Master of Melodious Lyrics
May 28, 2020 |
| Thomas Moore |
Thomas Moore
(1779–1852)
Vol. 41, pp. 816-822 of
The Harvard Classics
Any one of these
poems, "The Harp That Once Through Tara's Halls," "The
Last Rose of Summer," "The Light of Other Days," would
alone have made Moore immortal.
(Thomas Moore born
May 28, 1779.)
The
Light of Other Days
OFT in the stilly night
Ere slumber’s chain has bound me,
Fond Memory brings the light
Of other days around me:
The smiles, the tears
Of boyhood’s years,
The words of love then spoken;
The eyes that shone,
Now dimm’d and gone,
The cheerful hearts now broken!
Thus in the stilly night
Ere slumber’s chain has bound me,
Sad Memory brings the light
Of other days around me.
When I remember all
The friends so link’d together
I’ve seen around me fall
Like leaves in wintry weather,
I feel like one
Who treads alone
Some banquet-hall deserted,
Whose lights are fled
Whose garlands dead,
And all but he departed!
Thus in the stilly night
Ere slumber’s chain has bound me,
Sad Memory brings the light
Of other days around me.
Pro Patria Mori
WHEN he who adores thee
has left but the name
Of his fault and his sorrows behind,
O! say wilt thou weep, when they darken the fame
Of a life that for thee was resign’d!
Yes, weep, and however my foes may condemn,
Thy tears shall efface their decree;
For, Heaven can witness, though guilty to them,
I have been but too faithful to thee.
With thee were the dreams of my earliest love;
Every thought of my reason was thine:
In my last humble prayer to the Spirit above
Thy name shall be mingled with mine!
O! blest are the lovers and friends who shall live
The days of thy glory to see;
But the next dearest blessing that Heaven can give
Is the pride of thus dying for thee.
The Meeting of the Waters
THERE is not in the wide
world a valley so sweet
As that vale in whose bosom the bright waters
meet;
Oh! the last rays of feeling and life must depart,
Ere the bloom of that valley shall fade from my
heart.
Yet it was not that nature had shed o’er the
scene
Her purest of crystal and brightest of green;
’Twas not her soft magic of streamlet or hill,
Oh! no—it was something more exquisite still.
’Twas that friends, the beloved of my bosom,
were near,
Who made every dear scene of enchantment more
dear,
And who felt how the best charms of nature
improve,
When we see them reflected from looks that we
love.
Sweet vale of Avoca! how calm could I rest
In thy bosom of shade, with the friends I love
best,
Where the storms that we feel in this cold world
should cease,
And our hearts, like thy waters, be mingled in
peace.
The Last Rose of Summer
’TIS the last rose of
summer
Left blooming alone;
All her lovely companions
Are faded and gone;
No flower of her kindred,
No rosebud is nigh,
To reflect back her blushes,
To give sigh for sigh.
I’ll not leave thee, thou lone one!
To pine on the stem;
Since the lovely are sleeping,
Go, sleep thou with them.
Thus kindly I scatter
Thy leaves o’er the bed,
Where thy mates of the garden
Lie scentless and dead.
So soon may I follow,
When friendships decay,
And from Love’s shining circle
The gems drop away.
When true hearts lie withered
And fond ones are flown,
Oh! who would inhabit
This bleak world alone?
The Harp that Once Through Tara’s
Halls
THE HARP that once
through Tara’s halls
The soul of music shed,
Now hangs as mute on Tara’s walls
As if that soul were fled.
So sleeps the pride of former days,
So glory’s thrill is o’er,
And hearts, that once beat high for praise,
Now feel that pulse no more.
No more to chiefs and ladies bright
The harp of Tara swells:
The chord alone, that breaks at night,
Its tale of ruin tells.
Thus Freedom now so seldom wakes,
The only throb she gives,
Is when some heart indignant breaks,
To show that still she lives.
A Canadian Boat-Song
FAINTLY as tolls the
evening chime
Our voices keep tune and our oars keep time.
Soon as the woods on shore look dim,
We’ll sing at St. Anne’s our parting hymn.
Row, brothers, row, the stream runs fast,
The Rapids are near and the daylight’s past!
Why should we yet our sail unfurl?
There is not a breath the blue wave to curl;
But, when the wind blows off the shore,
Oh! sweetly we’ll rest our weary oar.
Blow, breezes, blow, the stream runs fast,
The Rapids are near and the daylight’s past!
Utawas’ tide! this trembling moon
Shall see us float over thy surges soon.
Saint of this green isle! hear our prayers,
Oh, grant us cool heavens and favouring airs.
Blow, breezes, blow, the stream runs fast,
The Rapids are near and the daylight’s past!
The Journey Onwards
AS slow our ship her
foamy track
Against the wind was cleaving,
Her trembling pennant still look’d back
To that dear isle ’twas leaving.
So loth we part from all we love,
From all the links that bind us;
So turn our hearts, as on we rove,
To those we’ve left behind us!
When, round the bowl, of vanish’d years
We talk with joyous seeming—
With smiles that might as well be tears,
So faint, so sad their beaming;
While memory brings us back again
Each early tie that twined us,
O, sweet’s the cup that circles then
To those we’ve left behind us!
And when, in other climes, we meet
Some isle or vale enchanting,
Where all looks flowery, wild and sweet,
And nought but love is wanting;
We think how great had been our bliss
If Heaven had but assign’d us
To live and die in scenes like this,
With some we’ve left behind us!
As travellers oft look back at eve
When eastward darkly going,
To gaze upon that light they leave
Still faint behind them glowing,—
So, when the close of pleasure’s day
To gloom hath near consign’d us,
We turn to catch one fading ray
Of joy that’s left behind us.
The Young May Moon
THE YOUNG May moon is
beaming, love,
The glow-worm’s lamp is gleaming, love;
How sweet to rove
Through Morna’s grove,
When the drowsy world is dreaming, love!
Then awake!—the heavens look bright, my dear,
’Tis never too late for delight, my dear;
And the best of all ways
To lengthen our days
Is to steal a few hours from the night, my dear!
Now all the world is sleeping, love,
But the Sage, his star-watch keeping, love,
And I, whose star
More glorious far
Is the eye from that casement peeping, love.
Then awake!—till rise of sun, my dear,
The Sage’s glass we’ll shun, my dear,
Or in watching the flight
Of bodies of light
He might happen to take thee for one, my dear!
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’s 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 breathed for one to hear—
Is by that one, that only dear
Breathed back again.
At the Mid Hour of Night
AT the mid hour of night,
when stars are weeping, I fly
To the lone vale we loved, when life shone warm in
thine eye;
And I think oft, if spirits can steal from the
regions of air
To revisit past scenes of delight, thou wilt come
to me there
And tell me our love is remember’d even in the
sky!
Then I sing the wild song it once was rapture to
hear
When our voices, commingling, breathed like one on
the ear;
And as Echo far off through the vale my sad orison
rolls,
I think, O my Love! ’tis thy voice, from the
Kingdom of Souls
Faintly answering still the notes that once were
so dear.
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