About Thomas Moore............A Visit to Niagara
Kirby on Moore's Niagara Visit .........The Canadian Boat Song
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Thomas Moore, 1779 - 1852
Thomas Moore was born in Dublin on May 28th, 1779, at his father's grocery store/residence [pictured at left], and first appeared in print as a poet at age thirteen. Although fascinated with words and rhyming from a very young age, music was an even greater delight for him. "The only art for which, in my opinion, I was born with a real natural love, my poetry having sprung out of my deep feeling for music", he wrote in his autobiography.
At the age of twenty, Moore went to London to study law but with the publication of his translation of the Greek odes of Anacreon in 1800, he began achieving greater success in literature. He earned recognition by both elite and general readers; Lord Byron and Walter Scott were his only contemporary rivals in public esteem. He married an actress, Bessie Dyke, and lived happily with her until his death at seventy-three on February 25th, 1852.
Though Ireland's treasure, "the sweetest lyrist of her saddest wrong", according to Percy Bysshe Shelley. In June of 1804, Moore set out on a tour of the United States, visiting Washington, Delaware, Pennsylvania, and New York, whereupon he undertook a visit to Niagara Falls. His excursion is described below, in his own words, taken from the Preface to the Collected Edition of Ten Volumes, The Poetical Works of Thomas Moore [pub. 1841, 1842]
At right: Dublin in the dark days when Moore, a symbol of his country's aspirations, did much to keep Irish spirit alive.
"... Reaching, for the second time, New York, I set out from thence on the now familiar and easy enterprise of visiting the Falls of Niagara. It is but too true, of all grand objects, whether in nature or art, that facility of access to them much diminishes the feeling of reverence they ought to inspire. Of this fault, however, the route to Niagara, at that period - at least the portion of it which led through the Genesee country - could not justly be accused. The latter part of the journey, which lay chiefly through yet but half-cleared wood, we were obliged to perform on foot; and a slight accident I met with, in the course of our rugged walk, laid me up for some days at Buffalo. To the rapid growth, in that wonderful region, of, at least, the materials of civilization - however ultimately they may be turned to account - this flourishing town, which stands on Lake Erie, bears most ample testimony. Though little better, at the time when I visited it, than a mere village, consisting chiefly of huts and wigwams, it is now, by all accounts, a populous and splendid city, with five or six churches, town hall, theatre, anbd other such appurtenances of a capital.
"In adverting to the comparatively rude state of Buffalo, at that period, I should be ungrateful were I to omit mentioning, that, even then, on the shore of those far lakes, the title of 'Poet' - however unworthily in that instance bestowed - bespoke a kind and distinguishing welcome for its wearer; and that the Captain who commanded the packet in which I crossed Lake Ontario, in addition to other marks of courtesy, begged, on parting with me, to be allowed to decline payment for my passage.
"When we arrived, at length, at the inn, in the neighbourhood of the Falls, it was too late to think of visiting them that evening; and I lay awake almost the whole night with the sound of the cataract in my ears. The day following I consider as a sort of era in my life; and the first glimpse I caught of that wonderful cataract gave me a feeling which nothing in this world can ever awaken again. It was through an opening among the trees, as we approached the spot where the full view of the Falls was to burst upon us, that I caught this glimpse of the mighty mass of waters folding smoothly over the edge of the precipice; and so overwhelming was the notion it gave me of the awful spectacle I was approaching, that, during the short interval that followed, imagination had far outrun the reality; vast and wonderful as was the scene that then opened upon me, my first feeling was that of disappointment. It would have been impossible, indeed, for anything real to come up to the vision I had, in these few seconds, formed of it; and those awful scriptural words, "The fountains of the great deep were broken up", can alone give any notion of the vague wonders for which I was prepared.
"But, in spite of the start thus got by imagination, the triumph of reality was, in the end, but the greater; for the gradual glory of the scene that opened upon me soon took possession of my whole mind; presenting, from day to day, some new beauty or wonder, and, like all that is sublime in nature or art, awakening sad as well as elevating thoughts. I retain in my memory but one other dream - for such do events so long past appear - which can in any respect be associated with the grand vision I have just been describing; and however different the nature of their appeals to the imagination, I should find it difficult to say on which occasion I felt the most deeply affected, when looking on the Falls of Niagara, or when standing by moonlight among the ruins of the Coliseum.
"Some changes, I understand, injurious to the beauty of the scene, have taken place in the shape of the Falls since the time of my visit to them; and among these is the total disappearance , by the gradual crumbling away of the rock, of the small leafy island which then stood near the edge of the Great Fall, and whose tranquility and unapproachableness, in the midst of so much turmoil, lent it an interest which I this tried to avail myself of, in a Song of the Spirit of that region:
Light above the rocks I play,
Where Niagara's starry spray,
Frozen on the cliff, appears
Like a giant's starting tears.
There, amid the island-sedge,
Just above the cataract's edge,
Where the foot of living man
Never trod since time began,
Lone I sit at close of day,
While, beneath the golden ray,
Icy columns gleam below,
Feather'd round with falling snow,
And an arch of glory springs,
Sparkling as the chain of rings
Round the neck of virgins hung,
Virgins, who have anger'd young
O'er the water of the west
To the land where spirits rest!
"Another characteristic feature of the vicinity of the Falls, which, I understand, no longer exists, was the interesting settlement of the Tuscarora Indians. With the gallant Brock, who then commanded at Fort George, I passed the greater part of my time during the few weeks I remained at Niagara; and a visit I paid to these Indians, in company with him and his brother officers, on his going to distribute among them the customary presents and prizes, was not the least curious of the many new scenes I witnessed. These people received us in all their ancient costume. The young men exhibited for our amusement in the race, the bat-game, and other sports, while the old and the women sat in groups under the surrounding trees; and the whole scene was a picturesque and beautiful as it was new to me. It is said that West, the Ameican painter, when he first saw the Apollo, at Rome, exclaimed instantly, "A young Indian warrior!" - and, however startling the association may appear, some of the graceful and agile forms which I saw that day among the Tuscaroras were such as would account for its arising in the young painter's mind."
[Extracted from Annals of Niagara, pub. 1896, 1927]
"... Moore had made an extensive tour through the United States. A close inspection of the state of Society, manners and morals he there met with completely disillusioned his mind of his preconceptions of the liberty, civilization and alleged superiority that existed under their Republican institutions. Moore found the Canadian loyalists far more to his taste in character and general happiness. Some of his epistles, written about this time, censure deeply the corruption and violence of party spirit, which he everywhere found in the States...
"Moore visited the city of Washington during the presidency of Jefferson, whom he denounces as setting an example of foul immorality in keeping a black mistress:
When he fled
From the halls of council to his negro shed,
Where blest he woos some black Aspasia's grace,
And dreams of freedom in his slave's embrace.
"... His residence in Niagara seems to have been a great relief and pleasure to him. There stood in those days, and until recent years, a majestic spreading oak tree about two miles from the town on the Queenston road. A little plot of grass formed a seat under it, and the road parted and passed on each side of the tree, which had a view of the River Niagara sweeping round an immense curve, on the one side, and of fair fields and luxuriant forests in the background on the other. Moore, with a poet's eye for rural beauty, loved to sit and muse under his tree, which acquired the name of 'Moore's Oak.' It was here that he wrote the beautiful ballad, which is one of his most innocent and charming productions:
I knew by the smoke, that so gracefully curled
Above the green elms, that a cottage was near,
And I said if there's peace to be found in the world,
A heart that is humble might hope for it here.
It was noon, and on flowers that languished around
In silence reposed the voluptuous bee;
Every leaf was at rest and I heard not a sound
But the woodpecker tapping on the hollow beech tree!"
[from Ballad Stanzas, 1804, stanzas one and two]
Read more about William Kirby in Joseph Masters' Niagara Reminiscences:
"... While on the subject of the Canadian Boat Song, an anecdote connected with that once popular ballad may, for my musical readers at least, possess some interest. A few years since, while staying in Dublin, I was presented, at his own request, to a gentleman who told me that his family had in their possession a curious relic of my youthful days - being the first notation I had made, in pencilling, of the air and words of the Canadian Boat Song, while on my way down the St. Lawrence - and that it was their wish I should add my signature to attest the authenticity of the autograph. I assured him with truth that I had wholly forgotten even the existence of such a memorandum; that it would be as much a curiosity to myself as it could be to any one else, and that I should feel thankful to be allowed to see it, In a day or two after, my request was complied with and the following is the history of this musical 'relic'.
"In my passage down the St. Lawrence, I had with me two traveling companions, one of whom, named Harkness, the son of a wealthy Dublin merchant, has been some years dead. To this young friend, on parting with him, at Quebec, I gave, as a keepsake, a volume I had been reading on the way - Priestley's Lectures of History; and it was upon a fly-leaf of this volume I found I had taken down, in pencilling, both the notes and a few worlds of the original song by which my won boat-glee had been suggested. Then follows, as pencilled down at the same moment, the first verse of my Canadian Boat Song, with air and words as they are at present. From all this it will be perceived, that, in my own setting of the air, I departed in almost every respect but the time from the strain our voyageurs had sung to us, leaving the music of the glee nearly as much my own as the words. Yet, how strongly impressed I had become with the notion that this was the identical air sung by the boatmen - how closely it linked itself in my imagination with the scenes and sounds amidst which it had occurred to me - may be seen by reference to a note appended to the glee as first published..."
Faintly as tolls the evening chime
Our voices keep tune and our oars keep time.
Soon as the woods on shore look dim,
We'll sing at St. Ann's our parting hymn.
Row, brothers, row, the stream runs fast,
The Rapids are near and the daylight's past.
Why should we yet our sail unfurl?
There is not a breath the blue wave to curl;
But, when the wind blows off the shore,
Oh! Sweetly we'll rest our weary oar.
Blow, breezes, blow, the stream runs fast,
The Rapids are near and the daylight's past.
Utawas' tide! This trembling moon
Shall see us float over thy surges soon.
Saint of this green isle! Hear our prayers,
Oh, grant us cool heavens and favouring airs.
Blow, breezes, blow, the stream runs fast,
The Rapids are near and the daylight's past.
"I wrote these words to an air which our boatmen sung to us frequently. The wind was so unfavourable that they were obliged to row all the way, and we were five days in descending the river from Kingston to Montreal, exposed to an intense sun during the day, and at night forced to take shelter from the dews in any miserable hut upon the banks that would receive us. But the magnificent scenery of the St. Lawrence repays all such difficulties.
"Our voyageurs had good voices, and sung perfectly in tune together. The original words of the air, to which I adapted these stanzas, appeared to be a long, incoherent story, of which I could understand but little, from the barbarous pronunciation of the Canadians... I ventured to harmonize this air, and have published it... the melody may, perhaps, be thought common and trifling; but I remember when we have entered, at sunset, upon one of those beautiful lakes, into which the St. Lawrence so grandly and unexpectedly opens, I have heard this simple air with a pleasure which the finest compositions of the first masters have never given me; and now there is not a note of it which does not recall to my memory the dip of our oars in the St. Lawrence, the flight of our boat down the Rapids, and all those new and fanciful impressions to which my heart was alive during the whole of the very interesting voyage."
RELATED WWW SITES
CELT - Corpus of Electronic Texts
An excellent variety of Irish literature and primary texts [not just Thomas Moore]
Ancient Music of Ireland
Thomas Moore would have loved this site [would that he had Internet access!]. You can listen to some lovely tunes here.
Thomas Moore
A bibliographic site containing, primarily, Moore's Poems on Economic Affairs.
Selected Poems of Thomas Moore
Available on the Internet through the University of Toronto.