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!

Thomas Moore

Thomas Moore was an Irish poet, singer, and songwriter, celebrated for his Irish Melodies, which are now considered a staple of Irish cultural heritage. Born on May 28, 1779, in Dublin, Ireland, Moore gained fame for his lyrical songs, many of which were set to traditional Irish tunes. Not only a poet, but he was also a staunch advocate of Irish nationalism, often incorporating themes of national identity and resistance into his work. Moore's influential collection 'Irish Melodies' became popular in both Ireland and Britain and helped to define the literary output of the era. He passed away on February 25, 1852, but his legacy in Irish literature and music endures.

Thomas Moore

Anacreontic.

Thomas Moore, Simple Poetry

Anacreontic.

Thomas Moore, Simple Poetry

The Musical Box.

Thomas Moore, Simple Poetry

Rings And Seals.

Thomas Moore, Simple Poetry

English

Suggested Poems

Explore a curated selection of verses that share themes, styles, and emotional resonance with the poem you've just read.

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 remembered, even in the sky.

Then I sing the wild song 'twas once such pleasure to hear
When our voices commingling breathed, like one, on the ear;
And, as Echo far off thro' the vale my sad orison rolls,
I think, oh my love! 'tis thy voice from the Kingdom of Souls,^[1]
Faintly answering still the notes that once were so dear.

Thomas Moore

Nights Of Music.

Nights of music, nights of loving,
    Lost too soon, remembered long.
When we went by moonlight roving,
    Hearts all love and lips all song.
When this faithful lute recorded
    All my spirit felt to thee;
And that smile the song rewarded--
    Worth Whole years of fame to me!

Nights of song, and nights of splendor,
Filled with joys too sweet to last--
Joys that, like the star-light, tender,
While they shore no shadow cast.
Tho' all other happy hours
    From my fading memory fly,
Of, that starlight, of those bowers,
    Not a beam, a leaf may die!

Thomas Moore

The Tell-Tale Lyre.

I've heard, there was in ancient days
    A Lyre of most melodious spell;
'Twas heaven to hear its fairy lays,
    If half be true that legends tell.

'Twas played on by the gentlest sighs,
    And to their breath it breathed again
In such entrancing melodies
    As ear had never drunk till then!

Not harmony's serenest touch
    So stilly could the notes prolong;
They were not heavenly song so much
    As they were dreams of heavenly song!

If sad the heart, whose murmuring air
    Along the chords in languor stole,
The numbers it awakened there
    Were eloquence from pity's soul.

Or if the sigh, serene and light,
    Was but the breath of fancied woes,
The string, that felt its airy flight,
    Soon whispered it to kind r...

Thomas Moore

The Day-Dream.

^[1]


They both were husht, the voice, the chords,--
    I heard but once that witching lay;
And few the notes, and few the words.
    My spell-bound memory brought away;

Traces, remembered here and there,
    Like echoes of some broken strain;--
Links of a sweetness lost in air,
    That nothing now could join again.

Even these, too, ere the morning, fled;
    And, tho' the charm still lingered on,
That o'er each sense her song had shed,
    The song itself was faded, gone;--

Gone, like the thoughts that once were ours,
    On summer days, ere youth had set;
Thoughts bright, we know, as summer flowers,
    Tho' what they were we now forget.

In vain with hints from other strains
    I wooed this tru...

Thomas Moore

To Joseph Atkinson, Esq.

FROM BERMUDA.^[1]


"The daylight is gone--but, before we depart,
"One cup shall go round to the friend of my heart,
"The kindest, the dearest--oh! judge by the tear
"I now shed while I name him, how kind and how dear."

    'Twas thus in the shade of the Calabash-Tree,
With a few, who could feel and remember like me,
The charm that, to sweeten my goblet, I threw
Was a sigh to the past and a blessing on you.

    Oh! say, is it thus, in the mirth-bringing hour,
When friends are assembled, when wit, in full flower,
Shoots forth from the lip, under Bacchus's dew,
In blossoms of thought ever springing and new--
Do you sometimes remember, and hallow the brim
Of your cup with a sigh, as you crown it to him
Who is lonely and sad in these val...

Thomas Moore

To Miss Susan Beckford.[1] On Her Singing.

I more than once have heard at night
    A song like those thy lip hath given,
And it was sung by shapes of light,
    Who looked and breathed, like thee, of heaven.

But this was all a dream of sleep.
    And I have said when morning shone:--
"Why should the night-witch, Fancy, keep
    "These wonders for herself alone?"

I knew not then that fate had lent
    Such tones to one of mortal birth;
I knew not then that Heaven had sent
    A voice, a form like thine on earth.

And yet, in all that flowery maze
    Through which my path of life has led,
When I have heard the sweetest lays
    From lips of rosiest lustre shed;

When I have felt the warbled word
    From Beauty's lip, in sweetness vying
With music's own melodious bird;

Thomas Moore