To Julia

Sing, lovely Girl! to hear Thee sing
    Hush'd is the listening air;
My spirit trembles on the wing,
    And no delay can bear.

Those down-cast eyes, that smile supprest,
    Thy conscious power betray;
Yet, Siren! grant the bold request;
    Come, steal my heart away.

See, see, those ruby lips divide;
    An ivory shrine appears;
There Harmony and Love reside,
    To ravish mortal ears.

And hark! they from that sweet recess
    Breathe their celestial lays;
The enchanting sounds my thought possess
    With rapture and amaze.

Still pressing on with strong control
    I feel the lavish strain,
Till drunk with bliss, my wilder'd soul
    Reels on the brink of pain.

Ah! how could I so rashly dare
    Contend with Powers divine?
The pride of victory forbear;
    My heart is wholly thine.

Thomas Oldham

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Thomas Oldham

Epitaph On Voltaire

Thomas Oldham, Simple Poetry

Lines To A Pedantic Critic

Thomas Oldham, Simple Poetry

To Spring

Thomas Oldham, Simple Poetry

Desperation And Madness Of Guilt, The

Thomas Oldham, 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.

Song

Yes, I could love, could softly yield
To passion all my willing breast,
And fondly listen to the voice
That oft invites me to be blest;

That still, when Fancy, lost in bliss,
Stands gazing on the form divine,
So sweetly whispers to my soul,
O make the heavenly Julia thine!

But hush, thou fascinating voice!
Hence visionary extacy!
Yes, I could love, but ah! I fear
She would not deign to smile on me.

Thomas Oldham

Song

Ere Reason rose within my breast,
    To enforce her sacred law,
Still would some charm, in every maid,
    My veering passions draw.

But now, to calm those gales of night,
    The morn her light displays;
The twinkling stars no more I view,
    For only Venus sways:

The spotless heaven of genuine love
    Unveil'd I wondering see,
And all that heaven, transported, claim
    For Julia and for me.

Thomas Oldham

To Julia

Should Phoebus e'er desert my mind,
And should the Nine their aid refuse,
Enchanting Girl! I still could find
A theme in thee, in thee a Muse.

Can Fiction any charms devise
That proudly may with thine compare?
On thee she turns her wondering eyes,
And drops the pencil in despair.

Far sweeter are thy notes to me
Than sweetest poet ever sung;
And true perfection would it be
To sing thy beauties with thy tongue.

Let Phoebus, then, desert my mind!
And let the Nine their aid refuse!
Ever, my Julia! shall I find
In thee a theme, in thee a Muse.

Thomas Oldham

To Julia.

Though Fate, my girl, may bid us part,
    Our souls it cannot, shall not sever;
The heart will seek its kindred heart,
    And cling to it as close as ever.

But must we, must we part indeed?
    Is all our dream of rapture over?
And does not Julia's bosom bleed
    To leave so dear, so fond a lover?

Does she, too, mourn?--Perhaps she may;
    Perhaps she mourns our bliss so fleeting;
But why is Julia's eye so gay,
    If Julia's heart like mine is beating?

I oft have loved that sunny glow
    Of gladness in her blue eye beaming--
But can the bosom bleed with woe
    While joy is in the glances beaming?

No, no!--Yet, love, I will not chide;
    Although your heart were fond of roving,
Nor that, nor all the world ...

Thomas Moore

Sing--Sing--Music Was Given.

Sing--sing--Music was given,
    To brighten the gay, and kindle the loving;
Souls here, like planets in Heaven,
    By harmony's laws alone are kept moving.
Beauty may boast of her eyes and her cheeks,
    But Love from the lips his true archery wings;
And she, who but feathers the dart when she speaks,
    At once sends it home to the heart when she sings.
    Then sing--sing--Music was given,
        To brighten the gay, and kindle the loving;
    Souls here, like planets in Heaven,
        By harmony's laws alone are kept moving.

When Love, rocked by his mother,
    Lay sleeping as calm as slumber could make him,
"Hush, hush," said Venus, "no other
    "Sweet voice but his own is worthy to wake him."
Dreaming of music he slumbered the while
    ...

Thomas Moore

The Genius Of Harmony. An Irregular Ode.

        Ad harmoniam canere mundum.
        CICERO "de Nat. Deor." lib. iii.


    There lies a shell beneath the waves,
    In many a hollow winding wreathed,
            Such as of old
Echoed the breath that warbling sea-maids breathed;
            This magic shell,
    From the white bosom of a syren fell,
As once she wandered by the tide that laves
            Sicilia's sands of gold.
                It bears
    Upon its shining side the mystic notes
        Of those entrancing airs,^[1]
    The genii of the deep were wont to swell,
When heaven's eternal orbs their midnight music rolled!
    Oh! seek it, wheresoe'er it floats;
            And, if the power
Of thrilling numbers to thy soul be dear,

    Go, ...

Thomas Moore