Bliss Carman, et al., eds. The World’s Best Poetry.
Volume I. Of Home: of Friendship. 1904. | | | | Poems of Friendship | | The Vale of Avoca | | Thomas Moore (1779–1852) |
| | | THERE is not in this wide world a valley so sweet | |
| As that vale in whose bosom the bright waters meet; | |
| O, the last ray of feeling and life must depart | |
| Ere the bloom of that valley shall fade from my heart! | |
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| Yet it was not that Nature had shed o’er the scene | 5 |
| Her purest of crystal and brightest of green; | |
| ’T was not the soft magic of streamlet or hill,— | |
| O, no! it was something more exquisite still. | |
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| ’T was that friends, the beloved of my bosom, were near, | |
| Who made every dear scene of enchantment more dear, | 10 |
| And who felt how the best charms of nature improve, | |
| When we see them reflected from looks that we love. | |
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| Sweet Vale of Avoca! how calm could I rest | |
| In thy bosom of shade, with the friends I love best; | |
| Where the storms that we feel in this cold world should cease, | 15 |
| And our hearts, like thy waters, be mingled in peace. | | | | |
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