Thou hast loved and thou hast suffer’d!
Unto feeling deep and strong,
Thou hast trembled like a harp’s frail string—
I know it by thy song!
Thou hast loved—it may be vainly—
But well—oh, but too well!
Thou hast suffer’d all that woman’s breast
May bear—but must not tell.
Thou hast wept, and thou hast parted,
Thou hast been forsaken long,
Thou hast watch’d for steps that came not back—
I know it by thy song!
By the low, clear silvery gushing
Of its music from thy breast;
By the quivering of its flute-like swell—
A sound of the heart’s unrest;
By its fond and plaintive lingering
On each word of grief so long.
Oh! thou hast loved and suffer’d much—
I know it by thy song!

LIGHTS AND SHADES.

The gloomiest day hath gleams of light;
The darkest wave hath light foam near it;
And twinkles through the cloudiest night
Some solitary star to cheer it.
The gloomiest soul is not all gloom;
The saddest heart is not all sadness;
And sweetly o’er the darkest doom
There shines some lingering beam of gladness.
Despair is never quite despair;
Nor life nor death the future closes;
And round the shadowy brow of Care
Will Hope and Fancy twine their roses.

[These spirited and graceful stanzas appeared in the “For-get-me-Not” for 1829, and are here for the first time admitted into the general collection of the author’s works. In all probability, they are an early effusion, and poured forth when the poetry of Moore was fresh in her mind.]

THE PALMER.

“The faded palm-branch in his hand
Show’d pilgrim from the Holy Land.” Scott.
Art thou come from the far-off land at last?
Thou that hast wander’d long!
Thou art come to a home whence the smile hath pass’d
With the merry voice of song.
For the sunny glance and the bounding heart
Thou wilt seek—but all are gone;
They are parted, e’en as waters part,
To meet in the deep alone!
And thou—from thy lip is fled the glow,
From thine eye the light of morn;
And the shades of thought o’erhang thy brow,
And thy cheek with life is worn.
Say what hast thou brought from the distant shore
For thy wasted youth to pay?
Hast thou treasure to win thee joys once more?
Hast thou vassals to smooth thy way?
“I have brought but the palm-branch in my hand,
Yet I call not my bright youth lost!
I have won but high thought in the Holy Land,
Yet I count not too dear the cost!
“I look on the leaves of the deathless tree—
These records of my track;
And better than youth in its flush of glee,
Are the memories they give me back!
“They speak of toil, and of high emprise,
As in words of solemn cheer;
They speak of lonely victories
O’er pain, and doubt, and fear.
“They speak of scenes which have now become
Bright pictures in my breast;
Where my spirit finds a glorious home,
And the love of my heart can rest.
“The colours pass not from these away,
Like tints of shower or sun;
Oh! beyond all treasures that know decay,
Is the wealth my soul hath won!
“A rich light thence o’er my life’s decline,
An inborn light is cast;
For the sake of the palm from the holy shrine,
I bewail not my bright days past!”

THE CHILD’S FIRST GRIEF.

Oh! call my brother back to me!
I cannot play alone;
The summer comes with flower and bee—
Where is my brother gone?
“The butterfly is glancing bright
Across the sunbeam’s track;
I care not now to chase its flight—
Oh! call my brother back!
“The flowers run wild—the flowers we sow’d
Around our garden tree;
Our vine is drooping with its load—
Oh! call him back to me!”
“He would not hear thy voice, fair child!
He may not come to thee;
The face that once like spring-time smiled,
On earth no more thou’lt see.
“A rose’s brief, bright life of joy,
Such unto him was given:
Go—thou must play alone, my boy!
Thy brother is in heaven.”
“And has he left his birds and flowers;
And must I call in vain?
And through the long, long summer hours,
Will he not come again?
“And by the brook and in the glade
Are all our wanderings o’er?
Oh! while my brother with me play’d,
Would I had loved him more!”

TO THE NEW-BORN.[396]

A blessing on thy head, thou child of many hopes and fears!
A rainbow-welcome thine hath been, of mingled smiles and tears.
Thy father greets thee unto life with a full and chasten’d heart,
For a solemn gift from God thou comest, all precious as thou art!
I see thee not asleep, fair boy! upon thy mother’s breast,
Yet well I know how guarded there shall be thy rosy rest;
And how her soul with love, and prayer, and gladness, will o’erflow,
While bending o’er thy soft-seal’d eyes, thou dear one! well I know.
A blessing on thy gentle head! and bless’d thou art in truth,
For a home where God is felt awaits thy childhood and thy youth:
Around thee pure and holy thoughts shall dwell as light and air,
And steal unto thine heart, and wake the germs now folded there.
Smile on thy mother! while she feels that unto her is given,
In that young day-spring glance, the pledge of a soul to rear for heaven!
Smile! and sweet peace be o’er thy sleep, joy o’er thy wakening shed!
Blessings and blessings evermore, fair boy! upon thy head!

[396] Addressed to the child of her eldest brother.

THE DEATH-SONG OF ALCESTIS.

She came forth in her bridal robes array’d,
And midst the graceful statues, round the hall
Shedding the calm of their celestial mien,
Stood pale yet proudly beautiful as they:
Flowers in her bosom, and the star-like gleam
Of jewels trembling from her braided hair,
And death upon her brow!—but glorious death!
Her own heart’s choice, the token and the seal
Of love, o’ermastering love; which, till that hour,
Almost an anguish in the brooding weight
Of its unutterable tenderness,
Had burden’d her full soul. But now, oh! now,
Its time was come—and from the spirit’s depths,
The passion and the mighty melody
Of its immortal voice in triumph broke,
Like a strong rushing wind!
The soft pure air
Came floating through that hall—the Grecian air,
Laden with music—flute-notes from the vales,
Echoes of song—the last sweet sounds of life
And the glad sunshine of the golden clime
Stream’d, as a royal mantle, round her form—
The glorified of love! But she—she look’d
Only on him for whom ’twas joy to die,
Deep—deepest, holiest joy! Or if a thought
Of the warm sunlight, and the scented breeze,
And the sweet Dorian songs, o’erswept the tide
Of her unswerving soul—’twas but a thought
That own’d the summer loveliness of life
For him a worthy offering! So she stood,
Wrapt in bright silence, as entranced awhile;
Till her eye kindled, and her quivering frame
With the swift breeze of inspiration shook,
As the pale priestess trembles to the breath
Of inborn oracles! Then flush’d her cheek,
And all the triumph, all the agony,
Borne on the battling waves of love and death,
All from her woman’s heart, in sudden song,
Burst like a fount of fire.
“I go, I go!
Thou sun! thou golden sun! I go
Far from thy light to dwell:
Thou shalt not find my place below,
Dim is that world—bright sun of Greece, farewell!
“The laurel and the glorious rose
Thy glad beam yet may see;
But where no purple summer glows,
O’er the dark wave I haste from them and thee.
“Yet doth my spirit faint to part?
—I mourn thee not, O sun!
Joy, solemn joy, o’erflows my heart:
Sing me triumphal songs!—my crown is won!
“Let not a voice of weeping rise—
My heart is girt with power!
Let the green earth and festal skies
Laugh, as to grace a conqueror’s closing hour!
“For thee, for thee, my bosom’s lord!
Thee, my soul’s loved! I die;
Thine is the torch of life restored,
Mine, mine the rapture, mine the victory!
“Now may the boundless love, that lay
Unfathom’d still before,
In one consuming burst find way—
In one bright flood all, all its riches pour!
“Thou know’st, thou know’st what love is now!
Its glory and its might—
Are they not written on my brow?
And will that image ever quit thy sight?
“No! deathless in thy faithful breast,
There shall my memory keep
Its own bright altar-place of rest,
While o’er my grave the cypress branches weep.
“Oh, the glad light!—the light is fair,
The soft breeze warm and free;
And rich notes fill the scented air,
And all are gifts—my love’s last gifts to thee!
“Take me to thy warm heart once more!
Night falls—my pulse beats low:
Seek not to quicken, to restore—
Joy is in every pang. I go, I go!
“I feel thy tears, I feel thy breath,
I meet thy fond look still;
Keen is the strife of love and death;
Faint and yet fainter grows my bosom’s thrill.
“Yet swells the tide of rapture strong,
Though mists o’ershade mine eye!
—Sing, Pæan! sing a conqueror’s song!
For thee, for thee, my spirit’s lord, I die!”

THE HOME OF LOVE.

Thou mov’st in visions, Love! Around thy way,
E’en through this world’s rough path and changeful day,
For ever floats a gleam—
Not from the realms of moonlight or the morn,
But thine own soul’s illumined chambers born—
The colouring of a dream!
Love! shall I read thy dream? Oh! is it not
All of some sheltering wood-embosom’d spot—
A bower for thee and thine?
Yes! lone and lowly is that home; yet there
Something of heaven in the transparent air
Makes every flower divine.
Something that mellows and that glorifies,
Breathes o’er it ever from the tender skies,
As o’er some blessed isle;
E’en like the soft and spiritual glow
Kindling rich woods, whereon th’ ethereal bow
Sleeps lovingly awhile.
The very whispers of the wind have there
A flute-like harmony, that seems to bear
Greeting from some bright shore,
Where none have said farewell!—where no decay
Lends the faint crimson to the dying day;
Where the storm’s might is o’er.
And there thou dreamest of Elysian rest,
In the deep sanctuary of one true breast
Hidden from earthly ill:
There wouldst thou watch the homeward step, whose sound
Wakening all nature to sweet echoes round,
Thine inmost soul can thrill.
There by the hearth should many a glorious page,
From mind to mind the immortal heritage,
For thee its treasures pour;
Or music’s voice at vesper hours be heard,
Or dearer interchange of playful word,
Affection’s household lore.
And the rich unison of mingled prayer,
The melody of hearts in heavenly air,
Thence duly should arise;
Lifting th’ eternal hope, th’ adoring breath,
Of spirits, not to be disjoin’d by death,
Up to the starry skies.
There, dost thou well believe, no storm should come
To mar the stillness of that angel-home;
There should thy slumbers be
Weigh’d down with honey-dew, serenely bless’d,
Like theirs who first in Eden’s grove took rest
Under some balmy tree.
Love! Love! thou passionate in joy and woe!
And canst thou hope for cloudless peace below—
Here, where bright things must die?
O thou! that, wildly worshipping, dost shed
On the frail altar of a mortal head
Gifts of infinity!
Thou must be still a trembler, fearful Love!
Danger seems gathering from beneath, above,
Still round thy precious things;
Thy stately pine-tree, or thy gracious rose,
In their sweet shade can yield thee no repose,
Here, where the blight hath wings.
And as a flower, with some fine sense imbued,
To shrink before the wind’s vicissitude,
So in thy prescient breast
Are lyre-strings quivering with prophetic thrill
To the low footstep of each coming ill:
Oh! canst thou dream of rest?
Bear up thy dream! thou mighty and thou weak!
Heart, strong as death, yet as a reed to break—
As a flame, tempest-sway’d!
He that sits calm on high is yet the source
Whence thy soul’s current hath its troubled course,
He that great deep hath made!
Will He not pity?—He whose searching eye
Reads all the secrets of thine agony?—
Oh! pray to be forgiven
Thy fond idolatry, thy blind excess,
And seek with Him that bower of blessedness.
Love! thy sole home is heaven!

BOOKS AND FLOWERS.

“La vue d’une fleur caresse mon imagination, et flatte mes sens a un point inexprimable. Sous le tranquille abri du toit paternel j’etais nourrie des l’enfance avec des fleurs et des livres; dans l’etroite enceinte d’une prison, au milieu des fers imposies par la tyrannie, j’oublie l’injustice des hommes, leurs sottises et mes maux, avec des livres et des fleurs.”

Come! let me make a sunny realm around thee
Of thought and beauty! Here are books and flowers,
With spells to loose the fetter which hath bound thee
The ravel’d coil of this world’s feverish hours.
The soul of song is in these deathless pages,
Even as the odour in the flower enshrined;
Here the crown’d spirits of departed ages
Have left the silent melodies of mind.
Their thoughts, that strove with time, and change, and anguish,
For some high place where faith her wing might rest,
Are burning here—a flame that may not languish—
Still pointing upward to that bright hill’s crest!
Their grief, the veil’d infinity exploring
For treasures lost, is here;—their boundless love,
Its mighty streams of gentleness outpouring
On all things round, and clasping all above.
And the bright beings, their own heart’s creations,
Bright, yet all human, here are breathing still;
Conflicts, and agonies, and exultations
Are here, and victories of prevailing will!
Listen! oh, listen! let their high words cheer thee!
Their swan-like music ringing through all woes;
Let my voice bring their holy influence near thee—
The Elysian air of their divine repose!
Or would’st thou turn to earth? Not earth all furrow’d
By the old traces of man’s toil and care,
But the green peaceful world that never sorrow’d,
The world of leaves, and dews, and summer air!
Look on these flowers! as o’er an altar shedding,
O’er Milton’s page, soft light from colour’d urns!
They are the links, man’s heart to nature wedding,
When to her breast the prodigal returns.
They are from lone wild places, forest dingles,
Fresh banks of many a low-voiced hidden stream,
Where the sweet star of eve looks down and mingles
Faint lustre with the water-lily’s gleam.
They are from where the soft winds play in gladness,
Covering the turf with flowery blossom-showers;
—Too richly dower’d, O friend! are we for sadness—
Look on an empire—mind and nature—ours!

[“The ‘brightly associated hours’ she passed with Mrs Lawrence, have been alluded to by Mrs Hemans, in the dedication to the ‘National Lyrics,’ and recorded by ‘her friend, and the sister of her friend, Colonel D’Aguilar,’ in her own affectionate ‘Recollections.’ The ‘Books and Flowers’ of Wavertree Hall were ever fondly identified with their dear mistress; and, years after the enjoyment of them had passed away from all senses but memory, she who was then herself, too, ‘passing away,’ thus tenderly alluded to them from her sick couch at Redesdale:—‘When I write to you, my imagination always brightens, and pleasant thoughts of lovely flowers, and dear old books, and strains of antique Italian melody, come floating over me, as Bacon says the rich scents go ‘to and fro like music in the air.’”]

FOR A PICTURE OF ST CECILIA ATTENDED BY ANGELS.

“How rich that forehead’s calm expanse!
How bright that heaven-directed glance!
—Waft her to glory, winged powers!
Ere sorrow be renew’d,
And intercourse with mortal hours
Bring back a humbler mood!” Wordsworth.
How can that eye, with inspiration beaming,
Wear yet so deep a calm? O child of song!
Is not the music-land a world of dreaming,
Where forms of sad, bewildering beauty throng?
Hath it not sounds from voices long departed?
Echoes of tones that rung in childhood’s ear?
Low haunting whispers, which the weary-hearted,
Stealing midst crowds away, have wept to hear?
No, not to thee! Thy spirit, meek, yet queenly,
On its own starry height, beyond all this,
Floating triumphantly and yet serenely,
Breathes no faint under-tone through songs of bliss.
Say by what strain, through cloudless ether swelling,
Thou hast drawn down those wanderers from the skies?
Bright guests! even such as left of yore their dwelling
For the deep cedar-shades of Paradise!
What strain? Oh! not the nightingale’s, when, showering
Her own heart’s life-drops on the burning lay,
She stirs the young woods in the days of flowering,
And pours her strength, but not her grief, away:
And not the exile’s—when, midst lonely billows,
He wakes the Alpine notes his mother sung,
Or blends them with the sigh of alien willows,
Where, murmuring to the wind, his harp is hung:
And not the pilgrim’s—though his thoughts be holy,
And sweet his avè-song when day grows dim;
Yet, as he journeys, pensively and slowly,
Something of sadness floats through that low hymn.
But thou!—the spirit which at eve is filling
All the hush’d air and reverential sky—
Founts, leaves, and flowers, with solemn rapture thrilling—
This is the soul of thy rich harmony.
This bears up high those breathings of devotion
Wherein the currents of thy heart gush free;
Therefore no world of sad and vain emotion
Is the dream-haunted music-land for thee.

THE BRIGAND LEADER AND HIS WIFE.

SUGGESTED BY A PICTURE OF EASTLAKE’S.

Dark chieftain of the heath and height!
Wild feaster on the hills by night!
See’st thou the stormy sunset’s glow
Flung back by glancing spears below?
Now for one strife of stern despair!
The foe hath track’d thee to thy lair.
Thou, against whom the voice of blood
Hath risen from rock and lonely wood;
And in whose dreams a moan should be,
Not of the water, nor the tree;
Haply thine own last hour is nigh,—
Yet shalt thou not forsaken die.
There’s one that pale beside thee stands,
More true than all thy mountain-bands!
She will not shrink in doubt and dread
When the balls whistle round thy head:
Nor leave thee, though thy closing eye
No longer may to hers reply.
Oh! many a soft and quiet grace
Hath faded from her form and face;
And many a thought, the fitting guest
Of woman’s meek, religious breast,
Hath perish’d in her wanderings wide,
Through the deep forests by thy side.
Yet, mournfully surviving all,
A flower upon a ruin’s wall—
A friendless thing, whose lot is cast
Of lovely ones to be the last—
Sad, but unchanged through good and ill,
Thine is her lone devotion still.
And oh! not wholly lost the heart
Where that undying love hath part;
Not worthless all, though far and long
From home estranged, and guided wrong;
Yet may its depths by heaven be stirr’d,
Its prayer for thee be pour’d and heard!

THE CHILD’S RETURN FROM THE WOODLANDS.

SUGGESTED BY A PICTURE OF SIR THOMAS LAWRENCE’S.

“All good and guiltless as thou art,
Some transient griefs will touch thy heart—
Griefs that along thy alter’d face
Will breathe a more subduing grace,
Than even those looks of joy that lie
On the soft cheek of infancy.”   Wilson.
Hast thou been in the woods with the honey-bee?
Hast thou been with the lamb in the pastures free?
With the hare through the copses and dingles wild?
With the butterfly over the heath, fair child?
Yes! the light fall of thy bounding feet
Hath not startled the wren from her mossy seat:
Yet hast thou ranged the green forest-dells,
And brought back a treasure of buds and bells.
Thou know’st not the sweetness, by antique song
Breathed o’er the names of that flowery throng:
The woodbine, the primrose, the violet dim,
The lily that gleams by the fountain’s brim;
These are old words, that have made each grove
A dreaming haunt for romance and love—
Each sunny bank, where faint odours lie,
A place for the gushings of poesy.
Thou know’st not the light wherewith fairy lore
Sprinkles the turf and the daisies o’er:
Enough for thee are the dews that sleep
Like hidden gems in the flower-urns deep;
Enough the rich crimson spots that dwell
Midst the gold of the cowslip’s perfumed cell;
And the scent by the blossoming sweetbriers shed,
And the beauty that bows the wood-hyacinth’s head.
O happy child! in thy fawn-like glee,
What is remembrance or thought to thee?
Fill thy bright locks with those gifts of spring,
O’er thy green pathway their colours fling;
Bind them in chaplet and wild festoon—
What if to droop and to perish soon?
Nature hath mines of such wealth—and thou
Never will prize its delights as now!
For a day is coming to quell the tone
That rings in thy laughter, thou joyous one!
And to dim thy brow with a touch of care,
Under the gloss of its clustering hair;
And to tame the flash of thy cloudless eyes
Into the stillness of autumn skies;
And to teach thee that grief hath her needful part
Midst the hidden things of each human heart.
Yet shall we mourn, gentle child! for this?
Life hath enough of yet holier bliss!
Such be thy portion!—the bliss to look,
With a reverent spirit, through nature’s book;
By fount, by forest, by river’s line,
To track the paths of a love divine;
To read its deep meanings—to see and hear
God in earth’s garden—and not to fear!

THE FAITH OF LOVE.

Thou hast watch’d beside the bed of death,
O fearless human Love!
Thy lip received the last, faint breath,
Ere the spirit fled above.
Thy prayer was heard by the parting bier,
In a low and farewell tone;
Thou hast given the grave both flower and tear—
—O Love! thy task is done.
Then turn thee from each pleasant spot
Where thou wert wont to rove;
For there the friend of thy soul is not,
Nor the joy of thy youth, O Love!
Thou wilt meet but mournful Memory there;
Her dreams in the grove she weaves,
With echoes filling the summer air,
With sighs the trembling leaves.
Then turn thee to the world again,
From those dim, haunted bowers,
And shut thine ear to the wild, sweet strain
That tells of vanish’d hours.
And wear not on thine aching heart
The image of the dead;
For the tie is rent that gave thee part
In the gladness its beauty shed.
And gaze on the pictured smile no more
That thus can life outlast:
All between parted souls is o’er.—
Love! Love! forget the past!
“Voice of vain boding! away, be still!
Strive not against the faith
That yet my bosom with light can fill,
Unquench’d, and undim’d by death.
“From the pictured smile I will not turn,
Though sadly now it shine;
Nor quit the shades that in whispers mourn
For the step once link’d with mine;
“Nor shut mine ear to the song of old,
Though its notes the pang renew.
—Such memories deep in my heart I hold,
To keep it pure and true.
“By the holy instinct of my heart,
By the hope that bears me on,
I have still my own undying part
In the deep affection gone.
“By the presence that about me seems
Through night and day to dwell,
Voice of vain bodings and fearful dreams!
—I have breathed no last farewell!”

THE SISTER’S DREAM.

[Suggested by a picture in which a young girl is represented as sleeping, and visited during her slumbers by the spirits of her departed sisters.]

She sleeps!—but not the free and sunny sleep
That lightly on the brow of childhood lies:
Though happy be her rest, and soft, and deep,
Yet, ere it sank upon her shadow’d eyes,
Thoughts of past scenes and kindred graves o’erswept
Her soul’s meek stillness—she had pray’d and wept.
And now in visions to her couch they come,
The early lost—the beautiful—the dead!
That unto her bequeath’d a mournful home,
Whence with their voices all sweet laughter fled
They rise—the sisters of her youth arise,
As from the world where no frail blossom dies.
And well the sleeper knows them not of earth—
Not as they were when binding up the flowers,
Telling wild legends round the winter-hearth,
Braiding their long, fair hair for festal hours:
These things are past—a spiritual gleam,
A solemn glory, robes them in that dream.
Yet, if the glee of life’s fresh budding years
In those pure aspects may no more be read,
Thence, too, hath sorrow melted—and the tears
Which o’er their mother’s holy dust they shed,
Are all effaced. There earth hath left no sign
Save its deep love, still touching every line.
But oh! more soft, more tender—breathing more
A thought of pity, than in vanish’d days!
While, hovering silently and brightly o’er
The lone one’s head, they meet her spirit’s gaze
With their immortal eyes, that seem to say,
“Yet, sister! yet we love thee—come away!”
’Twill fade, the radiant dream! And will she not
Wake with more painful yearning at her heart?
Will not her home seem yet a lonelier spot,
Her task more sad, when those bright shadows part?
And the green summer after them look dim,
And sorrow’s tone be in the bird’s wild hymn?
But let her hope be strong, and let the dead
Visit her soul in heaven’s calm beauty still;
Be their names utter’d, be their memory spread
Yet round the place they never more may fill!
All is not over with earth’s broken tie—
Where, where should sisters love, if not on high?

A FAREWELL TO ABBOTSFORD.

[These lines were given to Sir Walter Scott, at the gate of Abbotsford, in the summer of 1829. He was then apparently in the vigour of an existence whose energies promised long continuance; and the glance of his quick, smiling eye, and the very sound of his kindly voice, seemed to kindle the gladness of his own sunny and benignant spirit in all who had the happiness of approaching him.]

Home of the gifted! fare thee well,
And a blessing on thee rest!
While the heather waves its purple bell
O’er moor and mountain-crest;
While stream to stream around thee calls,
And braes with broom are drest,
Glad be the harping in thy halls—
A blessing on thee rest!
While the high voice from thee sent forth
Bids rock and cairn reply,
Wakening the spirits of the North
Like a chieftain’s gathering-cry;
While its deep master-tones hold sway
As a king’s o’er every breast,
Home of the Legend and the Lay!
A blessing on thee rest!
Joy to thy hearth, and board, and bower!
Long honours to thy line!
And hearts of proof, and hands of power,
And bright names worthy thine!
By the merry step of childhood, still
May thy free sward be prest!
—While one proud pulse in the land can thrill,
A blessing on thee rest!

O’CONNOR’S CHILD.