VQL. VIII.

Fugitive Poetry.

FUGITIVE POETRY,

A MELOGOGUE*,

BY THOMAS MOORE, ESQ.

(STRAIN OF MUSIC.)

THERE breathes the language known and felt,
Far as the pure air spreads its living zone;
Wherever Rage can rouse, or Pity melt,
That language of the soul is felt and known.
From those meridian plains,

Where oft, of old, on some high tower,

The soft Peruvian pour'd his midnight strains,
And call'd his distant love with such sweet power,

That when she heard the well-known lay,

Not worlds could keep her from his arms away;
To those bleak realms of polar night,
Where the youth of Lapland's sky,

Bids his rapid rein-deer fly,

And sings, along the darkling waste of snow,
As blithe as if the blessed light

Of vernal Phoebus burn'd upon his brow;
Oh Music! thy celestial claim

Is still resistless, still the same;

* This melologue was recited at the Kilkenny Theatre, by its author, at the close of the season, 1810. The performers at the Theatre were gentlemen of the neighbouring country, and the profits of the performance were given to the different charitable institutions in Kilkenny.

And, faithful as the mighty sea

To the pale star that o'er its realm presides,
The spell-bound tides

Of human passion rise and fall from thee.
(GREEK AIR.)

List! 'tis a Grecian maid that sings,
While, from Ilyssus' silvery springs,

She draws the cool lymph in her graceful urn,
While, by her side, in Music's charm dissolving,
Some patriot youth, the glorious past revolving,
Dreams of bright days that never can return;
When Athens nurs'd her olive bough
With hands by tyrant power unchained,
And braided for the Muse's brow
A wreath by tyrant touch unstained;
When heroes trod each classic field,
Where coward feet now faintly falter,
And every arm was Freedom's shield,
And every heart was Freedom's altar.

(GREEK AIR, INTERRUPTED BY A TRUMPET.)

Hark! 'tis the sound that charms
The war-steed's wakening ears—

Oh-many a mother folds her arms

Round her boy-soldier, when that sound she hears;
And, tho' her fond heart sinks with fears,

Is proud to feel his young pulse bound
With valour's fever at the sound.-

See! from his native hills afar
The rude Helvetian flies to war,
Careless for what, for whom he fights,
For slave or despot, wrongs or rights,

A conqueror oft, a hero never;
Yet lavish of his life-blood still,
As if 'twere like his mountain rill,
And gush'd for ever!

(RANZ DES VACHES.)

Oh Music! here, even here,

Thy soul-felt charm asserts its wond'rous power.
There is an air, which oft among the rocks

Of his own lov'd land at evening hour

Is heard, when shepherds homeward pipe their flocks;→→→
Oh! every note of it would thrill his mind

With tenderest thoughts, and bring about his knees
The rosy children whom he left behind;

And fill each little angel eye

With speaking tears, that ask him, why

He wander'd from his hut to scenes like these?
Vain, vain, is then the trumpet's brazen roar,
Sweet notes of home, of love, are all he hears,
And the stern eyes that look'd for blood before,
Now, melting mournful, lose themselves in tears!

(RANZ DES VACHES, INTERRUPTED BY A TRUMPET.) But wake the trumpet's blast again,

And rouse the ranks of warrior men!
Oh War! when Truth thy arm employs,
And Freedom's spirit guides the labouring storm,
Thy vengeance takes a hallow'd form,

And, like Heaven's lightning, sacredly destroys.
Nor, Music, thro' thy breathing sphere
Lives there a sound more grateful to the ear
Of HIM who made all harmony,

Than the blest sound of fetters breaking,
And the first hymn, that man, awaking
From Slavery's slumber, breathes to Liberty.