The Complete Poems of Sir Thomas Moore Part 36

Did ever lip's ambrosial air Such fragrance o'er thy altars shed?

One maid there was, who round her lyre The mystic myrtle wildly wreathed;-- But all _her_ sighs were sighs of fire, The myrtle withered as she breathed.

Oh! you that love's celestial dream, In all its purity, would know, Let not the senses' ardent beam Too strongly through the vision glow.

Love safest lies, concealed in night, The night where heaven has bid him lie; Oh! shed not there unhallowed light, Or, Psyche knows, the boy will fly.

Sweet Psyche, many a charmed hour, Through many a wild and magic waste, To the fair fount and blissful bower Have I, in dreams, thy light foot traced!

Where'er thy joys are numbered now, Beneath whatever shades of rest, The Genius of the starry brow Hath bound thee to thy Cupid's breast;

Whether above the horizon dim, Along whose verge our spirits stray,-- Half sunk beneath the shadowy rim, Half brightened by the upper ray,[1]--

Thou dwellest in a world, all light, Or, lingering here, doth love to be, To other souls, the guardian bright That Love was, through this gloom, to thee;

Still be the song to Psyche dear, The song, whose gentle voice was given To be, on earth, to mortal ear, An echo of her own, in heaven.

[1] By this image the Platonists expressed the middle state of the soul between sensible and intellectual existence.

FROM THE HIGH PRIEST OF APOLLO TO A VIRGIN OF DELPHI.[1]

_c.u.m digno digna_.....

SULPICIA.

"Who is the maid, with golden hair, "With eye of fire, and foot of air, "Whose harp around my altar swells, "The sweetest of a thousand sh.e.l.ls?"

'Twas thus the deity, who treads The arch of heaven, and proudly sheds Day from his eyelids--thus he spoke, As through my cell his glories broke.

Aphelia is the Delphic fair[2]

With eyes of fire and golden hair, Aphelia's are the airy feet.

And hers the harp divinely sweet; For foot so light has never trod The laurelled caverns of the G.o.d.

Nor harp so soft hath ever given A sigh to earth or hymn to heaven.

"Then tell the virgin to unfold, "In looser pomp, her locks of gold, "And bid those eyes more fondly s.h.i.+ne "To welcome down a Spouse Divine; "Since He, who lights the path of years-- "Even from the fount of morning's tears "To where his setting splendors burn "Upon the western sea-maid's urn-- "Doth not, in all his course, behold "Such eyes of fire, such hair of gold.

"Tell her, he comes, in blissful pride, "His lip yet sparkling with the tide "That mantles in Olympian bowls,-- "The nectar of eternal souls!

"For her, for her he quits the skies, "And to her kiss from nectar flies.

"Oh, he would quit his star-throned height, "And leave the world to pine for light, "Might he but pa.s.s the hours of shade, "Beside his peerless Delphic maid, "She, more than earthly woman blest, "He, more than G.o.d on woman's breast!"

There is a cave beneath the steep,[3]

Where living rills of crystal weep O'er herbage of the loveliest hue That ever spring begemmed with dew: There oft the greensward's glossy tint Is brightened by the recent print Of many a faun and naiad's feet,-- Scarce touching earth, their step so fleet,-- That there, by moonlight's ray, had trod, In light dance, o'er the verdant sod.

"There, there," the G.o.d, impa.s.sioned, said, "Soon as the twilight tinge is fled, "And the dim orb of lunar souls "Along its shadowy pathway rolls-- "There shall we meet,--and not even He, "The G.o.d who reigns immortally, "Where Babel's turrets paint their pride "Upon the Euphrates' s.h.i.+ning tide,[4]-- "Not even when to his midnight loves "In mystic majesty he moves, "Lighted by many an odorous fire, "And hymned by all Chaldaea's choir,-- "E'er yet, o'er mortal brow, let s.h.i.+ne "Such effluence of Love Divine, "As shall to-night, blest maid, o'er thine."

Happy the maid, whom heaven allows To break for heaven her virgin vows!

Happy the maid!--her robe of shame Is whitened by a heavenly flame, Whose glory, with a lingering trace, s.h.i.+nes through and deifies her race!

[1] This poem, as well as a few others in the following volume, formed part of a work which I had early projected, and even announced to the public, but which, luckily, perhaps, for myself, had been interrupted by my visit to America in the year 1803.

[2] In the 9th Pythic of Pindar, where Apollo, in the same manner, requires of Chiron some information respecting the fair Cyrene, the Centaur, in obeying, very gravely apologizes for telling the G.o.d what his omniscience must know so perfectly already.

[3] The Corycian Cave, which Pausanias mentions. The inhabitants of Parna.s.sus held it sacred to the Corycian nymphs, who were children of the river Plistus.

[4] The temple of Jupiter Belus, at Babylon; in one of whose towers there was a large chapel set apart for these celestial a.s.signations. "No man is allowed to sleep here," says Herodotus; "but the apartment is appropriated to a female, whom, if we believe the Chaldaean priests, the deity selects from the women of the country, as his favorite."

FRAGMENT.

Pity me, love! I'll pity thee, If thou indeed hast felt like me.

All, all my bosom's peace is o'er!

At night, which _was_ my hour of calm, When from the page of cla.s.sic lore, From the pure fount of ancient lay My soul has drawn the placid balm, Which charmed its every grief away, Ah! there I find that balm no more.

Those spells, which make us oft forget The fleeting troubles of the day, In deeper sorrows only whet The stings they cannot tear away.

When to my pillow racked I fly, With weary sense and wakeful eye.

While my brain maddens, where, oh, where Is that serene consoling prayer, Which once has harbingered my rest, When the still soothing voice of Heaven Hath seemed to whisper in my breast, "Sleep on, thy errors are forgiven!"

No, though I still in semblance pray, My thoughts are wandering far away, And even the name of Deity Is murmured out in sighs for thee.

A NIGHT THOUGHT.

How oft a cloud, with envious veil, Obscures yon bashful light, Which seems so modestly to steal Along the waste of night!

'Tis thus the world's obtrusive wrongs Obscure with malice keen Some timid heart, which only longs To live and die unseen.

THE KISS.

Grow to my lip, thou sacred kiss, On which my soul's beloved swore That there should come a time of bliss, When she would mock my hopes no more.

And fancy shall thy glow renew, In sighs at morn, and dreams at night, And none shall steal thy holy dew Till thou'rt absolved by rapture's rite.