Biographical Information

Believe me
Hark! The Vesper Hymn Is Stealing
She Is Far from the Land
The Lake of the Dismal Swamp
The Time I´ve Lost

Given name: Thomas
Family name: Moore
Birth date: 1779
Death date: 25 February1852
Country: Dublin, Ireland
Language: English

Irish poet, friend of Lord Byron and P.B. Shelley. Moore's writings range from lyric to satire, from prose romance to history and biography. His popular 'Irish Melodies' appeared in ten parts between 1807 and 1835. Moore was a good musician and skillful writer of songs, which he set to Irish tunes, mainly of the 18th century.

Thomas Moore was born in Dublin as the son of a grocer. His backgroud was poor and he never varnished it. In his poem 'Epitaph on a Tuft-Hunter' he mocked snobbery: 'Heaven grant him now some noble nook / For, rest his soul! he'd rather be / Genteelly damn'd beside a Duke, / Than sav'd in vulgar company'. Moore studied at Trinity College, Dublin and London, and published his first book, 'The Poetical Works of Thomas Little', in 1801. He became in 1803 a civil officer to Bermuda, where he stayed for a year, and then returned to England after travels in the U.S. and Canada.

Moore's 'Epistles, Odes and other Poems' born from his journeys, appeared in 1806. It criticized Americans and and also arose moral irritation. However, his songs, based on folk tunes, became very popular and gained sympathy for the Irish nationalists. Best known of them are perhaps 'The Last Rose of Summer' and 'Believe Me, If All Those Endearing Young Charms'.

In the 1810s Moore was considered as important writer as Byron and Sir Walter Scott. In 1813 he issued 'The Twopenny Post Bag', a collection of satires directed against the prince regent. He also mocked in his poems his countrymen living in Paris and the Holy Allicance of 1815, a political agreement created after the fall of the Napoleonic empire. At the same time in Germany it was praised by the critic Friedrich von Schlegel (1772-1829). Moore was paid huge sum of £3000 for his widely translated narrative poem 'Lalla Rookh', which was published in 1817. In 1819 Moore was condemned to imprisonment because of debts - his deputy in Bermuda misappropriated £6000, and the responsibility fell on Moore himself. He left England with Lord John Russell for a visit to Italy and stayed away until the debt to the Admiralty had been paid, returning in 1822. In the next year his 'Loves of the Angels' became notorious for its eroticism but was financially successful.

In 1824 Moore received Byron's memoirs, but according to some sources, he burned them with the publisher John Murray, presumably to protect his friend. On the other hand, Leslie Marchand claims in his biography on Byron, that it was Moore who tried to prevent Murray from burning the memoirs, and he actually tried to retrieve the pages from the fire. Later Moore used some material from Byron's manuscript and brought out the 'Letters and Journals of Lord Byron' (1830). In 1835 Moore was awarded a literary pension. In the same year he published 'The Fudges in England'. It was a light satire on an Irish priest turned Protestant evangelist and on the literary absurdities of the day. Moore remained a popular writer for the rest of his life. He was awarded a Civil List pension in1850. Moore died on February 25, 1852 in Wiltshire. He is still Ireland's national poet. His statue for some reasons was raised above Dublin's largest public urinal.

Believe me, if all those endearing young charms,
Which I gaze on so fondly today,
Were to change by tomorrow, and fleet in my arms,
Like fairy-gifts fading away,
Thou wouldst still be adored, as this moment thou art,
Let thy loveliness fade as it will,
And around the dear ruin each wish of my heart
Would entwine itself verdantly still.

It is not while beauty and youth are thine own,
And thy cheeks unprofaned by a tear
That the fervor and faith of a soul can be known,
To which time will but make thee more dear;
No, the heart that has truly loved never forgets,
But as truly loves on to the close,
As the sunflower turns on her god, when he sets,
The same look which she turned when he rose.

Hark! the vesper hymn is stealing
O'er the waters soft and clear;
Nearer yet and nearer pealing,
And now bursts upon the ear:
Jubilate, Amen.
Farther now, now farther stealing,
Soft it fades upon the ear:
Jubilate, Amen.

Now, like moonlight waves retreating
To the shore, it dies along;
Now, like angry surges meeting,
Breaks the mingled tide of song:
Jubilate, Amen.
Hush! again, like waves, retreating
To the shore, it dies along:
Jubilate, Amen.

She is far from the land, where her young hero sleeps,
And lovers are round her, sighing;
But coldly she turns from their gaze, and weeps,
For her heart in his grave is lying!.

She sings the wild song of her dear native plains,
Every note which he lov'd awaking
Ah! little they think, who delight in her strains,
How the heart of the Minstrel is breaking!.

He had lov'd for his love, for his country he died,
They were all that to life had entwin'd him,
Nor soon shall the tears of his country be dried,
Nor long will his love stay behind him.

Oh! make her a grave, where the sun-beams rest,
When they promise a glorious morrow;
They'll shine o'er her sleep, like a smile from the West,
From her own lov'd Island of sorrow!.

"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 firefly lamp,
She paddles her white canoe.

And her firefly lamp I soon shall see,
And her paddle I soon shall hear;
Long and moving our life shall be
And I'll hide the maid in a cypress tree,
When the footstep of death is near".

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 eyelids knew,
He lay where the deadly vine doth weep
Its venemous tear, and nightly steep
The flesh with blistering dew!.

And near him the she-wolf stirr'd 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 play'd,
"Welcome," he said, "my dear one's light!"
And the dim shore echo'd for many a night
The name of the death-cold maid.

Till he hollow'd a boat of the birchen bark,
Which carried him off from the shore;
Far, far he follow'd the meteor spark,
The wind was high and the clouds were dark,
And the boat return'd 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 firefly lamp,
And paddle their white canoe!.

The time I've lost in wooing,
In watching and pursuing
The light that lies
In woman's eyes,
Has been my heart's undoing.
Tho' Wisdom oft has sought me,
I scorn'd the lore she brought me,
My only books
Were women's looks,
And folly's all they taught me.

Her smile when Beauty granted,
I hung with gaze enchanted,
Like him the Sprite
Whom maids by night
Oft meet in glen that's haunted.
Like him, too, Beauty won me;
But when the spell was on me,
If once their ray
Was turn'd away,
O! winds could not outrun me.

And are those follies going?
And is my proud heart growing
Too cold or wise
For brillant eyes
Again to set it glowing?
No -- vain, alas! th' endeavour
From bonds so sweet to sever:
Poor Wisdom's chance
Against a glance
Is now as weak as ever.