The Complete Poems of Sir Thomas Moore

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Nor long did the soul of the stranger remain
Unblest by the smile he had languished to meet;
Though scarce did he hope it would soothe him again,
Till the threshold of home had been pressed by his feet.

But the lays of his boyhood had stolen to their ear,
And they loved what they knew of so humble a name;
And they told him, with flattery welcome and dear,
That they found in his heart something better than fame.

Nor did woman--oh woman! Whose form and whose soul
Are the spell and the life of each path we pursue;
Whether sunned in the tropics or chilled at the pole,
If woman be there, there is happiness too:--

Nor did she her enamoring magic deny,--
That magic his heart had relinquished so long,--
Like eyes he had loved was _her_ eloquent eye,
Like them did it soften and weep at his song.

Oh, blest be the tear, and in memory oft
May its sparkle be shed o'er the wanderer's dream;
Thrice blest be that eye, and may passion as soft,
As free from a pang, ever mellow its beam!

The stranger is gone--but he will not forget,
When at home he shall talk of the toils he has known,
To tell, with a sigh, what endearments he met,
As he strayed by the wave of the Schuylkill alone.

LINES WRITTEN AT THE COHOS, OR FALLS OF THE MOHAWK KIVER.[1]

_Gia era in loco ove s'udia l'rimbombo
Dell' acqua_. DANTE.

From rise of morn till set of sun
I've seen the mighty Mohawk run;
And as I markt the woods of pine
Along his mirror darkly shine,
Like tall and gloomy forms that pass
Before the wizard's midnight glass:
And as I viewed the hurrying pace
With which he ran his turbid race,
Rushing, alike untried and wild,
Through shades that frowned and flowers that smiled,
Flying by every green recess
That wooed him to its calm caress,
Yet, sometimes turning with the wind,
As if to leave one look behind,--
Oft have I thought, and thinking sighed,
How like to thee, thou restless tide,
May be the lot, the life of him
Who roams along thy water's brim;
Through what alternate wastes of woe
And flowers of joy my path may go;
How many a sheltered, calm retreat
May woo the while my weary feet,
While still pursuing, still unblest,
I wander on, nor dare to rest;
But, urgent as the doom that calls
Thy water to its destined falls,
I feel the world's bewildering force
Hurry my heart's devoted course
From lapse to lapse, till life be done,
And the spent current cease to run.

One only prayer I dare to make,
As onward thus my course I take;--
Oh, be my falls as bright as thine!
May heaven's relenting rainbow shine
Upon the mist that circles me,
As soft as now it hangs o'er thee!

[1] There is a dreary and savage character in the country immediately
about these Falls, which is much more in harmony with the wildness of such
a scene than the cultivated lands in the neighborhood of Niagara.

SONG OF THE EVIL SPIRIT OF THE WOODS.[1]

_qua via difficilis, quaque est via nulla_
OVID _Metam. lib_ iii. v. 227.

Now the vapor, hot and damp,
Shed by day's expiring lamp,
Through the misty ether spreads
Every ill the white man dreads;
Fiery fever's thirsty thrill,
Fitful ague's shivering chill!

Hark! I hear the traveller's song,
As he winds the woods along;--
Christian, 'tis the song of fear;
Wolves are round thee, night is near,
And the wild thou dar'st to roam--
Think, 'twas once the Indian's home![2]

Hither, sprites, who love to harm,
Wheresoe'er you work your charm,
By the creeks, or by the brakes,
Where the pale witch feeds her snakes,
And the cayman[3] loves to creep,
Torpid, to his wintry sleep:
Where the bird of carrion flits,
And the shuddering murderer sits,[4]
Lone beneath a roof of blood;
While upon his poisoned food,
From the corpse of him he slew
Drops the chill and gory dew.

Hither bend ye, turn ye hither,
Eyes that blast and wings that wither
Cross the wandering Christian's way,
Lead him, ere the glimpse of day,
Many a mile of maddening error
Through the maze of night and terror,
Till the morn behold him lying
On the damp earth, pale and dying.
Mock him, when his eager sight
Seeks the cordial cottage-light;
Gleam then, like the lightning-bug,
Tempt him to the den that's dug
For the foul and famished brood
Of the she wolf, gaunt for blood;
Or, unto the dangerous pass
O'er the deep and dark morass,
Where the trembling Indian brings
Belts of porcelain, pipes, and rings,
Tributes, to be hung in air,
To the Fiend presiding there![5]

Then, when night's long labor past,
Wildered, faint, he falls at last,
Sinking where the causeway's edge
Moulders in the slimy sedge,
There let every noxious thing
Trail its filth and fix its sting;
Let the bull-toad taint him over,
Round him let mosquitoes hover,
In his ears and eyeballs tingling,
With his blood their poison mingling,
Till, beneath the solar fires,
Rankling all, the wretch expires!

[1] The idea of this poem occurred to me in passing through the very
dreary wilderness between Batavia, a new settlement in the midst of the
woods, and the little village of Buffalo upon Lake Erie. This is the most
fatiguing part of the route, in travelling through the Genesee country to
Niagara.

[2] "The Five Confederated Nations (of Indians) were settled along the
banks of the Susquehannah and the adjacent country, until the year 1779,
when General Sullivan, with an army of 4000 men drove them from their
country to Niagara, where, being obliged to live on salted provisions, to
which they were unaccustomed, great numbers of them died. Two hundred of
them, it is said, were buried in one grave, where they had encamped."--
_Morse's American Geography_.

[3] The alligator, who is supposed to lie in a torpid state all the
winter, in the bank of some creek or pond, having previously swallowed a
large number of pine-knots, which are his only sustenance during the time.

[4] This was the mode of punishment for murder (as Charlevoix tells us)
among the Hurons. "They laid the dead body upon poles at the top of a
cabin, and the murderer was obliged to remain several days together, and
to receive all that dropped from the carcass, not only on himself but on
his food."

[5] "We find also collars of porcelain, tobacco, ears of maize, skins,
etc., by the side of difficult and dangerous ways, on rocks, or by the
side of the falls; and these are so many offerings made to the spirits
which preside in these places."--See _Charlevoix's Letter on the
Traditions and the Religion of the Savages of Canada_.

Father Hennepin too mentions this ceremony; he also says, "We took notice
of one barbarian, who made a kind of sacrifice upon an oak at the Cascade
of St. Anthony of Padua upon the river Mississippi."--See _Hennepin's
Voyage into North America_.

TO THE HONORABLE W. R. SPENCER.

FROM BUFFALO, UPON LAKE ERIE.

_nec venit ad duros musa vocata Getas_.
OVID. _ex Ponto, lib. 1. ep. 5_.

Thou oft hast told me of the happy hours
Enjoyed by thee in fair Italia's bowers,
Where, lingering yet, the ghost of ancient wit
Midst modern monks profanely dares to flit.
And pagan spirits, by the Pope unlaid,
Haunt every stream and sing through every shade.
There still the bard who (if his numbers be
His tongue's light echo) must have talked like thee,--
The courtly bard, from whom thy mind has caught
Those playful, sunshine holidays of thought,
In which the spirit baskingly reclines,
Bright without effort, resting while it shines,--
There still he roves, and laughing loves to see
How modern priests with ancient rakes agree:
How, 'neath the cowl, the festal garland shines,
And Love still finds a niche in Christian shrines.

There still, too, roam those other souls of song,
With whom thy spirit hath communed so long,
That, quick as light, their rarest gems of thought,
By Memory's magic to thy lip are brought.
But here, alas! by Erie's stormy lake,
As, far from such bright haunts my course I take,
No proud remembrance o'er the fancy plays,
No classic dream, no star of other days
Hath left that visionary light behind,
That lingering radiance of immortal mind,
Which gilds and hallows even the rudest scene,
The humblest shed, where Genius once has been!

All that creation's varying mass assumes
Of grand or lovely, here aspires and blooms;
Bold rise the mountains, rich the gardens glow,
Bright lakes expand, and conquering[1] rivers flow;
But mind, immortal mind, without whose ray,
This world's a wilderness and man but clay,
Mind, mind alone, in barren, still repose,
Nor blooms, nor rises, nor expands, nor flows.
Take Christians, Mohawks, democrats, and all
From the rude wigwam to the congress-hall,
From man the savage, whether slaved or free,
To man the civilized, less tame than he,--
'Tis one dull chaos, one unfertile strife
Betwixt half-polished and half-barbarous life;
Where every ill the ancient world could brew
Is mixt with every grossness of the new;
Where all corrupts, though little can entice,
And naught is known of luxury but its vice!

Is this the region then, is this the clime
For soaring fancies? for those dreams sublime,
Which all their miracles of light reveal
To heads that meditate and hearts that feel?
Alas! not so--the Muse of Nature lights
Her glories round; she scales the mountain heights,
And roams the forests; every wondrous spot
Burns with her step, yet man regards it not.
She whispers round, her words are in the air,
But lost, unheard, they linger freezing there,[2]
Without one breath of soul, divinely strong,
One ray of mind to thaw them into song.

Yet, yet forgive me, oh ye sacred few,
Whom late by Delaware's green banks I knew;
Whom, known and loved through many a social eve,
'Twas bliss to live with, and 'twas pain to leave.[3]
Not with more joy the lonely exile scanned
The writing traced upon the desert's sand,
Where his lone heart but little hoped to find
One trace of life, one stamp of human kind,
Than did I hail the pure, the enlightened zeal,
The strength to reason and the warmth to feel,
The manly polish and the illumined taste,
Which,--mid the melancholy, heartless waste
My foot has traversed,--oh you sacred few!
I found by Delaware's green banks with you.

Long may you loathe the Gallic dross that runs
Through your fair country and corrupts its sons;
Long love the arts, the glories which adorn
Those fields of freedom, where your sires were born.
Oh! if America can yet be great,
If neither chained by choice, nor doomed by fate
To the mob-mania which imbrutes her now,
She yet can raise the crowned, yet civic brow
Of single majesty,--can add the grace
Of Rank's rich capital to Freedom's base,
Nor fear the mighty shaft will feebler prove
For the fair ornament that flowers above;--
If yet released from all that pedant throng,
So vain of error and so pledged to wrong,
Who hourly teach her, like themselves, to hide
Weakness in vaunt and barrenness in pride,
She yet can rise, can wreathe the Attic charms
Of soft refinement round the pomp of arms,
And see her poets flash the fires of song,
To light her warriors' thunderbolts along;--
It is to you, to souls that favoring heaven
Has made like yours, the glorious task is given:--
Oh! but for _such_, Columbia's days were done;
Rank without ripeness, quickened without sun,
Crude at the surface, rotten at the core,
Her fruits would fall, before her spring were o'er.

Believe me, Spencer, while I winged the hours
Where Schuylkill winds his way through banks of flowers,
Though few the days, the happy evenings few;
So warm with heart, so rich with mind they flew,
That my charmed soul forgot its wish to roam,
And rested there, as in a dream of home.
And looks I met, like looks I'd loved before,
And voices too, which, as they trembled o'er
The chord of memory, found full many a tone
Of kindness there in concord with their own.
Yes,--we had nights of that communion free,
That flow of heart, which I have known with thee
So oft, so warmly; nights of mirth and mind,

Of whims that taught, and follies that refined.
When shall we both renew them? when, restored
To the gay feast and intellectual board,
Shall I once more enjoy with thee and thine
Those whims that teach, those follies that refine?
Even now, as, wandering upon Erie's shore,
I hear Niagara's distant cataract roar,
I sigh for home,--alas! these weary feet
Have many a mile to journey, ere we meet.

[1] This epithet was suggested by Charlevoix's striking description of the
confluence of the Missouri with the Mississippi.

[2] Alluding to the fanciful notion of "words congealed in northern air."

[3] In the society of Mr. Dennie and his friends, at Philadelphia, I
passed the few agreeable moments which my tour through the States afforded
me. Mr. Dennie has succeeded in diffusing through this cultivated little
circle that love for good literature and sound politics which he feels so
zealously himself, and which is so very rarely the characteristic of his
countrymen. They will not, I trust, accuse me of illiberality for the
picture which I have given of the ignorance and corruption that surround
them. If I did not hate, as I ought, the rabble to which they are opposed,
I could not value, as I do, the spirit with which they defy it; and in
learning from them what Americans _can be_, I but see with the more
indignation what Americans _are_.

BALLAD STANZAS.

I knew by the smoke, that so gracefully curled
Above the green elms, that a cottage was near.
And I said, "If there's peace to be found in the world,
"A heart that was humble might hope for it here!"
It was noon, and on flowers that languished around
In silence reposed the voluptuous bee;
Every leaf was at rest, and I heard not a sound
But the woodpecker tapping the hollow beech-tree.

And, "Here in this lone little wood," I exclaimed,
"With a maid who was lovely to soul and to eye,
"Who would blush when I praised her, and weep if I blamed,
How blest could I live, and how calm could I die!

"By the shade of yon sumach, whose red berry dips
"In the gush of the fountain, how sweet to recline,
"And to know that I sighed upon innocent lips,
"Which had never been sighed on by any but mine!"

A CANADIAN BOAT SONG.

WRITTEN ON THE RIVER ST. LAWRENCE.[1]

_et remigem cantus hortatur_.
QUINTILIAN.

Faintly as tolls the evening chime
Our voices keep tune and our oars keep time.
Soon as the woods on shore look dim,
We'll sing at St. Ann's our parting hymn.[2]
Row, brothers, row, the stream runs fast,
The Rapids are near and the daylight's past.

Why should we yet our sail unfurl?
There is not a breath the blue wave to curl,
But, when the wind blows off the shore,
Oh! sweetly we'll rest our weary oar.
Blow, breezes, blow, the stream runs fast,
The Rapids are near and the daylight's past.

Utawas' tide! this trembling moon
Shall see us float over thy surges soon.
Saint of this green isle! hear our prayers,
Oh, grant us cool heavens and favoring airs.
Blow, breezes, blow, the stream runs fast,
The Rapids are near and the daylight's past.

[1] I wrote these words to an air which our boatmen sung to us frequently.
The wind was so unfavorable that they were obliged to row all the way, and
we were five days in descending the river from Kingston to Montreal,
exposed to an intense sun during the day, and at night forced to take
shelter from the dews in any miserable hut upon the banks that would
receive us. But the magnificent scenery of the St. Lawrence repays all
such difficulties.

[2] "At the Rapid of St. Ann they are obliged to take out part, if not the
whole, of their lading. It is from this spot Canadians consider they take
their departure, as it possesses the last church on the island, which is
dedicated to the tutelar saint of voyagers."--_Mackenzie, General History
of the Fur Trade_.

TO THE LADY CHARLOTTE RAWDON.

FROM THE BANKS OF THE ST. LAWRENCE.

Not many months have now been dreamed away
Since yonder sun, beneath whose evening ray
Our boat glides swiftly past these wooded shores,
Saw me where Trent his mazy current pours,
And Donington's old oaks, to every breeze,
Whisper the tale of by-gone centuries;--
Those oaks, to me as sacred as the groves,
Beneath whose shade the pious Persian roves,
And hears the spirit-voice of sire, or chief,
Or loved mistress, sigh in every leaf.
There, oft, dear Lady, while thy lip hath sung
My own unpolished lays, how proud I've hung
On every tuneful accent! proud to feel.
That notes like mine should have the fate to steal,
As o'er thy hallowing lip they sighed along.
Such breath of passion and such soul of song.
Yes,--I have wondered, like some peasant boy
Who sings, on Sabbath-eve, his strains of joy,
And when he hears the wild, untutored note
Back to his ear on softening echoes float,
Believes it still some answering spirit's tone,
And thinks it all too sweet to be his own!

I dreamt not then that, ere the rolling year
Had filled its circle, I should wander here
In musing awe; should tread this wondrous world,
See all its store of inland waters hurled
In one vast volume down Niagara's steep,
Or calm behold them, in transparent sleep,
Where the blue hills of old Toronto shed
Their evening shadows o'er Ontario's bed;
Should trace the grand Cadaraqui, and glide
Down the white rapids of his lordly tide
Through massy woods, mid islets flowering fair,
And blooming glades, where the first sinful pair
For consolation might have weeping trod,
When banished from the garden of their God,
Oh, Lady! these are miracles, which man,
Caged in the bounds of Europe's pigmy span,
Can scarcely dream of,--which his eye must see
To know how wonderful this world can be!

But lo,--the last tints of the west decline,
And night falls dewy o'er these banks of pine.
Among the reeds, in which our idle boat
Is rocked to rest, the wind's complaining note
Dies like a half-breathed whispering of flutes;
Along the wave the gleaming porpoise shoots,
And I can trace him, like a watery star,[1]
Down the steep current, till he fades afar
Amid the foaming breakers' silvery light.
Where yon rough rapids sparkle through the night.
Here, as along this shadowy bank I stray,
And the smooth glass-snake,[2] glid-o'er my way,
Shows the dim moonlight through his scaly form,
Fancy, with all the scene's enchantment warm,
Hears in the murmur of the nightly breeze
Some Indian Spirit warble words like these:--

From the land beyond the sea,
Whither happy spirits flee;
Where, transformed to sacred doves,[3]
Many a blessed Indian roves
Through the air on wing, as white
As those wondrous stones of light,[4]
Which the eye of morning counts
On the Apalachian mounts,--
Hither oft my flight I take
Over Huron's lucid lake,
Where the wave, as clear as dew,
Sleeps beneath the light canoe,
Which, reflected, floating there,
Looks as if it hung in air.

Then, when I have strayed a while
Through the Manataulin isle,[5]
Breathing all its holy bloom,
Swift I mount me on the plume
Of my Wakon-Bird,[6] and fly
Where, beneath a burning sky,
O'er the bed of Erie's lake
Slumbers many a water-snake,
Wrapt within the web of leaves,
Which the water-lily weaves.[7]
Next I chase the floweret-king
Through his rosy realm of spring;
See him now, while diamond hues
Soft his neck and wings suffuse,
In the leafy chalice sink,
Thirsting for his balmy drink;
Now behold him all on fire,
Lovely in his looks of ire,
Breaking every infant stem,
Scattering every velvet gem,
Where his little tyrant lip
Had not found enough to sip.

Then my playful hand I steep
Where the gold-thread loves to creep,
Cull from thence a tangled wreath,
Words of magic round it breathe,
And the sunny chaplet spread
O'er the sleeping fly-bird's head,
Till, with dreams of honey blest,
Haunted, in his downy nest,
By the garden's fairest spells,
Dewy buds and fragrant bells,
Fancy all his soul embowers
In the fly-bird's heaven of flowers.

Oft, when hoar and silvery flakes
Melt along the ruffled lakes,
When the gray moose sheds his horns,
When the track, at evening, warns
Weary hunters of the way
To the wigwam's cheering ray,
Then, aloft through freezing air,
With the snow-bird soft and fair
As the fleece that heaven flings
O'er his little pearly wings,
Light above the rocks I play,
Where Niagara's starry spray,
Frozen on the cliff, appears
Like a giant's starting tears.
There, amid the island-sedge,
Just upon the cataract's edge,
Where the foot of living man
Never trod since time began,
Lone I sit, at close of day,
While, beneath the golden ray,
Icy columns gleam below,
Feathered round with falling snow,
And an arch of glory springs,
Sparkling as the chain of rings
Round the neck of virgins hung,--
Virgins, who have wandered young
O'er the waters of the west
To the land where spirits rest!

Thus have I charmed, with visionary lay,
The lonely moments of the night away;
And now, fresh daylight o'er the water beams!
Once more, embarked upon the glittering streams,
Our boat flies light along the leafy shore,
Shooting the falls, without a dip of oar
Or breath of zephyr, like the mystic bark
The poet saw, in dreams divinely dark,
Borne, without sails, along the dusky flood,
While on its deck a pilot angel stood,
And, with his wings of living light unfurled,
Coasted the dim shores of another world!

Yet, oh! believe me, mid this mingled maze
Of Nature's beauties, where the fancy strays
From charm to charm, where every floweret's hue
Hath something strange, and every leaf is new,--
I never feel a joy so pure and still
So inly felt, as when some brook or hill,
Or veteran oak, like those remembered well,
Some mountain echo or some wild-flower's smell,
(For, who can say by what small fairy ties
The memory clings to pleasure as it flies?)
Reminds my heart of many a silvan dream
I once indulged by Trent's inspiring stream;
Of all my sunny morns and moonlight nights
On Donington's green lawns and breezy heights.

Whether I trace the tranquil moments o'er
When I have seen thee cull the fruits of lore,
With him, the polished warrior, by thy side,
A sister's idol and a nation's pride!
When thou hast read of heroes, trophied high
In ancient fame, and I have seen thine eye
Turn to the living hero, while it read,
For pure and brightening comments on the dead;--
Or whether memory to my mind recalls
The festal grandeur of those lordly halls,
When guests have met around the sparkling board,
And welcome warmed the cup that luxury poured;
When the bright future Star of England's throne,
With magic smile, hath o'er the banquet shone,
Winning respect, nor claiming what he won,
But tempering greatness, like an evening sun
Whose light the eye can tranquilly admire,
Radiant, but mild, all softness, yet all fire;--
Whatever hue my recollections take,
Even the regret, the very pain they wake
Is mixt with happiness;--but, ah! no more--
Lady! adieu--my heart has lingered o'er
Those vanished times, till all that round me lies,
Stream, banks, and bowers have faded on my eyes!

[1] Anburey, in his Travels, has noticed this shooting illumination which
porpoises diffuse at night through the river St. Lawrence,--Vol. i. p. 29.

[2] The glass-snake is brittle and transparent.

[3] "The departed spirit goes into the Country of Souls, where, according
to some, it is transformed into a dove."--_Charlevoix upon the
Traditions and the Religion of the Savages of Canada_.

[4] "The mountains appeared to be sprinkled with white stones, which
glistened in the sun, and were called by the Indians manetoe aseniah, or
spirit-stones."--_Mackenzie's Journal_.

[5] Manataulin signifies a Place of Spirits, and this island in Lake Huron
is held sacred by the Indians.

[6] "The Wakon-Bird, which probably is of the same species with the bird
of Paradise, receives its name from the ideas the Indians have of its
superior excellence; the Wakon-Bird being, in their language, the Bird of
the Great Spirit."--_Morse_.

[7] The islands of Lake Erie are surrounded to a considerable distance by
the large pond-lily, whose leaves spread thickly over the surface of the
lake, and form a kind of bed for the water-snakes in summer.

IMPROMPTU.

AFTER A VISIT TO MRS. ----, OF MONTREAL.

'Twas but for a moment--and yet in that time
She crowded the impressions of many an hour:
Her eye had a glow, like the sun of her clime,
Which waked every feeling at once into flower.

Oh! could we have borrowed from Time but a day,
To renew such impressions again and again,
The things we should look and imagine and say
Would be worth all the life we had wasted till then.

What we had not the leisure or language to speak,
We should find some more spiritual mode of revealing,
And, between us, should feel just as much in a week
As others would take a millennium in feeling.

WRITTEN

ON PASSING DEADMAN'S ISLAND,
IN THE GULF OF ST. LAWRENCE,[1]
LATE IN THE EVENING, SEPTEMBER, 1804.

See you, beneath yon cloud so dark,
Fast gliding along a gloomy bark?
Her sails are full,--though the wind is still,
And there blows not a breath her sails to fill!

Say, what doth that vessel of darkness bear?
The silent calm of the grave is there,
Save now and again a death-knell rung,
And the flap of the sails with night-fog hung.