In these verses we have of course an allegory. By a fashion common in Irish poetry, the poet expresses as a love song his political allegiance--though here the Catholic Church, rather than Ireland, is the "Dark Rosaleen" or "Kathleen ni Houlihan," to whom the passion is addressed. The third of this remarkable group has been quoted already: it is Moore's rebuke to Ireland, or to O'Connell, "The dream of those days when first I sung thee is o'er"; and it is very notable that for such an occasion he should have chosen his most distinctively Irish manner. The peculiarity of these metres--the dragging, wavering cadence that half baulks the ear--is the distinctive characteristic of Irish verse. No English poet, so far as I know, has caught it; but Mangan gave this character to some of his finest renderings from the Irish, and in our own day Mr. Yeats has shown an increasing tendency towards this subtle and evasive beauty. It is I think mainly as an artist in metre that Moore still holds an importance in the history of English poetry; and any one considering the poems just quoted will see how individual and original were his achievements. But the admirable qualities in his verse by which he impressed his contemporaries were rather those of lightness and swiftness: its sweetness, of which much was made, is a good deal less admirable. For this, however, the nature of his best lyric work was largely responsible. He wrote songs to be sung; and the best verse is not that which sings best. Language has to be softened down for singing, as it need not be for speech; and this softening approaches to emasculation. The habit of writing for music injured Moore's versification even when he wrote narrative verse; and we have the result in the excessive smoothness of _Lalla Rookh_. Even more unfortunately did the medium of production affect his style. Moore's conception of singing was certainly not one in which the words were to be sacrificed to the music; but he wrote his words to be sung; and words for singing must carry their meaning easily through the ear to the intelligence--for what is sung can never be caught so easily as what is spoken. He was led, therefore, to use a strict economy of ideas; to expand rather than condense his meaning. Take such a verse as this (from "Farewell, but whenever you welcome the hour"):-- "Let Fate do her worst; there are relics of joy, Bright dreams of the past, which she cannot destroy, Which come in the night-time of sorrow and care, And tiring back the features that joy used to wear. Long, long be my heart with such memories fill'd! Like the vase, in which roses have once been distill'd-- You may break, you may shatter the vase if you will, But the scent of the roses will hang round it still"-- and set beside it Shelley's:--