The Complete Poems of Sir Thomas Moore

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If once my Lord his graceful balance loses,
Or fails to keep each foot where each horse chooses;
If Peel but gives one _extra_ touch of whip
To _Papist's_ tail or _Protestant's_ ear-tip--
That instant ends their glorious horsmanship!
Off bolt the severed steeds, for mischief free.
And down between them plumps Lord Anglesea!

THE LIMBO OF LOST REPUTATIONS.

A DREAM.

"_Cio che si perde qui, la si raguna_."
ARIOSTO.

"---a valley, where he sees
Things that on earth were lost."
MILTON.

1828.

Knowest thou not him[1] the poet sings,
Who flew to the moon's serene domain,
And saw that valley where all the things,
That vanish on earth are found again--
The hopes of youth, the resolves of age,
The vow of the lover, the dream of the sage,
The golden visions of mining cits,
The promises great men strew about them;
And, packt in compass small, the wits
Of monarchs who rule as well without them!--
Like him, but diving with wing profound,
I have been to a Limbo underground,
Where characters lost on earth, (and _cried_,
In vain, like Harris's, far and wide,)
In heaps like yesterday's orts, are thrown
And there, so worthless and flyblown
That even the imps would not purloin them,
Lie till their worthy owners join them.

Curious it was to see this mass
Of lost and torn-up reputations;--
Some of them female wares, alas!
Mislaid at _innocent_ assignations;
Some, that had sighed their last amen
From the canting lips of saints that would be;
And some once owned by "the best of men,"
Who had proved-no better than they should be.
'Mong others, a poet's fame I spied,
Once shining fair, now soakt and black--
"No wonder" (an imp at my elbow cried),
"For I pickt it out of a butt of sack!"

Just then a yell was heard o'er head,
Like a chimney-sweeper's lofty summons;
And lo! a devil right downward sped,
Bringing within his claws so red
Two statesmen's characters, found, he said,
Last night, on the floor of the House of Commons;
The which, with black official grin,
He now to the Chief Imp handed in;--
_Both_ these articles much the worse
For their journey down, as you may suppose;
But _one_ so devilish rank--"Odd's curse!".
Said the Lord Chief Imp, and held his nose.
"Ho, ho!" quoth he, "I know full well
"From whom these two stray matters fell;"--
Then, casting away, with loathful shrug,
The uncleaner waif (as he would a drug
The Invisible's own dark hand had mixt),
His gaze on the other[2] firm he fixt,
And trying, tho' mischief laught in his eye,
To be moral because of the _young_ imps by,
"What a pity!" he cried--"so fresh its gloss,
"So long preserved--'tis a public loss!
"This comes of a man, the careless blockhead,
"Keeping his character in his pocket;
"And there--without considering whether
"There's room for that and his gains together--
"Cramming and cramming and cramming away,
"Till--out slips character some fine day!

"However"--and here he viewed it round--
"This article still may pass for sound.
"Some flaws, soon patched, some stains are all
"The harm it has had in its luckless fall.
"Here, Puck!" and he called to one of his train--
"The owner may have this back again.
"Tho' damaged for ever, if used with skill,
"It may serve perhaps to _trade on_ still;
"Tho' the gem can never as once be set,
"It will do for a Tory Cabinet."

[1] Astolpho.

[2] Huskisson.

HOW TO WRITE BY PROXY.

_qui facit per alium facit per se_.

'Mong our neighbors, the French, in the good olden time
When Nobility flourisht, great Barons and Dukes
Often set up for authors in prose and in rhyme,
But ne'er took the trouble to write their own books.

Poor devils were found to do this for their betters;--
And one day a Bishop, addressing a _Blue_,
Said, "Ma'am, have you read my new Pastoral Letters?"
To which the _Blue_ answered--"No, Bishop, have you?"

The same is now done by _our_ privileged class;
And to show you how simple the process it needs,
If a great Major-General[1] wishes to pass
For an author of History, thus he proceeds:--

First, scribbling his own stock of notions as well
As he can, with a _goose_-quill that claims him as _kin_,
He settles his neckcloth--takes snuff--rings the bell,
And yawningly orders a Subaltern in.

The Subaltern comes--sees his General seated,
In all the self-glory of authorship swelling;--
"There look," saith his Lordship, "my work is completed,--
"It wants nothing now but the grammar and spelling."

Well used to a _breach_, the brave Subaltern dreads
Awkward breaches of syntax a hundred times more;
And tho' often condemned to see breaking of heads,
He had ne'er seen such breaking of Priscian's before.

However, the job's sure to _pay_--that's enough--
So, to it he sets with his tinkering hammer,
Convinced that there never was job half so tough
As the mending a great Major-General's grammar.

But lo! a fresh puzzlement starts up to view--
New toil for the Sub.--for the Lord new expense:
'Tis discovered that mending his _grammar_ won't do,
As the Subaltern also must find him in _sense_!

At last--even this is achieved by his aid;
Friend Subaltern pockets the cash and--the story;
Drums beat--the new Grand March of Intellect's played--
And off struts my Lord, the Historian, in glory!

[1] Or Lieutenant-General, as it may happen to be.

IMITATION OF THE INFERNO OF DANTE.

_"Cosi quel fiato gli spiriti mali
Di qua, di la, di giu, di su gli mena."_

_Inferno_, canto 5.

I turned my steps and lo! a shadowy throng
Of ghosts came fluttering towards me--blown along,
Like cockchafers in high autumnal storms,
By many a fitful gust that thro' their forms
Whistled, as on they came, with wheezy puff,
And puft as--tho' they'd never puff enough.

"Whence and what are ye?" pitying I inquired
Of these poor ghosts, who, tattered, tost, and tired
With such eternal puffing, scarce could stand
On their lean legs while answering my demand.
"We once were authors"--thus the Sprite, who led
This tag-rag regiment of spectres, said--
"Authors of every sex, male, female, neuter,
"Who, early smit with love of praise and--_pewter_,[1]
"On C--lb--n's shelves first saw the light of day,
"In ---'s puffs exhaled our lives away--
"Like summer windmills, doomed to dusty peace,
"When the brisk gales that lent them motion, cease.
"Ah! little knew we then what ills await
"Much-lauded scribblers in their after-state;
"Bepuft on earth--how loudly Str--t can tell--
"And, dire reward, now doubly puft in hell!"

Touched with compassion for this ghastly crew,
Whose ribs even now the hollow wind sung thro'
In mournful prose,--such prose as Rosa's[2] ghost
Still, at the accustomed hour of eggs and toast,
Sighs thro' the columns of the _Morning Post_,--
Pensive I turned to weep, when he who stood
Foremost of all that flatulential brood,
Singling a _she_-ghost from the party, said,
"Allow me to present Miss X. Y. Z.,[3]
"One of our _lettered_ nymphs--excuse the pun--
"Who gained a name on earth by--having none;
"And whose initials would immortal be,
"Had she but learned those plain ones, A. B. C.

"Yon smirking ghost, like mummy dry and neat,
"Wrapt in his own dead rhymes--fit winding-sheet--
"Still marvels much that not a soul should care
"One single pin to know who wrote 'May Fair;'--
"While this young gentleman," (here forth he drew
A dandy spectre, puft quite thro' and thro',
As tho' his ribs were an AEolian lyre
For the whole Row's soft _trade_winds to inspire,)
"This modest genius breathed one wish alone,
"To have his volume read, himself unknown;
"But different far the course his glory took,
"All knew the author, and--none read the book.

"Behold, in yonder ancient figure of fun,
"Who rides the blast, Sir Jonah Barrington;--
"In tricks to raise the wind his life was spent,
"And now the wind returns the compliment.
"This lady here, the Earl of ---'s sister,
"Is a dead novelist; and this is Mister--
"Beg pardon--_Honorable_ Mister Lister,
"A gentleman who some weeks since came over
"In a smart puff (wind S. S. E.) to Dover.
"Yonder behind us limps young Vivian Grey,
"Whose life, poor youth, was long since blown away--
"Like a torn paper-kite on which the wind
"No further purchase for a puff can find."

"And thou, thyself"--here, anxious, I exclaimed--
"Tell us, good ghost, how thou, thyself, art named."
"Me, Sir!" he blushing cried--"Ah! there's the rub--
"Know, then--a waiter once at Brooks's Club,
"A waiter still I might have long remained,
"And long the club-room's jokes and glasses drained;
"But ah! in luckless hour, this last December,
"I wrote a book,[4] and Colburn dubbed me 'Member'--
"'Member of Brooks's!'--oh Promethean puff,
"To what wilt thou exalt even kitchen-stuff!
"With crumbs of gossip, caught from dining wits,
"And half-heard jokes, bequeathed, like half-chewed bits,
"To be, each night, the waiter's perquisites;--
"With such ingredients served up oft before,
"But with fresh fudge and fiction garnisht o'er,
"I managed for some weeks to dose the town,
"Till fresh reserves of nonsense ran me down;
"And ready still even waiters' souls to damn,
"The Devil but rang his bell, and--here I am;--
"Yes--'Coming _up_, Sir,' once my favorite cry,
"Exchanged for 'Coming _down_, Sir,' here am I!"

Scarce had the Spectre's lips these words let drop,
When, lo! a breeze--such as from ---'s shop
Blows in the vernal hour when puffs prevail,
And speeds the _sheets_ and swells the lagging _sale_--
Took the poor waiter rudely in the poop,
And whirling him and all his grisly group
Of literary ghosts--Miss X. Y. Z.--
The nameless author, better known than read--
Sir Jo--the Honorable Mr. Lister,
And last, not least, Lord Nobody's twin-sister--
Blew them, ye gods, with all their prose and rhymes
And sins about them, far into those climes
"Where Peter pitched his waistcoat"[5] in old times,
Leaving me much in doubt as on I prest,
With my great master, thro' this realm unblest,
Whether Old Nick or Colburn puffs the best.

[1] The classical term for money.

[2] Rosa Matilda, who was for many years the writer of the political
articles in the journal alluded to, and whose spirit still seems to
preside--"_regnat Rosa_"--over its pages.

[3] _Not_ the charming L. E. L., and still less, Mrs. F. H., whose poetry
is among the most beautiful of the present day.

[4] "History of the Clubs of London," announced as by "a Member of
Brooks's."

[5]A _Dantesque_ allusion to the old saying "Nine miles beyond Hell, where
Peter pitched his waistcoat."

LAMENT FOR THE LOSS OF LORD BATHURST'S TAIL.[1]

All _in_ again--unlookt for bliss!
Yet, ah! _one_ adjunct still we miss;--
One tender tie, attached so long
To the same head, thro' right and wrong.
Why, Bathurst, why didst thou cut off
That memorable tail of thine?
Why--as if _one_ was not enough--
Thy pig-tie with thy place resign,
And thus at once both _cut_ and _run_?
Alas! my Lord, 'twas not well done,
'Twas not, indeed,--tho' sad at heart,
From office and its sweets to part,
Yet hopes of coming in again,
Sweet Tory hopes! beguiled our pain;
But thus to miss that tail of thine,
Thro' long, long years our rallying sign--
As if the State and all its powers
By tenancy _in tail_ were ours--
To see it thus by scissors fall,
_This_ was "the unkindest _cut_ of all!"
It seemed as tho' the ascendant day
Of Toryism had past away,
And proving Samson's story true,
She lost her vigor with her _queue_.

Parties are much like fish, 'tis said--
The tail directs them, not the head;
Then how could _any_ party fail,
That steered its course by Bathurst's tail?
Not Murat's plume thro' Wagram's fight
E'er shed such guiding glories from it,
As erst in all true Tories sight,
Blazed from our old Colonial comet!
If you, my Lord, a Bashaw were,
(As Wellington will be anon)
Thou mightst have had a tail to spare;
But no! alas! thou hadst but one,
And _that_--like Troy, or Babylon,
A tale of other times--is gone!
Yet--weep ye not, ye Tories true--
Fate has not yet of all bereft us;
Though thus deprived of Bathurst's _queue_,
We've Ellenborough's _curls_ still left us:--
Sweet curls, from which young Love, so vicious,
His shots, as from nine-pounders, issues;
Grand, glorious curls, which in debate
Surcharged with all a nation's fate,
His Lordship shakes, as Homer's God did,[2]
And oft in thundering talk comes near him;
Except that there the _speaker_ nodded
And here 'tis only those who hear him.
Long, long, ye ringlets, on the soil
Of that fat cranium may ye flourish,
With plenty of Macassar oil
Thro' many a year your growth to nourish!
And ah! should Time too soon unsheath
His barbarous shears such locks to sever,
Still dear to Tories even in death,
Their last loved relics we'll bequeath,
A _hair_-loom to our sons for ever.

[1] The noble Lord, as is well known, cut off this much-respected
appendage on his retirement from office some months since.

[2] "Shakes his ambrosial curls, and gives the nod."--Pope's _Homer_.

THE CHERRIES.

A PARABLE.[1]

1838.

See those cherries, how they cover
Yonder sunny garden wall;--
Had they not that network over,
Thieving birds would eat them all.

So to guard our posts and pensions,
Ancient sages wove a net,
Thro' whose holes of small dimensions
Only _certain_ knaves can get.

Shall we then this network widen;
Shall we stretch these sacred holes,
Thro' which even already slide in
Lots of small dissenting souls?

"God forbid!" old Testy crieth;
"God forbid!" so echo I;
Every ravenous bird that flieth
Then would at our cherries fly.

Ope but half an inch or so,
And, behold! what bevies break in;--
_Here_ some curst old Popish crow
Pops his long and lickerish beak in;

_Here_ sly Arians flock unnumbered,
And Socinians, slim and spare,
Who with small belief encumbered
Slip in easy anywhere;--

Methodists, of birds the aptest,
Where there's _pecking_ going on;
And that water-fowl, the Baptist--
All would share our fruits anon;

Every bird of every city,
That for years with ceaseless din,
Hath reverst the starling's ditty,
Singing out "I can't get in."

"God forbid!" old _Testy_ snivels;
"God forbid!" I echo too;
Rather may ten thousand devils
Seize the whole voracious crew!

If less costly fruits won't suit 'em,
Hips and haws and such like berries,
Curse the cormorants! stone 'em, shoot 'em,
Anything--to save our cherries.

[1] Written during the late discussion on the Test and Corporation Acts.

STANZAS WRITTEN IN ANTICIPATION OF DEFEAT.[1]

1828.

Go seek for some abler defenders of wrong,
If we _must_ run the gantlet thro' blood and expense;
Or, Goths as ye are, in your multitude strong,
Be content with success and pretend not to sense.

If the words of the wise and the generous are vain,
If Truth by the bowstring _must_ yield up her breath,
Let Mutes do the office--and spare her the pain
Of an Inglis or Tyndal to talk her to death.

Chain, persecute, plunder--do all that you will--
But save us, at least, the old womanly lore
Of a Foster, who, dully prophetic of ill,
Is at once the _two_ instruments, AUGUR[2] and BORE.

Bring legions of Squires--if they'll only be mute--
And array their thick heads against reason and right,
Like the Roman of old, of historic repute,[3]
Who with droves of dumb animals carried the fight;

Pour out from each corner and hole of the Court
Your Bedchamber lordlings, your salaried slaves,
Who, ripe for all job-work, no matter what sort,
Have their consciences tackt to their patents and staves.

Catch all the small fry who, as Juvenal sings,
Are the Treasury's creatures, wherever they swim;
With all the base, time-serving _toadies_ of Kings,
Who, if Punch were the monarch, would worship even him;

And while on the _one_ side each name of renown
That illumines and blesses our age is combined;
While the Foxes, the Pitts, and the Cannings look down,
And drop o'er the cause their rich mantles of Mind;

Let bold Paddy Holmes show his troops on the other,
And, counting of noses the quantum desired,
Let Paddy but say, like the Gracchi's famed mother,
"Come forward, my _jewels_"--'tis all that's required.

And thus let your farce be enacted hereafter--
Thus honestly persecute, outlaw and chain;
But spare even your victims the torture of laughter,
And never, oh never, try _reasoning_ again!

[1] During the discussion of the Catholic question in the House of Commons
last session.

[2] This rhyme is more for the ear than the eye, as the carpenter's tool
is spelt _auger_.

[3] Fabius, who sent droves of bullock against the enemy.

ODE TO THE WOODS AND FORESTS.

BY ONE OF THE BOARD.

1828.

Let other bards to groves repair,
Where linnets strain their tuneful throats;
Mine be the Woods and Forests where
The Treasury pours its sweeter _notes_.

No whispering winds have charms for me,
Nor zephyr's balmy sighs I ask;
To raise the wind for Royalty
Be all our Sylvan zephyr's task!

And 'stead of crystal brooks and floods,
And all such vulgar irrigation,
Let Gallic rhino thro' our Woods
Divert its "course of liquidation."

Ah, surely, Vergil knew full well
What Woods and Forests _ought_ to be,
When sly, he introduced in hell
His guinea-plant, his bullion-tree;[1]--

Nor see I why, some future day,
When short of cash, we should not send
Our Herries down--he knows the way--
To see if Woods in hell will _lend_.

Long may ye flourish, sylvan haunts,
Beneath whose "_branches_ of expense"
Our gracious King gets all he wants,--
_Except_ a little taste and sense.

Long, in your golden shade reclined.
Like him of fair Armida's bowers,
May Wellington some _wood_-nymph find,
To cheer his dozenth lustrum's hours;

To rest from toil the Great Untaught,
And soothe the pangs his warlike brain
Must suffer, when, unused to thought,
It tries to think and--tries in vain.

Oh long may Woods and Forests be
Preserved in all their teeming graces,
To shelter Tory bards like me
Who take delight in Sylvan _places_!

[1] Called by Vergil, botanically, "species _aurifrondentis_."

STANZAS FROM THE BANKS OF THE SHANNON.[1]

1828.

"Take back the virgin page."
MOORE'S _Irish Melodies_.

No longer dear Vesey, feel hurt and uneasy
At hearing it said by the Treasury brother,
That thou art a sheet of blank paper, my Vesey,
And he, the dear, innocent placeman, another.[2]

For lo! what a service we Irish have done thee;--
Thou now art a sheet of blank paper no more;
By St. Patrick, we've scrawled such a lesson upon thee
As never was scrawled upon foolscap before.

Come--on with your spectacles, noble Lord Duke,
(Or O'Connell has _green_ ones he haply would lend you,)
Read Vesey all o'er (as you _can't_ read a book)
And improve by the lesson we bog-trotters send you;

A lesson, in large _Roman_ characters traced,
Whose awful impressions from you and your kin
Of blank-sheeted statesmen will ne'er be effaced--
Unless, 'stead of _paper_, you're mere _asses' skin_.

Shall I help you to construe it? ay, by the Gods,
Could I risk a translation, you _should_ have a rare one;
But pen against sabre is desperate odds,
And you, my Lord Duke (as you _hinted_ once), wear one.

Again and again I say, read Vesey o'er;--
You will find him worth all the old scrolls of papyrus
That Egypt e'er filled with nonsensical lore,
Or the learned Champollion e'er wrote of, to tire us.

All blank as he was, we've returned him on hand,
Scribbled o'er with a warning to Princes and Dukes,
Whose plain, simple drift if they _won't_ understand,
Tho' carest at St. James's, they're fit for St. Luke's.

Talk of leaves of the Sibyls!--more meaning conveyed is
In one single leaf such as now we have spelled on,
Than e'er hath been uttered by all the old ladies
That ever yet spoke, from the Sibyls to Eldon.

[1] These verses were suggested by the result of the Clare election, in
the year 1828, when the Right Honorable W. Vesey Fitzgerald was rejected,
and Mr. O'Connell returned.

[2] Some expressions to this purport, in a published letter of one of
these gentlemen, had then produced a good deal of amusement.

THE ANNUAL PILL.

Supposed to be sung by OLD PROSY, the Jew, in the character of Major
CARTWRIGHT.

Vill nobodies try my nice _Annual Pill_,
Dat's to purify every ting nashty avay?
Pless ma heart, pless ma heart, let ma say vat I vill,
Not a Chrishtian or Shentleman minds vat I say.
'Tis so pretty a bolus!--just down let it go,
And, at vonce, such a _radical_ shange you vill see,
Dat I'd not be surprished, like de horse in de show,
If your heads all vere found, vere your tailsh ought to be!
Vill nobodies try my nice _Annual Pill_, etc.

'Twill cure all Electors and purge away clear
Dat mighty bad itching dey've got in deir hands--
'Twill cure too all Statesmen of dulness, ma tear,
Tho' the case vas as desperate as poor Mister VAN'S.
Dere is noting at all vat dis Pill vill not reach--
Give the Sinecure Ghentleman van little grain,
Pless ma heart, it vill act, like de salt on de leech,
And he'll throw de pounds, shillings, and pence, up again!
Vill nobodies try my nice _Annual Pill_, etc.

'Twould be tedious, ma tear, all its peauties to paint--
"But, among oder tings _fundamentally_ wrong,
It vill cure de Proad Pottom[1]--a common complaint
Among M.P.'s and weavers--from _sitting_ too long.
Should symptoms of _speeching_ preak out on a dunce
(Vat is often de case), it vill stop de disease,
And pring avay all de long speeches at vonce,
Dat else vould, like tape-worms, come by degrees!

Vill nobodies try my nice _Annual Pill_,
Dat's to purify every ting nashty avay?
Pless ma heart, pless ma heart, let me say vat I vill,
Not a Chrishtian or Shentleman minds vat I say!

[1] Meaning, I presume, _Coalition_ Administrations.

"IF" AND "PERHAPS."[1]

Oh tidings of freedom! oh accents of hope!
Waft, waft them, ye zephyrs, to Erin's blue sea,
And refresh with their sounds every son of the Pope,
From Dingle-a-cooch to far Donaghadee.

"_If_ mutely the slave will endure and obey,
"Nor clanking his fetters nor breathing his pains,
"His masters _perhaps_ at some far distant day
"May _think_ (tender tyrants!) of loosening his chains."

Wise "if" and "perhaps!"--precious salve for our wounds,
If he who would rule thus o'er manacled mutes,
Could check the free spring-tide of Mind that resounds,
Even now at his feet, like the sea at Canute's.

But, no, 'tis in vain--the grand impulse is given--
Man knows his high Charter, and knowing will claim;
And if ruin _must_ follow where fetters are riven,
Be theirs who have forged them the guilt and the shame.

"_If_ the slave will be silent!"--vain Soldier, beware--
There _is_ a dead silence the wronged may assume,
When the feeling, sent back from the lips in despair,
But clings round the heart with a deadlier gloom;--

When the blush that long burned on the suppliant's cheek,
Gives place to the avenger's pale, resolute hue;
And the tongue that once threatened, disdaining to _speak_,
Consigns to the arm the high office--to _do_.

_If_ men in that silence should think of the hour
When proudly their fathers in panoply stood,
Presenting alike a bold front-work of power
To the despot on land and the foe on the flood:--

That hour when a Voice had come forth from the west,
To the slave bringing hopes, to the tyrant alarms;
And a lesson long lookt for was taught the opprest,
That kings are as dust before freemen in arms!

_If_, awfuller still, the mute slave should recall
That dream of his boyhood, when Freedom's sweet day
At length seemed to break thro' a long night of thrall,
And Union and Hope went abroad in its ray;--

_If_ Fancy should tell him, that Dayspring of Good,
Tho' swiftly its light died away from his chain,
Tho' darkly it set in a nation's best blood,
Now wants but invoking to shine out again;

_If--if_, I say--breathings like these should come o'er
The chords of remembrance, and thrill as they come,
Then,--_perhaps_--ay, _perhaps_--but I dare not say more;
Thou hast willed that thy slaves should be mute--I am dumb.

[1] Written after hearing a celebrated speech in the House of Lords, June
10, 1828, when the motion in favor of Catholic Emancipation, brought
forward by the Marquis of Lansdowne, was rejected by the House of Lords.

WRITE ON, WRITE ON.

A BALLAD.

Air.--"_Sleep on, sleep on, my Kathleen dear.
salvete, fratres Asini_. ST. FRANCIS.

Write on, write on, ye Barons dear,
Ye Dukes, write hard and fast;
The good we've sought for many a year
Your quills will bring at last.
One letter more, Newcastle, pen,
To match Lord Kenyon's _two_,
And more than Ireland's host of men,
One brace of Peers will do.
Write on, write on, etc.

Sure never since the precious use
Of pen and ink began,
Did letters writ by fools produce
Such signal good to man.
While intellect, 'mong high and low,
Is marching _on_, they say,
Give _me_ the Dukes and Lords who go
Like crabs, the _other_ way.
Write on, write on, etc.