Page:The New Monthly Magazine - Volume 094.djvu/389



death of a great poet is felt as a national calamity; it sends a pang into every circle, and scarcely a family whose hearth does not seem for the time desolate. His name, cherished, loved, familiarly spoken, belonged to all, as that of a friend and brother. A thousand recollections are mixed up with his thoughts, which have been adopted, naturalised, repeated involuntarily by countless admirers, of whom, in his own secluded, peaceful retreat, the object of such fervent regard probably never dreamt. If this be the case with all the great authors whose fame is world-wide, how truly is it so with him whose death comes with the chilling winds of March.

Moore the poet is dead! Why do we grieve so much to hear the knell, since it is merely a signal of peace after long suffering, a close of pain and sorrow—the last sound that ends a tale of lingering, wearing affliction? We should rather rejoice than mourn that the spirit which has, alas! too long hopelessly struggled to release itself from its earthly trammels, is free at last: but the word "Death" is so startling, so annihilating to Hope, that vainly we strive to suppress the painful sense of regret, but feel as if there had been no cause for mourning till now, although that eloquent tongue has long been mute—that melodious voice long silent, which, for more than half a century, breathed the very soul of music into the world we have lived in.

We have paid his memory the tribute of our tears; let us endeavour naw to do homage to his genius.

That genius shines forth under every possible aspect, changing its outward form with the varying impulses of the poet’s career, but, in all its phases, ever true to itself. An outline of his life will assist us in carrying on our subject.

Thomas Moore was born on the 30th of May, 1780, in Aungier-street, Dublin, where his father carried on a small trade in spirits and grocery—a condition of life which the poet never thought to conceal or mystify, though he might have claimed the army as his progenitor's