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

“The daylight is gone—but, before we depart,
“One cup shall go round to the friend of my heart,
“The kindest, the dearest—oh! judge by the tear
“I now shed while I name him, how kind and how dear.”

276

'Twas thus in the shade of the Calabash Tree,
With a few, who could feel and remember like me,
The charm that, to sweeten my goblet, I threw
Was a sigh to the past and a blessing on you.

277

Oh! say, is it thus, in the mirth-bringing hour,
When friends are assembled, when wit, in full flower,
Shoots forth from the lip, under Bacchus's dew,
In blossoms of thought ever springing and new—
Do you sometimes remember, and hallow the brim
Of your cup with a sigh, as you crown it to him
Who is lonely and sad in these valleys so fair,
And would pine in elysium, if friends were not there!

Last night, when we came from the Calabash-Tree,
When my limbs were at rest and my spirit was free,
The glow of the grape and the dreams of the day
Set the magical springs of my fancy in play,
And oh,—such a vision as haunted me then
I would slumber for ages to witness again.
The many I like, and the few I adore,
The friends who were dear and beloved before,

278

But never till now so beloved and dear,
At the call of my Fancy, surrounded me here;
And soon,—oh, at once, did the light of their smiles
To a paradise brighten this region of isles;
More lucid the wave, as they look'd on it, flow'd,
And brighter the rose, as they gather'd it, glow'd.
Not the valleys Heræan (though water'd by rills
Of the pearliest flow, from those pastoral hills ,
Where the Song of the Shepherd, primeval and wild,
Was taught to the nymphs by their mystical child)
Could boast such a lustre o'er land and o'er wave
As the magic of love to this paradise gave.

Oh magic of love! unembellish'd by you,
Hath the garden a blush or the landscape a hue?
Or shines there a vista in nature or art,
Like that which Love opes thro' the eye to the heart?

Alas, that a vision so happy should fade!
That, when morning around me in brilliancy play'd,

279

The rose and the stream I had thought of at night
Should still be before me, unfadingly bright;
While the friends, who had seem'd to hang over the stream,
And to gather the roses, had fled with my dream.

But look, where, all ready, in sailing array,
The bark that's to carry these pages away ,
Impatiently flutters her wing to the wind,
And will soon leave these islets of Ariel behind.
What billows, what gales is she fated to prove,
Ere she sleep in the lee of the land that I love!
Yet pleasant the swell of the billows would be,
And the roar of those gales would be music to me.
Not the tranquillest air that the winds ever blew,
Not the sunniest tears of the summer-eve dew,
Were as sweet as the storm, or as bright as the foam
Of the surge, that would hurry your wanderer home.

Pinkerton has said that “a good history and description of the Bermudas might afford a pleasing addition to the geographical library;” but there certainly are not materials for such a work. The island, since the time of its discovery, has experienced so very few vicissitudes, the people have been so indolent, and their trade so limited, that there is but little which the historian could amplify into importance; and, with respect to the natural productions of the country, the few which the inhabitants can be induced to cultivate are so common in the West Indies, that they have been described by every naturalist who has written any account of those islands.

It is often asserted by the trans-Atlantic politicians that this little colony deserves more attention from the mother-country than it receives, and it certainly possesses advantages of situation, to which we should not be long insensible, if it were once in the hands of an enemy. I was told by a celebrated friend of Washington, at New York, that they had formed a plan for its capture towards the conclusion of the American War; “with the intention (as he expressed himself) of making it a nest of hornets for the annoyance of British trade in that part of the world.” And there is no doubt it lies so conveniently in the track to the West Indies, that an enemy might with ease convert it into a very harassing impediment.

The plan of Bishop Berkeley for a college at Bermuda, where American savages might be converted and educated, though concurred in by the government of the day, was a wild and useless speculation. Mr. Hamilton, who was governor of the island some years since, proposed, if I mistake not, the establishment of a marine academy for the instruction of those children of West Indians, who might be intended for any nautical employment. This was a more rational idea, and for something of this nature the island is admirably calculated. But the plan should be much more extensive, and embrace a general system of education; which would relieve the colonists from the alternative to which they are reduced at present, of either sending their sons to England for instruction, or intrusting them to colleges in the states of America, where ideas, by no means favourable to Great Britain, are very sedulously inculcated.

The women of Bermuda, though not generally handsome, have an affectionate languor in their look and manner, which is always interesting. What the French imply by their epithet aimante seems very much the character of the young Bermudian girls—that predisposition to loving, which, without being awakened by any particular object, diffuses itself through the general manner in a tone of tenderness that never fails to fascinate. The men of the island, I confess, are not very civilised; and the old philosopher, who imagined that, after this life, men would be changed into mules, and women into turtle-doves, would find the metamorphosis in some degree anticipated at Bermuda.

Mountains of Sicily, upon which Daphnis, the first inventor of bucolic poetry, was nursed by the nymphs. See the lively description of these mountains in Diodorus Siculus, lib. iv. Ηραια γαρ ορη κατα την Σικελιαν εστιν, α φασι καλλει, κ. τ. λ.

A ship, ready to sail for England.