Poet Thomas Moore travel to Bermuda and stayed in St. George in 1804. He wrote several poems extolling the town and island (and one particular young girl he encountered here).
A bronze bust of Moore was erected in the former St. George town pound sometime in the 1800s or early 1900s (no one we spoke to knew when). The plaque on the stone plinth supporting the bust reads as follows:
"THOMAS MOORE
1779-1852
Irish poet and lyrist
Byron's friend
That little Bay where winding in
From ocean’s rude and angry din
The billows missed the shore, and then
Flow calmly to the deep again."
From a Bermuda travel guide we found at Amazon.com: (
visit link)
"TOM MOORE BUST
The bust of Tom Moore looks rather grand for the raffish scandal-ridden Celtic poet he was said to be. Moore sojourned on Bermuda in 1804, and found time to fall hopelessly in love with the teenage wife of a local moneyed man. His ‘Odes to Nea’ may not have won any literary prizes, but they added a bit of steamy scandal to respectable St. George, and the poet lends his name to one of Bermuda's best restaurants."
So, we admit we were intrigued, so we found this scandalous poem on Litscape.com, which plainly (though floridly) discusses an adulterous encounter with the object of his desire:
(
visit link)
Odes To Nea
You read it in my languid eyes...
by Thomas Moore
Written at Bermuda.
'You read it in my languid eyes,
And there alone should love be read;
You hear me say it all in sighs,
And thus alone should love be said.
Then dread no more; I will not speak;
Although my heart to anguish thrill,
I'll spare the burning of your cheek,
And look it all in silence still!
Heard you the wish I dared to name,
To murmur on that luckless night,
When passion broke the bonds of shame,
And love grew madness in your sight?
Divinely through the graceful dance,
You seem'd to float in silent song,
Bending to earth that beamy glance,
As if to light your steps along!
Oh! how could others dare to touch
That hallow'd form with hand so free,
When but to look was bliss too much,
Too rare for all but heaven and me!
With smiling eyes, that little thought
How fatal were the beams they threw,
My trembling hands you lightly caught,
And round me like a spirit, flew.
Heedless of all, I wildly turn'd,
My soul forgot -- nor, oh! condemn,
That when such eyes before me burn'd,
My soul forgot all eyes but them!
I dared to speak in sobs of bliss,
Rapture of every thought bereft me,
I would have clasped you -- oh, even this! --
But, with a bound, you blushing left me.
Forget, forget that night's offence,
Forgive it, if, alas! you can;
'Twas love, 'twas passion -- soul and sense --
'Twas all the best and worst of man!
That moment did the mingled eyes
Of heaven and earth my madness view.
I should have seen, through earth and skies,
But you alone -- but only you!
Did not a frown from you reprove,
Myriads of eyes to me were none;
I should have -- oh, my only love!
My life! what should I not have done?'
Source:
The Poetical Works of Thomas Moore.
Copyright undated, very old
The Walter Scott Publishing Co. Ltd."