Master of Melodious Lyrics

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.