ΤΟ THE HONOURABLE MRS. NORTON. FOR the groundwork of the following Poem I am indebted to a memorable Fête, given some years since, at Boyle Farm, the seat of the late Lord Henry Fitzgerald. In commemoration of that evening-of which the lady to whom these pages are inscribed was, I well recollect, one of the most distinguished ornaments - I was induced at the time to write some verses, which were afterwards, however, thrown aside unfinished, on my discovering that the same task had been undertaken by a noble poet, whose *Lord Francis Egerton. playful and happy jeu-d'esprit on the subject has since been published. It was but lately, that, on finding the fragments of my own sketch among my papers, I thought of founding on them such a description of an imaginary Fête as might furnish me with situations for the introduction of music. Such is the origin and object of the following Poem, and to Mrs. NORTON it is, with every feeling of admiration and regard, inscribed by her father's warmly attached friend, THOMAS MOORE. Sloperton Cottage, THE SUMMER FÊTE. "WHERE are ye now, ye summer days, "That once inspired the poet's lays? "Blest time! ere England's nymphs and swains, "For lack of sunbeams, took to coals -"Summers of light, undimm'd by rains, "Whose only mocking trace remains "In watering-pots and parasols." Thus spoke a young Patrician maid, Peep'd with the other at the sky Th' important sky, whose light or gloom Of some few hundred beauties, wits, Faint were her hopes; for June had now Young Zephyr yet scarce knowing how And, such the biting summer air, With hands uplifted to the flame, Whose glow as if to woo them nigher, But oh the light, the unhoped-for light, Though-hark!—the clocks but strike eleven, And rarely did the nymph surprise Who now will say that England's sun (Like England's self, these spendthrift days) His stock of wealth hath near outrun, And must retrench his golden rays Pay for the pride of sunbeams past, And to mere moonshine come at last? "Calumnious thought!" Iänthe cries, For brighter sun than that which now Sparkled o'er London's spires and towers, Had never bent from heaven his brow To kiss Firenze's City of Flowers. What must it be if thus so fair Mid the smoked groves of Grosvenor Square What must it be where Thames is seen Gliding between his banks of green, |