MOORE, Thomas


The Paradise and the Peri
…..
Her first fond hope of Eden blighted,

Now among Afric's lunar Mountains

Far to the South the Peri lighted

And sleeked her plumage at the fountains

Of that Egyptian tide whose birth

Is hidden from the sons of earth

Deep in those solitary woods

Where oft the Genii of the Floods

Dance round the cradle of their Nile

And hail the new-born Giant's smile.

Thence over Egypt's palmy groves

Her grots, and sepulchres of Kings,

The exiled Spirit sighing roves

And now hangs listening to the doves

In warm Rosetta's vale; now loves

To watch the moonlight on the wings

Of the white pelicans that break

The azure calm of Moeris' Lake.]

'Twas a fair scene: a Land more bright

Never did mortal eye behold!

Who could have thought that saw this night

Those valleys and their fruits of gold

Basking in Heaven's serenest light,

Those groups of lovely date-trees bending

Languidly their leaf-crowned heads,

Like youthful maids, when sleep descending

Warns them to their silken beds,

Those virgin lilies all the night

Bathing their beauties in the lake

That they may rise more fresh and bright,

When their beloved Sun's awake,

Those ruined shrines and towers that seem

The relics of a splendid dream,

Amid whose fairy loneliness

Naught but the lapwing's cry is heard,--

Naught seen but (when the shadows flitting,

Fast from the moon unsheath its gleam,)

Some purple-winged Sultana sitting

Upon a column motionless

And glittering like an Idol bird!--

Who could have thought that there, even there,

Amid those scenes so still and fair,

The Demon of the Plague hath cast

From his hot wing a deadlier blast,

More mortal far than ever came

From the red Desert's sands of flame!

So quick that every living thing

Of human shape touched by his wing,

Like plants, where the Simoom hath past

At once falls black and withering!

The sun went down on many a brow

Which, full of bloom and freshness then,

Is rankling in the pest-house now

And ne'er will feel that sun again,

And, oh! to see the unburied heaps

On which the lonely moonlight sleeps--

The very vultures turn away,

And sicken at so foul a prey!

Only the fierce hyena stalks

Throughout the city's desolate walks

At midnight and his carnage plies:--

Woe to the half-dead wretch who meets

The glaring of those large blue eyes

Amid the darkness of the streets!
…..


The Fire-Worshippers

She loves — but knows not whom she loves,

Nor what his race, nor whence he came —

Like one who meets, in Indian groves,

Some beauteous bird, without a name,

Brought by the last ambrosial breeze

From isles in the undiscovered seas

To show his plumage for a day

To wondering eyes, and wing away!

Will he thus fly — her nameless lover?

Allah forbid! 'Twas by a moon

As fair as this, while singing over

Some ditty to her soft kanoon,

Alone, at this same witching-hour,

She first beheld his radiant eyes

Gleam through the lattice of the bower

Where nightly now they mix their sighs,

And thought some spirit of the air

(For what could waft a mortal there?)

Was pausing on his moonlight way

To listen to her lonely lay!
…..


If You Have Seen

Good reader! if you e'er have seen,
When Phoebus hastens to his pillow
The mermaids, with their tresses green,
Dancing upon the western billow:
If you have seen, at twilight dim,
When the lone spirit's vesper hymn
Floats wild along the winding shore:
If you have seen, through mist of eve,
The fairy train their ringlets weave,
Glancing along the spangled green;--
If you have seen all this and more,
God bless me! what a deal you've seen!


The Light of Other Days

OFT, in the stilly night,

Ere slumber's chain has bound me,

Fond Memory brings the light

Of other days around me:

The smiles, the tears

Of boyhood's years,

The words of love then spoken;

The eyes that shone,

Now dimm'd and gone,

The cheerful hearts now broken!

Thus, in the stilly night,

Ere slumber's chain has bound me,

Sad Memory brings the light

Of other days around me.

When I remember all

The friends, so link'd together,

I've seen around me fall

Like leaves in wintry weather,

I feel like one

Who treads alone

Some banquet-hall deserted,

Whose lights are fled,

Whose garlands dead,

And all but he departed!

Thus, in the stilly night,

Ere slumber's chain has bound me.

Sad Memory brings the light

Of other days around me.


The Last Rose of Summer

'Tis the last rose of summer,

Left blooming alone;

All her lovely companions

Are faded and gone;

No flower of her kindred,

No rosebud is nigh,

To reflect back her blushes,

Or give sigh for sigh.

I'll not leave thee, thou lone one!

To pine on the stem;

Since the lovely are sleeping,

Go, sleep thou with them.

Thus kindly I scatter,

Thy leaves o'er the bed,

Where thy mates of the garden

Lie scentless and dead.

So soon may I follow,

When friendships decay,

And from Love's shining circle

The gems drop away.

When true hearts lie withered,

And fond ones are flown,

Oh! who would inhabit

This bleak world alone?


The Time I've Lost

THE time I've lost in wooing,

In watching and pursuing

The light that lies

In woman's eyes,

Has been my heart's undoing.

Tho' Wisdom oft has sought me,

I scorn'd the lore she brought me,

My only books

Were women's looks,

And folly's all they taught me.

Her smile when Beauty granted,

I hung with gaze enchanted,

Like him the Sprite

Whom maids by night

Oft meet in glen that's haunted.

Like him, too, Beauty won me;

But when the spell was on me,

If once their ray

Was turn'd away,

O! winds could not outrun me.

And are those follies going?

And is my proud heart growing

Too cold or wise

For brillant eyes

Again to set it glowing?

No -- vain, alas! th' endeavour

From bonds so sweet to sever: --

Poor Wisdom's chance

Against a glance

Is now as weak as ever.


Oh! Had We Some Bright Little Isle of Our Own

Air — Sheela na Guira

OH! had we some bright little isle of our own,

In a blue summer ocean, far off and alone,

Where a leaf never dies in the still blooming bowers,

And the bee banquets on through a whole year of flowers;

Where the sun loves to pause

With so fond a delay,

That the night only draws

A thin veil o’er the day;

Where simply to feel that we breathe, that we live,

Is worth the best joy that life elsewhere can give.

There with souls ever ardent and pure as the clime,

We should love, as they loved in the first golden time;

The glow of the sunshine, the balm of the air,

Would steal to our hearts, and make all summer there.

With affection as free

From decline as the bowers,

And, with hope, like the bee,

Living always on flowers,

Our life should resemble a long day of light,

And our death come on, holy and calm as the night.