Thomas Moore- Collected Poetical Works
Page 23
Pouring the flowery wines of Crete;
And, as they passed with youthful bound,
The onyx shone beneath their feet.3
While others, waving arms of snow
Entwined by snakes of burnished gold,4
And showing charms, as loth to show,
Through many a thin, Tarentian fold,
Glided among the festal throng
Bearing rich urns of flowers along
Where roses lay, in languor breathing,
And the young beegrape, round them wreathing,
Hung on their blushes warm and meek,
Like curls upon a rosy cheek.
Oh, Nea! why did morning break
The spell that thus divinely bound me?
Why did I wake? how could I wake
With thee my own and heaven around me!
* * * * *
Well — peace to thy heart, though another’s it be,
And health to that cheek, though it bloom not for me!
To-morrow I sail for those cinnamon groves,
Where nightly the ghost of the Carribee roves,
And, far from the light of those eyes, I may yet
Their allurements forgive and their splendor forget.
Farewell to Bermuda,5 and long may the bloom
Of the lemon and myrtle its valleys perfume;
May spring to eternity hallow the shade,
Where Ariel has warbled and Waller has strayed.
And thou — when, at dawn, thou shalt happen to roam
Through the lime-covered alley that leads to thy home,
Where oft, when the dance and the revel were done,
And the stars were beginning to fade in the sun,
I have led thee along, and have told by the way
What my heart all the night had been burning to say —
Oh! think of the past — give a sigh to those times,
And a blessing for me to that alley of limes.
* * * * *
If I were yonder wave, my dear,
And thou the isle it clasps around,
I would not let a foot come near
My land of bliss, my fairy ground.
If I were yonder couch of gold,
And thou the pearl within it placed,
I would not let an eye behold
The sacred gem my arms embraced.
If I were yonder orange-tree,
And thou the blossom blooming there,
I would not yield a breath of thee
To scent the most imploring air.
Oh! bend not o’er the water’s brink,
Give not the wave that odorous sigh,
Nor let its burning mirror drink
The soft reflection of thine eye.
That glossy hair, that glowing cheek,
So pictured in the waters seem,
That I could gladly plunge to seek
Thy image in the glassy stream.
Blest fate! at once my chilly grave
And nuptial bed that stream might be;
I’ll wed thee in its mimic wave.
And die upon the shade of thee.
Behold the leafy mangrove, bending
O’er the waters blue and bright,
Like Nea’s silky lashes, lending
Shadow to her eyes of light.
Oh, my beloved! where’er I turn,
Some trace of thee enchants mine eyes:
In every star thy glances burn;
Thy blush on every floweret lies.
Nor find I in creation aught
Of bright or beautiful or rare,
Sweet to the sense of pure to thought,
But thou art found reflected there.
1 This method of polishing pearls, by leaving them awhile to be played with by doves, is mentioned by the fanciful Cardanus.
2 The Milesiacs, or Milesian fables, had their origin in Miletus, a luxurious town of Ionia. Aristides was the most celebrated author of these licentious fictions.
3 It appears that in very splendid mansions the floor or pavement was frequently of onyx.
4 Bracelets of this shape were a favorite ornament among the women of antiquity.
5 The inhabitants pronounce the name as if it were written Bermooda. I wonder it did not occur to some of those all-reading gentlemen that, possibly, the discoverer of this “island of hogs and devils” might have been no less a personage than the great John Bermudez, who, about the same period (the beginning of the sixteenth century), was sent Patriarch of the Latin church to Ethiopia, and has left us most wonderful stories of the Amazons and the Griffins which he encountered. — Travels of the Jesuits, vol. i.
THE SNOW SPIRIT.
No, ne’er did the wave in its element steep
An island of lovelier charms;
It blooms in the giant embrace of the deep,
Like Hebe in Hercules’ arms.
The blush of your bowers is light to the eye,
And their melody balm to the ear;
But the fiery planet of day is too nigh,
And the Snow Spirit never comes here.
The down from his wing is as white as the pearl
That shines through thy lips when they part,
And it falls on the green earth as melting, my girl,
As a murmur of thine on the heart.
Oh! fly to the clime, where he pillows the death,
As he cradles the birth of the year;
Bright are your bowers and balmy their breath,
But the Snow Spirit cannot come here.
How sweet to behold him when borne on the gale,
And brightening the bosom of morn,
He flings, like the priest of Diana, a veil
O’er the brow of each virginal thorn.
Yet think not the veil he so chillingly casts
Is the veil of a vestal severe;
No, no, thou wilt see, what a moment it lasts,
Should the Snow Spirit ever come here.
But fly to his region — lay open thy zone,
And he’ll weep all his brilliancy dim,
To think that a bosom, as white as his own,
Should not melt in the daybeam like him.
Oh! lovely the print of those delicate feet
O’er his luminous path will appear —
Fly, my beloved! this island is sweet,
But the Snow Spirit cannot come here.
* * * * *
I stole along the flowery bank,
While many a bending seagrape1 drank
The sprinkle of the feathery oar
That winged me round this fairy shore.
’Twas noon; and every orange bud
Hung languid o’er the crystal flood,
Faint as the lids of maiden’s eyes
When love-thoughts in her bosom rise.
Oh, for a naiad’s sparry bower,
To shade me in that glowing hour!
A little dove, of milky hue,
Before me from a plantain flew,
And, light along the water’s brim,
I steered my gentle bark by him;
For fancy told me, Love had sent
This gentle bird with kind intent
To lead my steps, where I should meet —
I knew not what, but something sweet.
And — bless the little pilot dove!
He had indeed been sent by Love,
To guide me to a scene so dear
As fate allows but seldom here;
One of those rare and brilliant hours.
That, like the aloe’s lingering flowers,
May blossom to the eye of man
But once in all his weary span.
Just where the margin’s opening shade
A vista from the waters made,
My bird reposed his silver plume
Upon a rich banana’s bloom.
Oh vision bright! oh spirit fair!
What spell, what magic raised her there?
’Twas Nea! slumb
ering calm and mild,
And bloomy as the dimpled child,
Whose spirit in elysium keeps
Its playful sabbath, while he sleeps.
The broad banana’s green embrace
Hung shadowy round each tranquil grace;
One little beam alone could win
The leaves to let it wander in.
And, stealing over all her charms,
From lip to cheek, from neck to arms,
New lustre to each beauty lent, —
Itself all trembling as it went!
Dark lay her eyelid’s jetty fringe
Upon that cheek whose roseate tinge
Mixt with its shade, like evening’s light
Just touching on the verge of night.
Her eyes, though thus in slumber hid,
Seemed glowing through the ivory lid,
And, as I thought, a lustre threw
Upon her lip’s reflecting dew, —
Such as a night-lamp, left to shine
Alone on some secluded shrine,
May shed upon the votive wreath,
Which pious hands have hung beneath.
Was ever vision half so sweet!
Think, think how quick my heart-pulse beat,
As o’er the rustling bank I stole; —
Oh! ye, that know the lover’s soul,
It is for you alone to guess,
That moment’s trembling happiness.
1 The seaside or mangrove grape, a native of the West Indies.
A STUDY FROM THE ANTIQUE.
Behold, my love, the curious gem
Within this simple ring of gold;
’Tis hallow’d by the touch of them
Who lived in classic hours of old.
Some fair Athenian girl, perhaps,
Upon her hand this gem displayed,
Nor thought that time’s succeeding lapse
Should see it grace a lovelier maid.
Look, dearest, what a sweet design!
The more we gaze, it charms the more;
Come — closer bring that cheek to mine,
And trace with me its beauties o’er.
Thou seest, it is a simple youth
By some enamored nymph embraced —
Look, as she leans, and say in sooth
Is not that hand most fondly placed?
Upon his curled head behind
It seems in careless play to lie,
Yet presses gently, half inclined
To bring the truant’s lip more nigh.
Oh happy maid! Too happy boy!
The one so fond and little loath,
The other yielding slow to joy —
Oh rare, indeed, but blissful both.
Imagine, love, that I am he,
And just as warm as he is chilling;
Imagine, too, that thou art she,
But quite as coy as she is willing:
So may we try the graceful way
In which their gentle arms are twined,
And thus, like her, my hand I lay
Upon thy wreathed locks behind:
And thus I feel thee breathing sweet,
As slow to mine thy head I move;
And thus our lips together meet,
And thus, — and thus, — I kiss thee, love.
* * * * *
There’s not a look, a word of thine,
My soul hath e’er forgot;
Thou ne’er hast bid a ringlet shine,
Nor given thy locks one graceful twine
Which I remember not.
There never yet a murmur fell
From that beguiling tongue,
Which did not, with a lingering spell,
Upon thy charmed senses dwell,
Like songs from Eden sung.
Ah! that I could, at once, forget
All, all that haunts me so —
And yet, thou witching girl, — and yet,
To die were sweeter than to let
The loved remembrance go.
No; if this slighted heart must see
Its faithful pulse decay,
Oh let it die, remembering thee,
And, like the burnt aroma, be
Consumed in sweets away.
TO JOSEPH ATKINSON, ESQ.
FROM BERMUDA.1
“The daylight is gone — but, before we depart,
“One cup shall go round to the friend of my heart,
“The kindest, the dearest — oh! judge by the tear
“I now shed while I name him, how kind and how dear.”
’Twas thus in the shade of the Calabash-Tree,
With a few, who could feel and remember like me,
The charm that, to sweeten my goblet, I threw
Was a sigh to the past and a blessing on you.
Oh! say, is it thus, in the mirth-bringing hour,
When friends are assembled, when wit, in full flower,
Shoots forth from the lip, under Bacchus’s dew,
In blossoms of thought ever springing and new —
Do you sometimes remember, and hallow the brim
Of your cup with a sigh, as you crown it to him
Who is lonely and sad in these valleys so fair,
And would pine in elysium, if friends were not there!
Last night, when we came from the Calabash-Tree,
When my limbs were at rest and my spirit was free,
The glow of the grape and the dreams of the day
Set the magical springs of my fancy in play,
And oh, — such a vision as haunted me then
I would slumber for ages to witness again.
The many I like, and the few I adore,
The friends who were dear and beloved before.
But never till now so beloved and dear,
At the call of my Fancy, surrounded me here;
And soon, — oh, at once, did the light of their smiles
To a paradise brighten this region of isles;
More lucid the wave, as they looked on it, flowed,
And brighter the rose, as they gathered it, glowed.
Not the valleys Heraean (though watered by rills
Of the pearliest flow, from those pastoral hills.2
Where the Song of the Shepherd, primeval and wild,
Was taught to the nymphs by their mystical child,)
Could boast such a lustre o’er land and o’er wave
As the magic of love to this paradise gave.
Oh magic of love! unembellished by you,
Hath the garden a blush or the landscape a hue?
Or shines there a vista in nature or art,
Like that which Love opes thro’ the eye to the heart?
Alas, that a vision so happy should fade!
That, when morning around me in brilliancy played,
The rose and the stream I had thought of at night
Should still be before me, unfadingly bright;
While the friends, who had seemed to hang over the stream,
And to gather the roses, had fled with my dream.
But look, where, all ready, in sailing array,
The bark that’s to carry these pages away,3
Impatiently flutters her wing to the wind,
And will soon leave these islets of Ariel behind.
What billows, what gales is she fated to prove,
Ere she sleep in the lee of the land that I love!
Yet pleasant the swell of the billows would be,
And the roar of those gales would be music to me.
Not the tranquillest air that the winds ever blew,
Not the sunniest tears of the summer-eve dew,
Were as sweet as the storm, or as bright as the foam
Of the surge, that would hurry your wanderer home.
1 Pinkerton has said that “a good history and description of the Bermudas might afford a pleasing addition to the geographical library;” but there certainly are not materials for such a work. The island, since the time of its
discovery, has experienced so very few vicissitudes, the people have been so indolent, and their trade so limited, that there is but little which the historian could amplify into importance; and, with respect to the natural productions of the country, the few which the inhabitants can be induced to cultivate are so common in the West Indies, that they have been described by every naturalist who has written any account of those islands.
2 Mountains of Sicily, upon which Daphnis, the first Inventor of bucolic poetry, was nursed by the nymphs.
3 A ship, ready to sail for England.
THE STEERMAN’S SONG, WRITTEN ABOARD THE BOSTON FRIGATE 28TH APRIL.1
When freshly blows the northern gale,
And under courses snug we fly;
Or when light breezes swell the sail,
And royals proudly sweep the sky;
‘Longside the wheel, unwearied still
I stand, and, as my watchful eye
Doth mark the needle’s faithful thrill,
I think of her I love, and cry,
Port, my boy! port.
When calms delay, or breezes blow
Right from the point we wish to steer;
When by the wind close-hauled we go.
And strive in vain the port to near;
I think ’tis thus the fates defer
My bliss with one that’s far away,
And while remembrance springs to her,
I watch the sails and sighing say,
Thus, my boy! thus.
But see the wind draws kindly aft,
All hands are up the yards to square,
And now the floating stu’n-sails waft
Our stately ship thro’ waves and air.
Oh! then I think that yet for me
Some breeze of fortune thus may spring,
Some breeze to waft me, love, to thee —
And in that hope I smiling sing,
Steady, boy! so.
1 I left Bermuda in the Boston about the middle of April, in company with the Cambrian and Leander, aboard the latter of which was the Admiral Sir Andrew Mitchell, who divides his year between Halifax and Bermuda, and is the very soul of society and good-fellowship to both. We separated in a few days, and the Boston after a short cruise proceeded to New York.
TO THE FIRE-FLY.1
At morning, when the earth and sky
Are glowing with the light of spring,
We see thee not, thou humble fly!
Nor think upon thy gleaming wing.
But when the skies have lost their hue,
And sunny lights no longer play,
Oh then we see and bless thee too
For sparkling o’er the dreary way.
Thus let me hope, when lost to me
The lights that now my life illume,