And the closing refrain has a real energy:—
"Go—go—'tis vain to curse,
'Tis weakness to upbraid thee;
Hate cannot wish thee worse
Than guilt and shame have made thee."
Moore wrote to Power in the early part of 1815, after a visit to Chatsworth, where he had spent his days in a whirl of fine company:—
"You cannot imagine what a sensation the Prince's song created. It was in vain to guard your property; they had it sung and repeated over so often that they all took copies of it, and I dare say in the course of next week there will not be a Whig lord or lady in England who will not be in possession of it."
The other notable number is the poem to the tune Savourneen Deelish, which begins:—
"'Tis gone, and for ever, the light we saw breaking,
Like Heaven's first dawn o'er the sleep of the dead—
When Man, from the slumber of ages awaking,
Look'd upward, and bless'd the pure ray, ere it fled.
'Tis gone, and the gleams it has left of its burning
But deepen the long night of bondage and mourning,
That dark o'er the kingdoms of earth is returning,
And darkest of all, hapless Erin, o'er thee."
Moore wrote this after Napoleon had been sequestered in Elba, when the Holy Alliance were left masters of the field. He was well pleased with the verses, and his comment to Power is extremely typical of his attitude at this period:—"It is bold enough; but the strong blow I have aimed at the French in the last stanza makes up for everything." The lines referred to are these:—
"But shame on those tyrants who envied the blessing!
And shame on the light race unworthy its good,
Who, at Death's reeking altar, like furies caressing
The young hope of Freedom, baptized it in blood!"
The same desire to conciliate English public opinion is shown by another song which represents Erin as drying her tears:—