28 May: Boreham on Thomas Moore

The Songs of Ireland
It is scarcely too much to say that Robert Burns is no more esteemed in the land of brown heath and shaggy wood than is Thomas Moore (the anniversary of whose birth we mark today) among the castles and cabins of Galway, Cork, and Tipperary. When in 1788, Australia was born, a small boy of nine was getting into all sorts of mischief in a grocer's shop in Dublin. Yet, by some occult magic of his own, he captivated the hearts of all who were in any way brought into contact with him. Of unusually attractive face and figure, overflowing with boisterous vivacity and animal spirits, endowed with a beautiful voice and a sparkling wit, he made friends everywhere. As an elocutionist he was the pride of his school. He could sing so gaily and so movingly that he was the idol of every Irish audience that could coax him to its platform; and, young as he was, his brain was so jingling with tuneful rhymes that, in odd moments, he caught himself scribbling amatory verses of a kind that, in after years, won for him such wide renown.

The lure of his magnetic personality became stronger and stronger as the years rolled by. Just as his tousle-headed, laughing-eyed, merry-voiced boyishness had fascinated the companions of his infancy, so, all through life, he drew and held the ardent and admiring devotion of all who met him. He charmed everybody—Irish and English, young and old, high and low, rich and poor—by look, a smile, a jest, a song, or even by his mere entrance into the room. Like Father O'Flynn, he had a way with him. He was only twenty when he crossed the Irish Sea and greatly daring, made his way to London. Chatteron had recently gone to London and London had crucified him. But it crowned Moore. All doors swung open.

Songs That Turned To Glory And Gold
He became the lion of every drawing-room. By singing one of his own songs he could, according to his whim, convulse any company with laughter or move it to tears. He bound to himself with hoops of steel every new acquaintance, lordly or lowly. Everybody loved him. When, for example, his landlady discovered that he was only prevented from publishing his songs because of the expense, the good woman not only invited him to live rent free, beneath her roof, but placed the whole of her hard earned savings at his command. Happily, no need for such sacrifice arose. The Prince of Wales, afterwards King George the Fourth, cheerfully agreed to the dedication of the poems to his regal self, and, from that moment, their success was assured. Those who had listened to his songs were eager to possess them; those who had only heard of their sweetness, delicacy, and beauty were anxious to read for themselves the lines that had proved so potent and affecting.

In a surprisingly short time the young poet was in a position to demand for his dainty stanzas amounts such as had never been paid for compositions of the kind. For a quarter of a century he received a hundred guineas for each new melody. Publishers, realising the demand, were too hungry for the manuscripts to boggle at the price. In kitchens and in clubrooms, in taverns and in palace halls, Moore's exquisite little ditties were hummed and whistled and crooned and sung. "The Last Rose of Summer," "The Minstrel Boy," "Oft in the Stilly Night," "The Harp that Once," "Believe Me, if All Those Endearing Young Charms," and the Canadian Boat-song wove themselves into the very warp and woof of the nation's life.

Unspoiled By Success; Unsoured By Calamity
Nor does his work consist exclusively of pretty snippets. He sometimes spread his wings for far more imposing flights. In "Lalla Rookh," a gorgeous Oriental fantasy, his lyre struck a singularly pure and exalted note. He tells how the banished Peri sought admission at the gate of Paradise. He was told that his only chance was to find on earth, and present at the golden portal, the gift that heaven most coveted. But what was that gift? He brought the last drop of a hero's blood, the last sigh of a dying lover, and other offerings equally sacred. Each was rejected. But when he brought the tear of a penitent, the shining gates flew open on the instant.

Moore gave us, too, one of our noblest interpretations of the universe in which we live:—

Thou art, O God, the life and light
Of all this wondrous world we see;
Its
glow by day, its smile by night,
Are but reflections caught from
Thee.
Where'er we turn Thy glories
shine
And all things fair and
bright are Thine.

To his everlasting credit it must be recorded that, notwithstanding his essentially emotional temperament, his exaltation did not turn his brain. He remained perfectly modest and self-possessed; he developed no affectations nor artificialities; he assumed no airs. Among the choicest products of his clever pen are his delightful letters to his mother. Amid all his social and literary triumphs, he never for a moment forgot the assistance and encouragement that she, worshipping the very ground he trod, had given him when, as a boy, he made his first crude efforts at poesy. All his communications to her are couched in terms of the warmest gratitude and the deepest affection. In one of them, penned about the time of his coming of age, he tells her that he is feeling just a little tired of duchesses and marchionesses, and that he often longs to share with her a good old fashioned dinner of salt fish and Irish stew. Unhappily, his later years brought heavy financial worries; his mind became a total wreck; his tongue lost its old lilt. Yet he stands as one of the most lovable figures in our annals, and our literature would be very much the poorer if his work were subtracted from it.

F W Boreham

Image: Thomas Moore