"I have taken the liberty here of supplying a few rhymes and words that are wanting in the original copy of the song. The last line of all runs thus in the manuscript:—
'Til her eye shines, I live in darkest night,'
which not rhyming as it ought, I have ventured to alter as above."
Now the following sonnet, which occurs in the third book of Sir Philip Sidney's Arcadia, is evidently the source from whence Sheridan drew his inspiration, the concluding line in both poems being the same. Had Moore given Sheridan's without alteration, the resemblance would in all probability be found much closer:—
"Lock up, faire liddes, the treasure of my heart,
Preserve those beames, this ages onely light:
To her sweet sence, sweet sleepe some ease impart,
Her sence too weake to beare her spirits might.
"And while, O Sleepe, thou closest up her sight,
(Her sight where Love did forge his fairest dart)