To A Boy, With A Watch, Written For A Friend

Is it not sweet, beloved youth,
    To rove through Erudition's bowers,
And cull the golden fruits of truth,
    And gather Fancy's brilliant flowers?

And is it not more sweet than this,
    To feel thy parents' hearts approving,
And pay them back in sums of bliss
    The dear, the endless debt of loving?

It must be so to thee, my youth;
    With this idea toil is lighter;
This sweetens all the fruits of truth,
    And makes the flowers of fancy brighter.

The little gift we send thee, boy,
    May sometimes teach thy soul to ponder,
If indolence or siren joy
    Should ever tempt that soul to wander.

'Twill tell thee that the wingèd day
    Can, ne'er be chain'd by man's endeavor;
That life and time shall fade away,
    While heaven and virtue bloom forever!

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

At The Mid Hour Of Night

Thomas Moore, Simple Poetry

Epigram. Dialogue Between A Catholic Delegate And His Royal Highness The Duke Of Cumberland.

Thomas Moore, Simple Poetry

There Is A Bleak Desert. (Air.--Crescentini.)

Thomas Moore, Simple Poetry

Song Of Innisfail.

Thomas Moore, Simple Poetry

English

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

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

Rhymes On The Road. Extract XII. Florence.

Music in Italy.--Disappointed by it.--Recollections or other Times and Friends.--Dalton.--Sir John Stevenson.--His Daughter.--Musical Evenings together.


If it be true that Music reigns,
    Supreme, in ITALY'S soft shades,
'Tis like that Harmony so famous,
Among the spheres, which He of SAMOS
Declared had such transcendent merit
That not a soul on earth could hear it;
For, far as I have come--from Lakes,
Whose sleep the Tramontana breaks,
Thro' MILAN and that land which gave
The Hero of the rainbow vest^[1]--
By MINCIO'S banks, and by that wave,
Which made VERONA'S bard so blest--
Places that (like the Attic shore,
Which rung back music when the sea
Struck on its marge) should be all o'er
Thrilling alive with melody--
I've hea...

Thomas Moore

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

To Miss Moore. From Norfolk, In Virginia, November, 1803.

In days, my Kate, when life was new,
When, lulled with innocence and you,
I heard, in home's beloved shade,
The din the world at distance made;
When, every night my weary head
Sunk on its own unthorned bed,
And, mild as evening's matron hour,
Looks on the faintly shutting flower,
A mother saw our eyelids close,
And blest them into pure repose;
Then, haply if a week, a day,
I lingered from that home away,
How long the little absence seemed!
How bright the look of welcome beamed,
As mute you heard, with eager smile,
My tales of all that past the while!

Yet now, my Kate, a gloomy sea
Bolls wide between that home and me;
The moon may thrice be born and die,
Ere even that seal can reach mine eye.
Which used so oft, so quick to come,
S...

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

To A Friend.

The youthful joys of vanish'd years,
The joys e'en now we share,
Have something of a sacred bliss,
Which time can not impair.

For when the years of youth have gone,
Its joys and hopes have flown,
The mem'ry clings with fond embrace -
Those joys are still our own.

Then, as I write these words for you, -
This earnest wish I pen:
That you may think but pleasant thoughts -
When life's liv'd o'er again.

May nought of sorrow, or of woe,
Invade to wound or pain,
And may the joys that we have shar'd
Be bright in mem'ry's train.

Thomas Frederick Young