"They made her a grave too cold and damp

For a soul so warm and true;

And she's gone to the Lake of the Dismal Swamp,
Where, all night long, by a fire-fly lamp,
She paddles her white canoe.

Away to the Dismal Swamp he speeds—
His path was rugged and sore,
Through tangled juniper, beds of reeds,
Through many a fen, where the serpent feeds,

And man never trod before.

And when on the earth he sank to sleep,
If slumber his eye-lids knew,

He lay where the deadly vine doth weep
its venomous tear, and nightly steep
The flesh with blistering dew!

And near him the she-wolf stirred the brake,
And the copper-snake breathed in his ear,
Till he starting cried, from his dream awake,
"Oh! when shall I see the dusky Lake,
And the white canoe of my dear ?"

He saw the Lake, and a meteor bright
Quick over its surface played,—
"Welcome!" he said, "my dear one's light!"
And the dim shore echoed, for many a night,
The name of the death-cold maid.

Till he hollowed a boat of the birchen bark,

Which carried him off from shore;
Far, far he followed the meteor-spark,

The wind was high and the clouds were dark,
And the boat returned no more.

But oft, from the Indian hunter's camp,

This lover and maid so true

Are seen, at the hour of midnight damp,
To cross the Lake by a fire-fly lamp,
And paddle their white canoe!

"Anacreon Moore," as the author of the Irish Melodies has been called, like Byron, was a poet of passion, rather than of profound thought. His imagery, dazzling and gorgeous with Oriental splendour, as well as the rich melody of his verse, combine to render the Lalla Rookh and Loves of the Angels works of rare fascination. They may be said to be fragrant with Oriental odours. Moore wrote the former in his cottage, near Dove-dale; here he also composed many of his lyrics.

He received for his Lalla Rookh three thousand guineas; the copyright of his several poems produced to him over thirty thousand pounds. Here is a passage from the work last named :—

False flew the shaft, though pointed well:

The tyrant lived, the hero fell!

Yet marked the Peri where he lay,

And when the rush of war was past,

Swiftly descending on a ray

Of morning light, she caught the last—
Last glorious drop his heart had shed,

Before its free-born spirit fled.

"Be this," she cried, as she winged her flight,
'My welcome gift at the Gates of Light :

That sparkles among the bowers of bliss!
Oh, if there be on this earthly sphere

A boon, an offering Heaven holds dear,

'Tis the last libation Liberty draws

From the heart that bleeds and breaks in her cause !"

Moore wrote those undying lines, the Canadian Boat-Song, during his passage of the St. Lawrence, from Kingston. He pencilled the lines, nearly as they stand in his works, in the blank page of a book which happened to be in his canoe. Some thirty years afterwards, a friend showed this original draught to Moore, when he recalled his youthful days, and alluded in a touching manner to his passage down the rapids of life.

His prelude to The Loves of the Angels is very beautiful :—

'Twas when the world was in its prime,

When the fresh stars had just begun

Their race of glory, and young Time

Told his first birth-days by the sun :
When, in the light of nature's dawn,
Rejoicing men and angels met
On the high hill and sunny lawn,—
Ere Sorrow came, or Sin had drawn

"Twixt man and heaven her curtain yet!

When earth lay nearer to the skies

Than in these days of crime and woe,

And mortals saw, without surprise,

In the mid-air, angelic eyes

Gazing upon this world below.