Silence is in Our Festal Halls

Silence is in our festal halls --
Sweet son of song! thy course is o'er;
In vain on thee sad Erin calls,
Her minstrel's voice responds no more; --
All silent as the Eolian shell
Sleeps at the close of some bright day,
When the sweet breeze, that waked its swell
At sunny morn, hath died away.

Yet, at our feasts, thy spirit long,
Awaked by music's spell, shall rise;
For, name so link'd with deathless song
Partakes its charm and never dies;
And even within the holy fane,
When music wafts the soul to heaven,
One thought to him, whose earliest strain
Was echoed there, shall long be given.

But where is now the cheerful day,
The social night, when by thy side,

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poem by Thomas Moore
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This Life Is All Chequer'd With Pleasures and Woes

This life is all chequer'd with pleasures and woes,
That chase one another like waves of the deep --
Each brightly or darkly, as onward it flows,
Reflecting our eyes, as they sparkle or weep.
So closely our whims on our miseries tread,
That the laugh is awaked ere the tear can be dried;
And, as fast as the rain-drop of Pity is shed,
The goose-plumage of Folly can turn it aside.
But pledge me the cup -- if existence would cloy,
With hearts ever happy and heads ever wise,
Be ours the light Sorrow, half-sister to Joy,
And the light brilliant Folly that flashes and dies.

When Hylas was sent with his urn to the fount,
Through fields full of light, and with heart full of play,
Light rambled the boy, over meadow and mount,
And neglected his task for the flowers on the way.
Thus many, like me, who in youth should have tasted
The fountain that runs by Philosophy's shrine,
Their time with the flowers on the margin have wasted,

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poem by Thomas Moore
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Oh! Think Not My Spirits Are Always As Light

Oh! think not my spirits are always as light,
And as free from a pang as they seem to you now,
Nor expect that the heart-beaming smile of to-night
Will return with to-morrow to brighten my brow.
No: -- life is a waste of wearisome hours,
Which seldom the rose of enjoyment adorns;
And the heart that is soonest awake to the flowers,
Is always the first to be touch'd by the thorns.
But send round the bowl, and be happy awhile --
May we never meet worse, in our pilgrimage here,
Than the tear that enjoyment may gild with a smile,
And the smile that compassion can turn to a tear.

The thread of our life would be dark, Heaven knows
If it were not with friendship and love intertwined;
And I care not how soon I may sink to repose,
When these blessing shall cease to be dear to my mind.
But they who have loved the fondest, the purest,
Too often have wept o'er the dream they believed;
And the heart that has slumber'd in friendship securest

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poem by Thomas Moore
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When Cold in the Earth

When cold in the earth lies the friend thou hast loved,
Be his faults and his follies forgot by thee then;
Or, if from their slumber the veil be removed,
Weep o'er them in silence, and close it again.
And oh! if 'tis pain to remember how far
From the pathways of light he was tempted to roam,
Be it bliss to remember that thou wert the star
That arose on his darkness, and guided him home.

From thee and thy innocent beauty first came
The revealings, that taught him true love to adore,
To feel the bright presence, and turn him with shame
From the idols he blindly had knelt to before.
O'er the waves of a life, long benighted and wild,
Thou camest, like a soft golden calm o'er the sea;
And if happiness purely and glowingly smiled
On his evening horizon, the light was from thee.

And though sometimes the shades of past folly might rise,
And though falsehood again would allure him to stray,

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poem by Thomas Moore
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Lesbia Hath a Beaming Eye

Lesbia hath a beaming eye,
But no one knows for whom it beameth;
Right and left its arrows fly,
But what they aim at no one dreameth.
Sweeter 'tis to gaze upon
My Nora's lid that seldom rises;
Few its looks, but every one,
Like unexpected light, surprises!
Oh, my Nora Creina, dear,
My gentle, bashful Nora Creina,
Beauty lies
In many eyes,
But Love in yours, my Nora Creina.

Lesbia wears a robe of gold,
But all so close the nymph hath laced it,
Not a charm of beauty's mould
Presumes to stay where Nature placed it.
Oh! my Nora's gown for me,
That floats as wild as mountain breezes,

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poem by Thomas Moore
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The Song of O'Ruark, Prince of Breffni

The valley lay smiling before me,
Where lately I left her behind;
Yet I trembled, and something hung o'er me,
That sadden'd the joy of my mind.
I look'd for the lamp which, she told me,
Should shine when her Pilgrim return'd;
But, though darkness began to infold me,
No lamp from the battlements burn'd!

I flew to her chamber -- 'twas lonely,
As if the loved tenant lay dead; --
Ah, would it were death, and death only!
But no, the young false one had fled.
And there hung the lute that could soften
My very worst pains into bliss;
While the hand that had waked it so often
Now throbb'd to a proud rival's kiss.

There was a time, falsest of women,
When Breffni's good sword would have sought

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poem by Thomas Moore
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Tis Gone, And For Ever

'Tis gone, and for ever, the light we saw breaking,
Like Heaven's first dawn o'er the sleep of the dead --
When Man, from the slumber of ages awaking,
Look'd upward, and bless'd the pure ray, ere it fled.
'Tis gone, and the gleams it has left of its burning,
But deepen the long night of bondage and mourning,
That dark o'er the kingdoms of earth is returning,
And darkest of all, hapless Erin, o'er thee.

For high was thy hope, when those glories were darting
Around thee, through all the gross clouds of the world;
When Truth, from her letters indignantly starting,
At once, like a sun-burst, her banner unfurl'd.
Oh! never shall earth see a moment so splendid!
Then, then -- had one Hymn of Deliverance blended
The tongues of all nations -- how sweet had ascended
The first note of liberty , Erin, from thee!

But, shame on those tyrants who envied the blessing!
And shame on the light race, unworthy its good,

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poem by Thomas Moore
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Cotton and Corn

Said Cotton to Corn, t'other day,
As they met and exchang'd salute--
(Squire Corn in his carriage so gay,
Poor Cotton, half famish'd on foot):

"Great Squire, if it isn't uncivil
To hint at starvation before you,
Look down on a poor hungry devil,
And give him some bread, I implore you!"

Quoth Corn, then, in answer to Cotton,
Perceiving he meant to make free --
"Low fellow, you've surely forgotten
The distance between you and me!

To expect that we, Peers of high birth,
Should waste our illustrious acres,

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poem by Thomas Moore
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In the Morning of Life

In the morning of life, when its cares are unknown,
And its pleasures in all their new lustre begin,
When we live in a bright-beaming world of our own,
And the light that surrounds us is all from within;
Oh 'tis not, believe me, in that happy time
We can love, as in hours of less transport we may; --
Of our smiles, of our hopes, 'tis the gay sunny prime,
But affection is truest when these fade away.

When we see the first glory of youth pass us by,
Like a leaf on the stream that will never return,
When our cup, which had sparkled with pleasure so high,
First tastes of the other, the dark-flowing urn;
Then, then in the time when affection holds sway
With a depth and a tenderness joy never knew;
Love, nursed among pleasures, is faithless as they,
But the love born of Sorrow, like Sorrow, is true.

In climes full of sunshine, though splendid the flowers,
Their sighs have no freshness, their odour no worth;

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poem by Thomas Moore
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Fairest! Put on a While

Fairest! put on a while
These pinions of light I bring thee,
And o'er thy own green isle
In fancy let me wing thee.
Never did Ariel's plume,
At golden sunset, hover
O'er scenes so full of bloom
As I shall waft thee over.

Fields, where the Spring delays
And fearlessly meets the ardour
Of the warm Summer's gaze,
With only her tears to guard her;
Rocks, through myrtle boughs
In grace majestic frowning,
Like some bold warrior's brows
That Love hath just been crowning.

Islets, so freshly fair,
That never hath bird come nigh them,

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poem by Thomas Moore
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