Thomas Moore- Collected Poetical Works

by Thomas Moore

Whate’er he did, none ever did so well.

  Too happy days! when, if he touched a flower

  Or gem of thine, ’twas sacred from that hour;

  When thou didst study him till every tone

  And gesture and dear look became thy own. —

  Thy voice like his, the changes of his face

  In thine reflected with still lovelier grace,

  Like echo, sending back sweet music, fraught

  With twice the aerial sweetness it had brought!

  Yet now he comes, — brighter than even he

  E’er beamed before, — but, ah! not bright for thee;

  No — dread, unlookt for, like a visitant

  From the other world he comes as if to haunt

  Thy guilty soul with dreams of lost delight,

  Long lost to all but memory’s aching sight: —

  Sad dreams! as when the Spirit of our Youth

  Returns in sleep, sparkling with all the truth

  And innocence once ours and leads us back,

  In mournful mockery o’er the shining track

  Of our young life and points out every ray

  Of hope and peace we’ve lost upon the way!

  Once happy pair! — In proud BOKHARA’S groves,

  Who had not heard of their first youthful loves?

  Born by that ancient flood,43which from its spring

  In the dark Mountains swiftly wandering,

  Enriched by every pilgrim brook that shines

  With relics from BUCHARIA’S ruby mines.

  And, lending to the CASPIAN half its strength,

  In the cold Lake of Eagles sinks at length; —

  There, on the banks of that bright river born,

  The flowers that hung above its wave at morn

  Blest not the waters as they murmured by

  With holier scent and lustre than the sigh

  And virgin-glance of first affection cast

  Upon their youth’s smooth current as it past!

  But war disturbed this vision, — far away

  From her fond eyes summoned to join the array

  Of PERSIA’S warriors on the hills of THRACE,

  The youth exchanged his sylvan dwelling-place

  For the rude tent and war-field’s deathful clash;

  His ZELICA’S sweet glances for the flash

  Of Grecian wild-fire, and Love’s gentle chains

  For bleeding bondage on BYZANTIUM’S plains.

  Month after month in widowhood of soul

  Drooping the maiden saw two summers roll

  Their suns away — but, ah, how cold and dim

  Even summer suns when not beheld with him!

  From time to time ill-omened rumors came

  Like spirit-tongues muttering the sick man’s name

  Just ere he dies: — at length those sounds of dread

  Fell withering on her soul, “AZIM is dead!”

  Oh Grief beyond all other griefs when fate

  First leaves the young heart lone and desolate

  In the wide world without that only tie

  For which it loved to live or feared to die; —

  Lorn as the hung-up lute, that near hath spoken

  Since the sad day its master-chord was broken!

  Fond maid, the sorrow of her soul was such,

  Even reason sunk, — blighted beneath its touch;

  And tho’ ere long her sanguine spirit rose

  Above the first dead pressure of its woes,

  Tho’ health and bloom returned, the delicate chain

  Of thought once tangled never cleared again.

  Warm, lively, soft as in youth’s happiest day,

  The mind was still all there, but turned astray, —

  A wandering bark upon whose pathway shone

  All stars of heaven except the guiding one!

  Again she smiled, nay, much and brightly smiled,

  But ’twas a lustre, strange, unreal, wild;

  And when she sung to her lute’s touching strain,

  ’Twas like the notes, half ecstasy, half pain,

  The bulbul44 utters ere her soul depart,

  When, vanquisht by some minstrel’s powerful art,

  She dies upon the lute whose sweetness broke her heart!

  Such was the mood in which that mission found,

  Young ZELICA, — that mission which around

  The Eastern world in every region blest

  With woman’s smile sought out its loveliest

  To grace that galaxy of lips and eyes

  Which the Veiled Prophet destined for the skies: —

  And such quick welcome as a spark receives

  Dropt on a bed of Autumn’s withered leaves,

  Did every tale of these enthusiasts find

  In the wild maiden’s sorrow-blighted mind.

  All fire at once the maddening zeal she caught: —

  Elect of Paradise! blest, rapturous thought!

  Predestined bride, in heaven’s eternal dome,

  Of some brave youth — ha! durst they say “of some?”

  No — of the one, one only object traced

  In her heart’s core too deep to be effaced;

  The one whose memory, fresh as life, is twined

  With every broken link of her lost mind;

  Whose image lives tho’ Reason’s self be wreckt

  Safe mid the ruins of her intellect!

  Alas, poor ZELICA! it needed all

  The fantasy which held thy mind in thrall

  To see in that gay Haram’s glowing maids

  A sainted colony for Eden’s shades;

  Or dream that he, — of whose unholy flame

  Thou wert too soon the victim, — shining came

  From Paradise to people its pure sphere

  With souls like thine which he hath ruined here!

  No — had not reason’s light totally set,

  And left thee dark thou hadst an amulet

  In the loved image graven on thy heart

  Which would have saved thee from the tempter’s art,

  And kept alive in all its bloom of breath

  That purity whose fading is love’s death! —

  But lost, inflamed, — a restless zeal took place

  Of the mild virgin’s still and feminine grace;

  First of the Prophets favorites, proudly first

  In zeal and charms, too well the Impostor nurst

  Her soul’s delirium in whose active flame,

  Thus lighting up a young, luxuriant frame,

  He saw more potent sorceries to bind

  To his dark yoke the spirits of mankind,

  More subtle chains than hell itself e’er twined.

  No art was spared, no witchery; — all the skill

  His demons taught him was employed to fill

  Her mind with gloom and ecstasy by turns —

  That gloom, thro’ which Frenzy but fiercer burns,

  That ecstasy which from the depth of sadness

  Glares like the maniac’s moon whose light is madness!

  ’Twas from a brilliant banquet where the sound

  Of poesy and music breathed around,

  Together picturing to her mind and ear

  The glories of that heaven, her destined sphere,

  Where all was pure, where every stain that lay

  Upon the spirit’s light should pass away,

  And realizing more than youthful love

  E’er wisht or dreamed, she should for ever rove

  Thro’ fields of fragrance by her AZIM’S side,

  His own blest, purified, eternal bride! —

  T was from a scene, a witching trance like this,

  He hurried her away, yet breathing bliss,

  To the dim charnel-house; — thro’ all its steams

  Of damp and death led only by those gleams

  Which foul Corruption lights, as with design

  To show the gay and proud she too can shine —

  A
nd passing on thro’ upright ranks of Dead

  Which to the maiden, doubly crazed by dread,

  Seemed, thro’ the bluish death-light round them cast,

  To move their lips in mutterings as she past —

  There in that awful place, when each had quaft

  And pledged in silence such a fearful draught,

  Such — oh! the look and taste of that red bowl

  Will haunt her till she dies — he bound her soul

  By a dark oath, in hell’s own language framed,

  Never, while earth his mystic presence claimed,

  While the blue arch of day hung o’er them both,

  Never, by that all-imprecating oath,

  In joy or sorrow from his side to sever. —

  She swore and the wide charnel echoed “Never, never!”

  From that dread hour, entirely, wildly given

  To him and — she believed, lost maid! — to heaven;

  Her brain, her heart, her passions all inflamed,

  How proud she stood, when in full Haram named

  The Priestess of the Faith! — how flasht her eyes

  With light, alas, that was not of the skies,

  When round in trances only less than hers

  She saw the Haram kneel, her prostrate worshippers.

  Well might MOKANNA think that form alone

  Had spells enough to make the world his own: —

  Light, lovely limbs to which the spirit’s play

  Gave motion, airy as the dancing spray,

  When from its stem the small bird wings away;

  Lips in whose rosy labyrinth when she smiled

  The soul was lost, and blushes, swift and wild

  As are the momentary meteors sent

  Across the uncalm but beauteous firmament.

  And then her look — oh! where’s the heart so wise

  Could unbewildered meet those matchless eyes?

  Quick, restless, strange, but exquisite withal,

  Like those of angels just before their fall;

  Now shadowed with the shames of earth — now crost

  By glimpses of the Heaven her heart had lost;

  In every glance there broke without control,

  The flashes of a bright but troubled soul,

  Where sensibility still wildly played

  Like lightning round the ruins it had made!

  And such was now young ZELICA — so changed

  From her who some years since delighted ranged

  The almond groves that shade BOKHARA’S tide

  All life and bliss with AZIM by her side!

  So altered was she now, this festal day,

  When, mid the proud Divan’s dazzling array,

  The vision of that Youth whom she had loved,

  Had wept as dead, before her breathed and moved; —

  When — bright, she thought, as if from Eden’s track

  But half-way trodden, he had wandered back

  Again to earth, glistening with Eden’s light —

  Her beauteous AZIM shone before her sight.

  O Reason! who shall say what spells renew,

  When least we look for it, thy broken clew!

  Thro’ what small vistas o’er the darkened brain

  Thy intellectual day-beam bursts again;

  And how like forts to which beleaguerers win

  Unhoped-for entrance thro’ some friend within,

  One clear idea, wakened in the breast

  By memory’s magic, lets in all the rest.

  Would it were thus, unhappy girl, with thee!

  But tho’ light came, it came but partially;

  Enough to show the maze, in which thy sense

  Wandered about, — but not to guide it thence;

  Enough to glimmer o’er the yawning wave,

  But not to point the harbor which might save.

  Hours of delight and peace, long left behind,

  With that dear form came rushing o’er her mind;

  But, oh! to think how deep her soul had gone

  In shame and falsehood since those moments shone;

  And then her oath — there madness lay again,

  And shuddering, back she sunk into her chain

  Of mental darkness, as if blest to flee

  From light whose every glimpse was agony!

  Yet one relief this glance of former years

  Brought mingled with its pain, — tears, floods of tears,

  Long frozen at her heart, but now like rills

  Let loose in spring-time from the snowy hills,

  And gushing warm after a sleep of frost,

  Thro’ valleys where their flow had long been lost.

  Sad and subdued, for the first time her frame

  Trembled with horror when the summons came

  (A summons proud and rare, which all but she,

  And she, till now, had heard with ecstasy,)

  To meet MOKANNA at his place of prayer,

  A garden oratory cool and fair

  By the stream’s side, where still at close of day

  The Prophet of the Veil retired to pray,

  Sometimes alone — but oftener far with one,

  One chosen nymph to share his orison.

  Of late none found such favor in his sight

  As the young Priestess; and tho’, since that night

  When the death-cavorns echoed every tone

  Of the dire oath that made her all his own,

  The Impostor sure of his infatuate prize

  Had more than once thrown off his soul’s disguise,

  And uttered such unheavenly, monstrous things,

  As even across the desperate wanderings

  Of a weak intellect, whose lamp was out,

  Threw startling shadows of dismay and doubt; —

  Yet zeal, ambition, her tremendous vow,

  The thought, still haunting her, of that bright brow,

  Whose blaze, as yet from mortal eye concealed,

  Would soon, proud triumph! be to her revealed,

  To her alone; — and then the hope, most dear,

  Most wild of all, that her transgression here

  Was but a passage thro’ earth’s grosser fire,

  From which the spirit would at last aspire,

  Even purer than before, — as perfumes rise

  Thro’ flame and smoke, most welcome to the skies —

  And that when AZIM’s fond, divine embrace

  Should circle her in heaven, no darkening trace

  Would on that bosom he once loved remain.

  But all be bright, be pure, be his again! —

  These were the wildering dreams, whose curst deceit

  Had chained her soul beneath the tempter’s feet,

  And made her think even damning falsehood sweet.

  But now that Shape, which had appalled her view,

  That Semblance — oh how terrible, if true!

  Which came across her frenzy’s full career

  With shock of consciousness, cold, deep, severe.

  As when in northern seas at midnight dark

  An isle of ice encounters some swift bark,

  And startling all its wretches from their sleep

  By one cold impulse hurls them to the deep; —

  So came that shock not frenzy’s self could bear,

  And waking up each long-lulled image there,

  But checkt her headlong soul to sink it in despair!

  Wan and dejected, thro’ the evening dusk,

  She now went slowly to that small kiosk,

  Where, pondering alone his impious schemes,

  MOKANNA waited her — too wrapt in dreams

  Of the fair-ripening future’s rich success,

  To heed the sorrow, pale and spiritless,

  That sat upon his victim’s downcast brow,

  Or mark how slow her step, how altered now

  From the quick, ardent Priestess, whose light bound

  Came like a spirit’s o
’er the unechoing ground, —

  From that wild ZELICA whose every glance

  Was thrilling fire, whose every thought a trance!

  Upon his couch the Veiled MOKANNA lay,

  While lamps around — not such as lend their ray,

  Glimmering and cold, to those who nightly pray

  In holy KOOM,45 or MECCA’S dim arcades, —

  But brilliant, soft, such lights as lovely maids.

  Look loveliest in, shed their luxurious glow

  Upon his mystic Veil’s white glittering flow.

  Beside him, ‘stead of beads and books of prayer,

  Which the world fondly thought he mused on there,

  Stood Vases, filled with KISIIMEE’S46 golden wine,

  And the red weepings of the SHIRAZ vine;

  Of which his curtained lips full many a draught

  Took zealously, as if each drop they quaft

  Like ZEMZEM’S Spring of Holiness47 had power

  To freshen the soul’s virtues into flower!

  And still he drank and pondered — nor could see

  The approaching maid, so deep his revery;

  At length with fiendish laugh like that which broke

  From EBLIS at the Fall of Man he spoke: —

  “Yes, ye vile race, for hell’s amusement given,

  “Too mean for earth, yet claiming kin with heaven;

  “God’s images, forsooth! — such gods as he

  “Whom INDIA serves, the monkey deity;48

  “Ye creatures of a breath, proud things of clay,

  “To whom if LUCIFER, as gran-dams say,

  “Refused tho’ at the forfeit of heaven’s light

  “To bend in worship, LUCIFER was right!

  “Soon shall I plant this foot upon the neck

  “Of your foul race and without fear or check,

  “Luxuriating in hate, avenge my shame,

  “My deep-felt, long-nurst loathing of man’s name! —

  “Soon at the head of myriads, blind and fierce

  “As hooded falcons, thro’ the universe

  “I’ll sweep my darkening, desolating way,

  “Weak man my instrument, curst man my prey!

  “Ye wise, ye learned, who grope your dull way on

  “By the dim twinkling gleams of ages gone,

  “Like superstitious thieves who think the light

  “From dead men’s marrow guides them best at night49 —

  “Ye shall have honors — wealth — yes, Sages, yes —

  “I know, grave fools, your wisdom’s nothingness;

  “Undazzled it can track yon starry sphere,

  “But a gilt stick, a bauble blinds it here.

  “How I shall laugh, when trumpeted along

  “In lying speech and still more lying song,

  “By these learned slaves, the meanest of the throng;

  “Their wits brought up, their wisdom shrunk so small,