by Thomas Moore
Finding that, in this cage of fools,
The wisest sots adorn the schools,
Took it at once his head Satanic in,
To grow a great scholastic manikin, —
A doctor, quite as learned and fine as
Scotus John or Tom Aquinas,
Lully, Hales Irrefragabilis,
Or any doctor of the rabble is.
In languages, the Polyglots,
Compared to him, were Babelsots:
He chattered more than ever Jew did; —
Sanhedrim and Priest included,
Priest and holy Sanhedrim
Were one-and-seventy fools to him.
But chief the learned demon felt a
Zeal so strong for gamma, delta,
That, all for Greek and learning’s glory,6
He nightly tippled “Graeco more,”
And never paid a bill or balance
Except upon the Grecian Kalends: —
From whence your scholars, when they want tick,
Say, to be Attic’s to be on tick.
In logics, he was quite Ho Panu;
Knew as much as ever man knew.
He fought the combat syllogistic
With so much skill and art eristic,
That though you were the learned Stagyrite,
At once upon the hip he had you right.
In music, though he had no ears
Except for that amongst the spheres,
(Which most of all, as he averred it,
He dearly loved, ‘cause no one heard it,)
Yet aptly he, at sight, could read
Each tuneful diagram in Bede,
And find, by Euclid’s corollaria,
The ratios of a jig or aria.
But, as for all your warbling Delias,
Orpheuses and Saint Cecilias,
He owned he thought them much surpast
By that redoubted Hyaloclast7
Who still contrived by dint of throttle,
Where’er he went to crack a bottle.
Likewise to show his mighty knowledge, he,
On things unknown in physiology,
Wrote many a chapter to divert us,
(Like that great little man Albertus,)
Wherein he showed the reason why,
When children first are heard to cry,
If boy the baby chance to be.
He cries O A! — if girl, O E! —
Which are, quoth he, exceeding fair hints
Respecting their first sinful parents;
“Oh Eve!” exclaimeth little madam,
While little master cries “Oh Adam!”
But, ’twas in Optics and Dioptrics,
Our daemon played his first and top tricks.
He held that sunshine passes quicker
Through wine than any other liquor;
And though he saw no great objection
To steady light and clear reflection,
He thought the aberrating rays,
Which play about a bumper’s blaze,
Were by the Doctors looked, in common, on,
As a more rare and rich phenomenon.
He wisely said that the sensorium
Is for the eyes a great emporium,
To which these noted picture-stealers
Send all they can and meet with dealers.
In many an optical proceeding
The brain, he said, showed great good breeding;
For instance, when we ogle women
(A trick which Barbara tutored him in),
Although the dears are apt to get in a
Strange position on the retina,
Yet instantly the modest brain
Doth set them on their legs again!
Our doctor thus, with “stuft sufficiency”
Of all omnigenous omnisciency,
Began (as who would not begin
That had, like him, so much within?)
To let it out in books of all sorts,
Folios, quartos, large and small sorts;
Poems, so very deep and sensible
That they were quite incomprehensible
Prose, which had been at learning’s Fair,
And bought up all the trumpery there,
The tattered rags of every vest,
In which the Greeks and Romans drest,
And o’er her figure swollen and antic
Scattered them all with airs so frantic,
That those, who saw what fits she had,
Declared unhappy Prose was mad!
Epics he wrote and scores of rebuses,
All as neat as old Turnebus’s;
Eggs and altars, cyclopaedias,
Grammars, prayer-books — oh! ‘twere tedious,
Did I but tell thee half, to follow me:
Not the scribbling bard of Ptolemy,
No — nor the hoary Trismegistus,
(Whose writings all, thank heaven! have missed us,)
E’er filled with lumber such a wareroom
As this great “porcus literarum!”
1 Mamurra, a dogmatic philosopher, who never doubted about anything, except who was his father.
2 Bombastus was one of the names of that great scholar and quack Paracelsus. He used to fight the devil every night with a broadsword, to the no small terror of his pupil Oporinus, who has recorded the circumstance.
3 The angel, who scolded St. Jerome for reading Cicero, as Gratian tells the story in his “concordantia discordantium Canonum,” and says, that for this reason bishops were not allowed to read the Classics.
4 The idea of the Rabbins, respecting the origin of woman, is not a little singular. They think that man was originally formed with a tail, like a monkey, but that the Deity cut off this appendage, and made woman of it.
5 Scaliger. — Dagon was thought by others to be a certain sea-monster, who came every day out of the Red Sea to teach the Syrians husbandry.
6 It is much to be regretted that Martin Luther, with all his talents for reforming, should yet be vulgar enough to laugh at Camerarius for writing to him in Greek, “Master Joachim (says he) has sent me some dates and some raisins, and has also written me two letters in Greek. As soon as I am recovered, I shall answer them in Turkish, that he too may have the pleasure of reading what he does not understand.”
7 Or Glass-breaker — Morhofius has given an account of this extraordinary man, in a work, published 1682.
* * * * *
POEMS RELATING TO AMERICA
TO FRANCIS, EARL OF MOIRA.
GENERAL IN HIS MAJESTY’S FORCES, MASTER-GENERAL OF THE ORDNANCE, CONSTABLE OF THE TOWER, ETC.
MY LORD, It is impossible to think of addressing a Dedication to your Lordship without calling to mind the well-known reply of the Spartan to a rhetorician, who proposed to pronounce an eulogium on Hercules. “Oh Hercules!” said the honest Spartan, “who ever thought of blaming Hercules?” In a similar manner the concurrence of public opinion has left to the panegyrist of your Lordship a very superfluous task. I shall, therefore, be silent on the subject, and merely entreat your indulgence to the very humble tribute of gratitude which I have here the honor to present.
I am, my Lord,
With every feeling of attachment and respect,
Your Lordship’s very devoted Servant,
THOMAS MOORE.
37 Bury Street, St. James’s, April 10, 1806.
PREFACE.1
The principal poems in the following collection were written during an absence of fourteen months from Europe. Though curiosity was certainly not the motive of my voyage to America, yet it happened that the gratification of curiosity was the only advantage which I derived from it. Finding myself in the country of a new people, whose infancy had promised so much, and whose progress to maturity has been an object of such interesting speculation, I determined to employ the short period of time, which my plan of return to Europe afforded me, in travelling through a few of the States, and acquiring some knowledge of the inhabitants.
The
impression which my mind received from the character and manners of these republicans, suggested the Epistles which are written from the city of Washington and Lake Erie.2 How far I was right in thus assuming the tone of a satirist against a people whom I viewed but as a stranger and a visitor, is a doubt which my feelings did not allow me time to investigate. All I presume to answer for is the fidelity of the picture which I have given; and though prudence might have dictated gentler language, truth, I think, would have justified severer.
I went to America with prepossessions by no means unfavorable, and indeed rather indulged in many of those illusive ideas, with respect to the purity of the government and the primitive happiness of the people, which I had early imbibed In my native country, where, unfortunately, discontent at home enhances every distant temptation, and the western world has long been looked to as a retreat from real or imaginary oppression; as, in short, the elysian Atlantis, where persecuted patriots might find their visions realized, and be welcomed by kindred spirits to liberty and repose. In all these flattering expectations I found myself completely disappointed, and felt inclined to say to America, as Horace says to his mistress, “intentata nites.” Brissot, in the preface to his travels, observes, that “freedom in that country is carried to so high a degree as to border upon a state of nature;” and there certainly is a close approximation to savage life not only in the liberty which they enjoy, but in the violence of party spirit and of private animosity which results from it. This illiberal zeal imbitters all social intercourse; and, though I scarcely could hesitate in selecting the party, whose views appeared to me the more pure and rational, yet I was sorry to observe that, in asserting their opinions, they both assume an equal share of intolerance; the Democrats consistently with their principles, exhibiting a vulgarity of rancor, which the Federalists too often are so forgetful of their cause as to imitate.
The rude familiarity of the lower orders, and indeed the unpolished state of society in general, would neither surprise nor disgust if they seemed to flow from that simplicity of character, that honest ignorance of the gloss of refinement which may be looked for in a new and inexperienced people. But, when we find them arrived at maturity in most of the vices, and all the pride of civilization, while they are still so far removed from its higher and better characteristics, it is impossible not to feel that this youthful decay, this crude anticipation of the natural period of corruption, must repress every sanguine hope of the future energy and greatness of America.
I am conscious that, in venturing these few remarks, I have said just enough to offend, and by no means sufficient to convince; for the limits of a preface prevent me from entering into a justification of my opinions, and I am committed on the subject as effectually as if I had written volumes in their defence. My reader, however, is apprised of the very cursory observation upon which these opinions are founded, and can easily decide for himself upon the degree of attention or confidence which they merit.
With respect to the poems in general, which occupy the following pages, I know not in what manner to apologize to the public for intruding upon their notice such a mass of unconnected trifles, such a world of epicurean atoms as I have here brought in conflict together. To say that I have been tempted by the liberal offers of my bookseller, is an excuse which can hope for but little indulgence from the critic; yet I own that, without this seasonable inducement, these poems very possibly would never have been submitted to the world. The glare of publication is too strong for such imperfect productions: they should be shown but to the eye of friendship, in that dim light of privacy which is as favorable to poetical as to female beauty, and serves as a veil for faults, while it enhances every charm which it displays. Besides, this is not a period for the idle occupations of poetry, and times like the present require talents more active and more useful. Few have now the leisure to read such trifles, and I most sincerely regret that I have had the leisure to write them.
1 This Preface, as well as the Dedication which precedes it, were prefixed originally to the miscellaneous volume entitled “Odes and Epistles,” of which, hitherto, the poems relating to my American tour have formed a part.
2 Epistles VI., VII., and VIII.
TO LORD VISCOUNT STRANGFORD. ABOARD THE PHAETON FRIGATE, OFF THE AZORES, BY MOONLIGHT.
Sweet Moon! if, like Crotona’s sage,1
By any spell my hand could dare
To make thy disk its ample page,
And write my thoughts, my wishes there;
How many a friend, whose careless eye
Now wanders o’er that starry sky,
Should smile, upon thy orb to meet
The recollection, kind and sweet,
The reveries of fond regret,
The promise, never to forget,
And all my heart and soul would send
To many a dear-loved, distant friend.
How little, when we parted last,
I thought those pleasant times were past,
For ever past, when brilliant joy
Was all my vacant heart’s employ:
When, fresh from mirth to mirth again,
We thought the rapid hours too few;
Our only use for knowledge then
To gather bliss from all we knew.
Delicious days of whim and soul!
When, mingling lore and laugh together,
We leaned the book on Pleasure’s bowl,
And turned the leaf with Folly’s feather.
Little I thought that all were fled,
That, ere that summer’s bloom was shed,
My eye should see the sail unfurled
That wafts me to the western world.
And yet, ’twas time; — in youth’s sweet days,
To cool that season’s glowing rays,
The heart awhile, with wanton wing,
May dip and dive in Pleasure’s spring;
But, if it wait for winter’s breeze,
The spring will chill, the heart will freeze.
And then, that Hope, that fairy Hope, —
Oh! she awaked such happy dreams,
And gave my soul such tempting scope
For all its dearest, fondest schemes,
That not Verona’s child of song,
When flying from the Phrygian shore,
With lighter heart could bound along,
Or pant to be a wanderer more!
Even now delusive hope will steal
Amid the dark regrets I feel,
Soothing, as yonder placid beam
Pursues the murmurers of the deep,
And lights them with consoling gleam,
And smiles them into tranquil sleep.
Oh! such a blessed night as this,
I often think, if friends were near,
How we should feel, and gaze with bliss
Upon the moon-bright scenery here!
The sea is like a silvery lake,
And, o’er its calm the vessel glides
Gently, as if it feared to wake
The slumber of the silent tides.
The only envious cloud that lowers
Hath hung its shade on Pico’s height,2
Where dimly, mid the dusk, he towers,
And scowling at this heaven of light,
Exults to see the infant storm
Cling darkly round his giant form!
Now, could I range those verdant isles,
Invisible, at this soft hour,
And see the looks, the beaming smiles,
That brighten many an orange bower;
And could I lift each pious veil,
And see the blushing cheek it shades, —
Oh! I should have full many a tale,
To tell of young Azorian maids.3
Yes, Strangford, at this hour, perhaps,
Some lover (not too idly blest,
Like those, who in their ladies’ laps
May cradle every wish to rest,)
Warbles, to touch his dear one’s soul,
Those madrigals, of breath divine,
Which Camoens’ harp from Rapture stole
And gave, all glowing warm, to thine.4
Oh! could the lover learn from thee,
And breathe them with thy graceful tone,
Such sweet, beguiling minstrelsy
Would make the coldest nymph his own.
But, hark! — the boatswain’s pipings tell
’Tis time to bid my dream farewell:
Eight bells: — the middle watch is set;
Good night, my Strangford! — ne’er forget
That far beyond the western sea
Is one whose heart remembers thee.
1 Pythagoras; who was supposed to have a power of writing upon the Moon by the means of a magic mirror. — See Boyle, art. Pythag.
2 A very high mountain on one of the Azores, from which the island derives its name. It is said by some to be as high as the Peak of Teneriffe.
3 I believe it is Gutherie who says, that the inhabitants of the Azores are much addicted to gallantry. This is an assertion in which even Gutherie may be credited.
4 These islands belong to the Portuguese.
STANZAS.
A beam of tranquillity smiled in the west,
The storms of the morning pursued us no more;
And the wave, while it welcomed the moment of rest.
Still heaved, as remembering ills that were o’er.
Serenely my heart took the hue of the hour,
Its passions were sleeping, were mute as the dead;
And the spirit becalmed but remembered their power,
As the billow the force of the gale that was fled.
I thought of those days, when to pleasure alone
My heart ever granted a wish or a sigh;
When the saddest emotion my bosom had known,
Was pity for those who were wiser than I.
I reflected, how soon in the cup of Desire
The pearl of the soul may be melted away;
How quickly, alas, the pure sparkle of fire
We inherit from heaven, may be quenched in the clay;
And I prayed of that Spirit who lighted the flame,
That Pleasure no more might its purity dim;
So that, sullied but little, or brightly the same,
I might give back the boon I had borrowed from Him.
How blest was the thought! it appeared as if Heaven
Had already an opening to Paradise shown;
