What's My Thought Like? by Thomas Moore • Simple Poetry

Fancy.

The more I've viewed this world, the more I've found,
That filled as 'tis with scenes and creatures rare,
Fancy commands within her own bright round
    A world of scenes and creatures far more fair.
Nor is it that her power can call up there
    A single charm, that's not from Nature won,--
No more than rainbows in their pride can wear
    A single tint unborrowed from the sun;
But 'tis the mental medium; it shines thro',
That lends to Beauty all its charm and hue;
As the same light that o'er the level lake
    One dull monotony of lustre flings,
Will, entering in the rounded raindrop, make
Colors as gay as those on angels' wings!

Thomas Moore

Enigma.

        monstrum nulla virtute redemptum.


Come, riddle-me-ree, come, riddle-me-ree,
    And tell me what my name may be.
I am nearly one hundred and thirty years old,
    And therefore no chicken, as you may suppose;--
Tho' a dwarf in my youth (as my nurses have told),
    I have, every year since, been out-growing my clothes:
Till at last such a corpulent giant I stand,
    That if folks were to furnish me now with a suit,
It would take every morsel of scrip in the land
    But to measure my bulk from the head to the foot.
Hence they who maintain me, grown sick of my stature,
    To cover me nothing but rags will supply;
And the doctors declare that in due course of nature
    About the year 30 in rags I shall die.
Meanwhile, I sta...

Thomas Moore

Like One Who, Doomed.

Like one who, doomed o'er distant seas
    His weary path to measure,
When home at length, with favoring breeze,
    He brings the far-sought treasure;

His ship, in sight of shore, goes down,
    That shore to which he hasted;
And all the wealth he thought his own
    Is o'er the waters wasted!

Like him, this heart, thro' many a track
    Of toil and sorrow straying,
One hope alone brought fondly back,
    Its toil and grief repaying.

Like him, alas, I see that ray
    Of hope before me perish,
And one dark minute sweep away
    What years were given to cherish.

Thomas Moore

The Fudge Family In Paris Letter IV. From Phelim Connor To ----

"Return!"--no, never, while the withering hand
Of bigot power is on that hapless land;
While, for the faith my fathers held to God,
Even in the fields where free those fathers trod,
I am proscribed, and--like the spot left bare
In Israel's halls, to tell the proud and fair
Amidst their mirth, that Slavery had been there^[1]--
On all I love, home, parents, friends, I trace
The mournful mark of bondage and disgrace!
No!--let them stay, who in their country's pangs
See naught but food for factions and harangues;
Who yearly kneel before their masters' doors
And hawk their wrongs, as beggars do their sores:
Still let your .            .            .            .^[2]
            .            .            .            .            .
Still hope a...

Thomas Moore

The Results Of Thought

Acquaintance; companion;
One dear brilliant woman;
The best-endowed, the elect,
All by their youth undone,
All, all, by that inhuman
Bitter glory wrecked.
But I have straightened out
Ruin, wreck and wrack;
I toiled long years and at length
Came to so deep a thought
I can summon back
All their wholesome strength.
What images are these
That turn dull-eyed away,
Or Shift Time's filthy load,
Straighten aged knees,
Hesitate or stay?
What heads shake or nod?

William Butler Yeats

This Life Is All Checkered With Pleasures And Woes

This life is all checkered with pleasures and woes,
    That chase one another like waves of the deep,--
Each brightly or darkly, as onward it flows,
    Reflecting our eyes, as they sparkle or weep.
So closely our whims on our miseries tread,
    That the laugh is awaked ere the tear can be dried;
And, as fast as the rain-drop of Pity is shed.
    The goose-plumage of Folly can turn it aside.
But pledge me the cup--if existence would cloy,
    With hearts ever happy, and heads ever wise,
Be ours the light Sorrow, half-sister to Joy,
    And the light, brilliant Folly that flashes and dies.
When Hylas was sent with his urn to the fount,
    Thro' fields full of light, and with heart full of play,
Light rambled the boy, over meadow and mount,
    And neglected his t...

Thomas Moore

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