Thomas Moore- Collected Poetical Works

by Thomas Moore

  Where Modesty, which here but gives

  A rare and transient grace to smiles,

  In the heart’s holy centre lives;

  And thence as from her throne diffuses

  O’er thoughts and looks so bland a reign,

  That not a thought or feeling loses

  Its freshness in that gentle chain.

  1 In the Tribune at Florence.

  2 In the Palazzo Pitti.

  3 Alludes particularly to the portrait of her in the Sciarra collection at Rome, where the look of mournful reproach in those full, shadowy eyes, as if she had been unjustly accused of something wrong, is exquisite.

  4 The fine picture in the Palazzo Borghese, called (it is not easy to say why) “Sacred and Profane Love,” in which the two figures, sitting on the edge of the fountain, are evidently portraits of the same person.

  5 This fanciful allegory is the subject of a picture by Titian in the possession of the Marquis Cambian at Turin, whose collection, though small, contains some beautiful specimens of all the great masters.

  6 As Paul Veronese gave but little into the beau idéal, his women may be regarded as pretty close imitations of the living models which Venice afforded in his time.

  7 The Marriage of Cana.

  8 “Certain it is [as Arthur Young truly and feelingly says] one now and then meets with terrible eyes in Italy.”

  EXTRACT IX.

  Venice.

  The English to be met with everywhere. — Alps and Threadneedle Street. — The Simplon and the Stocks. — Rage for travelling. — Blue Stockings among the Wahabees. — Parasols and Pyramids. — Mrs. Hopkins and the Wall of China.

  And is there then no earthly place,

  Where we can rest in dream Elysian,

  Without some curst, round English face,

  Popping up near to break the vision?

  Mid northern lakes, mid southern vines,

  Unholy cits we’re doomed to meet;

  Nor highest Alps nor Apennines

  Are sacred from Threadneedle Street!

  If up the Simplon’s path we wind,

  Fancying we leave this world behind,

  Such pleasant sounds salute one’s ear

  As— “Baddish news from ’Change, my dear —

  “The funds — (phew I curse this ugly hill) —

  “Are lowering fast — (what, higher still?) —

  “And — (zooks, we’re mounting up to heaven!) —

  “Will soon be down to sixty-seven.”

  Go where we may — rest where we will.

  Eternal London haunts us still.

  The trash of Almack’s or Fleet Ditch —

  And scarce a pin’s head difference which —

  Mixes, tho’ even to Greece we run,

  With every rill from Helicon!

  And if this rage for travelling lasts,

  If Cockneys of all sects and castes,

  Old maidens, aldermen, and squires,

  Will leave their puddings and coal fires,

  To gape at things in foreign lands

  No soul among them understands;

  If Blues desert their coteries,

  To show off ‘mong the Wahabees;

  If neither sex nor age controls,

  Nor fear of Mamelukes forbids

  Young ladies with pink parasols

  To glide among the Pyramids —

  Why, then, farewell all hope to find

  A spot that’s free from London-kind!

  Who knows, if to the West we roam,

  But we may find some Blue “at home”

  Among the Blacks of Carolina —

  Or flying to the Eastward see

  Some Mrs. HOPKINS taking tea

  And toast upon the Wall of China!

  EXTRACT X.

  Mantua.

  Verses of Hippolyta to her Husband.

  They tell me thou’rt the favored guest

  Of every fair and brilliant throng;

  No wit like thine to wake the jest,

  No voice like thine to breathe the song.

  And none could guess, so gay thou art,

  That thou and I are far apart.

  Alas, alas! how different flows,

  With thee and me the time away!

  Not that I wish thee sad, heaven knows —

  Still if thou canst, be light and gay;

  I only know that without thee

  The sun himself is dark for me.

  Do I put on the jewels rare

  Thou’st always loved to see me wear?

  Do I perfume the locks that thou

  So oft hast braided o’er my brow,

  Thus deckt thro’ festive crowds to run,

  And all the assembled world to see, —

  All but the one, the absent one,

  Worth more than present worlds to me!

  No, nothing cheers this widowed heart —

  My only joy from thee apart,

  From thee thyself, is sitting hours

  And days before thy pictured form —

  That dream of thee, which Raphael’s powers

  Have made with all but life-breath warm!

  And as I smile to it, and say

  The words I speak to thee in play,

  I fancy from their silent frame,

  Those eyes and lips give back the same:

  And still I gaze, and still they keep

  Smiling thus on me — till I weep!

  Our little boy too knows it well,

  For there I lead him every day

  And teach his lisping lips to tell

  The name of one that’s far away.

  Forgive me, love, but thus alone

  My time is cheered while thou art gone.

  EXTRACT XI.

  Florence.

  No— ’tis not the region where Love’s to be found —

  They have bosoms that sigh, they have glances that rove,

  They have language a Sappho’s own lip might resound,

  When she warbled her best — but they’ve nothing like Love.

  Nor is’t that pure sentiment only they want,

  Which Heaven for the mild and the tranquil hath made —

  Calm, wedded affection, that home-rooted plant

  Which sweetens seclusion and smiles in the shade;

  That feeling which, after long years have gone by,

  Remains like a portrait we’ve sat for in youth,

  Where, even tho’ the flush of the colors may fly,

  The features still live in their first smiling truth;

  That union where all that in Woman is kind,

  With all that in Man most ennoblingly towers,

  Grow wreathed into one — like the column, combined

  Of the strength of the shaft and the capital’s flowers.

  Of this — bear ye witness, ye wives, everywhere,

  By the ARNO, the PO, by all ITALY’S streams —

  Of this heart-wedded love, so delicious to share,

  Not a husband hath even one glimpse in his dreams.

  But it is not this only; — born full of the light

  Of a sun from whose fount the luxuriant festoons

  Of these beautiful valleys drink lustre so bright

  That beside him our suns of the north are but moons, —

  We might fancy at least, like their climate they burned;

  And that Love tho’ unused in this region of spring

  To be thus to a tame Household Deity turned,

  Would yet be all soul when abroad on the wing.

  And there may be, there are those explosions of heart

  Which burst when the senses have first caught the flame;

  Such fits of the blood as those climates impart,

  Where Love is a sun-stroke that maddens the frame.

  But that Passion which springs in the depth of the soul;

  Whose beginnings are virginly pure as the source

  Of some small mountain rivulet destined to roll

&
nbsp; As a torrent ere long, losing peace in its course —

  A course to which Modesty’s struggle but lends

  A more headlong descent without chance of recall;

  But which Modesty even to the last edge attends,

  And then throws a halo of tears round its fall!

  This exquisite Passion — ay, exquisite, even

  Mid the ruin its madness too often hath made,

  As it keeps even then a bright trace of the heaven,

  That heaven of Virtue from which it has strayed —

  This entireness of love which can only be found,

  Where Woman like something that’s holy, watched over,

  And fenced from her childhood with purity round,

  Comes body and soul fresh as Spring to a lover!

  Where not an eye answers, where not a hand presses,

  Till spirit with spirit in sympathy move;

  And the Senses asleep in their sacred recesses

  Can only be reached thro’ the temple of Love! —

  This perfection of Passion-how can it be found,

  Where the mystery Nature hath hung round the tie

  By which souls are together attracted and bound,

  Is laid open for ever to heart,

  ear and eye; —

  Where naught of that innocent doubt can exist,

  That ignorance even than knowledge more bright,

  Which circles the young like the morn’s sunny mist,

  And curtains them round in their own native light; —

  Where Experience leaves nothing for Love to reveal,

  Or for Fancy in visions to gleam o’er the thought:

  But the truths which alone we would die to conceal

  From the maiden’s young heart are the only ones taught.

  No, no, ’tis not here, howsoever we sigh,

  Whether purely to Hymen’s one planet we pray,

  Or adore, like Sabaeans, each light of Love’s sky,

  Here is not the region to fix or to stray.

  For faithless in wedlock, in gallantry gross,

  Without honor to guard, to reserve, to restrain,

  What have they a husband can mourn as a loss?

  What have they a lover can prize as a gain?

  EXTRACT XII.

  Florence.

  Music in Italy. — Disappointed by it. — Recollections or other Times and Friends. — Dalton. — Sir John Stevenson. — His Daughter. — Musical Evenings together.

  If it be true that Music reigns,

  Supreme, in ITALY’S soft shades,

  ’Tis like that Harmony so famous,

  Among the spheres, which He of SAMOS

  Declared had such transcendent merit

  That not a soul on earth could hear it;

  For, far as I have come — from Lakes,

  Whose sleep the Tramontana breaks,

  Thro’ MILAN and that land which gave

  The Hero of the rainbow vest1 —

  By MINCIO’S banks, and by that wave,

  Which made VERONA’S bard so blest —

  Places that (like the Attic shore,

  Which rung back music when the sea

  Struck on its marge) should be all o’er

  Thrilling alive with melody —

  I’ve heard no music — not a note

  Of such sweet native airs as float

  In my own land among the throng

  And speak our nation’s soul for song.

  Nay, even in higher walks, where Art

  Performs, as ‘twere, the gardener’s part,

  And richer if not sweeter makes

  The flowers she from the wild-hedge takes —

  Even there, no voice hath charmed my ear,

  No taste hath won my perfect praise,

  Like thine, dear friend2 — long, truly dear —

  Thine, and thy loved OLIVIA’S lays.

  She, always beautiful, and growing

  Still more so every note she sings —

  Like an inspired young Sibyl,3 glowing

  With her own bright imaginings!

  And thou, most worthy to be tied

  In music to her, as in love,

  Breathing that language by her side,

  All other language far above,

  Eloquent Song — whose tones and words

  In every heart find answering chords!

  How happy once the hours we past,

  Singing or listening all daylong,

  Till Time itself seemed changed at last

  To music, and we lived in song!

  Turning the leaves of HAYDN o’er,

  As quick beneath her master hand

  They opened all their brilliant store,

  Like chambers, touched by fairy wand;

  Or o’er the page of MOZART bending,

  Now by his airy warblings cheered,

  Now in his mournful Requiem blending

  Voices thro’ which the heart was heard.

  And still, to lead our evening choir,

  Was He invoked, thy loved-one’s Sire4 —

  He who if aught of grace there be

  In the wild notes I write or sing,

  First smoothed their links of harmony,

  And lent them charms they did not bring; —

  He, of the gentlest, simplest heart,

  With whom, employed in his sweet art,

  (That art which gives this world of ours

  A notion how they speak in heaven.)

  I’ve past more bright and charmed hours

  Than all earth’s wisdom could have given.

  Oh happy days, oh early friends,

  How Life since then hath lost its flowers!

  But yet — tho’ Time some foliage rends,

  The stem, the Friendship, still is ours;

  And long may it endure, as green

  And fresh as it hath always been!

  How I have wandered from my theme!

  But where is he, that could return

  To such cold subjects from a dream,

  Thro’ which these best of feelings burn? —

  Not all the works of Science, Art,

  Or Genius in this world are worth

  One genuine sigh that from the heart

  Friendship or Love draws freshly forth.

  1 Bermago — the birthplace, it is said, of Harlequin.

  2 Edward Tuite Dalton, the first husband of Sir John Stevenson’s daughter, the late Marchioness of Headfort.

  3 Such as those of Domenichino in the Palazza Borghese, at the Capitol, etc.

  4 Sir John Stevenson.

  EXTRACT XIII.

  Rome.

  Reflections on reading Du Cerceau’s Account of the Conspiracy of Rienzi, in 1347. — The Meeting of the Conspirators on the Night of the 19th of May. — Their Procession in the Morning to the Capitol. — Rienzi’s Speech.

  ’Twas a proud moment — even to hear the words

  Of Truth and Freedom mid these temples breathed,

  And see once more the Forum shine with swords

  In the Republic’s sacred name unsheathed —

  That glimpse, that vision of a brighter day

  For his dear ROME, must to a Roman be,

  Short as it was, worth ages past away

  In the dull lapse of hopeless slavery.

  ’Twas on a night of May, beneath that moon

  Which had thro’ many an age seen Time untune

  The strings of this Great Empire, till it fell

  From his rude hands, a broken, silent shell —

  The sound of the church clock near ADRIAN’S Tomb

  Summoned the warriors who had risen for ROME,

  To meet unarmed, — with none to watch them there,

  But God’s own eye, — and pass the night in prayer.

  Holy beginning of a holy cause,

  When heroes girt for Freedom’s combat pause

  Before high Heaven, and humble in their might

  Call down its blessing
on that coming fight.

  At dawn, in arms went forth the patriot band;

  And as the breeze, fresh from the TIBER, fanned

  Their gilded gonfalons, all eyes could see

  The palm-tree there, the sword, the keys of Heaven —

  Types of the justice, peace and liberty,

  That were to bless them when their chains were riven.

  On to the Capitol the pageant moved,

  While many a Shade of other times, that still

  Around that grave of grandeur sighing roved,

  Hung o’er their footsteps up the Sacred Hill

  And heard its mournful echoes as the last

  High-minded heirs of the Republic past.

  ’Twas then that thou, their Tribune,1 (name which brought

  Dreams of lost glory to each patriot’s thought,)

  Didst, with a spirit Rome in vain shall seek

  To wake up in her sons again, thus speak: —

  “ROMANS, look round you — on this sacred place

  “There once stood shrines and gods and godlike men.

  “What see you now? what solitary trace

  “Is left of all that made ROME’S glory then?

  “The shrines are sunk, the Sacred Mount bereft

  “Even of its name — and nothing now remains

  “But the deep memory of that glory, left

  “To whet our pangs and aggravate our chains!

  “But shall this be? — our sun and sky the same, —

  “Treading the very soil our fathers trod, —

  “What withering curse hath fallen on soul and frame,

  “What visitation hath there come from God

  “To blast our strength and rot us into slaves,

  “Here on our great forefathers’ glorious graves?

  “It cannot be — rise up, ye Mighty Dead, —

  “If we, the living, are too weak to crush

  “These tyrant priests that o’er your empire tread,

  “Till all but Romans at Rome’s tameness blush!

  “Happy, PALMYRA, in thy desert domes

  “Where only date-trees sigh and serpents hiss;

  “And thou whose pillars are but silent homes

  “For the stork’s brood, superb PERSEPOLIS!

  “Thrice happy both, that your extinguisht race

  “Have left no embers — no half-living trace —

  “No slaves to crawl around the once proud spot,

  “Till past renown in present shame’s forgot.

  “While ROME, the Queen of all, whose very wrecks,

  “If lone and lifeless thro’ a desert hurled,

  “Would wear more true magnificence than decks

  “The assembled thrones of all the existing world —