Impromptu. After A Visit To Mrs. ----, Of Montreal.

'Twas but for a moment--and yet in that time
    She crowded the impressions of many an hour:
Her eye had a glow, like the sun of her clime,
    Which waked every feeling at once into flower.

Oh! could we have borrowed from Time but a day,
    To renew such impressions again and again,
The things we should look and imagine and say
    Would be worth all the life we had wasted till then.

What we had not the leisure or language to speak,
    We should find some more spiritual mode of revealing,
And, between us, should feel just as much in a week
    As others would take a millennium in feeling.

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

The Duke Is The Lad.

Thomas Moore, Simple Poetry

Dog-Day Reflections. By A Dandy Kept In Town.

Thomas Moore, Simple Poetry

Wind Thy Horn, My Hunter Boy.

Thomas Moore, Simple Poetry

The Fancy Fair.

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.

And Doth Not A Meeting Like This.

And doth not a meeting like this make amends,
    For all the long years I've been wandering away--
To see thus around me my youth's early friends,
    As smiling and kind as in that happy day?
Tho' haply o'er some of your brows, as o'er mine,
    The snow-fall of time may be stealing--what then?
Like Alps in the sunset, thus lighted by wine,
    We'll wear the gay tinge of youth's roses again.

What softened remembrances come o'er the heart,
    In gazing on those we've been lost to so long!
The sorrows, the joys, of which once they were part,
    Still round them, like visions of yesterday, throng,
As letters some hand hath invisibly traced,
    When held to the flame will steal out on the sight,
So many a feeling, that long seemed effaced,
    The warmth of...

Thomas Moore

The Day-Dream.

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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

Impromptu, On Leaving Some Friends.

        o dulces comitum valete coetus!
        CATULLUS.


No, never shall my soul forget
    The friends I found so cordial-hearted;
Dear shall be the day we met,
    And dear shall be the night we parted.

If fond regrets, however sweet,
    Must with the lapse of time decay,
Yet stall, when thus in mirth you meet,
    Fill high to him that's far away!

Long be the light of memory found
    Alive within your social glass;
Let that be still the magic round.
    O'er which Oblivion, dare not pass.

Thomas Moore

Stanzas.

A beam of tranquillity smiled in the west,
The storms of the morning pursued us no more;
And the wave, while it welcomed the moment of rest.
Still heaved, as remembering ills that were o'er.

Serenely my heart took the hue of the hour,
    Its passions were sleeping, were mute as the dead;
And the spirit becalmed but remembered their power,
    As the billow the force of the gale that was fled.

I thought of those days, when to pleasure alone
    My heart ever granted a wish or a sigh;
When the saddest emotion my bosom had known,
    Was pity for those who were wiser than I.

I reflected, how soon in the cup of Desire
    The pearl of the soul may be melted away;
How quickly, alas, the pure sparkle of fire
    We inherit from heaven, may be quenched ...

Thomas Moore

To ......., 1801.

To be the theme of every hour
The heart devotes to Fancy's power,
When her prompt magic fills the mind
With friends and joys we've left behind,
And joys return and friends are near,
And all are welcomed with a tear:--
In the mind's purest seat to dwell,
To be remembered oft and well
By one whose heart, though vain and wild,
By passion led, by youth beguiled,
Can proudly still aspire to be
All that may yet win smiles from thee:--
If thus to live in every part
Of a lone, weary wanderer's heart;
If thus to be its sole employ
Can give thee one faint gleam of joy,
Believe it. Mary,--oh! believe
A tongue that never can deceive,
Though, erring, it too oft betray
Even more than Love should dare to say,--
In Pleasure's dream or Sorrow's hour,
I...

Thomas Moore

Song.

Where is the heart that would not give
    Years of drowsy days and nights,
One little hour, like this, to live--
    Full, to the brim, of life's delights?
        Look, look around,
        This fairy ground,
    With love-lights glittering o'er;
        While cups that shine
        With freight divine
    Go coasting round its shore.

Hope is the dupe of future hours,
    Memory lives in those gone by;
Neither can see the moment's flowers
    Springing up fresh beneath the eye,
        Wouldst thou, or thou,
        Forego what's now,
    For all that Hope may say?
        No--Joy's reply,
        From every eye,
    Is, "Live we while we may,"

Thomas Moore