YOUTH ENGLISH SECTION

Thomas Moore

The Irish Minstrel

Those evening bells, those evening bells!
How many a tale their music tells,
Of love, and home, and that sweet time,
When last I heard their soothing chime.

Those joyous hours are passed away;
And many a heart, that then was gay,
Within the tomb now darkly dwells,
And hears no more those evening bells.

And so ’twill be when I am gone;
That tuneful peal will still ring on,
While other bards shall walk these dells,
And sing your praise, sweet evening bells!

All of you without doubt have heard this romance before. But it isn’t well known that the lyrics were translated from English into Russian. The original is the poem “Those Evening Bells” by the Irish poet Thomas Moore. His poem was translated by the Russian poet Ivan Kozlov in the first half of the 19th century and set to music by the composer Alexander Alyabyev. The song became so popular in Russia that its origin was almost forgotten.

I was so amazed by this fact that I became interested in Thomas Moore’s personality and creative work so I decided to find out more about him. I was fascinated by his poetry so much that I translated some of his poems into Russian.

Thomas Moore was born on May 29, 1779 in Dublin. His father was a grocer, Moore came from a poor family and he never made a secret of it. On the contrary, in his poem ‘Epitaph on a Tuft-Hunter’ he mocked snobbery: “Heaven grant him now some noble nook / For, rest his soul! he’d rather be / Genteelly damn’d beside a Duke, / Than sav’d in vulgar company.” Tom started writing poems quite early and his first work was published when he was fourteen. He was educated at Trinity College (which had recently allowed entry to Catholic students) and studied law at the Middle Temple in London. At the beginning of the 19th century he published his first book, “The Poetical works of Thomas Little”.

Moore was far more than a balladeer, though. He had major success as a society figure in London, and worked in the Bermuda Islands for a year. Then he returned to England after travelling around the U.S. and Canada.

After that his next book appeared (“Epistles, Odes and other Poems”). It was born from his journeys. It criticized Americans and also aroused moral irritation. However, the songs from his famous book “Irish Melodies”, based on folk tunes, became very popular and gained sympathy for the Irish nationalists. Best known of these poems are “The Last Rose of Summer”, “Believe Me, If All Those Endearing Young Charms” and “The Minstrel Boy” the poem about a brave and proud bard, who loved his fatherland very much and fought for it. It is necessary to say that Patriotism was an invariable theme in Moore’s creative work. This poem appeals to me and I would like you to listen to my translation of it.