THOMAS MOORE.

MOORE, THOMAS, a famous Irish poet; born at Dublin, May 28, 1779; died at Sloperton, Wiltshire, February 25, 1852. After study. ing at the Dublin University, he was entered at the Middle Temple, London, in 1799, and the next year published a translation of the "Odes of Anacreon." The "Poetical Works of Thomas Little followed in 1802. In 1803 Moore went to Bermuda as Registrar to the Admiralty. A tour through the United States and Canada gave material for several of his best poems, included in "Epistles, Odes, etc.," 1806. He wrote many political squibs and satires, as "Intercepted Letters, or the Twopenny Post-bag" (1813); "Fables for the Holy Alliance" (1823); "Odes on Cash, Corn, Catholics, etc." (1829); also, "The Fudge Family in Paris" (1818), and Rhymes on the Road" (1823). His "Irish Melodies" appeared from 1807 to 1834; "National Airs," at different dates; "Sacred Songs" (1816-24); "Loves of the Angels" (1823); "Lalla Rookh" (1817). His prose works also were of importance. "The Epicurean (1827) is a classical romance; "Memories of Captain Rock" (1824) is a history of Ireland. Three serious biographies followed: the "Life of R. B. Sheridan" (1825), of "Lord Edward Fitzgerald" (1831), and of "Byron" (1831); also, "Travels of an Irish Gentleman in Search of a Religion" (1833), and "History of Ireland" (1835). "Alciphron " (1840) was his last publication.

THE FIRE-WORSHIPPERS.

(From "Lalla Rookh.")

"TIS moonlight over OMAN'S SEA;
Her banks of pearl and palmy isles
Bask in the night-beam beauteously
And her blue waters sleep in smiles.

'Tis moonlight in HARMOZIA's walls,
And thro' her EMIR's porphyry halls

Where some hours since was heard the swell

Of trumpet and the clash of zel

Bidding the bright-eyed sun farewell;

The peaceful sun whom better suits

The music of the bulbul's nest

Or the light touch of lovers' lutes
To sing him to his golden rest.

All husht-there's not a breeze in motion;
The shore is silent as the ocean.

If zephyrs come, so light they come,

Nor leaf is stirred nor wave is driven;-
The wind-tower on the EMIR's dome
Can hardly win a breath from heaven.
Even he, that tyrant Arab, sleeps
Calm while a nation round him weeps,
While curses load the air he breathes
And falchions from unnumbered sheaths
Are starting to avenge the shame

His race hath brought on IRAN's name.
Hard, heartless Chief, unmoved alike.

Mid eyes that weep and swords that strike; —
One of that saintly, murderous brood,

To carnage and the Koran given, Who think thro' unbelievers' blood

Lies their directest path to heaven,
One who will pause and kneel unshod
In the warm blood his hand hath poured,
To mutter o'er some text of God

Engraven on his reeking sword; -
Nay, who can coolly note the line,
The letter of those words divine,
To which his blade with searching art
Had sunk into its victim's heart!

Just ALLA! what must be thy look

When such a wretch before thee stands

Unblushing, with thy Sacred Book,

Turning the leaves with blood-stained hands,

And wresting from its page sublime

His creed of lust and hate and crime; -
Even as those bees of TREBIZOND,

Which from the sunniest flowers that glad With their pure smile the gardens round, Draw venom forth that drives men mad. Never did fierce ARABIA send

A satrap forth more direly great; Never was IRAN doomed to bend

Beneath a yoke of deadlier weight.

Her throne had fallen - her pride was crusht Her sons were willing slaves, nor blusht,

In their own land, no more their own,

To crouch beneath a stranger's throne.

--

Her towers where MITHRA once had burned,
To Moslem shrines-oh shame!. were turned,
Where slaves converted by the sword,
Their mean, apostate worship poured,
And curst the faith their sires adored.
Yet has she hearts, mid all this ill,
O'er all this wreck high buoyant still
With hope and vengeance; - hearts that yet
Like gems, in darkness, issuing rays
They've treasured from the sun that's set,
Beam all the light of long-lost days!
And swords she hath, nor weak nor slow
To second all such hearts can dare;
As he shall know, well, dearly know,
Who sleeps in moonlight luxury there,
Tranquil as if his spirit lay

Becalmed in Heaven's approving ray.

Sleep on for purer eyes than thine

Those waves are husht, those planets shine;
Sleep on and be thy rest unmoved

By the white moonbeam's dazzling power; — None but the loving and the loved

Should be awake at this sweet hour.

And see

where high above those rocks That o'er the deep their shadows fling, Yon turret stands; - where ebon locks As glossy as a heron's wing

Upon the turban of a king,

Hang from the lattice, long and wild, -
"Tis she, that EMIR's blooming child,
All truth and tenderness and grace,
Tho' born of such ungentle race; -
An image of Youth's radiant Fountain
Springing in a desolate mountain !

Oh what a pure and sacred thing

Is Beauty curtained from the sight Of the gross world, illumining

One only mansion with her light! Unseen by man's disturbing eye,

The flower that blooms beneath the sea

Too deep for sunbeams, doth not lie

Hid in more chaste obscurity.