"Ah! not the love that should have bless'd So young, so innocent a breast; Not the pure, open, prosperous love, That, pledged on earth and seal'd above, Grows in the world's approving eyes, In friendship's smile and home's caress, Collecting all the heart's sweet ties Into one knot of happiness! No, Hinda, no--thy fatal flame Is nursed in silence, sorrow, shame.-- A passion, without hope or pleasure, In thy soul's darkness buried deep, It lies, like some ill-gotten treasure,-- Some idol, without shrine or name, O'er which its pale-eyed votaries keep Unholy watch, while others sleep!" Hafed and Hinda are lovers who find themselves united by all the attraction of their natures, yet separated irretrievably by external circumstances which are, in no small part, of the hero's making. The man is resolute to forfeit, not only life, but the fruition of declared love, sooner than abandon a national cause, even when that cause is most desperate;--the girl sees herself with "a divided duty," torn away by imperious love from all her natural loyalties;--and such lovers also, in Moore's own youth, were Robert Emmet and Sarah Curran. I have quoted the famous lyric in which he consecrates the memory of the man who died for the faith that was in him. Not less famous, and still more beautiful, is the melody which preserves the memory of the surviving lover, and the sad moods of retrospect which were evident in her broken life. Here, more than perhaps in any other poem, Moore has fixed in his words that plangent quality of voice, by which a hundred times he moved listeners to tears. "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 loved awaking:-- Ah! little they think, who delight in her strains, How the heart of the Minstrel is breaking. "He had lived 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 sunbeams rest When they promise a glorious morrow; They'll shine o'er her sleep, like a smile from the West, From her own loved island of sorrow."