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AND
OTHER POEMS.
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Copyright ©2007, University of California
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October 3, 2007
Charlotte Payne
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BY
MRS. GEORGE LENOX-CONYNGHAM.
The Poems whose names are marked with an asterisk were not composed by me. They were found amongst the Papers of my Mother, who has been long dead; and they were written, I believe, between the years 1797 and 1804. I have made some alterations in them.
E. E. L-C.
THERE is a land where precipice and flood
Contrast their horrors; lawn, and stream, and wood,
Their beauties blend; where Nature reigns alone,
And hath in wantonness together thrown
Incongruous parts, to form a whole so fair
That distant Memory flies to revel there;
It chanced, a wanderer there, at close of day,
With thoughts like these beguiled his lonely way:
"Who ever saw the sun's departing glow
"Thrown on these rugged mountain-tops of snow,
"Casting its glory o'er each rocky form
"Whose brow it crowns with light, but cannot warm,
"And felt not,—thus Truth's holy sunshine sheds
"Its heavenly radiance upon human heads,
"Nor toucheth human hearts; but, day by day,
"Beams on the ice it cannot melt away,
"And leaves the sinner's darkened soul as chill,
"As if eternal winter were God's awful will?
"Who ever marked the swollen torrent's path,
"When, rushing in its sudden stream of wrath,
So mused the wanderer in that foreign land,
As, while he looked around, he felt expand
The idea, fondly nurtured still, of one
Whose image from his sight had long been gone,
But never from his heart;—one who had been
His first companion in each boyish scene;
It was of him the lonely traveller thought;
And, while industrious, pensive Memory wrought
A picture of old times, he did not mark
The fall of night, tempestuous and dark.
At length his eye in search of shelter ran;
But, far from beaten track, or haunt of man,
Vainly at first it wandered; then just caught
A distant glimmer. Eagerly he sought
To fix the point it shone from. On a height,
Whose steepness terrified the straining sight,
A savage, solitary hut arose:
"At least 'twill yield me shelter and repose,"
He thought, and hurried on: no prompt or warm
Consent there bade him enter from the storm;
In a long pause of doubting, wild amaze
The intruder fixed his earnest, anxious gaze
Upon the inmate of that rude abode.
He stood and gasped; then breathlessly he strode
Forward, and searched into the haggard face
For some familiar look, some lingering trace
Of the expression wont, of old, to dwell
On features he had known and loved so well.
Yes! it was he:—but what a fearful change
Had made those lineaments almost as strange
As though they ne'er had met his eyes before!
The heart,—was it what it had been of yore?
I do not say the Hermit was not glad
To see his young heart's brother: and yet, sad
Most often,—solemn always, in good truth,
It is to meet one whom we loved in youth,
And have not seen for years. A lengthy train
Of dear remembrances,—but dear in vain,—
Return with him who in them hath a part,
And crowd in mournfulness upon the wakened heart.
The dead,—the changed,—the valued but resigned
Seem to come back with him: he brings to mind
Joys which we thought realities, and found
Delusive as the landscapes that surround
The pining mariner, whose fancy fills
Ocean's dark realms with fields, and groves, and hills.
But few there are who, with unshrinking gaze,
Can backward look upon their childish days
Calmly; can dwell on every hallowed spot,
Beloved when love was what it now is not;
And conjure up, with spirits still serene,
The vanished actors in each early scene;
Nor feel in disappointment's agony,
That to have been is better than to be.
If there be blessed, unrepining men
Who need not wish that they were boys again,
The Hermit was not one of them. His guest
To hear the story of his absence pressed
With friendly urgency;—but long in vain.
It seemed as if some almost dormant pain
Awakening, wildly then throughout him ran,
And shook convulsively the altered man.
She,—ask me not to tell her name,
I've vowed to speak it ne'er again;
It was my glory, is my shame,
Memorial of my guilt and pain;—
She was a widowed father's child;
The joy that all his griefs beguiled;
The single drop of blessing left
To sweeten life's embittered draught,
Until 'twere to the bottom quaffed:
And he was lonely and bereft
Of all affection prizes, save
Her presence, and the trust that she
Would gently tend his bed of death,
Would fondly watch his parting breath,
And mourn at last upon his grave.
And so it might have been, had he
Believed the truth, nor outraged me.
I wander! why did he deny
The suit of love so true? ay! why?
Had not the current of my blood
Flowed long, and pure, through veins as good
Words, human words, have not a power
To speak the anguish of that hour
Of galling disappointment, when
He sternly bade me ne'er again,
Across the threshold of his halls,
Within the precincts of his walls,
Return. I did not sue or whine;
I swore his daughter should be mine;
And from his presence I retired,
By passion's burning breath inspired.
It was a beauteous summer even
When, from her childhood's native home,
My love came forth with me to roam:
In sight of an unclouded Heaven
I bore her thence, in guilty gladness
Whose triumph bordered upon madness.
She fancied she should soon return
To bid her sire no longer mourn;
To cheer the remnant of his life,—
A pardoned daughter, happy wife.
She deemed that sire, still candid, kind,—
Though for one darkened moment blind,—
Would see his error; and, ere long,
Repent that he had judged me wrong:
Distant some leagues, there dwelt a priest
To whom I once had proved a friend;
His gratitude had not yet ceased:
On him I knew I could depend
To bind, in secretness, the bands
Which, like our hearts, should join our hands.
I had resolved to claim his aid;
And, when she solemnly was made,—
Enrapturing thought! my own for ever,
By ties no earthly power could sever,
To a sequestered spot to guide
My fugitive, undoubting bride.
Swiftly did my charger track,
Obedient to the spur, his path;
I told her danger now was past,
And yon disabled foe the last.
I felt her shudder as I said
That blood so near her had been shed:
Had she known whose!—but on we rode,
And every rapid step we took
Seemed to make way for one who strode
Closely behind, with threatening look.
Oh! who to joy through blood would wade,
To be for ever thus pursued
By a dead victim's awful shade?
He knows not what he wills, who would.
In agony, to thee I swear
That, since that fatal night, where'er
My scorched and aching eyes I turn,—
But onward, onward still I pressed,
Until we reached our journey's goal:
The pause that gave my body rest,
Brought not a respite to my soul.
I saw a phantom by the side
Of the unconscious orphan bride;
I heard, resounding in my ear,
Voices the living should not hear;
I felt a chill in every vein,
Such as the living should not feel:
But if the guilty dead retain
The presensation of their doom,
Then, surely, I, within my tomb,
Shall hear and feel the like again.
Full of that soft, rich loveliness
In which men's world-sick fancies dress
A refuge for life's tranquil close,
We found the scene of our retreat.
There nature brightened in repose;
And looked, and breathed, and sounded sweet.
There might a saint have laid his head,
And deemed his couch by angels spread:
Still I remained absorbed in gloom.
More easily the tree may bloom,
Fanned by a pitying zephyr's wing,
Although its core be withering,
But I was calm with her; and tried,
What I so ill endured, to hide.
Alas! too well she must have seen
I was not that which I had been.
Hour after hour, within my breast
Stirred thoughts I could not lull to rest.
I feared, confiding as she was,
She might divine my sorrow's cause:
A love like her's is never blind
To the most fleeting shades that sweep
O'er what it rests on; and the deep,
The most revolting punishment
Man's cruelty has dared invent,
Is when a living wretch is tied
To one, less wretched, who hath died;
And, lingering, watches, day by day,
The creeping progress of decay
Upon that mouldering human clay:
At length I struck the blow, and said,
Her father, I had learned, was dead.
I did not tell her how he died;
I did not say his life's red tide
My weapon to the hilt had stained.
Time had been, I would have disdained
Deceit that might a world have gained:
That time had passed away;—and now,
I lied with an unaltered brow.
Who hides the consciousness of sin,
Carries a varying plague within:
Now, burning like a fever spot
Which human medicine cooleth not,
It spreadeth, in perpetual flame,
Throughout his withered, wasting frame:
And now, condensed, congealing, chill,
It freezeth hard and harder still,
And presseth on the very core
Of the changed heart, which yields no more
To outward feeling's passing touch;
But seems, to those who do not know
The single, silent grief below,
Insensible to weal or woe:
Alas! it only feels too much.
And there, as by a spell,
That secret grief will swell
I dared not think;—I could not rest;—
And forth I wandered listlessly:
I carried that within my breast
Which made all place alike to me.
There was a little lonely bower
Where she spent many a mournful hour:
I thought not of that then;—but there,
The victim of my crime I found,
Unconscious of what passed around;
With every sense absorbed in prayer,
Angels in Heaven, they say,
For earthly sinners pray;
And sainted spirits intercede
For them whose human bonds impede
Their would-be righteous course:
The glorious hosts that dwell
Nearest the throne of God,
Mourn for the race that fell,—
That fell, and might have trod
Upright, eternally, and pure,
In seraph-guardianship secure,
The flower-enamelled sod
Of Paradise: and, from the source
It was a dream which did at length
That which to do I had not strength:
By Heaven! it was a dream,
Or ghost, or vision,—what you will;—
Nay! hear me on with calmness still,
Although I see you deem
It was a dream! Her father came
And stood beside his daughter's bed:
She saw him there,—the very same
As she had seen him last, she said;
Save that his face was deadly pale,—
His vestment bloody red.
He did not speak, he did not wail;
But, with a piteous look,
He stretched out his cold hand, and took
Her unresisting hand, and led
Her to a river's side;
And then the spectre cried:
"Behold thy murdered father's grave!
"Seek out the hand by which he died."
It plunged into the wave;
And she was left alone,
While moon and stars above her shone,
I watched her sufferings, day by day,—
Sufferings! no, she had none:
'Twas mine that penalty to pay!
Her reason, feeling, all were gone,
By horror scared away.
And there she sat, a senseless thing,
Without a word or glance to bring
A hope that still she thought and felt:
On vacancy her blank gaze dwelt;
Or if it ever turned on me,
'Twas with the stare of idiocy.
It is a fearful thing to look
On one we ne'er have loved or known,
Whose intellectual powers are shook,
And totter feebly; or, o'erthrown
She died at last,—and I was glad.
Her death had once been death to me;
But long protracted misery
My heart to grief accustomed had.
It felt, too, that no single blow
Could deal to it so much of woe
As daily gnawed it, when I raised
My eyes to her vague eyes, and gazed,
Without a fear of giving pain,
In hopelessness, upon that fair,
Unvarying, stupor-stricken face;
And saw it would not change again;
And knew that I should never trace
The lingerings of affection there.
Oft had I wished, in my despair,
That all was over; that stern Death
She died:—I did not shed a tear,
Or heave a sigh, upon her bier:
I did not linger near her grave,
To tend her body's lowly bed:
The love that hath not power to save
The living,—can it serve the dead?
When she was gone I had no stay,—
No tie of kindness to restrain
My will or steps: I came away,
And fixed my lonely dwelling here;
Far distant from the fatal scene
Where so much bitterness had been.
These eyes shall never see again
The grave of her I held so dear.
What is her senseless dust to me?
It was her spirit that I loved;
And that hath been long, long removed
To worlds where I shall never be.
Weep not for me, my early friend!
Alas! I ill deserve thy tears;
"Return," thou say'st, "to busy life;
"Forget amidst its varying broils,—
''The senate's councils, soldier's strife,
"The patriot's zeal, the statesman's toils,—
"Those private sorrows which depress
"A soul not formed for idleness."
And deem'st thou then I have not learned
How futile that for which I burned,
In those vain days when glory's boast,—
So dearly bought, so quickly lost,—
Was all I strove to win?
Years of remorse for joyless sin,
Worn intellects, a wasted frame,
But ill would fit me to pursue
I grant, as freely as thou wilt,
That I was meant for nobler things:
And does that palliate my guilt?
The infatuated wretch who flings
His unused treasure out, with scorn,
Better had been a beggar born!
There is a duty given to all:
The insects as they fly,
The reptiles as they crawl,
That duty well fulfil;
They live and die,
They know not why,
But they perform their Maker's will,
In universal harmony.
The atoms, too minute to scan,
Throughout Creation, have a part
Assigned them, in God's glorious plan
Of pure and perfect unity.
"My joyous childhood!"—worse than vain
It were to summon back again
My childhood's joyousness in thought!
Such visions with despair are fraught!
Their semblance is but as the show
Whose name is, "gladness turned to woe;"
The unstable, gorgeous pageantry
Which glides o'er the Sicilian bay;
The pomp of objects, far away,
For those who what I used to be
Still love,—nor know what I am now,—
I would not that my misery
Their faithful, kindly hearts should bow:
I would not that my father's brow
For me a furrow more should take;
Let them, as heretofore, believe
That I am mouldering in my grave;
Let them still dream that, with the brave,
Upon a foreign shore I sleep:
And when in tenderness they grieve
For me, and send across the deep,
A vainly wandering wish or sigh,
Do thou in constancy stand by,
Consoling them; and tell them not,
That happier had been the lot
Than now it is, of him they mourn,
If hungry wolves had piecemeal torn
His quivering limbs; or tigers stood
To lap his heart's warm, gushing blood.
"Ω παιδες Ελληνων, ιτε,
ελευθερουτε πατριδ', ελευθερουτε δε
παιδας, γυναικας, θεων τε πατρωιων εδη,
θηκας τε προγονων νυν υπερ παντων αγων."
Sons of the Greeks! advance!
Defend your liberty!
This day's departing glance
Must leave you fallen, or free.
The Stranger is at hand;
His fleet is on the sea;
Ere night, your native land
That Stranger's slave may be.
With his myriads of troops,
He would sweep us away;
Like the eagle that swoops
From the clouds on his prey,
Yonder Despot now deems
He shall crush us to day:
Let him trust Fancy's dreams,—
We are truer than they.
In his pomp and his power let the Tyrant confide;
In the minions that crouch at his nod;
In the ministering reptiles that pamper his pride:
Our defence is the patriot's God.
Look round, as brave men dare,
Upon your fathers' graves:
They left you free as air;
Unshackled as the waves:
Their blood must never flow
Within the veins of slaves:
He who beats back the foe,
His father's glory saves.
Look round on each altar, each shrine, and each fane;
Remember the vows ye have spoken;
And let not the Gods of high Heaven complain
That the oaths which they witnessed are broken.
Ye have sworn to preserve
These fair temples unstained,
While in vigour a nerve
Of your life-strength remained;
On! sons of the Greeks! advance to the strife!
Your country, your Gods are at stake,—
Every treasure which heroes hold dearer than life:—
To the contest! come on for their sake!
"κρεισσον γαρ εισαπαξ θανειν
η τας απασας ημερας πασχειν κακως."
Oh! how I wish that I might die,—
Might lay me down in peace,
Where Earth-worn pilgrims calmly lie,
And all life's sorrows cease!
Yes! it were better far to sleep
The dreamless sleep of death,
That endeth not, than watch and weep,
And sigh with every breath.
I am not fit to die, you say:
And am I fit to live?
My measure long hath flowed away
Of all that joy could give.
And must I linger on, to drain
That other bitter draught
Of mingled penitence and pain?
Would that the dregs were quaffed!
Come Death! I'll bow me to thy stroke,
Gladly as martyrs do:
When once the thread of hope is broke,
Life's should be severed too.
Let patient fools go suffering on,
Daily, they know not why:
The flowers that decked my lot are gone,
And I, like them, will die.
"Will die:"—and can'st thou if thou will?
What makes thy life and thee?
In blood,—that every chance may spill,—
Dwells thy identity?
In flesh,—that is but crumbling clay?
In bones,—that are but dust?
Blood, flesh, and bones, may all decay;
But live the Spirit must.
What is the spirit then, and where?
Thus much, alone, we know:
It cannot die,—and it may bear
Eternity of woe.
In atoms wert thou shivered, less
Than fancy can divine,
God could give each a consciousness
Of pain,—and make it thine.
Then, meekly, God's appointed time,
Thy burthen still sustain;
Nor, by irreparable crime,
Extinction seek, in vain.
It is not folly to endure,
Firmly, Earth's transient worst:
Man's immortality is sure;—
He makes it blest, or curst.
While low, at fickle Fortune's shrine,
Unwearying thousands bend, her smiles
To win, with varied arts and wiles,
I woo her not: nor wealth be mine,
Nor glittering pomp: unmoved I see
Pleasure's gay, laughing troop appear:
They raise no wish; one only wish I frame;
Freely, for it, I Fortune's gifts disclaim:
I ask,—delusive Goddess hear!—
One brightening smile, enchanting Hope! from thee.
One brightening smile, to gild the gloom
Of destiny. While grief, too deep
For utterance, does not dare to weep,
Oh! shed thy light upon my doom,
Thou, only thou, the veil may'st raise
Which Sorrow casts upon the mind;
And soothe the wretch to be resigned,
With whispers soft of tranquil days,
When Earth's tumultuous thoughts shall cease,
And the worn heart no more shall beat;
When the tired spirit, heavily opprest
By life's long sufferings, lulled by thee, shall rest
In death;—until it wake to meet
Hope's promised sunshine of eternal peace.
The righteous perisheth; and o'er his tomb,
Warm tears are wept,—deep sighs bewail the doom
Of that good man, whose virtues had not power
To stay the progress of life's parting hour.
This for a season;—but the sigh, the tear,
Soon cease,—brief tribute to the dead and dear:
New loves and fresher interests efface
Past, pious sorrow's faintly lingering trace.
The righteous perisheth;—his fleeting breath
Is borne away upon the blast of death:
Of all who watch that fleeting breath depart,
How many lay the solemn scene to heart?
None. No! not one: the merciful, the just,
Is laid to mingle with his parent dust:
Men meet to mourn above the senseless sod,
And they forget his spirit is with God.
Not one considereth that from the day
Of coming evil he was snatched away;
Not one reflecteth that in saving love,
His Maker called that righteous man above.
Go bid the winds of winter sleep;
Go hush the stormy wave;
But do not tell me not to weep
O'er joy's untimely grave:
And do not try to smile away
The grief that clouds my brow:
I would not, if I could, be gay;
Grief is my nature now.
I have not always wept; for friends
Once filled my trusting ear,
With every vow that Friendship sends
To those she holds most dear:
But Fortune changed, and Friendship's words
Grew rarer and less warm:
My friends were only summer birds;
They shunned the coming storm.
I have not always wept; for Love
Once made my heart his own;
And hope's rich branches waved above
His gay and glittering throne:
But injured Love, indignant, fled;
And hope was blighted then:
Its fragile blossoms soon were shed;
It never bloomed again.
Then do not tell me not to mourn;
Oh! mock not my distress!
My heart has been so long forlorn,
It loves its loneliness.
Away shall I capricious fling
What I can ne'er forget?
Grief is the only constant thing
I ever cherished yet.
"Nell' onde solca, e nell' arene semina,
E'l vago vento spera in rete accogliere,
Chi sue speranze fonda in cor di femmina."
"Upon the ocean's breast he ploughs,—
He sows upon the barren sand,
Who trusts a woman's fleeting vows,
Or clasps in faith a woman's hand:
He chases the unstable wind,
And thinks, ere yet the breeze depart,
Within a net its wings to bind,—
Who founds his hope on woman's heart."
Thus mused, beneath a tree, a youth;
And o'er a harp his fingers flung:
"We'll wake the chords to woman's truth!"
A withered wreath unnoticed hung
Above his head: it dropped upon
A grave, ere well the words were spoken,—
A woman's grave; the grave of one,
Whose heart his faithlessness had broken.
"Weep ye to think a mortal friend must die,
And thus fulfil his human destiny?
And know ye not, that all the things of Earth,—
Imperfect, fragile, fleeting,—at their birth
Receive the stamp of premature decay;
Bloom but to wither;—live to die away?
That all the joys within life's widest scope,
Are but the breathings of an infant's hope?
Died he an exile from his country?—No!
For virtue was his country: and Earth's power
Had all been vain, to make that man forego
His virtue, though in secret, for an hour.
It was his fate, through many a land to roam;
To pass in prison many a tedious year;
But his unshaken spirit had a home
Too strong for grief,—impregnable by fear.
Yes! virtue was the country of his soul,
Whence it could not depart. Change nature's course,—
Arrest the planets God ordained to roll;
Then from their virtue souls like E——t's force.
Though friends we warmly loved fall off,
And hopes we fondly nursed have faded,
Till present misery learns to scoff
At joys by time and grief o'ershaded;
One cherished hope may flourish still,
One star of love may yet be bright,
And with its rays a spirit fill,
Which beams not but with borrowed light.
But when that last, best loved is gone;—
For truest hearts turn faithless here;—
When that dear orb which longest shone,
Is quenched,—or lights some other sphere;
What then remains to cheer a breast,
By friendship spurned,—by passion riven?
This world was never meant for rest,
But fix thy love and hope in Heaven.
Hither, ye Virgins, come! for here are laid
The relics of the broken-hearted maid
Who strove, in vain, a father's life to save;
And hastened then to share that father's grave.
Bring fresh flowers, and let us fling
The fairest blossoms of the spring,
Deep in a forest's solitude,
A wounded monarch bled;
And, close beside, a courtier stood,
With heel upon his head:
Full fiercely did the murderer vaunt
O'er his expiring prey;
And thus, with scoff and bitter taunt,
He sped his soul away:
"Nay! do not clothe that royal brow
"With such a withering frown;—
"I do not fear thy glances now:
"Tyrant and traitor! down!
"Talk not of pardon,—penitence;
"I mock the empty sound:
"Manfred, my father, calls thee hence;
"Thy voice in his is drowned.
"Go! cruel, coward spirit, go!
"Yet, ere thou dost depart,
"That I have wreaked a vengeance, know,
"Long cherished in my heart.
"Confiding fool! and didst thou deem
"That injuries like mine,
"Might be dissolved into a dream,
"By favour such as thine?
"That thou in safety might'st exult
"O'er thy foul work of shame;
"And with thy loathed gifts insult
"The heir to Manfred's fame?
"Know that the bounty, whose base weight
"Was meant to force my faith,
"Served but to keep awake my hate,
"To hunt thee to the death.
"I've hated thee 'mid many wiles,
"Through days that seemed like years:
"I've hated thee 'mid outward smiles,
"And secret, scalding tears:
"And if beyond the grave we meet,
"In punishment and pain,
"Detested King! it will be sweet
"To hate thee, there, again.
"But go! and when thou shalt appear
"In the high court of Heaven,
"Tell how thy crimes and perjuries here
"Were cancelled and forgiven:
"Count o'er thy deeds of treachery done;
"And, in thy hour of need,
"Say, 'twas a murdered father's son
"Who sent thee there to plead."
"Our country is not where our infant sight
"Imbibed its earliest draught of heavenly light;
"Our home is not that single spot of earth,
"The scene, unconscious, of our body's birth;—
"The home,—the country, of our soul should be,
"Not where the babe was born, but where the man is free."
It is not so:—a firm, unyielding band
Of love will bind us to our parent land,
The stifled sob, the struggling sighs that swell
The baffled patriot exile's last farewell;
The gaze he fixes on the lessening shore,
Whose degradation he shall share no more;
The rushing tears his straining eyes that fill;—
All say,—that land of slavery is his country still.
Yes! and though Freedom's breath may fill the sail
That bears him thence; though Freedom's smile may hail
Him on another shore; though there his fate
May render him not free alone, but great;
Still will that exile's fondest thoughts return
To his lost land; still for his native country yearn.
New ties, fresh loves may gather at his heart,
But may not touch one seared, yet sacred part;
The best and brightest joys of life may bloom,
In mingled loveliness, around his doom;—
But still shall watchful Memory repeat:
"The paler buds we culled at home were far more sweet."
And if his life shall reach the waning hour,
When Nature's twilight overclouds the power
Of earthly splendours, then that exiled man
Will pine to end his days where they began;
And wish to sleep amongst his father's graves,
Though they, he knows, are sleeping in a land of slaves.
In a saloon, a princely boy
Stood by his mother Queen:
Through years of grief, her single joy
That only child had been.
Deep was the fountain of her love;
Its purpose high and strong:
Not soon to see him reign, she strove,
But worthily and long.
"Forbear, my son! thou art too young;
"A season still forbear;
"The signal note hath not yet rung
"Which calleth thee to dare:
"Childhood still laughs upon thy cheek,
"And in thy bosom plays;
"In troth, thou art too young and weak
"A soldier's lance to raise."
"A war-cry bursts upon my ears;—
''My place is in the van;
"For if I'm but a child in years,
"In heart I am a man.
"My people pine in slavery,
"Yet look they to the North:
"They shall not look in vain for me:
"Sweet mother! speed me forth!"
She saw the flashing of his eyes,—
The glow upon his brow,—
And knew his hour of enterprize
Was coming o'er him now:
"Upon thy generous hope, the blight
"Of doubt I will not throw;
"Then, trusting in the God of right,
"Go forth, beloved! go."
She watched the noble boy depart,
To win a realm or death:
There was a chill upon her heart,
A gasping in her breath.
No tear the mother's anguish showed,
While he was near to see;
But onward as he proudly rode,
She wept full bitterly.
The die is thrown,—the stake is lost:
One day's disastrous strife
A nation's rising hope hath cost,—
A monarch's opening life.
Died he upon the battle plain,
In glory's last embrace;
Surrounded by the faithful slain,—
The loyal to his race?
The scaffold is a dying bed
The laws for guilt prepare:
Oh! that a young and gallant head
Should ever be laid there!
That hearts whose every pulse beat high
With some heroic aim,
Should heave their last indignant sigh
Upon a place of shame!
He died upon the scaffold,—died
As only felons should!
His mother's and his people's pride,—
The young, the brave, the good.
With his own hand he loosed his vest,
Without the headsman's aid;
And with a pure and fearless breast,
He knelt to God, and prayed.
He rose, and cried,—" My mother dear!
"A bitter grief 'twill be,
"The mournful news of me to hear,
"They soon shall bear to thee."
He looked upon the weeping crowd;
He threw his gauntlet down:
Then to the block that head he bowed
Which should have worn a crown.
When shall we think upon the dead,
Whose blood for us and ours was shed,—
The glorious dead who died,
In the flush of battle pride,
And left their country free?
When shall we dwell upon their memory?
When ye shall sing thanksgiving songs
Of triumph for avenged wrongs,
Then shall their names resound;
Their memory shall be found
Amid your victory's glow:
Worthy were they to be remembered so.
When, gathering around a grave,
Ye mourn the newly buried brave;
Or weep, in gratitude,
For the departed good,—
Remember them again:
Worthy were they to be remembered then.
In the proud records of your land,
Unblotted, let their actions stand;
Let future ages read,
And ponder every deed
When ye would cheer the drooping old,
The glories of the dead unfold;
When ye would teach the young,
Their names be on your tongue:
Worthy those names to be
Fame's signal words to all posterity.
Ah! where is now my peaceful cot?
And where my happy home?
Far distant from that cherished spot,
In banishment, I roam.
From thee, my country! I am driven;
A wanderer forced from thee;
But yet my constant prayer to Heaven
Shall be to make thee free.
How blissful once my lot appeared!
How brightly Fortune smiled!
My daily toil by hope was cheered,
By happiness beguiled.
My blooming children played around;
Their mother blessed each hour;
Till tyrants on our prospects frowned,
And crushed us with their power.
They burned our humble dwelling then
Our little all destroyed;
And left us, the hard-hearted men!
Of every hope devoid.
And thus, my country! I was driven,
A wanderer far from thee;
But yet my ceaseless prayer to Heaven
Has been to make thee free.
My helpless children sobbed aloud
Upon the parting day;
My Mary's head with grief was bowed;
Oh! how I wished to stay!
With anguish o'er the spot we mourned,
Where long our cottage stood;
And, as we went, we often turned
To view the neighbouring wood.
And when our vessel put to sea,
As dimmer grew the shore,
My bosom panted heavily,
To think that, never more,
My eyes upon that land should gaze,
Where all my youth was spent;
And where I thought to end my days,
In virtue and content.
Can virtue make content secure,
While tyrants may destroy
The simple blessings of the poor,
And blast their rising joy?
My loved, lost Country! ruined, driven,
An exile far from thee,—
My last and fondest prayer to Heaven
Shall be to make thee free.
They come! the mourners come! behold
That vast and various multitude
Of mingled elements! The old,—
The young,—the evil and the good,—
The feeble and the strong,—
Who dread, and who would dare, to die,—
Impelled by common sympathy,
In anxious myriads throng
See with how bold, how bright a glance,
Yon youthful warriors advance,
With looks that seem to say,
"We mourn the dead to day,
"Who died in honour's sacred cause:
"But when again our Athens draws
"Her vengeance-dealing sword,
"And gives the battle-word,—
''Then shall she find she still has sons as brave
"As these to whom her bosom is a grave."
There stands an aged father; stern
His rigid brow,—his front unmoved:
He trusteth not himself to yearn
Upon the loss of what he loved,—
The comfort of his years.
Young, loving, and bereaved wives
The extinguished glory of their lives
Bewail; but proudly raise
Their children up, to gaze
Where rest the hallowed, cold remains
Of men whose memory hath no stains.
Caressing them they tell
How their lost fathers fell,
For the dear sake of that unconquered land,
They, too, must serve with faithful heart and hand.
And mothers for the gallant dead,
The pillars of their widowed home,
The tones of sorrow pause; for now,
With eagle eye, and glowing brow,
And patriotick heart, and tongue
Whose eloquence hath often rung
Into their very souls, and bound,
As by a spell, the minds around,—
He rises;—he, the chosen chief,
Whose lips must speak a nation's grief
For her own loss: whose stirring voice
Must bid that nation still rejoice;
Those days are past; thy honours are gone by;
In dust and shame thy crumbled trophies lie:
The shattered relicks of those arts divine,
Owned by the world a legacy of thine,
But serve,—oh Greece! to mark each altered spot
Where Science reigned, and Knowledge enters not:
Where sang the poet, and where taught the sage
Whose memory lives upon the eternal page
Of History's records; wakes the Muse's lyre,
And lights in stranger souls a kindred fire.
A change is come!—and, far and wide,
A voice for liberty hath cried:
Abroad hath been a spirit pure
To tell the wrongs that slaves endure:
To touch a deeply sounding chord
In many hearts;—to speak a word
Whose echo, left too long at rest,
Had yet a home in every breast
Which e'er had throbbed for science,—fame:
That word, what was it? Greece! thy name.
Throughout the Earth, thy champions woke,
And swore to free thee from the yoke;
Mr. Canning.
And every struggle that it made
Seemed but an early debt repaid;—
Since from thy lore it first was fed
With emulation of the dead,
Whose glorious memory stands sublime,
Defying Slavery and Time.
A change is come to thee! and hath it brought
Completion of the hopes, wherewith were fraught
Those generous bosoms for thy good? No! strife
Hath been the portion of thy patriots; life
Bordering on death; a sense not quite awake
Of degradation; but no strength to break
The accustomed bonds; no dauntless energy,—
Living to dare, or dying to be free.
And if the Nations flatter thee, and call
Thy present being, "Independence," all
Which gives existence, such as thine, a claim
To that high title, is but deepened shame.
Close by a grave three mourners prayed,
When day was almost done;
And on a tombstone, newly laid,
Beamed the departing sun.
One wore a recent widow's dress;
Her face was pale and fair,
And very sad;—but there was less
Of grief than patience there.
Two youths were kneeling at her side,
In early boyhood's flush;
And through their veins, in life's first pride,
The pure blood seemed to rush.
His arms were reverently crost
Upon each stripling's breast:
The father they had lately lost,
Was in that place of rest.
Their prayer was ended:—as they rose,
The widow joined their hands:
"My sons!" she said, "let this world's woes
"Draw closer friendship's bands.
"We three have prayed upon the grave
"For us and our's designed;
"It holdeth one so true and brave,
"His like is not behind.
"I feel I have not long to stay,
"Before I, too, shall be
"Reposing here;—then come and pray,
"My children! over me."
Years passed away, and in that time,
The brothers were estranged;
And mutual doubt and conscious crime
Each clouded spirit changed.
Two old men, in a burying place,
Knelt by a moss-clad stone;
One in his hands concealed his face,
And thought himself alone:
But wistfully the other gazed;—
Hoped,—dreaded,—hoped again:
The downcast eyes at length were raised;
They knew each other then.
Those aged men had both returned
From countries far away,
Because their softened souls had yearned,
Upon that grave to pray.
They prayed,—and thought of her who slept
The sepulchre within;
And, heart to heart, the brothers wept
O'er years of pride and sin.
Together in that tomb they lie,
And mingle dust with dust:
They lived too long in enmity;—
They died in love and trust.
He sat in mockery of state,
And gazed, with heavy brow,
On that fair land,—his own of late;
The conquering Spaniard's now.
He thought of the Alhambra's towers,
Whose glories were grown dim:
Its marble fountains,—myrtle bowers,—
Oh! what were they to him?
His people crowded on the shore,
To watch their Monarch go:
They knew they should not see him more;
They raised a voice of woe.
"He leaves us, and the breezes swell
"His parting sails! afar
"From us, his own, he goes! farewell!
"Thou of the evil star!"
The words struck sadly on his ear,—
They sank into his heart,
And made full many a bitter tear
Within his eyelids start.
What! did the dastard dare to weep,
As faded from his view
The land he had not dared to keep?
And was his sorrow true?
Yes! for there is a sacred mine
In every human breast,
Whose golden treasure may not shine
'Mid luxury and rest.
But if in banishment we roam,
However long concealed,
The deeply buried love of home
Will be, at last, revealed.
And is not man a stranger here?
An alien from his proper home,
Created for some other sphere,
And sent on Earth a while to roam?
And what are all the griefs and fears
That work within his troubled breast?
A few tumultuous, fleeting years,
And they and he shall be at rest.
His bosom swells with hate and pride;
Conflicting passions mar his bliss;
How soon shall that tempestuous tide
Repose in an unknown abyss!
The joys that fill his buoyant heart,—
The hopes that o'er his fancy gleam,—
The joys, the hopes, shall both depart,
Like phantoms in a feverish dream.
The affections round his soul that cling,
Must they, too, droop and fall away?
Behold the blighted buds of spring,—
For earthly loves are frail as they.
And shall he pass, and leave no mark
Of all that was so much to him?
Shall Memory tend no lingering spark
Of Friendship's light,—no wcold
and dim?
A garland hangs above his tomb:—
A mother's fond and feeble eye
May watch that garland's wasting bloom,
And feel that she, like it, must die.
A pious orphan's daily prayer
May rise to Heaven from that spot:
A widow's tears may nourish there,
The sorrow that forgetteth not.
The widow hath not long to weep;
The orphan's prayer will shortly cease:
Nature ordains that they shall sleep,
With him they loved, in perfect peace.
And is the spirit quenched by Death?
Or, lost amidst infinity,
Floats it upon Creation's breath,
Without a goal, eternally?
Death touches not the spirit: Earth
Retains it not: nor is it driven,
At random, out; for, at its birth,
God destined it a home in Heaven.
Best soother of the human heart,
In mercy sent to pour the balm
Of peace, where Sorrow's venomed dart
Hath entered!—thou hast charms to calm
The breast by maddening conflicts torn:
Thy smiles a ray of comfort throw
Upon the mind by anguish worn:
Friendship! thy power they do not know
Who have not felt that power in woe.
Thy gentle hand the wound can close
Of silent grief that inly bleeds:
For passion thou cans't win repose;
And while, with tone persuasive, pleads
Thy seraph voice, the long dried eye
Of still Despair a tear will shed;—
The labouring bosom heave a sigh
Upon the grave,—the dark, chill bed
Of loves and hopes for ever dead.
Oh sacred Friendship! seldom found
Where Guilt, or Vice, or Folly dwells;
Where Pleasure rolls her varying round,
Or Fashion casts her airy spells!
Their votaries thy presence spurn,—
Their selfish cares thy faith would blight;
Thy footsteps to the shade return;
Thy soft joys wing their trembling flight
Far from the garish scenes of light.
Then come, oh Friendship! come to me!
For I the sorrow long have known
Which makes the spirit cling to thee:
Let me not bear it still alone!
And if thou hast no balm to heal
The wounds by Memory made so deep,
Yet, let thy touch my tears unseal:
Soothe lighter griefs than mine to sleep;
Alas! I only ask to weep.
"So War sie."
Such wert thou. Yes! a fitting type
Is summer's earliest rose of thee,
When its young, glowing charms are ripe;
All sweetness, bloom, and purity.
The rose's fragrance cannot save
Its loveliness from swift decay:
Within the cold and darksome grave,
Thy beauty mouldered soon away.
Such wert thou in thy native bower,
When first that beauty met my sight;
A bud just bursting into flower,
And opening to the glorious light.
And such thou wert, my bosom's pride!
Upon that day of hope and bliss,
When, as I hailed my blooming bride,
I thought not of a day like this.
Such wert thou, my heart's cherished wife!
My flower of love! the single rose
That graced the desert of my life,
Unwithered 'mid a thousand woes.
Such wert thou in the hour of death,
Smiling, my sinking soul to cheer;—
All sweetness still thy parting breath,
That spoke of peace and comfort near.
Such art thou in that world above,
Where death's chill blightings are unknown;
A flower of heavenly grace and love,
Before God's everlasting throne.
Oblivion! come and try thy power
To heal the sickness of the soul:
Thy lulling charms around me shower,
And let me drain thy opiate bowl.
Banish Remembrance from her seat!—
Her busy toils distract my brain;
I cannot bear her to repeat
The anguish of those hours again,
When Hope, alternately with Fear,
Led anxious Fancy's shadowy throng:
The threatening evils still appear,—
But faithless Hope hath vanished long.
Oblivion come! no votary blest
May bend before thy leaden shrine:
A heart which only pants for rest,
Implores to be for ever thine.
Oblivion! shall I court thy power?
And shall I bend me at thy shrine?
Devote to thee the lengthening hour,
And love for apathy resign?
The scenes of social joy forget?
The faces with affection glad?—
While yearning Nature owneth yet
The claims of Memory, fond though sad,
Oblivion! thou would'st seek in vain,
To drown my cares or lull my pain.
For Guilt's pale slave thy chalice fill,
Who cannot hope and dares not think;
O'er me thy torpor shall not creep;
On me thy gifts thou shalt not shed:
Oh! rather let me feel and weep
For every hope and blessing fled,
Than banish from my aching heart
The loves by sorrow made more dear,—
Than bid the tender thoughts depart,
Which soothe a mind they cannot cheer,—
Than let thy soul-benumbing sway
Palsy my life's best powers away.
No! Memory, hail! to thee I bend;
To thee I form the votive prayer;
Propitious to my vow attend!
Grant me thy joys,—thy woes,—to share;
Give me thy varying book to read,
Nor thence one character efface;
And while the vivid scenes succeed,
And while past pleasures I retrace,
The tears that fall on every line,
Shall be an offering at thy shrine.
Not for the dead—not for the unconscious—weep,
Whose country's ruin troubleth not their sleep:
There is a mockery in the tears ye shed
For them who from the wrath to come have fled:
No! weep not for the dead.
Your grief afflicts not them: they do not hear
The tones whose lightest sound was once so dear:
Would ye awake them, if ye could, to know
What we they loved and left must undergo?
Wake not the dead to woe.
Weep ye not for the dead: a blessed doom
Hath closed on them the portals of the tomb;
Their quiet memory dreams not of the past;
Their anchor, through eternity, is fast;
Their changeless fate is cast.
Weep ye not for the dead:—but weep, weep sore
For them who go—and shall return no more:
Weep for the vanquished, captive, exile bands,
Condemned to waste away in foreign lands,
With nerveless hearts and hands.
Weep for the weary, way-worn, aged men
Who deemed they ne'er should leave their home again:
They go, they go from that beloved home,—
They go in distant dreariness to roam,
And back they shall not come.
Weep for the delicately nurtured young,
Whose childish accents must renounce the tongue
In which their mothers taught them to lisp forth
Praise to their God,—goodwill to all on Earth;
The tongue that hailed their birth.
Weep for the widowed bride, on whom the blight
Of desolation resteth; whose life's light
Is quenched within the tomb of one that lies
In the fallen land she learned from him to prize,—
Fallen, never to arise.
Weep for the brave,—the banished, baffled brave,
Bereaved of all they vainly bled to save;—
The brave who still would gladly die to free
The native country they shall never see,—
Dear, even in slavery.
Weep, weep for these; but let no senseless tear
Flow for the dead. Exempt from grief and fear,
The land that bore them pilloweth their head;
Their graves among their fathers' graves are spread;—
Then weep not for the dead.
Le ostili schiere, generoso e solo,
Non temè Muzio, e la ingannata mano
Nel fuoco ei consumò. L'Etrusco stuolo
Osservò il fatto, e lo credette insano.
"Vedi, O Re!" disse, "quanto poco il duolo
"Del fragil corpo importa ad un Romano:
"Mi fia grato il morir pel natio suolo,
"Poichè il disegno mio stato è sì vano.
"Meco trecento pur fecero voto
"Di compir contro te ben alta impresa,
"Spinti come il sono io, da nobil moto.
"La città, quindi, a te non fia mai resa."
Porsenna ad atto tal rimase immoto;
Cangiò pensiero, e lasciò Roma illesa.
Di sdegno pien comparve Coriolano
Innanzi la Città, pria tanto amata,
E giurò, nell' alzar l'ultrice mano,
Far crudo scempio della patria ingrata.
Mai fino allor dei suoi nemici, invano,
La ruina o la morte avea giurata:
Roma, che il sa, paventa, e verso il piano,
Invia di donne schiera sconsolata.
Gli domanda pietà l'afflitto stuolo;
Ma desso fero altrove volge il ciglio,
E i preghi non ascolta e sprezza il duolo.
Quindi parlò Veturia. Allor consiglio
Mutò: "A te," disse, "O Madre! io cedo solo:
"Salvasti Roma, ma perdesti il figlio.
Quando Roma rivide prigioniero
Regolo, benchè vinto, ancor glorioso,
Mesta accolse l'amato suo guerriero,
Che visto avea sì spesso vittorioso.
Gli era commesso dal nemico altiero,
D'indur la patria a patto vergognoso:
Se nol potesse, sotto il giogo fiero
Tornar dovea del popolo orgoglioso.
Ogni proposta ai Senatori piace,
Per sottrarre l'eroe da cruda sorte;
Ma dopo tutti ei sorge, e ogni altro tace.
"Guerra conviene a Roma:" grido il forte,
"Non si farà per me, giuro, la pace."
Stupì il Senato, ed ei fù preda a morte.
Italia! Italia! o tu, cui feo la sorte
Dono infelice di bellezza, ond'hai
Funesta dote d'infiniti guai,
Che scritti in fronte per gran doglia porte:
Deh! fossi tu men bella, o almen più forte,
Sì che più assai ti paventasse, o assai
T'amasse men, chi del tuo bello ai rai
Par che si strugga, e pur ti sfida a morte.
Ch'or giù dall'Alpi non vedrei torrenti
Scender d'armati, nè di sangue tinta
Bever l'onda del Po Gallici armenti:
Nè ti vedrei del non tuo ferro cinta,
Pugnar col braccio di straniere genti,
Per servir sempre, o vincitrice o vinta.
Italia! Italia!—thou whose loveliness,
A fatal dowry, serveth but to bow
Thy spirit down, and on thy fair, sad brow
The stamp indelible of grief impress:
Oh! that thy strength were more, thy beauty less!
To awe,—at least to tempt not them who now,
False, fervent suitors, even while they vow
Eternal faith, blight what they seem to bless.
Then, rushing down thy Alps, I should not see
Armed men; or Gallic beasts drink from the wave,
Of thy polluted, blood-stained Po; or thee,
Girt with a foreign sword, by proxy brave,
Fight with a stranger nation's arm to be,
Vanquished or victor, ever but a slave.
"T'appressa all'ara, e se valor guerriero
"Ti ferve in sen, se figlio mio tu sei,
"All'odiata rival del nostro impero
"Eterna nimistà giurar tu dei."
Delle Puniche squadre il condottiero
Al giovine Annibal sì disse, ed ei,
Stesa la mano in atto atroce e fiero,
Vindici ai voti suoi chiamò gli Dei.
Sorrise Giove al giuramento insano,
Chè dei Fati al gran libro era segnato:
"Di Roma ai danni ogni disegno è vano."
Ma poichè, l'Alpi e l'Apennin varcato,
Scender lo vide ruinoso al piano,
Tremò per Roma, e dubitò del Fato.
"Approach the altar, and if martial fire
"Burn in thy bosom,—if my son thou be,
"Pronounce the awful oath I here require:
"Swear unremitting, quenchless enmity
"Against our country's rival." Thus his sire
Adjured the youthful Hannibal; and he,
With hand outstretched in gesture fiercely dire,
Called on the Gods his deep resolve to see.
Jove smiled to hear the childish vow insane;
For in Fate's book was written: "To abate
"The power of Rome all enterprize is vain."
But when o'er Alps, and Appenines, elate,
He saw him rush impetuous to the plain,
Jove trembled for his Rome, and doubted Fate.
Rejoice! that is the last sad tear
That shall bedew thy weary eye!
Behold unveiled yon glorious sphere,
The home of thy eternity!
Like Spring's thin mists before the wind,
The feverish dream of life hath fled;
And seraph hands a garland bind
Of heavenly blossoms for thy head.
Away with all thy phantom show
Of hopes and joys, thou frail, false Earth!
The hopes of Heaven now round her glow,—
She bursts the trammels of her birth!
The dawn of a new day appears:
Towards her its beams of promise tend
From that blest world, where griefs, and fears,
And parting pangs no bosom rend.
Hark! through yon grove of holy palms,
Where flows a stream which cannot fail,
Angels are singing in their psalms,
"Redeemed sister spirit, hail!"
That spirit on its eagle wing,
Hath gained the source of light and life.
Death! where is now thy blunted sting?
Hell! thou art vanquished in the strife!
"Beglänzt vom rothen Schein des himmels bebt."
On the young stalk, the tint the red Heaven throws
Plays o'er the trembling dew:
The vernal landscape's quivering image glows
Through waves of clearest blue.
The mountain rill, the brightly-blossomed hedge,
Woods bathed in sunlight streams,
The evening star, that on the purple edge
Of yonder soft cloud beams,
The meadow green, the shrubby valley cool,
The hill with verdure clad,
The alder-shadowed brook, the lilied pool,—
All, all are fair and glad.
Oh! how encircleth Everlasting Love
Creation with its band!
The glow-worm's light, the fiery orbs above,
Are kindled by one hand.
Almighty! at thy signal, from its place
Is dropped a leaflet here:
There, at thy signal, through unbounded space,
Is hurled a wandering sphere.
Did not thy power, O Love! shine forth to cheer,
With heavenly influence, on its path below,
The spirit exiled from its native sphere,
Who could endure the weight of earthly woe?
Through the unmeasured realms of life and light,—
Far as Creation's harmony resounds,—
Thou guidest the redeemed soul's first flight,
While, from its shackles freed, it upward bounds.
And when, before the fiery deluge driven,
This world is swept into the grave of Time,
Thou, like a Phoenix, from the flames, towards Heaven
Shalt soar imperishable, pure, sublime.
Moss-covered stone! in this mysterious ground
I greet thee,—sacred to God's hallowed dead,—
While Evening's peaceful glories, streaming round,
On thee are shed.
Beside thee hath not sounded, for long years,
The mourning voice of friends,—now mouldering too:
O'er thee, no longer, maids, with pious tears,
Spring's first flowers strew.
Who shall thy slumbering tenant now make known?
A sculptured scull remains, his tomb to grace:
Worn is his epitaph;—by weeds o'ergrown
The name's faint trace.
To thee I fly from life's tumultuous noise,
When Evening o'er the woods her splendour flings:
Altar of hope! where hover heavenly joys
On seraph wings.
The touch of Fate our holiest joys may blight;
May quench the glowing torch of Friendship's light;
May sever hearts that, through successive years,
Had clung unchanged, 'mid varying hopes and fears:
Yet droop not, lone one! though thy fate recall
Thy long loved treasure, thy soul's cherished all;
But raise thy trembling eyes:—lo! from afar,
Faith in the darkened future shows a star.
Youth's pleasures,—manhood's joys,—dispersed may fly,
While, on life's path, the roses fade and die;
Love's last enchantment may dissolve away,
And Fancy's gilded idols may decay;
No drop of time is spent,—no hour departs
But leaves some heart to mourn for kindred hearts;
No star comes forth, no morning zephyr breathes,
But pious Love some early grave enwreathes:—
The spirit pinioned by triumphant Faith,
Soaring aloft, o'er Time, and Grief, and Death,
Exulting joins the angel choir on high,
In hallowed strains of endless harmony.
These four last lines are so different from the original, that they cannot be considered as even a free translation.