The Mountain Sentinel

On the Death of Thomas Moore.

BY MRS. ANNA MARIA FERGUSON.

"We've fallen upon gloomy days;
Star after star decays;
Every bright name, that shed
Light o'er our land, is fled.":—Moore.

Harp of my country, in mourning thou'rt shrouded,
No more shall thy music tones float o'er the tide;
The face of poor Erin with sadness is clouded,
With the wild song her last hope of freedom has died;
Cold is the hand that awaked thee from slumbers;
Pulseless the heart that but throbbed for thy fame;
Voiceless the spirit whose soul-thrilling numbers
Oft flushed the pale cheek of the Saxon with shame.

Sons of the Celts, on your brows strew the ashes,
The beam, from your emerald zone passed away
Was no meteor that but for a moment out flashes,
And leaves not behind one trace of its ray;
But a star that arose o'er the night of your sorrow,
When the shamrock and cross in the dust were low trailed.
Which from heaven its light did—Prometheus—like borrow,
To shine while the sun of your glory was veiled.

Like the sign in the East to the wise men appearing,
Guiding their wanderings to Chaldea o'er,
So bright o'er the cliffs of proud Albion careering,
Sending its light to the uttermost shore;
That orb showed all nations, were, fettered and bleeding,
Her homes desecrated, her altars profaned,
On her bosom the vultures of Tyranny feeding.
Lay the Queen of the West in her ocean-bed chained.

The death keen is heard in thy halls, oh Tamara,*
As on that sad eve when on Ossory's plain.
The chieftain that went forth in strength from
Kinkara
Lay dead, and Mononia wept o'er her slain.
Now she weeps—for her bard while her warriors is sleeping,
In the valley of shadows his loved form lies low,
And the wind's muffled voice round thy battlements sweeping,
Is blent with the Banshee's dread wailings of woe.

How oft through these mouldering hills has he wandered,
Through these arches with mosses and ivy o'ergrown,
While the hate in his bosom grew strong as he pondered
O'er the fragments of Liberty's temple here strewn—
Hate for the tyrants, whose despotic power
Was breaking the hearts they could never subdue—
Contempt for the minions before them that cower,
Who proved to their country and freedom untrue.

How oft from those eloquent memories turning,
That quicken his pulses and maddened his brain.
He quenched the fierce curse on his lips that was burning,
And seizing his harp, gave to vengeance its strain;
That harp, to its master's thought ever replying,
Told in music that but to its wild chords belongs,
His love for his Green Isle, deep, fervent, undying,
His scorn for her foes and his grief for her wrongs.

It told of the days ere the foreign invader
Had dared to pollute with his footsteps our soil
When Erin in genius and learning arrayed her,
When she was earth's diamond and Britain its foil.
Then it told her thrones fallen, in notes of deep sadness,
Her name blotted out from the nations of earth:
Her sons drinking deep of the red cup of madness,
Living ALIENS and SLAVES in the LAND of THEIR BIRTH!

The old world, entranced, to its melody listened,
While Columbia's brave freemen each "anthem encored;"
And the exile, while tears on his long lashes glistened,
At its sound seemed to home and to loved ones restored,
But now its wild breathings are silent forever;
Must the flames they enkindled within our breasts die?
Must Erin, loved Erin, in bondage live ever?
Forbid it Truth, Justice; forbid it Most High!

Lonely and lone, oh my heart, was thy beating,
When the mournful tale was revealed to thine ear;
Seemed from its channels the life-blood retreating,
Shuddering as if a lost spirit was near.
Yet no idle fear made me tremble that hour;
'Twas thy country's wan spectre that rose to the view;
She has naught left her now but the past for her dower:
But oh! to that past, sons of Erin, be true.

*Tamara. Tamar or Tara, the seat of the ancient kings of Ireland.

LOUISVILLE, March 24th, 1852.

It is observed that the most censorious are generally the least judicious, who having nothing to recommend themselves, will be finding faults with others. No man envies the merit of another who has enough of his own.