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

With triumph this morning, oh Boston! I hail
The stir of thy deck and the spread of thy sail,
For they tell me I soon shall be wafted, in thee,
To the flourishing isle of the brave and the free,

340

And that chill Nova-Scotia's unpromising strand
Is the last I shall tread of American land.
Well—peace to the land! may her sons know, at length,
That in high-minded honour lies liberty's strength,
That though man be as free as the fetterless wind,
As the wantonest air that the north can unbind,
Yet, if health do not temper and sweeten the blast,
If no harvest of mind ever sprung where it pass'd,
Then unblest is such freedom, and baleful its might,—
Free only to ruin, and strong but to blight!

Farewell to the few I have left with regret;
May they sometimes recall, what I cannot forget,

341

The delight of those evenings,—too brief a delight!
When in converse and song we have stol'n on the night;
When they've ask'd me the manners, the mind, or the mien
Of some bard I had known or some chief I had seen,
Whose glory, though distant, they long had ador'd,
Whose name had oft hallow'd the wine-cup they pour'd;
And still as, with sympathy humble but true,
I have told of each bright son of fame all I knew,
They have listen'd, and sigh'd that the powerful stream
Of America's empire should pass, like a dream,
Without leaving one relic of genius, to say
How sublime was the tide which had vanish'd away!
Farewell to the few—though we never may meet
On this planet again, it is soothing and sweet
To think that, whenever my song or my name
Shall recur to their ear, they'll recall me the same
I have been to them now, young, unthoughtful, and blest,
Ere hope had deceiv'd me or sorrow deprest.

342

But, Douglas! while thus I recall to my mind
The elect of the land we shall soon leave behind,
I can read in the weather-wise glance of thine eye,
As it follows the rack flitting over the sky,
That the faint coming breeze will be fair for our flight,
And shall steal us away, ere the falling of night.
Dear Douglas! thou knowest, with thee by my side,
With thy friendship to soothe me, thy courage to guide,
There is not a bleak isle in those summerless seas,
Where the day comes in darkness, or shines but to freeze,
Not a tract of the line, not a barbarous shore,
That I could not with patience, with pleasure explore!
Oh think then how gladly I follow thee now,
When Hope smooths the billowy path of our prow,
And each prosperous sigh of the west-springing wind
Takes me nearer the home where my heart is inshrin'd;
Where the smile of a father shall meet me again,
And the tears of a mother turn bliss into pain;

343

Where the kind voice of sisters shall steal to my heart,
And ask it, in sighs, how we ever could part?—

But see!—the bent top-sails are ready to swell—
To the boat—I am with thee—Columbia, farewell!

Commanded by Captain J. E. Douglas, with whom I returned to England, and to whom I am indebted for many, many kindnesses. In truth, I should but offend the delicacy of my friend Douglas, and, at the same time, do injustice to my own feelings of gratitude, did I attempt to say how much I owe to him.

Sir John Wentworth, the Governor of Nova-Scotia, very kindly allowed me to accompany him on his visit to the College, which they have lately established at Windsor, about forty miles from Halifax, and I was indeed most pleasantly surprised by the beauty and fertility of the country which opened upon us after the bleak and rocky wilderness by which Halifax is surrounded.—I was told that, in travelling onwards, we should find the soil and the scenery improve, and it gave me much pleasure to know that the worthy Governor has by no means such an “inamabile regnum” as I was, at first sight, inclined to believe.