“The Meeting of the Waters”

Description

"There is not in the wide world a valley so sweet As the vale in whose bosom the bright waters meet" The magic of the spot "'twas that friends, the beloved of my bosom, were near"

Supplemental text

Meeting of the Waters, The
  Partial text(s)

          *** A ***

As printed in Charles Sullivan, ed., Ireland in Poetry, p. 15.

There is not in the wide world a valley so sweet
As that vale in whose bosom the bright waters meet;
Oh! the last rays of feeling and life must depart,
Ere the bloom of that valley shall fade from my heart.

(3 additional stanzas)

Notes

This is among the most popular of Moore's poems; _Granger's Index to Poetry_ cites four anthologies -- and none of them the usual suspects. - RBW

Same tune

  • The Head of Old Dennis (broadside Bodleian Harding B 17(193a))

Broadsides

  • Bodleian, Harding B 11(2174), "Meeting of the Waters", G Walker (Durham), 1797-1834; also Harding B 11(584), Johnson Ballads fol. 18 View 2 of 2, Harding B 45(23) View 3 of 3, Harding B 11(4323), Harding B 11(4189), Harding B 15(195a), Harding B 17(193a), "[The] Meeting of the Waters"

References

  1. O'Conor, p. 54, "The Meeting of the Waters" (1 text)
  2. ADDITIONAL: Charles Sullivan, ed., Ireland in Poetry, p. 15, "The Meeting of the Waters" (1 text)
  3. ADDITIONAL: Thomas Kinsella, _The New Oxford Book of Irish Verse_ (Oxford, 1989), p. 269, "The Meeting of the Waters" (1 text)
  4. ST OCon054B (Partial)
  5. BI, OCon054B

About

Author: Thomas Moore (1779-1852)
Earliest date: before 1835 (broadside, Bodleian Harding B 11(2174))