Sweet Innisfallen

by Thomas Moore

Sweet Innisfallen, fare thee well,
May calm and sunshine long be thine!
How fair thou art let others tell,
Well but to feel how fair is mine!

Sweet Innisfallen, fare thee well,
And long may light around thee smile,
As soft as on that evening fell
When first I saw thy fairy isle!

Thou wert too lovely then for one
Who had to turn to paths of care --
Who had through vulgar crowds to run,
And leave thee bright and silent there:

No more along thy shores to come,
But, on the world's dim ocean tost,
Dream of thee sometimes as a home
Of sunshine he had seen and lost.

Far better in thy weeping hours
To part from thee as I do now,
When mist is o'er thy blooming bowers,
Like Sorrow's veil on Beauty's brow.

For though unrivalled still thy grace,
Thou dost not look, as then, too blest,
But in thy shadows seem'st a place
Where weary man might hope to rest --

Might hope to rest, and find in thee
A gloom like Eden's, on the day
He left its shade, when every tree,
Like thine, hung weeping o'er his way!

Weeping or smiling, lovely isle!
And still the lovelier for thy tears --
For though but rare thy sunny smile,
'Tis heaven's own glance when it appears.

Like feeling hearts, whose joys are few,
But, when indeed they come, divine --
The steadiest light the sun e'er threw
Is lifeless to one gleam of thine!