Thomas Moore (1779–1852)

          AS slow our ship her foamy track

                Against the wind was cleaving,

          Her trembling pennant still look’d back

                To that dear isle ’twas leaving.

          So loath we part from all we love,

                From all the links that bind us;

          So turn our hearts as on we rove,

                To those we’ve left behind us.

          When, round the bowl, of vanish’d years

                We talk, with joyous seeming, —

          With smiles that might as well be tears,

                So faint, so sad their beaming;

          While memory brings us back again

                Each early tie that twined us,

          Oh, sweet’s the cup that circles then

                To those we’ve left behind us.

          And when, in other climes, we meet

                Some isle, or vale enhanting,

          Where all looks flowery, wild, and sweet,

                And nought but love is wanting;

          We think how great had been our bliss,

                If Heaven had but assign’d us

          To live and die in scenes like this,

                With some we’ve left behind us!

          As travellers oft look back at eve,

                When eastward darkly going,

          To gaze upon that light they leave

                Still faint behind them glowing —

          So, when the close of pleasure’s day

                To gloom hath near consign’d us,

          We turn to catch one fading ray

                Of joy that’s left beind us.