"Dear Harp of my Country! in darkness I found thee, The cold chain of silence had hung o'er thee long, When proudly, my own Island Harp, I unbound thee, And gave all thy chords to light, freedom, and song! The warm lay of love and the light note of gladness Have waken'd thy fondest, thy liveliest thrill; But so oft hast thou echo'd the deep sigh of sadness, That even in thy mirth it will steal from thee still. "Dear Harp of my Country! farewell to thy numbers, This sweet wreath of song is the last we shall twine! Go, sleep with the sunshine of Fame on thy slumbers, Till touch'd by some hand less unworthy than mine: If the pulse of the patriot, soldier, or lover, Have throbb'd at our lay, 'tis thy glory alone; I was but as the wind, passing heedlessly over, And all the wild sweetness I waked was thy own." Except in the _Sacred Songs_ there is nothing in Moore's work fit to stand beside such lyrics as these; and the finest of these _Songs_ breathes an inspiration very like that of the _Melodies_:-- "Fall'n is thy throne, O Israel! Silence is o'er thy plains; Thy dwellings all lie desolate, Thy children weep in chains." Another opens with a very beautiful verse:-- "The turf shall be my fragrant shrine; My temple, Lord! that arch of thine; My censer's breath the mountain airs, And silent thoughts my only prayers." But here, in the working out of the idea, one feels, as so often in Moore, rather sated with sweetness. For an extreme example of this cloying ornament, to which he owed so much of his popularity, one would quote:-- "Oh! had we some bright little isle of our own, In a blue summer ocean far off and alone, Where a leaf never dies in the still-blooming bowers, And the bee banquets on through a whole year of flowers; Where the sun loves to pause With so fond a delay, That the night only draws A thin veil o'er the day; Where simply to feel that we breathe, that we live, Is worth the best joy that life elsewhere can give." There is no flaw in such work, but the taste is too florid. Occasionally, however, we find his taste wholly at fault in the choice of a phrase, as in "Sir Knight, _I feel not the least alarm_," or the still worse "Believe me, if all those _endearing young charms_,"--a lapse into the worst dulcification of confectionery.