MOORE.

1875.

A hundred years their various course have run,Since Erin's arms received her noblest son,And years unnumbered must in turn departEre Erin fails to fold him to her heart.He is our boast, our glory, and our pride,For us he lived, fought, suffered, dared, and died;Struck off the shackles from each fettered limb,And all we have of best we owe to him.If some cathedral, exquisitely fair,Lifts its tall turrets through the wondering air,Though art or skill its separate offering brings,'Tis from O'Connell's heart the structure springs.If through this city on these festive days,Halls, streets, and squares are bright with civic blazeOf glittering chains, white wands, and flowing gowns,The red-robed senates of a hundred towns,Whatever rank each special spot may claim,'Tis from O'Connell's hand their charters came.If in the rising hopes of recent yearsA mighty sound reverberates on our ears,And myriad voices in one cry uniteFor restoration of a ravished right,'Tis the great echo of that thunder blast,On Tara pealed or mightier Mullaghmast,If arts and letters are more widely spread,A Nile o'erflowing from its fertile bed,Spreading the rich alluvium whence are givenHarvests for earth and amaranth flowers for heaven;If Science still, in not unholy walls,Sets its high chair, and dares unchartered halls,And still ascending, ever heavenward soars,While capped Exclusion slowly opes it doors,It is his breath that speeds the spreading tide,It is his hand the long-locked door throws wide.Where'er we turn the same effect we find--O'Connell's voice still speaks his country's mind.Therefore we gather to his birthday feastPrelate and peer, the people and the priest;Therefore we come, in one united band,To hail in him the hero of the land,To bless his memory, and with loud acclaimTo all the winds, on all the wings of fameWaft to the listening world the great O'Connell's name.

MOORE.MAY28TH, 1879.

Joy to Ierné, joy,This day a deathless crown is won,Her child of song, her glorious son,Her minstrel boyAttains his century of fame,Completes his time-allotted zone,And proudly with the world's acclaimAscends the lyric throne.Yes, joy to her whose path so long,Slow journeying to her realm of restO'er many a rugged mountain's crest,He charmed with his enchanting song:Like his own princess in the tale,When he who had her way beguiledThrough many a bleak and desert wildUntil she reached Cashmere's bright valeHad ceased those notes to play and singTo which her heart responsive swelled,She looking up, in him beheldHer minstrel lover and her king;--So Erin now, her journey well-nigh o'er,Enraptured sees her minstrel king in Moore.And round that throne whose light to-dayO'er all the world is cast,In words though weak, in hues though faint,Congenial fancy rise and paintThe spirits of the pastWho here their homage pay--Those who his youthful muse inspired,Those who his early genius firedTo emulate their lay:And as in some phantasmal glassLet the immortal spirits pass,Let each renew the inspiring strain,And fire the poet's soul again.First there comes from classic Greece,Beaming love and breathing peace,With her pure, sweet smiling face,The glory of the Æolian race,Beauteous Sappho, violet-crowned,Shedding joy and rapture round:In her hand a harp she bears,Parent of celestial airs,Love leaps trembling from each wire,Every chord a string of fire:--How the poet's heart doth beat,How his lips the notes repeat,Till in rapture borne along,The Sapphic lute, the lyrist's song,Blend in one delicious strain,Never to divide again.And beside the Æolian queenGreat Alcæus' form is seen:He takes up in voice more strongThe dying cadence of the song,And on loud resounding stringsHurls his wrath on tyrant kings:--Like to incandescent coalOn the poet's kindred soulFall these words of living flame,Till their songs become the same,--The same hate of slavery's night,The same love of freedom's light,Scorning aught that stops its way,Come the black cloud whence it may,Lift alike the inspirèd song,And the liquid notes prolong.Carolling a livelier measureComes the Teian bard of pleasure,Round his brow where joy reposesRadiant love enwreaths his roses,Rapture in his verse is ringing,Soft persuasion in his singing:--'Twas the same melodious dittyMoved Polycrates to pity,Made that tyrant heart surrenderCaptive to a tone so tender:To the younger bard inclining,Round his brow the roses twining,First the wreath in red wine steeping,He his cithern to his keepingYields, its glorious fate foreseeing,From her chains a nation freeing,Fetters new around it flingingIn the flowers of his own singing.But who is this that from the misty cloudOf immemorial years,Wrapped in the vesture of his vaporous shroudWith solemn steps appears?His head with oak-leaves and with ivy crownedLets fall its silken snow,While the white billows of his beard unboundAthwart his bosom flow:Who is this venerable formWhose hands, prelusive of the stormAcross his harp-strings play--That harp which, trembling in his hand,Impatient waits its lord's commandTo pour the impassioned lay?Who is it comes with reverential hailTo greet the bard who sang his country best'Tis Ossian--primal poet of the Gael--The Homer of the West.He sings the heroic tales of oldWhen Ireland yet was free,Of many a fight and foray bold,And raid beyond the sea.Of all the famous deeds of Fin,And all the wiles of Mave,Now thunders 'mid the battle's din,Now sobs beside the wave.That wave empurpled by the swordThe hero used too well,When great Cuchullin held the ford,And fair Ferdiah fell.And now his prophet eye is castAs o'er a boundless plain;He sees the future as the past,And blends them in his strain.The Red-Branch Knights their flags unfoldWhen danger's front appears,The sunburst breaks through clouds of goldTo glorify their spears.But, ah! a darker hour drew nigh,The hour of Erin's woe,When she, though destined not to die,Lay prostrate 'neath the foe.When broke were all the arms she bore,And bravely bore in vain,Till even her harp could sound no moreBeneath the victor's chain.Ah! dire constraint, ah! cruel wrong,To fetter thus its chord,But well they knew that Ireland's songWas keener than her sword.That song would pierce where swords would fail,And o'er the battle's din,The sweet, sad music of the GaelA peaceful victory win.Long was the trance, but sweet and lowThe harp breathed out againIts speechless wail, its wordless woe,In Carolan's witching strain.Until at last the gift of wordsDenied to it so long,Poured o'er the now enfranchised chordsThe articulate light of song.Poured the bright light from genius won,That woke the harp's wild lays;Even as that statue which the sunMade vocal with his rays.Thus Ossian in disparted dreamOutpoured the varied lay,But now in one united streamHis rapture finds its way:--"Yes, in thy hands, illustrious son,The harp shall speak once more,Its sweet lament shall rippling runFrom listening shore to shore.Till mighty lands that lie unknownFar in the fabled west,And giant isles of verdure thrownUpon the South Sea's breast.And plains where rushing rivers flow--Fit emblems of the free--Shall learn to know of Ireland's woe,And Ireland's weal through thee."'Twas thus he sang,And while tumultuous plaudits rangFrom the immortal throng,In the younger minstrel's handHe placed the emblem of the land--The harp of Irish song.Oh! what dulcet notes are heard.Never birdSoaring through the sunny airLike a prayerBorne by angel's hands on highSo entranced the listening skyAs his song--Soft, pathetic, joyous, strong,Rising now in rapid flightOut of sightLike a lark in its own light,Now descending low and sweetTo our feet,Till the odours of the grassWith the light notes as they passBlend and meet:All that Erin's memory guardsIn her heart,Deeds of heroes, songs of bards,Have their part.Brian's glories reappear,Fionualla's song we hear,Tara's walls resound againWith a more inspirèd strain,Rival rivers meet and join,Stately Shannon blends with Boyne;While on high the storm-winds ceaseHeralding the arch of peace.And all the bright creations fairThat 'neath his master-hand awake,Some in tears and some in smiles,Like Nea in the summer isles,Or Kathleen by the lonely lake,Round his radiant throne repair:Nay, his own Peri of the airNow no more disconsolate,Gives in at Fame's celestial gateHis passport to the skies--The gift to heaven most dear,His country's tear.From every lip the glad refrain doth rise,"Joy, ever joy, his glorious task is done,The gates are passed and Fame's bright heaven is won!"Ah! yes, the work, the glorious work is done,And Erin crowns to-day her brightest son,Around his brow entwines the victor bay,And lives herself immortal in his lay--Leads him with honour to her highest place,For he had borne his more than mother's nameProudly along the Olympic lists of fameWhen mighty athletes struggled in the race.Byron, the swift-souled spirit, in his pridePaused to cheer on the rival by his side,And Lycidas, so longLost in the light of his own dazzling song,Although himself unseen,Gave the bright wreath that might his own have beenTo him whom 'mid the mountain shepherd throng,The minstrels of the isles,When Adonais died so fair and young,Ierné sent from out her green defiles"The sweetest lyrist of her saddest wrong,And love taught grief to fall like music from his tongue."And he who sang of Poland's kindred woes,And Hope's delicious dream,And all the mighty minstrels who aroseIn that auroral gleamThat o'er our age a blaze of glory threwWhich Shakspere's only knew--Some from their hidden haunts remote,Like him the lonely hermit of the hills,Whose song like some great organ noteThe whole horizon fills.Or the great Master, he whose magic hand,Wielding the wand from which such wonder flows,Transformed the lineaments of a rugged land,And left the thistle lovely as the rose.Oh! in a concert of such minstrelsy,In such a glorious company,What pride for Ireland's harp to sound,For Ireland's son to share,What pride to see him glory-crowned,And hear amid the dazzling gleamUpon the rapt and ravished airHer harp still sound supreme!Glory to Moore, eternal be the gloryThat here we crown and consecrate to-day,Glory to Moore, for he has sung our storyIn strains whose sweetness ne'er can pass away.Glory to Moore, for he has sighed our sorrowIn such a wail of melody divine,That even from grief a passing joy we borrow,And linger long o'er each lamenting line.Glory to Moore, that in his songs of gladnessWhich neither change nor time can e'er destroy,Though mingled oft with some faint sigh of sadness,He sings his country's rapture and its joy.What wit like his flings out electric flashesThat make the numbers sparkle as they run:Wit that revives dull history's Dead-sea ashes,And makes the ripe fruit glisten in the sun?What fancy full of loveliness and lightnessHas spread like his as at some dazzling feast,The fruits and flowers, the beauty and the brightness,And all the golden glories of the East?Perpetual blooms his bower of summer roses,No winter comes to turn his green leaves sere,Beside his song-stream where the swan reposesThe bulbul sings as by the Bendemeer.But back returning from his flight with Peris,Above his native fields he sings his best,Like to the lark whose rapture never wearies,When poised in air he singeth o'er his nest.And so we rank him with the great departed,The kings of song who rule us from their urns,The souls inspired, the natures noble hearted,And place him proudly by the side of Burns.And as not only by the Calton Mountain,Is Scotland's bard remembered and revered,But whereso'er, like some o'erflowing fountain,Its hardy race a prosperous path has cleared.There 'mid the roar of newly-rising cities,His glorious name is heard on every tongue,There to the music of immortal ditties,His lays of love, his patriot songs are sung.So not alone beside that bay of beautyThat guards the portals of his native townWhere like two watchful sentinels on duty,Howth and Killiney from their heights look down.But wheresoe'er the exiled race hath drifted,By what far sea, what mighty stream beside,There shall to-day the poet's name be lifted,And Moore proclaimed its glory and its pride:There shall his name be held in fond memento,There shall his songs resound for evermore,Whether beside the golden Sacramento,Or where Niagara's thunder shakes the shore.For all that's bright indeed must fade and perish,And all that's sweet when sweetest not endure,Before the world shall cease to love and cherishThe wit and song, the name and fame of MOORE.

Miscellaneous Poems.THE SPIRIT OF THE SNOW.

The night brings forth the morn--Of the cloud is lightning born;From out the darkest earth the brightest roses grow.Bright sparks from black flints fly,And from out a leaden skyComes the silvery-footed Spirit of the Snow.The wondering air grows mute,As her pearly parachuteCometh slowly down from heaven, softly floating to and fro;And the earth emits no sound,As lightly on the groundLeaps the silvery-footed Spirit of the Snow.At the contact of her tread,The mountain's festal head,As with chaplets of white roses, seems to glow;And its furrowed cheek grows whiteWith a feeling of delight,At the presence of the Spirit of the Snow.As she wendeth to the vale,The longing fields grow pale--The tiny streams that vein them cease to flow;And the river stays its tideWith wonder and with pride,To gaze upon the Spirit of the Snow.But little doth she deemThe love of field or stream--She is frolicsome and lightsome as the roe;She is here and she is there,On the earth or in the air,Ever changing, floats the Spirit of the Snow.Now a daring climber, sheMounts the tallest forest tree--Out along the giddy branches doth she go;And her tassels, silver-white,Down swinging through the night,Mark the pillow of the Spirit of the Snow.Now she climbs the mighty mast,When the sailor boy at lastDreams of home in his hammock down belowThere she watches in his steadTill the morning sun shines red,Then evanishes the Spirit of the Snow.Or crowning with white fire.The minster's topmost spireWith a glory such as sainted foreheads show;She teaches fanes are givenThus to lift the heart to heaven,There to melt like the Spirit of the Snow.Now above the loaded wain,Now beneath the thundering train,Doth she hear the sweet bells tinkle and the snorting engine blow;Now she flutters on the breeze,Till the branches of the treesCatch the tossed and tangled tresses of the Spirit of the Snow.Now an infant's balmy breathGives the spirit seeming death,When adown her pallid features fair Decay's damp dew-drops flow;Now again her strong assaultCan make an army halt,And trench itself in terror 'gainst the Spirit of the Snow.At times with gentle power,In visiting some bower,She scarce will hide the holly's red, the blackness of the sloe;But, ah! her awful might,When down some Alpine heightThe hapless hamlet sinks before the Spirit of the Snow.On a feather she floats downThe turbid rivers brown,Down to meet the drifting navies of the winter-freighted floe;Then swift o'er the azure wallsOf the awful waterfalls,Where Niagara leaps roaring, glides the Spirit of the Snow.With her flag of truce unfurled,She makes peace o'er all the world--Makes bloody battle cease awhile, and war's unpitying woe;Till, its hollow womb within,The deep dark-mouthed culverinEncloses, like a cradled child, the Spirit of the Snow.She uses in her needThe fleetly-flying steed--Now tries the rapid reindeer's strength, and now the camel slow;Or, ere defiled by earth,Unto her place of birth,Returns upon the eagle's wing the Spirit of the Snow.Oft with pallid figure bowed,Like the Banshee in her shroud,Doth the moon her spectral shadow o'er some silent gravestone throw;Then moans the fitful wail,And the wanderer grows pale,Till at morning fades the phantom of the Spirit of the Snow.In her ermine cloak of stateShe sitteth at the gateOf some winter-prisoned princess in her palace by the Po;Who dares not to come forthTill back unto the NorthFlies the beautiful besieger--the Spirit of the Snow.In her spotless linen hood,Like the other sisterhood,She braves the open cloister when the psalm sounds sweet and low;When some sister's bier doth passFrom the minster and the Mass,Soon to sink into the earth, like the Spirit of the Snow.But at times so full of joy,She will play with girl and boy,Fly from out their tingling fingers, like white fireballs on the foe;She will burst in feathery flakes,And the ruin that she makesWill but wake the crackling laughter of the Spirit of the Snow.Or in furry mantle drest,She will fondle on her breastThe embryo buds awaiting the near Spring's mysterious throe;So fondly that the firstOf the blossoms that outburstWill be called the beauteous daughter of the Spirit of the Snow.Ah! would that we were sureOf hearts so warmly pure,In all the winter weather that this lesser life must know;That when shines the Sun of LoveFrom the warmer realm above,In its light we may dissolve, like the Spirit of the Snow.

TO THE BAY OF DUBLIN.

My native Bay, for many a yearI've lov'd thee with a trembling fear,Lest thou, though dear and very dear,And beauteous as a vision,Shouldst have some rival far away,Some matchless wonder of a bay,Whose sparkling waters ever play'Neath azure skies elysian.'Tis Love, methought, blind Love that poursThe rippling magic round these shores,For whatsoever Love adoresBecomes what Love desireth:'Tis ignorance of aught besideThat throws enchantment o'er the tide,And makes my heart respond with prideTo what mine eye admireth,And thus, unto our mutual loss,Whene'er I paced the sloping mossOf green Killiney, or acrossThe intervening waters,Up Howth's brown sides my feet would wend,To see thy sinuous bosom bend,Or view thine outstretch'd arms extendTo clasp thine islet daughters;Then would this spectre of my fearBeside me stand--How calm and clearSlept underneath, the green waves, nearThe tide-worn rocks' recesses;Or when they woke, and leapt from land,Like startled sea-nymphs, hand-in-hand,Seeking the southern silver strandWith floating emerald tresses:It lay o'er all, a moral mist,Even on the hills, when evening kissedThe granite peaks to amethyst,I felt its fatal shadow:It darkened o'er the brightest rills,It lowered upon the sunniest hills,And hid the wingèd song that fillsThe moorland and the meadow.But now that I have been to viewAll even Nature's self can do,And from Gaeta's arch of blueBorne many a fond memento;And from each fair and famous scene,Where Beauty is, and Power hath been,Along the golden shores betweenMisenum and Sorrento:I can look proudly in thy face,Fair daughter of a hardier race,And feel thy winning well-known grace,Without my old misgiving;And as I kneel upon thy strand,And kiss thy once unvalued hand,Proclaim earth holds no lovelier land,Where life is worth the living.

TO ETHNA.

First loved, last loved, best loved of all I've loved!Ethna, my boyhood's dream, my manhood's light,Pure angel spirit, in whose light I've moved,Full many a year, along life's darksome night!Thou wert my star, serenely shining brightBeyond youth's passing clouds and mists obscureThou wert the power that kept my spirit white,My soul unsoiled, my heart untouched and pure.Thine was the light from heaven that ever must endure.Purest, and best, and brightest, no mishap,No chance, or change can break our mutual ties;My heart lies spread before thee like a map,Here roll the tides, and there the mountains rise;Here dangers frown and there hope's streamlet flies,And golden promontories cleave the main:And I have looked into thy lustrous eyes,And saw the thought thou couldst not all restrain,A sweet, soft, sympathetic pity for my pain!Dearest, and best, I dedicate to thee,From this hour forth, my hopes, my dreams, my cares,All that I am, and all I e'er may be,Youth's clustering locks, and age's thin white hairs;Thou by my side, fair vision, unawares--Sweet saint--shalt guard me as with angel's wings;To thee shall rise the morning's hopeful prayers,The evening hymns, the thoughts that midnight brings,The worship that like fire out of the warm heart springs.Thou wilt be with me through the struggling day,Thou wilt be with me through the pensive night,Thou wilt be with me, though far, far awaySome sad mischance may snatch you from my sight,In grief, in pain, in gladness, in delight,In every thought thy form shall bear a part,In every dream thy memory shall unite,Bride of my soul! and partner of my heart!Till from the dreadful bow flieth the fatal dart!Am I deceived? and do I pine and faintFor worth that only dwells in heaven above,And if thou'rt not the Ethna that I paint,Then thou art not the Ethna that I love;If thou art not as gentle as the dove,And good as thou art beautiful, the toothOf venomed serpent will not deadlier proveThan that dark revelation; but in sooth,Ethna, I wrong thee, dearest, for thy name is TRUTH.

"NOT KNOWN."On receiving through the Post-Office a Returned Letter from an old residence, marked on the envelope, "Not Known."

On receiving through the Post-Office a Returned Letter from an old residence, marked on the envelope, "Not Known."

A beauteous summer-home had IAs e'er a bard set eyes on--A glorious sweep of sea and sky,Near hills and far horizon.Like Naples was the lovely bay,The lovely hill like Rio--And there I lived for many a dayIn Campo de Estío.It seemed as if the magic sceneNo human skill had planted;The trees remained for ever green,As if they were enchanted:And so I said to Sweetest-eyes,My dear, I think thatweoweTo fairy hands this paradiseOf Campo de Estío.How swiftly flew the hours away!I read and rhymed and revelled;In interchange of work and play,I built, and drained, and levelled;"The Pope," so "happy," days gone by(Unlike our ninth Pope Pio),Was far less happy then than IIn Campo de Estío.For children grew in that sweet place,As in the grape wine gathers--Their mother's eyes in each bright face,In each light heart, their father's:Their father, who by some was thoughtA literaryleo,Ne'er dreamed he'd be so soon forgotIn Campo de Estío.But so it was:--Of hope bereft,A year had scarce gone over,Since he that sweetest place had left,And gone--we'll say--to Dover,When letters came where he had flown.Returned him from the "P. O.,"On which was writ, O Heavens! "NOT KNOWNIN CAMPO DE ESTIO!""Not known" where he had lived so long,A "cintra" home created,Where scarce a shrub that now is strongBut had its place debated;Where scarce a flower that now is shown,But showshiscare: O Dio!And now to be described, "Not knownIn Campo de Estío."That pillar from the Causeway brought--This fern from Connemara--That pine so long and widely sought--This Cedrus deodara--That bust (if Shakespeare's doth survive,And busts had brains andbrio),Might keep his name at least aliveIn Campo de Estío.When Homer went from place to place,The glorious siege reciting(Of course I presuppose the caseOf reading and of writing),I've little doubt the Bard divineHis letters got from Scio,Inscribed "Not known," Ah! me, like mineFrom Campo de Estío.The poet, howsoe'er inspired,Must brave neglect and danger;When Philip Massinger expired,The death-list said "a stranger!"A stranger! yes, on earth, but letThe poet singlaus Deo!--Heaven's glorious summer waits him yet--God's "Campo de Estío."

THE LAY MISSIONER.

Had I a wish--'twere this, that heaven would makeMy heart as strong to imitate as love,That half its weakness it could leave, and takeSome spirit's strength, by which to soar above,A lordly eagle mated with a dove.Strong-will and warm affection, these be mine;Without the one no dreams has fancy wove,Without the other soon these dreams decline,Weak children of the heart, which fade away and pine!Strong have I been in love, if not in will;Affections crowd and people all the past,And now, even now, they come and haunt me still,Even from the graves where once my hopes were cast.But not with spectral features--all aghast--Come they to fright me; no, with smiles and tears,And winding arms, and breasts that beat as fastAs once they beat in boyhood's opening years,Come the departed shades, whose steps my rapt soul hears.Youth has passed by, its first warm flush is o'er,And now, 'tis nearly noon; yet unsubduedMy heart still kneels and worships, as of yore,Those twin-fair shapes, the Beautiful and Good!Valley and mountain, sky and stream, and wood,And that fair miracle, the human face,And human nature in its sunniest mood,Freed from the shade of all things low and base,--These in my heart still hold their old accustom'd place.'Tis not with pride, but gratitude, I tellHow beats my heart with all its youthful glow,How one kind act doth make my bosom swell,And down my cheeks the sweet, warm, glad tears flow.Enough of self, enough of me you know,Kind reader, but if thou wouldst further wend,With me, this wilderness of weak words thro',Let me depict, before the journey end,One whom methinks thou'lt love, my brother and my friend.Ah! wondrous is the lot of him who standsA Christian Priest, with a Christian fane,And binds with pure and consecrated hands,Round earth and heaven, a festal, flower chain;Even as between the blue arch and the main,A circling western ring of golden lightWeds the two worlds, or as the sunny rainOf April makes the cloud and clay unite,Thus links the Priest of God the dark world and the bright.All are not priests, yet priestly duties mayAnd should be all men's: as a common sightWe view the brightness of a summer's day,And think 'tis but its duty to be bright;But should a genial beam of warming lightSuddenly break from out a wintry sky,With gratitude we own a new delight,Quick beats the heart and brighter beams the eye,And as a boon we hail the splendour from on high.'Tis so with men, with those of them at leastWhose hearts by icy doubts are chill'd and torn;They think the virtues of a Christian PriestSomething professional, put on and wornEven as the vestments of a Sabbath morn:But should a friend or act or teach as he,Then is the mind of all its doubting shorn,The unexpected goodness that they seeTakes root, and bears its fruit, as uncoerced and free!One I have known, and haply yet I know,A youth by baser passions undefiled,Lit by the light of genius and the glowWhich real feeling leaves where once it smiled;Firm as a man, yet tender as a child;Armed at all points by fantasy and thought,To face the true or soar amid the wild;By love and labour, as a good man ought,Ready to pay the price by which dear truth is bought!'Tis not with cold advice or stern rebuke,With formal precept, or wit face demure,But with the unconscious eloquence of look,Where shines the heart so loving and so pure:'Tis these, with constant goodness, that allureAll hearts to love and imitate his worth.Beside him weaker natures feel secure,Even as the flower beside the oak peeps forth,Safe, though the rain descends, and blows the biting North!Such is my friend, and such I fain would be,Mild, thoughtful, modest, faithful, loving, gay,Correct, not cold, nor uncontroll'd though free,But proof to all the lures that round us play,Even as the sun, that on his azure wayMoveth with steady pace and lofty mien,Though blushing clouds, like syrens, woo his stay,Higher and higher through the pure serene,Till comes the calm of eve and wraps him from the scene.

THE SPIRIT OF THE IDEAL.

Sweet sister spirits, ye whose starlight tressesStream on the night-winds as ye float along,Missioned with hope to man--and with caressesTo slumbering babes--refreshment to the strong--And grace the sensuous soul that it's arrayed in:As the light burden of melodious songWeighs down a poet's words;--as an o'erladenLily doth bend beneath its own pure snow;Or with its joy, the free heart of a maiden:--Thus, I behold your outstretched pinions growHeavy with all the priceless gifts and gracesGod through thy ministration doth bestow.Do ye not plant the rose on youthful faces?And rob the heavens of stars for Beauty's eyes?Do ye not fold within love's pure embracesAll that Omnipotence doth yet deviseFor human bliss, or rapture superhuman--Heaven upon earth, and earth still in the skies?Do ye not sow the fruitful heart of womanWith tenderest charities and faith sincere,To feed man's sterile soul and to illumineHis duller eyes, that else might settle here,With the bright promise of a purer region--A starlight beacon to a starry sphere?Are they not all thy children, that bright legion--Of aspirations, and all hopeful sighsThat in the solemn train of grave ReligionStrew heavenly flowers before man's longing eyes,And make him feel, as o'er life's sea he wendeth,The far-off odorous airs of Paradise?--Like to the breeze some flowery island sendethUnto the seaman, ere its bowers are seen,Which tells him soon his weary wandering endeth--Soon shall he rest, in bosky shades of green,By daisied meadows prankt with dewy flowers,With ever-running rivulets between.These are thy tasks, my sisters--these the powersGod in his goodness gives into thy hands:--'Tis from thy fingers fall the diamond showersOf budding Spring, and o'er the expectant landsJune's odorous purple and rich Autumn's gold:And even when needful Winter wide expandsHis fallow wings, and winds blow sharp and coldFrom the harsh east, 'tis thine, o'er all the plain,The leafless woodlands and the unsheltered wold,Gently to drop the flakes of feathery rain--Heaven's warmest down--around the slumbering seeds,And o'er the roots the frost-blanched counterpane.What though man's careless eye but little heedsEven the effects, much less the remoter cause,Still, in the doing of beneficent deeds--By God and his Vicegerent Nature's laws--Ever a compensating joy is found.Think ye the rain-drop heedeth if it drawsRankness as well as Beauty from the ground?Or that the sullen wind will deign to wakeOnly Æolian melodies of sound--And not the stormy screams that make men quakeThus do ye act, my sisters; thus yedoYour cheerful duty for the doing's sake--Not unrewarded surely--not when youSee the successful issue of your charms,Bringing the absent back again to view--Giving the loved one to the lover's arms--Smoothing the grassy couch in weary age--Hushing in death's great calm a world's alarms.I, I alone upon the earth's vast stageAm doomed to act an unrequited part--I, the unseen preceptress of the sage--I, whose ideal form doth win the heartOf all whom God's vocation hath assignedTo wear the sacred vesture of high Art--To pass along the electric sparks of mindFrom age to age, from race to race, untilThe expanding truth encircles all mankind.What without me were all the poet's skill?--Dead, sensuous form without the quickening soul.What without me the instinctive aim of will?--A useless magnet pointing to no pole.What the fine ear and the creative hand?Most potent spirits free from man's control.I, THE IDEAL, by the poet standWhen all his soul o'erflows with holy fire,When currents of the beautiful and grandRun glittering down along each burning wireUntil the heart of the great world doth feelThe electric shock of his God-kindled lyre:--Then rolls the thunderous music peal on peal,Or in the breathless after-pause, a strainSimpler and sweeter through the hush doth steal--Like to the pattering drops of summer rainOr rustling grass, when fragrance fills the airAnd all the groves are vocal once again:Whatever form, whatever shape I bear,The Spirit of high Impulse, and the SoulOf all conceptions beautiful and rare,Am I; who now swift spurning all control,On rapid wings--the Ariel of the Muse--Dart from the dazzling centre to the pole;Now in the magic mimicry of huesSuch as surround God's golden throne, descendIn Titian's skies the boundaries to confuseBetwixt earth's heaven and heaven's own heaven to blendIn Raphael's forms the human and divine,Where spirit dawns, and matter seems to end.Again on wings of melody, so fineThey mock the sight, but fall upon the earLike tuneful rose-leaves at the day's decline--And with the music of a happier sphereEntrance some master of melodious sound,Till startled men the hymns of angels hear.Happy for me when, in the vacant roundOf barren ages, one great steadfast soulFaithful to me and to his art is found.But, ah! my sisters, with my grief condole;Join in my sorrows and respond my sighs;And let your sobs the funeral dirges toll;Weep those who falter in the great emprise--Who, turning off upon some poor pretence,Some worthless guerdon or some paltry prize,Down from the airy zenith through the immenseSink to the low expedients of an hour,And barter soul for all the slough of sense,--Just when the mind had reached its regal power,And fancy's wing its perfect plume unfurl'd,--Just when the bud of promise in the flowerOf all completeness opened on the world--When the pure fire that heaven itself outflungBack to its native empyrean curled,Like vocal incense from a censer swung:--Ah, me! to be subdued when all seemed won--That I should fly when I would fain have clung.Yet so it is,--our radiant course is run;--Here we must part, the deathless lay unsung,And, more than all, the deathless deed undone.

RECOLLECTIONS.

Ah! summer time, sweet summer scene,When all the golden days,Linked hand-in-hand, like moonlit fays,Danced o'er the deepening green.When, from the top of Pelier[111] downWe saw the sun descend,With smiles that blessings seemed to sendTo our near native town.And when we saw him rise againHigh o'er the hills at morn--God's glorious prophet daily bornTo preach good will to men--Good-will and peace to all betweenThe gates of night and day--Join with me, love, and with me say--Sweet summer time and scene.Sweet summer time, true age of gold,When hand-in-hand we wentSlow by the quickening shrubs, intentTo see the buds unfold:To trace new wild flowers in the grass,New blossoms on the bough,And see the water-lilies nowRise o'er the liquid glass.When from the fond and folding galeThe scented briar I pulled,Or for thy kindred bosom culledThe lily of the vale;--Thou without whom were dark the green,The golden turned to gray,Join with me, love, and with me say--Sweet summer time and scene.Sweet summer time, delight's brief reign,Thou hast one memory still,Dearer than ever tree or hillYet stretched along life's plain.Stranger than all the wond'rous whole,Flowers, fields, and sunset skies--To see within our infant's eyesThe awakening of the soul.To see their dear bright depths first stirredBy the far breath of thought,To feel our trembling hearts o'erfraughtWith rapture when we heardHer first clear laugh, which might have beenA cherub's laugh at play--Ah! love, thou canst but join and say--Sweet summer time and scene.Sweet summer time, sweet summer days,One day I must recall;One day the brightest of them all,Must mark with special praise.'Twas when at length in genial showersThe spring attained its close;And June with many a myriad roseIncarnadined the bowers:Led by the bright and sun-warm air,We left our indoor nooks;Thou with my paper and my books,And I thy garden chair;Crossed the broad, level garden-walks,With countless roses lined;And where the apple still inclinedIts blossoms o'er the box,Near to the lilacs round the pond,In its stone ring hard byWe took our seats, where save the sky,And the few forest trees beyondThe garden wall, we nothing saw,But flowers and blossoms, and we heardNought but the whirring of some bird,Or the rooks' distant, clamorous caw.And in the shade we saw the faceOf our dear infant sleeping near,And thou wert by to smile and hear,And speak with innate truth and grace.There through the pleasant noontide hoursMy task of echoed song I sung;Turning the golden southern tongueInto the iron ore of ours!'Twas the great Spanish master's pride,The story of the hero proved;'Twas how the Moorish princess loved,And how the firm Fernando died.[112]O happiest season ever seen,O day, indeed the happiest day;Join with me, love, and with me say--Sweet summer time and scene.One picture more before I closeFond Memory's fast dissolving views;One picture more before I loseThe radiant outlines as they rose.'Tis evening, and we leave the porch,And for the hundredth time admireThe rhododendron's cones of fireRise round the tree, like torch o'er torch.And for the hundredth time point outEach favourite blossom and perfume--If the white lilac still doth bloom,Or the pink hawthorn fadeth out:And by the laurell'd wall, and o'erThe fields of young green corn we've gone;And by the outer gate, and onTo our dear friend's oft-trodden door.And there in cheerful talk we stay,Till deepening twilight warns us home;Then once again we backward roamCalmly and slow the well-known way--And linger for the expected view--Day's dying gleam upon the hill;Or listen for the whip-poor-will,[113]Or the too seldom shy cuckoo.At home the historic page we glean,And muse, and hope, and praise, and pray--Join with me, love, as then, and say--Sweet summer time and scene!

111Mount Pelier, in the county of Dublin, overlooking Rathfarnham, and more remotely Dundrum. To a brief residence near the latter village the "Recollections" rendered in this poem are to be referred.

112Calderon's "El Principe Constante," translated in the earlier volumes of the author's Calderon. London, 1853.

113I do not know the bird to which I have given this Indian name. It, however, imitated its note quite distinctly.

DOLORES.

The moon of my soul is dark, Dolores,Dead and dark in my breast it lies,For I miss the heaven of thy smile, Dolores,And the light of thy brown bright eyes.The rose of my heart is gone, Dolores,Bud or blossom in vain I seek;For I miss the breath of thy lip, Dolores,And the blush of thy pearl-pale cheek.The pulse of my heart is still, Dolores,Still and chill is its glowing tide;For I miss the beating of thine, Dolores,In the vacant space by my side.But the moon shall revisit my soul, Dolores,And the rose shall refresh my heart,When I meet thee again in heaven, Dolores,Never again to part.

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