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Title: Shall The Harp Then Be Silent
Author: Thomas Moore [
More Titles by Moore]
Shall the Harp then be silent, when he who first gave
To our country a name, is withdrawn from all eyes?
Shall a Minstrel of Erin stand mute by the grave,
Where the first--where the last of her Patriots lies?
No--faint tho' the death-song may fall from his lips,
Tho' his Harp, like his soul, may with shadows be crost,
Yet, yet shall it sound, mid a nation's eclipse,
And proclaim to the world what a star hath been lost;--[1]
What a union of all the affections and powers
By which life is exalted, embellished, refined,
Was embraced in that spirit--whose centre was ours,
While its mighty circumference circled mankind.
Oh, who that loves Erin, or who that can see,
Thro' the waste of her annals, that epoch sublime--
Like a pyramid raised in the desert--where he
And his glory stand out to the eyes of all time;
That _one_ lucid interval, snatched from the gloom
And the madness of ages, when filled with his soul,
A Nation o'erleaped the dark bounds of her doom,
And for _one_ sacred instant, touched Liberty's goal?
Who, that ever hath heard him--hath drank at the source
Of that wonderful eloquence, all Erin's own,
In whose high-thoughted daring, the fire, and the force,
And the yet untamed spring of her spirit are shown?
An eloquence rich, wheresoever its wave
Wandered free and triumphant, with thoughts that shone thro',
As clear as the brook's "stone of lustre," and gave,
With the flash of the gem, its solidity too.
Who, that ever approached him, when free from the crowd,
In a home full of love, he delighted to tread
'Mong the trees which a nation had given, and which bowed,
As if each brought a new civic crown for his head--
Is there one, who hath thus, thro' his orbit of life
But at distance observed him--thro' glory, thro' blame,
In the calm of retreat, in the grandeur of strife,
Whether shining or clouded, still high and the same,--
Oh no, not a heart, that e'er knew him, but mourns
Deep, deep o'er the grave, where such glory is shrined--
O'er a monument Fame will preserve, 'mong the urns
Of the wisest, the bravest, the best of mankind!
NOTE:
[1] These lines were written on the death of our great patriot, Grattan, in the year 1820. It is only the two first verses that are either intended or fitted to be sung.
[The end]
Thomas Moore's poem: Shall The Harp Then Be Silent
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