The Poetical Works of Thomas Moore :: :: University of Virginia Library

No, ne'er did the wave in its element steep
An island of lovelier charms;
It blooms in the giant embrace of the deep,
Like Hebe in Hercules' arms.
The blush of your bowers is light to the eye,
And their melody balm to the ear;
But the fiery planet of day is too nigh,
And the Snow Spirit never comes here.

The down from his wing is as white as the pearl
That shines through thy lips when they part,
And it falls on the green earth as melting, my girl,
As a murmur of thine on the heart
Oh! fly to the clime, where he pillows the death,
As he cradles the birth of the year;
Bright are your bowers and balmy their breath,
But the Snow Spirit cannot come here.

264

How sweet to behold him, when borne on the gale,
And brightening the bosom of morn,
He flings, like the priest of Diana, a veil
O'er the brow of each virginal thorn.
Yet think not the veil he so chillingly casts
Is the veil of a vestal severe;
No, no, thou wilt see, what a moment it lasts,
Should the Snow Spirit ever come here.

But fly to his region—lay open thy zone,
And he'll weep all his brilliancy dim,
To think that a bosom, as white as his own,
Should not melt in the daybeam like him.
Oh! lovely the print of those delicate feet
O'er his luminous path will appear—
Fly, my beloved! this island is sweet,
But the Snow Spirit cannot come here.