The need for fitting metre to music forced Moore into employing a wide variety of stanzas; and his example was of service in a day which had been little used to anything but the couplet and quatrain of three or four well-worn types. But by far more remarkable was the achievement in three separate poems of a metrical effect wholly new in English. Of these, one is probably the most beautiful lyric that Moore ever wrote:-- "At the mid hour of night, when the stars are weeping, I fly To the lone vale we loved, when life shone warm in thine eye; And I think oft, if spirits can steal from the regions of air, To revisit past scenes of delight, thou wilt come to me there, And tell me our love is remember'd, even in the sky! "Then I sing the wild song 'twas once such pleasure, to hear, When our voices, commingling, breathed, like one, on the ear; And, as Echo far off through the vale my sad orison rolls, I think, O my love! 'tis thy voice, from the Kingdom of Souls, Faintly answering still the notes that once were so dear." In the second, the same structure is used for the line, but with a different and simpler stanza:-- "Through grief and through danger thy smile hath cheer'd my way, Till hope seemed to bud from each thorn that round me lay; The darker our fortune, the brighter our pure love burn'd; Till shame into glory, till fear into zeal was turn'd; Yes, slave as I was, in thy arms my spirit felt free, And bless'd even the sorrows that made me more dear to thee. "Thy rival was honour'd, whilst thou wert wrong'd and scorn'd, Thy crown was of briers, while gold her brows adorn'd; She woo'd me to temples, while thou layest hid in caves, Her friends were all masters, while thine, alas! were slaves; Yet cold in the earth, at thy feet, I would rather be, Than wed what I love not, or turn one thought from thee. "They slander thee sorely, who say thy vows are frail-- Hadst thou been a false one, thy cheek had look'd less pale, They say too, so long thou hast worn those lingering chains, That deep in thy heart they have printed their servile stains-- Oh! foul is the slander--no chain could that soul subdue-- Where shineth _thy_ spirit, there liberty shineth too!"