The Time I’ve Lost in Wooing

By Thomas Moore 1779–1852 Thomas Moore

The time I’ve lost in wooing,

In watching and pursuing

The light, that lies

In woman’s eyes,

Has been my heart’s undoing.

Though Wisdom oft has sought me,

I scorn’d the lore she brought me,

My only books

Were woman’s looks,

And folly’s all they’ve taught me.

Her smile when Beauty granted,

I hung with gaze enchanted,

Like him the Sprite,

Whom maids by night

Oft meet in glen that’s haunted.

Like him, too, Beauty won me,

But while her eyes were on me,

If once their ray

Was turn’d away,

Oh! winds could not outrun me.

And are those follies going?

And is my proud heart growing

Too cold or wise

For brilliant eyes

Again to set it glowing?

No, vain, alas! th’ endeavour

From bonds so sweet to sever;

Poor Wisdom’s chance

Against a glance

Is now as weak as ever.

Biography

Thomas Moore was closely attuned to the taste and artistic sensibility of his age, but he is remembered now primarily by the Irish, who still sing his songs and claim him as their own. He was a born lyricist and a natural musician, a practiced satirist and one of the first recognized champions of freedom of Ireland. With George Gordon, Lord Byron, and Sir Walter Scott, he embodied British Romanticism not only for the British and . . .

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