thy dwellings all lie desolate,
Thy children weep in chains.
Where are the dews that fed thee
On Etham’s barren shore?
That fire from Heaven which led thee,
Now lights thy path no more.
LORD! thou didst love Jerusalem —
Once she was all thy own;
Her love thy fairest heritage,1
Her power thy glory’s throne.2
Till evil came, and blighted
Thy long-loved olive-tree;3 —
And Salem’s shrines were lighted
For other gods than Thee.
Then sunk the star of Solyma —
Then past her glory’s day,
Like heath that, in the wilderness,4
The wild wind whirls away.
Silent and waste her bowers,
Where once the mighty trod,
And sunk those guilty towers,
While Baal reign’d as God.
“Go” — said the LORD— “Ye Conquerors!
“Steep in her blood your swords,
“And raze to earth her battlements,5
“For they are not the LORD’S.
“Till Zion’s mournful daughter
“O’er kindred bones shall tread,
“And Hinnom’s vale of slaughter6
“Shall hide but half her dead!”
1 “I have left mine heritage; I have given the clearly beloved of my soul into the hands of her enemies.” — Jeremiah, xii. 7.
2 “Do not disgrace the throne of thy glory.” — Jer. xiv. 21.
3 “The LORD called by name a green olive-tree; fair, and of goodly fruit,” etc. — Jer. xi. 16.
4 “For he shall be like the heath in the desert.” — Jer. xvii, 6.
5 “Take away her battlements; for they are not the LORD’S.” — Jer. v. 10.
6 “Therefore, behold, the days come, saith the LORD, that it shall no more be called Tophet, nor the Valley of the Son of Hinnom, but the Valley or Slaughter; for they shall bury in Tophet till there be no place.” — Jer. vii. 32.
WHO IS THE MAID?
ST. JEROME’S LOVE.
(AIR. — BEETHOVEN.)
Who is the Maid my spirit seeks,
Thro’ cold reproof and slander’s blight?
Has she Love’s roses on her cheeks?
Is hers an eye of this world’s light?
No — wan and sunk with midnight prayer
Are the pale looks of her I love;
Or if at times a light be there,
Its beam is kindled from above.
I chose not her, my heart’s elect,
From those who seek their Maker’s shrine
In gems and garlands proudly decked,
As if themselves were things divine.
No — Heaven but faintly warms the breast
That beats beneath a broidered veil;
And she who comes in glittering vest
To mourn her frailty, still is frail.
Not so the faded form I prize
And love, because its bloom is gone;
The glory in those sainted eyes
Is all the grace her brow puts on.
And ne’er was Beauty’s dawn so bright,
So touching as that form’s decay,
Which, like the altar’s trembling light,
In holy lustre wastes away.
THIS WORLD IS ALL A FLEETING SHOW.
(AIR. — STEVENSON.)
This world is all a fleeting show,
For man’s illusion given;
The smiles of joy, the tears of woe,
Deceitful shine, deceitful flow —
There’s nothing true but Heaven!
And false the light on glory’s plume,
As fading hues of even;
And love and hope, and beauty’s bloom,
Are blossoms gathered for the tomb —
There’s nothing bright but Heave
n!
Poor wanderers of a stormy day,
From wave to wave we’re driven,
And fancy’s flash and reason’s ray
Serve but to light the troubled way —
There’s nothing calm but Heaven!
OH THOU WHO DRY’ST THE MOURNER’S TEAR.
(AIR. — HAYDN.)
“He healeth the broken in heart and bindeth up their wounds,”
— Psalm. cxlvii. 3.
Oh Thou who dry’st the mourner’s tear,
How dark this world would be,
If, when deceived and wounded here,
We could not fly to Thee.
The friends who in our sunshine live,
When winter comes, are flown;
And he who has but tears to give,
Must weep those tears alone.
But Thou wilt heal that broken heart,
Which, like the plants that throw
Their fragrance from the wounded part,
Breathes sweetness out of woe.
When joy no longer soothes or cheers,
And even the hope that threw
A moment’s sparkle o’er our tears
Is dimmed and vanished too,
Oh, who would bear life’s stormy doom,
Did not thy Wing of Love
Come, brightly wafting thro’ the gloom
Our Peace-branch from above?
Then sorrow, touched by Thee, grows bright
With more than rapture’s ray;
As darkness shows us worlds of light
We never saw by day!
WEEP NOT FOR THOSE.
(AIR. — AVISON.)
Weep not for those whom the veil of the tomb,
In life’s happy morning, hath hid from our eyes,
Ere sin threw a blight o’er the spirit’s young bloom,
Or earth had profaned what was born for the skies.
Death chilled the fair fountain, ere sorrow had stained it;
’Twas frozen in all the pure light of its course,
And but sleeps till the sunshine of Heaven has unchained it,
To water that Eden where first was its source.
Weep not for those whom the veil of the tomb,
In life’s happy morning, hath hid from our eyes,
Ere sin threw a blight o’er the spirit’s young bloom,
Or earth had profaned what was born for the skies.
Mourn not for her, the young Bride of the Vale,1
Our gayest and loveliest, lost to us now,
Ere life’s early lustre had time to grow pale,