"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, Away to the Dismal Swamp he speeds— And man never trod before. And when on the earth he sank to sleep, He lay where the deadly vine doth weep And near him the she-wolf stirred the brake, He saw the Lake, and a meteor bright Till he hollowed a boat of the birchen bark, Which carried him off from shore; The wind was high and the clouds were dark, But oft, from the Indian hunter's camp, This lover and maid so true Are seen, at the hour of midnight damp, "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— Before its free-born spirit fled. "Be this," she cried, as she winged her flight, That sparkles among the bowers of bliss! 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 : "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. |