Tearing off the Mask?

Written on the occassion of Mrs. Edwin's first appearance at the Belfast Theatre, and spoken by her, after performing the Character of Widow Cheerly, in Cherry's Comedy of the Soldier's Daughter, on the night of Friday, the 27th December, 1822

Dropping the mask Thalia lent this night,
The Widow Cheerly now is out of sight;
In my own Character I now appear,
To thank you for my kind reception, here. -
It has been said, if I aright remember,
"In months less wintry than a dark December,
That, as we journey north, the air grows colder;"
But Woman's smile had warm'd her first beholder.
Oh! if seduced by her persuasive pow'r,
Her fruits Man tasted in an erring hour,
So bright and beautiful she stood before him,
As her blue eyes were up-rais'd to implore him,
He felt, seeing her all nature's charms array'd in,
He gained Elysium, though he'd lost an Eden.
And Woman thus, in ev'ry age and nation,
Still lord it o'er the "Lords of the Creation,"
And wakes, with witching pow'r, and minstrel art,
That fine ton'd instrument of hers - the heart.
"What then?" you'll say, - why this I would infer,
That you'll be true to nature, and to her;
That Erin's sons Protection ne'er refuse,
When 'tis a stranger, and a woman sues.
Oh! could I touch with true poetic fire,
The Harp of Erin, or the Grecian Lyre,
To Ireland's Athens* their sweet chords I'd wake,
To pour that thankfulness words cannot speak.

*Belfast has been termed the "Athens of Ireland"