The Complete Poems of Sir Thomas Moore
by
Thomas Moore et al
Part 1 out of 33
E-text produced by Charles Aldarondo, Tiffany Vergon, Robert Connal, and the
Online Distributed Proofreading Team
THE COMPLETE POEMS OF SIR THOMAS MOORE
COLLECTED BY HIMSELF
WITH EXPLANATORY NOTES
WITH A BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH
BY WILLIAM M. ROSSETTI
THOMAS MOORE
Thomas Moore was born in Dublin on the 28th of May 1780. Both his parents
were Roman-Catholics; and he was, as a matter of course, brought up in the
same religion, and adhered to it--not perhaps with any extreme
zeal--throughout his life. His father was a decent tradesman, a grocer and
spirit-retailer--or "spirit-grocer," as the business is termed in Ireland.
Thomas received his schooling from Mr. Samuel Whyte, who had been
Sheridan's first preceptor, a man of more than average literary culture.
He encouraged a taste for acting among the boys: and Moore, naturally
intelligent and lively, became a favorite with his master, and a leader in
the dramatic recreations.
His aptitude for verse appeared at an early age. In 1790 he composed an
epilogue to a piece acted at the house of Lady Borrows, in Dublin; and in
his fourteenth year he wrote a sonnet to Mr. Whyte, which was published in
a Dublin magazine.
Like other Irish Roman-Catholics, galled by the hard and stiff collar of
Protestant ascendancy, the parents of Thomas Moore hailed the French
Revolution, and the prospects which it seemed to offer of some reflex
ameliorations. In 1792 the lad was taken by his father to a dinner in
honor of the Revolution; and he was soon launched upon a current of ideas
and associations which might have conducted a person of more
self-oblivious patriotism to the scaffold on which perished the friend of
his opening manhood, Robert Emmet. Trinity College, Dublin, having been
opened to Catholics by the Irish Parliament in 1793, Moore was entered
there as a student in the succeeding year. He became more proficient in
French and Italian than in the classic languages, and showed no turn for
Latin verses. Eventually, his political proclivities, and intimacy with
many of the chiefs of opposition, drew down upon him (after various
interrogations, in which he honorably refused to implicate his friends) a
severe admonition from the University authorities; but he had not joined
in any distinctly rebellious act and no more formidable results ensued to
him.
In 1793 Moore published in the _Anthologia Hibernica_ two pieces of verse;
and his budding talents became so far known as to earn him the proud
eminence of Laureate to the Gastronomic Club of Dalkey, near Dublin, in
1794. Through his acquaintance with Emmet, he joined the Oratorical
Society, and afterwards the more important Historical Society; and he
published _An Ode on Nothing, with Notes, by Trismegistus Rustifucius, D.
D._, which won a party success. About the same time he wrote articles for
_The Press_, a paper founded towards the end of 1797 by O'Connor, Addis,
Emmet, and others. He graduated at Trinity College in November, 1799.
The bar was the career which his parents, and especially his mother,
wished Thomas to pursue; neither of them had much faith in poetry or
literature as a resource for his subsistence. Accordingly, in 1799, he
crossed over into England, and studied in the Middle Temple; and he was
afterwards called to the bar, but literary pursuits withheld him from
practicing. He had brought with him from Ireland his translations from
Anacreon; and published these by subscription in 1800, dedicated to the
Prince Regent (then the illusory hope of political reformers), with no
inconsiderable success. Lord Moira, Lady Donegal, and other leaders of
fashionable society, took him up with friendly warmth, and he soon found
himself a well-accepted guest in the highest circles in London. No clever
young fellow--without any advantage of birth or of person, and with
intellectual attractions which seem to posterity to be of a rather
middling kind--ever won his way more easily or more cheaply into that
paradise of mean ambitions, the _beau monde_. Moore has not escaped
the stigma which attaches to almost all men who thus succeeded under the
like conditions--that of tuft-hunting and lowering compliances. He would
be a bold man who should affirm that there was absolutely no sort of
ground for the charge; or that Moore--feted at Holland House, and
hovered-round by the fashionable of both sexes, the men picking up his
witticisms, and the women languishing over his songs--was capable of the
same sturdy self-reliance and simple adhesion to principle which might
possibly have been in him, and forthcoming from him, under different
conditions. Who shall touch pitch and not be defiled,--who treacle, and
not be sweetened? At the same time, it is easy to carry charges of this
kind too far, and not always through motives the purest and most exalted.
It may be said without unfairness on either side that the sort of talents
which Moore possessed brought him naturally into the society which he
frequented; that very possibly the world has got quite as much out of him
by that development of his faculties as by any other which they could have
been likely to receive; and that he repaid patronage in the coin of
amusement and of bland lenitives, rather than in that of obsequious
adulation. For we are not required nor permitted to suppose that there was
the stuff of a hero in "little Tom Moore;" or that the lapdog of the
drawing-room would under any circumstances have been the wolf-hound of the
public sheepfold. In the drawing-room he is a sleeker lapdog, and lies
upon more and choicelier-clothed laps than he would in "the two-pair
back;" and that is about all that needs to be said or speculated in such a
case. As a matter of fact, the demeanor of Moore among the socially great
seems to have been that of a man who respected his company, without
failing to respect himself also--any ill-natured caviling or ready-made
imputations to the contrary notwithstanding.
In 1802 Moore produced his first volume of original verse, the _Poetical
Works of the late Thomas Little_ (an allusion to the author's remarkably
small stature), for which he received L60. There are in this volume some
erotic improprieties, not of a very serious kind either in intention or in
harmfulness, which Moore regretted in later years. Next year Lord Moira
procured him the post of Registrar to the Admiralty Court of Bermuda; he
embarked on the 25th of September, and reached his destination in January
1804. This work did not suit him much better than the business of the bar;
in March he withdrew from personal discharge of the duties: and, leaving a
substitute in his place, he made a tour in the United States and Canada.
He was presented to Jefferson, and felt impressed by his republican
simplicity. Such a quality, however, was not in Moore's line; and nothing
perhaps shows the essential smallness of his nature more clearly than the
fact that his visit to the United States, in their giant infancy, produced
in him no glow of admiration or aspiration, but only a recrudescence of
the commonest prejudices--the itch for picking little holes, the petty joy
of reporting them, and the puny self-pluming upon fancied or factitious
superiorities. If the washy liberal patriotism of Moore's very early years
had any vitality at all, such as would have qualified it for a harder
struggle than jeering at the Holy Alliance, and singing after-dinner songs
of national sentimentalism to the applause of Whig lords and ladies, this
American experience may beheld to have been its death-blow. He now saw
republicans face to face; and found that they were not for him, nor he for
them. He returned to England in 1806; and soon afterwards published his
_Odes and Epistles_, comprising many remarks, faithfully expressive of his
perceptions, on American society and manners.
The volume was tartly criticised in the _Edinburgh Review_ by Jeffrey, who
made some rather severe comments upon the improprieties chargeable to
Moore's early writings. The consequence was a challenge, and what would
have been a duel at Chalk Farm, but for unloaded pistols and police
interference. This _fiasco_ soon led to an amicable understanding between
Moore and Jeffrey; and a few years later, about the end of 1811, to a
friendship of closer intimacy between the Irish songster and his great
poetic contemporary Lord Byron. His lordship, in his youthful satire of
_English Bards and Scotch Reviewers_, had made fun of the unbloody duel.
This Moore resented, not so much as a mere matter of ridicule as because
it involved an ignoring or a denial of a counter-statement of the matter
put into print by himself. He accordingly wrote a letter to Byron on the
1st of January 1810, calculated to lead to further hostilities. But, as
the noble poet had then already for some months left England for his
prolonged tour on the Continent, the missive did not reach him; and a
little epistolary skirmishing, after his return in the following year,
terminated in a hearty reconciliation, and a very intimate cordiality,
almost deserving of the lofty name of friendship, on both sides.
Re-settled in London, and re-quartered upon the pleasant places of
fashion, Moore was once more a favorite at Holland House, Lansdowne House,
and Donington House, the residence of Lord Moira. His lordship obtained a
comfortable post to soothe the declining years of Moore's father, and held
out to the poet himself the prospect--which was not however realized--of
another snug berth for his own occupancy. The United Kingdom of Great
Britain and Ireland never received the benefit of the Irish patriot's
services in any public capacity at home--only through the hands of a
defaulting deputy in Bermuda: it did, however, at length give him the
money without the official money's-worth, for in 1835, under Lord
Melbourne's ministry, an annual literary pension of L300 was bestowed upon
the then elderly poet. Nor can it be said that Moore's worth to his party,
whether we regard him as political sharpshooter or as national lyrist,
deserved a less recognition from the Whigs: he had at one time, with
creditable independence, refused to be indebted to the Tories for an
appointment. Some obloquy has at times been cast upon him on account of
his sarcasms against the Prince Regent, which, however well merited on
public grounds, have been held to come with an ill grace from the man
whose first literary effort, the _Anacreon_, had been published under the
auspices of his Royal Highness as dedicatee, no doubt a practical
obligation of some moment to the writer. It does not appear, however, that
the obligation went much beyond this simple acceptance of the dedication:
Moore himself declared that the Regent's further civilities had consisted
simply in asking him twice to dinner, and admitting him, in 1811, to a
fete in honor of the regency.
The life of Moore for several years ensuing is one of literary success and
social brilliancy, varied by his marrying in 1811, Miss Bessy Dyke, a lady
who made an excellent and devoted wife, and to whom he was very
affectionately attached, although the attractions and amenities of the
fashionable world caused from time to time considerable inroads upon his
domesticity. After a while, he removed from London, with his wife and
young family, to Mayfield Cottage, near Ashbourne, Derbyshire--a somewhat
lonely site. His _Irish Melodies_, the work by which he will continue best
known, had their origin in 1797, when his attention was drawn to a
publication named _Bunting's Irish Melodies_, for which he occasionally
wrote the words. In 1807 he entered into a definite agreement with Mr.
Power on this subject, in combination with Sir J. Stevenson, who undertook
to compose the accompaniments. The work was prolonged up to the year 1834;
and contributed very materially to Moore's comfort in money matters and
his general prominence--as his own singing of the Melodies in good society
kept up his sentimental and patriotic prestige, and his personal
lionizing, in a remarkable degree. He played on the piano, and sang with
taste, though in a style resembling recitative, and not with any great
power of voice: in speaking, his voice had a certain tendency to
hoarseness, but its quality became flute-like in singing. In 1811 he made
another essay in the musical province; writing, at the request of the
manager of the Lyceum Theatre, an operetta named _M.P., or the
Bluestocking_. It was the reverse of a stage-success; and Moore, in
collecting his poems, excluded this work, save as regards some of the
songs comprised in it. In 1808 had appeared anonymously, the poems of
_Intolerance and Corruption_, followed in 1809 by _The Sceptic_.
_Intercepted Letters, or The Twopenny Postbag, by Thomas Brown the
Younger_, came out in 1812: it was a huge success, and very intelligibly
such, going through fourteen editions in one year. In the same year the
project of writing an oriental poem--a class of work greatly in vogue now
that Byron was inventing Giaours and Corsairs--was seriously entertained
by Moore. This project took shape in _Lalla Rookh_, written chiefly at
Mayfield Cottage--a performance for which Mr. Longman the publisher paid
the extremely large sum of L3150 in advance: its publication hung over
till 1817. The poem has been translated into all sorts of languages,
including Persian, and is said to have found many admirers among its
oriental readers. Whatever may be thought of its poetic merits--and I for
one disclaim any scintilla of enthusiasm--or of its power in vitalizing
the _disjecta membra_ of orientalism, the stock-in-trade of the Asiatic
curiosity-shop, there is no doubt that Moore worked very conscientiously
upon this undertaking: he read up to any extent,--wrote, talked, and
perhaps thought, Islamically--and he trips up his reader with some
allusion verse after verse, tumbling him to the bottom of the page, with
its quagmire of explanatory footnotes. In 1815 appeared the _National
Airs_; in 1816, _Sacred Songs, Duets, and Trios_, the music composed and
selected by Stevenson and Moore; in 1818, _The Fudge Family in Paris_,
again a great hit. This work was composed in Paris, which capital Moore
had been visiting in company with his friend Samuel Rogers the poet.
The easily earned money and easily discharged duties of the appointment in
Bermuda began now to weigh heavy on Moore. Defalcations of his deputy, to
the extent of L6000, were discovered, for which the nominal holder of the
post was liable. Moore declined offers of assistance; and, pending a legal
decision on the matter, he had found it apposite to revisit the Continent.
In France, Lord John (the late Earl) Russell was his travelling companion:
they went on together through Switzerland, and parted at Milan. Moore
then, on the 8th of October 1819, joined in Venice his friend Byron, who
had been absent from England since 1816. The poets met in the best of
humor, and on terms of hearty good-fellowship--Moore staying with Byron
for five or six days. On taking leave of him, Byron presented the Irish
lyrist with the MS. of his autobiographical memoirs stipulating that they
should not be published till after the donor's death: at a later date he
became anxious that they should remain wholly unpublished. Moore sold the
MS. in 1831 to Murray for L2100, after some negotiations with Longman, and
consigned it to the publisher's hands. In 1824 the news arrived of Byron's
death. Mr. (afterwards Sir Wilmot) Horton on the part of Lady Byron, Mr.
Luttrell on that of Moore, Colonel Doyle on that of Mrs. Leigh, Lord
Byron's half-sister, and Mr. Hobhouse (afterwards Lord Broughton) as a
friend and executor of the deceased poet, consulted on the subject.
Hobhouse was strong in urging the suppression of the Memoirs. The result
was that Murray, setting aside considerations of profit, burned the MS.
(some principal portions of which nevertheless exist in print, in other
forms of publication); and Moore immediately afterwards, also in a
disinterested spirit, repaid him the purchase-money of L2100. It was quite
fair that Moore should be reimbursed this large sum by some of the persons
in whose behoof he had made the sacrifice, this was not neglected.
To resume. Bidding adieu to Byron at Venice, Moore went on to Rome with
the sculptor Chantrey and the portrait-painter Jackson. His tour supplied
the materials for the _Rhymes on the Road_, published, as being extracted
from the journal of a travelling member of the Pococurante Society, in
1820, along with the _Fables for the Holy Alliance_. Lawrence, Turner, and
Eastlake, were also much with Moore in Rome: and here he made acquaintance
with Canova. Hence he returned to Paris, and made that city his home up to
1822, expecting the outcome of the Bermuda affair. He also resided partly
at Butte Goaslin, near Sevres, with a rich and hospitable Spanish family
named Villamil. The debt of L6000 was eventually reduced to L750: both the
Marquis of Lansdowne and Lord John Russell pressed Moore with their
friendly offers, and the advance which he at last accepted was soon repaid
out of the profits of the _Loves of the Angels_--which poem, chiefly
written in Paris, was published in 1823. The prose tale of _The Epicurean_
was composed about the same time, but did not issue from the press till
1827: the _Memoirs of Captain Rock_ in 1824. He had been under an
engagement to a bookseller to write a _Life of Sheridan_. During his stay
in France the want of documents withheld him from proceeding with this
work: but he ultimately took it up, and brought it out in 1825. It was not
availed to give Moore any reputation as a biographer, though the reader in
search of amusement will pick out of it something to suit him. George the
Fourth is credited with having made a neat _bon mot_ upon this book. Some
one having remarked to him that "Moore had been murdering Sheridan,"--
"No," replied his sacred majesty, "but he has certainly attempted his
life." A later biographical performance, published in 1830, and one of
more enduring interest to posterity, was the _Life of Byron_. This is a
very fascinating book; but more--which is indeed a matter of course--in
virtue of the lavish amount of Byron's own writing which it embodies than,
on account of the Memoir-compiler's doings. However, there is a
considerable share of good feeling in the book, as well as matter of
permanent value from the personal knowledge that Moore had of Byron; and
the avoidance of "posing" and of dealing with the subject for purposes of
effect, in the case of a man whose career and genius lent themselves so
insidiously to such a treatment, is highly creditable to the biographer's
good sense and taste. The _Life of Byron_ succeeded, in the list of
Moore's writings, a _History of Ireland_, contributed in 1827 to
_Lardner's Cyclopaedia_, and the _Travels of an Irishman in Search of a
Religion_, published in the same year: and was followed by a _Life of Lord
Edward Fitzgerald_, issued in 1881. This, supplemented by some minor
productions, closes the sufficiently long list of writings of an
industrious literary life.
In his latter years Moore resided at Sloperton Cottage, near Devizes in
Wiltshire, Where he was near the refined social circle of Lord Lansdowne
at Bowood, as well as the lettered home of the Rev. Mr. Bowles at
Bremhill. Domestic sorrows clouded his otherwise cheerful and comfortable
retirement. One of his sons died in the French military service in
Algeria; another of consumption in 1842. For some years before his own
death, which occurred on the 25th of February 1853, his mental powers had
collapsed. He sleeps in Bromham Cemetery, in the neighborhood of
Sloperton.
Moore had a very fair share of learning, as well as steady application,
greatly as he sacrificed to the graces of life, and especially of "good
society." His face was not perhaps much more impressive in its contour
than his diminutive figure. His eyes, however, were dark and fine; his
forehead bony, and with what a phrenologist would recognize as large bumps
of wit; the mouth pleasingly dimpled. His manner and talk were bright,
abounding rather in lively anecdote and point than in wit and humor,
strictly so called. To term him amiable according to any standard, and
estimable too as men of an unheroic fibre go, is no more than his due.
No doubt the world has already seen the most brilliant days of Moore's
poetry. Its fascinations are manifestly of the more temporary sort: partly
through fleetingness of subject-matter and evanescence of allusion (as in
the clever and still readable satirical poems); partly through the aroma
of sentimental patriotism, hardly strong enough in stamina to make the
compositions national, or to maintain their high level of popularity after
the lyrist himself has long been at rest; partly through the essentially
commonplace sources and forms of inspiration which belong to his more
elaborate and ambitious works. No poetical reader of the present day is
the poorer for knowing absolutely nothing of _Lalla Rookh_ or the _Loves
of the Angels_. What then will be the hold or the claim of these writings
upon a reader of the twenty-first century? If we expect the satirical
compositions, choice in a different way, the best things of Moore are to
be sought in the _Irish Melodies_, to which a considerable share of merit,
and of apposite merit, is not to be denied: yet even here what deserts
around the oases, and the oases themselves how soon exhaustible and
forgettable! There are but few thoroughly beautiful and touching lines in
the whole of Moore's poetry. Here is one--
"Come rest in this bosom, mine own stricken deer."
A great deal has been said upon the overpowering "lusciousness" of his
poetry, and the magical "melody" of his verse: most of this is futile.
There is in the former as much of _fadeur_ as of lusciousness; and a
certain tripping or trotting exactitude, not less fully reducible to the
test of scansion than of a well-attuned ear, is but a rudimentary form of
melody--while of harmony or rhythmic volume of sound Moore is as
decisively destitute as any correct versifier can well be. No clearer
proof of the incapacity of the mass of critics and readers to appreciate
the calibre of poetical work in point of musical and general execution
could be given than the fact that Moore has always with them passed, and
still passes, for an eminently melodious poet. What then remains? Chiefly
this. In one class of writing, liveliness of witty banter, along with
neatness; and, in the other and ostensibly more permanent class, elegance,
also along with neatness. Reduce these qualities to one denomination, and
we come to something that may be called "Propriety": a sufficiently
disastrous "raw material" for the purposes of a poet, and by no means
loftily to be praised or admired even when regarded as the outer
investiture of a nobler poetic something within. But let desert of every
kind have its place, and welcome. In the cosmical diapason and august
orchestra of poetry, Tom Moore's little Pan's-pipe can at odd moments be
heard, and interjects an appreciable and rightly-combined twiddle or two.
To be gratified with these at the instant is no more than the instrument
justifies, and the executant claims: to think much about them when the
organ is pealing or the violin plaining (with a Shelley performing on the
first, or a Mrs. Browning on the second), or to be on the watch for their
recurrences, would be equally superfluous and weak-minded.
CONTENTS
Advertisement.
After the Battle.
Alarming Intelligence.
Alciphron: a Fragment.
Letter I. From Alciphron at Alexandria to Cleon at Athens.
II. From the Same to the Same.
III. From the Same to the Same.
IV. From Orcus, High Priest of Memphis, to Decius, the Praetorian
Prefect.
All in the Family Way.
All that's Bright must Fade.
Almighty God.
Alone in Crowds to wander on.
Amatory Colloquy between Bank and Government.
Anacreon, Odes of.
I. I saw the Smiling Bard of Pleasure.
II. Give me the Harp of Epic Song.
III. Listen to the Muse's Lyre.
IV. Vulcan! hear Your Glorious Task.
V. Sculptor, wouldst Thou glad my Soul.
VI. As Late I sought the Spangled Bowers.
VII. The Women tell Me Every Day.
VIII. I care not for the Idle State.
IX. I pray thee, by the Gods Above.
X. How am I to punish Thee.
XI. "Tell Me, Gentle Youth, I pray Thee".
XII. They tell How Atys, Wild with Love.
XIII. I will, I will, the Conflict's past.
XIV. Count Me, on the Summer Trees.
XV. Tell Me, Why, My Sweetest Dove.
XVI. Thou, Whose Soft and Rosy Hues.
XVII. And Now with All Thy Pencil's Truth.
XVIII. Now the Star of Day is High.
XIX. Here recline You, Gentle Maid.
XX. One Day the Muses twined the Hands.
XXI. Observe When Mother Earth is Dry.
XXII. The Phrygian Rock, That braves the Storm.
XXIII. I Often wish this Languid Lyre.
XXIV. To All That breathe the Air of Heaven.
XXV. Once in Each Revolving Year.
XXVI. Thy Harp may sing of Troy's Alarms.
XXVII. We read the Flying Courser's Name.
XXVIII. As, by His Lemnian Forge's Flame.
XXIX. Yes--Loving is a Painful Thrill.
XXX. 'Twas in a Mocking Dream of Night.
XXXI. Armed with Hyacinthine Rod.
XXXII. Strew Me a Fragrant Bed of Leaves.
XXXIII. 'Twas Noon of Night, When round the Pole.
XXXIV. Oh Thou, of All Creation Blest.
XXXV. Cupid Once upon a Bed.
XXXVI. If Hoarded Gold possest the Power.
XXXVII. 'Twas Night, and Many a Circling Bowl.
XXXVIII. Let Us drain the Nectared Bowl.
XXXIX. How I love the Festive Boy.
XL. I know That Heaven hath sent Me Here.
XLI. When Spring adorns the Dewy Scene.
XLII. Yes, be the Glorious Revel Mine.
XLIII. While Our Rosy Fillets shed.
XLIV. Buds of Roses, Virgin Flowers.
XLV. Within This Goblet Rich and Deep.
XLVI. Behold, the Young, the Rosy Spring.
XLVII. 'Tis True, My Fading Years decline.
XLVIII. When My Thirsty Soul I steep.
XLIX. When Bacchus, Jove's Immortal Boy.
L. When Wine I quaff, before My Eyes.
LI. Fly Not Thus My Brow of Snow.
LII. Away, Away, Ye Men of Rules.
LIII. When I beheld the Festive Train.
LIV. Methinks, the Pictured Bull We see.
LV. While We invoke the Wreathed Spring.
LVI. He, Who instructs the Youthful Crew.
LVII. Whose was the Artist Hand That Spread.
LVIII. When Gold, as Fleet as Zephyr's Pinion.
LIX. Ripened by the Solar Beam.
LX. Awake to Life, My Sleeping Shell.
LXI. Youth's Endearing Charms are fled.
LXII. Fill Me, Boy, as Deep a Draught.
LXIII. To Love, the Soft and Blooming Child.
LXIV. Haste Thee, Nymph, Whose Well-aimed Spear.
LXV. Like Some Wanton Filly sporting.
LXVI. To Thee, the Queen of Nymphs Divine.
LXVII. Rich in Bliss, I proudly scorn.
LXVIII. Now Neptune's Month Our Sky deforms.
LXIX. They wove the Lotus Band to deck.
LXX. A Broken Cake, with Honey Sweet
LXXI. With Twenty Chords My Lyre is hung.
LXXII. Fare Thee Well, Perfidious Maid.
LXXIII. Awhile I bloomed, a Happy Flower.
LXXIV. Monarch Love, Resistless Boy.
LXXV. Spirit of Love, Whose Locks unrolled.
LXXVI. Hither, Gentle Muse of Mine.
LXXVII. Would That I were a Tuneful Lyre.
LXXVIII. When Cupid sees How Thickly Now.
Let Me resign This Wretched Breath.
I know Thou lovest a Brimming Measure.
From Dread Lucadia's Frowning Steep.
Mix Me, Child, a Cup Divine.
Anacreontic.
Anacreontic.
Anacreontic.
Anacreontic.
Anacreontic.
And doth not a Meeting Like This.
Angel of Charity.
Animal Magnetism.
Anne Boleyn.
Announcement of a New Grand Acceleration Company.
Announcement of a New Thalaba.
Annual Pill, The.
Anticipated Meeting of the British Association in the Year 1836.
As a Beam o'er the Face of the Waters may glow.
As down in the Sunless Retreats.
Ask not if Still I Love.
Aspasia.
As Slow our Ship.
As Vanquished Erin.
At Night.
At the Mid Hour of Night.
Avenging and Bright.
Awake, arise, Thy Light is come.
Awful Event.
Ballad, A.
Ballad for the Cambridge Election.
Ballad Stanzas.
Beauty and Song.
Before the Battle.
Behold the Sun.
Believe Me, if All Those Endearing Young Charms.
Black and Blue Eyes.
Blue Love-Song, A.
Boat Glee.
Boy of the Alps, The.
Boy Statesman, The.
Bright be Thy Dreams.
Bright Moon.
Bring the Bright Garlands Hither.
Brunswick Club, The.
But Who shall see.
By that Lake, Whose Gloomy Shore.
Calm be Thy Sleep.
Canadian Boat Song, A.
Canonization of Saint Butterworth, The.
Captain Rock in London.
Case of Libel, A.
Catalogue, The.
Cephalus and Procris.
Characterless, A.
Cherries, The.
Child's Song--From a Masque.
Church Extension.
Cloris and Fanny.
Cocker, on Church Reform.
Come, chase that Starting Tear Away.
Come Not, oh Lord.
Come o'er the Sea.
Come, play Me That Simple Air Again.
Come, rest in This Bosom.
Come, send Round the Wine.
Come, Ye Disconsolate.
Common Sense and Genius.
Consultation, The.
Copy of An Intercepted Despatch.
Corn and Catholics.
Corrected Report of Some Late Speeches, A.
Correspondence between a Lady and Gentleman.
Corruption, an Epistle.
Cotton and Corn.
Country Dance and Quadrille.
Crystal-Hunters, The.
Cupid and Psyche.
Cupid Armed.
Cupid's Lottery.
Curious Fact, A.
Dance of Bishops, The.
Dawn is breaking o'er Us, The.
Day-Dream, The.
Day of Love, The.
Dear Fanny.
Dear Harp of My Country.
Dear? Yes.
Desmond's Song.
Devil among the Scholars, The.
Dialogue between a Sovereign and a One Pound Note.
Dick * * * *.
Did not.
Dog-day Reflections.
Donkey and His Panniers, The.
Do not say That Life is waning.
Dost Thou Remember.
Dream, A.
Dreaming For Ever.
Dream of Antiquity, A.
Dream of Hindostan, A.
Dream of Home, The.
Dream of the Two Sisters, The.
Dream of Those Days, The.
Dream of Turtle, A.
Dreams.
Drink of This Cup.
Drink to Her.
Duke is the Lad, The.
Dying Warrior, The.
East Indian, The.
Echo.
Elegiac Stanzas.
Elegiac Stanzas.
Enigma.
Epigram.--"I never gave a Kiss" (says Prue).
Epigram.--"I want the Court Guide," said My Lady, "to look".
Epigram.--What News To-day?--"Oh! Worse and Worse".
Epigram.--Said His Highness to Ned, with That Grim Face of His.
Epilogue.
Epistle from Captain Rock to Lord Lyndhurst.
Epistle from Erasmus on Earth to Cicero in the Shades.
Epistle from Henry of Exeter to John of Tuam.
Epistle from Tom Crib to Big Ben.
Epistle of Condolence.
Epitaph on a Tuft-Hunter.
Erin, oh Erin.
Erin! The Tear and the Smile in Thine Eyes.
Euthanasia of Van, The.
Eveleen's Bower.
Evening Gun, The.
Evenings in Greece.
Exile, The.
Expostulation to Lord King, An.
Extract from a Prologue.
Extracts from the Diary of a Politician.
Fables for the Holy Alliance,
I. The Dissolution of the Holy Alliance.
II. The Looking-Glasses.
III. The Torch of Liberty.
IV. The Fly and the Bullock.
V. Church and State.
VI. The Little Grand Lama.
VII. The Extinguishers.
VIII. Louis Fourteenth's Wig.
Fairest! put on Awhile.
Fallen is Thy Throne.
Fall of Hebe, The.
Fancy.
Fancy Fair, The.
Fanny, Dearest.
Fare Thee Well, Thou Lovely One.
Farewell!--but Whenever You welcome the Hour.
Farewell, Theresa.
Fear not That, While Around Thee.
Fill the Bumper Fair.
Fire-Worshippers, The.
First Angel's Story.
Flow on, Thou Shining River.
Fly not Yet.
Fools' Paradise.
Forget not the Field.
For Thee Alone.
Fortune-Teller, The.
Fragment.
Fragment of a Character.
Fragment of a Mythological Hymn to Love.
Fragments of College Exercises.
From Life without Freedom.
From the Hon. Henry ----, to Lady Emma ----.
From This Hour the Pledge is given.
Fudge Family in Paris, The.
Letter I. From Miss Biddy Fudge to Miss Dorothy ----, of Clonkilty, in
Ireland.
II. From Phil. Fudge, Esq., to the Lord Viscount Castlereagh.
III. From Mr. Bob Fudge to Richard ----, Esq.
IV. From Phelim Connor to ----.
V. From Miss Biddy Fudge to Miss Dorothy ----.
VI. From Phil. Fudge, Esq., to His Brother Tim Fudge, Esq., Barrister
at Law.
VII. From Phelim Connor to ----.
VIII. From Mr. Bob Fudge to Richard ----, Esq.
IX. From Phil. Fudge, Esq., to the Lord Viscount Castlereagh.
X. From Miss Biddy Fudge to Miss Dorothy ----.
XI. From Phelim Connor to ----.
XII. From Miss Biddy Fudge to Miss Dorothy ----.
Fudges in England, The.
Letter I. From Patrick Magan, Esq., to the Rev. Richard ---- Curate of
---- in Ireland.
II. From Miss Biddy Fudge to Mrs. Elizabeth ---- Extracts from My
Diary.
III. From Miss Fanny Fudge to her Cousin, Kitty ----.
IV. From Patrick Magan, Esq., to the Rev. Richard ----.
V. From Larry O'Branigan In England, to His Wife Judy, at Mullinafad.
VI. From Miss Biddy Fudge, to Mrs. Elizabeth ---- Extracts from My
Diary.
VII. From Miss Fanny Fudge, to her Cousin, Miss Kitty ----.
VIII. From Bob Fudge, Esq., to the Rev. Mortimer O'Mulligan.
IX. From Larry O'Branigan, to his Wife Judy.
X. From the Rev. Mortimer O'Mulligan, to the Rev. ----.
XI. From Patrick Magan, Esq., to the Rev. Richard ----.
Fum and Hum, the two Birds of Royalty.
Garland I send Thee, The.
Gayly sounds the Castanet.
Gazel.
Gazelle, The.
Genius and Criticism.
Genius of Harmony, The.
Ghost of Miltiades, The.
Ghost Story, A.
Go forth to the Mount.
Go, let Me weep.
Go, Now, and dream.
Go, Then--'tis Vain.
Go Where Glory waits Thee.
Grand Dinner of Type and Co.
Grecian Girl's Dream of the Blessed Islands, The.
Greek of Meleager, From the.
Guess, guess.
Halcyon hangs o'er Ocean, The.
Hark! the Vesper Hymn is stealing.
Hark! 'Tis the Breeze.
Harp That Once thro' Tara's Halls, The.
Has Sorrow Thy Young Days shaded.
Hat _versus_ Wig.
Hear Me but Once.
Here at Thy Tomb.
Here sleeps the Bard.
Here's the Bower.
Here, take My Heart.
Her Last Words at Parting.
Hero and Leander.
High-Born Ladye, The.
High Priest of Apollo to a Virgin of Delphi, From the.
Hip, Hip, Hurra.
Homeward March, The.
Hope comes Again.
Horace:
Ode I. Lib. III.--I hate Thee, oh, Mob, as My Lady hates Delf.
Ode XI. Lib. II.--Come, Yarmouth, My Boy, Never trouble your Brains.
Ode XXII. Lib. I.--The Man Who keeps a Conscience Pure.
Ode XXXVIII. Lib. I.--Boy, tell the Cook That I hate All Nicknackeries.
How Dear to Me the Hour.
How Happy, Once.
How lightly mounts the Muse's Wing.
How Oft has the Banshee cried.
How Oft, When watching Stars.
How shall I woo.
How to make a Good Politician.
How to make One's Self a Peer.
How to write by Proxy.
Hush, hush.
Hush, Sweet Lute.
Hymn of a Virgin of Delphi.
Hymn of Welcome after the Recess, A.
I'd mourn the Hopes.
"If" and "Perhaps".
If in Loving, Singing.
If Thou'lt be Mine.
If Thou wouldst have Me sing and play.
Ill Omens.
I love but Thee.
Imitation.
Imitation of Catullus.
Imitation of the Inferno of Dante.
Impromptu.
Impromptu.
Impromptu.
Incantation.
Incantation, An.
Inconstancy.
Indian Boat, The.
In Myrtle Wreaths.
Insurrection of the Papers, The.
Intended Tribute.
Intercepted Letters, etc.
Letter I. From the Princess Charlotte of Wales to the Lady Barbara
Ashley.
II. From Colonel M'Mahon to Gould Francis Leckie, Esq.
III. From George Prince Regent to the Earl of Yarmouth.
IV. From the Right Hon. Patrick Duigenan to the Right Hon. Sir John
Nicol.
V. From the Countess Dowager of Cork to Lady ----.
VI. From Abdallah, in London, to Mohassan, in Ispahan.
VII. From Messrs. Lackington and Co. to Thomas Moore, Esq.
VIII. From Colonel Thomas to ---- Skeffington, Esq.
Appendix.
In the Morning of Life.
Intolerance, a Satire.
Invisible Girl, To the.
Invitation to Dinner.
Irish Antiquities.
Irish Peasant to His Mistress, The.
Irish Slave, The.
I saw from the Beach.
I saw the Moon rise Clear.
I saw Thy Form in Youthful Prime.
Is it not Sweet to think. Hereafter.
It is not the Tear at This Moment shed.
I've a Secret to tell Thee.
I Will, I will, the Conflict's past.
I wish I was by That Dim Lake.
Joke Versified, A.
Joys of Youth, how fleeting.
Keep Those Eyes Still Purely Mine.
King Crack and His Idols.
Kiss, The.
Lalla Rookh.
Lament for the Loss of Lord Bathurst's Tail.
Language of Flowers, The.
Late Scene at Swanage, A.
Latest Accounts from Olympus.
Late Tithe Case.
Leaf and the Fountain, The.
Legacy, The.
Legend of Puck the Fairy, The.
Lesbia hath a Beaming Eye.
Les Hommes Automates.
Let Erin remember the Days of Old.
Let Joy Alone be remembered Now.
Let's take This World as Some Wide Scene.
Letter from Larry O'Branigan to the Rev. Murtagh O'Mulligan.
Light of the Haram, The.
Light sounds the Harp.
Like Morning When Her Early Breeze.
Like One Who, doomed.
Limbo of Lost Reputations, The.
Lines on the Death of Joseph Atkinson, Esq., of Dublin.
Lines on the Death of Mr. Perceval.
Lines on the Death of Sheridan.
Lines on the Departure of Lords Castlereagh and Stewart for the Continent.
Lines on the Entry of the Austrians into Naples.
Lines written at the Cohos, or Falls of the Mohawk River.
Lines written in a Storm at Sea.
Lines written on leaving Philadelphia.
Literary Advertisement.
Little Man and Little Soul.
"Living Dog" and "the Dead Lion," The.
Long Years have past.
Lord Henley and St. Cecilia.
Lord, Who shall bear That Day.
Love Alone.
Love and Hope.
Love and Hymen.
Love and Marriage.
Love and Reason.
Love and the Novice.
Love and the Sun-Dial.
Love and Time.
Love is a Hunter-Boy.
Love's Light Summer-Cloud.
Loves of the Angels, The.
Love's Victory.
Love's Young Dream.
Love Thee.
Love Thee, Dearest? Love Thee.
Love, wandering Thro' the Golden Maze.
Lusitanian War-Song.
Lying.
Mad Tory and the Comet, The.
Magic Mirror, The.
Meeting of the Ships, The.
Meeting of the Waters, The.
Melologue.
Memorabilia of Last Week.
Merrily Every Bosom boundeth.
Millennium, The.
Mind Not Tho' Daylight.
Minstrel-Boy, The.
Missing.
Morality.
Moral Positions.
Mountain Sprite, The.
Mr. Roger Dodsworth.
Musical Box, The.
Musings of an Unreformed Peer.
Musings, suggested by the Late Promotion of Mrs. Nethercoat.
My Birth-Day.
My Gentle Harp.
My Harp has One Unchanging Theme.
My Heart and Lute.
My Mopsa is Little.
Natal Genius, The.
Nature's Labels.
Nay, tell Me Not, Dear.
Ne'er ask the Hour.
Ne'er Talk of Wisdom's Gloomy Schools.
Nets and Cages.
New Costume of the Ministers, The.
New Creation of Peers.
New-Fashioned Echoes.
New Grand Exhibition of Models
New Hospital for Sick Literati.
News for Country Cousins.
Night Dance, The.
Nights of Music.
Night Thought, A.
No--leave My Heart to Rest.
Nonsense.
Not from Thee.
Notions on Reform.
Numbering of the Clergy, The.
Occasional Address for the Opening of the New Theatre of St. Stephen.
Occasional Epilogue.
Odes to Nea.
Ode to a Hat.
Ode to Don Miguel.
Ode to Ferdinand.
Ode to the Goddess Ceres.
Ode to the Sublime Porte.
Ode to the Woods and Forests.
O'Donohue's Mistress.
Oft, in the Stilly Night.
Oh! Arranmore, Loved Arranmore.
Oh Banquet Not.
Oh! Blame Not the Bard.
Oh! Breathe Not His Name.
Oh, call it by Some Better Name.
Oh, come to Me When Daylight sets.
Oh, could We do with This World of Ours.
Oh, Days of Youth.
Oh, do not look so Bright and Blest.
Oh! doubt Me Not.
Oh Fair! oh Purest.
Oh for the Swords of Former Tim.
Oh, guard our Affection.
Ob! had We Some Bright Little Isle of Our Own.
Oh, No--Not--Even. When First We loved.
Oh, Soon return.
Oh, teach Me to love Thee.
Oh the Shamrock.
Oh, the Sight Entrancing.
Oh! think Not My Spirits are Always as Light.
Oh Thou Who dry'st the Mourner's Tear.
Oh, Ye Dead.
On a Squinting Poetess.
One Bumper at Parting.
One Dear Smile.
On Music.
On the Death of a Friend.
On the Death of a Lady.
Origin of the Harp, The.
O say, Thou Best and Brightest.
Our First Young Love.
Paddy's Metamorphosis.
Paradise and the Peri.
Parallel, The.
Parody of a Celebrated Letter.
Parting before the Battle, The.
Pastoral Ballad, A.
Peace and Glory.
Peace be around Thee.
Peace, Peace to Him That's gone.
Peace to the Slumberers.
Periwinkles and the Locusts, The.
Petition of the Orangemen of Ireland, The.
Philosopher Artistippus to a Lamp, The.
Pilgrim, The.
Poor Broken Flower.
Poor Wounded; Heart.
Pretty Rose-tree.
Prince's Day, The.
Proposals for a Gynsecocracy.
Quick! We have but a Second.
Reason, Folly, and Beauty.
Recent Dialogue, A.
Rector and His Curate, The.
Reflection at Sea, A.
Reflections.
Reinforcements for Lord Wellington.
Religion and Trade.
Remember Thee.
Remember the Time.
Remonstrance.
Resemblance, The.
Resolutions passed at a Late Meeting of Reverends and Right Reverends.
Reuben and Rose.
Reverend Pamphleteer, The.
Rhymes on the Road.
Introductory Rhymes.
Extract I. Geneva.
II. Geneva.
III. Geneva.
IV. Milan.
V. Padua.
VI. Venice.
VII. Venice.
VIII. Venice.
IX. Venice.
X. Mantua.
XI. Florence.
XII. Florence.
XIII. Rome.
XIV. Rome.
XV. Rome.
XVI. Les Charmettes.
Rich and Rare were the Gems She wore.
Rings and Seals.
Ring, The.
Ring, The.
Rival Topics.
Rondeau.
Rose of the Desert.
Round the World goes.
Row Gently Here.
Russian Lover, The.
Sad Case, A.
Sail on, sail on.
Sale of Cupid.
Sale of Loves, The.
Sale of Tools, The.
Say, What shall be Our Sport To-day.
Say, What shall We dance.
Scene from a Play.
Scepticism.
Sceptic, The.
Second Angel's Story.
See the Dawn from Heaven.
Selections.
Shall the Harp Then be Silent.
She is Far from the Land.
She sung of Love.
Shield, The.
Shine Out, Stars.
Should Those Fond Hopes.
Shrine, The.
Silence is in Our Festal Halls.
Since First Thy Word.
Sing--sing--Music was given.
Sing, Sweet Harp.
Sinking Fund cried, The.
Sir Andrew's Dream.
Sketch of the First Act of a New Romantic Drama.
Slumber, oh slumber.
Snake, The.
Snow Spirit, The.
Some Account of the Late Dinner to Dan.
Song.--Ah! Where are They, Who heard, in Former Hours.
Array Thee, Love, Array Thee, Love.
As by the Shore, at Break of Day.
As Love One Summer Eve was straying.
As o'er Her Loom the Lesbian Maid.
As Once a Grecian Maiden wove.
Bring Hither, bring Thy Lute, while Day is dying.
Calm as Beneath its Mother's eyes.
Fly from the World, O Bessy! to Me.
Have You not seen the Timid Tear.
Here, While the Moonlight Dim.
If I swear by That Eye, You'll allow.
If to see Thee be to love Thee.
I saw from Yonder Silent Cave.
March! nor heed Those Anna That hold Thee.
Mary, I believed Thee True.
No Life is Like the Mountaineer's.
Of All My Happiest Hours of Joy.
Oh, Memory, How Coldly.
Oh, Where art Thou dreaming.
Raise the Buckler-poise the Lance.
Smoothly flowing Thro' Verdant Vales.
Some Mortals There may be, so Wise, or so Fine.
Take back the Sigh, Thy Lips of Art.
The Wreath You wove, the Wreath You wove.
Think on that Look Whose Melting Ray.
Thou art not Dead--Thou art not Dead.
"'Tis the Vine! 'tis the Vine!" said the Cup-loving Boy.
Up and march! the Timbrel's Sound.
Up with the Sparkling Brimmer.
Weeping for Thee, My Love, Thro' the Long Day.
Welcome Sweet Bird, Thro' the Sunny Air winging.
When Evening Shades are falling.
When the Balaika.
When Time Who steals Our Years Away.
Where is the Heart That would not give.
"Who comes so Gracefully,".
Who'll buy?--'tis Folly's Shop, who'll buy.
Why does Azure deck the Sky.
Yes! had I leisure to sigh and mourn.
Song and Trio.
Song and Trio.
Song of a Hyperborean.
Song of Fionnuala, The.
Song of Hercules to his Daughter.
Song of Innisfall.
Song of Old Puck.
Song of O'Ruark, The.
Song of the Battle Eve.
Song of the Box, The.
Song of the Departing Spirit of Tithe.
Song of the Evil Spirit of the Woods.
Song of the Nubian Girl.
Song of the Olden Time, The.
Song of the Poco-Curante Society.
Song of the two Cupbearers.
Songs of the Church.
Sound the Loud Timbrel.
Sovereign Woman.
So Warmly We met.
Spa, The Wellington.
Speculation, A.
Speech on the Umbrella Question.
Spring and Autumn.
Stanzas.
Stanzas from the Banks of the Shannon.
Stanzas written in Anticipation of Defeat.
Steersman's Song, The.
Still, like Dew in Silence falling.
Still Thou fliest.
Still When Daylight.
St. Jerome on Earth.
Stranger, The.
St. Senanus and the Lady.
Study from the Antique, A.
Sublime was the Warning.
Summer Fete, The.
Summer Webs, The.
Sunday Ethics.
Surprise, The.
Sweet Innisfallen.
Sylph's Ball, The.
Sympathy.
Take Back the Virgin Page.
Take Hence the Bowl.
Tear, The.
Tell Her, oh, tell Her.
Tell-Tale Lyre, The.
Temple to Friendship, A.
The Bird, let Loose.
Thee, Thee, Only Thee.
Then, Fare Thee Well.
Then First from Love.
There are Sounds of Mirth.
There comes a Time.
There is a Bleak Desert.
There's Something Strange.
They know not My Heart.
They may rail at This Life.
They met but Once.
They tell Me Thou'rt the Favored Guest.
Third Angel's Story.
This Life is All checkered with Pleasures and Woes.
This World is All a Fleeting Show..
Tho, Humble the Banquet.
Tho' Lightly sounds the Song I sing.
Those Evening Bells.
Tho' the Last Glimpse of Erin with Sorrow I see.
Tho' 'tis All but a Dream.
Thou art, O God.
Thou bidst Me sing.
Thoughts on Mischief.
Thoughts on Patrons, Puffs, and Other Matters.
Thoughts on Tar Barrels.
Thoughts on the Late Destructive Propositions of the Tories.
Thoughts on the Present Government of Ireland.
Thou lovest No More.
Three Doctors, The.
Tibullus to Sulpicia.
Time I've lost in wooing, The.
'Tis All for Thee.
'Tis Gone, and For Ever.
'Tis Sweet to think.
'Tis the Last Rose of Summer.
To......: And hast Thou marked the Pensive Shade.
To......: Come, take Thy Harp--'tis vain to muse.
To......: Never mind How the Pedagogue proses.
To......: Put off the Vestal Veil, nor, oh.
To......: Remember Him Thou leavest behind.
To......: Sweet Lady, look not Thus Again.
To......: That Wrinkle, when First I espied it.
To......: The World had just begun to steal.
To......: 'Tis Time, I feel, to leave Thee Now.
To......: To be the Theme of Every Hour.
To......: When I loved You, I can't but allow.
To......: With All My Soul, Then, let us part.
To......'s Picture: Go Then, if She, Whose Shade Thou art.
To a Boy, with a Watch.
To a Lady, with Some Manuscript Poems.
To a Lady, on Her singing.
To Cara, after an Interval of Absence.
To Cara, oh the Dawning of a New Year's Day.
To Caroline, Viscountess Valletort.
To Cloe.
To-Day, Dearest, is Ours.
To George Morgan, Esq.
To His Serene Highness the Duke of Montpensier.
To James Corry, Esq.
To Joseph Atkinson, Esq.
To Julia, in Allusion to Some Illiberal Criticisms.
To Julia: Mock me No More with Love's Beguiling Dream.
To Julia: Though Fate, My Girl, may bid Us part.
To Julia, on Her Birthday.
To Julia: I saw the Peasant's Hand Unkind.
To Julia weeping.
To Ladies' Eyes.
To Lady Heathcote.
To Lady Holland.
To Lady Jersey.
To Lord Viscount Strangford.
To Miss Moore.
To Miss Susan Beckford.
To Miss ---- on Her asking the Author Why She had Sleepless Nights.
To Mrs. Bl----, written in Her Album.
To Mrs. ----, on Some Calumnies against Her Character.
To Mrs. ----: To see Thee Every Day That came.
To Mrs. ----, on Her Beautiful Translation of Voiture's Kiss.
To Mrs. Henry Tighe.
To My Mother.
To Phillis.
To Rosa, written during Illness.
To Rosa: And are You Then a Thing of Art.
To Rosa. Is the Song of Rosa Mute.
To Rosa: Like One Who trusts to Summer Skies.
To Rosa; Say Why should the Girl of My Soul be in Tears.
Tory Pledges.
To Sir Hudson Lowe.
To the Boston Frigate.
To the Fire-Fly.
To the Flying-Fish.
To the Honorable W. R. Spencer.
To the Lady Charlotte Rawdon.
To the Large and Beautiful Miss ----.
To the Lord Viscount Forbes.
To the Marchioness Dowager of Donegall.
To the Rev. Charles Overton.
To the Reverend ----.
To Thomas Hume, Esq., M.D.
To the Ship in Which Lord Castlereagh sailed for the Continent.
Tout pour la Tripe.
To weave a Garland for the Rose.
Translation from the Gull Language.
Translations from Catullus.
Trio.
Triumph of Bigotry.
Triumph of Farce, The.
Turf shall be My Fragrant Shrine, The
'Twas One of Those Dreams.
Two Loves, The.
Twin'st Thou with' Lofty Wreath Thy Brow.
Unbind Thee, Love.
Up, Sailor Boy, 'tis Day.
Valley of the Nile, The.
Variety.
Veiled Prophet of Khorassan, The.
Verses to the Poet Crabbe's Inkstand.
Vision, A.
Vision of Philosophy, A.
Voice, The.
Wake Thee, My Dear.
Wake Up, Sweet Melody.
Waltz Duet.
Wandering Bard, The.
War against Babylon.
Warning, A.
War Song.
Watchman, The.
Weep, Children of Israel.
Weep not for Those.
Weep on, weep on.
Wellington, Lord, and the Ministers.
Wellington Spa, The.
We may roam through This World.
Were not the Sinful Mary's Tears.
What shall I sing Thee.
What's My Thought like.
What the Bee is to the Floweret.
When Abroad in the World.
When Cold in the Earth.
When e'er I see Those Smiling Eyes.
When First I met Thee.
When First That Smile.
When He, Who adores Thee.
When Love was a Child.
When Love, Who ruled.
When Midst the Gay I meet.
When Night brings the Hour.
When on the Lip the Sigh delays.
When the First Summer Bee.
When the Sad Word.
When the Wine-Cup is smiling.
When Thou shalt wander.
When Through the Piazzetta.
When to Sad Music Silent You listen.
When Twilight Dews.
Where are the Visions.
Where is the Slave.
Where is Your Dwelling, Ye Sainted.
Where shall We bury our Shame.
While gazing on the Moon's Light.
While History's Muse.
Who is the Maid.
Who'll buy My Love Knots.
Why does She so Long delay.
Wind Thy Horn, My Hunter Boy.
Wine-Cup is circling, The.
With Moonlight beaming.
Woman.
Wonder, The.
World was husht.
Wo! wo.
Wreath and the Chain, The.
Wreaths for the Ministers.
Wreath the Bowl.
Write on, write on.
Written in a Commonplace Book.
Written in the Blank Leaf of a Lady's Commonplace Book.
Written on passing Deadman's Island.
Yes, yes, When the Bloom.
Young Indian Maid, The.
Young Jessica.
Young May Moon, The.
Young Muleteers of Grenada, The.
Young Rose, The.
You remember Ellen.
Youth and Age.
ODES OF ANACREON
(1800).
TRANSLATED INTO ENGLISH VERSE.
WITH NOTES.
TO
HIS ROYAL HIGHNESS
THE PRINCE OF WALES.
SIR,--In allowing me to dedicate this Work to Your Royal Highness, you
have conferred upon me an honor which I feel very sensibly: and I have
only to regret that the pages which you have thus distinguished are not
more deserving of such illustrious patronage.
Believe me, SIR,
With every sentiment of respect,
Your Royal Highness's
Very grateful and devoted Servant,
THOMAS MOORE.
REMARKS ON ANACREON
There is but little known, with certainty of the life of Anacreon.
Chamaeleon Heracleotes, who wrote upon the subject, has been lost in the
general wreck of ancient literature. The editors of the poet have
collected the few trifling anecdotes which are scattered through the
extant authors of antiquity, and, supplying the deficiency of materials by
fictions of their own imagination, have arranged what they call a life of
Anacreon. These specious fabrications are intended to indulge that
interest which we naturally feel in the biography of illustrious men; but
it is rather a dangerous kind of illusion, as it confounds the limits of
history and romance, and is too often supported by unfaithful citation.
Our poet was born in the city of Teos, in the delicious region of Ionia,
and the time of his birth appears to have been in the sixth century before
Christ. He flourished at that remarkable period when, under the polished
tyrants Hipparchus and Polycrates, Athens and Samos were become the rival
asylums of genius. There is nothing certain known about his family; and
those who pretend to discover in Plato that he was a descendant of the
monarch Codrus, show much more of zeal than of either accuracy or
judgment.
The disposition and talents of Anacreon recommended him to the monarch of
Samos, and he was formed to be the friend of such a prince as Polycrates.
Susceptible only to the pleasures, he felt not the corruptions, of the
court; and while Pythagoras fled from the tyrant, Anacreon was celebrating
his praises oh the lyre. We are told, too, by Maximus Tyrius, that, by the
influence of his amatory songs, he softened the mind of Polycrates into a
spirit of benevolence towards his subjects.
The amours of the poet, and the rivalship of the tyrant, I shall pass
over in silence; and there are few, I presume, who will regret the
omission of most of those anecdotes, which the industry of some editors
has not only promulged, but discussed. Whatever is repugnant to modesty
and virtue is considered, in ethical science, by a supposition very
favorable to humanity, as impossible; and this amiable persuasion should
be much more strongly entertained where the transgression wars with nature
as well as virtue. But why are we not allowed to indulge in the
presumption? Why are we officiously reminded that there have been really
such instances of depravity?
Hipparchus, who now maintained at Athens the power which his father
Pisistratus had usurped, was one of those princes who may be said to have
polished the fetters of their subjects. He was the first, according to
Plato, who edited the poems of Homer, and commanded them to be sung by the
rhapsodists at the celebration of the Panathenaea. From his court, which
was a sort of galaxy of genius, Anacreon could not long be absent.
Hipparchus sent a barge for him; the poet readily embraced the invitation,
and the Muses and the Loves were wafted with him to Athens.
The manner of Anacreon's death was singular. We are told that in the
eighty-fifth year of his age he was choked by a grape-stone; and however
we may smile at their enthusiastic partiality who see in this easy and
characteristic death a peculiar indulgence of Heaven, we cannot help
admiring that his fate should have been so emblematic of his disposition.
Caelius Calcagninus alludes to this catastrophe in the following epitaph
on our poet:--
Those lips, then, hallowed sage, which poured along
A music sweet as any cygnet's song,
The grape hath closed for ever!
Here let the ivy kiss the poet's tomb,
Here let the rose he loved with laurels bloom,
In bands that ne'er shall sever.
But far be thou, oh! far, unholy vine,
By whom the favorite minstrel of the Nine
Lost his sweet vital breath;
Thy God himself now blushes to confess,
Once hallowed vine! he feels he loves thee less,
Since poor Anacreon's death.
It has been supposed by some writers that Anacreon and Sappho were
contemporaries; and the very thought of an intercourse between persons so
congenial, both in warmth of passion and delicacy of genius, gives such
play to the imagination that the mind loves to indulge in it. But the
vision dissolves before historical truth; and Chamaeleon, and Hermesianax,
who are the source of the supposition, are considered as having merely
indulged in a poetical anachronism.
To infer the moral dispositions of a poet from the tone of sentiment
which pervades his works, is sometimes a very fallacious analogy; but the
soul of Anacreon speaks so unequivocally through his odes, that we may
safely consult them as the faithful mirrors of his heart. We find him
there the elegant voluptuary, diffusing the seductive charm of sentiment
over passions and propensities at which rigid morality must frown. His
heart, devoted to indolence, seems to have thought that there is wealth
enough in happiness, but seldom happiness in mere wealth. The
cheerfulness, indeed, with which he brightens his old age is interesting
and endearing; like his own rose, he is fragrant even in decay. But the
most peculiar feature of his mind is that love of simplicity, which be
attributes to himself so feelingly, and which breathes characteristically
throughout all that he has sung. In truth, if we omit those few vices in
our estimate which religion, at that time, not only connived at, but
consecrated, we shall be inclined to say that the disposition of our poet
was amiable; that his morality was relaxed, but not abandoned; and that
Virtue, with her zone loosened, may be an apt emblem of the character of
Anacreon.
Of his person and physiognomy, time has preserved such uncertain
memorials, that it were better, perhaps, to leave the pencil to fancy; and
few can read the Odes of Anacreon without imaging to themselves the form
of the animated old bard, crowned with roses, and singing cheerfully to
his lyre.
After the very enthusiastic eulogiums bestowed both by ancients and
moderns upon the poems of Anacreon, we need not be diffident in expressing
our raptures at their beauty, nor hesitate to pronounce them the most
polished remains of antiquity. They are indeed, all beauty, all
enchantment. He steals us so insensibly along with him, that we sympathize
even in his excesses. In his amatory odes there is a delicacy of
compliment not to be found in any other ancient poet. Love at that period
was rather an unrefined emotion; and the intercourse of the sexes was
animated more by passion than by sentiment. They knew not those little
tendernesses which form the spiritual part of affection; their expression
of feeling was therefore rude and unvaried, and the poetry of love
deprived it of its most captivating graces. Anacreon, however, attained
some ideas of this purer gallantry; and the same delicacy of mind which
led him to this refinement, prevented him also from yielding to the
freedom of language which has sullied the pages of all the other poets.
His descriptions are warm; but the warmth is in the ideas, not the words.
He is sportive without being wanton, and ardent without being licentious.
His poetic invention is always most brilliantly displayed in those
allegorical fictions which so many have endeavored to imitate, though all
have confessed them to be inimitable. Simplicity is the distinguishing
feature of these odes, and they interest by their innocence, as much as
they fascinate by their beauty. They may be said, indeed, to be the very
infants of the Muses, and to lisp in numbers.
I shall not be accused of enthusiastic partiality by those who have read
and felt the original; but to others, I am conscious, this should not be
the language of a translator, whose faint reflection of such beauties can
but ill justify his admiration of them.
In the age of Anacreon music and poetry were inseparable. These kindred
talents were for a long time associated, and the poet always sung his own
compositions to the lyre. It is probable that they were not set to any
regular air, but rather a kind of musical recitation, which was varied
according to the fancy and feelings of the moment. The poems of Anacreon
were sung at banquets as late as the time of Aulus Gellius, who tells us
that he heard one of the odes performed at a birthday entertainment.
The singular beauty of our poet's style and the apparent facility,
perhaps, of his metre have attracted, as I have already remarked, a crowd
of imitators. Some of these have succeeded with wonderful felicity, as may
be discerned in the few odes which are attributed to writers of a later
period. But none of his emulators have been half so dangerous to his fame
as those Greek ecclesiastics of the early ages, who, being conscious of
their own inferiority to their great prototypes, determined on removing
all possibility of comparison, and, under a semblance of moral zeal,
deprived the world of some of the most exquisite treasures of ancient
times. The works of Sappho and Alcaeus were among those flowers of Grecian
literature which thus fell beneath the rude hand of ecclesiastical
presumption. It is true they pretended that this sacrifice of genius was
hallowed by the interests of religion, but I have already assigned the
most probable motive; and if Gregorius Nazianzenus had not written
Anacreontics, we might now perhaps have the works of the Teian
unmutilated, and be empowered to say exultingly with Horace,
_Nec si quid olim lusit Anacreon
delevit aetas_.
The zeal by which these bishops professed to be actuated gave birth more
innocently, indeed, to an absurd species of parody, as repugnant to piety
as it is to taste, where the poet of voluptuousness was made a preacher of
the gospel, and his muse, like the Venus in armor at Lacedaemon, was
arrayed in all the severities of priestly instruction. Such was the
"Anacreon Recantatus," by Carolus de Aquino, a Jesuit, published 1701,
which consisted of a series of palinodes to the several songs of our poet.
Such, too, was the Christian Anacreon of Patrignanus, another Jesuit, who
preposterously transferred to a most sacred subject all that the Graecian
poet had dedicated to festivity and love.
His metre has frequently been adopted by the modern Latin poets; and
Scaliger, Taubman, Barthius, and others, have shown that it is by no means
uncongenial with that language. The Anacreontics of Scaliger, however,
scarcely deserve the name; as they glitter all over with conceits, and,
though often elegant, are always labored. The beautiful fictions of
Angerianus preserve more happily than any others the delicate turn of
those allegorical fables, which, passing so frequently through the mediums
of version and imitation, have generally lost their finest rays in the
transmission. Many of the Italian poets have indulged their fancies upon
the subjects; and in the manner of Anacreon, Bernardo Tasso first
introduced the metre, which was afterwards polished and enriched by
Chabriera and others.
ODES OF ANACREON
ODE I.[1]
I saw the smiling bard of pleasure,
The minstrel of the Teian measure;
'Twas in a vision of the night,
He beamed upon my wondering sight.
I heard his voice, and warmly prest
The dear enthusiast to my breast.
His tresses wore a silvery dye,
But beauty sparkled in his eye;
Sparkled in his eyes of fire,
Through the mist of soft desire.
His lip exhaled, when'er he sighed,
The fragrance of the racy tide;
And, as with weak and reeling feet
He came my cordial kiss to meet,
An infant, of the Cyprian band,
Guided him on with tender hand.
Quick from his glowing brows he drew
His braid, of many a wanton hue;
I took the wreath, whose inmost twine
Breathed of him and blushed with wine.
I hung it o'er my thoughtless brow,
And ah! I feel its magic now:
I feel that even his garland's touch
Can make the bosom love too much.
[1] This ode is the first of the series in the Vatican manuscript, which
attributes it to no other poet than Anacreon. They who assert that the
manuscript imputes it to Basilius, have been mislead. Whether it be the
production of Anacreon or not, it has all the features of ancient
simplicity, and is a beautiful imitation of the poet's happiest manner.
ODE II.
Give me the harp of epic song,
Which Homer's finger thrilled along;
But tear away the sanguine string,
For war is not the theme I sing.
Proclaim the laws of festal right,[1]
I'm monarch of the board to-night;
And all around shall brim as high,
And quaff the tide as deep as I.
And when the cluster's mellowing dews
Their warm enchanting balm infuse,
Our feet shall catch the elastic bound,
And reel us through the dance's round.
Great Bacchus! we shall sing to thee,
In wild but sweet ebriety;
Flashing around such sparks of thought,
As Bacchus could alone have taught.
Then, give the harp of epic song,
Which Homer's finger thrilled along;
But tear away the sanguine string,
For war is not the theme I sing.
[1] The ancients prescribed certain laws of drinking at their festivals,
for an account of which see the commentators. Anacreon here acts the
symposiarch, or master of the festival.
ODE III.[1]
Listen to the Muse's lyre,
Master of the pencil's fire!
Sketched in painting's bold display,
Many a city first portray;
Many a city, revelling free,
Full of loose festivity.
Picture then a rosy train,
Bacchants straying o'er the plain;
Piping, as they roam along,
Roundelay or shepherd-song.
Paint me next, if painting may
Such a theme as this portray,
All the earthly heaven of love
These delighted mortals prove.
[1] La Fosse has thought proper to lengthen this poem by considerable
interpolations of his own, which he thinks are indispensably necessary to
the completion of the description.
ODE IV.[1]
Vulcan! hear your glorious task;
I did not from your labors ask
In gorgeous panoply to shine,
For war was ne'er a sport of mine.
No--let me have a silver bowl,
Where I may cradle all my soul;
But mind that, o'er its simple frame
No mimic constellations flame;
Nor grave upon the swelling side,
Orion, scowling o'er the tide.
I care not for the glittering wain,
Nor yet the weeping sister train.
But let the vine luxuriant roll
Its blushing tendrils round the bowl,
While many a rose-lipped bacchant maid
Is culling clusters in their shade.
Let sylvan gods, in antic shapes,
Wildly press the gushing grapes,
And flights of Loves, in wanton play,
Wing through the air their winding way;
While Venus, from her arbor green,
Looks laughing at the joyous scene,
And young Lyaeus by her side
Sits, worthy of so bright a bride.
[1] This ode, Aulus Gellius tells us, was performed at an entertainment
where he was present.
ODE V.
Sculptor, wouldst thou glad my soul,
Grave for me an ample bowl,
Worthy to shine in hall or bower,
When spring-time brings the reveller's hour.
Grave it with themes of chaste design,
Fit for a simple board like mine.
Display not there the barbarous rites
In which religious zeal delights;
Nor any tale of tragic fate
Which History shudders to relate.
No--cull thy fancies from above,
Themes of heaven and themes of love.
Let Bacchus, Jove's ambrosial boy,
Distil the grape in drops of joy,
And while he smiles at every tear,
Let warm-eyed Venus, dancing near,
With spirits of the genial bed,
The dewy herbage deftly tread.
Let Love be there, without his arms,
In timid nakedness of charms;
And all the Graces, linked with Love,
Stray, laughing, through the shadowy grove;
While rosy boys disporting round,
In circlets trip the velvet ground.
But ah! if there Apollo toys,[1]
I tremble for the rosy boys.
[1] An allusion to the fable that Apollo had killed his beloved boy
Hyacinth, while playing with him at quoits. "This" (says M. La Fosse) "is
assuredly the sense of the text, and it cannot admit of any other."
ODE VI.[1]
As late I sought the spangled bowers,
To cull a wreath of matin flowers,
Where many an early rose was weeping,
I found the urchin Cupid sleeping,
I caught the boy, a goblet's tide
Was richly mantling by my side,
I caught him by his downy wing,
And whelmed him in the racy spring.
Then drank I down the poisoned bowl,
And love now nestles in my soul.
Oh, yes, my soul is Cupid's nest,
I feel him fluttering in my breast.
[1] This beautiful fiction, which the commentators have attributed to
Julian, a royal poet, the Vatican MS. pronounces to be the genuine
offspring of Anacreon.
ODE VII.
The women tell me every day
That all my bloom has pas past away.
"Behold," the pretty wantons cry,
"Behold this mirror with a sigh;
The locks upon thy brow are few,
And like the rest, they're withering too!"
Whether decline has thinned my hair,
I'm sure I neither know nor care;
But this I know, and this I feel
As onward to the tomb I steal,
That still as death approaches nearer,
The joys of life are sweeter, dearer;
And had I but an hour to live,
That little hour to bliss I'd give.
ODE VIII.[1]
I care not for the idle state
Of Persia's king, the rich, the great.
I envy not the monarch's throne,
Nor wish the treasured gold my own
But oh! be mine the rosy wreath,
Its freshness o'er my brow to breathe;
Be mine the rich perfumes that flow,
To cool and scent my locks of snow.
To-day I'll haste to quaff my wine
As if to-morrow ne'er would shine;
But if to-morrow comes, why then--
I'll haste to quaff my wine again.
And thus while all our days are bright,
Nor time has dimmed their bloomy light,
Let us the festal hours beguile
With mantling pup and cordial smile;
And shed from each new bowl of wine,
The richest drop on Bacchus' shrine
For death may come, with brow unpleasant,
May come, when least we wish him present,
And beckon to the Sable shore,
And grimly bid us--drink no more!
[1] Baxter conjectures that this was written upon the occasion of our
poet's returning the money to Polycrates, according to the anecdote in
Stobaeus.
ODE IX.
I pray thee, by the gods above,
Give me the mighty bowl I love,
And let me sing, in wild delight,
"I will--I will be mad to-night!"
Alcmaeon once, as legends tell,
Was frenzied by the fiends of hell;
Orestes, too, with naked tread,
Frantic paced the mountain-head;
And why? a murdered mother's shade
Haunted them still where'er they strayed.
But ne'er could I a murderer be,
The grape alone shall bleed for me;
Yet can I shout, with wild delight,
"I will--I will be mad to-night."
Alcides' self, in days of yore,
Imbrued his hands in youthful gore,
And brandished, with a maniac joy,
The quiver of the expiring boy:
And Ajax, with tremendous shield,
Infuriate scoured the guiltless field.
But I, whose hands no weapon ask,
No armor but this joyous flask;
The trophy of whose frantic hours
Is but a scattered wreath of flowers,
Ev'n I can sing, with wild delight,
"I will--I will be mad to-night!"
ODE X.[1]
How am I to punish thee,
For the wrong thou'st done to me
Silly swallow, prating thing--
Shall I clip that wheeling wing?
Or, as Tereus did, of old,[2]
(So the fabled tale is told,)
Shall I tear that tongue away,
Tongue that uttered such a lay?
Ah, how thoughtless hast thou been!
Long before the dawn was seen,
When a dream came o'er my mind,
Picturing her I worship, kind,
Just when I was nearly blest,
Loud thy matins broke my rest!
[1] This ode is addressed to a swallow.
[2] Modern poetry has conferred the name of Philomel upon the nightingale;
but many respectable authorities among the ancients assigned this
metamorphose to Progne, and made Philomel the swallow, as Anacreon does
here.
ODE XI.[1]
"Tell me, gentle youth, I pray thee,
What in purchase shall I pay thee
For this little waxen toy,
Image of the Paphian boy?"
Thus I said, the other day,
To a youth who past my way:
"Sir," (he answered, and the while
Answered all in Doric style,)
"Take it, for a trifle take it;
'Twas not I who dared to make it;
No, believe me, 'twas not I;
Oh, it has cost me many a sigh,
And I can no longer keep
Little Gods, who murder sleep!"
"Here, then, here," (I said with joy,)
"Here is silver for the boy:
He shall be my bosom guest,
Idol of my pious breast!"
Now, young Love, I have thee mine,
Warm me with that torch of thine;
Make me feel as I have felt,
Or thy waxen frame shall melt:
I must burn with warm desire,
Or thou, my boy--in yonder fire.[2]
[1] It is difficult to preserve with any grace the narrative simplicity of
this ode, and the humor of the turn with which it concludes. I feel,
indeed, that the translation must appear vapid, if not ludicrous, to an
English reader.
[2] From this Longepierre conjectures, that, whatever Anacreon might say,
he felt sometimes the inconveniences of old age, and here solicits from
the power of Love a warmth which he could no longer expect from Nature.
ODE XII.
They tell how Atys, wild with love,
Roams the mount and haunted grove;[1]
Cvbele's name he howls around,
The gloomy blast returns the sound!
Oft too, by Claros' hallowed spring,[2]
The votaries of the laurelled king
Quaff the inspiring, magic stream,
And rave in wild, prophetic dream.
But frenzied dreams are not for me,
Great Bacchus is my deity!
Full of mirth, and full of him,
While floating odors round me swim,
While mantling bowls are full supplied,
And you sit blushing by my side,
I will be mad and raving too--
Mad, my girl, with love for you!
[1] There are many contradictory stories of the loves of Cybele and Atys.
It is certain that he was mutilated, but whether by his own fury, or
Cybele's jealousy, is a point upon which authors are not agreed.
[2] This fountain was in a grove, consecrated to Apollo, and situated
between Colophon and Lebedos, in Ionia. The god had an oracle there.
ODE XIII.
I will, I will, the conflict's past,
And I'll consent to love at last.
Cupid has long, with smiling art,
Invited me to yield my heart;
And I have thought that peace of mind
Should not be for a smile resigned;
And so repelled the tender lure,
And hoped my heart would sleep secure.
But, slighted in his boasted charms,
The angry infant flew to arms;
He slung his quiver's golden frame,
He took his bow; his shafts of flame,
And proudly summoned me to yield,
Or meet him on the martial field.
And what did I unthinking do?
I took to arms, undaunted, too;
Assumed the corslet, shield, and spear,
And, like Pelides, smiled at fear.
Then (hear it, All ye powers above!)
I fought with Love! I fought with Love!
And now his arrows all were shed,
And I had just in terror fled--
When, heaving an indignant sigh,
To see me thus unwounded fly,
And, having now no other dart,
He shot himself into my heart![1]
My heart--alas the luckless day!
Received the God, and died away.
Farewell, farewell, my faithless shield!
Thy lord at length is forced to yield.
Vain, vain, is every outward care,
The foe's within, and triumphs there.
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