Poem by Thomas Moore

From “Irish Melodies”. 98. Sweet Innisfallen

          SWEET Innisfallen, fare thee well,
                May calm and sunshine long be thine!
          How fair thou art let others tell —
                To feel how fair shall long be mine.

          Sweet Innisfallen, long shall dwell
                In memory’s dream that sunny smile,
          Which o’er thee on that evening fell,
                When first I saw thy fairy isle.

          ’Twas light, indeed, too blest for one,
                Who had to turn to paths of care —
          Through crowded haunts again to run,
                And leave thee bright and silent there;

          No more unto thy shores to come,
                But, on the world’s rude ocean tost,
          Dream of thee sometimes as a home
                Of sunshine he had seen and lost.

          Far better in thy weeping hour
                To part from thee, as I do now,
          When mist is o’er thy blooming bowers,
                Like sorrow’s veil on beauty’s brow.

          For, though unrivall’d still thy grace,
                Thou dost not look, as then, too blest,
          But, thus in shadow, seem’st a place
                Where erring man might hope to rest —

          Might hope to rest, and find in thee
                A gloom like Eden’s, on the day
          He left its shade, when every tree,
                Like thine, hung weeping o’er his way.

          Weeping or smiling, lovely isle!
                And all the lovelier for thy tears —
          For though but rare thy sunny smile,
                ’Tis heaven’s own glance when it appears.

          Like feeling hearts whose joys are few,
                But, when indeed they come, divine —
          The brightest light the sun e’er threw
                Is lifeless to one gleam of thine!

1. From “The Odes of Anacreon”. Ode 54
2. From “The Odes of Anacreon”. Ode 52
3. From “The Odes of Anacreon”. Ode 56
4. From “The Odes of Anacreon”. Ode 38
5. From “The Odes of Anacreon”. Ode 64

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