The slumber of the silent tides.
The only envious cloud that lowers

Hath hung its shade on Pico's height,
Where dimly, 'mid the dusk, he towers,
And scowling at this heav'n of light,
Exults to see the infant storm
Cling darkly round his giant form!

But hark!-the boatswain's pipings tell
'Tis time to bid my dream farewell:
Eight bells: the middle watch is set;
Good night, my Strangford!—ne'er forget
That, far beyond the western sea

Is one, whose heart remembers thee.

Say, have you ne'er, in nightly vision, stray'd
To those pure isles of ever-blooming shade,
Which bards of old, with kindly fancy, plac'd
For happy spirits in th' Atlantic waste?

There listening, while, from earth, each breeze that came
Brought echoes of their own undying fame,

In eloquence of eye, and dreams of song,

They charm'd their lapse of nightless hours along:—
Nor yet in song, that mortal ear might suit,
For every spirit was itself a lute,

Where Virtue waken'd, with elysian breeze,
Pure tones of thought and mental harmonies.

Believe me, Lady, when the zephyrs bland
Floated our bark to this enchanted land,-
These leafy isles upon the ocean thrown,
Like studs of emerald o'er a silver zone,-
Not all the charm, that ethnic fancy gave
To blessed arbours o'er the western wave,

Could wake a dream, more soothing or sublime,
Of bowers ethereal, and the Spirit's clime.

Bright rose the morning, every wave was still,
When the first perfume of a cedar hill
Sweetly awak'd us, and, with smiling charms,
The fairy harbour woo'd us to its arms.
Gently we stole, before the whisp'ring wind,

Through plantain shades, that round, like awnings twin'd,
And kiss'd on either side the wanton sails,
Breathing our welcome to these vernal vales;
While, far reflected o'er the wave serene,
Each wooded island shed so soft a green
That the enamour'd keel, with whisp'ring play,
Through liquid herbage seem'd to steal its way.
Never did weary bark more gladly glide,
Or rest its anchor in a lovelier tide!
Along the margin, many a shining dome,
White as the palace of a Lapland gnome,
Brighten'd the wave;-in every myrtle grove
Secluded bashful, like a shrine of love,
Some elfin mansion sparkled through the shade;
And while the foliage interposing play'd,
Lending the scene an ever-changing grace,
Fancy would love, in glimpses vague, to trace
The flowery capital, the shaft, the porch,
And dream of temples, till her kindling torch
Lighted me back to all the glorious days
Of Attic genius; and I seem'd to gaze
On marble, from the rich Pentelic mount,
Gracing the umbrage of some Naiad's fount.

TO GEORGE MORGAN, ESQ.
FROM BERMUDA, JANUARY, 1804.

But, bless the little fairy isle!
How sweetly after all our ills,

We saw the sunny morning smile

Serenely o'er its fragrant hills;
And felt the pure, delicious flow
Of airs, that round this Eden blow
Freshly as ev'n the gales that come
O'er our own healthy hills at home.

Could you but view the scenery fair,

That now beneath my window lies,
You'd think, that nature lavish'd there
Her purest wave, her softest skies,
To make a heaven for love to sigh in,
For bards to live and saints to die in.
Close to my wooded bank below,

In glassy calm the waters sleep,
And to the sunbeam proudly show
The coral rocks they love to steep.
The fainting breeze of morning fails;
The drowsy boat moves slowly past,
And I can almost touch its sails

As loose they flap around the mast.
The noontide sun a splendour pours
That lights up all these leafy shores;
While his own heav'n, its clouds and beams,
So pictur'd in the waters lie,

That each small bark, in passing, seems
To float along a burning sky.

BERMUDA.

Farewell to Bermuda, and long may the bloom
Of the lemon and myrtle its valleys perfume;
May spring to eternity hallow the shade,

Where Ariel has warbled and Waller has stray'd.
And thou-when at dawn, thou shalt happen to roam,
Through the lime-covered alley that leads to thy home,
Where oft, when the dance and the revel were done,
And the stars were beginning to fade in the sun,
I have led thee along, and have told by the way
What my heart all the night had been burning to say-

Oh! think of the past—give a sigh to those times,
And a blessing for me to that alley of limes.

Knowing that it was an uncongenial post, Moore only remained there for a few months while arranging to have his duties performed by deputy. In his letters he described the scenery as beautiful, but his occupation, in examining witnesses in regard to captured vessels, &c., as not very poetical. He left Bermuda in April, resolved to see something of America before his return to England, and sailed to New York; from thence, after a short stay, he revisited Norfolk in Virginia, where Mr. Merry, the English minister, introduced him to President Jefferson-the man who drew up the Declaration of American Independence. From Norfolk he proceeded on a pleasure tour through the States.

At Philadelphia he formed some agreeable friendships. In lines addressed "To the Honourable W. R. Spencer, from Buffalo, upon Lake Erie," after severely animadverting on the half polished, half barbarous life, then common in the States, and incident to a newly-settled country,

"Without one breath of soul, divinely strong,
One ray of mind to thaw them into song;"

by way of contrast, he goes on to speak of many pleasant hours spent in the society of Mr. Dennie and his friends there:

66

Yet, yet forgive me, oh ye sacred few,

Whom late by Delaware's green banks I knew;

Whom, known and lov'd through many a social eve,
"Twas bliss to live with, and 'twas pain to leave.
Not with more joy the lonely exile scann'd
The writing trac'd upon the desert's sand,
Where his lone heart but little hop'd to find
One trace of life, one stamp of human kind,

Than did I hail the pure, th' enlighten'd zeal,
The strength to reason and the warmth to feel,
The manly polish and the illumin'd taste,
Which,--'mid the melancholy, heartless waste
My foot has travers'd,—oh you sacred few!
I found by Delaware's green banks with you."

"Believe me, Spencer, while I wing'd the hours Where Schuylkill winds his way through banks of flowers,

Though few the days, the happy evenings few,

So warm with heart, so rich with mind they flew
That my charm'd soul forgot its wish to roam,
And rested there, as in a dream of home.
And looks I met, like looks I'd lov'd before,
And voices too, which as they trembled o'er
The chord of memory, found full many a tone
Of kindness there in concord with their own.

Yes, we had nights of that communion free,
That flow of heart, which I have known with thee
So oft, so warmly; nights of mirth and mind,
Of whims that taught, and follies that refin'd,
When shall we both renew them? when, restor❜d
To the gay feast and intellectual board,
Shall I once more enjoy with thee and thine
Those whims that teach, those follies that refine?
Even now, as wand'ring upon Erie's shore,

I hear Niagara's distant cataract roar,
I sigh for home,-alas! these weary feet
Have many a mile to journey, ere we meet.”

Recording his journey by the Mohawk river, he writes:"There is a holy magnificence in the immense bank of woods that overhang it, which does not permit the heart to rest merely in the admiration of nature, but carries it to that something less vague than nature-that satisfactory source of all these exquisite wonders-a divinity."