Tout Pour La Tripe.

        "If in China or among the natives of India, we claimed civil advantages which were connected with religious usages, little as we might value those forms in our hearts, we should think common decency required us to abstain from treating them with offensive contumely; and, though unable to consider them sacred, we would not sneer at the name of Fot, or laugh at the imputed divinity of Visthnou."--Courier, Tuesday. Jan. 16.




Come take my advice, never trouble your cranium,
    When "civil advantages" are to be gained,
What god or what goddess may help to obtain you 'em,
    Hindoo or Chinese, so they're only obtained.

In this world (let me hint in your organ auricular)
    All the good things to good hypocrites fall;
And he who in swallowing creeds is particular,
    Soon will have nothing to swallow at all.

Oh place me where Fo (or, as some call him, Fot)
    Is the god from whom "civil advantages" flow,
And you'll find, if there's anything snug to be got,
    I shall soon be on excellent terms with old Fo.

Or were I where Vishnu, that four-handed god,
    Is the quadruple giver of pensions and places,
I own I should feel it unchristian and odd
    Not to find myself also in Vishnu's good graces.

For among all the gods that humanely attend
    To our wants in this planet, the gods to my wishes
Are those that, like Vishnu and others, descend
    In the form so attractive, of loaves and of fishes!^[1]

So take my advice--for if even the devil
    Should tempt men again as an idol to try him,
'Twere best for us Tories even then to be civil,
    As nobody doubts we should get something by him.

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

Dreaming For Ever.

Thomas Moore, Simple Poetry

The Wreath And The Chain.

Thomas Moore, Simple Poetry

Bring The Bright Garlands Hither.

Thomas Moore, Simple Poetry

To Mrs. .......

Thomas Moore, Simple Poetry

English

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Epistle From Erasmus On Earth To Cicero In The Shades.

Southampton.

As 'tis now, my dear Tully, some weeks since I started
By railroad for earth, having vowed ere we parted
To drop you a line by the Dead-Letter post,
Just to say how I thrive in my new line of ghost,
And how deucedly odd this live world all appears,
To a man who's been dead now for three hundred years,
I take up my pen, and with news of this earth
Hope to waken by turns both your spleen and your mirth.

In my way to these shores, taking Italy first,
Lest the change from Elysium too sudden should burst,
I forgot not to visit those haunts where of yore
You took lessons from Paetus in cookery's lore.
Turned aside from the calls of the rostrum and Muse,
To discuss the rich merits of rôtis and stews,
And preferred to all honors of triumph o...

Thomas Moore

The Fudge Family In Paris Letter IX. Prom Phil. Fudge, Esq., To The Lord Viscount Castlereagh.

My Lord, the Instructions, brought to-day,
"I shall in all my best obey."
Your Lordship talks and writes so sensibly!
And--whatsoe'er some wags may say--
Oh! not at all incomprehensibly.

I feel the inquiries in your letter
    About my health and French most flattering;
Thank ye, my French, tho' somewhat better,
    Is, on the whole, but weak and smattering:--
Nothing, of course, that can compare
With his who made the Congress stare
(A certain Lord we need not name),
    Who, even in French, would have his trope,
And talk of "batir un systême
    "Sur l'équilibre de l'Europe!"
Sweet metaphor!--and then the Epistle,
Which bid the Saxon King go whistle,--
That tender letter to "Mon Prince"^[1]
Which showed al...

Thomas Moore

The Sceptic, A Philosophical Satire.

PREFACE.


The Sceptical Philosophy of the Ancients has been no less misrepresented than the Epicurean. Pyrrho may perhaps have carried it to rather an irrational excess;--but we must not believe with Beattie all the absurdities imputed to this philosopher; and it appears to me that the doctrines of the school, as explained by Sextus Empiricus, are far more suited to the wants and infirmities of human reason as well as more conducive to the mild virtues of humility and patience, than any of those systems of philosophy which preceded the introduction of Christianity. The Sceptics may be said to have held a middle path between the Dogmatists and Academicians; the former of whom boasted that they had attained the truth while the latter denied that any attainable truth existed. The Sceptics however, without either asserting or ...

Thomas Moore

Fables For The Holy Alliance. Fable V. Church And State.

PROEM


        "The moment any religion becomes national, or established, its purity must certainly be lost, because it is then impossible to keep it unconnected with men's interests; and, if connected, it must inevitably be perverted by them."
        --SOAME JENYNS


Thus did SOAME JENYNS--tho' a Tory,
    A Lord of Trade and the Plantations;
Feel how Religion's simple glory
    Is stained by State associations.

When CATHARINE, ere she crusht the Poles,
    Appealed to the benign Divinity;
Then cut them up in protocols,
Made fractions of their very souls--
    All in the name of the blest Trinity;
Or when her grandson, ALEXANDER,
That mighty Northern salamander,^[1]
Whose icy touch, felt all about,
Puts every fire of Freedom o...

Thomas Moore

To The Ship In Which Lord Castlereagh Sailed For The Continent.

Imitated from Horace, lib. i, ode 3.


So may my Lady's prayers prevail,
    And Canning's too, and lucid Bragge's,
And Eldon beg a favoring gale
    From Eolus, that older Bags,
To speed thee on thy destined way,
Oh ship, that bearest our Castlereagh,
Our gracious Regent's better half
    And therefore quarter of a King--
(As Van or any other calf
    May find without much figuring).
Waft him, oh ye kindly breezes,
    Waft this Lord of place and pelf,
Any where his Lordship pleases,
    Tho' 'twere to Old Nick himself!

Oh, what a face of brass was his.
Who first at Congress showed his phiz--
To sign away the Rights of Man
    To Russian threats and Austrian juggle;
And leave the sinking African
...

Thomas Moore

The Fudges In England. Letter VI. From Miss Biddy Fudge, To Mrs. Elizabeth ----.

How I grieve you're not with us!--pray, come, if you can,
Ere we're robbed of this dear, oratorical man,
Who combines in himself all the multiple glory
Of, Orangeman, Saint, quondam Papist and Tory;--
(Choice mixture! like that from which, duly confounded,
The best sort of brass was, in old times, compounded.)--
The sly and the saintly, the worldly and godly,
All fused down, in brogue so deliciously oddly!
In short, he's a dear--and such audiences draws,
Such loud peals of laughter and shouts of applause,
As can't but do good to the Protestant cause.

Poor dear Irish Church!--he today sketched a view
Of her history and prospect, to me at least new,
And which (if it takes as it ought) must arouse
The whole Christian w...

Thomas Moore