Thomas Moore

Go, let me weep--there's bliss in tears,
When he who sheds them inly feels
Some lingering stain of early years
    Effaced by every drop that steals.
The fruitless showers of worldly woe
Fall dark to earth and never rise;
While tears that from repentance flow,
    In bright exhalement reach the skies.
        Go, let me weep.

Leave me to sigh o'er hours that flew
More idly than the summer's wind,
And, while they past, a fragrance threw,
But left no trace of sweets behind.--
The warmest sigh that pleasure heaves
Is cold, is faint to those that swell
The heart where pure repentance grieves
    O'er hours of pleasure, loved too well.
        Leave me to sigh.

Go, now, and dream o'er that joy in thy slumber--
Moments so sweet again ne'er shalt thou number.
Of Pain's bitter draught the flavor ne'er flies,
While Pleasure's scarce touches the lip ere it dies.
    Go, then, and dream, etc.

That moon, which hung o'er your parting, so splendid,
Often will shine again, bright as she then did--
But, never more will the beam she saw burn
In those happy eyes, at your meeting, return.
    Go, then, and dream, etc.

Go, then--'tis vain to hover
    Thus round a hope that's dead;
At length my dream is over;
    'Twas sweet--'twas false--'tis fled!
Farewell! since naught it moves thee,
    Such truth as mine to see--
Some one, who far less loves thee,
    Perhaps more blest will be.

Farewell, sweet eyes, whose brightness
    New life around me shed;
Farewell, false heart, whose lightness
    Now leaves me death instead.
Go, now, those charms surrender
    To some new lover's sigh--
One who, tho' far less tender,
    May be more blest than I.

As I sate in my study, lone and still,
Thinking of Sergeant Talfourd's Bill,
And the speech by Lawyer Sugden made,
In spirit congenial, for "the Trade,"
Sudden I sunk to sleep and lo!
    Upon Fancy's reinless nightmare flitting,
I found myself, in a second or so,
At the table of Messrs. Type and Co.
    With a goodly group of diners sitting;--
All in the printing and publishing line,
Drest, I thought, extremely fine,
And sipping like lords their rosy wine;
While I in a state near inanition
    With coat that hadn't much nap to spare
(Having just gone into its second edition),
    Was the only wretch of an author there.
But think, how great was my surprise,
When I saw, in casting round my eyes,
That the dishes, sent up by Type's she-cooks,
Bore ...

        List! 'tis a Grecian maid that sings,
        While, from Ilissus' silvery springs,
    She draws the cool lymph in her graceful urn;
And by her side, in Music's charm dissolving,
Some patriot youth, the glorious past revolving,
    Dreams of bright days that never can return;
        When Athens nurst her olive bough
            With hands by tyrant power unchained;
        And braided for the muse's brow
            A wreath by tyrant touch unstained.
        When heroes trod each classic field
            Where coward feet now faintly falter;
        When every arm was Freedom's shield,
            And every heart was Freedom's altar!

I love a maid, a mystic maid,
    Whose form no eyes but mine can see;
She comes in light, she comes in shade,
    And beautiful in both is she.
Her shape in dreams I oft behold,
    And oft she whispers in my ear
Such words as when to others told,
    Awake the sigh, or wring the tear;
Then guess, guess, who she,
The lady of my love, may be.

I find the lustre of her brow,
    Come o'er me in my darkest ways;
And feel as if her voice, even now,
    Were echoing far off my lays.
There is no scene of joy or woe
    But she doth gild with influence bright;
And shed o'er all so rich a glow
    As makes even tears seem full of light:
Then guess, guess, who she,
The lady of my love, may be.

Hark! 'tis the breeze of twilight calling;
    Earth's weary children to repose;
While, round the couch of Nature falling,
    Gently the night's soft curtains close.
Soon o'er a world, in sleep reclining,
    Numberless stars, thro' yonder dark,
Shall look, like eyes of Cherubs shining
    From out the veils that hid the Ark.

Guard us, oh Thou, who never sleepest,
    Thou who in silence throned above,
Throughout all time, unwearied, keepest
    Thy watch of Glory, Power, and Love.
Grant that, beneath thine eye, securely,
    Our souls awhile from life withdrawn
May in their darkness stilly, purely,
    Like "sealed fountains," rest till dawn.

Has sorrow thy young days shaded,
    As clouds o'er the morning fleet?
Too fast have those young days faded,
    That, even in sorrow, were sweet?
Does Time with his cold wing wither
    Each feeling that once was dear?--
Then, child of misfortune, come hither,
    I'll weep with thee, tear for tear.

Has love to that soul, so tender,
    Been like our Lagenian mine,[1]
Where sparkles of golden splendor
    All over the surface shine--
But, if in pursuit we go deeper,
    Allured by the gleam that shone,
Ah! false as the dream of the sleeper,
    Like Love, the bright ore is gone.

Has Hope, like the bird in the story,[2]
    That flitted from tree to tree
With the talisman's glittering glory--
    Has Hope been ...

        "At the interment of the Duke of York, Lord Eldon, in order to guard against the effects of the damp, stood upon his hat during the whole of the ceremony."


        --metus omnes et inexorabile fatum
        subjecit pedibus, strepitumque Acherontis
        avari.


'Twixt Eldon's Hat and Eldon's Wig
    There lately rose an altercation,--
Each with its own importance big,
    Disputing which most serves the nation.

Quoth Wig, with consequential air,
    "Pooh! pooh! you surely can't design,
"My worthy beaver, to compare
    "Your station in the state with mine.

"Who meets the learned legal crew?
    "Who fronts the lordly Senate's pride?
"The Wig, the Wig, my friend--while you
    "Hang dangling on some peg ou...

Her last words, at parting, how can I forget?
    Deep treasured thro' life, in my heart they shall stay;
Like music, whose charm in the soul lingers yet,
    When its sounds from the ear have long melted away.
Let Fortune assail me, her threatenings are vain;
    Those still-breathing words shall my talisman be,--
"Remember, in absence, in sorrow, and pain,
    "There's one heart, unchanging, that beats but for thee."

From the desert's sweet well tho' the pilgrim must hie,
    Never more of that fresh-springing fountain to taste,
He hath still of its bright drops a treasured supply,
    Whose sweetness lends life to his lips thro' the waste.
So, dark as my fate is still doomed to remain,
    These words shall my well in the wilderness be,--
"Remember, in a...

Here, at thy tomb, these tears I shed,
    Tears, which though vainly now they roll,
Are all love hath to give the dead,
    And wept o'er thee with all love's soul;--

Wept in remembrance of that light.
    Which naught on earth, without thee, gives,
Hope of my heart! now quenched in night,
    But dearer, dead, than aught that lives.

Where is she? where the blooming bough
    That once my life's sole lustre made?
Torn off by death, 'tis withering now,
    And all its flowers in dust are laid.

Oh earth! that to thy matron breast
    Hast taken all those angel charms,
Gently, I pray thee, let her rest,--
    Gently, as in a mother's arms.

Here sleeps the Bard who knew so well
All the sweet windings of Apollo's shell;
Whether its music rolled like torrents near.
Or died, like distant streamlets, on the ear.
Sleep, sleep, mute bard; alike unheeded now
The storm and zephyr sweep thy lifeless brow;--
That storm, whose rush is like thy martial lay;
That breeze which, like thy love-song, dies away!

Here, take my heart--'twill be safe in thy keeping,
    While I go wandering o'er land and o'er sea;
Smiling or sorrowing, waking or sleeping,
    What need I care, so my heart is with thee?

If in the race we are destined to run, love,
    They who have light hearts the happiest be,
Then happier still must be they who have none, love.
    And that will be my case when mine is with thee.

It matters not where I may now be a rover,
    I care not how many bright eyes I may see;
Should Venus herself come and ask me to love her,
    I'd tell her I couldn't--my heart is with thee.

And there let it lie, growing fonder and, fonder--
    For, even should Fortune turn truant to me,
Why, let her go--I've a treasure beyond her,
    As long as my heart'...

Here's the bower she loved so much,
    And the tree she planted;
Here's the harp she used to touch--
    Oh, how that touch enchanted!
Roses now unheeded sigh;
    Where's the hand to wreathe them?
Songs around neglected lie;
    Where's the lip to breathe them?
                Here's the bower, etc.

Spring may bloom, but she we loved
    Ne'er shall feel its sweetness;
Time, that once so fleetly moved,
    Now hath lost its fleetness.
Years were days, when here she strayed,
    Days were moments near her;
Heaven ne'er formed a brighter maid,
    Nor Pity wept a dearer!
                Here's the bower, etc.

"The night wind is moaning with mournful sigh,
"There gleameth no moon in the misty sky
    "No star over Helle's sea;
"Yet, yet, there is shining one holy light,
"One love-kindled star thro' the deep of night,
    "To lead me, sweet Hero, to thee!"

Thus saying, he plunged in the foamy stream,
Still fixing his gaze on that distant beam
    No eye but a lover's could see;
And still, as the surge swept over his head,
"To night," he said tenderly, "living or dead,
    "Sweet Hero, I'll rest with thee!"

But fiercer around him, the wild waves speed;
Oh, Love! in that hour of thy votary's need,
    Where, where could thy Spirit be?
He struggles--he sinks--while the hurricane's breath
Bears rudely away his last farewell in death--
    "Sweet Hero, I ...

Come, fill round a bumper, fill up to the brim,
He who shrinks from a bumper I pledge not to him;
Here's the girl that each loves, be her eye of what hue,
Or lustre, it may, so her heart is but true.
        Charge! (drinks) hip, hip, hurra, hurra!

Come charge high, again, boy, nor let the full wine
Leave a space in the brimmer, where daylight may shine;
Here's "the friends of our youth--tho' of some we're bereft,
May the links that are lost but endear what are left!"
        Charge! (drinks) hip, hip, hurra, hurra!

Once more fill a bumper--ne'er talk of the hour;
On hearts thus united old Time has no power.
May our lives, tho', alas! like the wine of to-night,
They must soon have an end, to the last flow as bright.
        Charge! (drinks) hip, hip, hurra, ...

Hope comes again, to this heart long a stranger,
    Once more she sings me her flattering strain;
But hush, gentle syren--for, ah, there's less danger
    In still suffering on, than in hoping again.

Long, long, in sorrow, too deep for repining,
    Gloomy, but tranquil, this bosom hath lain:
And joy coming now, like a sudden light shining
    O'er eyelids long darkened, would bring me but pain.

Fly then, ye visions, that Hope would shed o'er me;
    Lost to the future, my sole chance of rest
Now lies not in dreaming of bliss that's before me.
    But, ah--in forgetting how once I was blest.

        odi profanum, valgus et arceo;
        favete linguis: carmina non prius
                audila Musarum sacerdos
                    virginibus puerisque canto.
        regum timendorum in proprios greges,
        reges in ipsos imperium est Jovis.


1813.


I hate thee, oh, Mob, as my Lady hates delf;
    To Sir Francis I'll give up thy claps and thy hisses,
Leave old Magna Charta to shift for itself,
    And, like Godwin, write books for young masters and misses.
Oh! it is not high rank that can make the heart merry,
    Even monarchs themselves are not free from mishap:
Tho' the Lords of Westphalia must quake before Jerry,
    Poor Jerry himself has to quake before Nap.