text:  Will this meeting refuse a similar cup of welcome and of thanks to the poets of Green Erin? Will this meeting where so many bright eyes rain influence and manly hearts beat high not hail with simultaneous delight the name of one who shines conspicuous as the very poet of youth of love and of beauty--the poet with deference be it spoken of better things than even beauty--of gentle thoughts and exquisite associations that give additional sweetness to the twilight hour and to the enjoyments of home a more endearing loveliness; the poet too of his own high-souled country through whose harp the common breeze of Ireland changes as it passes into articulate melody--a harp that will never be permitted to hang mute on Tara's walls as long as "Erin! the tear and the smile in thine eye Blend like the rainbow that melts in thy sky!" How many voices have to-day murmured a wish that he were here! But the echo of the acclaim with which we greet the name of Moore will reach him in his solitude and he will feel what Burns died too young to feel that it is something worth living for to have gained a nation's gratitude