Thomas Moore

Cloris! if I were Persia's king,
    I'd make my graceful queen of thee;
While FANNY, wild and artless thing,
    Should but thy humble handmaid be.

There is but one objection in it--
    That, verily, I'm much afraid
I should, in some unlucky minute,
    Forsake the mistress for the maid.

FOUNDED UPON SOME LATE CALCULATIONS.


Fine figures of speech let your orators follow,
Old Cocker has figures that beat them all hollow.
Tho' famed for his rules Aristotle may be,
In but half of this Sage any merit I see,
For, as honest Joe Hume says, the "tottle" for me!

For instance, while others discuss and debate,
It is thus about Bishops I ratiocinate.

In England, where, spite of the infidel's laughter,
'Tis certain our souls are lookt very well after,
Two Bishops can well (if judiciously sundered)
Of parishes manage two thousand two hundred.--
Said number of parishes, under said teachers,
Containing three millions of Protestant creatures,--
So that each of said Bishops full ably controls
One million and...

Come not, oh LORD, in the dread robe of splendor
    Thou worest on the Mount, in the day of thine ire;
Come veiled in those shadows, deep, awful, but tender,
    Which Mercy flings over thy features of fire!

LORD, thou rememberest the night, when thy Nation[1]
    Stood fronting her Foe by the red-rolling stream;
O'er Egypt thy pillar shed dark desolation,
    While Israel basked all the night in its beam.

So, when the dread clouds of anger enfold Thee,
    From us, in thy mercy, the dark side remove;
While shrouded in terrors the guilty behold Thee,
    Oh, turn upon us the mild light of thy Love!

        Come o'er the sea,
        Maiden, with me,
    Mine thro' sunshine, storm, and snows;
        Seasons may roll,
        But the true soul
    Burns the same, where'er it goes.
Let fate frown on, so we love and part not;
'Tis life where thou art, 'tis death where thou art not.
        Then come o'er the sea,
        Maiden, with me,
    Come wherever the wild wind blows;
        Seasons may roll,
        But the true soul
    Burns the same, where'er it goes.

        Was not the sea
        Made for the Free,
    Land for courts and chains alone?
        Here we are slaves,
        But, on the waves,
    Love and Liberty's all our own.
No eye to watch, and no tongue to wound us,
All earth forgot, and all heaven aro...

Come, play me that simple air again,
    I used so to love, in life's young day,
And bring, if thou canst, the dreams that then
    Were wakened by that sweet lay
        The tender gloom its strain
            Shed o'er the heart and brow
        Grief's shadow without its pain--
            Say where, where is it now?
But play me the well-known air once more,
    For thoughts of youth still haunt its strain
Like dreams of some far, fairy shore
    We never shall see again.

Sweet air, how every note brings back
    Some sunny hope, some daydream bright,
That, shining o'er life's early track,
    Filled even its tears with light.
        The new-found life that came
        With love's first echoed vow;--
    The fear, the bliss, the shame--

Come, rest in this bosom, my own stricken deer,
Tho' the herd have fled from thee, thy home is still here;
Here still is the smile, that no cloud can o'ercast,
And a heart and a hand all thy own to the last.

Oh! what was love made for, if 'tis not the same
Thro' joy and thro' torment, thro' glory and shame?
I know not, I ask not, if guilt's in that heart,
I but know that I love thee, whatever thou art.

Thou hast called me thy Angel in moments of bliss,
And thy Angel I'll be, mid the horrors of this,--
Thro' the furnace, unshrinking, thy steps to pursue,
And shield thee, and save thee,--or perish there too!

Come, send round the wine, and leave points of belief
To simpleton sages, and reasoning fools;
This moment's a flower too fair and brief,
To be withered and stained by the dust of the schools.
Your glass may be purple, and mine may be blue,
But, while they are filled from the same bright bowl,
The fool, who would quarrel for difference of hue,
Deserves not the comfort they shed o'er the soul.
Shall I ask the brave soldier, who fights by my side
In the cause of mankind, if our creeds agree?
Shall I give up the friend I have valued and tried,
If he kneel not before the same altar with me?
From the heretic girl of my soul should I fly,
To seek somewhere else a more orthodox kiss?
No, perish the hearts, and the laws that try
Truth, valor, or love, by a standard like th...

FROM HIS EXCELLENCY DON STREPITOSO DIABOLO, ENVOY EXTRAORDINARY TO HIS SATANIC MAJESTY.

St. James's Street, July 1, 1826.


Great Sir, having just had the good luck to catch
    An official young demon, preparing to go,
Ready booted and spurred, with a black-leg despatch
    From the Hell here at Crockford's, to our Hell below--

I write these few lines to your Highness Satanic,
    To say that first having obeyed your directions
And done all the mischief I could in "the Panic,"
    My next special care was to help the Elections.

Well knowing how dear were those times to thy soul,
    When every good Christian tormented his brother,
And caused, in thy realm, such a saving of coal,
    From all coming down, ready grilled by each other;
<...

        utrum horum
        dirius borun? Incerti Auctoris.


What! still those two infernal questions,
    That with our meals our slumbers mix--
That spoil our tempers and digestions--
    Eternal Corn and Catholics!

Gods! were there ever two such bores?
    Nothing else talkt of night or morn--
Nothing in doors or out of doors,
    But endless Catholics and Corn!

Never was such a brace of pests--
    While Ministers, still worse than either,
Skilled but in feathering their nests,
    Plague us with both and settle neither.

So addled in my cranium meet
    Popery and Corn that oft I doubt,
Whether, this year, 'twas bonded Wheat,
    Or bonded Papists, they let out.

Here, la...

The Gentleman's Proposal.

            Legge aurea,
        S'ei piace, ei lice."

Come fly to these arms nor let beauties so bloomy
    To one frigid owner be tied;
Your prudes may revile and your old ones look gloomy,
    But, dearest, we've Law on our side.

Oh! think the delight of two lovers congenial,
    Whom no dull decorums divide;
Their error how sweet and their raptures how venial,
    When once they've got Law on their side.

'Tis a thing that in every King's reign has been done too:
    Then why should it now be decried?
If the Father has done it why shouldn’t the Son too?
    For so argues Law on our side.

And even should our sweet violation of duty
    By cold-blooded jurors be tried,
Th...

Said Cotton to Corn, t'other day,
    As they met and exchanged a salute--
(Squire Corn in his carriage so gay,
    Poor Cotton half famished on foot):

"Great Squire, if it isn't uncivil
    "To hint at starvation before you,
"Look down on a poor hungry devil,
    "And give him some bread, I implore you!"

Quoth Corn then in answer to Cotton,
    Perceiving he meant to make free--
"Low fellow, you've surely forgotten
    "The distance between you and me!

"To expect that we Peers of high birth
    "Should waste our illustrious acres,
"For no other purpose on earth
    "Than to fatten curst calico-makers!--

"That Bishops to bobbins should bend--
    "Should stoop from their Bench's sublimity,
"Great dealers in lawn,...

One night the nymph called country dance--
    (Whom folks, of late, have used so ill,
Preferring a coquette from France,
    That mincing thing, Mamselle quadrille)--

Having been chased from London down
    To that most humble haunt of all
She used to grace--a Country Town--
    Went smiling to the New-Year's Ball.

"Here, here, at least," she cried, tho' driven
    "From London's gay and shining tracks--
"Tho', like a Peri cast from heaven,
    "I've lost, for ever lost, Almack's--

"Tho' not a London Miss alive
    "Would now for her acquaintance own me;
"And spinsters, even, of forty-five,
    "Upon their honors ne'er have known me;

"Here, here, at least, I triumph still,
    "And--spite of some few dandy Lancers.
"Wh...