by Thomas Moore
Of tender thought, the simplest strain
Can touch it with peculiar power —
As when the air is warm, the scent
Of the most wild and rustic flower
Can fill the whole rich element —
And in such moods the homeliest tone
That’s linked with feelings, once our own —
With friends or joy gone by — will be
Worth choirs of loftiest harmony!
But some there were among the group
Of damsels there too light of heart
To let their spirits longer droop,
Even under music’s melting art;
And one upspringing with a bound
From a low bank of flowers, looked round
With eyes that tho’ so full of light
Had still a trembling tear within;
And, while her fingers in swift flight
Flew o’er a fairy mandolin,
Thus sung the song her lover late
Had sung to her — the eve before
That joyous night, when as of yore
All Zea met to celebrate
The feast of May on the sea-shore.
SONG.
When the Balaika7
Is heard o’er the sea,
I’ll dance the Romaika
By moonlight with thee.
If waves then advancing
Should steal on our play,
Thy white feet in dancing
Shall chase them away.8
When the Balaika
Is heard o’er the sea,
Thou’lt dance the Romaika
My own love, with me.
Then at the closing
Of each merry lay,
How sweet ’tis, reposing
Beneath the night ray!
Or if declining
The moon leave the skies,
We’ll talk by the shining
Of each other’s eyes.
Oh then how featly
The dance we’ll renew,
Treading so fleetly
Its light mazes thro’:9
Till stars, looking o’er us
From heaven’s high bowers,
Would change their bright chorus
For one dance of ours!
When the Balaika
Is heard o’er the sea,
Thou’lt dance the Romaika,
My own love, with me.
* * * * *
How changingly for ever veers
The heart of youth ‘twixt smiles and tears!
Even as in April the light vane
Now points to sunshine, now to rain.
Instant this lively lay dispelled
The shadow from each blooming brow,
And Dancing, joyous Dancing, held
Full empire o’er each fancy now.
But say — what shall the measure be?
“Shall we the old Romaika tread,”
(Some eager asked) “as anciently
“’Twas by the maids of Delos led,
“When slow at first, then circling fast,
“As the gay spirits rose — at last,
“With hand in hand like links enlocked,
“Thro’ the light air they seemed to flit
“In labyrinthine maze, that mocked
“The dazzled eye that followed it?”
Some called aloud “the Fountain Dance!” —
While one young, dark-eyed Amazon,
Whose step was air-like and whose glance
Flashed, like a sabre in the sun,
Sportively said, “Shame on these soft
“And languid strains we hear so oft.
“Daughters of Freedom! have not we
“Learned from our lovers and our sires
“The Dance of Greece, while Greece was free —
“That Dance, where neither flutes nor lyres,
“But sword and shield clash on the ear
“A music tyrants quake to hear?
“Heroines of Zea, arm with me
“And dance the dance of Victory!”
Thus saying, she, with playful grace,
Loosed the wide hat, that o’er her face
(From Anatolia came the maid)
Hung shadowing each sunny charm;
And with a fair young armorer’s aid,
Fixing it on her rounded arm,
A mimic shield with pride displayed;
Then, springing towards a grove that spread
Its canopy of foliage near,
Plucked off a lance-like twig, and said,
“To arms, to arms!” while o’er her head
She waved the light branch, as a spear.
Promptly the laughing maidens all
Obeyed their Chief’s heroic call; —
Round the shield-arm of each was tied
Hat, turban, shawl, as chance might be;
The grove, their verdant armory,
Falchion and lance10 alike supplied;
And as their glossy locks, let free,
Fell down their shoulders carelessly,
You might have dreamed you saw a throng
Of youthful Thyads, by the beam
Of a May moon, bounding along
Peneus’ silver-eddied stream!
And now they stept, with measured tread,
Martially o’er the shining field;
Now to the mimic combat led
(A heroine at each squadron’s head),
Struck lance to lance and sword to shield:
While still, thro’ every varying feat,
Their voices heard in contrast sweet
With some of deep but softened sound
From lips of aged sires around,
Who smiling watched their children’s play —
Thus sung the ancient Pyrrhic lay: —
SONG.
“Raise the buckler — poise the lance —
“Now here — now there — retreat — advance!”
Such were the sounds to which the warrior boy
Danced in those happy days when Greece was free;
When Sparta’s youth, even in the hour of joy,
Thus trained their steps to war and victory.
“Raise the buckler — poise the lance —
“Now here — now there — retreat — advance!”
Such was the Spartan warriors’ dance.
“Grasp the falchion — gird the shield —
“Attack — defend — do all but yield.”
Thus did thy sons, oh Greece, one glorious night,
Dance by a moon like this, till o’er the sea
That morning dawned by whose immortal light
They nobly died for thee and liberty!11
“Raise the buckler — poise the lance —
“Now here — now there — retreat — advance!”
Such was the Spartan heroes’ dance.
* * * * *
Scarce had they closed this martial lay
When, flinging their light spears away,
The combatants, in broken ranks.
All breathless from the war-field fly;
And down upon the velvet banks
And flowery slopes exhausted lie,
Like rosy huntresses of Thrace,
Resting at sunset from the chase.
“Fond girls!” an aged Zean said —
One who himself had fought and bled,
And now with feelings half delight,
Half sadness, watched their mimic fight —
“Fond maids! who thus with War can jest —
“Like Love in Mar’s helmet drest,
“When, in his childish innocence,
“Pleased with the shade that helmet flings,
“He thinks not of the blood that thence
“Is dropping o’er his snowy wings.
“Ay — true it is, young patriot maids,
“If Honor’s arm still won the fray,
“If luck but shone on righteous blades,
“War were a game for gods to play!
“But, no, alas! — hear one, who well
“Hath tracked the fortunes of the brave —
“Hear me, in mournful ditty, tell
“What glory waits the patriot’s grave.”
SONG.
As by the shore, at break of day,
A vanquished chief expiring lay.
Upon the sands, with broken sword,
He traced his farewell to the Free;
And, there, the last unfinished word
He dying wrote was “Liberty!”
At night a Sea-bird shrieked the knell
Of him who thus for Freedom fell;
The words he wrote, ere evening came,
Were covered by the sounding sea; —
So pass away the cause and name
Of him who dies for Liberty!
* * * * *
That tribute of subdued applause
A charmed but timid audience pays,
That murmur which a minstrel draws
From hearts that feel but fear to praise,
Followed this song, and left a pause
Of silence after it, that hung
Like a fixt spell on every tongue.
At length a low and tremulous sound
Was heard from midst a group that round
A bashful maiden stood to hide
Her blushes while the lute she tried —
Like roses gathering round to veil
The song of some young nightingale,
Whose trembling notes steal out between
The clustered leaves, herself unseen.
And while that voice in tones that more
Thro’ feeling than thro’ weakness erred,
Came with a stronger sweetness o’er
The attentive ear, this strain was heard: —
SONG.
I saw from yonder silent cave,12
Two Fountains running side by side;
The one was Memory’s limpid wave,
The other cold Oblivion’s tide.
“Oh Love!” said I, in thoughtless mood,
As deep I drank of Lethe’s stream,
“Be all my sorrows in this flood
“Forgotten like a vanisht dream!”
But who could bear that gloomy blank
Where joy was lost as well as pain?
Quickly of Memory’s fount I drank.
And brought the past all back again;
And said, “Oh Love! whate’er my lot,
“Still let this soul to thee be true —
“Rather than have one bliss forgot,
“Be all my pains remembered too!”
* * * * *
The group that stood around to shade
The blushes of that bashful maid,
Had by degrees as came the lay
More strongly forth retired away,
Like a fair shell whose valves divide
To show the fairer pearl inside:
For such she was — a creature, bright
And delicate as those day-flowers,
Which while they last make up in light
And sweetness what they want in hours.
So rich upon the ear had grown
Her voice’s melody — its tone
Gathering new courage as it found
An echo in each bosom round —
That, ere the nymph with downcast eye
Still on the chords, her lute laid by,
“Another song,” all lips exclaimed,
And each some matchless favorite named;
while blushing as her fingers ran
O’er the sweet chords she thus began: —
SONG.
Oh, Memory, how coldly
Thou paintest joy gone by:
Like rainbows, thy pictures
But mournfully shine and die.
Or if some tints thou keepest
That former days recall,
As o’er each line thou weepest,
Thy tears efface them all.
But, Memory, too truly
Thou paintest grief that’s past;
Joy’s colors are fleeting,
But those of Sorrow last.
And, while thou bringst before us
Dark pictures of past ill,
Life’s evening closing o’er us
But makes them darker still.
* * * * *
So went the moonlight hours along,
In this sweet glade; and so with song
And witching sounds — not such as they,
The cymbalists of Ossa, played,
To chase the moon’s eclipse away,13
But soft and holy — did each maid
Lighten her heart’s eclipse awhile,
And win back Sorrow to a smile.
Not far from this secluded place,
On the sea-shore a ruin stood; —
A relic of the extinguisht race,
Who once o’er that foamy flood,
When fair Ioulis14 by the light
Of golden sunset on the sight
Of mariners who sailed that sea,
Rose like a city of chrysolite
Called from the wave by witchery.
This ruin — now by barbarous hands
Debased into a motley shed,
Where the once splendid column stands
Inverted on its leafy head —
Formed, as they tell in times of old
The dwelling of that bard whose lay
Could melt to tears the stern and cold,
And sadden mid their mirth the gay —
Simonides,15 whose fame thro’ years
And ages past still bright appears —
Like Hesperus, a star of tears!
’Twas hither now — to catch a view
Of the white waters as they played
Silently in the light — a few
Of the more restless damsels strayed;
And some would linger mid the scent
Of hanging foliage that perfumed
The ruined walls; while others went
Culling whatever floweret bloomed
In the lone leafy space between,
Where gilded chambers once had been;
Or, turning sadly to the sea,
Sent o’er the wave a sigh unblest
To some brave champion of the Free —
Thinking, alas, how cold might be
At that still hour his place of rest!
Meanwhile there came a sound of song
From the dark ruins — a faint strain,
As if some echo that among
Those minstrel halls had slumbered long
Were murmuring into life again.
But, no — the nymphs knew well the tone —
A maiden of their train, who loved
Like the night-bird to sing alone.
Had deep into those ruins roved,
And there, all other thoughts forgot,
Was warbling o’er, in lone delight,
A lay that, on that very spot,
Her lover sung one moonlight night: —
SONG.
Ah! where are they, who heard, in former hours,
The voice of Song in these neglected bowers?
They are gone — all gone!
The youth who told his pain in such sweet tone
That all who heard him wisht his pain their own —
He is gone — he is gone!
And she who while he sung sat listening by
And thought to strains like these ‘twere sweet to die —
She is gone — she too is gone!
’Tis thus in future hours some bard will say
Of her who hears and him who sings this lay —
They are gone — they both are gone!
* * * * *
The moon was now, from heaven’s steep,
Bending to dip her silvery urn
Into the bright and silent deep —
And the
young nymphs, on their return
From those romantic ruins, found
Their other playmates ranged around
The sacred Spring, prepared to tune
Their parting hymn,16 ere sunk the moon,
To that fair Fountain by whose stream
Their hearts had formed so many a dream.
Who has not read the tales that tell
Of old Eleusis’ sacred Well,
Or heard what legend-songs recount
Of Syra and its holy Fount,17
Gushing at once from the hard rock
Into the laps of living flowers —
Where village maidens loved to flock,
On summer-nights and like the Hours
Linked in harmonious dance and song,
Charmed the unconscious night along;
While holy pilgrims on their way
To Delos’ isle stood looking on,
Enchanted with a scene so gay,
Nor sought their boats till morning shone.
Such was the scene this lovely glade
And its fair inmates now displayed.
As round the Fount in linked ring
They went in cadence slow and light
And thus to that enchanted Spring
Warbled their Farewell for the night: —
SONG.
Here, while the moonlight dim
Falls on that mossy brim,
Sing we our Fountain Hymn,
Maidens of Zea!
Nothing but Music’s strain,
When Lovers part in pain,
Soothes till they meet again,
Oh, Maids of Zea!
Bright Fount so clear and cold
Round which the nymphs of old
Stood with their locks of gold,
Fountain of Zea!
Not even Castaly,
Famed tho’ its streamlet be,
Murmurs or shines like thee,
Oh, Fount of Zea!
Thou, while our hymn we sing,
Thy silver voice shalt bring,
Answering, answering,
Sweet Fount of Zea!
For of all rills that run
Sparkling by moon or sun
Thou art the fairest one,
Bright Fount of Zea!
Now, by those stars that glance
Over heaven’s still expanse
Weave we our mirthful dance,
Daughters of Zea!
Such as in former days
Danced they by Dian’s rays
Where the Eurotas strays,
Oh, Maids of Zea!
But when to merry feet
Hearts with no echo beat,
Say, can the dance be sweet?
Maidens of Zea!
No, naught but Music’s strain,
When lovers part in pain,
Soothes till they meet again,
Oh, Maids of Zea!
