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OF THE LATE
MRS HEMANS.
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December 6, 2007
Charlotte Payne
-- ed.
Vainly, too vainly 'gainst the power I strive,
Which, night and day, comes rushing through my soul!
Without that pouring forth of thought and song
My life is life no more!
Wilt thou forbid the silkworm to spin on,
When hourly with the laboured line he draws
Nearer to death?—In vain! the costly web
Must from his inmost being still be wrought,
Till he lies wrapt in his consummate shroud.
Oh! that a gracious God to us may give
The lot of that blest worm!—to spread free wings
And burst exultingly on brighter life,
In a new realm of sunshine!
As this is the last of a series of poetical volumes, which, making their appearance at intervals during the last nineteen years, have in an especial manner arrested the attention of the imaginative and the intellectual; and, as all have naturally a desire to know something of those from whom they have received mental gratification or delight, it has been determined, that a brief biographical memoir of the accomplished and lamented author, should be prefixed to these pages.
Felicia Dorothea Browne was born in Liverpool on the 25th of September 1793. Her mother, whose family-name was Wagner, although a German by appellation, was of Italian descent. Her father was a merchant of considerable eminence; but, being engaged in extensive speculations, during the most unfixed and varying periods of the French Revolution, he, in common with many others, from the unlooked for and destructive changes of that eventful time, suffered under those reverses which are incidental to a commercial life. A few years afterwards, and while his daughter was consequently still very young, he retired with his family into Wales, and resided for some time at Gwrych, near Abergele, in Denbighshire.
In that secluded region, where the romantic varieties of sea and mountain scenery are beautifully combined and contrasted, the lamented subject of this short memoir was educated by a mother, not only of exemplary virtue, but
Under these fostering influences, the peculiar bias of her imagination and intellect began to develope itself at an early period of childhood. While yet only in her sixth year, she took to the reading of Shakspeare as her favourite recreation, and, such was the retentiveness of her memory, that she could repeat pages of his most striking scenes, as well as many passages from our best poets, after little more than a single perusal. The circumstance is certainly not a unique one, but, in her case, is a proof of the intense delight, which her mind enjoyed while imbibing the beautiful and grand in sentiment,—impressions so instantaneously stamped shewing their depth by their durability.
Such a prevailing love of poetry soon naturally turned to a cultivation of the art in her own person; and a volume of verses, written by her, when she was not yet eleven years old, attracted from that circumstance, as well as from their intrinsic merit, no inconsiderable share of public attention. This little volume was, in the course of the four succeeding years, followed by two others, which evinced powers gradually but steadily expanding, and which were received with increasing favour by the admirers of poetry. Her studies, up to this time, had been the world to her; with nature and her books she had lived in devoted seclusion, dreaming bright dreams; storing up knowledge; and, no doubt, enjoying by occasional anticipation, glimpses of that reputation, which was eventually to encircle her name. But a change soon passed over the spirit of that Elysian picture; and, in her nineteenth year, she was married to Captain Hemans, of the Fourth Regiment, a gentleman of highly respectable
The literary pursuits of Mrs Hemans rendering it ineligible for her to leave England, she continued to reside with her mother and sister at a quiet and pretty spot, near St Asaph, in North Wales; where, in the bosom of her family, entirely devoted to literature, and to the education of five interesting boys, in whose welfare centred all the energies of her mind and heart, she
"Trod in gentle peace her guileless way;"
Apart from all intercourse with literary society, and acquainted only by name and occasional correspondence with any of the distinguished authors of whom England has to boast, Mrs Hemans, during the progress of her poetical career, had to contend with more and greater obstacles than usually stand in the path of female authorship. To her praise be it spoken, therefore, that it was to her own merit alone, wholly independent of adventitious circumstances, that she was indebted for the extensive share of popularity which her compositions ultimately obtained. From this studious seclusion were given forth the two poems which first permanently elevated her among the writers of her age,—the "Restoration of the Works of Art to Italy," and "Modern Greece."
The life of Mrs Hemans thus continued for many years a scene of uninterrupted domestic privacy—intercourse with the world, in an extended acceptation of the term, might be said to have been dropped by her; and the ideas with which her mind was stored, were derived solely from reading, united to a deep feeling of the beauties of nature, and its own bright comprehension and discernment. Her talent for acquiring languages was very remarkable, and she was well versed in German, French, Italian, Spanish, and Portuguese, with a sufficient knowledge of Latin for every requisite purpose. Of these languages she preferred the
In music and drawing the acquirements of Mrs Hemans were such as naturally might have been expected, in a mind so fraught with taste and imagination. She preferred in the former what was national and melancholy; and her strains adapted for singing were, of course, framed to the tones most congenial to the temperament of her own mind. How successfully wed to the magic of sweet sound many of her verses have been by her sister, no lover of music need to be reminded. The "Roman Girl's Song" is full of a solemn classic beauty; and, in one of her letters, it is said that of the "Captive Knight," Sir Walter Scott never was weary. Indeed, it seems in his mind to have been the song of Chivalry, representative of the English; as the Flowers of the Forest was of the Scottish; the Cancionella Española of the Spanish; and the Rhine Song of the
The death of her mother in 1827, and the marriage of her sister in the following year, added to the necessity of additional facilities for the education of her boys, induced Mrs Hemans to leave Wales, and to fix her residence at Wavertree, near Liverpool. Whilst at that place, a favourable opportunity occurred for her visiting Scotland, with the scenery of which she was delighted; and, the remembrance of the friends she had made, and the courtesy she had experienced there, was never effaced from her memory. In her journeyings on this occasion, she had the pleasure of forming a personal acquaintance with Sir Walter Scott, Lord Jeffrey, Wordsworth, the author of Cyril Thornton, and other distinguished literary characters. The writer of this humble sketch had, also, at this time the honour of meeting her, and enjoying a few brief, but de-
Shortly after her return from a second visit to Scotland, Mrs Hemans changed her residence to Dublin, where her Hymns for Childhood, and her National Lyrics and Songs for Music were published. It was impossible now, when her fame had become national, to live altogether in the quiet sequestration which she had enjoyed in Wales, and had expected to find at Wavertree; but, that she courted retirement, as much as the nature of her situation and the claims of society admitted, is evident.
The seeds of the complaint which terminated the existence of this amiable and gifted woman, had long been sown, and their growth
Her remains were deposited in the vault of St. Anne's Church, Dublin.
During her long illness, she was attended with the most unwearied care and disinterested kindness by Dr Graves and by Dr Croker, two eminent physicians of Dublin; nor were her last moments unsoothed by the attention of real friends, as well as by the presence of near and dear relatives. It is but justice to the illustrious living to mention, that, while confined to her sick-room, Mrs Hemans received some noble tributes of kindness from Sir Robert Peel; and that, without the slightest solicitation, he gave her fourth son a place in the Admiralty.
Many of Mrs Hemans's Works were reprinted at Boston, in the United States, under the friendly auspices of Professor Norton, who secured for her the proceeds of their very extensive sale. Indeed the genius of the author of the "Records of Woman," "the Forest Sanctuary," and "the Scenes and Hymns of
We cannot part from this view of our subject without again adverting to the enthusiastic interest which Professor Norton has taken in the dissemination of the writings of Mrs Hemans among his countrymen. Both in her conversation and in her letters, she was eloquent in her expressions of gratitude towards him in this respect; and all her admirers are bound to respect that gentleman, for the disinterested endeavours he so successfully made, not only in rendering her genius more extensively known; but, probably, for having been the means of exciting her to exertions, which might have otherwise been damped by limited success, or altogether frustrated by critical hostility. That Felicia Hemans would have been a poetess, whether contemporary criticism had allowed the fact or not, admits not of dispute; but still we know not how far, in many respects, even the most gifted and intellectual are the children of circumstances. Many a flower of genius, which would have expanded under
Mrs Hemans was about the middle height, and rather slenderly made than otherwise. To a countenance of great intelligence and expression, she united manners alike unassuming and playful; and with a trust arising out of the purity of her own character,—which was beyond the meanness of suspicion in others, she remained untainted by the breath of worldly guile. Her heart overflowed with tenderness in all the relations of domestic life; and the exquisite delicacy of her perceptions, regarding all that is pure, ennobling, and of good report, remains for ever stamped on her various writings.
It is beyond the scope of the present memoir to enter into any critical analysis or examination of the numerous publications of Mrs Hemans. They are now, as she has left them, at the bar of posterity; and it is pleasing to
Without aspiring to the vehemence, which some writers have mistaken for energy, the
Mrs Jameson has truly said, that "the poetry of Mrs Hemans could only have been written by a woman." In all her thoughts and feelings she is intensely and entirely feminine; and there is a finish and completeness about her composition, singularly accordant with the fine perception, and delicate discrimination of the female mind. In her poetry religious truth and intellectual beauty meet together, and blend in delightful union; and assuredly it is not the less calculated to refine the taste and exalt the imagination, because it addresses itself only to the better feelings of our nature. Over all her pictures of humanity are spread the glory and the grace reflected from purity of morals, dignity of sentiment, beauty of imagery, sublimity of religious faith, and ardour of patriotism; and, turning from the dark and degraded, whether in circumstance or conception, she seeks out those verdant oases in the desert
"Pecking the hand that hovers o'er its mate,"
Mrs Hemans has written much, and on a variety of subjects; and, as with all authors of similar versatility, her strains possess different degrees of excellence. Independently of this uncertain criterion, her different works will be differently estimated, as to their relative value, by different minds. But we hesitate not to assert, that she has bequeathed to posterity many compositions, which the English language "will not willingly let die." The music of her words has interwoven itself with the national heart, and cannot fail to be breathed from the lips of our children's children.
Per correr miglior acqua alza le vele,
Omai la navicella del mio Intelletto.
MY soul was mantled with dark shadows, born
Of lonely Fear, disquieted in vain;
Its phantoms hung around the star of morn,
A cloud-like weeping train;
Through the long day they dimm'd the autumn-gold
On all the glistening leaves; and wildly roll'd,
When the last farewell flush of light was glowing,
Across the sunset sky;
O'er its rich isles of vaporous glory throwing
One melancholy dye.
"Fold, fold thy wings," they cried, "and strive no more,
Faint spirit, strive no more!—for thee too strong
Are outward ill and wrong,
And inward wasting fires!—Thou canst not soar
Free on a starry way
Beyond their blighting sway,
At Heaven's high gate serenely to adore!
How shouldst thou hope Earth's fetters to unbind?
O passionate, yet weak! O trembler to the wind!
"Never shall aught but broken music flow
From joy of thine, deep love, or tearful woe;
"Never shall aught but perfume, faint and vain,
On the fleet pinion of the changeful hour,
From thy bruis'd life again
A moment's essence breathe;
Thy life, whose trampled flower
Into the blessed wreath
Of household charities no longer bound,
Lies pale and withering on the barren ground.
"So fade, fade on! thy gift of love shall cling,
A coiling sadness, round thy heart and brain,
A silent, fruitless, yet undying thing,
All sensitive to pain!
Then my soul yielded; spells of numbing breath
Crept o'er it heavy with a dew of death,
Its powers, like leaves before the night-rain, closing:
And, as by conflict of wild sea-waves toss'd
On the chill bosom of some desert coast,
Mutely and hopelessly I lay reposing.
When silently it seem'd
As if a soft mist gleam'd
Before my passive sight, and, slowly curling,
To many a shape and hue
Of vision'd beauty grew,
Like a wrought banner, fold by fold unfurling.
Oh! the rich scenes that o'er mine inward eye
Unrolling, then swept by,
And then a glorious mountain-chain uprose,
Height above spiry height!
A soaring solitude of woods and snows,
All steep'd in golden light!
While as it pass'd, those regal peaks unveiling,
I heard, methought, a waving of dread wings
And mighty sounds, as if the vision hailing,
From lyres that quiver'd through ten thousand strings:
Or as if waters forth to music leaping,
Return no more, vain bodings of the night!
A happier oracle within my soul
Hath swell'd to power;—a clear unwavering light
Mounts through the battling clouds that round me roll,
And to a new control
Nature's full harp gives forth rejoicing tones,
Wherein my glad sense owns
Shall not those notes find echoes in my lyre,
Faithful though faint?—Shall not my spirit's fire,
If slowly, yet unswervingly, ascend
Now to its fount and end?
Shall not my earthly love, all purified,
Shine forth a heavenward guide?
An angel of bright power?—and strongly bear
My being upward into holier air,
Where fiery passion-clouds have no abode,
And the sky's temple-arch o'erflows with God?
The radiant hope new-born
Expands like rising morn
In my life's life: and as a ripening rose,
The crimson shadow of its glory throws
Let not those rays fade from me;—once enjoy'd,
Father of spirits! let them not depart!
Leaving the chill'd earth, without form and void,
Darken'd by mine own heart!
Lift, aid, sustain me! Thou, by whom alone
All lovely gifts and pure
In the soul's grasp endure;—
Thou, to the steps of whose eternal throne
All knowledge flows—a sea for evermore
Breaking its crested waves on that sole shore—
O consecrate my life! that I may sing
Of Thee with joy that hath a living spring,
In a full heart of music!—Let my lays
Through the resounding mountains waft thy praise
And with that theme the wood's green cloisters fill,
And make their quivering leafy dimness thrill
Forgive, O Father! if presumptuous thought
Too daringly in aspiration rise!
Let not thy child all vainly have been taught
By weakness, and by wanderings, and by sighs
Of sad confession!—lowly be my heart,
And on its penitential altar spread
The offerings worthless, till Thy grace impart
The fire from Heaven, whose touch alone can shed
Life, radiance, virtue!—let that vital spark
Pierce my whole being, wilder'd else and dark!
Thine are all holy things—O make me Thine,
So shall I too he pure—a living shrine
Unto that spirit, which goes forth from Thee,
Strong and divinely free,
Bearing thy gifts of wisdom on its flight,
And brooding o'er them with a dove-like wing,
Till thought, word, song, to Thee in worship spring,
Immortally endow'd for liberty and light.
I STAND upon the threshold stone
Of mine ancestral hall;
I hear my native river moan;
I see the night o'er my old forests fall.
I look round on the darkening vale,
That saw my childhood's plays:
The low wind in its rising wail
Hath a strange tone, a sound of other days.
But I must rule my swelling breast:
A sign is in the sky;
Bright o'er yon grey rock's eagle nest
Shines forth a warning star—it bids me fly.
My father's sword is in my hand,
His deep voice haunts mine ear;
He tells me of the noble band,
Whose lives have left a brooding glory here.
He bids their offspring guard from stain
Their pure and lofty faith;
And yield up all things, to maintain
The cause, for which they girt themselves to death.
And I obey.—I leave their towers
Unto the stranger's tread;
Unto the creeping grass and flowers;
Unto the fading pictures of the dead.
I leave their shields to slow decay,
Their banners to the dust;
I go, and only bear away
Their old, majestic name,—a solemn trust!
I go up to the ancient hills,
Where chains may never be,
Where leap in joy the torrent rills,
Where man may worship God, alone and free.
There shall an altar and a camp
Impregnantly arise;
There shall be lit a quenchless lamp,
To shine, unwavering, through the open skies.
And song shall midst the rocks be heard,
And fearless prayer ascend;
While, thrilling to God's holy word,
The mountains pines in adoration bend.
And there the burning heart no more
Its deep thought shall suppress,
But the long buried truth shall pour
Free currents thence, amidst the wilderness.
Then fare thee well, my mother's bower,
Farewell, my father's hearth;
Perish my home! where lawless power
Hath rent the tie of love to native earth.
Perish! let deathlike silence fall
Upon the lone abode:
Spread fast, dark ivy, spread thy pall:—
I go up to the mountains, with my God.
"Go, call thy sons; instruct them what a debt
They owe their ancestors; and make them swear
To pay it, by transmitting down entire
Those sacred rights to which themselves were born."
LOOK from the ancient mountains down,
My noble English Boy!
Thy country's fields around thee gleam
In sunlight and in joy.
Ages have roll'd since foeman's march
Pass'd o'er that old firm sod;
For well the land hath fealty held
To Freedom and to God!
Gaze proudly on, my English Boy!
And let thy kindling mind
Drink in the spirit of high thought
From every chainless wind!
There, in the shadow of old Time,
The halls beneath thee lie,
Which pour'd forth to the fields of yore,
Our England's chivalry.
How bravely and how solemnly
They stand, 'midst oak and yew!
Whence Cressy's yeomen haply framed
The bow, in battle true.
And round their walls the good swords hang
Whose faith knew no alloy,
And shields of knighthood, pure from stain—
Gaze on, my English Boy!
Gaze where the hamlet's ivied church
Gleams by the antique elm,
Or where the minster lifts the cross
High through the air's blue realm.
Martyrs have shower'd their free hearts' blood.
That England's prayer might rise,
From those grey fanes of thoughtful years,
Unfetter'd, to the skies.
Along their aisles, beneath their trees,
This earth's most glorious dust,
Once fired with valour, wisdom, song,
Is laid in holy trust.
Gaze on—gaze farther, farther yet—
My gallant English Boy!
Yon blue sea bears thy country's flag,
The billows' pride and joy!
Those waves in many a fight have closed
Above her faithful dead;
That red-cross flag victoriously
Hath floated o'er their bed.
They perish'd—this green turf to keep
By hostile tread unstained;
These knightly halls inviolate,
Those churches unprofaned.
And high and clear, their memory's light.
Along our shore is set,
And many an answering beacon-fire
Shall there be kindled yet!
Lift up thy heart, my English Boy!
And pray, like them to stand,
Should God so summon thee, to guard
The altars of the land.
By the blue waters—the restless ocean waters,
Restless as they with their many-flashing surges,
Lonely I wander, weeping for my lost one!
I pine for thee through all the joyless day—
Through the long night I pine:—the golden sun
Looks dim since thou hast left me, and the spring
Seems but to weep.—Where art thou, my beloved?—
Night after night, in fond hope vigilant,
By the old temple on the breezy cliff,
These hands have heap'd the watch-fire, till it stream'd
Red o'er the shining columns—darkly red—
Along the crested billows!—but in vain;
Thy white sail comes not from the distant isles—
Yet thou wert faithful ever. O! the deep
By the blue waters—the restless ocean waters,
Restless as they with their many-flashing surges.
Lonely I wander, weeping for my lov'd one!
Where art thou—where?—had I but lingering prest
On thy cold lips the last long kiss,—but smooth'd
The parted ringlets of thy shining hair
With love's fond touch, my heart's cry had been still'd
Into a voiceless grief;—I would have strew'd
With all the pale flowers of the vernal woods,—
White violets, and the mournful hyacinth,
And frail anemone, thy marble brow,
In slumber beautiful!—I would have heap'd
Sweet boughs and precious odours on thy pyre,
And with mine own shorn tresses hung thine urn,
And many a garland of the pallid rose,—
By the blue waters—the restless ocean waters,
Restless as they with their many-flashing surges,
Lonely I wander, weeping for my lost one!—
Come, in the dreamy shadow of the night,
And speak to me!—E'en though thy voice be changed,
My heart would know it still.—O! speak to me,
And say if yet, in some dim, far off world,
Which knows not how the festal sunshine burns—
If yet, in some pale mead of Asphodel,
We two shall meet again!—O! I would quit
The day, rejoicingly,—the rosy light,—
All the rich flowers and fountains musical,
And sweet familiar melodies of earth,
To dwell with thee below.—Thou answerest not!
The powers, whom I have call'd upon are mute:
The voices buried in old whispery caves,
And by lone river-sources, and amidst
The gloom and mist'ry of dark, prophet-oaks,
The Wood-gods' haunt—they give me no reply!
All silent—heaven and earth!—for ever more
From the deserted mountains thou art gone—
For ever from the melancholy groves,
Whose laurels wail thee with a shivering sound!—
And I—I pine through all the joyous day,
Through the long night I pine,—as fondly pines
The night's own bird, dissolving her lorn life
To song in moonlight woods.—Thou hear'st me not!
The Heavens are pitiless of human tears;
The deep sea-darkness is about thy head;
The white sail never will bring back the loved!
By the blue waters—the restless ocean waters,
Restless as they with their many-flashing surges,
Lonely I wander, weeping for my lost one!
Ave Maria! May our spirits dare
Look up to thine, and to thy Son's above?
FAIR vision! thou'rt from sunny skies,
Born where the rose hath richest dyes;
To thee a southern heart hath given
That glow of Love, that calm of Heaven,
And round thee cast th' ideal gleam,
The light that is but of a dream.
Far hence, where wandering music fills
The haunted air of Roman hills,
Or where Venetian waves of yore
Heard melodies, they hear no more,
Some proud old minster's gorgeous aisle
Hath known the sweetness of thy smile.
Or haply, from a lone, dim shrine.
'Mid forests of the Apennine,
Whose breezy sounds of cave and dell
Pass like a floating anthem-swell,
Thy soft eyes o'er the pilgrim's way
Shed blessings with their gentle ray.
Or gleaming through a chestnut wood,
Perchance thine island-chapel stood,
Where from the blue Sicilian sea,
The sailor's hymn hath risen to thee,
And bless'd thy power to guide, to save,
Madonna! watcher of the wave!
Oh! might a voice, a whisper low,
Forth from those lips of beauty flow!
Couldst thou but speak of all the tears,
The conflicts, and the pangs of years,
Which, at thy secret shrine reveal'd,
Have gush'd from human hearts unseal'd!
Surely to thee hath woman come,
As a tired wanderer back to home!
Unveiling many a timid guest,
And treasured sorrow of her breast,
A buried love—a wasting care—
Oh! did those griefs win peace from prayer?
And did the poet's fervid soul
To thee lay bare its inmost scroll?
Those thoughts, which pour'd their quenchless fire
And passion o'er th' Italian lyre,
Did they to still submission die,
Beneath thy calm, religious eye?
And hath the crested helmet bow'd
Before thee, 'midst the incense-cloud?
Hath the crown'd leader's bosom lone,
To thee its haughty griefs made known?
Did thy glance break their frozen sleep,
And win the unconquer'd one to weep?
Hush'd is the anthem—closed the vow—
The votive garland wither'd now;
Yet holy still to me thou art,
Thou that hast soothed so many a heart!
And still must blessed influence flow
From the meek glory of thy brow.
Still speak to suffering woman's love,
Of rest for gentle hearts above;
Of Hope, that hath its treasure there,
Of Home, that knows no changeful air!
Bright form, lit up with thoughts divine,
Ave! such power be ever thine!
THESE sonnets, written in the months of April, May, and June, were intended, together with the Records of the autumn of 1834, to form a continuation of the series, entitled "Sonnets Devotional and Memorial," which appeared in the Author's last published volume, "Scenes and Hymns of Life."
O FESTAL Spring! 'midst thy victorious glow
Far-spreading o'er the kindled woods and plains,
And streams, that bound to meet thee from their chains,
Well might there lurk the shadow of a woe
For human hearts, and in the exulting flow
Of thy rich song's a melancholy tone,
Were we of mould all earthly; we alone,
Severed from thy great spell, and doomed to go
Farther, still farther, from our sunny time,
Never to feel the breathings of our prime,
Never to flower again!—But we, O spring!
Cheered by deep spirit-whispers not of earth,
Press to the regions of thy heavenly birth,
As here thy Flowers and Birds press onto bloom and sing.
Far from the rustlings of the poplar bough,
Which o'er my opening life wild music made,
Far from the green hills with their heathery glow
And flashing streams whereby my childhood play'd;
In the dim city, midst the sounding flow
Of restless lift, to thee in love I turn
O thou rich sky! and from thy splendours learn
How song-birds come and part, flowers wane and blow.
With thee all shapes of glory find their home,
And thou hast taught me well, majestic Dome!
By stars, by sunsets, by soft clouds which rove
Thy blue expanse, or sleep in silvery rest,
That Nature's God hath left no spot unbless'd
With founts of beauty for the eye of love.
Upward and upward still!—in pearly light
The clouds are steeped; the vernal spirit sighs
With bliss in every wind, and crystal skies
Woo thee, O Birds! to thy celestial height;
Bird piercing Heaven with music! thy free flight
Hath meaning for all bosoms; most of all
For those wherein the rapture and the might
Of poesy lie deep, and strive, and burn,
For their high place: O Heirs of Genius! learn
From the sky's bird your way!—No joy may fill
Your hearts, no gift of holy strength be won
To bless your songs, ye Children of the Sun!
Save by the unswerving flight—upward and upward still!
Oh! judge in thoughtful tenderness of those,
Who, richly dowered for life, are called to die,
Ere the soul's flame, through storms, hath won repose
In truth's divinest ether, still and high!
Let their mind's riches claim a trustful sigh!
Deem them but sad sweet fragments of a strain,
First notes of some yet struggling harmony,
By the strong rush, the crowding joy and pain
Of many inspirations met, and held
From its true sphere:—Oh! soon it might have swelled
Majestically forth!—Nor doubt, that He
Whose touch mysterious may on earth dissolve
Those links of music, elsewhere will evolve
Their grand consummate hymn, from passion-gusts made free!
My earliest memories to thy shores are bound,
Thy solemn shores, thou ever-chaunting main!
The first rich sunsets, kindling thought profound
In my lone being, made thy restless plain
As the vast shining floor of some dread fane,
All paved with glass and fire. Yet, O blue deep!
Thou that no trace of human hearts dost keep,
Never to thee did love with silvery chain
Draw my soul's dream, which thro' all nature sought
What waves deny;—some bower of stedfast bliss,
A home to twine with fancy, feeling, thought,
As with sweet flowers:—But chastened hope for this
Now turns from earth's green valleys, as from thee,
To that sole changeless world, where "there is no more sea."
Yet, rolling far up some green mountain dale,
Oft let me hear, as oft-times I have heard,
Thy swell, thou deep! when evening calls the bird,
And bee to rest; when summer tints grow pale,
Seen through the gathering of a dewy veil,
And pleasant steps are hastening to repose,
And gleaming flocks lie down, and flower-cups close
To the last whisper of the falling gale.
Then, 'midst the dying of all other sound,
When the soul hears thy distant voice profound,
Lone-worshipping, and knows that through the night
'Twill worship still, then most its anthem tone
Speaks to our being of the Eternal One,
Who girds tired nature with unslumbering might.
O Cambrian river, with slow music gliding
By pastoral hills, old woods, and ruined towers;
Now midst thy reeds and golden willows hiding,
Now gleaming forth by some rich bank of flowers;
Long flowed the current of my life's clear hours
Onward with thine, whose voice yet haunts my dream,
Though time and change, and other mightier powers,
Far from thy side have borne me. Thou, smooth stream!
Art winding still thy sunny meads along,
Murmuring to cottage and grey hall thy song,
Low, sweet, unchanged: My being's tide hath passed
Through rocks and storms; yet will I not complain,
If thus wrought free and pure from earthly stain,
Brightly its waves may reach their parent-deep at last.
Doth thy heart stir within thee at the sight
Of orchard blooms upon the mossy bough?
Doth their sweet household smile waft back the glow
Of childhood's morn?—the wondering fresh delight
In earth's new colouring, then all strangely bright,
A joy of fairy-land?—Doth some old nook,
Haunted by visions of thy first-loved book,
Rise on thy soul, with faint-streaked blossoms white
Showered o'er the turf, and the lone primrose-knot.
And robin's nest, still faithful to the spot,
And the bee's dreamy chime?—O gentle friend!
The world's cold breath, not Time's, this life bereaves
Of vernal gifts—Time hallows what he leaves,
And will for us endear spring-memories to the end.
Still are the cowslips from thy bosom springing,
O far-off grassy dell?—and dost thou see,
When southern winds first wake the vernal singing,
The star-gleam of the wood anemone?
Doth the shy ring-dove haunt thee yet—the bee
Hang on thy flowers as when I breathed farewell
To their wild blooms? and round my beechen tree
Still, in green softness, doth the moss-bank swell?
—Oh! strange illusion by the fond heart wrought,
Whose own warm life suffuses nature's face!
—My being's tide of many-coloured thought
Hath passed from thee, and now, rich, leafy place!
I paint thee oft, scarce consciously, a scene,
Silent, forsaken, dim, shadowed by what hath been.
Trees, gracious trees! how rich a gift ye are,
Crown of the earth! to human hearts and eyes!
How doth the thought of home, in lands afar,
Linked with your forms and kindly whisperings rise!
How the whole picture of a childhood lies
Oft midst your boughs forgotten, buried deep!
Till gazing through them up the summer skies
As hushed we stand, a breeze perchance may creep
And old sweet leaf-sounds reach the inner world
Where memory coils—and lo! at once unfurled
The past, a glowing scroll, before our sight,
Spreads clear! while gushing from their long-sealed urn
Young thoughts, pure dreams, undoubting prayer return,
And a lost mother's eye gives back its holy light.
And ye are strong to shelter!—all meek things,
All that need home and covert, love your shade!
Birds of shy song, and low-voiced quiet springs,
And nun-like violets, by the wind betrayed.
Childhood beneath your fresh green tents hath played
With his first primrose-wealth:—there love hath sought
A veiling gloom for his unuttered thought;
And silent grief, of day's keen glare afraid,
A refuge for her tears; and oft-times there
Hath lone devotion found a place of prayer,
A native temple, solemn, hushed, and dim;
For wheresoe'er your murmuring tremors thrill
The woody twilight, there man's heart hath still
Confessed a spirit's breath, and heard a ceaseless hymn.
O vale and lake, within your mountain-urn
Smiling so tranquilly, and set so deep!
Oft doth your dreamy loveliness return,
Colouring the tender shadows of my sleep
With light Elysian:—for the hues that steep
Your shores in melting lustre, seem to float
On golden clouds from Spirit-lands remote,
Isles of the blest;—and in our memory keep
Their place with holiest harmonies:—Fair scene,
Most lov'd by evening and her dewy star!
Oh! ne'er may man, with touch unhallow'd, jar
The perfect music of the charm serene!
Still, still unchanged, may one sweet region wear
Smiles that subdue the soul to love, and tears, and prayer!
O gentle story of the Indian Isle!
I loved thee in my lonely childhood well
On the sea-shore, when day's last purple smile
Slept on the waters, and their hollow swell
And dying cadence lent a deeper spell
Unto thine ocean-pictures. 'Midst thy palms
And strange bright birds, my fancy joyed to dwell,
And watch the southern cross thro' midnight calms,
And track the spicy woods.—Yet more I blessed
Thy vision of sweet love; kind, trustful, true,
Lighting the citron groves—a heavenly guest,
With such pure smiles as Paradise once knew.
Even then my young heart wept o'er the world's power,
To reach and blight that holiest Eden-flower.
Still that last look is solemn! though thy rays
O Sun! to-morrow will give back, we know,
This joy to nature's heart. Yet through the glow
Of clouds that mantle thy decline, our gaze
Tracks thee with love half fearful:—and in days
When earth too much adored thee, what a swell
Of mournful passion, deepening mighty lays,
Told how the dying bade thy light farewell,
O Sun of Greece! O glorious, festal Sun!
Lost, lost!—for them thy golden hours were done.
And darkness lay before them! Happier far
Are we, not thus to thy bright wheels enchained.
Not thus for thy last parting unsustained,
Heirs of a purer day, with its unsetting star.
Calm scenes of patriarch life!—how long a power
Your unworn pastoral images retain,
O'er the true heart, which in its childhood's hour
Drank their pure freshness deep! The camels' train,
Winding in patience o'er the desert plain,—
The tent—the palm-tree—the reposing flock—
The gleaming fount—the shadow of the rock—
Oh! by how subtle, yet how strong a chain,
And in the influence of its touch how blessed,
Are these things linked, in many a thoughtful breast,
To household memories, for all change endeared!
—The matin bird—the ripple of a stream
Beside our native porch—the hearth light's gleam—
The voices, earliest by the soul revered!
What secret current of man's nature turns
Unto the golden East with ceaseless flow?
Still, where the sunbeam at its fountain burns,
The pilgrim spirit would adore and glow;
Rapt in high thoughts, though weary, faint and slow.
Still doth the traveller through the deserts wind
Led by those old Chaldean stars, which know
Where passed the Shepherd Fathers of mankind.
Is it some quenchless instinct which from far
Still points to where our alienated home
Lay in bright peace? O thou true Eastern Star
Savior! atoning Lord! where'er we roam,
Draw still our hearts to thee, else, else how vain
Their hope, the fair lost birthright to regain.
Not long thy voice amongst us may be heard,
Servant of God!—thy day is almost done—
The charm now hung upon thy look and word
Is that which lingers round the setting sun,
A power which bright decay hath meekly won
Still from revering love. Yet both the sense
Of life immortal—progress but begun—
Pervade thy mien with such clear eloquence,
That hope, not sadness, breathes from thy decline;
And the loved flowers which round thee smile farewell,
Of more than vernal glory seem to tell,
By thy pure spirit touched with light divine;
While we, to whom its parting gleams are given,
Forget the grave in trustful thoughts of Heaven.
Come forth, and let us through our hearts receive
The joy of verdure!—see, the honied lime
Showers cool green light o'er banks where wild-flowers weave
Thick tapestry; and woodbine tendrils climb
Up the brown oak from buds of moss and thyme.
The rich deep masses of the sycamore
Hang heavy with the fulness of their prime,
Scatters forth gleams like moonlight, with each gale
That sweeps the boughs:—the chestnut flowers are past,
The crowning glories of the hawthorn fail,
But arches of sweet eglantine are cast
From every hedge:—Oh! never may we lose
Dear friend! our fresh delight in simplest nature's hues!
Father in Heaven! from whom the simplest flower
On the high Alps or fiery desert thrown,
Draws not sweet odour or young life alone,
But the deep virtue of an inborn power
To cheer the wanderer in his fainting hour,
With thoughts of Thee; to strengthen, to infuse
Faith, love, and courage, by the tender hues
That speak thy presence; oh! with such a dower
Grace Thou my song!—the precious gift bestow
From thy pure spirit's treasury divine,
To wake one tear of purifying flow,
To soften one wrung heart for Thee and Thine;
So shall the life breathed through the lowly strain,
Be as the meek wild-flower's—if transient, yet not vain.
What in me is dark
Illumine; what is low raise and support.
Far are the wings of intellect astray,
That strive not, Father! to thy heavenly seat;
They rove, but mount not; and the tempests beat
Still on their plumes:—O source of mental day!
Chase from before my spirit's track the array
Of mists and shadows, raised by earthly care
In troubled hosts that cross the purer air,
And veil the opening of the starry way,
Which brightens on to thee!—Oh! guide thou right
My thought's weak pinion, clear mine inward sight,
The eternal springs of beauty to discern,
Welling beside thy throne; unseal mine ear,
Nature's true oracles in joy to hear:
Keep my soul wakeful still to listen and to learn.
Yes! all things tell us of a birthright lost,
A brightness from our nature passed away!
Wanderers we seem, that from an alien coast,
Would turn to where their Father's mansion lay,
And but by some lone flower, that midst decay
Smiles mournfully, or by some sculptured stone,
Revealing dimly, with grey moss o'ergrown,
The faint-worn impress of its glory's day,
Can trace their once free heritage; though dreams
Fraught with its picture, oft in startling gleams
Flash o'er their Souls.—But one, oh! One alone,
For us the ruined fabric may rebuild,
And bid the wilderness again be filled,
With Eden-flowers—One, mighty to atone!
ONCE more the eternal melodies from far,
Woo me like songs of home: once more discerning
Through fitful clouds the pure majestic star,
Above the poet's world serenely burning,
Thither my soul, fresh-winged by love, is turning,
As o'er the waves the wood-bird seeks her nest,
For those green heights of dewy stillness yearning,
Whence glorious minds o'erlook the earth's unrest.
—Now be the spirit of Heaven's truth my guide
Through the bright land!—that no brief gladness, found
In passing bloom, rich odour, or sweet sound,
May lure my footsteps from their aim aside:
Their true, high quest—to seek, if ne'er to gain,
The inmost, purest shrine of that august domain.
Spirit! so oft in radiant freedom soaring,
High through seraphic mysteries unconfined.
And oft, a diver through the deep of mind,
Its caverns, far below its waves, exploring;
And oft such strains of breezy music pouring,
As, with the floating sweetness of their sighs,
Could still all fevers of the heart, restoring
Awhile that freshness left in Paradise;
Say, of those glorious wanderings what the goal?
What the rich fruitage to man's kindred soul
From wealth of thine bequeathed? O strong, and high,
And sceptred intellect! thy goal confest
Was the Redeemer's Cross—thy last bequest
One lesson breathing thence profound humility!
Oft in still night-dreams a departed face
Bends o'er me with sweet earnestness of eye,
Wearing no more of earthly pains a trace,
But all the tender pity that may lie
On the clear brow of Immortality,
Calm yet profound. Soft rays illume that mien,
The unshadowed moonlight of some far off sky
Around it floats transparently serene
As a pure veil of waters. O rich sleep!
Thou hast strong spirits in thy regions deep,
Which glorify with reconciling breath,
Effacing, brightening, giving forth to shine
Beauty's high truth, and how much more divine
Thy power when linked in this, with thy stern brother—Death!
If e'er again my spirit be allowed
Converse with Nature in her chambers deep,
Where lone, and mantled with the rolling cloud,
She broods o'er new-born waters, as they leap
In sword-like flashes down the heathery steep,
From caves of mystery;—if I roam once more
Where dark pines quiver to the torrent's roar,
And voiceful oaks respond;—shall I not reap
A more ennobling joy, a loftier power,
Than e'er was shed on life's more vernal hour,
From such communion?—yes! I then shall know,
That not in vain have sorrow, love, and thought,
Their long, still work of preparation wrought,
For that more perfect sense of God revealed below.
Majestic plant! such fairy dreams as lie
Nursed, where the bee sucks in the cowslip's bell,
Are not thy train:—those flowers of vase-like swell,
Clear, large, with dewy moonlight fill'd from high,
And in their monumental purity
Serenely drooping, round thee seem to draw
Visions link'd strangely with that silent awe
Which broods o'er Sculpture's works.—A meet ally
For those heroic forms, the simply grand,
Art thou: and worthy, carv'd by plastic hand,
Above some kingly poet's tomb to shine
In spotless marble; honouring one, whose strain
Soar'd upon wings of thought that knew no stain
Free through the starry heavens of truth divine.
Twas a bright moment of my life when first,
O thou pure stream through rocky portals flowing!
That temple-chamber of thy glory burst
On my glad sight!—thy pebbly couch lay glowing
With deep mosaic hues; and, richly throwing
O'er thy cliff-walls a tinge of autumn's vest,
High bloom'd the heath-flowers, and the wild wood's crest
Was touched with gold.—Flow ever thus, bestowing
Gifts of delight, sweet stream! on all who move
Gently along thy shores; and oh! if love,
—True love, in secret nurs'd, with sorrow fraught—
Should sometimes bear his treasured griefs to Thee,
Then full of kindness let thy music be,
Singing repose to every troubled thought!
They float before my soul, the fair designs
Which I would body forth to Life and Power,
Like clouds, that with their wavering hues and lines
Pourtray majestic buildings:—Dome and tower,
Bright spire, that through the rainbow and the shower
Points to th' unchanging stars; and high arcade
Far-sweeping to some glorious altar, made
For holiest rites:—meanwhile the waning hour
Melts from me, and by fervent dreams o'erwrought,
I sink:—O friend! O link'd with each high thought!
Aid me, of those rich visions to detain
All I may grasp; until thou seest fulfill'd,
While time and strength allow, my hope to build.
For lowly hearts devout, but one enduring fane!
Nobly thy song, O minstrel! rush'd to meet
Th' Eternal on the pathway of the blast,
With darkness round him, as a mantle, cast,
And cherubim to waft his flying seat;
Amidst the hills that smoked beneath his feet
With trumpet-voice thy spirit call'd aloud,
And bade the trembling rocks his name repeat,
And the bent cedars, and the bursting cloud.
But far more gloriously to earth made known
By that high strain than by the thunder's tone,
The flashing torrents, or the ocean's roll,
Jehovah spake, through the imbreathing fire,
Nature's vast realms for ever to inspire
With the deep worship of a living soul.
There are who climb the mountain's heathery side,
Or, in life's vernal strength triumphant, urge
The bark's fleet rushing through the crested surge,
Or spur the courser's fiery race of pride
Over the green savannas, gleaming wide
By some vast lake; yet thus, on foaming sea,
Or chainless wild, reign far less nobly free,
Than thou, in that lone dungeon, glorified
By thy brave suffering.—Thou from its dark cell
Fierce thought and baleful passion didst exclude,
Filling the dedicated solitude
With God; and where His spirit deigns to dwell,
Though the worn frame in fetters withering lie,
There—throned in peace divine is liberty!
How flows thy being now?—like some glad hymn,
One strain of solemn rapture?—doth thine eye
Wander through tears of voiceless feeling dim,
O'er the crowned Alps, that, 'midst the upper sky,
Steep in the sunlight of thine Italy?
Or is thy gaze of reverent love profound,
Unto those dear parental faces bound,
Which, with their silvery hair, so off glanced by,
Haunting thy prison-dreams?—Where'er thou art,
Blessing be shed upon thine inmost heart,
Joy, from kind looks, blue skies, and flowery sod,
For that pure voice of thoughtful wisdom sent
Forth from thy cell, in sweetness eloquent,
Of love to man, and quenchless trust in God!
God gave him reverence of laws,
Yet stirring blood in Freedom's cause—
A spirit to his rocks akin,
The eye of the hawk, and the fire therein!
SINGING of the free blue sky,
And the wild-flower glens that lie
Far amidst the ancient hills,
Which the fountain-music fills;
Singing of the snow-peaks bright,
And the royal eagle's flight,
And the courage and the grace
Foster'd by the chamois-chase;
In his fetters, day by day,
So the Shepherd-poet lay.
Darkly hung th' oppressor's hand
O'er the Shepherd-poet's land;
Sounding there the waters gush'd,
While the lip of man was hush'd;
There the falcon pierced the cloud,
While the fiery heart was bow'd:
But this might not long endure,
Where the mountain-homes were pure;
And a valiant voice arose,
Thrilling all the silent snows;
Are none but the Wind and the Lammer-Geyer
To be free where the hills into heaven aspire?
Is the soul of song from the deep glens past,
Now that their Poet is chain'd at last?—
Think of the mountains, and deem not so!
Soon shall each blast like a clarion blow!
Yes! though forbidden the every word
Wherewith that Spirit the Alps hath stirr'd,
Yet even as a buried stream through earth
Rolls on to another and brighter birth,
So shall the voice that hath seem'd to die,
Burst forth with the Anthem of Liberty!
And another power is moving
In a bosom fondly loving:—
Now is their hearth a forsaken spot,
The vine waves unpruned o'er their mountain-cot;
Away, in that holy affection's might,
The maiden is gone, like a breeze of the night;—
She is gone forth alone, but her lighted face,
Filling with soul every secret place,
Hath a dower from heaven, and a gift of sway,
To arouse brave hearts in its hidden way,
Like the sudden flinging forth on high,
Of a banner that startleth silently!
She hath wander'd through many a hamlet-vale,
Telling its children her brother's tale;
And the strains, by his spirit pour'd away,
Freely as fountains might shower their spray,
From her fervent lip a new life have caught,
And a power to kindle yet bolder thought;
While sometimes a melody, all her own,
Like a gush of tears in its plaintive tone,
May be heard 'midst the lonely rocks to flow,
Clear through the water-chimes—clear, yet low.
"Thou'rt not where wild flowers wave
O'er crag and sparry cave;
Thou'rt not where pines are sounding,
Or joyous torrents bounding—
Alas, my brother!
"Thou'rt not where green, on high,
The brighter pastures lie;
"Far hath the sunbeam spread,
Nor found thy lonely bed;
Long hath the fresh wind sought thee,
Nor one sweet whisper brought thee—
Alas, my brother!
"Thou, that for joy wert born,
Free as the wings of morn!
Will aught thy young life cherish,
Where the Alpine rose would perish?
Alas, my brother!
"Canst thou be singing still,
As once on every hill?
Is not thy soul forsaken,
And the bright gift from thee taken?—
Alas, alas, my brother!"
And was the bright gift from the captive fled?
Like the fire on his hearth, was his spirit dead?
Not so!—but as rooted in stillness deep,
The pure stream-lily its place will keep,
Though its tearful urns to the blast may quiver,
While the red waves rush down the foaming river,
So freedom's faith in his bosom lay,
Trembling, yet not to be borne away!
He thought of the Alps and their breezy air,
And felt that his country no chains might bear;
He thought of the hunter's haughty life,
And knew there must yet be noble strife;
But, oh! when he thought of that orphan maid,
His high heart melted—he wept and pray'd!
For he saw her not as she moved e'en then,
A wakener of heroes in every glen,
With a glance inspired which no grief could tame,
Bearing on Hope like a torch's flame,
While the strengthening voice of mighty wrongs
Gave echoes back to her thrilling songs;
Erni, young Erni! the land hath risen!
—Alas! to be lone in thy narrow prison!
Those free streamers glancing, and thou not there!
—Is the moment of rapture, or fierce despair?
—Hark! there's a tumult that shakes his cell,
At the gates of the mountain citadel!
Hark! a clear voice through the rude sounds ringing!
—Doth he know the strain, and the wild, sweet singing?
"There may not long be fetters,
Where the cloud is earth's array,
And the bright floods leap from cave and steep,
Like a hunter on the prey!
"There may not long be fetters,
Where the white Alps have their towers;
Unto eagle-homes, if the arrow comes,
The chain is not for ours!"
It is she!—She is come like a day-spring beam,
She that so mournfully shadow'd his dream!
—Poet! the land of thy love is free,
—Sister! thy brother is won by thee!
Thou falcon-hearted dove!
THE Moslem spears were gleaming
Round Damietta's towers,
Though a Christian banner from her wall
Waved free its Lily-flowers.
Queen of St Louis. Whilst besieged by the Turks in Damietta, during the captivity of the king, her husband, she there gave birth to a son, whom she named Tristan, in commemoration of her misfortunes. Information being conveyed to her that the knights intrusted with the defense of the city had resolved on capitulation, she had them summoned to her apartment, and, by her heroic words, so wrought upon their spirits, that they vowed to defend her and the Cross to the last extremity.
Aye, proudly did the banner wave,
As Queen of Earth and Air;
But faint hearts throbb'd beneath its folds,
In anguish and despair.
Deep, deep in Paynim dungeon,
Their kingly chieftain lay,
And low on many an Eastern field
Their knighthood's best array.
'Twas mournful, when at feasts they met,
The wine-cup round to send,
For each that touch'd it silently,
Then miss'd a gallant friend!
And mournful was their vigil
On the beleaguer'd wall,
And dark their slumber, dark with dreams
Of slow defeat and fall.
Yet a few hearts of Chivalry
Rose high to breast the storm,
A woman, meekly bending
O'er the slumber of her child,
With her soft sad eyes of weeping love,
As the Virgin Mother's mild.
Oh! roughly cradled was thy Babe,
'Midst the clash of spear and lance,
And a strange, wild bower was thine, young Queen!
Fair Marguerite of France!
A dark and vaulted chamber,
Like a scene for wizard-spell,
Deep in the Saracenic gloom
Of the warrior citadel;
And there 'midst arms the couch was spread,
And with banners curtain'd o'er,
For the Daughter of the Minstrel-land,
The gay Provençal shore!
For the bright Queen of St Louis,
The star of court and hall!—
But the deep strength of the gentle heart,
Wakes to the tempest's call!
Her Lord was in the Paynim's hold,
His soul with grief oppress'd,
Yet calmly lay the Desolate,
With her young babe on her breast!
There were voices in the city,
Voices of wrath and fear—
"The walls grow weak, the strife is vain,
We will not perish here!
Yield! yield! and let the crescent gleam
O'er tower and bastion high!
Our distant homes are beautiful—
We stay not here to die!"
They bore those fearful tidings
To the sad Queen where she lay—
Then through the vaulted chambers
Stern iron footsteps rang;
And heavily the sounding floor
Gave back the sabre's clang.
They stood around her—steel-clad men,
Moulded for storm and fight,
But they quail'd before the loftier soul
In that pale aspect bright.
Yes—as before the Falcon shrinks
The Bird of meaner wing,
The proposal to capitulate is attributed by the French historian to the Knights of Pisa.
So shrank they from th' imperial glance
Of Her—that fragile thing!
And her flute-like voice rose clear and high,
Through the din of arms around,
Sweet, and yet stirring to the soul,
As a silver clarion's sound.
"The honour of the Lily
Is in your hands to keep,
And the Banner of the Cross, for Him
Who died on Calvary's steep:
And the city which for Christian prayer
Hath heard the holy bell—
And is it these your hearts would yield
To the godless Infidel?
"Then bring me here a breastplate,
And a helm, before ye fly,
And I will gird my woman's form,
And on the ramparts die!
"Look on him as he slumbers
In the shadow of the Lance!
Then go, and with the Cross forsake
The princely Babe of France!
But tell your homes ye left one heart
To perish undefiled;
A Woman and a Queen, to guard
Her Honour and her Child!"
Before her words they thrill'd, like leaves,
When winds are in the wood;
And a deepening murmur told of men
Roused to a loftier mood.
And her Babe awoke to flashing swords,
Unsheath'd in many a hand,
"We are thy warriors, Lady!
True to the Cross and thee!
The spirit of thy kindling words
On every sword shall be!
Rest, with thy fair child on thy breast,
Rest—we will guard thee well!
St Dennis for the Lily-flower,
And the Christian citadel!"
RETURN, return, my Bird!
I have dress'd thy cage with flowers.
'Tis lovely as a violet bank
In the heart of forest bowers.
"I am free, I am free, I return no more!
The weary time of the cage is o'er!
Through the rolling clouds I can soar on high,
The sky is around me, the blue bright sky!
"The hills lie beneath me, spread far and clear,
With their glowing heath-flowers and bounding deer;
I see the waves flash on the sunny shore—
I am free, I am free—I return no more!"
Alas, alas, my Bird!
Why seek'st thou to be free?
Wer't thou not blest in thy little bower,
When thy song breathed nought but glee?
"Did my song of the summer breathe nought but glee?
Did the voice of the captive seem sweet to thee?
—O! hadst thou known its deep meaning well,
It had tales of a burning heart to tell!
"From a dream of the forest that music sprang,
Through its notes the peal of a torrent rang;
And its dying fall, when it soothed thee best,
Sigh'd for wild flowers and a leafy nest."
Was it with thee thus, my Bird?
Yet thine eye flash'd clear and bright!
I have seen the glance of sudden joy
In its quick and dewy light.
"It flash'd with the fire of a tameless race,
With the soul of the wild wood, my native place!
With the spirit that panted through heaven to soar—
Woo me not back—I return no more!
"My home is high, amidst rocking trees,
My kindred things are the star and the breeze,
And the fount uncheck'd in its lonely play,
And the odours that wander afar, away!"
Farewell, farewell, then, Bird!
I have call'd on spirits gone,
And it may be they joy'd like thee to part,
Like thee, that wert all my own!
"If they were captives, and pined like me,
Though love may guard them, they joy'd to be free!
They sprang from the earth with a burst of power,
To the strength of their wings, to their triumph's hour!
"Call them and back when the chain is riven,
When the way of the pinion is all through heaven!
Farewell!—With my song through the clouds I soar,
I pierce the blue skies—I am Earth's no more!"
——How divine
The liberty, for frail, for mortal man,
To roam at large among unpeopled glens,
And mountainous retirements, only trod
By devious footsteps!—Regions consecrate
To oldest time!—And, reckless of the storm
That keeps the raven quiet in his nest,
Be as a presence or a motion—One
Among the many there.
MOUNTAIN winds! oh! whither do ye call me?
Vainly, vainly would my steps pursue!
Chains of care to lower earth enthral me,
Wherefore thus my weary spirit woo?
Oh! the strife of this divided being!
Is there peace where ye are borne on high?
Could we soar to your proud eyeries
fleeing,
In our hearts would haunting memories die?
Those wild places are not as a dwelling
Whence the footsteps of the loved are gone!
Never from those rocky halls came swelling
Voice of kindness in familiar tone!
Surely music of oblivion sweepeth
In the pathway of your wandering's free;
And the torrent, wildly as it leapeth,
Sings of no lost home amidst its glee.
There the rushing of the falcon's pinion,
Is not from some hidden pang to fly;
All things breathe of power and stern dominion—
Not of hearts that vain yearnings die.
Mountain winds! oh! is it, is it only
Where man's trace hath been that so we pine?
Bear me up, to grow in thought less lonely,
Even at nature's deepest, loneliest shrine!
Wild, and mighty, and mysterious singers!
At whose tone my heart within me burns;
Bear me where the last red sunbeam lingers,
Where the waters have their secret urns!
There to commune with a loftier spirit
Than the troubling shadows of regret;
There the wings of freedom to inherit,
Where the enduring and the wing'd are met.
Hush, proud voices! gentle be your falling!
Woman's lot thus chainless may not be;
Hush! the heart your trumpet sounds are calling,
Darkly still may grow—but never free!
THERE were trampling sounds of many feet,
And music rush'd through the crowded street;
Proud music, such as tells the sky,
Of a chief returned from victory.
There were banners to the winds unroll'd,
With haughty words on each blazon'd fold;
High battle-names, which had rung of yore,
When lances clash'd on the Syrian shore.
Borne from their dwellings, green and lone,
There were flowers of the woods on the pathway strown;
And wheels that crush'd as they swept along—
Oh! what doth the violet amidst the throng?
I saw where a bright Procession pass'd
The gates of a Minster, old and vast;
And a king to his crowning place was led,
Through a sculptur'd line of the warrior dead.
I saw, far gleaming, the long array
Of trophies, on those high tombs that lay,
And the coloured light, that wrapp'd them all,
Rich, deep, and sad, as a royal pall.
But a lowlier grave soon won mine eye
Away from th' ancestral pageantry:
A grave by the lordly Minster's gate,
Unhonor'd, and yet not desolate.
It was but a dewy greensward bed,
Meet for the rest of a peasant head;
But Love—Oh! lovelier than all beside!—
That lone place guarded and glorified.
For a gentle form stood watching there,
Young—but how sorrowfully fair!
Keeping the flowers of the holy spot,
That reckless feel might profane them not.
Clear, pale and clear, was the tender cheek,
And her eye, though tearful, serenely meek;
And I deem'd, by its lifted gaze of love,
That her sad heart's treasure was all above.
For alone she seem'd 'midst the throng to be,
Like a bird of the waves far away at sea;
Alone, in a mourner's vest array'd,
And with folded hands, e'en as if she pray'd.
It faded before me, that masque of pride,
The haughty swell of the music died;
Banner, and armour, and tossing plume,
All melted away in the twilight's gloom.
But that orphan form, with its willowy grace,
And the speaking prayer in that pale, calm face,
Still, still o'er my thoughts in the night hour glide—
—Oh! Love is lovelier than all beside.
FLOWER of starry clearness bright,
Quivering urn of colour'd light,
Hast thou drawn thy cup's rich dye
From th' intenseness of the sky?
From a long, long fervent gaze
Through the year's first golden days,
Up that blue and silent deep,
Where, like things of sculptur'd sleep,
Alabaster clouds repose,
With the sunshine on their snows?
Thither was thy heart's love turning,
Like a censer ever burning,
Or can those warm tints be caught
Each from some quick glow of thought?
So much of bright soul there seems
In thy bendings and thy gleams,
So much thy sweet life resembles
That which feels, and weeps, and trembles;
I could deem thee spirit-filled,
As a reed by music thrilled,
When thy Being I behold
To each loving breath unfold,
Or like woman's willowy form,
Shrink before the gathering storm;
I could ask a voice from thee
Delicate Anemone!
Flower! thou seem'st not born to die,
With thy radiant purity,
Flower! the laurel still may shed
Brightness round the victor's head;
And the rose in beauty's hair
Still its festal glory wear;
And the willow-leaves droop o'er
Brows which love sustains no more:
But by living rays refined,
Thou, the trembler of the wind,
Thou, the spiritual flower
Sentient of each breeze and shower,
When the Lamp is shatter'd,
The light in the dust lies dead;
When the cloud is scatter'd,
The Rainbow's glory is shed.
When the Lute is broken,
Sweet sounds are remember'd not;
When the words are spoken,
Loved accents are soon forgot,
As music and splendour
Survive not the Lamp and Lute,
The heart's echoes render
No song when the Spirit is mute.
SHE dwelt in proud Venetian halls,
'Midst forms that breathed from the pictured walls;
But a glow of beauty like her own,
There had no dream of the painter thrown.
Lit from within was her noble brow,
As an urn, whence rays from a lamp may flow;
Her young, clear cheek, had a changeful hue,
As if ye might see how the soul wrought through;
And every flash of her fervent eye
Seem'd the bright wakening of Poesy.
Even thus it was!—from her childhood's years,—
A being of sudden smiles and tears,—
Passionate visions, quick light and shade,—
Such was that high-born Italian maid!
And the spirit of song in her bosom-cell,
Dwelt, as the odours in violets dwell,—
Or as the sounds in the Eolian strings,—
Or in aspen-leaves the quiverings;
There, ever there, with the lift enshrined,
Waiting the call of the faintest wind.
Oft, on the wave of the Adrian sea,
In the city's hour of moonlight glee,—
And was the daughter of Venice blest,
With a power so deep in her youthful breast?
Could She be happy, o'er whose dark eye
So many changes and dreams went by?
And in whose cheek the swift crimson wrought
As if but born from the rush of thought?
—Yes! in the brightness of joy awhile
She moved, as a bark in the sunbeam's smile;
For her spirit, as over her lyre's full chord,
All, all on a happy love was pour'd!
But the fields are won from the Othman host,
In the land that quell'd the Persian's boast,
And a thousand hearts in Venice burn,
For the day of triumph and return!
—The day is come! the flashing deep
Foams where the galleys of Victory sweep;
And the sceptred City of the wave,
With her festal splendour greets the brave;
But happiest and brightest that day of all,
Robed for her warrior's festival,
Moving a Queen 'midst the radiant throng,
Was She, th' inspired one, the Maid of Song!
The lute he loved on her arm she bore,
As she rush'd in her joy to the crowded shore;
With a hue on her cheek like the damask glow
By the sunset given unto mountain snow,
And her eye all fill'd with the spirit's play,
Like the flash of a gem to the changeful day,
And her long hair waving in ringlets bright—
So came that being of Hope and Light!
—One moment, Erminia! one moment more,
And life, all the beauty of life, is o'er!
The bark of her lover hath touched the strand—
Whom leads he forth with a gentle hand?
But how stood She, the Forsaken, there,
Struck by the lightning of swift despair?
Still, as amazed with grief, she stood,
And her cheek to her heart sent back the blood,
And there came from her quivering lip no word—
Only the fall of her lute was heard,
As it dropt from her hand at her rival's feet,
Into fragments, whose dying thrill was sweet!
What more remaineth? her day was done;
Her fate and the Broken Lute's were one!
The light, the vision, the gift of power,
Pass'd from her soul in that mortal hour,
How weeps yon gallant Band
O'er him their valour could not save!
For the bayonet is red with gore,
And he, the beautiful and brave,
Now sleeps in Egypt's sand.
IN the shadow of the Pyramid
Our brother's grave we made,
When the battle-day was done,
And the Desert's parting sun
A field of death survey'd.
The blood-red sky above us
Was darkening into night,
And the Arab watching silently
Our sad and hurried rite.
The voice of Egypt's river
Came hollow and profound,
And one lone palm-tree, where we stood,
Rock'd with a shivery sound:
While the shadow of the Pyramid
Hung o'er the grave we made,
When the battle-day was done,
And the Desert's parting sun
A field of death survey'd.
The fathers of our brother
Were borne to knightly tombs,
With torch-light and with anthem-note,
And many waving plumes:
But he, the last and noblest
Of that high Norman race,
With a few brief words of soldier-love
Was gathered to his place;
In the shadow of the Pyramid,
Where his youthful form we laid,
When the battle-day was done,
And the Desert's parting sun
A field of death survey'd.
But let him, let him slumber
By the old Egyptian wave!
It is well with those who bear their fame
Unsullied to the grave!
When brightest names are breathed on,
When loftiest fall so fast,
We would not call our brother back
On dark days to be cast,
From the shadow of the Pyramid,
Where his noble heart we laid,
When the battle-day was done,
And the Desert's parting sun
A field of death survey'd.
Mais elle etait du monde, ou les plus belles choses,
Ont le pire destin;
Et Rose elle a vécu ce que vivent les roses,
L'espace d'un Matin.
THERE are bright scenes beneath Italian skies,
Where glowing suns their purest light diffuse,
Uncultured flowers in wild profusion rise,
And nature lavishes her warmest hues;
But trust thou not her smile, her balmy breath,
Away! her charms are but the pomp of Death!
He in the vine-clad bowers, unseen is dwelling,
Where the cool shade its freshness round thee throw,
His voice, in every perfumed zephyr swelling,
With gentlest whisper lures thee to repose,
And the soft sounds that through the foliage sigh,
But woo thee still to slumber and to die.
Mysterious danger lurks, a Syren, there,
Not robed in terrors, or announced in gloom,
But stealing o'er thee in the scented air,
And veiled in flowers, that smile to deck thy tomb:
How may we deem, amidst their deep array,
That heaven and earth but flatter to betray?
Sunshine, and bloom, and verdure! can it be,
That these but charm us with destructive wiles?
Where shall we turn, O Nature! if in thee
Danger is masked in beauty—death in smiles?
Oh! still the Circe of that fatal shore,
Where she, the sun's bright daughter, dwelt of yore!
There, year by year, that secret peril spreads,
Disguised in loveliness, its baleful reign,
And viewless blights o'er many a landscape sheds,
Gay with the riches of the south, in vain,
O'er fairy bowers, and palaces of state,
Passing unseen, to leave them desolate.
And pillared halls, whose airy colonades
,
Were formed to echo music's choral tone,
Are silent now, amidst deserted shade,∗
Peopled by sculpture's graceful forms alone;
And fountains dash, unheard by lone alcoves,
Neglected temples, and forsaken groves.
And there, where marble nymphs, in beauty gleaming,
'Midst the deep shades of plane and cypress rise,
By wave or grot might Fancy linger, dreaming
Of old Arcadia's woodland deities.—
See Madame de Stael's fine description, in her Corinne, of the Villa Borghese, deserted on account of the Mal'aria.
Wild visions!—there no sylvan powers convene,—
Death reigns the genius of the Elysian scene.
Ye, too, illustrious hills of Rome! that bear
Traces of mightier beings on your brow,
O'er you that subtle spirit of the air
Extends the desert of his empire now;—
Broods o'er the wrecks of altar, fane, and dome,
And makes the Cæsar's ruined halls his home.
Youth, valour, beauty, oft have felt his power,
His crowned and chosen victim—o'er their lot
Hath fond affection wept—each blighted flower
In turn was loved and mourned, and is forgot.
But one who perished, left a tale of woe,
Meet for as deep a sigh as pity can bestow.
A voice of music, from Sienna's walls,
Is floating joyous on the summer air,
And there are banquets in her stately halls,
And graceful reveals of the gay and fair,
To that young bride each grace hath Nature given,
Which glows on Art's divinest dream,—her eye
Hath a pure sunbeam of her native heaven—
Her cheek a tinge of morning's richest dye;
Fair as that daughter of the south, whose form
Still breathes and charms, in Vinci's colours warm.∗
But is she blest?—for sometimes o'er her smile
A soft sweet shade of pensiveness is cast,
And in her liquid glance there seems a while,
To dwell some thought whose soul is with the past.
Yet soon it flies—a cloud that leaves no trace
On the sky's azure of its dwelling-place.
An allusion to Leonardo da Vinci's picture of his wife Mona Lisa, supposed to be the most perfect imitation of Nature ever exhibited in a painting. See Vasari in his Lives of the Painters.
Perchance, at times, within her heart may rise
Remembrance of some early love or woe,
Faded, yet scarce forgotten—in her eyes,
Wakening the half-formed tear that may not flow,
Yet radiant seems her lot as aught on earth,
Where still some pining thought comes darkly o'er our mirth.
The world before her smiles—its changeful gaze
She hath not proved as yet—her path seems gay
With flowers and sunshine—and the voice of praise
Is still the joyous herald of her way;
And beauty's light around her dwells, to throw,
O'er every scene, its own resplendent glow.
Such is the young Bianca—graced with all
That nature, fortune, youth, at once can give;
Pure in their loveliness—her looks recall
Such dreams, as ne'er life's early bloom survive;
And he, to whom are breath'd her vows of faith
Is brave, and noble—Child of high descent,
He hath stood fearless in the ranks of death,
'Mid slaughtered heaps, the warrior's monument:
And proudly marshalled his Carroccio's∗
way,
Amidst the wildest wreck of war's array.
And his the chivalrous, commanding mien,
Where high-born grandeur blends with courtly grace;
Yet may a lightning glance at times be seen,
Of fiery passions, darting o'er his face,
And fierce the spirit kindling in his eye,—
But e'en while yet we gaze, its quick, wild flashes die.
See the description of this sort of consecrated war-chariot in Sismondi's Histoire des Republiques Italiennes, &c. Vol. I. p. 394.
And calmly can Pietra smile, concealing
As if forgotten, vengeance, hate, remorse;
And veil the workings of each darker feeling,
Deep in his soul concentrating its force:
But yet, he loves—Oh! who hath loved, nor known
Affection's power exalt the bosom all its own?
The days roll on—and still Bianca's lot
Seems as a path of Eden—Thou mightst deem
That grief, the mighty chastener, had forgot
To wake her soul from life's enchanted dream;
And, if her brow a moment's sadness wear,
It sheds but grace more intellectual there.
A few short years, and all is changed—her fate
Seems with some deep mysterious cloud o'ercast.
—Have jealous doubts transformed to wrath and hate,
The love whose glow Expression's power surpassed?
Lo! on Pietra's brow a sullen gloom
Is gathering day by day, prophetic of her doom.
Oh! can he meet that eye, of light serene,
Whence the pure spirit looks in radiance forth,
And view that bright intelligence of mien,
Formed to express but thoughts of loftiest worth,
Yet deem that vice within that heart can reign?
—How shall he e'er confide in aught on earth again?
In silence oft, with strange, vindictive gaze,
Transient, yet filled with meaning stern and wild,
Her features, calm in beauty, he surveys,
Then turns away, and fixes on her child
So dark a glance, as thrills a mother's mind
With some vague fear, scarce owned, and undefined.
There stands a lonely dwelling, by the wave
Of the blue deep which bathes Italia's shore,
Far from all sounds, but rippling seas, that lave
Grey rocks, with foliage richly shadowed o'er;
And sighing winds, that murmur through the wood,
Fringing the beach of that Hesperian flood.
Fair is that house of solitude—and fair
The green Maremma, far around it spread,
A sun-bright waste of beauty—yet an air
Of brooding sadness o'er the scene is shed,
No human footstep tracks the lone domain,
The desert of luxuriance glows in vain.
And silent are the marble halls that rise
'Mid founts, and cypress-walks, and olive-groves;
All sleeps in sunshine, 'neath Cerulean skies,
And still around the sea-breeze lightly roves;
Yet every trace of man reveals alone,
That there life once hath flourished—and is gone.
There, till around them slowly, softly stealing,
The summer air, deceit in every sigh,
Came fraught with death, its power no sign revealing,
Thy sires, Pietra, dwelt, in days gone by;
And strains of mirth and melody have flowed,
Where stands, all voiceless now, the still abode.
And thither doth her Lord, remorseless, bear
Bianca with her child—his altered eye
And brow a stern and fearful calmness wear,
While his dark spirit seals their doom—to die;
And the deep bodings of his victim's heart,
Tell her, fruitless hope at once to part.
It is the summer's glorious prime—and blending
Its blue transparence with the skies, the deep,
Each tint of Heaven upon its breast descending,
Scarce murmurs as it heaves, in glassy sleep,
And on its wave reflects, more softly bright,
That lovely shore of solitude and light.
Fragrance in each warm southern gale is breathing,
Decked with young flowers the rich Maremma glows,
Neglected vines the trees are wildly wreathing,
And the fresh myrtle in exuberance blows,
And far around, a deep and sunny bloom
Mantles the scene, as garlands robe the tomb.
Yes! 'tis thy tomb, Bianca! fairest flower!
The voice that calls thee speaks in every gale,
Which, o'er thee breathing with insidious power,
Bids the young roses of thy cheek turn pale,
And, fatal in its softness, day by day,
Steals from that eye some trembling spark away.
But sink not yet—for there are darker woes,
Daughter of Beauty! in thy spring-morn fading,
Sufferings more keen for thee reserved than those
Of lingering Death, which thus thine eye are shading!
Nerve then thy heart to meet that bitter lot,
'Tis Agony—but soon to be forgot!
What deeper pangs maternal hearts can wring,
Than hourly to behold the spoiler's breath
Shedding, as mildews on the bloom of spring,
O'er Infancy's fair cheek the blight of Death?
To gaze and shrink, as gathering shades o'ercast
The pale smooth brow, yet watch it, to the last!
Such pangs were thine, young mother!—Thou didst bend
O'er thy fair boy, and raise his drooping head,
And faint and hopeless, far from every friend,
Keep thy sad midnight-vigils near his bed,
And watch his patient, supplicating eye,
Fixed upon thee—on thee!—who couldst no aid supply!
There was no voice to cheer thy lonely woe
Through those dark hours—to thee the wind's low sigh,
And the faint murmur of the ocean's flow,
Came like some spirit whispering—"He must die!"
And thou didst vainly clasp him to the breast
His young and sunny smile so oft with Hope had blest.
'Tis past—that fearful trail—he is gone—
But thou, sad mourner! hast not long to weep,
The hour of Nature's chartered peace comes on,
And thou shalt share thine infant's holy sleep.
But ask not—hope not—one relenting thought
From him who doomed thee thus to waste away,
Whose heart, with sullen speechless vengeance fraught,
Broods in dark triumph o'er thy slow decay,
And coldly, sternly, silently can trace
The gradual withering of each youthful grace.
And yet the day of vain remorse shall come,
When thou, bright victim! on his dreams shall rise
As an accusing angel—and thy tomb,
A martyr's shrine, be hallowed in his eyes!
Then shall thine innocence his bosom wring,
More than thy fancied guilt with jealous pangs could sting.
Lift thy meek eyes to Heaven—for all on earth,
Young sufferer! fades before thee—Thou art lone—
The season's glory fades—the vintage-lay
Through joyous Italy resounds no more;
But mortal loveliness hath passed away,
Fairer that aught in summer's glowing store.
Beauty and youth are gone—behold them such
As Death hath made them with his blighting touch!
The summer's breath came o'er them—and they died!
Softly it came, to give luxuriance birth,
Called forth young Nature in her festal pride,
But bore to them their summons from the earth!
Again shall blow that mild, delicious breeze,
And wake to life and light all flowers—but these.
No sculptured urn, nor verse thy virtues telling,
O lost and loveliest one! adorns thy grave,
Sebast.
With what young life and fragrance in its breath
My native air salutes me! from the groves
Of citron, and the mountains of the vine,
And thy majestic tide thus foaming on
In power and freedom o'er its golden sands,
Gonzal.
To mine eye the scene
Sebast.
Aye, now thy soul
Is in the past! Oh no, it looked not thus
When the morn smiled upon our thousand sails,
And the winds blew for Afric! How that hour,
With all its hues of glory, seems to burst
Again upon my vision! I behold
The stately barks, the arming, the array,
The crests, the banners of my chivalry
Swayed by the sea-breeze till their motion shewed
Like joyous life! How the proud billows foamed!
And the oars flashed, like lightnings of the deep,
And the tall spears went glancing to the sun,
And scattering round quick rays, as if to guide
Gonzal.
Bid the wide desert tell
Where sleep its dead! To mightier hosts than them
Hath it lent graves ere now; on its breast
Is room for nations yet!
Sebast.
It cannot be,
That all have perished! Many a noble man,
Made captive on that war-field, may have burst
His bonds like ours. Cloud not this fleeting hour,
Which to my soul is as the fountain's draught
To the parched lip of fever, with a thought
So darkly sad!
Gonzal.
Oh never, never cast
That deep remembrance from you! When once more
Your place is 'midst earth's rulers, let it dwell
Around you, as the shadow of your throne,
Sebast.
Thinkest thou then
That years of sufferance and captivity,
Such as have bowed down eagle hearts ere now,
And made high energies their spoil, have passed
So lightly o'er my spirit? Is it not thus!
The things thou wouldst recall are not of those
To be forgotten! But my heart hath still
A sense, a bounding pulse for hope and joy,
And it is joy which whispers in the breeze
Sent from my own free mountains. Brave Gonzalez!
Thou art one to make thy fearless heart a shield
Unto thy friend, in the dark stormy hour
When knightly crests are trampled, and proud helms
Cleft, and strong breast-plates shivered. Thou art one
To infuse the soul of gallant fortitude
Into the captive's bosom, and beguile
The long slow march beneath the burning noon
With lofty patience; but for those quick bursts,
Zamor.
The land is fair:
But he, the archer of the wilderness,
Beholdeth not the palms beneath whose shade
His tents are scattered, and his camels rest;
And therefore is he sad!
Sebast.
Thou must not pine
With that sick yearning of the impatient heart,
Which makes the exile's life one fevered dream
Of skies, and hills, and voices far away,
And faces wearing the familiar hues,
Lent by his native sunbeams. I have known
Zamor.
By the fame
Of my brave sire, whose deeds the warrior tribes
Tell round the desert's watchfire, at the hour
Of silence, and of coolness, and of stars,
I will not leave thee! 'Twas in such an hour
Sebast.
For that gift of life
With one of tenfold price, even freedom's self,
Thou hast repaid me well.
Zamor.
Then bid me not
Forsake thee! Though my father's tents may rise
At times upon my spirit, yet my home
Shall be amidst thy mountains, Prince, and thou
Shalt be my chief, until I see thee robed
With all thy power. When thou canst need no more
Thine Arab's faithful heart and vigorous arm,
From the green regions of the setting sun
Sebast.
Be near me still,
And ever, oh my warrior! I shall stand
Again amidst my hosts, a mail-clad king,
Begirt with spears and banners, and the pomp
And the proud sounds of battle. Be thy place
Then at my side. When doth a monarch cease
To need true hearts, bold hands? Not in the field
Of arms, nor on the throne of power, nor yet
The couch of sleep. Be our friend, we will not part.
Gonzal.
Be all thy friends then faithful, for even yet
They may be fiercely tried.
Sebast.
I doubt them not.
Even now my heart beats high to meet their welcome,
Let us away!
Gonzal.
Yet hear once more, my liege,
The humblest pilgrim, from his distant shrine
Returning, finds not even his peasant home
Unchanged amidst its vineyards. Some loved face
Sebast.
Whence didst thou learn
The cold distrust which casts so deep a shadow
O'er a most noble nature?
Gonzal.
Life hath been
My stern and only teacher. I have known
Sebast.
Am I thus changed
From all I was? And yet it needs must be,
Since e'en my soul hath caught another hue
From its long sufferings. Did I not array
The gallant flower of Lusian chivalry,
And lead the mighty of the land, to pour
Destruction on the Moslem? I return,
And as a fearless and a trusted friend,
Bring, from the realms of my captivity,
An arab of the desert!—But the sun
[Exeunt.
1st Cit.
In sooth our city wears a goodly mien
With her far-blazing fanes, and festive lamps
Shining from all her marble palaces,
Countless as heaven's fair stars. The humblest lattice
Sends forth its radiance. How the sparkling waves
Fling back the light!
2d Cit.
Aye, 'tis a gallant shew;
And one which serves, like others, to conceal
Things which must not be told.
3d Cit.
What wouldst thou say?
2d Cit.
That which may scarce, in perilous times like these,
3rd Cit.
Thou say'st well.
None but a land forsaken of its chiefs
Had been so lost and won.
4th Cit.
The lot is cast;
We have but to yield. Hush! for some strangers come;
Now friends beware.
1st Cit.
Did the King pass this way
At morning, with his train?
2d Cit.
Aye, saw you not
The long and rich procession?
[Sebast. enters with Gonzal. and Zamor.
Sebast.
to Gonzal.
This should be
The night of some high festival. E'en thus
Gonzal.
Citizen,
What festal night is this, that all your streets
Are thronged and glittering thus?
1st Cit.
Hast thou not heard
Of the king's entry, in triumphal pomp,
This very morn?
Gonzal.
The King! triumphal pomp!
Thy words are dark.
Sebast.
Speak yet again, mine ears
Ring with strange sounds. Again!
1st Cit.
I said, the king,
Philip of Spain, and now of Portugal,
This morning entered with a conqueror's train
Sebast.
(in a low voice.)
Thou saidst—the King!
His name? I heard it not.
1st. Cit.
Philip of Spain.
Sebast.
Philip of Spain. We slumber, till aroused
By th' earthquake's bursting shock. Hath there not fallen
A sudden darkness? All things seem to float
Obscurely round me. Now 'tis past. The streets
Are blazing with strange fire. Go, quench those lamps;
They glare upon me till my very brain
Grows dizzy, and doth whirl. How dared ye thus
Light up your shrines for him?
Gonzal.
Away, away.
This is no time, no scene—
Sebast.
Philip of Spain!
How name ye this fair land? Why—is it not
The free, the chivalrous Portugal? the land
2d Cit.
That high blood
Which should have been our strength, profusely shed
By the rash King Sebastian, bathed the plains
Of fatal Alcazar. Our monarch's guilt
Hath brought this ruin down.
Sebast.
Must this be heard,
And borne and unchastised. Man, darest thou stand
Before me face to face, and thus arraign
Thy sovereign?
Zamor
(aside to Sebast.)
Shall I lift the sword, my Prince,
Against thy foes?
Gonzal.
Be still! or all is lost.
2d Cit.
I dare speak that which all men think and know.
3d Cit.
Talk not of bonds. May our new monarch rule
The weary land in peace! But who art thou?
Whence comest thou, haughty stranger, that these things,
Known to all nations, should be new to thee?
Sebast.
(wildly.)
I come from regions where the cities lie
In ruins, not in chains.
[Exit with Gonzal. and Zamor.
2d Cit.
He wears the mien
Of one that hath commanded; yet his looks
And words were strangely wild.
1st Cit.
Marked you his fierce
And haughty gesture, and the flash that broke
From his dark eye, when King Sebastian's name
Became our theme?
2d Cit.
Trust me there's more in this
[Exeunt.
Sebast.
Withstand me not! I tell thee that my soul,
With all its passionate energies, is roused
Unto that fearful strength which must have way
E'en like the elements, in their hour of might
And mastery o'er creation.
Gonzal.
But they wait
Sebast.
I am no King,
While in the very palace of my sires,
Aye, where mine eyes first drank the glorious light,
Where my soul's thrilling echoes first awoke
To the high sound of earth's immortal names,
Th' usurper lives and reigns. I am no king
Until I cast him thence.
Zamor.
Shall not thy voice,
Be as a trumpet to the awakening land?
Will not the bright swords flash like sun-bursts forth
When the brave hear their chief?
Gonzal.
Peace, Zamor, peace!
Child of the desert, what hast thou to do
With the calm hour of counsel?
———Monarch, pause,
A kingdom's destiny should not be the sport
Of passion's reckless winds. There is a time
When men, in very weariness of heart
Sebast.
Is it not the sun
Whose radiant bursting through the embattled clouds
Doth make it morn? The hour of which thou speak'st,
Itself, with all its glory, is the work
Of some commanding nature, which doth bid
The sullen shades of disperse. Away!—e'en now
The land's high hearts, the fearless and the true,
Shall know they have a leader. Is not this
Gonzal.
Aye, its glittering lamps too well
Illume the stately vestibule to leave
Our sight a moment's doubt. He ever loved
Such pageantries.
Sebast.
His dwelling thus adorned
On such a night! Yet will I seek him here.
He must be faithful, and to him the first
My tale shall be revealed. A sudden chill
Falls on my heart; and yet I will not wrong
My friend with dull suspicion, he hath been
Linked all too closely with mine inmost soul.
And what have I to lose?
Gonzal.
Is their blood nought
Who without hope will follow where thou leadest
Even unto death?
Sebast.
Was that a brave man's voice?
Warrior, and friend! how long then hast thou learned
To hold thy blood thus dear?
Gonzal.
Of mine, mine own
Think'st thou I spoke? When all is shed for thee
Thou'lt know me better.
Sebast.
(entering the palace.)
For a while farewell.
[Exit
Gonzal.
Thus princes lead men's hearts. Come, follow me,
And if a home is left me still, brave Zamor,
There will I bid thee welcome.
[Exeunt.
Sylv.
Whence art thou, stranger? what wouldst thou with me?
Sebast.
From the stern
And vast and desolate wilderness, whose lord
Is the fierce lion, and whose gentlest wind
Breathes of the tomb, and whose dark children make
The bow and spear their law, men bear not back
That smilingness of aspect, wont to mask
The secrets of their spirits 'midst the stir
Of courts and cities. I have looked on scenes
Boundless, and strange, and terrible; I have known
Sufferings which are not in the shadowy scope
Of wild imagination; and these things
Have stamped me with their impress. Man of peace,
Thou look'st on one familiar with the extremes
Of grandeur and of misery.
Sylv.
Stranger, speak
Thy name and purpose briefly, for the time
Ill suits these mysteries, I must hence; to-night
I feast the lords of Spain.
Sebast.
Is that a task
For King Sebastian's friend!
Sylv.
Sebastian's friend!
That name hath lost its meaning. Will the dead
Rise from their silent dwellings, to upbraid
The living for their mirth. The grave sets bounds
Unto all human friendship.
Sebast.
On the plain
Of Alcazar full many a stately flower,
The pride and crown of some high house, was laid
Low in the dust of Afric; but of these
Sebastian was not one.
Sylv.
I am not skilled
To deal with men of mystery. Take then off
The strange dark scrutiny of thine eye from mine.
What mean'st thou?—Speak!
Sebast.
Sebastian died not there.
I read no joy in that cold doubting mien.—
Is not thy name Sylveira?
Sylv.
Aye.
Sebast.
Why then
Be glad. I tell thee that Sebastian lives!
Think thou on this—he lives! Should he return
—For he may yet return—and find the friend
In whom he trusted with such perfect trust
As should be heaven's alone—Mark'st thou my words?
—Should he then find this man, not girt and armed,
And watching o'er the heritage of his lord,
But, reckless of high fame and loyal faith,
Holding luxurious revels with his foes,
How wouldst thou meet his glance?
Sylv.
As I do thine,
Keen though it be, and proud.
Sebast.
Why thou dost quail
Before it, even as if the burning eye
Of the broad sun pursued thy shrinking soul
Through all its depths.
Sylv.
Away! He died not there!
He should have died there, with the chivalry
Sebast.
This from thee?
Who hath given power to falsehood, that one gaze
At its unmasked and withering mien should blight
High souls at once? I wake. And this from thee?
There are, whose eyes discern the secret springs
Which lie beneath the desert, and the gold
And gems within earth's caverns, far below
The everlasting hills: but who hath dared
To dream that heaven's most awful attribute
Invested his mortality, and to boast
That through its inmost folds his glance could read
One heart, one human heart? Why then, to love
And trust is but to lend a traitor arms
Of keenest temper and unerring aim,
Wherewith to pierce our souls. But thou, beware!
Sebastian lives!
Sylv.
If it be so, and thou
Art of his followers still, then bid him seek
Sebast.
This, is to live
An age of wisdom is an hour! The man
Whose empire, as in scorn, o'erpassed the bounds
E'en of the infinite deep; whose orient realms
Lay bright beneath the morning, while the clouds
Were brooding in their sunset mantle, still
O'er his majestic regions of the west;
This heir of far dominion shall return,
And, in the very city of his birth,
Shall find no home! Aye, I will tell him this,
And he will answer that the tale is false,
False as a traitor's hollow words of love;
And that the stately dwelling, in whose halls
We commune now—a friend's, a monarch's gift,
Unto the chosen of his heart, Sylveira,
Should yield him still a welcome.
Sylv.
Fare thee well.
Sebast.
Ha! ha! the snake
Doth pride himself in his distorted cunning,
Deeming it wisdom. Nay, thou goest not thus.
My heart is bursting, and I will be heard.
What! knowest thou not my spirit was born to hold
Dominion over thine? Thou shalt not cast
Those bonds thus lightly from thee. Stand thou there,
And tremble in the presence of thy lord!
Sylv.
This is all madness.
Sebast.
Madness! no,—I say
'Tis reason starting from her sleep, to feel
And see, and know in all their cold distinctness,
Things which come o'er her, as a sense of pain
O' th' sudden wakes the dreamer. Stay thee yet:
Be still. Thou art used to smile and to obey;
Aye, and to weep. I have seen thy tears flow fast
Sylv.
What now avail
These recollections?
Sebast.
What? I have seen thee shrink,
As a murderer from the eye of light before me,
I have earned, (how dearly and how bitterly
It matters not, but I have earned at last)
Deep knowledge, fearful wisdom. Now! begone!
Hence to thy guests, and fear not, though arraigned
Sylv.
It is thy part
To tremble for thy life.
Sebast.
They that have looked
Upon a heart like thine, should know too well
The worth of life to tremble. Such things make
Brave men and reckless. Aye, and they whom fate
Would trample should be thus. It is enough—
Thou may'st depart.
Sylv.
And thou, if thou dost prize
Thy safety, speed thee hence.
[Exit Sylveira.
Sebast.
(alone)
And this is he
Who was as mine own soul: whose image rose
Shadowing my dreams of glory with the thought
That on the sick man's weary couch he lay,
Pining to share my battles!
[Music heard within, and voices.]
Ye winds that sweep
The conquered billows of the western deep,
Or wander where the morn
'Midst the resplendent Indian heavens is born,
Waft o'er bright isles and glorious worlds the fame
Of the crowned Spaniard's name:
Till in each glowing zone
Its might the nations own,
And bow to him the vassal knee
Whose sceptre shadows realms from sea to sea.
Sebast.
Away—away! this is no place for him
Whose name hath thus resounded, but is now
A word of desolation.
[Exit.
OH! leave thine own loved isle,
Bright Queen of Cyprus and the Paphian shores!
And here on Glycera's fair temple smile,
Where vows and incense lavishly she pours.
Waft here thy glowing son,
Bring Hermes, let the nymphs thy path surround,
And youth unlovely till thy gifts be won,
And the light graces with the zone unbound.
O Venus, regina Gnidi Paphique,
Sperne dilectam Cypron, et, vocantis
Ture te multo, Glyceræ decoram
Transfer in ædem.
Fervidus tecum puer, et solutis
Gratiæ zonis, properentque Nymphæ,
Et, parum comis sine te, Juventas,
Mercuriusque.
I hate the Persian's costly pride;
The wreaths with bands of Linden tied;
These, boy, delight me not;
Nor where the lingering roses bide,
Seek thou for me the spot.
For me be nought but myrtle twined;
The modest myrtle, meet to bind
Alike thy brows and mine;
While thus I quaff the bowl, reclined
Beneath the o'erarching vine.
Persicos odi, puer, apparatus:
Disiplicent nexæ philyrâ coronæ:
Mitte sectari, rosa quo locorum
Sera moretur.
Simplici myrto nihil allabores
Sedulus, curo. Neque te ministrum
Dedecet myrtus, neque me sub arcta
Vite bibentem.
Firm be thy soul!—serene in power,
When adverse Fortune clouds the sky;
Undazzled by the triumph's hour,
Since, Delius, thou must die!
Alike if still to grief resigned,
Or if through festal days 'tis thine
To quaff, in grassy haunts reclined,
The old Falernian wine:
Haunts where the silvery poplar-boughs
Love with the pine's to blend on high,
And some clear fountain brightly flows
In graceful windings by.
There be the rose, with beauty fraught
So soon to fade, so brilliant now,
For thou, resigning to thine heir,
Thy halls, thy bowers, thy treasured store,
Must leave that home, those woodlands fair,
On yellow Tyber's shore.
What then avails it if thou trace
From Inachus thy glorious line?
Or, sprung from some ignoble race,
If not a roof be thine?
Since the dread lot for all must leap
Forth from the dark revolving urn,
And we must tempt the gloomy deep,
Whence exiles ne'er return.
Æquam memento rebus in arduis
Servare mentem, non secus in bonis
Ab insolenti temperatum
Lætitia; moriture Dellî,
Seu mœstus omni tempore vixeris,
Seu te in remoto gramine per dies
Festos reclinatum beâris
Interiore notâ Falerni.
Qua pinus ingens, albaque populus,
Umbram hospitalem consociare amant
Ramis, et obliquo laborat
Lympha fugax trepidare rivo;
Huc vina, et unguenta, et nimium brevis
Flores amœnos ferre jube rosæ,
Dum res, et ætas, et sororum
Fila trium patiuntur atra.
Cedes coëmtis saltibus, et domo,
Villâque, flavus quam Tiberis lavit:
Cedes; et exstructis in altum
Divitiis potietur heres.
Divesne prisco natus ab Inacho,
Nil interest, an pauper et infimâ
De gente, sub divo moreris,
Victima nil miserantis Orci.
Omnes eodem cogimur: omnium
Versatur urnâ, serius, ocius
Sors exitura, et nos in æternum
Exsilium impositura cymbæ.
Oh, worthy fragrant gifts of flowers and wine,
Bandusian fount, than crystal far more bright!
To-morrow shall a sportive kid be thine,
Whose forehead swells with horns of infant might:
Let the red Dog-star burn!—his scorching beam,
Fierce in resplendence shall molest not thee!
Still sheltered from his rage, thy banks, fair stream,
To the wild flock around thee wandering free,
And the tired oxen from the furrowed field;
The genial freshness of their breath shall yield.
And thou, bright Fount! ennobled and renowned,
Shall by thy poet's votive song be made;
Thou and the oak with deathless verdure crowned,
Whose boughs, a pendant canopy, o'ershade
Those hollow rocks, whence, murmuring many a tale,
Thy chiming waters pour upon the vale.
O fons Bandusiæ, splendidior vitro,
Dulci digne mero, non sine floribus,
Cras donaberis hædo;
Cui frons, turgida cornibus
Primis, et Venerem et prœlia destinat:
Frustra; nam gelidos inficiet tibi
Rubro sanguine rivos
Lascivi suboles gregis.
Te flagrantis atrox hora Caniculæ
Nescit tangere: tu frigus amabile
Fessis vomere tauris
Præbes, et pecori vago.
Fies nobilium tu quoque fontium,
Me dicente cavis impositam ilicem
Saxis, unde loquaces
Lymphæ desiliunt tuæ.
Faunus! who lov'st the flying Nymphs to chase,
O let thy steps with genial influence tread
My sunny fields, and be thy fostering grace,
Left on my nursling groves, and borders shed.
If, at the mellow closing of the year,
A tender kid in sacrifice be thine;
Nor fail the liberal bowls to Venus dear;
Nor clouds of incense to thine antique shrine.
Joyous each flock in meadow herbage plays,
When the December feast returns to thee;
Calmly the ox along the pasture strays,
With festal villagers from toil set free.
Then from the wolf no more the lambs retreat,
Then shower the woods to thee their foliage round;
Faune, Nympharum fugientum amator,
Per meos fines et aprica rura
Lenis incedas, abeasque parvis
Æquus alumnis;
Si tener pleno cadit hædus anno,
Largo nec desunt, Veneris sodali,
Vina crateræ, vetus ara multo
Fumat odore.
Ludit herboso pecus omne campo,
Cum tibi Nonæ redeunt Decembres:
Festus in pratis vacat otioso
Cum bove pagus:
Inter audaces lupus errat agnos:
Spargit agrestes tibi silva frondes;
Gaudet invisam pepulisse fossor
Ter pede terram.
Bring, bring odours to the embowering shade
Where the tall pine and poplar blend on high;
Bring roses, exquisite, but soon to fade,
Snatch every brief delight, for thou must die:
Must bid thy groves farewell, thy stately dome,
Thy fair retreat on yellow Tyber's shore,
Whilst other inmates revel in thy home
And claim thy piles of wealth; thine own no more
He who relents not, dooms thee soon to tread
The shore whence none return—the country of the dead.
Originally introduced in the "Last Constantine."
WHITHER, celestial maid, so fast away?
What lures thee from the banquet of the skies?
How canst thou leave thy native realms of day,
For this low sphere, this vale of clouds and sighs?
—O thou, Canova! soaring high above
Italian art,—with Grecian magic vying!
We knew thy marble glowed with life and love,
But who had seen thee image footsteps flying?
—Here to each eye the wind seems gently playing
With the light vest, its wavy folds arraying
In many a line of undulating grace;
While nature, ne'er her mighty laws suspending,
Stands, before marble thus with motion blending,
One moment lost in thought, its hidden cause to trace.
Italia, oh! Italia! thou, so graced
With ill-starred beauty, which to thee hath been
A dower, whose fatal splendour may be traced
In the deep graven sorrows of thy mien;
Oh! that more strength, or fewer charms were thine!
That those might fear thee more, or love thee less,
Who seem to worship at thy radiant shrine,
Then pierce thee with the death-pang's bitterness!
Not then would foreign hosts have drained the tide
Of that Eridanus thy blood, hath dyed;
Nor from the Alps would legions, still renewed,
Pour down; nor wouldst thou wield an alien brand,
And fight thy battles with the stranger's hand,
Still, still a slave, victorious or subdued!
FERDINAND DE HERRERA, surnamed the Divine, was a Spanish Poet, who lived in the reign of Charles V., and is still considered by the Castilians as one of their classic writers. He aimed at the introduction of a new style into Spanish Poetry, and his lyrics are distinguished by the sustained majesty of their language, the frequent recurrence of expressions and images, derived apparently from a fervent study of the prophetic books of Scripture, and the lofty tone of national pride maintained throughout, and justified indeed by the nature of the subjects to which some of these productions are devoted. This last cha-
The impression of deep solemnity left upon the mind of the Spanish reader, by another of Herrera's lyric compositions, will, it is feared, be very inadequately conveyed through the medium of the following translation.
"Voz de dolor, y canto de gemido," &c.
A VOICE of woe, a murmur of lament,
A spirit of deep fear and mingled ire;
Let such record the day, the day of wail
For Lusitania's bitter chastening sent!
She who hath seen her power, her fame expire,
And mourns them in the dust, discrowned and pale!
Alas! for those that in embattled power,
And vain array of chariots and of horse,
O desart Libya! sought thy fatal coast!
And trusting not in Him, the eternal source
Of might and glory, but in earthly force,
Making the strength of multitudes their boast,
A flushed and crested host,
Elate in lofty dreams of victory, trod
Their path of pride, as o'er a conquered land
Given for the spoil; nor raised their eyes to God;
And Israel's Holy One withdrew his hand,
It came, the hour of wrath, the hour of woe,
Which to deep solitude and tears consigned
The peopled realm, the realm of joy and mirth;
A gloom was on the heavens, no mantling glow
Announced the morn—it seemed as nature pined,
And boding clouds obscured the sunbeams birth;
While, startling the pale earth,
Bursting upon the mighty and the proud
With visitation dread,
Their crests the Eternal in his anger bowed,
And raised barbarian nations o'er their head,
The inflexible, the fierce, who seek not gold,
But vengeance on their foes, relentless, uncontrolled.
Then was the sword let loose, the flaming sword
Of the strong Infidel's ignoble hand,
Are these the conquerors, these the lords of fight,
The warrior men, the invincible, the famed,
Who shook the earth with terror and dismay,
Whose spoils were empires?—They that in their might
The haughty strength of savage nations tamed,
And gave the spacious orient realms of day
To desolation's sway,
Once were they, in their splendour and their pride,
As an imperial cedar on the brow
Of the great Lebanon! It rose, arrayed
In its rich pomp of foliage, and of wide
Majestic branches, leaving far below
All children of the forest. To its shade
The waters tribute paid,
Fostering its beauty. Birds found shelter there
Whose flight is of the loftiest through the sky,
And the wild mountain-creatures made their lair
Beneath; and nations by its canopy
Were shadowed o'er. Supreme it stood, and ne'er
Had earth beheld a tree so excellently fair.
But all elated, on its verdant stem,
Confiding solely in its regal height,
It soared presumptuous, as for empire born;
And God for this removed its diadem,
And cast it from its regions of delight,
Forth to the spoiler, as a prey and scorn,
By the deep roots uptorn!
And lo! encumbering the lone hills it lay,
Shorn of its leaves, dismantled of its state,
While, pale with fear, men hurried far away,
Who in its ample shade had found so late
Their bower of rest; and nature's savage race
'Midst the great ruin sought their dwelling-place.
But thou, base Libya, thou whose arid sand
Hath been a kingdom's death-bed, where one fate
Closed her bright life, and her majestic fame,
Though to thy feeble and barbarian hand
Hath fallen the victory, be not thou elate!
Boast not thyself, though thine that day of shame,
Unworthy of a name!
OH sweetest voice! Oh blest familiar sound
Of mother-words heard in the stranger's land!
I see the blue hills of my native shore,
The far blue hills again! those cordial tones
Before the captive bid them freshly rise
For ever welcome! Oh by this deep joy,
Know the true son of Greece!
Oh hear me, look upon me, how my heart
After long desolation now unfolds
Unto this new delight, to kiss thy head,
Thou dearest, dearest one of all on Earth!
To clasp thee with my arms which were but thrown
On the void winds before! Oh give me way,
Give my soul's rapture way, the eternal fount,
Leaps not more brightly forth from cliff to cliff
Of high Parnassus, down the golden vale,
Than the strong joy bursts gushing from my heart,
And swells around me to a flood of bliss,
Orestes! Oh my Brother!
Man by the battle's hour immortalized
May fall, yet leave his name to living song;
But of forsaken woman's countless tears,
What recks the after-world? the poet's voice
Tells naught of all the slow, sad, weary days
And long, long nights, through which the lonely soul
Poured itself forth, consumed itself away,
In passionate adjurings, vain desires,
And ceaseless weepings for the early lost,
The loved and vanished!
One draught from Lethe's flood! reach me one draught.
One last cool goblet filled with dewy peace!
Soon will the spasm of life departing leave
My bosom free! soon shall my spirit flow
Along the deep waves of forgetfulness,
Calmly and silently! away to you
Ye dead! ye dwellers of the eternal cloud,
Take home the son of earth, and let him steep
His o'erworn senses in your dim repose,
For evermore.
Hark! in the trembling leaves,
Mysterious whispers: hark! a rushing sound,
Sweeps through yon twilight depth! e'en now they come,
They throng to greet their guest! and who are they!
Rejoicing each with each in stately joy,
As a King's children gathered for the hour
Of some high festival! exultingly,
And kindred-like and God-like, on they pass,
The glorious wandering shapes! aged and young
Proud men and royal women! Lo my race,
My sire's ancestral race!
[THE monument by Chantrey in Lichfield Cathedral, to the memory of the two children of Mrs Robinson, is one of the most affecting works of art ever executed. He has given a pathos to marble, which one who trusts to his natural feelings, and admires, and is only touched at their bidding, might have thought from any previous experience that it was out of the flower of statuary to attain. The monument is executed with all his beautiful simplicity and truth. The two children, two little girls, are represented as lying in each other's arms, and, at first glance, appear to be sleeping;—
"But something lies,
Too deep and still on those soft-sealed eyes."
Sacred to the Memory
Of Ellen Jane and Marianne, only children
Of the late Rev. William Robinson, and Ellen Jane, his wife;
Their affectionate mother,
In fond remembrance of their heaven-loved innocence.
Consigns their resemblance to this sanctuary,
In humble gratitude for the glorious assurance,
That "of such is the Kingdom of God."
FAIR images of sleep,
Hallowed, and soft, and deep,
On whose calm lids the dreamy quiet lies,
How many hearts have felt
Your silent beauty melt
Their strength to gushing tenderness away!
How many sudden tears,
From depths of buried years
All freshly bursting, have confessed your sway!
How many eyes will shed
Still, o'er your marble bed,
Such drops from memory's troubled fountains wrung.
While hope hath blights to bear,
While love breathes mortal air;
While roses perish e'er to glory sprung,
Yet from a voiceless home,
If some sad mother come,
If then the dove-like tone
Of those faint murmurs gone,
O'er her sick sense too piercingly return;
If for the soft bright hair
And brow and bosom fair,
And life, now dust, her soul too deeply yearn;
O gentle forms, entwined
Like tendrils, which the wind
May wave, so clasped, but never can unlink?
Send from your calm profound
A still small voice, a sound
Of hope, forbidding that lone heart to sink!
By all the pure meek mind
In your pale beauty shrined,
WHENCE is the might of thy master-spell?
Speak to me, voice of sweet sound, and tell!
How canst thou wake, by one gentle breath,
Passionate visions of love and death!
How callest thou back, with a note, a sigh,
Words and low tones from the days gone by—
A sunny glance, or a fond farewell?—
Speak to me, voice of sweet sound, and tell!
What is thy power, from the soul's deep spring
In sudden gushes the tears to bring?
Even 'midst the swells of thy festal glee,
Fountains of sorrow are stirred by thee!
Vain are those tears!—vain and fruitless all—
Showers that refresh not, yet still must fall;
For a purer bliss while the full heart burns,
For a brighter home while the spirit yearns!
Something of mystery there surely dwells,
Waiting thy touch, in our bosom-cells;
Something that finds not its answer here—
A chain to be clasped in another sphere.
Therefore a current of sadness deep,
Through the stream of thy triumphs is heard to sweep,
Like a moan of the breeze through a summer sky—
Like a name of the dead when the wine foams high!
Yet speak to me still, though thy tones be fraught
With vain remembrance and troubled thought;—
Speak! for thou tellest my soul that its birth
Links it with regions more bright than earth.
YES, it is ours!—the field is won,
A dark and evil field!
Lift from the ground my noble son,
And bear him homewards on his bloody shield!
Let me not hear your trumpets ring,
Swell not the battle-horn!
Thoughts far too sad those notes will bring.
When to the grave my glorious flower is borne!
From a publication now out of print.
Speak not of victory!—in the name
There is too much of woe!
Hush'd be the empty voice of Fame—
Call me back his whose graceful head is low.
Speak not of victory!—from my halls
The sunny hour is gone!
The ancient banner on my walls,
Must sink ere long—I had but him—but one!
Within the dwelling of my sires
The hearths will soon be cold,
With me must die the beacon-fires
That stream'd at midnight from the mountain-hold.
And let them fade, since this must be,
My lovely and my brave!
Was thy bright blood pour'd forth for me,
And is there but for stately youth a grave?
Speak to me once again, my boy!
Wilt thou not hear my call?
Thou wert so full of life and joy,
I had not dreamt of this—that thou couldst fall!
Thy mother watches from the steep
For thy returning plume;
How shall I tell her that thy sleep
Is of the silent house, th' untimely tomb?
Thou didst not seem as one to die,
With all thy young renown!
—Ye saw his falchion's flash on high,
In the mid-fight, when spears and crests went down!
Slow be your march! the field is won!
A dark and evil field!
Lift from the ground my noble son,
And bear him homewards on his bloody shield.
FEARFULLY and mournfully
Thou bidd'st the earth farewell,
And yet thou'rt passing, loveliest one!
In a brighter land to dwell.
Ascend, ascend rejoicing!
The sunshine of that shore
Around thee, as a glorious robe,
Shall stream for evermore.
The breezy music wandering
There through the Elysian sky,
Hath no deep tone that seems to float
From a happier time gone by:
And there the day's last crimson
Gives no sad memories birth;
No thought of dead or distant friends,
Or partings—as on earth.
Yet fearfully and mournfully
Thou bidd'st that earth farewell,
Although thou'rt passing, loveliest one,
In a brighter land to dwell.
A land where all is deathless—
The sunny wave's repose,
The wood, with its rich melodies,
The summer and the rose.
A land that sees no parting,
That hears no sound of sighs,
That waits thee with immortal air—
Lift, lift those anxious eyes!
Oh! how like thee, thou trembler,
Man's spirit fondly clings,
With timid love, to this, its world
Of old familiar things!
We pant, we thirst for fountains
That gush not here below;
On, on we toil, allured by dreams
Of the living water's flow:
We pine for kindred natures,
To mingle with our own;
For communings more full and high
Than aught by mortal known:
We strive with vain aspirings
Against our bounds in vain;
Yet summoned to be free at last,
We shrink—and clasp our chain!
And fearfully and mournfully
We bid the earth farewell,
Though passing from its mists, like thee,
In a brighter world to dwell.
IT is written on the rose
In its glory's full array—
Read what those buds disclose—
"Passing away."
It is written on the skies
Of the soft blue summer day;
It is traced in sunset's dyes—
"Passing away."
It is written on the trees,
As their young leaves glistening play,
And on brighter things than these—
"Passing away."
It is written on the brow
Where the spirit's ardent ray
Lives, burns, and triumphs now—
"Passing away"
It is written on the heart—
Alas! that there decay
Should claim from love a part—
"Passing away."
Friends! friends!—oh! shall we meet
In a land of purer day,
Where lovely things and sweet
Pass not away?
Shall we know each other's eyes
And the thoughts that in them lay,
When we mingled sympathies
Passing away?
Oh! if this may be so,
Speed, speed, thou closing day!
How blest, from earth's vain show
To pass away?
'TWAS night in Babylon: yet many a beam
Of lamps, far-glittering from her domes on high,
Shone, brightly mingling in Euphrates' stream,
With the clear stars of that Chaldean sky,
Whose azure knows no cloud:—each whispered sigh
Of the soft night-breeze through her terrace-bowers,
Bore deepening tones of joy and melody,
O'er an illumined wilderness of flowers;
And the glad city's voice went up from all her towers.
But prouder mirth was in the kingly hall,
Where, 'midst adoring slaves, a gorgeous band!
High at the stately midnight-festival,
Belshazzar sat enthroned.—There luxury's hand
With richer zest the banquet may be fraught,
A loftier theme may swell the exulting strain!
The Lord of nations spoke,—and forth were brought
The spoils of Salem's devastated fane:
Thrice holy vessels!—pure from earthly stain,
And set apart, and sanctified to Him,
Who deigned within the oracle to reign,
Revealed, yet shadowed; making noon-day dim,
To that most glorious cloud between the cherubim.
They came, and louder pealed the voice of song,
And pride flashed brighter from the kindling eye,
And He who sleeps not heard the elated throng,
In mirth that plays with thunderbolts, defy
Peace!—is it but a phantom of the brain,
Thus shadowed forth the senses to appal,
Yon fearful vision?—Who shall gaze again
To search its cause?—Along the illumined wall,
Startling, yet rivetting the eyes of all,
Darkly it moves,—a hand, a human hand,
O'er the bright lamps of that resplendent hall
In silence tracing, as a mystic wand,
Words all unknown, the tongue of some far distant land.
There are pale cheeks around the regal board,
And quivering limbs, and whispers deep and low,
And fitful starts!—the wine, in triumph poured,
Untasted foams, the song hath ceased to flow,
But haste ye!—bring Chaldea's gifted seers,
The men of prescience!—haply to their eyes,
Which track the future through the rolling spheres,
Yon mystic sign may speak in prophecies.
They come—the readers of the midnight skies,
They that gave voice to visions—but in vain!
Still wrapt in clouds the awful secret lies,
It hath no language 'midst the starry train,
Earth has no gifted tongue Heaven's mysteries to explain.
Then stood forth one, a child of other sires,
And other inspiration!—one of those
Who on the willows hung their captive lyres,
And sat, and wept, where Babel's river flows.
Yes!—what was earth to him, whose spirit passed
Time's utmost bounds?—on whose unshrinking sight
Ten thousand shapes of burning glory cast
Their full resplendence?—Majesty and might
Were in his dreams;—for him the veil of light
Shrouding Heaven's inmost sanctuary and throne,
The curtain of th' unutterably bright
Was raised!—to him, in fearful splendour shown,
Ancient of Days! e'en Thou, mad'st thy dread presence known.
He spoke:—the shadows of the things to come
Passed o'er his soul:—"O King, elate in pride!
God hath sent forth the writing of thy doom,
The one, the living God by thee defied!
There fell a moment's thrilling silence round
A breathless pause! the hush of hearts that beat
And limbs that quiver:—Is there not a sound,
A gathering cry, a tread of hurrying feet?
—'Twas but some echo, in the crowded street,
Of far-heard revelry; the shout, the song,
The measured dance to music wildly sweet,
That speeds the stars their joyous course along;—
Away! nor let a dream disturb the festal throng!
Peace yet again!—Hark! steps in tumult flying,
Steeds rushing on, as o'er a battle-field!
The shouts of hosts exulting or defying,
The press of multitudes that strive or yield!
And nearer yet the trumpet's blast is swelling,
Loud, shrill, and savage, drowning every cry!
And lo! the spoiler in the regal dwelling,
Death bursting on the halls of revelry!
Ere on their brows one fragile rose-leaf die
The sword hath raged through joy's devoted train;
Ere one bright star be faded from the sky,
Red flames, like banners, wave from dome and fane;
Empire is lost and won,—Belshazzar with the slain.
COME to me, when my soul
Hath but a few dim hours to linger here;
When earthly chains are as a shrivell'd scroll,
Oh! let me feel thy presence! but not near!
That I may look once more
Into thine eyes, which never changed for me;
That I may speak to thee of that bright shore
Where, with our treasure, we have longed to be.
Thou friend of many days!
Of sadness and of joy, of home and hearth!
Will not thy spirit aid me then to raise
The trembling pinions of my hope from earth?
By every solemn thought
Which on our hearts hath sunk in days gone by,
From the deep voices of the mountains caught,
Or all th' adoring silence of the sky;
By every solemn theme
Wherein, in low-toned reverence we have spoken
By our communion in each fervent dream
That sought from realms beyond the grave a token;
And by our tears for those
Whose loss hath touch'd our world with hues of death;
And by the hopes that with their dust repose,
As flowers await the south-wind's vernal breath:
Come to me in that day—
The one—the sever'd from all days—O friend!
Even then, if human thought may then have sway,
My soul with thine shall yet rejoice to blend.
Nor then, nor there alone:
I ask my heart if all indeed must die;
All that of holiest feelings it hath known?
And my heart's voice replies—Eternity!
OH! if thou wilt not give thine heart,
Give back my own to me,
For if in thine I have no part,
Why should mine dwell with thee?
Yet no! this mournful love of mine
I will not from me cast;
Let me but dream 'twill win me thine
By its deep truth at last!
Can aught so fond, so faithful, live
Through years without reply?
Oh! if thy heart thou wilt not give,
Give me a thought, a sigh?
REST on your battle-fields, ye brave!
Let the pines murmur o'er your grave,
Your dirge be in the moaning wave;
We call you back no more!
Oh! there was mourning when ye fell,
In your own vales a deep-toned knell,
An agony—a wild farewell—
But that hath long been o'er.
Rest with your still and solemn fame;
The hills keep record of your name,
And never can a touch of shame
Darken the buried brow.
But we on changeful days are cast,
When bright names from their place fall fast—
And ye, that with your glory past,
We cannot mourn you now.
Thou hast loved and thou hast suffered!
Unto feeling deep and strong,
Thou hast trembled like a harp's frail string—
I know it by thy song!
Thou hast loved—it may be vainly—
But well—oh! but too well—
Thou hast suffered all that woman's breast
May bear—but must not tell.
Thou hast wept and thou hast parted.
Thou hast been forsaken long,
Thou hast watched for steps that came not back—
I know it by thy song!
By the low clear silvery gushing
Of its music from thy breast,
By the quivering of its flute-like swell—
A sound of the heart's unrest.
By its fond and plaintive lingering,
On each word of grief so long,
Oh! thou hast loved and suffered much—
I know it by thy song!
PILGRIM, O say hath thy cheek been fanned,
By the sweet winds of my sunny land;
Know'st thou the sound of its mountain pines?
And hast thou rested beneath its vines?
Hast thou heard the music still wandering by,
A thing of the breezes, in Spain's blue sky,
Floating away o'er hill and heath,
With the myrtle's whisper, the citron's breath?
Then say, are there fairer vales than those,
Where the warbling of fountains for ever flows?
Are there brighter flowers than mine own which wave
O'er Moorish ruin and Christian grave?
O sunshine and song! they are lying far
By the streams that look to the western star;
My heart is fainting to hear once more
The water-voices of that sweet shore.
Many were they that have died for thee,
And brave, my Spain! though thou art not free,
Yet I call them blest—they have rent their chain,
They sleep in thy valleys—my sunny Spain!
No more! a harp-string's deep and breaking tone,
A last low summer breeze, a far-off swell,
A dying echo of rich music gone,
Breathe through those words—those murmurs of farewell—
No more!
To dwell in peace, with home-affections bounds
To know the sweetness of a mother's voice.
To feel the spirit of her love around,
And in the blessing of her eye rejoice—
No more!
A dirge-like sound! to greet the early friend
Unto the hearth, his place of many days;
Through woods that shadowed our first years to rove,
With all our native music in the air;
To watch the sunset with the eyes we love,
And turn, and read our own heart's answer there,—
No more!
Words of despair! yet earth's, all earth's—the woe
Their passion breathes—the desolately deep!
That sound in Heaven—oh! image then the flow
Of gladness in its tones—to part, to weep—
No more!
To watch, in dying hope, affection's wane,
To see the beautiful from life depart,
To wear impatiently a secret chain,
To waste the untold riches of the heart—
No more!
Through long, long years to seek, to strive, to yearn
For human love∗
—and never quench that thirst,
To pour the soul out, winning no return,
O'er fragile idols, by delusion nursed—
No more!
On things that fail us, reed by reed, to lean,
To mourn the changed, the far away, the dead,
To send our troubled spirits through the unseen,
Intensely questioning for treasures fled—
No more!
Words of triumphant music—bear me on
The weight of life, the chain, the ungenial air;
Their deathless meaning, when our tasks are done,
To learn in joy;—to struggle, to despair—
No more!
"Jamais, jamais, je ne serai aimé comme j'aime," was a mournful expression of Mad. de Stael's.
How is it that before mine eyes,
While gazing on thy mien,
All my past years of life arise,
As in a mirror seen?
What spell within thee hath been shrined,
To image back my own deep mind?
Even as a song of other times,
Can trouble memory's springs;
Even as a sound of vesper-chimes,
Can wake departed things;
Even as a scent of vernal flowers
Hath records fraught with vanished hours;
Painted by W. E. West.
Such power is thine! they come, the dead,
From the grave's bondage free,
And smiling back the changed are led,
To look in love on thee;
And voices that are music flown
Speak to me in the heart's full tone.
Till crowding thoughts my soul oppress,
The thoughts of happier years,
And a vain gush of tenderness
O'erflows in child-like tears;
A passion which I may not stay,
A sudden fount that must have way.
But thou, the while—oh! almost strange,
Mine imaged self! it seems
That on thy brow of peace no change
Reflects my own swift dreams;
Almost I marvel not to trace
Those lights and shadows in thy face.
To see thee calm, while powers thus deep,
Affection—Memory—Grief—
Pass o'er my soul as winds that sleep
O'er a frail aspen-leaf!
Oh! that the quiet of thine eye
Might sink there when the storm goes by!
Yet look thou still serenely on,
And if sweet friends there be,
That when my song and soul are gone
Shall seek my form in thee,
Tell them of One for whom 'twas best
To flee away and be at rest!
I AM free!—I have burst through my galling chain,
The life of young eagles is mine again;
I may cleave with my bark the glad sounding sea,
I may rove where the wind roves—my path is free!
The streams dash in joy down the summer hill,
The birds pierce the depths of the sky at will,
The arrow goes forth with the singing breeze,
And is not my spirit as one of these?
Oh! the green earth with its wealth of flowers,
And the voices that ring through its forest bowers,
And the laughing glance of the founts that shine,
Lighting the valleys—all, all are mine!
I may urge through the desert my foaming steed,
The wings of the morning shall lend him speed;
I may meet the storm in its rushing glee—
Its blasts and its lightnings are not more free!
Captive! and hast thou then rent thy chain?
Art thou free in the wilderness, free on the main?
Yes! there thy spirit may proudly soar,
But must thou not mingle with throngs the more?
The bird when he pineth, may hush his song,
Till the hour when his heart shall again be strong
But thou, canst thou turn in thy woe aside,
And weep 'midst thy brethren—no, not for pride.
May the fiery word from thy lip find way,
When the thoughts burning in thee shall spring to day?
May the care that sits in thy weary breast
Look forth from thine aspect, the revel's guest?
No! with the shaft in thy bosom borne,
Thou must hide the wound in thy fear of scorn;
Thou must fold thy mantle that none may see,
And mask thee with laughter, and say, thou art free!
No! thou art chained till thy race is run,
By the power of all in the soul of one;
On thy heart, on thy lip, must the fetter be—
Dreamer, fond dreamer! oh! who is free?
I in these flowery meads would be:
These crystal streams should solace me;
To whose harmonious bubbling noise
I with my angle would rejoice;
∗ ∗ ∗ ∗ ∗
And angle on, and beg to have
A quiet passage to a welcome grave.
THOU that hast loved so long and well
The vale's deep quiet streams,
Where the pure water-lilies dwell,
Shedding forth tender gleams;
And o'er the pool the May-fly's wing
Glances in golden eves of spring.
Oh! lone and lovely haunts are thine,
Soft, soft the river flows,
Wearing the shadow of thy line,
The gloom of alder-boughs;
And in the midst, a richer hue,
One gliding vein of Heaven's own blue.
And there but low sweet sounds are heard—
The whisper of the reed,
The plashing trout, the rustling bird,
The scythe upon the mead;
Yet, through the murmuring osiers near,
There steals a step which mortals fear.
'Tis not the stag that comes to lave,
At noon, his panting breast;
Tis not the bittern, by the wave
Seeking her sedgy nest;
The air is filled with summer's breath,
The young flowers laugh—yet look! 'tis Death!
But if, where silvery currents rove,
Thy heart, grown still and sage,
Hath learned to read the words of love
That shine o'er nature's page;
If holy thoughts thy guests have been,
Under the shade of willows green;
Then, lover of the silent hour
By deep lone waters past,
Thence hast thou drawn a faith, a power,
To cheer thee through the last;
And, wont on brighter worlds to dwell,
Mayst calmly bid thy streams farewell.
We colour Heaven with our own human thoughts,
Our vain aspirings, fond remembrances;
Our passionate love, that seems unto itself
An Immortality.
DREAM'ST thou of Heaven?—what dreams are thine?
Fair child, fair gladsome child?
With eyes that like the dew-drop shine,
And bounding footsteps wild!
Tell me what hues the immortal shore
Can wear, my Bird! to thee?
Ere yet one shadow hath pass'd o'er
Thy glance and spirit free?
"Oh! beautiful is Heaven, and bright,
With long, long summer days;
I see its lilies gleam in light,
Where many a fountain plays.
"And there uncheck'd, methinks, I rove,
And seek where young flowers lie,
In vale and golden-fruited grove—
Flowers that are not to die!"
Thou Poet of the lonely thought,
Sad heir of gifts divine!
Say with what solemn glory fraught,
Is Heaven in dreams of thine?
"Oh! where the living waters flow
Along that radiant shore,
My soul, a wanderer here, shall know
The exile-thirst no more.
"The burden of the stranger's heart
Which here alone I bear,
Like the night-shadow shall depart,
With my first wakening there.
"And borne on eagle-wings afar,
Free thought shall claim its dower,
From every realm, from every star,
Of glory and of power."
O woman! with the soft sad eye,
Of spiritual gleam,
Tell me of those bright worlds on high,
How doth thy fond heart dream?
By thy sweet mournful voice I know,
On thy pale brow I see,
That thou hast lov'd, in fear, and woe—
Say what is Heaven to thee?
"Oh! Heaven is where no secret dread
May haunt Love's meeting hour,
Where from the past no gloom is shed
O'er the heart's chosen bower:
"Where every sever'd wreath is bound—
Where none have heard the knell
That smites the heart with that deep sound—
Farewell,—belov'd, farewell!"
THOU shouldst be looked on when the starlight falls
Through the blue stillness of the summer air;
Not by the torch-fire wavering on the walls,
It hath too fitful and too wild a glare;—
And thou—thy rest, the soft, the lovely, seems
To ask light steps which will not break its dreams.
Flowers are upon thy brow, for so the dead
Were crowned of old, with pale spring-flowers like these;
Sleep on, thine eye hath sunk, yet softly shed,
As from the wing of some faint southern breeze;
And the pine-boughs o'ershadow thee with gloom
Which of the grove seems breathing—not the tomb.
They feared not death, whose calm and gracious thought
Of the last hour had settled thus in thee;
They who thy wreath of pallid roses wrought,
And laid thy head upon the forest-tree,
As that of one, by music's dreamy close
On the wood-violets hilled to deep repose.
They feared not death! Yet who shall say his touch
Thus lightly falls on gentle things and fair?
Doth he bestow, or will he leave so much
Of tender beauty as thy features wear,
Thou Sleeper of the bower! on whose young eyes
So still a night, a night of summer lies?
Had they seen ought like thee? Did some fair boy
Thus with his graceful hair before them rest?
His graceful hair no more to wave in joy,
But drooping as with heavy dews opprest,
And his eyes veiled so softly by its fringe,
And his lip faded to the white-rose tinge?
Oh, happy if to them the one dread hour,
Made known its lessons from a brow like thine!
If all their knowledge of the spoiler's power,
Came by a look so tranquilly divine!
Let him who thus hath seen the lovely part,
Hold well that image to his thoughtful heart!
But thou, fair slumberer!—was there less of woe,
Or love, or terror, in the days of old,
That men poured out their gladdening spirits flow,
Like sunshine, on the desolate and cold?
And gave thy semblance to the shadowy king,
Who for deep souls had then a deeper sting?
In the dark bosom of the earth they laid
Far more than we, for loftier faith is ours;
Their gems were lost in ashes—yet they made
The grave a place of beauty and of flowers;
With fragrant wreaths and summer-boughs arrayed
And lovely sculpture gleaming through the shade.
Is it for us a darker gloom to shed
On its dim precincts? Do we not entrust
But for a time its chambers with our dead,
And strew immortal seed upon the dust?
Why should we dwell on that which lies beneath,
When living light hath touched the brow of Death.
HE pass'd from earth
Without his fame,—the calm, pure, starry fame
He might have won, to guide on radiantly
Full many a noble soul,—he sought it not;
And e'en like brief and barren lightning pass'd
The wayward child of genius. And the songs
Which his wild spirit, in the pride of life,
Had shower'd forth recklessly, as ocean-waves
Fling up their treasures mingled with dark weed,
They died before him;—they were winged seed,
Scattered afar, and, falling on the rock
Of the world's heart, had perished. One alone,
One fervent, mournful, supplicating strain,
I come alone, and faint I come,
To nature's arms I flee;
The green woods take their wanderer home,
But Thou, O Father! may I turn to Thee?
The earliest odour of the flower,
The bird's first song is thine;
Therefore my childhood's once-loved scene
Around me faded lies;
Therefore, remembering what hath been,
I ask, is this mine early paradise?
It is, it is,—but Thou art gone,
Or if the trembling shade
Breathe yet of thee, with altered tone
Thy solemn whisper shakes a heart dismayed.
THE moonbeam, quivering o'er the wave,
Sleeps in pale gold on wood and hill,
The wild wind slumbers in its cave,
And heaven is cloudless—earth is still!
The pile, that crowns yon savage height,
With battlements of Gothic might,
Rises in softer pomp arrayed,
Its massy towers half lost in shade,
Half touched with mellowing light!
Written many years ago.
The rays of night, the tints of time,
Soft-mingling on its dark-gray stone,
O'er its rude strength and mien sublime,
A placid smile have thrown;
And far beyond, where wild and high,
Bounding the pale, blue summer sky,
A mountain vista meets the eye,
Its dark, luxuriant woods assume,
A pencilled shade, a softer gloom;
Its jutting cliffs have caught the light,
Its torrents glitter through the night,
While every cave and deep recess,
Frowns in more shadowy awfulness.
Scarce moving on the glassy deep,
Yon gallant vessel seems to sleep,
But, darting from its side,
How swiftly does its boat design
A slender, silvery, waving line
Of radiance o'er the tide!
No sound is on the summer-seas,
But the low dashing of the oar,
And faintly sighs the midnight breeze
Through woods that fringe the rocky shore.
—That boat has reached the silent bay,
The dashing oar has ceased to play,
The breeze has murmured and has died
In forest-shades, on ocean's tide.
No step, no tone, no breath of sound
Disturbs the loneliness profound,
And midnight spreads o'er earth and main
A calm so holy and so deep,
That voice of mortal were profane,
To break on nature's sleep!
It is the hour for thought to soar,
High o'er the cloud of earthly woes;
For rapt devotion to adore,
For passion to repose;
And virtue to forget her tears,
In visions of sublimer spheres!
For oh! those transient gleams of heaven,
To calmer, purer spirits given,
Children of hallowed peace, are known
In solitude and shade alone!
Like flowers that shun the blaze of noon,
To blow beneath the midnight moon,
The garish world they will not bless,
But only live in loneliness!
Hark! did some note of plaintive swell
Melt on the stillness of the air?
Or was it fancy's powerful spell
That woke such sweetness there?
For wild and distant it arose,
Like sounds that bless the bard's repose,
When in lone wood, or mossy cave
He dreams beside some fountain-wave,
And fairy worlds delight the eyes;
Wearied with life's realities.
—Was it illusion?—yet again
Rises and falls th' enchanted strain,
Mellow, and sweet, and faint,
As if some spirit's touch had given
The soul of sound to harp of Heaven
To soothe a dying saint!
Is it the mermaid's distant shell,
Warbling beneath the moonlight wave?
—Such witching tones might lure full well
The seaman to his grave!
Sure from no mortal touch ye rise,
Wild, soft, aerial melodies!
—Is it the song of woodland-fay
From sparry grot, or haunted bower?
Hark! floating on, the magic lay
Draws near yon ivied tower!
Now nearer still, the listening ear
May catch sweet harp-notes, faint, yet clear,
And accents low, as if in fear
Thus murmur, half-suppressed;
Fair Bertha hears th' expected song,
Swift from her tower she glides along;
No echo to her tread awakes,
Her fairy step no slumber breaks,
And in that hour of silence deep
While all around the dews of sleep
O'erpower each sense, each eyelid steep,
Quick throbs her heart with hope and fear,
Her dark eye glistens with a tear.
Half-wavering now, the varying cheek
And sudden pause, her doubts bespeak,
The lip now flushed, now pale as death,
The trembling frame, the fluttering breath!
Oh! in that moment, o'er her soul,
What struggling passions claim control!
Fear, duty, love, in conflict high,
By turns have won th' ascendancy;
And as, all tremulously bright,
Streams o'er her face the beam of night,
What thousand mixed emotions play
O'er that fair face, and melt away:
Like forms whose quick succession gleams
O'er fancy's rainbow—tinted dreams;
Like the swift glancing lights that rise
'Midst the wild cloud of stormy skies
And traverse ocean o'er;
So in that full, impassioned eye
The changeful meanings rise and die,
Just seen—and then no more!
But oh! too short that pause—again,
Shrills to her heart that witching strain,
"Awake! the midnight moon is bright,
Awake! the moments wing their flight,
Haste! or they speed in vain!"
A chieftain's mien her Osbert bore,
A pilgrim's lowly robes he wore,
Disguise that vainly strove to hide
Bearing and glance of martial pride;
For he in many a battle scene,
On many a rampart-breach had been;
Had sternly smiled at danger nigh,
Had seen the valiant bleed and die,
Who, with pale cheek, and locks of snow,
In minstrel garb attends the chief?
The moonbeam on his thoughtful brow
Reveals a shade of grief.
Sorrow and time have touched his face,
With mournful yet majestic grace,
Soft as the melancholy smile
Of sunset on some ruined pile!
—It is the bard, whose song had power,
To lure the maiden from her tower;
Though his sole wish was but to die
'Midst the calm scenes of days gone by,
And all that hallows and endears,
The memory of departed years,
Sorrow, and joy, and time, have twined
To those lov'd scenes, his pensive mind;
Ah! what can tear the links apart,
That bind his chieftain to his heart?
Silent and swift, with footstep light,
Haste on those fugitives of night,
They reach the boat—the rapid oar,
Soon wafts them from the wooded shore;
The bark is gained—a gallant few,
Vassals of Osbert, form its crew;
The pennant, in the moonlight beam,
With soft suffusion glows;
From the white sail a silvery gleam,
Falls on the wave's repose;
Long shadows undulating play,
From mast and streamer, o'er the bay;
But still so hushed the summer-air,
Swift fly the midnight hours, and soon
Shall fade the bright propitious moon;
As the clear dews in morning's beam,
With soft reflected colouring stream,
Catch every tint of eastern gem,
To form the rose's diadem;
But vanish, when the noontide hour,
Glows fiercely on the shrinking flower;
Thus in thy soul each calm delight,
Like morn's first dew-drops, pure and bright.
Fled swift from passion's blighting fire,
Or lingered only to expire!
Spring on thy native hills again,
Shall bid neglected wild-flowers rise,
And call forth, in each grassy glen,
Her brightest emerald dyes!
There shall the lonely mountain rose,
Wreath of the cliffs, again disclose;
'Midst rocky dells, each well-known stream,
Shall sparkle in the summer beam;
The birch, o'er precipice and cave,
Its feathery foliage still shall wave;
On rock and turret, wood and hill,
The fading moonbeams linger still;
Why starts the tear to Bertha's eye?
Is not her long-loved Osbert nigh?
Is there a grief his voice, his smile,
His words, are fruitless to beguile?
Such was the pang of Bertha's heart,
The thought, that bade the tear-drop start;
And Osbert by her side,
Heard the deep sigh whose bursting swell,
Nature's fired struggle told too well,
And days of future bliss pourtrayed,
And love's own eloquence essayed,
To soothe his plighted bride!
Of bright Arcadian scenes he tells,
In that sweet land to which they fly;
The vine-clad rocks, the fragrant dells
Of blooming Italy.
For he had roved a pilgrim there,
And gazed on many a spot so fair,
It seemed like some enchanted grove,
Where only peace, and joy, and love,
Those exiles of the world, might rove,
And breathe its heavenly air;
Far from the frown of stern control,
That vainly would subdue the soul,
There shall their long-affianced hands,
Be joined in consecrated bands,
And in some rich, romantic vale,
Circled with heights of Alpine snow,
Where citron-woods enrich the gale,
And scented shrubs their balm exhale,
And flowering myrtles blow;
And 'midst the mulberry boughs on high,
Weaves the wild vine her tapestry:
On some bright streamlet's emerald side,
Where cedars wave, in graceful pride,
Bosomed in groves, their home shall rise,
A sheltered bower of Paradise!
Thus would the lover soothe to rest
With tales of hope, her anxious breast;
Ah! not so soon can hope's gay smile,
The aged bard to joy beguile;
Those silent years that steal away,
The cheek's warm rose, the eye's bright ray,
Win from the mind a nobler prize,
E'en all its buoyant energies!
For him the April days are past,
When grief was but a fleeting cloud;
Long gazing o'er the darkening flood,
Pale in that silent grief he stood;
Till the cold moon was waning fast,
And many a lovely star had died,
And the gray heavens deep shadows cast
Far o'er the slumbering tide;
Thou setting moon! when next thy rays,
Are trembling on the shadowy deep,
The land, now fading from my gaze
These eyes in vain shall weep;
And wander o'er the lonely sea,
And fix their tearful glance on thee,
On thee! whose light so softly gleams,
Thro' the green oaks that fringe my native streams.
But 'midst those ancient groves no more
Shall I thy quivering lustre hail,
And oh! ye fair, forsaken halls,
Left by your lord to slow decay,
Soon shall the trophies on your walls
Be mouldering fast away!
There shall no choral songs resound,
There shall no festal board be crowned;
But ivy wreath the silent gate,
And all be hushed, and cold, and desolate.
No banner from the stately tower,
Shall spread its blazoned folds on high,
There the wild briar and summer-flower,
Unmarked shall wave and die!
From thy cold hearths no festal blaze,
Shall fill the hall with ruddy light,
Nor welcome, with convivial rays,
Some pilgrim of the night;
But there shall grass luxuriant spread,
As o'er the dwellings of the dead;
And the deep swell of every blast,
Seem a wild dirge for years of grandeur past.
And I—my joy of life, is fled,
My spirit's power, my bosom's glow,
The raven-locks that graced my head,
Wave in a wreath of snow!
And where the star of youth arose,
I deemed life's lingering ray should close,
Vain dream! that tomb in distant earth,
Shall rise forsaken and forgot,
And thou, sweet land, that gav'st me birth,
A grave must yield me not!
Yet haply he for whom I leave,
Thy shores, in life's dark winter-eve,
When cold the hand, and closed the lays,
And mute the voice he loved to praise,
O'er the hushed harp one tear may shed,
And one frail garland o'er the minstrel's bed!
O SUNSHINE and fair earth!
Sweet is your kindly mirth,
Angel of Death! yet, yet awhile delay!
Too sad it is to part,
Thus in my spring of heart,
With all the light and laughter of the day.
For me the falling leaf
Touches no chord of grief,
No dark void in the rose's bosom lies:
Not one triumphal tone,
One hue of hope, is gone
From song or bloom beneath the summer skies.
Death, Death! ere yet decay,
Call me not hence away,
Over the golden hours no shade is thrown;
The poesy that dwells
Deep in green woods and dells,
Still to my spirit speaks of joy alone.
Yet not for this, O Death!
Not for the vernal breath
Of winds that shake forth music from the trees;
Not for the splendour given
To night's dark regal heaven,
Spoiler! I ask thee not reprieve for these.
But for the happy love
Whose light, where'er I rove,
Kindles all nature to a sudden smile,
Shedding on branch and flower
A rainbow-tinted shower
Of richer life—spare, spare me yet awhile.
Too soon, too fast thou'rt come!
Too beautiful is home,
A home of gentle voices and kind eyes!
And I the loved of all,
On whom fond blessings fall
From every lip—oh! wilt thou rend such ties?
Sweet sisters! weave a chain
My spirit to detain;
Hold me to earth with strong affection back:
Bind me with mighty love
Unto the stream, the grove,
Our daily paths—our life's familiar track.
Stay with me! gird me round!
Your voices bear a sound
Of hope—a light comes with you and departs;
Hush, my soul's boding swell,
That murmurs of farewell;
How can I leave this ring of kindest hearts?
Death! grave! and are there those
That woo your dark repose
'Midst the rich beauty of the glowing earth.
Surely about them lies
No world of loving eyes—
Leave me, oh! leave me unto home and hearth!
THOU art welcome, O thou warning voice!
My soul hath pined for thee;
Thou art welcome as sweet sounds from shore
To wanderer on the sea.
I hear thee in the rustling woods,
In the sighing vernal airs;
Thou call'st me from the lonely earth,
With a deeper tone than theirs.
The lonely earth! Since kindred steps
From its green paths are fled,
A dimness and a hush have lain
O'er all its beauty spread.
Voice after voice hath died away,
Once in my dwelling heard;
Sweet household-name by name hath changed
To grief's forbidden word!
From dreams of night on each I call,
Each of the far removed;
And waken to my own wild cry—
"Where are ye, my beloved?"
Ye left me! and earth's flowers were dim
With records of the past:
And stars poured down another light
Than o'er my youth they cast:
Birds will not sing as once they sung,
When ye were at my side,
Thou art welcome, O thou summoner!
Why should the last remain?
What eye can reach my heart of hearts,
Bearing in light again?
E'en could this be, too much of fear
O'er love would now be thrown—
Away, away! from time, from change,
Once more to meet my own!
OH! lightly tread through these deep chestnut-bowers,
Where a sweet spirit once in beauty mov'd!
And touch with reverent hand these leaves and flowers,
Fair things, which well a gentle heart hath lov'd!
A gentle heart, of love and grief th' abode,
Whence the bright stream of song in tear-drops flow'd.
And bid its memory sanctify the scene!
And let th' ideal presence of the dead
Float round and touch the woods with softer green,
And o'er the streams a charm, like moonlight, shed;
Through the soul's depths in holy silence felt—
A spell to raise, to chasten, and to melt!
A beautiful place in the County of Wicklow, formerly the abode of the authoress of "Psyche."
I COME down from the hills alone,
Mist wraps the vale, the billows moan!
I wander on in thoughtful care,
For ever asking, sighing—where?
The sunshine round seems dim and cold,
And flowers are pale, and life is old,
And words fall soulless on my ear—
—Oh! I am still a stranger here.
Where art thou, land, sweet land, mine own?
Still sought for, long'd for, never known?
And where my friends, the green paths tread;
And where in beauty rise my dead;
The land that speaks my native speech,
The blessed land I may not reach!
I wander on in thoughtful care,
For ever asking, sighing—where?
And spirit-sounds come answering this
—"There, where thou art not, there is bliss!"
BY the dread and viewless powers,
Whom the storms and seas obey,
From the Dark Isle's∗
mystic bowers,
Romans! o'er the deep away!
Think ye, 'tis but nature's gloom
O'er our shadowy coast which broods?
By the altar and the tomb,
Shun these haunted solitudes!
Ynys Dywyll, or the Dark Island, an ancient name for Anglesey.
Know ye Mona's awful spells?
She the rolling orbs can stay!
She the mighty grave compels
Back to yield its fettered prey!
Fear ye not the lightning-stroke?
Mark ye not the fiery sky?
Hence!—around our central oak
Gods are gathering—Romans, fly!
WATCH ye well! The moon is shrouded
On her bright throne;
Storms are gathering, stars are clouded,
Waves make wild moan.
'Tis no night of hearth-fires glowing,
And gay songs and wine-cups flowing;
But of winds, in darkness blowing
O'er seas unknown!
Gavran was a British Chief, who in the fifth century undertook a voyage to discover the islands which, by tradition, were known under the appellation of Gwerddonau Llion, or Green Islands of the Ocean. This expedition was never afterward heard of.—See Cambrian Biography, p. 124.
In the dwellings of our fathers,
Round the glad blaze,
Now the festive circle gathers,
With harps and lays;
Now the rush-strewn halls are ringing,
Steps are bounding, bards are singing,
—Ay! the hour to all is bringing
Peace, joy, or praise!
Save to us, our night-watch keeping,
Storm-winds to brave,
While the very sea-bird sleeping,
Rests in its cave!
Think of us when hearths are beaming,
Think of us when mead is streaming,
Ye, of whom our souls are dreaming,
On the dark wave!
THE Hall of Cynddylan is gloomy to-night,∗
I weep, for the grave has extinguish'd its light;
The beam of its lamp from the summit is o'er,
The blaze of its hearth shall give welcome no more!
"The Hall of Cynddylan is gloomy this night,
Without fire, without bed—
I must weep awhile, and then be silent.
The Hall of Cynddylan is gloomy this night,
Without fire, without being lighted—
Be thou encircled with spreading silence!
∗ ∗ ∗ ∗ ∗ ∗ ∗ ∗
The Hall of Cynddylan is without love this night,
Since he that owned it is no more—
Ah, Death! it will be but a short time he will leave me.
The Hall of Cynddylan it is not easy this night,
On the top of the rock of Hydwyth,
Without its lord, without company, without the circling feasts!"
The Hall of Cynddylan is voiceless and still,
The sound of its harpings hath died on the hill!
Be silent for ever, thou desolate scene,
Nor let e'en an echo recall what hath been!
The Hall of Cynddylan is lonely and bare,
No banquet, no guest, not a footstep is there!
Oh! where are the warriors who circled its board?
—The grass will soon wave where the mead-cup was pour'd!
The hall of Cynddylan is loveless to-night,
Since He is departed whose smile made it bright!
I mourn, but the sigh of my soul shall be brief,
The pathway is short to the grave of my chief!
LLYWARCH HEN, or Llywarch the Aged, a celebrated bard and chief, of the times of Arthur, was prince of Argoed, supposed to be a part of the present Cumberland. Having sustained the loss of his patrimony, and witnessed the fall of most of his sons, in the unequal contest maintained by the North Britons against the growing power of the Saxons, Llywarch was compelled to fly from his country, and seek refuge in Wales. He there found an asylum for some time in the residence of Cynddylan, Prince of Powys, whose fall he pathetically laments in one of his poems. These are still extant, and his elegy on old age and the loss of his sons, is remarkable for its simplicity and beauty.—See Cambrian Biography, and OWEN'S Heroic Elegies and other poems of Llywarch Hen.
THE bright hours return, and the blue sky is ringing
With song, and the hills are all mantled with bloom;
But fairer than aught which the summer is bringing,
The beauty and youth gone to people the tomb!
Oh! why should I live to hear music resounding,
Which cannot awake ye, my lovely, my brave?
Why smile the waste flowers, my sad footsteps surrounding?
—My sons! they but clothe the green turf of your grave!
Alone on the rocks of the stranger I linger,
My spirit all wrapt in the past, as a dream!
Mine ear hath no joy in the voice of the singer,∗
Mine eye sparkles not to the sunlight's glad beam,
Yet, yet I live on, though forsaken and weeping!
—Oh Grave! why refuse to the aged thy bed,
When valour's high heart on thy bosom is sleeping,
When youth's glorious flower is gone down to the dead!
Fair were ye, my sons! and all kingly your bearing,
As on to the fields of your glory ye trod!
"What I loved when I was a youth is hateful to me now.
∗ ∗ ∗ ∗ ∗ ∗ ∗
Each prince of my race the bright golden chain wearing,
Each eye glancing fire, shrouded now by the sod!∗
I weep when the blast of the trumpet is sounding,
Which rouses ye not! Oh, my lovely! my brave!
When warriors and chiefs to their proud steeds are bounding,
I turn from Heaven's light, for it smiles on your grave!†
"Four and twenty sons to me have been,
Wearing the golden chain, and leading princes."
"Hardly has the snow covered the vale,
When the warriors are hastening to the battle;
I do not go, I am hindered by infirmity."
GRUFYDD AB RHYS AB TEWDWR, having resisted the English successfully in the time of Stephen, and at last obtained from them an honourable peace, made a great feast at his palace in Ystrad Tywi, to celebrate this event. To this feast, which was continued for forty days, he invited all who would come in peace from Gwynedd, Powys, the Deheubarth, Glamorgan, and the marches. Against the appointed time he prepared all kinds of delicious viands and liquors; with every entertainment of vocal and instrumental song; thus patronising the poets and musicians. He encouraged, too, all sorts of representations and manly games, and afterwards sent away all those who had excelled in them, with honourable gifts.—Vide Cambrian Biography.
LET the yellow mead shine for the sons of the brave,
By the bright festal torches around us that wave!
Set open the gates of the prince's wide hall,
And hang up the chief's ruddy spear on the wall!
There is peace on the land we have battled to save,
Let the horn, whose loud blast gave the signal for fight,
With the bee's sunny nectar now sparkle in light,†
Let the rich draught it offers with gladness be crown'd,
For the strong hearts, in combat that leap'd at its sound!
Like the billow's dark swell, was the path of their might,
Red, red as their blood, fill the wine cup on high,
That those may rejoice who have fear'd not to die!
And wake ye the children of song from their dreams,
On Maelor's wild hills, and by Dyfed's fair streams!‡
Wine, as well as mead, is frequently mentioned in the poems of the ancient British bards.
The horn was used for two purposes, to sound the alarm in war, and to drink the mead at feasts.
Maelor, part of the counties of Denbigh and Flint. Dyfed, (said to signify a land abounding with streams of water,) the modern Pembrokeshire.
WHEN the last flush of eve is dying
On boundless lakes, afar that shine;
When winds amidst the palms are sighing,
And fragrance breathes from every pine:∗
When stars through cypress boughs are gleaming,
And fire-flies wander bright and free,
Still of thy harps, thy mountains dreaming,
My thoughts, wild Cambria! dwell with thee!
Alone o'er green savannahs roving,
When some broad stream in silence flows,
Or through th' eternal forests moving,
One only home my spirit knows!
The aromatic odour of the pine has frequently been mentioned by travellers.
Sweet land, whence memory ne'er hath parted!
To thee on sleep's light wing I fly;
But happier, could the weary-hearted,
Look on his own blue hills, and die!
THE Bard of the Palace, under the ancient Welsh Princes, always accompanied the army when it marched into an enemy's country, and while it was preparing for battle, or dividing the spoils, he performed an ancient song, called Unbennaeth Prydain, the monarchy of Britain. It has been conjectured that this poem referred to the tradition of the Welsh, that the whole Island had once been possessed by their ancestors, who were driven into a corner of it by their Saxon invaders. When the prince had received his share of the spoils, the bard, for the performance of this song, was rewarded with the most valuable beast that remained.—See JONES'S Historical Account of the Welsh Bards.
SONS of the Fair Isle!∗
forget not the time,
Ere spoilers had breath'd the free winds of your clime!
Ynys Prydain, the ancient name of Britain, signifies the Fair, or Beautiful Island.
All that its eagles behold in their flight,
Was yours from the deep to each storm-mantled height!
Tho' from your race that proud birth-right be torn,
Unquench'd is the spirit for monarchy born.
Darkly though clouds may hang o'er us awhile,
The crown shall not pass from the Beautiful Isle!
Ages may roll ere your children regain,
The land for which heroes have perish'd in vain.
Yet in the sound of your name shall be power,
Around her still gathering, till glory's full hour.
Strong in the fame of the mighty that sleep,
Your Britain shall sit on the throne of the deep!
Then shall their spirits rejoice in her smile,
Who died for the crown of the Beautiful Isle!
A PROPHECY of Taliesin relating to the Ancient Britons, is still extant, and has been strikingly verified. It is to the following effect:
"Their God they shall worship,
Their language they shall retain,
Their land they shall lose,
Except wild Wales."
A VOICE from time departed, yet floats thy hills among,
O Cambria! thus thy prophet bard, thy Taliesin sung!
The path of unborn ages is trac'd upon my soul,
The clouds, which mantle things unseen, away before me roll,
Green island of the mighty!∗
I see thine ancient race
Driven from their fathers' realm, to make the rocks their dwelling-place!
I see from Uthyr's†
kingdom the sceptre pass away,
And many a line of bards and chiefs, and princely men decay.
But long as Arvon's mountains shall lift their sovereign forms,
And wear the crown to which is given dominion o'er the storms,
Ynys y Cedeirn, or Isle of the Mighty, an ancient name given to Britain.
Uthyr Pendragon, king of Britain, supposed to have been the father of Arthur.
So long, their empire sharing, shall live the lofty tongue,
To which the harp of Mona's woods by Freedom's hand was strung!
SAW ye the blazing star?∗
The heavens look down on freedom's war,
And light her torch on high!
Bright on the dragon-crest†
It tells that glory's wing shall rest,
When warriors meet to die!
The year 1402 was ushered in with a comet or blazing star, which the bards interpreted as an omen favourable to the cause of Glyndwr. It served to infuse spirit into the minds of a superstitious people, the first success of their chieftain confirmed this belief, and gave new vigour to their actions.—Vide PENNANT.
Owen Glyndwr styled himself the Dragon; a name he assumed in imitation of Uther, whose victories over the Saxons were foretold by the appearances of a star with a dragon beneath, which Uther used as his badge; and on that account it became a favorite one with the Welsh.—PENNANT.
Let earth's pale tyrants read despair,
And vengeance in its flame;
Hail ye, my bards! the omen fair
Of conquest and of fame,
And swell the rushing mountain-air
With songs to Glyndwr's name.
At the dead hour of night,
Mark'd ye how each majestic height
Burn'd in its awful beams?
Red shone th' eternal snows,
And all the land, as bright it rose,
Was full of glorious dreams!
Oh! eagles of the battle,∗
rise!
The hope of Gwynedd wakes!†
Bring the horn to Tudwrou the Eagle of Battle's." —Vide The Hirlas Horn, a poem by OWAIN CYVEILIOG. The eagle is a very favourite image with the ancient Welsh poets.
GWYNEDD (pronounced Gwyneth,) North Wales.
It is your banner in the skies,
Through each dark cloud which breaks,
And mantles, with triumphal dyes,
Your thousand hills and lakes!
A sound is on the breeze,
A murmur, as of swelling seas!
The Saxon on his way!
Lo! spear, and shield, and lance,
From Deva's waves, with lightning glance,
Reflected to the day!
But who the torrent-wave compels
A conqueror's chain to bear?
Let those who wake the soul that dwells
On our free winds, beware!
The greenest and the loveliest dells,
May be the lion's lair!
Of us they told, the seers
And monarch-bards of elder years,
Who walk'd on earth, as pow'rs!
Merlin, or Merddin Emrys, is said to have composed his prophecies on the future lot of the Britons, amongst the mountains of Snowdon. Many of these, and other ancient prophecies, were applied by Glyndwr to his own cause, and assisted him greatly in animating the spirit of his followers.
WHY lingers my gaze where the last hues of day,
On the hills of my country in loveliness sleep?
Too fair is the sight for a wanderer, whose way
Lies far o'er the measureless worlds of the deep!
Fall, shadows of twilight! and veil the green shore,
That the heart of the mighty may waver no more!
Why rise on my thoughts, ye free songs of the land,
Where the harp's lofty soul on each wild wind is borne?
Be hush'd, be forgotten! for ne'er shall the hand
Of minstrel with melody greet my return.
—No! no!—let your echoes still float on the breeze,
And my heart shall be strong for the conquest of seas!
'Tis not for the land of my sires to give birth
Unto bosoms that shrink, when their trial is nigh;
Away! we will bear over ocean and earth
A name and a spirit that never shall die.
My course to the winds, to the stars I resign,
But my soul's quenchless fire, oh! my country! is thine.
CASWALLON (or Cassivelaunus) was elected to the supreme command of the Britons, (as recorded in the Triads,) for the purpose of opposing Cæsar, under the title of Elected Chief of Battle. Whatever impression the disciplined legions of Rome might have made on the Britons in the first instance, the subsequent departure of Cæsar they considered as a cause of triumph; and it is stated that Caswallon proclaimed an assembly of the various states of the island, for the purpose of celebrating that event by feasting and public rejoicing.—See the Cambrian Biography.
FROM the glowing southern regions,
Where the sun-god makes his dwelling,
Came the Roman's crested legions,
O'er the deep, round Britain swelling;
The wave grew dazzling as he passed,
With light, from spear and helmet cast,
But his eagle's royal pinion,
Bowing earth beneath its glory,
Could not shadow with dominion
Our wild seas and mountains hoary!
Back from their cloudy realm it flies,
To float in light through softer skies;
Oh! chainless winds of Heaven arise!
Bear a vanquish'd world the story!
Lords of earth! to Rome returning,
Tell, how Britain combat wages,
How CASWALLON'S soul is burning
When the storm of battle rages!
And ye that shrine high deeds in song,
Oh! holy and immortal throng!
The brightness of his name prolong,
As a torch to stream through ages!
HOWEL AB EINION LLYGLIW was a distinguished bard of the 14th century. A beautiful poem, addressed by him to Myfanwy Vychan, a celebrated beauty of those times, is still preserved amongst the remains of the Welsh bards. The ruins of Myfawny's residence, Castle Dinas Brân, may yet be traced on a high hill near Llangollen.
PRESS on, my steed! I hear the swell∗
Of Valle Crucis' vesper-bell,
Sweet floating from the holy dell
O'er woods and waters round.
"I have rode hard, mounted on a fine high-bred steed, upon thy account, O thou with the countenance of cherry-flower bloom. The speed was with eagerness, and the strong longham'd steed of Alban reached the summit of the highland of Brân."
Perchance the maid I love, e'en now,
From Dinas Brân's majestic brow,
Looks o'er the fairy world below,
And listens to the sound!
I feel her presence on the scene!
The summer-air is more serene,
The deep woods wave in richer green,
The wave more gently flows!
Oh! Fair as Ocean's curling foam!∗
Lo! with the balmy hour I come,
The hour that brings the wanderer home,
The weary to repose!
Haste! on each mountain's darkening crest,
The glow hath died, the shadows rest,
My loving heart sinks with grief without thy support, O thou that hast the whiteness of the curling waves! ∗ ∗ ∗ ∗ ∗ I know that this pain will avail me nothing towards obtaining thy love, O thou whose countenance is bright as the flowers of the hawthorn!"—HOWEL'S Ode to Myfanwy.
The twilight-star, on Deva's breast,
Gleams tremulously bright;
Speed for Myfanwy's bower on high!
Though scorn may wound me from her eye,
Oh! better by the sun to die,
Than live in rayless night!
THE custom retained in Wales of lighting fires (Coelcerthi) on November eve, is said to be a traditional memorial of the massacre of the British chiefs by Hengist, on Salisbury Plain. The practice is, however, of older date, and had reference originally to the Alban Elved, or new year.—See The Cambro-Briton.
When these fires are kindled on the mountains, and seen through the darkness of a stormy night, casting a red and fitful glare over heath and rock, their effect is strikingly picturesque.
LIGHT the hills! till Heaven is glowing
As with some red meteor's rays!
Winds of night, though rudely blowing,
Shall but fan the beacon-blaze.
Be the mountain watch-fires heighten'd,
Pile them to the stormy sky!
Till each torrent-wave is brighten'd,
Kindling as it rushes by.
Now each rock, the mist's high dwelling,
Towers in reddening light sublime;
Heap the flames! around them telling
Tales of Cambria's elder time.
Thus our sires, the fearless-hearted,
Many a solemn vigil kept,
When, in ages long departed,
O'er the noble dead they wept.
Yr Wyddfa, the Welsh name of Snowdon, said to mean the conspicuous place, or object.
In the winds we hear their voices,
—"Sons! though yours a brighter lot,
When the mountain-land rejoices,
Be her mighty unforgot!"
"SNOWDON was held as sacred by the ancient Britons, as Parnassus was by the Greeks, and Ida by the Cretans. It is still said, that whosoever slept upon Snowdon would wake inspired, as much as if he had taken a nap on the hill of Apollo. The Welsh had always the strongest attachment to the tract of Snowdon. Our princes had, in addition to their title, that of Lord of Snowdon."—PENNANT.
THEIRS was no dream, oh! Monarch-hill,
With heaven's own azure crown'd!
Who call'd thee—what thou shalt be still,
White Snowdon!—holy ground.
They fabled not, thy sons, who told
Of the dread power, enshrin'd
Within thy cloudy mantle's fold,
And on thy rushing wind!
It shadow'd o'er thy silent height,
It fill'd thy chainless air,
Deep thoughts of majesty and might,
For ever breathing there.
Nor hath it fled! the awful spell
Yet holds unbroken sway,
As when on that wild rock it fell,
Where Merddin Emrys lay!∗
Dinas Emrys (the fortress of Ambrose,) a celebrated rock amongst the mountains of Snowdon, is said to be so called from having been the residence of Merddin Emrys, called by the Latins Merlinus Ambrosius, the celebrated prophet and magician: and there, tradition says, he wrote his prophecies concerning the future state of the Britons.
There is another curious tradition respecting a large stone, on the ascent of Snowdon, called Maen du yr Arddu, the black stone of Arddu. It is said, that if two persons were to sleep a night on this stone, in the morning one would find himself endowed with the gift of poetry, and the other would become insane.—See WILLIAMS'S Observations on the Snowdon Mountains.
Though from their stormy haunts of yore,
Thine eagles long have flown,∗
As proud a flight the soul shall soar,
Yet, from thy mountain-throne!
Pierce then the heavens, thou hill of streams!
And make the snows thy crest!
The sunlight of immortal dreams
Around thee still shall rest.
Eryri! temple of the bard!
And fortress of the free!
'Midst rocks which heroes died to guard,
Their spirit dwells with thee!
It is believed, amongst the inhabitants of these mountains, that eagles have heretofore bred in the lofty clefts of their rocks. Some wandering ones are still seen at times, though very rarely, amongst the precipices.—See the same Work.
RAISE ye the sword! let the death-stroke be given,
Oh! swift may it fall as the lightning of Heaven!
So shall our spirits be free as our strains,
The children of song may not languish in chains!
Have ye not trampled our country's bright crest?
Are heroes reposing in death on her breast?
Red with their blood do her mountain-streams flow,
And think ye that still we would linger below?
This sanguinary deed is not attested by any historian of credit. And it deserves to be also noticed, that none of the bardic productions since the time of Edward make any allusion to such an event.—See the Cambro-Briton, Vol. I. p. 195.
Rest, ye brave dead! 'midst the hills of your sires,
Oh! who would not slumber when freedom expires?
Lonely and voiceless your halls must remain,
—The children of song may not breathe in the chain!
How many blessed groups this hour are bending
Through England's primrose meadow paths their way
Towards spire and tower, 'midst shadowy elms ascending,
Whence the sweet chimes proclaim the hallowed day.
The Halls from old heroic ages grey
Pour their fair children forth; and hamlets low,
With whose thick orchard-blooms the soft winds play,
Send out their inmates in a happy flow,
Like a freed vernal stream. I may not tread
With them those pathways,—to the feverish bed
Of sickness bound;—yet, oh my God! I bless
Thy mercy, that with Sabbath peace hath filled
My chastened heart, and all its throbbings stilled
To one deep calm of lowliest thankfulness.