The Poetical Works of David Macbeth Moir Edited by Thomas Aird: With A Memoir of the Author |
I. |
XX. |
II. |
The Poetical Works of David Macbeth Moir | ||
MISCELLANEOUS POEMS.
THE OLD SEAPORT.
(CULROSS, PERTHSHIRE.)
I
When winds were wailing round me,And Day, with closing eye,
Scowled from beneath the sullen clouds
Of pale November's sky,—
In downcast meditation
All silently I stood,
Gazing the wintry ocean's
Rough, bleak, and barren flood.
II
A place more wild and lonelyWas nowhere to be seen;
The caverned sea-rocks beetled o'er
The billows rushing green;
There was no sound from aught around,
Save, 'mid the echoing caves,
The plashing and the dashing
Of the melancholy waves.
III
High, 'mid the lowering waste of sky,The grey gulls flew in swarms;
And far beneath the surf upheaved
The sea-weed's tangly arms;
The face of Nature in a pall
Death-shrouded seemed to be,
As by St Serf's lone tomb arose
The dirges of the sea.
St Mungo, or Kentigern, is said to have been born here, and to have been left by his mother to the tutelage of St Serf, or Servanus, who lived in a hermitage on the shore of the Forth, noar Culross; and who, there dying, was buried. From this circumstance he was adopted as the guardian saint of the neigh-bourhood; and, down to the close of the fifteenth century, the people showed their veneration for his memory by an annual festival.
A chapel on the beach, at the east end of Culross, was dedicated to St Kentigern, but has long since disappeared.
IV
In twilight's shadowy scowling,Not far remote there lay
Thine old dim harbour, Culross,
Smoky, and worn, and grey;
Culross—or, as it is pronounced, Cooross—rose many centuries ago to be a considerable seat of population and mart of trade, from its vicinity to the handsome monastery erected by Malcolm, Thane of Fife, in 1217, and which was devoted to the Virgin and St Serf. Its monks were of the Cistercian Order; and the ruins yet extant indicate how considerable were its dimensions.
At a remote era Culross possessed a good deal of shipping, and carried on no inconsiderable maritime commerce, especially in the export trade of salt and coal. From James VI., and from Charles II., were also obtained grants which gave the town the exclusive right of manufacturing girdles—thin circular plates of iron, used in Scotland for the baking of oatmeal or other cakes. For long this continued to be a source of revenue; but the peculiar privilege has long been virtually annulled, and nothing remains of the prosperity of the burgh but a profitless memory. A place more decayed or forlorn-looking cannot well be imagined.
Through far-back generations
Thy blackened piles had stood,
And, though the abodes of living men,
All looked like solitude.
V
Of hoar decrepitude all spake,And ruin and decay;
Of fierce, wild times departed;
Of races passed away;
Of quaint, grim vessels beating up
Against the whelming breeze;
Of tempest-stricken mariners,
Far on the foamy seas.
VI
It spake of swart grey-headed men,Now dust within their graves,
Who sailed with Barton or with Spens,
To breast the trampling waves;
Naval power very early showed itself to be an important matter to the sovereigns of Scotland—probably from what the country had been occasionally doomed to suffer from the maritime superiority of the Danes and Norwegians; and William the Lion made the building of ships an object of royal attention and patronage. We learn from the Chronicon Manniæ (p. 39) that the fleet which Alexander II. led against Angus of Argyll, and in whose command he died, was a large one; and it is stated by Matthew Paris, (p. 668—odit. Wats.,) that the ship which conveyed Hugh de Chastillon, Earl of St Paul, and his vassals to the Holy Land, along with Louis IX. of France, in 1249, was built at Inverness.
By the time of Alexander III. the mereantile wealth of the country had greatly increased; and Lombard merchants made proposals for settling in the kingdom. It is curious to learn that the spots which they fixed on were the hill above Queens-ferry, and one of the islands at Cramond. At this period, says Mr Tytler, (History, vol. ii. 292,)—“Voyages had become more distant; the various countries which were visited more numerous; the risks of loss by piracy, tempest, or arrestment in foreign ports, more frequent; and it is a remarkable circumstance that the king, in consequence of this, became alarmed, and published an edict, by which he forbade the exportation of any merchandise from his dominions.” This shortsighted policy, as we learn from the ancient historian Fordun, (à Goodall, vol. ii. p. 135,) created a great sensation in foreign countries, and occasioned an immediate resort of vessels from abroad into the Scottish harbours, to take up the commerce we had abandoned.
In the text, the line, if strictly adhering to historical propriety, should rather have joined the name of Wood to that of Barton, as a distinguished early Scottish navigator—Sir Patric Spens, the “skeely skipper” of what Coleridge rightly calls “the grand old ballad” which bears his name, being probably less of the true than of the poetical and “ancient marinere” school. Although not alluded to by any of our old chroniclers, it is generally believed that the cause of his mission to Norway related to Margaret the daughter of King Eric, and grandchild of Alexander III. From the king, however, being mentioned as “sitting in Dunfermline toun,” while it was not till after his death that Sir David Wemyss, and Sir Michael Scott of Balwearie—the famous wizard of Scottish tradition, and of the Lay of the Last Minstrel—were really sent there, it has been feasibly suggested by Sir Walter Scott (Border Minstrelsy, vol. i.) that perhaps the unfortunate expedition of Sir Patric Spens was previous to that solemn embassy, and might be suggested by a natural desire of the king to see his grandchild and heir. According to Mr Buchan's edition of the story, (Ancient Ballads, 1828,) the errand of Spens was not to bring the Maiden of Norway to Scotland at all, but to convey thither her mother, the daughter of Alexander III. The remote antiquity of the ballad is undoubted, but this would carry it back even beyond the era of the generally received version.
Sir Andrew Wood, the celebrated Scottish admiral, who, in the roign of James IV., defeated the English fleet under Stephen Bull, was a native of Largo, in Fifeshire, and for his gallantry was invested by the king with the barony of his birthplace. It is rather a curious coincidence that, in 1676, Alexander Selkirk—the Robinson Crusoe of De Foe's inimitable narrative—should also have been born there. After an absence of several years, during which Selkirk endured the solitude of Juan Fernandez, he returned to Largo, bringing with him his gun, his sea-chest, and cocoa-nut cup—all of which are yet to be seen. After remaining nine months at home, he again took to sea, and, like Falconer, was never more heard of. The cottage in which he was born is still in the possession of his family, as are his chest and cup. The gun is now the property of Mr Lumsdaine of Lathallan.
And how, in shallops picturesque,
Unawed they drifted forth,
Directed by the one bright star,
That points the stormy North.
VII
And how, when windows rattled,And strong pines bowed to earth,
Pale wives, with trembling children mute,
Would cower beside the hearth,—
All sadly musing on the ships,
That, buffeting the breeze,
Held but a fragile plank betwixt
The sailor and the seas.
VIII
How welcome their return to home!What wondrous tales they told,
Of birds with rainbow plumage,
And trees with fruits of gold;
Of perils in the wilderness,
Beside the lion's den;
And huts beneath the giant palms,
Where dwelt the painted men!
IX
'Mid melancholy fanciesMy spirit loved to stray,
Back thro' the mists of hooded Eld,
Lone wandering, far away;
When dim-eyed Superstition
Upraised her eldritch croon,
And witches held their orgies
Beneath the waning moon.
X
Yes! through Tradition's twilight,To days had Fancy flown
When Canmore or when Kenneth dree'd
The Celt's uneasy crown;
When men were bearded savages,
An unenlightened horde,
'Mid which gleamed Cunning's scapulaire,
And War's unshrinking sword.
XI
And, in their rusty hauberks,Throng'd past the plaided bands;—
And slanting lay the Norsemen's keels
On ocean's dreary sands;—
And, on the long flat moorlands,
The cairn, with lichens grey,
Mark'd where their souls shriek'd forth in blood,
On Battle's iron day.
XII
Between me and the sea, loomed outThe ivied Abbey old,
In whose grim vaults the Bruces kneel
In marble quaint and cold;
The church of the ancient Abbey stood on its north side, and the tower in the midst is still to be seen. The portion of the church which remains has been fitted up, and is now used as a place of parochial worship. The burial-vault of the Bruces is in the north aisle, and contains several very interesting monuments; among them is that of Sir George and his lady, around whom, on a low settle, are ranged their seven children, in a kneeling posture. The whole group is sculptured in marble, and is of great beauty—the costume of the time being distinctly and faithfully preserved. By letters patent, 8th July 1604, Edward Bruce, the Commendator of the Abbey of Kynloss, in Morayshire, at the time of the Reformation, and afterwards a Lord of Session, was created Baron Bruce of Kinloss by James VI. His son, Thomas, received the higher title of Earl of Elgin from Charles I., 19th June 1633.—Vide Keith's Scottish Bishops, (Russel's edit'.,) p. 418-19.
And where, inurned, lies hid the heart
Of young Kinloss deplored,
Whose blood, by Belgium's Oster-Scheldt,
Stain'd Sackville's ruthless sword.
From the side of the aisle, containing the tombs of the Bruces, there projects a piece of unornamented mason-work, which some years ago was found to hold the embalmed heart of Edward, second Lord Kinloss—a young and gallant noble, who was a prominent figure at the English court of James VI., and who fell near Bergen-op-Zoom in a sanguinary duel with his quondam friend, Sir Edward Sackville, afterwards Earl of Dorset. His heart was brought home in a silver case, and was there deposited amid the bones of his ancestors. The circumstances of this romantic and fatal rencontre are detailed with great precision by Mr Robert Chambers in his Life of James the Sixth; and forms one of the most striking and melancholy episodes of family history.
XIII
Waned all these trancèd visions;—But, on my eerie sight,
Remained the old dim seaport
Beneath the scowl of night;
The sea-mews for their island cliffs
Had left the homeless sky,
And only to the dirgeful blast
The wild seas made reply.
THE CONTADINA.
I
Most cheerful Contadina!—thy lapsing years glide o'er,Serenely, like the elfin waves that melt on Nemi's shore;
Thy heart is full of pleasant thoughts, thy tongue is void of guile,
The eloquence of purest truth effulges in thy smile;
No dark malignant passions break thy bosom's chaste repose,
But softest sleep and sweetest dreams thy tranquil spirit knows;
Through sunny day and starry night propitious fates decree
Whate'er of brightest, blithest, best, the world contains, for thee!
II
Most lovely Contadina!—in thy sparkling, speaking eye,Gleams the purity and depth of thine own Italian sky;
In rings of glossy brightness thy raven locks hang down;
And what although the day-star's glow hath tinged thy cheek with brown?—
It takes not from thy beauty's dower, but seems to lend a charm,
When stealthily a glimpse we gain of thy snowy neck and arm;
For in thy locks, and lips, and eyes, and witching form, we see
That earth has showered, with lavish hand, her choicest gifts on thee!
III
Most generous Contadina!—thy hospitable homeStill, with its open porch, invites the passer-by to come;
The kneaded cake, the fragrant milk, the vegetable store
Of herbs and fruits thy garden yields, and vine-encircled door,
What though they deck a humble board?—he lays his welcome head,
A light and cheerful supper o'er, upon his rushy bed;
Thou speed'st him on his path, while flows his blessing back to thee!
IV
Most gentle Contadina!—thou breath'st Ausonian air,Where Nature's face is, like thine own, serenely fresh and fair;
Thou sittest by azure lakelets, where the sportive fishes leap,
Around thee groves, above thee vine-clad ruins on the steep;
Thou sing'st and twirl'st thy distaff, while beside thee sleep or play
Thy loveliest children, pleasure-tired, in the blue light of day;
While on the turf the household fawn, beneath the threshold tree,
Turns, listening to thy syren notes, her floating eyes on thee!
V
Most simple Contadina!—although around thee liePride's scattered wrecks, and o'er thee glows the Roman's classic sky,
Although thou know'st not Arria's fate, how home-sick Clelia fled,
In purity how Portia shone, and how Lucretia bled,
The beauty and the blot displays of sanctity and sin;
And what to most is weary toil, as perfume leads the bee,
Silent, spontaneous feeling tells, and kindness teaches thee.
VI
Most pious Contadina!—from earth-caught errors shriven,The steadfast anchor of thy hope, through faith, is fixed on Heaven;
Thou know'st that He who bled for man can for thy faults atone;
Thou feel'st that He thy soul can free with ransom not its own:
In the calm of peace thou kneelest down, outpouring songs of praise;
Or if the storm of sorrow comes to overcloud thy days,
Unto thy Rock of refuge still 'tis thine for aid to flee,
And, if denied on earth, still shines Heaven's star of bliss for thee!
THE WINTER WILD.
I
How sudden hath the snow come down!Last night the new moon show'd her horn,
And, o'er December's moorland brown,
Rain on the breeze's wing was borne;
But, when I ope my shutters, lo!
Old Earth hath changed her garb again,
And with its fleecy whitening Snow
O'ermantles hill and cumbers plain.
II
Bright Snow, pure Snow, I love thee well,Thou art a friend of ancient days;
Whene'er mine eyes upon thee dwell,
Long-buried thoughts 'tis thine to raise:
Far—to remotest infancy—
My pensive mind thou hurriest back,
When first, pure blossoms of the sky,
I watch'd to earth your mazy track—
III
And upward look'd, with wondering eyes,To see the heavens with motion teem,
And butterflies, a thousand ways,
Down flaking in an endless stream;
The roofs around, all clothed with white,
And leafless trees with feathery claws,
And horses black with drapery bright—
O, what a glorious sight it was!
IV
Each season had its joys in store,From out whose treasury boyhood chose:
What though blue Summer's reign was o'er,
Had Winter not his storms and snows?
The Giant then aloft was piled,
And balls in mimic war were toss'd,
And thumps dealt round in trickery wild,
As felt the passer to his cost.
V
The wintry day was as a spellUnto the spirit—'twas delight
To note its varying aspects well,
From dawn to noon, from noon to night,
Pale morning on the hills afar,—
The low sun's ineffectual gleam,—
The twinkling of the Evening Star
Reflected in the frozen stream:
VI
And when the silver moon shone forthO'er lands and lakes, in white array'd,
And dancing in the stormy North
The red electric streamers play'd;
'Twas ecstasy, 'neath tinkling trees,
All low-born thoughts and cares exiled,
To listen to the Polar breeze,
And look upon “the winter wild.”
VII
Hollo! make way along the line:—Hark how the peasant scuds along,
His iron heels, in concord fine,
Brattling afar their under-song:
And see that urchin, ho-ieroe!
His truant legs they sink from under,
And to the quaking sheet below
Down thwacks he, with a thud like thunder!
VIII
The skater there, with motion nice,In semicirque and graceful wheel,
Chalks out upon the dark-blue ice
His chart of voyage with his heel;
Now skimming underneath the boughs,
Amid the crowd now gliding lone,
Where down the rink the curler throws,
With dexterous arm, his booming stone.
IX
Behold! upon the lapsing streamThe frost-work of the night appears—
Beleaguer'd castles, round which gleam
A thousand glittering crystal spears;
Here galleys sail of shape grotesque;
There hills o'erspread with palmy trees;
And, mix'd with temples Arabesque,
Bridges and pillar'd towers Chinese.
X
Ever doth Winter bring to meDeep reminiscence of the past:
The opening flower and leafing tree,
The sky without a cloud o'ercast,
Themselves of beauty speak, and throw
A gleam of present joy around;
But, at each silent fall of snow,
Our hearts to boyhood's pulses bound—
XI
To boyhood turns reflection back,With mournful pleasure, to behold
Life's early morn, the sunny track
Of feet, now mingled with the mould:
Where are the playmates of those years?
Hills rise and oceans roll between:
We call—but scarcely one appears—
No more shall be what once hath been.
XII
Yes! gazing o'er the bleak, green sea,The snow-clad peaks and desert plain,
Mirror'd in thought, methinks to me
The spectral Past comes back again:
Once more in Retrospection's eyes,
As 'twere to second life restored,
The perish'd and the past arise,
The early lost, and long deplored!
THE DEFEAT OF WINTER.
I
But yester morn the frozen snowGrimly o'ermantled lawn and lea;
Grey clouds shut out the sky; the sea
Whitened in foam the cliffs below;
And storm-blasts vexed the leafless tree.
II
And now—as by the sudden waveOf some benign enchanter's rod—
How placidly the waters lave
The entrance of the dank sea-cave,
How brightly greens the vernal sod!
III
Up from the dark mould, see, ariseThe snowdrop with its soundless bell;
The crocus opes its azure eyes,
And, by the fountain-side, espies
A thousand daisies in the dell.
IV
Hearken the birds—all winter long,That through the bleak air tuneless flew;
The woodlands seem alive with song,—
They flit about, a rapturous throng,
And dart the green boughs thro' and thro'.
V
Upon the furze the linnet sits,And to the silence sweetly sings;
Up from the grass the sky-lark flits,
Pours forth its gushing song by fits,
And upwards soars on twinkling wings.
VI
From crevice and from sheltered nook,Bursting their winter sleep, the fly
And midge come forth, and gladly look
On the bright sun—some skim the brook,
Some wheel in mazy circles by.
VII
The bee within its waxen cellHath felt the vernal call, and comes
Forth in the warm daylight to dwell,—
Hath bade the silent hive farewell,
And o'er the field delighted hums.
VIII
Sky—earth—and ocean—each hath feltThe sudden influence; life renewed
Into all nature's veins hath stealt;
And Love, with an engirding belt,
Hath beautified the solitude.
IX
As at a new, a glorious birth,The soul exults, the heart leaps up;
A visioned joy illumines earth;
The primrose glows with silent mirth,
As does the hyacinth's blue cup.
X
The spirit swells—the thoughts expand,As if escaped from brooding gloom;
And in the sky, and o'er the land,
Are traced, as with an Angel's hand,
The embryo tints of coming bloom.
XI
A waken vanished thoughts—come backThe visions of impassioned youth;
And Hope once more regilds the track,
O'er which hath floated long the rack,
Stormy and dim, of cheerless Truth.
XII
In boyhood, ere the spirit knewHow round the earth the seasons range,
There seemed an amaranthine hue
Upon the wall-flower, and the blue
Anemone, that owned not change;
XIII
But Time, the moral monitor,Brushed, one by one, bright dreams away,
Till scarce is left, but to deplore
Things that have been—to be no more:
Vainly we seek them—where are they?
XIV
Unto the birds—unto the bloomOf opening flowers a love was given,
As if our world knew not a tomb—
As if our yearning hearts had room
For boundless bliss, and earth was Heaven!
XV
Away!—no dreams of gloom should dimThe spirit on a morn like this;
Fill up a beaker to the brim,
Of sunny thoughts, the beads which swim
Upon it all shall melt in bliss.
MAY-DAY.
I.
Come hither, come hither, and view the faceOf Nature, in all her May-day grace!
By the hedgerow wayside flowers are springing;
On the budded elms the birds are singing;
And up—up—up to the gates of Heaven,
Mounts the lark, on the wings of her rapture driven;
The voice of the streamlet is fresh and loud;
On the sky there is not a speck of cloud:
Come hither, come hither, and join with me
In the season's delightful jubilee!
II.
Haste out of doors: from the pastoral mountThe isles of ocean thine eye may count;
From coast to coast, and from town to town,
You can see the white sails gleaming down,
Like monstrous water-birds, which fling
The golden light from each snowy wing;
And the chimney'd steamboat tossing high
Its volumed smoke to the waste of sky;
While you note, in foam, on the yellow beach,
The tiny billows each chasing each,
Meeting, and mixing, and melting away,
Like happy things in the light of day,
As rack dissolves in the soft blue sky,
Or Time in the sea of Eternity.
III.
Why tarry at home? the swarms of airAre about, and o'erhead, and every where—
The little fly opens its silken wings,
And from right to left like a blossom flings,
And from side to side, like a thistle-seed,
Uplifted by winds from September mead;
The midge and the moth, from their long, dull sleep,
Venture again on the light to peep,
Over land and lake abroad they fly,
Filling air with their murmurous ecstasy:
The hare leaps up from her brushwood bed,
And limps, and turns her timid head;
Pops out from the earth of its wintry hole;
And the perking squirrel's small nose you see
From the fungous nook of its own beech-tree.
IV.
Come hasten, come hither, and you shall seeThe beams of that same sun on tower and tree,
That shone over Adam in Eden's bowers,
And drank up the dew of his garden flowers;
Come hither, and look on the same blue sky,
Whose arching cloudlessness blest the eye
Of sapient Solomon, when he sung,
With fluttering heart, and raptured tongue,
“The rain is over and gone—and lo!
The winter is past, and the young flowers blow,
The turtle coos, the green figs swell,
And the tender grapes have a pleasant smell,
The birds are singing to greet the day;
Arise, my fair one, and come away!”
V.
Come hasten ye out: the reviving yearAs in a glass makes the past appear;
And, afar from care, and free from strife,
We bask in the sunshine of morning life—
The days when Hope, from her seraph wing,
Rich rainbow hues over earth did fling;
And lo! the blithe throng of the green play-ground—
The cricketers cheer, and the balls rebound—
Re-echoes the noises of hounds and hare—
The perish'd and past, the things of yore,
Come back in the loveliest looks they wore,
And faces, long hid in Oblivion's night,
Start from the darkness, and smile in light!
VI.
Come hasten ye hither: our garden bowersAre green with the promise of budding flowers—
The crocus, and spring's first messenger,
The fairy snowdrop, are blooming here;
The taper-leaf'd tulip is sprouting up;
The hyacinth speaks of its purple cup;
The jonquil boasteth, “Ere few weeks run,
My golden circlet I'll show the sun;”
The gillyflower raises its stem on high,
And peeps on heaven with its pinky eye;
Primroses, an iris-hued multitude,
Woo the bland airs, and in turn are woo'd;
While the wall-flower threatens, with bursting bud,
To darken its blossoms with winter's blood.
VII.
Come here, come hither, and mark how swellThe fruit-buds of the jargonelle;
On its yet but leaflet greening boughs
The apricot open its blossom throws;
The delicate peach-tree's branches run
O'er the warm wall, glad to feel the sun;
When its fruit and the blackbirds will toy together;
See, the gooseberry bushes their riches show;
And the currant-bloom hangs its leaves below;
And the damp-loving rasp saith, “I'll win your praise
With my grateful coolness on harvest days.”
Come along, come along, and guess with me
How fair and how fruitful the year shall be!
VIII.
Look into the pasture grounds o'er the pale,And behold the foal with its switching tail;
About and abroad in its mirth it flies,
With its long black forelocks about its eyes,
Or bends its neck down, with a stretch,
The daisy's earliest flower to reach.
See, as on by the hawthorn fence we pass,
How the sheep are nibbling the tender grass,
Or holding their heads to the sunny ray,
As if their hearts, like its smile, were gay;
While the chattering sparrows, in and out,
Fly the shrubs, and trees, and roofs about;
And sooty rooks, loudly cawing, roam
With sticks and straws to their woodland home.
IX.
Out upon in-door cares! RejoiceIn the thrill of Nature's bewitching voice!
The finger of God hath touch'd the sky,
And the clouds, like a vanquish'd army, fly,
O'erspanning the works of His hand below:—
The finger of God hath touch'd the earth,
And it starts from slumber in smiling mirth;
Behold it awake in the bird and bee,
In the springing flower and the sprouting tree,
And the leaping trout, and the lapsing stream,
And the south-wind soft, and the warm sunbeam:—
From the sward beneath, and the boughs above
Come the scent of flowers, and the sounds of love;
Then haste thee hither, and join thy voice
With a world's which shouts, “Rejoice, rejoice!”
AN EVENING SKETCH.
FROM THE LINKS OF MUSSELBURGH.
All save the blackbird, that from yon tall ash,
'Mid Pinkie's greenery, from his mellow throat,
In adoration of the setting sun,
Chants forth his evening hymn.
The sovran sun behind his western hills—
His Grampian range of amethystine hue—
Kissed by his kind effulgence, hang around,
Like pillars of some tabernacle grand,
Worthy his mighty presence; while the sky,
Illumined to its centre, glows intense,
Changing the sapphire of its arch to gold.
How deep is the tranquillity! yon wood
Is slumbering through its multitude of stems,
Even to the leaflet on the frailest twig!
A gentle gloom pervades the Birslie heights,
An azure softness mingling with the sky;
And westward, looking to the Morphoots dim,
Grey Falsyde, like an aged sentinel,
Stands on the shoulder of his watch-tower green.
Nor lovely less in its serenity
The Forth, now waveless as a lake engulfed
'Mid sheltering hills; without a ripple spreads
Its bosom, silent and immense: the hues
Of flickering light have from its surface died,
Leaving it garbed in sunless majesty.
No more is heard the plover's circling wail,
No more the silver of the sea-mew's wing
In casual dip beheld; on eastern Bass
The flocks of ocean slumber in their cells.
The fisherman, forsaken by the tide,
His shadow lost, drags to the yellow shore
His cumbrous nets, and in the sheltering cove
Behind yon rocky point his shallop moors,
To tempt again the perilous deep at dawn.
With bosoming boughs round Musselburgh hang
Pierces the sky its immemorial spire,
Whose curfew-bell, through many a century,
Glad sound, hath loosed the artisan from toil;
And silently, o'er many a chimneyed roof,
The smoke from many a cheerful hearth ascends,
Melting in ether.
The Evening Star illumines the blue south,
Twinkling in loveliness. O holy star!
Thou bright dispenser of the welcome dews,
Thou herald of Night's glowing galaxy,
And harbinger of social bliss! how oft,
Amid the twilights of departed years,
Ere Truth had from the pinions of Romance
Brushed off the downy gold—how oft, alone,
Resting beside the grove-o'ershadowed Esk,
On trunk of mossy oak, with eyes upturned
To thee in admiration, have I sate,
Dreaming sweet dreams, till earth-born turbulence
Was quite forgot, and fancying that in thee,
So glitteringly remote, so calm, so pure,
Free from the sins and sorrows of this world,
There might be realms of real happiness!
ON THE DEATH OF IDA.
I
'Tis midnight deep; the full, round moon,As 'twere a spectre, walks the sky;
The balmy breath of gentlest June
Just stirs the stream that murmurs by:
Above me frowns the solemn wood;
Nature, methinks, seems Solitude
Embodied to the eye.
II
Yes, 'tis a season and a scene,Ida, to think on thee: the day,
With stir and strife, may come between
Affection and thy beauty's ray;
But feeling here assumes control,
And mourns my desolated soul
That thou art rapt away!
III
Thou wert a rainbow to my sight,The storms of life before thee fled;
The glory and the guiding light
That onward cheered and upward led;
From boyhood to this very hour,
For me, and only me, thy flower
Its fragrance seemed to shed.
IV
Dark though the world for me might showIts sordid faith and selfish gloom,
Yet, 'mid life's wilderness, to know
For me that sweet flower shed its bloom,
Was joy, was solace—thou art gone—
And hope forsook me, when the stone
Sank darkly o'er thy tomb.
V
And art thou dead? I dare not thinkThat thus the solemn truth can be;
And broken is the only link
That chain'd youth's pleasant thoughts to me!
Alas! that thou couldst know decay—
That, sighing, I should live to say,
“The cold grave holdeth thee!”
VI
For me thou shon'st, as shines a star,Lonely, in clouds when heaven is lost;
Thou wert my guiding light afar,
When on misfortune's billows tost:
Now darkness hath obscured that light,
And I am left, in rayless night,
On Sorrow's lowering coast.
VII
And art thou gone? I deemed thee someImmortal essence—art thou gone?
I saw thee laid within the tomb,
And I am left to mourn alone:
Once to have loved is to have loved
Enough; and what with thee I proved,
Again I'll seek in none.
VIII
Earth in thy sight grew faëry land;Life was Elysium—thought was love—
When, long ago, hand clasped in hand,
We roamed through Autumn's twilight grove;
Or watched the broad uprising moon
Shed, as it were, a wizard noon,
The blasted heath above.
IX
Farewell!—and must I say farewell?—No—thou wilt ever be to me
A present thought; thy form shall dwell
In love's most holy sanctuary;
Thy voice shall mingle with my dreams,
And haunt me when the shot-star gleams
Above the rippling sea.
X
Never revives the past again;But still thou art, in lonely hours,
To me earth's heaven, the azure main,
Soft music, and the breath of flowers;
My heart shall gain from thee its hues;
And Memory give, though truth refuse,
The bliss that once was ours!
OUR NATIVE LAND.
Too purified for thing of earth,
Is not more beautifully bright
Than that celestial zone of light,
Which Nature's magic hand hath shed
Around the land which gave us birth.
With woods that wave, and streams that glide,
Where bounteous air and earth unfold
The gales of health and crops of gold;
Let flowers and fields be ever fair;
Let fragrance load the languid air;
Be vines in every valley there,
And olives on each mountain side:—
Or—let it be a wilderness
Where heaven and earth oppose in gloom;
O'er regions of perennial snows:—
Still 'tis the country not the less
Of him, who sows what ne'er may bless
His labours with autumnal bloom!
Since first commenced the march of Time,
Where'er they rest—where'er they roam—
All unforgot,
Have still a spot
Which memory loves, and heart calls—home!
From where Antarctic oceans roar
Round Patagonia's mountain shore;
To where grim Hecla's cone aspires,
With sides of snow, and throat of fires!
BLOOM AND BLIGHT.
I
The scene is desolate and bleak;Dim clouds, presaging tempest, streak
The waning fields of air;
In sombre shade the valleys lie,
And January breezes sigh
Through leafless forests bare;
The rank grass rustles by the stone,
With danky lichens overgrown.
II
The drooping cattle cower below,While on the beech's topmost bough
The croaking raven sits;
The tumult of the torrent's roar,
That, rain-swoln, rushes to the shore,
Is heard and lost by fits—
Now with a voice o'erpowering all,
Now sinking in a dying fall.
III
How vanishes our time away!'Tis like the circuit of a day,
Since last, with devious feet,
This lone, sequester'd path I trode;
The blooming wild-flowers gemm'd the sod,
And made the breezes sweet;
The hues of earth, the tints of sky,
Were rapture to the heart and eye.
IV
I listen'd to the linnet's song;I heard the lyric lark prolong
Her heart-exulting note,
When, far removed from mortal sight,
She, soaring to the source of light,
Her way through cloudland sought,
And, from ethereal depths above,
Seem'd hymning earth with strains of love.
V
The wild rose, arch'd in artless bower,The purpling thyme, the heather flower,
The whin in golden bloom,
Smiled forth upon the shining day,
As if they joy'd in their array
Of beauty and perfume;
And from the heart of every grove
Was heard the cushat's coo of love.
VI
And now I listen to the breezeThat whistles through the leafless trees,
And to the pattering rain;
Down roars the stream with foamy surge,
And from the marsh the curlew's dirge
Comes wailing o'er the plain:
Well may such alter'd scene impart
A moral to the thinking heart!
VII
In youth, ah! little do we thinkHow near the torrent's crumbling brink
The flowers of pleasure grow;
How fickle Fortune's gale; how far
From gleam of Duty's guiding star,
Life's bark may sail below;
What chance and change frail Man may brave,
Betwixt the cradle and the grave!
VIII
Change is impress'd on all we see—The budding, blooming, blighted tree;
The brightening waning sky;
The sun that rises but to set;
Health with its glowing coronet;
Disease with sunken eye;
And Childhood passing, stage by stage,
Through Manhood to decrepit Age.
IX
What read we thence? That not for usIn vain Creation preacheth thus,
By growth and by decay:
That Man should lift his mental eye
Beyond Earth's frail mortality,
And in the endless day
Of Heaven behold a light display'd,
To which Our sunshine is like shade.
MINE OWN.
I
I need not token-flowers to tellHow deeply dear thou art,
Still on mine ear thine accents dwell,
Thy virtues in my heart;
Thy beauty floats before mine eyes
In soft celestial light,
Alike at orient day's uprise,
And pensive shut of night.
II
Although afar—although afar—Yet art thou with me still,
When evening's star, and morning's star,
Gleams o'er the twilight hill;
Thy beauty streams through all my dreams,
The lone night-watches through;
And cloudless skies recall thine eyes,
The archangel's tearless blue.
III
The sinking and the swelling heartOf fond yet fearful love,
The bliss to meet, the pain to part,
It hath been ours to prove;
The deep embrace of blessedness,
By absence made more blest;
And separation's pangs, which press
Its life-blood from the breast.
IV
Memorials of that vanished dayOf mingled bliss and woe,
When from yon garden bowers away
Time forced my steps to go;
I prize each withered bloom and stalk,
For that dear hand of thine,
Which plucked them on our parting walk,
And gifted them to mine.
V
I see thee in thy beauty yetUpon the gravel stand,
The glowing tints, red, blue, and jet,
Fresh blooming in thy hand:
And lo! all withered, wan, and dried,
Before me here they lie,
To tell that since I left thy side
Long months have lingered by.
VI
But think not months, however long,(For long all months must be,
Theme of my blessing and my song!
Which sever me from thee,)
Shall e'er undo one tender tie
Affection's fingers wove,
Shall make less deep the daily sigh
Which Absence owes to Love!
VII
'Twas Autumn,—and the redbreast lulledWith song the fading bowers,
When for my hand thy fingers culled
These wan and withered flowers:
Fresh were they then; but, as I gaze
The shrivelled blossoms o'er,
The mountain-peaks are grey with haze,
And gleams the snowy moor.
VIII
The clouds of doubt between us rolled,In shadows passed the day,
But, like a star, thy love consoled
My spirit with its ray;
For through the tempest and the night
That beam was duly shed,
To cherish with its steadfast light
The hope which else had fled.
IX
O hallowed, Heavenly to my viewIs every gentle scene,
Where thy fair foot hath brushed the dew
From off the daisied green!
Thy love, thy loveliness, thy worth,
To me seem blessings given,
To show my soul how things of earth
Can raise its thoughts to Heaven!
X
Farewell! thou shalt not be forgot,My beautiful, mine own!
O may the sorrows of our lot
Bow down my head alone!
And these dried flowers, which, given to me,
Were moist with morning rain,
Shall bloom of thee, and breathe of thee,
Until we meet again!
THE IMPROVISATRICE.
ILLUSTRATIVE OF A PICTURE BY BONE, ENGRAVED BY ROMNEY.
I
Beside her cottage door she sate and sang,That gentle creature, with her deep black eyes,
As if her heart of grief ne'er owned a pang,
And her young breast were sunny as her skies;
The ripe rich grapes hung clustering round her head,
And roses, by her side, sweet perfume shed.
II
A poetess in spirit, by the touch—Of Nature framed, she needed not the rules
Of pedants, sophists, dogmatists, and such;
Art's trickery, or the doctrines of the schools:
The glow was at her soul, and so she sung,
Life in her words, and heart upon her tongue.
III
Her theme was love—of quiet summer eves,And shepherds piping in the pastoral dale;
And how, with throbbing heart, beneath the leaves
Of the green elms, the lover breathed his tale,
And she, his idol, from his amorous arms,
Half-pain'd, half-pleas'd, withdrew her conquering charms.
IV
Of Tasso and his passion deep she told,His inspiration, frenzy, and despair;
And how, thro' lonesome years, amid the mould
Of dungeon cells, his Leonora fair
Rose in her beauty on his tranced sight,
Like eve's one star 'mid winter's gathering night.
V
And then to gentle Petrarch changed the theme,And to Vaucluse's woodland greenery bright—
Laura his daylight idol, and the dream
Of his mild spirit through each watch of night;
Time purifying still his ardours high,
Till Passion's self became Philosophy.
VI
Anon she sang of battle, and the breathOf Slaughter tainting heaven's salubrious gale;
Households laid prostrate by the leveller Death,
And orphans desolate, and widows pale;
Anguish imploring Rapine, deaf to hear;
Life-withering Famine, and sepulchral Fear.
VII
The wars of fierce and fiery TamerlaneShe sang; and how it soothed his savage rage
To pluck, in daily hate, the humbling chain
Which knit proud Bajazet to his iron cage,
Until, beneath Scorn's unrelenting yoke,
His hopes forsook him, and his heart was broke.
VIII
Then Peter's praise she hymn'd, who o'er the rudeAnd darken'd Russ shed civilising light,
Triumphant in the van of battle stood,
And vanquish'd Charles at red Pultowa's fight.—
Symphonious with her voice, the rich guitar
Calm'd into peace, or kindled into war.
IX
Anon the varied charms of Nature's faceWould lend a syren witchery to her song,
As she the lovely lineaments would trace
Of amaranthine isles, to which belong
Perennial, endless summer; and man's life,
Unpoison'd by Ambition, knows not strife.
X
Straight to the wintry waste of polar seasTh' enchantress bore with her the soul astray,
Where scowl'd the iceberg, and the sleety breeze
Drifted from howling cubs the bear away,
And fur-clad natives, housed in caverns drear,
Slept thro' the night which darken'd half the year.
XI
The Passions at her bidding throng'd around—Hope, with her bright blue eyes and golden hair;
Teeth-gnashing Hate; Remorse that bit the ground;
Yellow-brow'd Jealousy, and fierce Despair;—
The Spirits met and mix'd; and from the strife
She drew that pictured chaos, human life.
XII
Gaze on that face—'tis fair and feminine;Yet, in the mirror of those pensive eyes,
Whose lustre rather seems to speak than shine,
A fathomless abyss of passion lies:
Earth is to her a spectral vision bright,
Flashing with sunshine, or begrimed with night.
XIII
'Tis past!—and art thou but a brilliant dreamOn which I gaze—a something, by the power
Of Genius conjured from the shapes that teem
In the mind's eye, thro' Inspiration's hour?—
Even as I gaze, the warm illusions fade
Into a silent scene, an empty shade.
XIV
Bare canvass, and the solitary gloomOf a dim studio—there the Painter stands,
Bidding each nice and tender touch illume
The scene, till beauty on the sight expands;
And lo! the marvel which creative Art
Gifts in its high perfection to the heart!
XV
Yes! such was the illusion, and so brightThe Poetess of Nature, which the power
Of genius conjured to the Painter's sight,
In Contemplation's meditative hour,—
The syren shape in Memory's love enshrined,
Which Bone to beauty drew, and Romney lined.
CHRISTMAS MUSINGS.
ADDRESSED TO IANTHE.
I
Time flies apace—another year hath perished,Perished, and joined the irrevocable past;
Hopes, in its progress brightly born and cherished,
Have been by shade o'ercast,
And sorrows, that seemed evils to our sight,
Have “turned their silver linings to the night:”
So little do we know of what is for us
Doomed by unerring Providence for good,
That, could the past from out its womb restore us
The visions we have wooed,
So inconsistent must existence seem,
That reason should seem frenzy, truth a dream.
II
Time flies apace—since last ice-crown'd DecemberWith his snow-mantle overlaid the earth,
What myriad hopes and fears do we remember,
That had their death or birth!
How many joys and sorrows, which have made
Life's pathway one all sunshine, or all shade!
Since last the ruddy Christmas hearth did brighten
The kindred faces of the social ring,
Since last the angel of the frost did whiten
The landscape with his wing,
Hath Misery from our firesides kept aloof?
Hath Death afforded of his power no proof?
III
Ah! who can say thus much? and tho' hath cost meFull many a heart-pang the departed year,
Yet why should I repine?—it hath not lost me
(What was of all most dear)
Thy love—an undeserved possession, worth
Far more than all the wealth of all the earth!
Yes, in that knowledge there are blessings treasured,
More than a kingdom's gold for me could buy:
Oft are life's goods by a false standard measured
In Error's vulgar eye,
While happiness, true happiness, is found
In the heart's feelings, not in things around.
IV
Summer was on the hills, when last we parted,Flowers in the vale, and beauty in the sky;
Our hearts were true, altho' our hopes were thwarted:
Forward, with wistful eye,
Scarce half-resigned we looked, yet thought howsweet
'Twould be again in after-months to meet.
Now 'tis December chill: the moon is shining
O'er the grey mountains and the stilly sea,
As, by the streamlet's willowy bend reclining,
I pause, remembering thee,
Who to the moonlight lent a softer charm,
As through these wilds we wandered, arm in arm.
V
Yes! as we roamed, the sylvan earth seemed glowingWith many a beauty unremarked before:
The soul was like a deep urn overflowing
With thoughts, a treasured store;
The very flowers seemed born but to exhale,
As breathed the West, their fragrance to the gale.
Methinks I see thee yet—thy form of lightness,
An angel phantom gliding through the trees,
Thine alabaster brow, thy cheek of brightness,
Thy tresses in the breeze
Floating their auburn, and thine eyes that made,
So rich their blue, heaven's azure like a shade.
VI
Methinks even yet I feel thy timid fingers,With their bland pressure, thrilling bliss to mine:
Methinks yet on my cheek thy breathing lingers,
As, fondly leant to thine,
I told how life all pleasureless would be,
Green palm-tree of earth's desert, wanting thee.—
Not yet, not yet, had Disappointment shrouded
Youth's summer calm with storms of wintry strife;
The star of Hope shone o'er our path unclouded;
And Fancy coloured life
With those elysian rainbow hues, which Truth
Melts with his rod, when disenchanting Youth.
VII
Where art thou now? I look around, but see notThe features and the form that haunt my dreams:
Where art thou now? I listen, but for me not
The deep, rich music streams
Of that entrancing voice, which could bestow
A zest to pleasure and a balm to woe:
I miss thy smile, when morn's first light is bursting
Through the green branches of the casement tree;
To list thy voice my lonely ear is thirsting,
Beside the moonlight sea.
Vain are my longings, my repinings vain;
Sleep only gives thee to my arms again.
VIII
Yet should it cheer me, that nor Woe hath shatteredThe ties that link our hearts, nor Hate, nor Wrath;
And soon the day may dawn, when shall be scattered
All shadows from our path;
And visions be fulfilled, by Hope adored,
In thee, the long-lost, to mine arms restored.
Ah, could I see thee!—see thee, were it only
But for a moment looking bliss to me!
Ah, could I hear thee!—desolate and lonely
Is life, deprived of thee:
I start from out my reverie, to know
That hills between us rise, and rivers flow.
IX
Let fickle Fortune change—be she preparingTo shower her arrows, or to shed her balm,
All that I ask for, pray for, is the sharing
With thee life's storm or calm;
For ah! with others, Wealth and Mirth would be
Less sweet by far than Sorrow shared with thee!
Yes! vainly, foolishly, the vulgar reckon,
That Happiness resides in outward shows:
Contentment from the lowliest cot may beckon
True Love to sweet repose;
For genuine bliss can ne'er be far apart,
When soul meets soul, and heart responds to heart.
X
Farewell! let tyrannous Time roll on, estrangingThe eyes and heart from each familiar spot,
Be fickle friendships with the seasons changing,
So that thou changest not!
I would not that the love, which owes its birth
To Heaven, should perish like the things of earth!—
Adieu! as falls the flooding moonlight round me,
Fall Heaven's best joys on thy beloved head;
May cares that harass, and may griefs that wound me,
Flee from thy path and bed!
Be every thought that stirs, and hour that flies,
Sweet as thy smile, and radiant as thine eyes!
LINES ON A PORTRAIT OF SIR WALTER SCOTT, BY C. R. LESLIE, ESQ., R.A.
As from the Painter's canvass bright
Thy placid smile beams cheerily,
Musing alone, to gaze on thee,
Imagination's mightiest son,
And, marvelling at thy triumphs won,
Even in this life's contracted span!
Is as the free air unconfined;
Thou wav'st thy wand—and from the tomb
Long-vanished spirits trooping come;
Tradition's shadowy ages pass
Before our thoughts, as in a glass;
The past is as the present seen;
And hoar Antiquity looks green.
There glide they on—revived once more,
The feelings and the forms of yore—
The cuirassed warrior, stern and high;
Beauty, with soul-subduing eye;
Religion's choir in cloistral nave;
The hermit in his mossy cave;
The warder on the bastion's brow;
The peasant at his peaceful plough;
The simple serf, the lettered sage,
Soul-glowing youth, and chastened age;
The loftiest and the lowliest birth;
The pomp and poverty of earth!
Of grateful pride, I thrill to know
That I am countryman of thine:
Thy fame to Scotland is a mine
Of glory, wealthier than Peru
Can boast her golden regions through.
Re-echoes through each verdant vale;
From southland borders, where the Tweed
Flows murmuring to the shepherd's reed,
And, by the cairn and crested steep,
Ruin and Silence empire keep;
To where the Arctic billow foams
Round Shetland's sad and silent homes,
And weeps the rain, and wails the surge,
As 'twere of living things the dirge.
The whole world seems thy dwelling-place!
Where'er flows blood of human-kind,
Man will in thee a brother find.
Thou hast not used thy genius high
Life's motley scenes to bid us fly;
Thou hast not told us that our fate
Is to be hated, and to hate;
That faith is falsehood; that within
Man's heart dwells nought save thoughts of sin;
That eyes were only formed to weep;
That death is an eternal sleep:
No!—thou hast taught us that the air
Is sweet, the green earth very fair;
That on the mount and on the main,
That in the forest and the plain,
Nature's boon gifts are richly strewn;
That peace dwells with the good alone;
And man of an immortal race!
Illustrious Bard! all paltry pride,
And 'midst thy fellows thou might'st pass
As not apart, but of the mass;
Yet who hath won a fame like thee,
Throughout the world, by land or sea?
With it Time's empire is allied,
And the world rings from side to side:
'Tis fame, the loftiest and the best
That ever mortal genius blest:
'Tis pure—that fame owes not a jot
From pandering to unworthy thought:
It ne'er awakened virtue's sigh,
Nor flushed the cheek of modesty:
'Tis bloodless—from another's woe
Thy laurels were not trained to grow;
And thou canst lay thee down at eve,
Nor with the boast thy heart deceive,
That thou has done thy best to throw
Hope's healing balm o'er human woe;
In south and north, in east and west,
That thou hast made some bosom blest;
Lighted the cheerless home of grief;
To wearied spirits breathed relief;
Stirred youth's ambitious pulse to rise;
And drawn sweet tears from Beauty's eyes.
By Avon's shore, 'mid twilight dim,
Who dreamed immortal dreams, and took
From Nature's hand her pictured book,
Time hath not seen, and may not see,
Till ends his reign, a third like thee.
THE GRAVES OF THE DEAD.
A DIRGE.
But and a shrouding sheet;
O, a pit of clay for to be made
For such a guest is meet!
Lord de Vaux
I.
To hallow the memory of days that are fled?
On the bladed grass and the whispering leaves,
When the heart-struck silence delights to listen
As the solitary blackbird grieves;
The landscape, asks us, where are they,
Who, like larks, with us in life's sweet morning,
Carelessly sung all blithe and gay?
We listen in vain for their gentle voices,
We look in vain for their pleasant smiles;
Yet Nature still in her youth rejoices,
And almost the bosom to joy beguiles.
We find them not within the wildwood,
Up in the mountain, down in the plain,
As erst of yore, when the skies of childhood
Gleam'd bluely o'er us without a stain.
Green grows the grass—
Like the waves we come, like the winds we pass!
II.
To hallow the memory of days that are fled?
Busily hums with tumultuous strife,
And Fate with her viewless chain hath bound us
Within the enchanted ring of life;
'Tis then that the startled soul, recoiling,
Turns, sickening turns, from the noisy crowd,
And feels how empty is all our toiling,
When the certain finish is in the shroud.
Bud the wild-flowers, and bloom around;
The fierce-eyed sunbeams no more awaken
From that dreamless slumber, sad and sound;
Then in the green fields flocks are bleating,
And neighs the proud steed beneath his palm,
To whose covert boughs the birds retreating,
In coolness chant their choral psalm.
Green grows the grass—
Like the waves we come, like the winds we pass!
III.
To hallow the memory of days that are fled?
With the haze of twilight begin to fill,
And darkly afar the eastward shadows
Stretch from the peaks of the sunless hill;
When the laggard oxen from fields of clover
Low mournfully as on they roam;
And, with sooty wing, sails slowly over
The night-o'ertaken crow to its home:
Oh, then the forms of the dear departed
Float, spectre-like, in Fancy's eye—
They come—the pale—the broken-hearted—
They come—the mirthful—flitting by;
The sights, the sounds of remembered years—
This in its buoyant tone rejoices,
That softly thrills on the brink of tears.
Green grows the grass—
Like the waves we come, like the winds we pass!
IV.
To hallow the memory of days that are fled?
The stars seal'd up, and the winds abroad;
When earth in a dreary pall is shrouded,
And sere leaves strew the uncertain road;
When desolate tones are around us moaning,
O'er gravestone grey, and through ruined aisle;
When startled ravens croak, and the groaning
Tempest uptosses forests the while—
Then let us pause by ourselves, and listen
To nature's dirge over human life;
And the heart will throb, the eye will glisten,
When Memory glances to prospects rife
With pleasures, which Time's rude whirlwind banish'd,
With meteor visions that flamed and fled,
With friends that smiled, and smiling vanish'd
To make their lone homes with the dead.
Green grows the grass—
Like the waves we come, like the winds we pass.
V.
To hallow the memory of days that are fled?
A lesson deep from unstable fate;
And Wisdom's small voice the spirit weaneth
From earth's forlorn and low estate:—
In Mirth,—because 'tis mockery surely
Of what we feel, and perceive around;
And the chasten'd bosom beats more purely,
When press our footsteps on hallowed ground:—
At all times,—for 'tis wisely loosing
The soul from ties that bind it down;
And a godlike strength is gained from musing
On the fate which soon must prove our own:
For here Sorrow's reign is short, if bitter;
And Pleasure's sunshine, though bright, is brief;
And pass our days o'er in gloom or glitter,
Death comes at length, like a silent thief!
Like the dews from grass—
Like the clouds from heaven, away we pass!
THE BARD'S WISH.
I
O! were I laidIn the greenwood shade,
Beneath the covert of waving trees;
Removed from woe,
And the ills below,
That render life but a long disease!
II
No more to weep,But in soothing sleep
To slumber on long ages through;
My grave-turf bright
With the rosy light
Of eve, or the morning's silver dew!
III
For all my dreams,And vision'd gleams,
Are not like those of this earthly span;
For ever away
From the noise of strife, and the haunts of man.
IV
I ask no dirge—The foaming surge
Of the torrent will sing a lament for me;
And the evening breeze,
That stirs the trees,
Will murmur a mournful lullaby.
V
Plant not—plant not—Above the spot,
Memorial stones for the stranger's gaze;
The earth and sky
Are enough, for I
Have lived with Nature all my days!
VI
O! were I laidIn the greenwood shade,
Beneath the covert of waving trees;
Removed from woe,
And the ills below,
That render life but a long disease!
THE LAMENT OF SELIM.
I.
The waters of the BosphorusHave lost their crimson glow as darkles
Day's occidental fire, and thus,
In tearful beauty tremulous,
The radiant Star of Evening sparkles
In the blue south, where Stamboul lies—
Its myriad minarets and spires,
Forsaken by red sunset's fires,
In darkness grouped against the skies:
Around my path the cypress trees
Are stirring in the landward breeze;
The flowers outbreathe beneath my feet,
Rejoicing that the sunny heat
Hath passed, and that the cooling dews
Are on their journey from the height
Of cloudless zenith, to infuse
Freshness, and fragrance, and delight,
On which they fall like angels' wings.
Far off the Muezzin's voice is heard,
The watcher's call to evening prayer;
And overhead that holy bird,
The Bulbul, charms the silent air
With notes alone to sorrow given,
Though breathed on earth that speak of Heaven,
And of the blessed bowers above,
For still their theme is love—is love!
If aught below can soothe the soul
Of him whose days ungladden'd roll
On, month by month, and year by year,
With naught to wish for, naught to fear,
It is an hour like this, so calm
Along the fragrant fields of balm
Luxurious Zephyr roams, and brings
Delicious freshness on his wings.
II.
But Thou art gone!—at twilight's gloomI come to rest beside thy tomb,
O Azza! thou of all the daughters
Of womankind, who wert most dear;
Thy voice than Zem-zem's murmurous waters
Was more delicious to mine ear;
Vainly the summer blossom seeks,
Beloved, to emulate thy cheek's
Soft natural peach-bloom; and thy brow
Outshone in whiteness the pure snow
On the hill-tops of northern climes;
Thy tresses were like black ripe berries
Down-clustering from the elder-tree;
Thy parting lips like cloven cherries,
That near each other lovingly;
And O, thine eyes! thy melting eyes,
More bright than Houri's glance of Heaven,
A diamond dowry from the skies
To thee alone of mortals given,
In their own depths of light did swim,
Making the wild gazelle's look dim.
III.
Still glooms the night, still shines the day,Beneath the moon's soft, silver ray,—
Beneath the sun's triumphant light,
That seems to make all nature bright;
And thou art not!—in solitude
The thoughts of other years awake,
No marvel that my heart should ache,
When on thy vanished charms I brood.
Oh, Azza! what is life to him
Whose star is quenched, whose day is dim—
Dim as the visioned hours of night,
When sorrows frown and cares affright!
And Thou art not!—I look around,
But thou art nowhere to be found!
I listen vainly for thy foot—
I listen, but thy voice is mute!
And all is misery, gloom, and fear!
This City of the Silent far
Transcends for me the haunts of men;
I'd rather house me in the den
Of hungry wolves than bide their jar:
There all is weariness, or strife
That makes an agony of life;
Serenely here the eye reposes
On sculptured turban-stones and roses.
IV.
Dark is the night of ruin, darkAs chaos ere the glorious sun
Awoke, or Eve her pearly bark
Launched forth, or stars like omens shone
Of blessedness beyond the grave
For all the faithful and the brave.
Whither would roam my visions, where
Find images of man's despair?
A vessel on a sunless sea
Tossing through mists eternally,
Without an anchor 'mid the waste
Of waves, where shore is never traced,
For ever beating round and round,
Through endless years, the dim profound;
Or like that bird, without the power,
'Mid winds that rush, and clouds that lower,
To light on earth—a bird of Thrace,
That knows no human dwelling-place.
V.
They say that woman, like a flower,Expands her beauties to the day,
Blooms through the lapse of Time's brief hour,
Then withers on the stalk away:
They say her span is short and narrow,
Though gemmed with flowers her earthly path,
And that the barb of Azrael's arrow
To her brings everlasting death—
A thing that Beauty's breath invents
Of perishable elements.
But man has higher hopes, they say,
That powers of darkness cannot bind him,
That, bursting from the tomb away,
He leaves the realms of change behind him;
That o'er Alsirat's arch he flies,
Until the shores of Paradise
Are gained, and Houris with a kiss
Give welcome to the bowers of bliss—
Of bliss that ends not—joy whose touch
To rapturous ecstasies elate him:
So joy-fraught is his doom, and such
The sun-bright fortunes that await him.
And can it be that Woman dies,
Like Gul in all her July glory,
Courting our love to mock our eyes
For aye—the moral of a story?
And can it be that she, who stole
My heart away, who was my trust,
My hope, of every wish the goal,
Whose elements were merely dust—
Dust, which shall sleep for evermore
Within the silent tomb's domain,
Which He who framed shall ne'er restore
To beauty, love, and life again?
If so, where lies my comfort, where?
I bow in silence to despair!
VI.
I ask not Heaven; there could not be,Azza beloved! at least for me,
A paradise that holds not thee.
Ah, no! my first, last, only love!
Nor in the amaranthine bowers,
Nor in the crystal shrines above,
The heart-felt bliss that once was ours
Could e'er my spirit hope to find;
Nor in the maids, whose glances dart,
Ever angelically kind,
New thrills of rapture through the heart:
To thee alone my thoughts would turn,
Fraught with undying love, and burn!
VII.
I lean my forehead on thy stone;And art Thou not? I dwell alone
In sorrow's cloud, since Thou art gone!
Howe'er I turn—where'er I flee—
Earth is a wilderness to me:
Thy timid step of fairy lightness;
Ah! ne'er shall break on me again,
Like lightning-flash, thy glance of brightness,
Thrilling my heart-strings with the glow
Of love, in all its lava flow.
VIII.
From men, and from the ways of men,When twilight's dewy shades descend,
Hither my willing footsteps tend
In solitary guise; and then,
While resting by thy tomb, I find
Solace, in pouring forth my mind
Unto the silence; for I ween
Thou still must be, although unseen,
Circling my path, until I flee
To dwell for evermore with thee,
In realms where anguish is forgot,
And hateful Azrael enters not,
But where a future ever bright
Shall smile, and naught have power to sever;
And where my soul, made blest for ever,
Shall sun itself in Azza's light.
THE DARK WAGGON.
I
The Water-Wraith shrieked over Clyde,The winds through high Dumbarton sighed,
When to the trumpet's call replied
The deep drum from the square;
And in the midnight's misty shade,
With helm, and cloak, and glancing blade,
Two hundred horsemen stood arrayed
Beneath the torch's glare.
II
Around a huge sepulchral vanThey took their station, horse and man.
The outer gateway's bolts withdrawn,
In haste the drawbridge fell;
And out, with iron clatter, went
That sullen midnight armament,
Alone the leader knew where bent,
With what—he might not tell.
III
Into the darkness they are gone:The blinded waggon thundered on,
And, save of hoof-tramp, sound was none:
Hurriedly on they scour
The eastward track—away—away—
To none they speak, brook no delay,
Till farm-cocks heralded the day,
And hour had followed hour.
IV
Behind them, mingling with the skies,Westward the smoke of Glasgow dies—
The pastoral hills of Campsie rise
Northward in morning's air—
By Kirkintilloc, Cumbernold,
And Castlecary, on they hold,
Till Lythgo shows, in mirrored gold,
Its palaced loch so fair.
It is mentioned by both the chroniclers, Hemingford, (i. 196,) and Trivet, (332,) that Edward I. built “a strength” or fort “at Linlitcu” in 1301, and there enjoyed the festivities of Christmas. Lord Hailes inaccurately states that he wintered there; for, by dates since collected from writs, Chalmers has proved that, although Edward was still at Linlithgow on the 12th January, he was, on his way home, at Roxburgh on 12th February, and had reached Morpeth by the 24th.
This fort, or castle, was probably the same that was, a few years afterwards, taken by the stratagem of the patriotic yeoman, Binny, in concealing some of his followers in a waggon of hay; and who was rewarded by King Robert with an estate, which his posterity long afterwards enjoyed.
V
Brief baiting-time:—the bugle sounds,Onwards the ponderous van rebounds
'Mid the grim squadron, which surrounds
Its path with spur and spear.
Thy shrine, Dumanie, fades on sight,
Dalmeny Church is unquestionably of very great antiquity. From the style of its architecture, which a most competent authority, Mr Billings, (Baronial and Ecclesiastical Antiquities, vol. i.,) has pronounced to be of the purest Norman, it is referred, at least, to the tenth or eleventh centuries. There is extant a charter of Waldeve, Earl of Dunbar, from 1166 to 1182, witnessed by the parson of Dumanie.
And, seen from Niddreff's hazelly height,
The Forth, amid its islands bright,
Shimmers with lustre clear.
On these banks a castle was afterwards erected by the Earls of Wintoun, the picturesque ruins of which are yet a prominent object, by the edge of the Edinburgh and Glasgow railway, to the west of Kirkliston. Queen Mary is said to have slept there, on her flight from Lochleven to Hamilton, 2d May 1568.
VI
The Maiden Castle next surveyed,Across the furzy hills of Braid,
By Craig-Milor,
The name has for centuries been vulgarised into Craigmillar. Adam de Cardonnel, in his Picturesque Antiquities, adheres to the spelling in the text; although it is generally now admitted that the appellation is Gaelic—Craig-moil-ard, or the high bare rock running out into a plain. The original structure is of unknown antiquity.
To Inneresc they wound;
Woolmet, or Wymet, and Inneresc, were granted by charter of David I. to the Abbey of Dunfermline; the latter in confirmation of a previous grant by Malcolm Canmore and Queen Margaret, (Registrum de Dunfermlyn, Imp. Edin. 1842, p. 5, 6.) A small mausoleum of the Wauchope family now occupies the site of the chapel of Wymet; and the venerable pile of St Michael the Archangel, at Inneresc, was ruthlessly demolished in 1804. The house in which the great Randolph died, which was about half a mile distant, was also hewn down, about ten years afterwards, to make way for a shabby masonic lodge.
Then o'er the Garlton crags afar,
Where, oft a check to England's war,
Cospatrick's stronghold of Dunbar
In proud defiance frowned.
The family of Cospatrick, a powerful Northumbrian nobleman, took refuge in Scotland after the death of Harold at Hastings, and in 1072 had extensive lands in the Merse and Lothian gifted them by Malcolm Canmore. They continued to be one of the most opulent and powerful houses in the east of Scotland for a considerable period, as evidenced by their donations, noted in the chartularies of Coldingham, Newbottle, Dryburgh, Kelso, Melrose, and Soltra. Founded on a steep rugged rock, within sea-mark, and communicating with the land through a covered passage, the castle of Dunbar might well, before the invention of gunpowder, have been deemed impregnable. It was often the theatre of warlike contention, and two great battles were fought in its immediate neighbourhood, —the first in 1296, when Earl Warenne defeated the army of Scotland sent for its relief; and the second in 1650, when Leslie was overthrown by Cromwell. It was often besieged, and as often bravely defended; but perhaps never so brilliantly as by Black Agnes against the Earl of Salisbury in 1337.
VII
Weep through each grove, ye tearful rills!Ye ivied caves, which Echo fills
With voice, lament! Ye proud, free hills,
Where eagles wheel and soar,
Bid noontide o'er your summits throw
Storm's murkiest cloud! Ye vales below,
Let all your wild-flowers cease to blow,
And with bent heads deplore!
VIII
Ye passions, that, with holy fire,Illume man's bosom—that inspire
To daring deed, or proud desire,
With indignation burn!
Ye household charities, that keep
Watch over childhood's rosy sleep,
With ashes strew the hearthstone,—weep
As o'er a funeral urn!
IX
On—on they speed. Oh dreary day,That, like a vampire, drained away
The blood from Scotland's heart! Delay,
Thou lingering sun, to set!
Rain, twilight! rain down bloody dews
O'er all the eye far northward views;
Nor do thou, night of nights! refuse
A darkness black as jet.
X
Heroic spirits of the dead!That in the body nobly bled,
By whom the battle-field for bed
Was chosen, look ye down,—
And see if hearts are all grown cold,—
If for their just rights none are bold,—
If servile earth one bosom hold,
Worthy of old renown?
XI
The pass-word given, o'er bridge of TweedThe cavalcade, with slackened speed,
Rolled on, like one from nightmare freed,
That draws an easier breath;
But o'er and round it hung the gloom
As of some dark, mysterious doom—
Shadows cast forward from the tomb,
And auguries of death.
XII
Scotland receded from the view,And, on the far horizon blue,
Faded her last, dear hills—the mew
Screamed to its sea-isle near.
As day-beams ceased the west to flout,
Each after each the stars came out,
Like camp-fires heaven's high hosts about,
With lustre calm and clear.
XIII
And on, through many a Saxon townNorthumbrian, and of quaint renown,
Before the morning star went down,
With thunderous reel they hied;
While from the lattices aloof,
Of many an angled, grey-stone roof,
Rose sudden heads, as sound of hoof
And wheel to southward died.
XIV
Like Hope's voice preaching to Despair,Sweetly the chimes for matin prayer
Melted upon the dewy air
From Hexham's holy pile;
But, like the adder deaf, no sound,
Or stern or sweet, an echo found
'Mid that dark squadron, as it wound
Still onward, mile on mile.
XV
Streamers, and booths, and country games,And brawny churls, with rustic names,
And blooming maids, and buxom dames—
A boisterous village fair!
On stage his sleights the jongleur shows,
Like strutting cock the jester crows,
And high the morrice-dancer throws
His antic heels in air.
XVI
Why pause at reel each lad and lass?A solemn awe pervades the mass;
Wondering they see the travellers pass,
The horsemen journey-worn,
And, in the midst, that blinded van
So hearse-like; while, from man to man,
“Is it of Death,” in whispers ran,
“This spectacle forlorn?”
XVII
Bright are thy shadowy forest-bowers,Fair Ashby-de-la-Zouche! with flowers;
The wild-deer in its covert cowers,
And, from its pine-tree old,
The startled cushat, in unrest,
Circles around its airy nest,
As forward, on its route unblest,
Aye on that waggon rolled.
XVIII
And many a grove-encircled town,And many a keep of old renown,
That grimly watched o'er dale and down,
They passed unheeding by;
Prone from the rocks the waters streamed,
And, 'mid the yellow harvests, gleamed
The reapers' sickles, but all seemed
Mere pictures to the eye.
XIX
Behold a tournay on the green!The tents are pitched—the tilters keen
Gambol the listed lines between—
The motley crowds around
For jibe, and jest, and wanton play
Are met—a merry holiday;
And glide the lightsome hours away
In mirth, to music's sound.
XX
And hark! the exulting shouts that rise,As, cynosure of circling eyes,
Beauty's fair queen awards the prize
To knight that lowly kneels.
“Make way—make way!” is heard aloud—
Like red sea waters part the crowd,
And, scornful of that pageant proud,
On grinding rush the wheels!
XXI
Hundreds and hamlets far from sight,By lonely granges through the night
They camped; and, ere the morning light
Crimsoned the orient, they,
By royal road or baron's park,
Waking the watchful ban-dog's bark,
Before the first song of the lark,
Were on their southward way.
XXII
By Althorpe, and by Oxendon,Without a halt they hurried on,
Nor paused by that fair cross of stone,
Now for the first time seen,
(For death's dark billows overwhelm
Both jewelled braid, and knightly helm!)
Raised, by the monarch of the realm,
To Eleanor his queen.
This venerable memorial, which gives the name of “Queen's Cross” to the neighbouring locality in Northamptonshire, is a beautiful specimen of architecture, although much defaced by time and the efforts of renovators.
The “trellised” vest, mentioned in stanza XXIV., was a species of armour, so called by contemporary Norman writers, and consisted of a cloth coat, reaching only to the haunches. This was intersected by broad straps of leather, so laid on as to cross each other, and leave small intervening squares of cloth, in the middle of which was a knob of steel.— Vide Meyrick's Ancient Armour, vol. i. p. 11.
XXIII
Five times through darkness and through day,Since crossing Tweed, with fresh relay
Ever in wait, their forward way
That cavalcade had held;
Now joy! for on the weary wights
Loomed London from the Hampstead heights,
As, by the opal morning, night's
Thin vapours were dispell'd.
XXIV
With spur on heel, and spear in rest,And buckler'd arm, and trellised breast,
Closer around their charge they press'd—
On whirled, with livelier roll,
The wheels begirt with prancing feet,
And arms, a serried mass complete,
Until, by many a stately street,
They reached their destined goal.
XXV
Grim Westminster! thy pile severeStruck to the heart like sudden fear;
“Hope flies from all that enter here!”
Seemed graven on its crest.
The moat o'erpassed, at warn of bell,
Down thundering the portcullis fell,
And clang'd the studded gates—a knell
Despairing and unblest.
XXVI
Ye guardian angels! that fulfilHeaven's high decrees, and work its will—
Ye thunderbolts! launched forth to kill—
Where was it then ye slept,
When, foe-bemocked, in prison square,
To death fore-doomed, with dauntless air,
From out that van,
A shackled man,
Sir William Wallace stept!
DISENCHANTMENT.
I
Although from Adam stained with crime,A halo girds the path of time,
As 'twere things humble with sublime,
Divine with mortal blending,
And that which is, with that which seems—
Till blazoned o'er were Jacob's dreams
With Heaven's angelic hosts, in streams
Descending and ascending.
II
Ask of the clouds, why Eden's dyesHave vanished from the sunset skies?
Ask of the winds, why harmonies
Now breathe not in their voices?
Ask of the spring, why from the bloom
Of lilies comes a less perfume?
And why the linnet, 'mid the broom,
Less lustily rejoices?
III
Silent are now the sylvan tents;The elves to airy elements
Resolved are gone; grim castled rents
No more show demons gazing,
With evil eyes, on wandering men;
And, where the dragon had his den
Of fire, within the haunted glen,
Now herds unharmed are grazing.
A clearer day has dispelled the marvels, which showed themselves in heaven above and in earth beneath, when twilight and superstition went hand in hand. Horace's
“Somnis, terrores magicos, miracula, sagas,Nocturnos Lemures, portentaque Thessala,”
as well as Milton's
“Gorgons, Hydras, and Chimæas dire,”have all been found wanting when reduced to the admeasurements of science; and the “sounds that syllable men's names, on sands, and shores, and desert wildernesses,” are quenched in silence, or only exist in what James Hogg most poetically terms
“That undefined and minglod hum.Voice of the desert, never dumb.”
The inductive philosophy was “the bare bodkin” which gave many a pleasant vision “its quietus.” “Homo, naturæ minister,” saith Lord Bacon, “et interpres, tantum facit et intelligit, quantum de naturæ ordine se vel mente observaverit: nec amplius scit nec potest.”—Nov. Organum, Aph. I.
The fabulous dragon has long acted a conspicuous part in the poetry both of the north and south. We find him in the legends of Regnar Lodbrog and Kempion, and in the episode of Brandimarte in the second book of the Orlando Inamorato. He is also to be recognised as the huge snake of the Edda, and figures with ourselves in the stories of the Chevalier St George and the Dragon—of Moor of Moorhall and the Dragon of Wantley—in the Dragon of Loriton—in the Laidley Worm of Spindleton Haugh—in the Flying Serpent of Lockburne—the Snake of Wormieston, &c. &c. Bartholinus and Saxo-Grammaticus volunteer us some curious information regarding a species of these monsters, whose particular office was to keep watch over hidden treasure. The winged Gryphon is of “auld descent,” and has held a place in unnatural history from Herodotus (Thalia, 116, and Melpomene, 13, 27) to Milton, (Paradise Lost, book v.)—
“As when a Gryphon, through the wilderness,With winged course, o'er hill or moory dale,
Pursues the Arimaspian,” &c.
IV
No more, as horror stirs the trees,The path-belated peasant sees
Witches adown the sleety breeze,
To Lapland flats careering:
Of the many mysterious chapters of the human mind, surely one of the most obscure and puzzling is that of witchcraft. For some reason, not sufficiently explained, Lapland was set down as a favourite seat of the orgies of the “Midnight Hags.” When, in the ballad of “The Witch of Fife,” the auld gudeman, in the exercise of his conjugal authority, questions his errant spouse regarding her nocturnal absences without leave, she is made ecstatically to answer—
“Whan we came to the Lapland lone,The fairies war all in array;
For all the genii of the North
War keepyng their holyday.
The warlocke men and the weird womyng,
And the fays of the woode and the steep,
And the phantom hunteris all were there,
And the mermaidis of the deep,
And they washit us all with the witch-water,
Distillit fra the moorland dow,
Quhill our beauty bloomit like the Lapland rose,
That wylde in the foreste grew.”
Queen's Wake, Night 1st.
“Like, but oh how different,” are these unearthly goings-on to the details in the Walpurgis Night of Faust, (act v. scene 1.) “The phantom-hunters” of the north were not the “Wilde Jäger” of Burger, or “the Erl-king” of Goethe. It is related by Hearne, that the tribes of the Chippewa Indians suppose the northern lights to be occasioned by the frisking of herds of deer in the fields above, caused by the haloo and chase of their departed friends.
As on through storms the Sea-kings sweep,
No more the Kraken huge, asleep,
Looms like an island, 'mid the deep,
Rising and disappearing.
V
No more, reclined by Cona's streams,Before the seer, in waking dreams,
The dim funereal pageant gleams,
Futurity fore-showing;
No more, released from churchyard trance,
Athwart blue midnight spectres glance,
Or mingle in the bridal dance,
To vanish ere cock-crowing.
It is very probable that the apparitional visit of “Alonzo the Brave” to the bridal of “the Fair Imogene,” was suggested to M. G. Lewis by the story in the old chronicles of the skeleton masquer taking his place among the wedding revellers, at Jedburgh Castle, on the night when Alexander III., in 1286, espoused as his second queen, Joleta, daughter of the Count le Dreux. These were the palmy days of portents; and the prophecy uttered by Thomas of Ercildoune, of the storm which was to roar
“From Rosa's hills to Solway sea,”was supposed to have had its fulfilment in the death of the lamented monarch, which occurred, only a few months after the appearance of the skeleton masquer, by a fall from his horse, over a precipice, while hunting between Burntisland and Kinghorn, at a place still called “the King's Wood-end.”
Wordsworth appears to have had the subject in his eye, in two of the stanzas of his lyric entitled Presentiments, the last of which runs as follows:—
“Ye daunt the proud array of war,Pervade the lonely ocean far
As sail hath been unfurled,
For dancers in the festive hall
What ghostly partners hath your call
Fetch'd from the shadowy world.”
poetical works (1845,) p. 176.
The same incident has been made the subject of some very spirited vorses, in a little volume—Ballads and Lays from Scottish History—published in 1844, and which, I fear, has not attracted the attention to which its intrinsic merits assuredly entitle it.
VI
Alas! that Fancy's fount should cease!In rose-hues limn'd, the myths of Greece
Have waned to dreams—the Colchian fleece,
And labours of Alcides:
Nay, Homer, even thy mighty line—
Thy living tale of Troy divine—
The sceptic scholiast doubts if thine,
Or Priam, or Pelides!
VII
As silence listens to the lark,And orient beams disperse the dark,
How sweet to roam abroad, and mark
Their gold the fields adorning!
But when we think of where are they,
Whose bosoms like our own were gay,
While April gladdened life's young day,
Joy takes the garb of mourning.
VIII
Warm-gushing through the heart come backThe thoughts that brightened boyhood's track;
And hopes, as 'twere from midnight black,
All star-like reawaken;
Until we feel how, one by one,
The faces of the loved are gone,
And grieve for those left here alone,
Not those who have been taken.
IX
The past returns in all we see,The billowy cloud and branching tree;
In all we hear—the bird and bee
Remind of pleasures cherish'd;
When all is lost it loved the best,
Oh! pity on that vacant breast,
Which would not rather be at rest
Than pine amid the perish'd!
X
A balmy eve! the round white moonImparadises midmost June,
Tune trills the nightingale on tune—
What magic! when a lover,
To him who, now grey-haired and lone,
Bends o'er the sad sepulchral stone
Of her, whose heart was once his own:
Ah! bright dream briefly over!
XI
See how from port the vessel glidesWith streamered masts, o'er halcyon tides;
Its laggard course the sea-boy chides,
All loth that calms should bind him;
But distance only chains him more,
With love-links, to his native shore,
And sleep's best dream is to restore
The home he left behind him.
XII
To sanguine youth's enraptured eyeHeaven has its reflex in the sky,
The winds themselves have melody,
Like harp some seraph sweepeth;
A silver decks the hawthorn bloom,
A legend shrines the mossy tomb,
And spirits throng the starry gloom,
Her reign when midnight keepeth.
XIII
Silence o'erhangs the Delphic cave;Where strove the bravest of the brave,
Naught met the wandering Byron, save
A lone deserted barrow;
And Fancy's iris waned away
When Wordsworth ventured to survey,
Beneath the light of common day,
The dowie dens of Yarrow.
XIV
Little we dream—when life is new,And Nature fresh and fair to view,
When throbs the heart to pleasure true,
As if for naught it wanted—
That year by year, and ray by ray,
Romance's sunlight dies away,
And long before the hair is grey,
The heart is disenchanted.
THE SYCAMINE.
I
The frail yellow leaves they are falling,As the wild winds sweep the grove;
Plashy and dank is the sward beneath,
And the sky it is grey above.
II
Foaming adown the dark rocks,Dirge-like, the waterfall
Mourns, as if mourning for something gone,
For ever beyond its call.
III
Sing, redbreast, from the russet spray—Thy song with the season blends;
For the bees have left us with the blooms,
And the swallows were summer friends.
IV
The hawthorn bare, with berries sere,And the bramble by the stream,
Matted, with clay on its yellow trails,
Decay's wan emblems seem.
V
On this slope bank how oft we layIn shadow of the sycamine tree;
Pause, hoary Eld, and listen now—
'Twas but the roaring of the sea!
VI
Oh, the shouts and the laughter of yore—How the tones wind round the heart!
Oh, the faces blent with youth's blue skies—
And could ye so depart!
VII
The crow screams back to the wood,And the sea-mew to the sea,
And earth seems to the foot of man
No resting-place to be.
VIII
Search ye the corners of the world,And the isles beyond the main,
And the main itself, for those who went
To come not back again!
IX
The rest are a remnant scatter'd'Mid the living; and, for the dead,
Tread lightly o'er the churchyard mounds—
Ye know not where ye tread!
THE COVENANTERS' NIGHT-HYMN.
Making all allowances for the many over-coloured pictures, nay, often one-sided statements of such apologetic chroniclers as Knox, Melville, Calderwood, and Row, it is yet difficult to divest the mind of a strong leaning towards the old Presbyterians and champions of the Covenant; probably because we believe them to have been sincere, and know them to have been persecuted and oppressed. Nevertheless, the liking is as often allied to sympathy as to approbation; for a sifting of motives exhibits, in but too many instances, a sad commixture of the chaff of selfishness with the grain of principle—an exhibition of the over and over again played game, by which the gullible many are made the tools of the crafty and designing few. Be it allowed that, both in their preachings from the pulpit and their teachings by example, the Covenanters frequently proceeded more in the spirit of fanaticism than of sober religious feeling; and that, in their antagonistic ardour, they did not hesitate to carry the persecutions of which they themselves so justly complained into the camp of the adversary—sacrificing
Be it remembered, also, that these religious persecutions were not mere things of a day, but were continued through at least three entire generations. They extended from the accession of James VI. to the English throne, (testibus the rhymes of Sir David Lindsay, and the classic prose of Buchanan,) down to the Revolution of 1688—almost a century, during which many thousands tyrannically perished, without in the least degree loosening that tenacity of purpose, or subduing that perfervidum ingenium, which, according to Thuanus, have been national characteristics.
As in almost all similar cases, the cause of the Covenanters, so strenuously and unflinchingly maintained, ultimately resulted in the victory of Protestantism—that victory, the fruits of which we have seemed of late years so readily inclined to throw away; and, in its rural districts more especially, of nothing are the people more justly proud than—
—“The talesOf persecution and the Covenant,
Whose echo rings through Scotland to this hour.”
So says Wordsworth. These traditions have been emblazoned by the pens of Scott, M`Crie, Galt, Hogg, Wilson, Grahame, and Pollok, and by the pencils of Wilkie, Harvey, and Duncan, —each regarding them with the eye of his peculiar genius. In reference to the following stanzas, it should be remembered that, during the holding of their conventicles—which frequently, in the more troublous time, took place amid mountain solitudes, and during the night—a sentinel was stationed on some commanding height in the neighbourhood, to give warning of the approach of danger.
I
Ho! plaided watcher of the hill,What of the night?—what of the night?
The winds are lown, the woods are still,
The countless stars are sparkling bright;
From out this heathery moorland glen,
By the shy wildfowl only trod,
We raise our hymn, unheard of men,
To Thee, an omnipresent God!
II
Jehovah! though no sign appear,Through earth our aimless path to lead,
We know, we feel Thee ever near,
A present help in time of need—
Near, as when, pointing out the way,
For ever in thy people's sight,
A pillared wreath of smoke by day,
Which turned to fiery flame at night!
III
Whence came the summons forth to go?—From Thee awoke the warning sound!
“Out to your tents, O Israel! Lo!
The heathen's warfare girds thee round.
Sons of the faithful! up—away!
The lamb must of the wolf beware;
The falcon seeks the dove for prey;
The fowler spreads his cunning snare!”
IV
Day set in gold; 'twas peace around—'Twas seeming peace by field and flood:
We woke, and on our lintels found
The cross of wrath—the mark of blood.
Lord! in thy cause we mocked at fears,
We scorned the ungodly's threatening words—
Beat out our pruning-hooks to spears,
And turned our ploughshares into swords!
V
Degenerate Scotland! days have beenThy soil when only freemen trod—
When mountain-crag and valley green
Poured forth the loud acclaim to God!—
The fire which liberty imparts,
Refulgent in each patriot eye,
And, graven on a nation's hearts,
The Word—for which we stand or die!
VI
Unholy change! The scorner's chairIs now the seat of those who rule;
Tortures, and bonds, and death, the share
Of all except the tyrant's tool.
That faith in which our fathers breathed,
And had their life, for which they died—
That priceless heirloom they bequeathed
Their sons—our impious foes deride!
VII
So We have left our homes behind,And We have belted on the sword,
And We in solemn league have joined,
Yea! covenanted with the Lord,
Never to seek those homes again,
Never to give the sword its sheath,
Until our rights of faith remain
Unfettered as the air we breathe!
VIII
O Thou, who rulest above the sky,Begirt about with starry thrones,
Cast from the Heaven of Heavens thine eye
Down on our wives and little ones—
From Hallelujahs surging round,
Oh! for a moment turn thine ear,
The widow prostrate on the ground,
The famished orphan's cries to hear!
IX
And Thou wilt hear! it cannot be,That Thou wilt list the raven's brood,
When from their nest they scream to Thee,
And in due season send them food;
It cannot be that Thou wilt weave
The lily such superb array,
And yet unfed, unsheltered, leave
Thy children—as if less than they!
X
We have no hearths—the ashes lieIn blackness where they brightly shone;
We have no homes—the desert sky
Our covering, earth our couch alone:
We have no heritage—depriven
Of these, we ask not such on earth;
Our hearts are sealed; we seek in Heaven
For heritage, and home, and hearth!
XI
O Salem, city of the saint,And holy men made perfect! We
Pant for thy gates, our spirits faint
Thy glorious golden streets to see—
To mark the rapture that inspires
The ransomed, and redeemed by grace;
To listen to the seraphs' lyres,
And meet the angels face to face!
XII
Father in Heaven! we turn not back,Though briars and thorns choke up the path;
Rather the tortures of the rack,
Than tread the winepress of thy wrath!
Let thunders crash, let torrents shower,
Let whirlwinds churn the howling sea,
What is the turmoil of an hour,
To an eternal calm with Thee!
REQUIEM.
TO THE MUSIC OF MOZART.
I
Gone art thou, in youthful sweetness,Time's short changeful voyage o'er;
Now thy beauty in completeness
Blooms on Heaven's unfading shore:
What to us is life behind thee?
Darkness and despair alone!
When with sighs we seek to find thee,
Echo answers moan for moan!
II
Not in winter's stormy blusterDidst thou droop in pale decay,
But 'mid summer light and lustre
Pass to Paradise away.
Yes! when toned to rapture only,
Sang the birds among the bowers,
Rapt from earth to leave us lonely,
Bliss was thine and sorrow ours!
III
Mourners, solemn vigil keeping,Knelt in silence round thy bed;
Could they deem thee only sleeping,
When to Heaven thy spirit fled?
Yes! that spirit then was winging
Upwards from its shell of clay,
Guardian angels round it singing—
“Welcome to the realms of day!”
IV
Less when Eve's low shadows darklingShut the wild flowers on the lea,
Than when Dawn's last star is sparkling,
Silence draws our thoughts to thee—
Thee—who, robed in light excelling,
Stood'st a seraph by the hearth—
Far too bright for mortal dwelling,
Far—by far too good for earth!
V
Fare-thee-well! a track of gloryShows where'er thy steps have been,
Making Life a lovely story,
Earth a rich, romantic scene:
Dim when Duty's way before us,
As the magnet charts the sea,
May thy pure star glowing o'er us
Point the path to Heaven and Thee!
THE MATIN CAROL.
I
The splendid matin sunIs mounting upward through the orient skies;
The young day is begun,
And shadowy twilight from the landscape flies.
II
No more the grey owls roam,Seeking their prey 'mid duskiness and shade;
The bat hath hied him home,
And in some creviced pile a resting made.
III
Haste, then, my love, O! haste;The dews are melting from the fresh green grass:
Arise—no longer waste
The pleasant hours that thus so sweetly pass.
IV
The frolic hare peeps out,Out from her leafy covert, and looks round;
The wild birds flit about,
And fill the clear soft air with gentlest sound.
V
Come, love! of softest blue,Beneath the bordering trees, the stream flows on;
The night-hawk thou may'st view,
Sitting in stirless silence on his stone.
VI
The lark soars up, soars up,With twinkling pinions to salute the morn;
Over its foxglove cup
The wild bee hangs, winding its tiny horn.
VII
Bright flowers of every dye,Blossoms of odours sweet are breathing round;
The west wind wanders by,
And, kissing, bends their lithe stalks to the ground.
VIII
All things of bliss, and love,And gentleness, and harmony proclaim;
Echo, from out the grove,
Murmurs, as I repeat thy dear-loved name.
IX
Haste, then, beloved, haste;Come to these cooling shades, and wander free:
My spirit will not taste
Earth's cup of joy till first 'tis kiss'd by thee!
STANZAS. WHEN THOU AT EVENTIDE ART ROAMING.
This little poem is curious from a circumstance connected with it. Towards the end of 1817, the Rev. Dr M— gave a copy of the MS. to Mr Constable, and it was inserted in his magazine for November, without mark or signature. In 1819, Emmeline, the posthumous work of Mrs Brunton, appeared, with a biographical memoir by the Professor, and an appendix of four small poems, the last of which was this identical one, accompanied with a very flattering notice. On explanation, it appeared that a written copy was found in the work-box, which the authoress of Self-Control had been using on the day previous to her fatal illness; and no doubt of its being hers was entertained, on account of her not being in the habit of making copies. “It was so unusual with her to transcribe,” says the Doctor in a letter now before me, “that this is nearly the only instance. I never hesitated, therefore, to consider it as hers, and to view it as a legacy intended for myself. In the latter light, I flatter myself I may regard it still; though I, of course, restore to its proper owner the merit of the composition.”
I am only sorry that circumstances occurred to break this illusion; but it was broken.
I
When thou at eventide art roamingAlong the elm-o'ershadow'd walk,
Where fast the eddying stream is foaming,
And falling down—a cataract,
'Twas there with thee I wont to talk;
Think thou upon the days gone by,
And heave a sigh.
II
When sails the moon above the mountains,And cloudless skies are purely blue,
And sparkle in her light the fountains,
And darker frowns the lonely yew,
Then be thou melancholy too,
While pausing on the hours I proved
With thee, beloved.
III
When wakes the dawn upon thy dwelling,And lingering shadows disappear,
As soft the woodland songs are swelling
A choral anthem on thine ear,
Muse—for that hour to thought is dear,
And then its flight remembrance wings
To by-past things.
IV
To me, through every season, dearest;In every scene, by day, by night,
Thou, present to my mind, appearest
A quenchless star, for ever bright;
My solitary, sole delight;
Where'er I am, by shore—at sea—
I think of thee!
REMEMBERED BEAUTY.
Shrined in the soul, for ever beautiful,
Undimm'd with earth—its tears—its weaknesses—
And changeless.
Anster.
When pleasure to the heart is but a dream,
And life with cheerless gloom is canopied;
Amidst my musings, when I stray alone
Through moorland wastes and woodland solitudes;
Or when, at twilight, by the hearth I sit,
In loneliness and silence, bursting through
The shadows of my reverie, appears,
In undecay'd perfection, the same smile,
The same bewitching and seraphic form.
It cannot pass away—it haunts me still;
From slumber waking on my midnight couch,
Methinks I see it floating beautiful
Before me—still before me, like a star
O'er the dark outline of a mountain-steep;
And, when the glory of the crimson morn,
Tinging the honeysuckle flowers, breaks in,
Revolving silently the by-past times,
Quiet and lovely, like a rainbow-gleam
O'er tempests that have shower'd and pass'd away.
The lightning-gleams that flash upon the heart;
Nor pass, amid the solitudes of life,
Its bright green spots unnoticed, or its flowers.
Long years have passed—'twas on a festal night,
A night of innocent mirth and revelry,
When, bounding, throbb'd the youthful heart, and smiles
Play'd, meteor-like, upon a hundred cheeks,
As if contagiously; while sparkling lamps
Pour'd forth a deluging lustre o'er the crowd,
And music, like a Syren, weaned the heart
From every grovelling and contentious thought,
From every care; amid familiar friends,
The lovely and the faithful, glad I stood
To mark them all so joyous; as I gazed,
An eye encounter'd mine, that startled me—
Sure never breathing creature was more fair!
Amid the mazy movements of the dance,
Accordant to the music's finest tone,
Sylph-like she floated; graceful as the swan
Oaring its way athwart a summer lake,
Her step almost as silent: as she stood,
Again that heavenly eye encounter'd mine.
Pale was the brow, as if serenest thought,
Quiet, and innocence, alone dwelt there;
A laughing smile, like Hebe's, which dispell'd
Its calmness, and betoken'd life and joy.
Her golden tresses, from her temples pale,
And from her rounded alabaster neck,
Were filleted up with roses and gay flowers,
Wove like a garland round them: skiey robes,
The tincture of the young Year's finest blue,
Were thrown in beauty round her graceful form,
And added to its brightness; so that he
Who dwelt on it delighted, almost fear'd
The vision would disperse into the air,
And mock his gaze with vacancy.—'Tis past.
Years have outspread their shadowy wings between,
But yet the sound of that fair lady's voice
Hath been a music to my soul unheard;
The lightning of that glorious countenance,
The shining riches of that golden hair,
The fascination of those magic eyes,
The smiling beauty of those small red lips,
The graceful lightness of that angel form,
Have been to me but things of memory.
Before that festal night, 'mid woman-kind,
That peerless form did never bless my view;
It was to me a blank—a thing unknown:
After that festal night, my wistful eyes
Have never feasted on its loveliness;
I know not whence it came—or whither fled—
I know not by what human name 'tis call'd—
Whether 'tis yet a blossom of this earth,
It is to me a treasure of the mind,
A picture in the chambers of the brain
Hung up, and framed—a flower from youthful years,
Breath'd on by heavenly zephyrs, and preserved
Safe from decay, in everlasting bloom!
This earth alone is ours; it cannot be
That, for a fleeting span of chequer'd years,
Of broken sunshine, cloudiness, and storm,
We tread this sublunary scene—and die,
Like winds that wail amid a dreary wood,
To silence and to nothingness; like waves
That murmur on the sea-beach, and dissolve.
Why, then, from out the temple of our hearts,
Do aspirations spring, that overleap
The barriers of our mortal destiny,
And chain us to the very gates of Heaven?
Why does the beauty of a vernal morn,
When earth, exulting from her wintry tomb,
Breaks forth with early flowers, and song of birds,
Strike on our hearts, as ominous, and say,
Surely man's fate is such?—At summer eve,
Why do the faëry, unsubstantial clouds,
Trick'd out in rainbow garments, glimmer forth
To mock us with their loveliness, and tell
That earth hath not of these?—The tiny stars,
That gem in countless crowds the midnight sky,
Why were they placed so far beyond the grasp
The expansion of our limited faculties,
If, one day, like the isles that speck the main,
These worlds shall spread not open to our view?—
Why do the mountain-steeps their solitudes
Expand?—or, roaring down the dizzy rocks,
The mighty cataracts descend in foam?—
Is it to show our insignificance?
To tell us we are nought?—And, finally,
If born not to behold supernal things,
Why have we glimpses of beatitude—
Have images of majesty and beauty
Presented to our gaze—and taken from us?—
For Thou art one of such, most glorious form,
A portion of some unseen paradise,
That visitest the silence of my thought,
Rendering life beautiful.
THE VETERAN TAR.
I
A mariner, whom fate compell'dTo make his home ashore,
Lived in yon cottage on the mount,
With ivy mantled o'er;
Because he could not breathe beyond
The sound of ocean's roar.
II
He placed yon vane upon the roofTo mark how stood the wind;
For breathless days and breezy days
Brought back old times to mind,
When rock'd amid the shrouds, or on
The sunny deck reclined.
III
And in his spot of garden groundAll ocean plants were met—
Salt lavender, that lacks perfume,
With scented mignonette;
And, blending with the roses' bloom,
Sea-thistles freak'd with jet.
IV
Models of cannon'd ships of war,Rigg'd out in gallant style;
Pictures of Camperdown's red fight,
And Nelson at the Nile,
Were round his cabin hung,—his hours,
When lonely, to beguile.
V
And there were charts and soundings, madeBy Anson, Cook, and Bligh;
Fractures of coral from the deep,
And storm-stones from the sky;
Shells from the shores of gay Brazil;
Stuff'd birds, and fishes dry.
VI
Old Simon had an orphan been,No relative had he;
Even from his childhood was he seen
A haunter of the quay;
So, at the age of raw thirteen,
He took him to the sea.
VII
Four years on board a merchantmanHe sail'd—a growing lad;
And all the isles of western Ind,
In endless summer clad,
He knew, from pastoral St Lucie,
To palmy Trinidad.
VIII
But sterner life was in his thoughts,When, 'mid the sea-fight's jar,
Stoop'd Victory from the batter'd shrouds,
To crown the British tar;
'Twas then he went, a volunteer,
On board a ship of war.
IX
Through forty years of storm and shineHe plough'd the changeful deep;
From where beneath the tropic line
The winged fishes leap,
To where frost seals the Polar seas
In everlasting sleep.
X
I recollect the brave old man:Methinks upon my view
He comes again—his varnish'd hat,
Striped shirt, and jacket blue;
His bronzed and weather-beaten cheek,
Keen eye, and plaited queue.
XI
Yon turfen bench the veteran loved,Beneath the threshold tree;
For from that spot he could survey
The broad expanse of sea—
That element, where he so long
Had been a rover free.
XII
And lighted up his faded face,When, drifting in the gale,
He with his telescope could catch,
Far off, a coming sail:
It was a music to his ear,
To list the sea-mew's wail.
XIII
Oft would he tell how, under Smith,Upon the Egyptian strand,
Eager to beat the boastful French,
They join'd the men on land,
And plied their deadly shots, intrench'd
Behind their bags of sand.
XIV
And when he told, how, thro' the Sound,With Nelson in his might,
They pass'd the Cronberg batteries,
To quell the Dane in fight,
His voice with vigour fill'd again,
His veteran eye with light.
XV
But chiefly of hot TrafalgarThe brave old man would speak;
And, when he show'd his oaken stump,
A glow suffused his cheek,
While his eye fill'd—for wound on wound
Had left him worn and weak.
XVI
Ten years, in vigorous old age,Within that cot he dwelt;
Tranquil as falls the snow on snow,
Life's lot to him was dealt:
But came infirmity at length,
And slowly o'er him stealt.
XVII
We miss'd him on our seaward walk:The children went no more
To listen to his evening talk,
Beside the cottage door;
Grim palsy held him to the bed,
Which health eschew'd before.
XVIII
'Twas harvest time: day after dayBeheld him weaker grow;
Day after day, his labouring pulse
Became more faint and slow;
For, in the chambers of his heart,
Life's fire was burning low.
XIX
Thus did he weaken, did he wane,Till frail as frail could be;
But duly at the hour which brings
Homeward the bird and bee,
He made them prop him in his couch,
To gaze upon the sea.
XX
And now he watch'd the moving boat,And now the moveless ships,
And now the western hills remote,
With gold upon their tips,
As ray by ray the mighty sun
Went down in calm eclipse.
XXI
Welcome as homestead to the feetOf pilgrim travel-tired,
Death to old Simon's dwelling came,
A thing to be desired;
And, breathing peace to all around,
The man of war expired.
THE RUINED NUNNERY.
I
'Twas a tempestuous eve; the rains,Over the mountains and the plains,
Pour'd down with ceaseless noise;
The forest depths were in a roar;
The sea came foaming to the shore,
And through the rocky caverns hoar
Howl'd with a giant's voice.
II
At length the winds began to still,As Hesper crown'd the southern hill:
The rains began to cease;
Night's star-bestudded map unfurl'd,
Up from the earth the black clouds curl'd;
And the white moon rose o'er the world,
As 'twere to herald Peace.
III
Lull'd was the turmoil on the shore,While the fierce rack that, just before,
With tempest laden deep,
Swept through the sad and sullen sky,
Grew bright, and, in serenity,
Beneath the quiet moon's calm eye,
Appear'd to fall asleep.
IV
The green trees twinkled in the vale;Pure was the radiance—pure and pale,
With beauty silvering o'er
The verdant lawn, and lapsing rill;
There was a silence on the hill;
Hush'd were the winds; and all grew still,
Except the river's roar.
V
Leaving the fireside's circling talk,'Twas then my solitary walk
Amid the fields I took,
To where a ruin'd convent stood,
As 'twere the abode of solitude,
Left, 'mid the relics of its wood,
To stockdove and to rook.
VI
Lorn was the scene and desolate,Rank weeds o'ergrew its mouldering gate:
I clomb its fragile stair;
The moonbeams piercing through the gloom
Of each untenanted lone room,
Where erst the censer shed perfume,
Show'd only ruin there.
VII
Pleased with the prospect—pleased, yet pain'd,The summit of the walls I gain'd,
And leant me there alone,
Beneath the solitary sky;
While, in the moon's pale argentry,
As woke the wild bird's fitful cry,
The dewy wall-flowers shone.
VIII
The jasmine seem'd alive with bees;Blossoms were on the cultur'd trees,
That now were gnarl'd and wild;
And rose Devotion from each cell,
Where holy Nun, at sound of bell,
Did daily kneel and worship well
The Mother and her Child.
IX
How came they there, these lovely forms?—Was it to shield them from the storms
Of this unquiet earth,
That from its sinful crowds they fled?
Or, warn'd by Conscience, did the dread
Of Judgment o'er each guilty head,
To Penitence give birth?
X
These questions, who may answer?—Lo!With eyes of thought, and cheek of woe,
That pale and sighing maid,
Devoutly kneeling at the shrine—
Her true love, bound for Palestine,
Sank with his warriors in the brine,
To sudden death betray'd.
XI
Life's day for her had found its close:Straight from her brow she pluck'd the rose;
And from her cheek the bloom
Faded like tints from autumn flowers,
When over earth the tempests lowers,
And rude winds leave the saddening bowers
To Winter's sullen gloom.
XII
And lo! that other by her side,Hopeful so soon to be a bride;
Blue eyes and auburn hair,
That might have chain'd all human hearts,
Were vain—her fickle knight departs—
Her soul's deep-cherish'd vision thwarts—
And leaves her to despair.
XIII
With indignation and amaze,She saw her rival, heard the praise,
Once deem'd her own, bestow'd
On stranger charms; and she could not—
Forlorn, forsaken, and forgot—
Uphold the burden of her lot,
But to its misery bow'd.
XIV
Then, in her solitary cell,It yielded painful joy to dwell
On raptures that had been:
Her full heart to her throat would rise,
While turning oft her tearful eyes
From changeful earth to changeless skies,
All cloudless and serene.
XV
A third—around her, one by one,Like vernal flowers in summer's sun,
Those whom she loved had fled;
So, bowing to her cheerless fate—
Home left unto her desolate—
Her pilgrim step sought out this gate,
To commune with the dead.
XVI
There Recollection's sunlight streams;And, in the silence of her dreams,
She hears their voices still—
Hears the blue rill amid its flowers,
As erst she heard in Childhood's hours—
Strays with them thro' the garden bowers,
And climbs her native hill.
XVII
A fourth—her black and midnight eyes,Wherein the abyss of passion lies,
Silently burn; but she
Loved whom her kindred sanction'd not:
He fell—she sought the bloody spot—
And, to forget and be forgot,
Was hither doom'd to flee.
XVIII
Yes, far more dear was he, though dead,Than all yet living things; she fled
A world which gave but pain,
Heroic constancy to prove;
And nursing, for his sake, a love
Which nought could change, and none could move,
Disdain'd to love again.
XIX
Yes! there she strove to yield her soulUnto Religion's calm control;
But Memory's charms outlast
Long years of solitude and gloom;
And oft his image, from the tomb,
To bless her came, in beauty's bloom,
When hours of prayer were past.
XX
Thoughts sad and strange came thronging fast,As, through the pale and peopled past,
Keen Fancy clove her way:
The scene around me changed, and bright
Lay pile and garden on my sight,
As once they shone in summer light,
Ere yet they knew decay.
XXI
Dreams—fancies—visions—such are these;Yet on the musing mind they seize,
When, on an eve like this
On which I write, through far-past things
Her flight lone Meditation wings,
And to the dallying spirit brings
Pictures of bale or bliss.
XXII
And ye, grey convent walls, teach well,That onward centuries only swell
The catalogue of change;
Yea, while we look around, and scan
What happen'd in our own brief span,
Things, which occurr'd since life began,
Even to ourselves seem strange.
XXIII
Then, what is life?—'tis like a flowerThat blossoms through one sunny hour;
A bright illusive dream;
A wave that melts upon the shore;
A lightning flash that straight is o'er;
A phantom seen—then seen no more;
A bubble on the stream!
XXIV
Look on the churchyard's yellow skull—Is not the contemplation full
Of serious thought and deep?
'Tis ownerless; but yet ere fled
The spirit, Love upheld that head,
And friends hung round a dying bed,
To hide their eyes and weep.
XXV
Thus generations pass away—'Tis renovation and decay—
'Tis childhood and old age:
Like figures in the wizard's glass,
In long succession on we pass,
Act our brief parts; and then, alas!
Are swept from off the stage!
THE HOUR OF THOUGHT.
I
The orb of day is sinking,The star of eve is winking,
The silent dews
Their balm diffuse,
The summer flowers are drinking;
The valley shades grow drearer,
As the sky above glows clearer;
Around all swim,
Perplexed and dim,
Yet the distant hills seem nearer—
O'er their tops the eye may mark
The very leaves, distinct and dark.
II
Now eastern skies are lightening,Wood, mead, and mount are brightening,
Sink in the blaze
The stellar rays,
The clouds of heaven are whitening;
Now the birds forsake their singing,
The beetle fly
Hums dully by,
And the bat his flight is winging;
While the glowing, glorious moon,
Gives to night the smile of noon.
III
O! then in churchyards hoary,With many a mournful story,
'Tis sweet to stray,
'Mid tombstones grey,
And muse on earthly glory:
Thoughts, deeds, and days departed,
Up from the past are started,
Time's noon and night,
Its bloom and blight,
Hopes crown'd with bliss, or thwarted;
Halcyon peace or demon strife,
Sweetening or disturbing life.
IV
Then wake the dreams of childhood,Its turbulent or mild mood—
The gather'd shells,
The foxglove bells,
The bird-nest in the wild wood;
The twilight blackbird singing
Sweetly, unseen,
From chestnut green,
Till all the air is ringing;
Restless swallows twittering by,
And the gorgeous sunset sky.
V
Then while the moon is glancing,Through murmuring foliage dancing,
Wild fancy strays
Amid the maze
Of olden times entrancing:
She scans each strange tradition
Of dim-eyed Superstition—
The monk in hood,
With book and rood,
And nun in cell'd contrition;
Horsemen winding through the dale,
Morions dark, and shining mail.
VI
Ah! where are they that knew us,That then spake kindly to us?
Why thus should they
In evil day
So frigidly eschew us?
They listen not, they hear not;
Their course is run,
Their day is done,
They hope not, and they fear not:
Past for them are heat and cold,
Death hath penn'd them in his fold!
VII
Above their bones unknowing,Wild flowers and weeds are growing;
By moon or sun
Is nothing done
To them a thought bestowing:
In dark repose they wither,
Like weeds blown hither—thither—
Alone, alone,
The last Trump's tone
Shall call them up together.
Thou shalt hear it, Silence drear!
Grave oblivious, thou shalt hear!
TO INEZ, IN ABSENCE.
I
Oh! sweetly o'er th' Atlantic sea,The moon, with melancholy smile,
Looks down as I, beloved, on thee
Am fondly musing all the while:
And as, along the silver tide,
Its silent course the vessel steers,
I dream of days when, side by side,
We roam'd on eves of other years!
II
Though many a land, though many a wave,Between us rise, between us roll,
Still, like a beacon, bright to save,
Thou sheddest light upon my soul.
And though the mist of years hath pass'd,
Since first I bless'd its glorious shine,
Yet thoughts, and woes, and days amass'd,
Have only made it doubly thine!
III
How sweetly to the pensive mindThe dreams of other days awake,
And all the joys we left behind,
No more on earth to overtake!
Our wanderings by the sandy shore,
Our walks along the twilight plain,
The raptures that we felt of yore,
And ne'er on earth shall feel again!
IV
Unclouded Moon! o'er rippling seasThou lookest down in placid grace;
With sails, expanded by the breeze,
Alert, our onward path we trace;
To foreign isles and lands unknown
We steer, where every sigh shall tell,
'Mid thousands as I walk alone,
My thoughts with those far distant dwell.
V
Unclouded Moon! 'tis sweet to markThine aspect, so serene and calm,
Dispersing, vanquishing the dark,
And o'er our sorrows shedding balm.
Departed days like visions pass
Across the hot and fever'd brow,
Blest years, and vanish'd eves, alas!
When thou didst shine as thou dost now!
VI
Oh! brightly as of yesterdayThe dreams of vanish'd years awake,
The hopes that flatter'd to betray,
And left the joyless heart to break.—
I see thee, as I saw thee then,
Endow'd by youth with magic charm;
I hear thee, as I heard thee, when
We roam'd together, arm in arm.
VII
It were a soothing thought, that thouMayhap, now pondering, takest delight
To raise thy white, angelic brow,
And gaze upon the lovely night;
And that the very scenes might rise
Upon thy mind's reverted eye,
That draw from me a thousand sighs,
In starting up—and passing by.
VIII
'Twere nothing did we die—'twere noughtFrom life at once to pass away;
But thus to wither thought by thought,
And inch by inch, and day by day,—
To mark the lingering tints of light,
As twilight o'er the sky expands,—
To mark the wave's receding flight,
That leaves the bleak and barren sands,—
IX
To see the stars that gem the skyFade one by one,—to note the leaves
Drop from the boughs all witheringly,
Thro' which the wintry tempest grieves—
'Tis this that chills the drooping heart,
That still we breathe, and feel, and live,
When all the flowers of earth depart,
And life hath not a joy to give!
X
Not parted yet—not parted yet—Though oceans roll and roar between;
A star that glitters ne'er to set,
Thou smilest bright, and shin'st serene,
Fair Inez! and the waste of life,
All bleak and barren though it be,
Although a scene of care and strife,
Has still a charm in having thee!
TO INEZ, IN REMEMBRANCE.
To one that cannot quit the dead!
Byron.
I
Well—though the clouds of sorrow haste,With dark'ning gloom, and threat'ning roll,
To blight existence to a waste,
And shut out sunshine from my soul,
Departed Inez! rather far
My musing thought would dwell on thee,
Than join the mirthful, and the jar
Of voices loud, and spirits free.
II
Sad alteration!—here alone,Where we so oft together sate,
With hearts, where Love's commingling tone
Had link'd us to one mutual fate,
I gaze around me—where art thou,
Whose glance was sunshine to the spot?
These roses bloom'd, as they bloom now,
But thou art—where I see thee not!
III
Oh! nevermore—oh! nevermoreThis earth again shall smile for me!
I'll listen to the tempest's roar,
Or gaze along the stormy sea.
And from the sunshine I will hide;
But, as the moon in silver gleams,
I'll lean me o'er the vessel's side,
And see thee in my waking dreams.
IV
Then welcome be the doom that callsTo foreign climes my wandering way;
These echoing walks, and empty halls,—
The bloomy lilac on its spray,—
The lily in its innocence,—
The fleur-de-lis with purple vest,—
Pine for thee, vanish'd far from hence,
Removed from earth, and laid to rest.
V
Oh! do not breathe on Inez' lute—'Twould make her vanish'd form appear,
Since Inez' breathing now is mute—
Since Inez' voice I cannot hear.
All music, and all melody,
The azure stream, and leafy tree,
The glories of the earth and sky
Are stripp'd of half their charms for me!
VI
Then welcome be the flapping sail,And welcome be the stormy main,
And never may the breezes fail,
But when they bring us back again:
And I will wander o'er the deep,
And brave the tempest's threat'ning harms,
Since not a shore to which we sweep
To me can proffer Inez' arms!
VII
Oh! Inez, ever lost and dear,Soon come the day, and come it must,
When I shall seek thy happier sphere,
And leave this perishable dust.
Then grief shall flee my troubled eyes,
And gloom forsake my drooping heart,
And through the fields of paradise
We two shall roam, and never part.
TO INEZ, IN LAMENT.
I
Oh thou! who in my happier daysWert all to me that earth could hold,
And dearer to my youthful gaze
And yearning heart, than words have told,
Now, far from me, unmark'd and cold,
Thine ashes rest—thy relics lie;
And mouldering in earth's common mould
The frame that seem'd too fair to die!
II
The stranger treads my haunts at morn,And stops to scan upon the tree
Letters by Time's rude finger worn,
That bore the earthly name of thee.
To him 'tis all unknown; and he
Strays on amid the woodland scene;
And thou, to all alive but me,
Art now as thou hadst never been.
III
Ah! little didst thou think, when IWith thee have roam'd at eventide,
Mark'd setting sun, and purpling sky,
And saunter'd by the river's side,
And gazed on thee, my destined bride,
How soon thou shouldst from hence depart,
And leave me here without a guide—
With ruin'd hopes, and broken heart.
IV
Oh, Inez! Inez! I have seen,Above this spot where thou art laid,
Wild flowers and weeds all rankly green,
As if in mockery wild display'd!
In sombre twilight's purple shade,
Oft by thy grave have I sojourn'd;
And as I mused o'er hopes decay'd,
Mine eyes have stream'd, my heart hath burn'd.
V
I thought of days for ever fled,When thou wert being's Morning Star;
I thought of feelings nourishèd
In secret, 'mid the world's loud jar;
I thought how, from the crowd afar,
I loved to stray, and for thee sigh;
Nor deem'd, when winds and waves a bar
Between us placed, that thou shouldst die.
VI
I saw thee not in thy distress,Nor ever knew that pale disease
Was preying on that loveliness,
Whose smiles all earthly ills could ease;
But, when afar upon the seas,
I call'd thy magic form to mind,
I little dreamt that charms like these
Were to Death's icy arms resign'd.
VII
Now years have pass'd—and years may pass—Earth not a fear or charm can have;
Ah! no—I could not view the grass,
That waves and rustles o'er thy grave!
My day is one long ruffled wave;
The night is not a lake of rest;
I dream, and nought is with me, save
A troubled scene—Despair my guest!
VIII
Or if, mayhap, my slumbering hourShould paint thee to mine arms restored,
Then, then, the passing dream has power
A moment's rapture to afford;
Mirth cheers the heart, and crowns the board;
My bosom's burden finds relief;
I breathe thy name—but at that word
I wake to darkness and to grief!
IX
Well—be it so—I would not loseThe thoughts to thee that madly cleave,
For all the vacant mirth of those,
Who, heartless, think it wrong to grieve;
No—nought on earth can now retrieve
The loss my soul hath felt in thee;
Such hours of foolish joy would leave
More darkness in my misery!
X
Inez, to me the light of lifeWert thou, when youth's fond pulse beat high,
And free from care, and far from strife,
Day follow'd day without a sigh;
All that could bless a mortal eye,
All that could charm th' immortal mind,
And wean from frail variety,
Were in thy form and soul combin'd.
XI
Though angel now, thou yet may'st deignTo bend thy radiant look on me,
And view the breast where thou didst reign,
Still pining in its love for thee:
Then let me bend to Heaven's decree,
Support this drooping soul of mine;
And, since to thine it may not flee,
Oh! teach me humbly to resign!
HYMN TO THE MOON.
I
How lovely is this silent scene!How beautiful, fair lamp of night,
On stirless woods, and lakes serene,
Thou sheddest forth thy holy light;
With beam as pure, with ray as bright,
As sorrow's tear from Woman's breast,
When mourning over days departed,
That robb'd her spirit of its rest,
And left her lone and broken-hearted!
II
Refulgent pilgrim of the sky,Beneath thy march, within thy sight,
What varied realms outstretching lie!
Here landscapes rich with glory bright,
There lonely wastes of utter blight;
The nightingale upon the bough
Of cypress, here her song is pouring;
And there begirt with mounts of snow,
For food the famish'd bear is roaring!
III
What marvel that the spirits highOf eastern climes, and ancient days,
Should hail thee as a deity,
And altars to thine honour raise!
So lovely wert thou to the gaze
Of shepherds on Chaldean hills,
When summer flowers around were springing,
And when to thee a thousand rills
Throughout the quiet night were singing.
IV
And lo! the dwarfish Laplander,Far from his solitary home,
Dismay'd, beholds the evening star,
While many a mile remains to roam:
Thou lightest up the eastern dome,
And, in his deer-drawn chariot, he
Is hurl'd along the icy river;
And leaps his sunken heart to see
The light in his own casement quiver.
V
Nor beautiful the less art thou,When Ocean's gentlest breezes fan,
With gelid wing, the feverish glow
That daylight sheds on Indostan!
And on the amaranthine bowers,
The glory of thy smile reposes,
On hedgerows, white with jasmine flowers,
And minarets o'erhung with roses.
VI
The exile on a foreign shoreDejected sits, and turns his eye
To thee, in beauty evermore,
Careering through a cloudless sky.
A white cloud comes, and, passing by,
Veils thee a moment from his sight;
Then, as he rests beneath the shadows,
He thinks of many as sweet a night,
When glad he roam'd his native meadows.
VII
Though years in stayless current roll,Thou art as full of glory yet,
As when to Shakspeare's glowing soul,
Where mightiness and meekness met,
Thou shon'st upon his Juliet;
Tipping with silver all the grove,
And gleaming on the cheek of Beauty,
Who durst forsake, for Romeo's love,
The mandates of paternal duty.
VIII
Enthroned amid the cloudless blue,Majestic, silent, and alone,
Above the fountains of the dew,
Thou glidest on, and glidest on,
To shoreless seas, and lands unknown.
The presence of thy face appears,
Thou eldest born of Beauty's daughters,
A spirit traversing the spheres,
And ruling o'er the pathless waters.
MELANCHOLY.
I
The sun of the morning,Unclouded and bright,
The landscape adorning
With lustre and light,
In glory and gladness
New bliss may impart;
But, O! give to sadness
And softness of heart—
A moment to ponder—a season to grieve—
The light of the moon, or the shadows of eve!
II
Then soothing reflectionsAwake to the mind,
And sweet recollections
Of friends who were kind;
Of love that was tender,
And yet could decay;
Of visions whose splendour
Time wither'd away,
In all that for brightness and beauty might seem
The painting of fancy, the work of a dream!
III
The soft cloud of lightness,The stars beaming through;
The pure moon of brightness,
The deep sky of blue;
The rush of the river
Through vales that are still;
The breezes that ever
Sigh lone o'er the hill,—
Are sounds that can soften, and sights that impart
A bliss to the eye, and a balm to the heart.
THE UNKNOWN GRAVE.
I
Who sleeps below? who sleeps below?—It is a question idle all!
Ask of the breezes as they blow,
Say, do they heed, or hear thy call?
They murmur in the trees around,
And mock thy voice, an empty sound!
II
A hundred summer suns have shower'dTheir fostering warmth, and radiance bright;
A hundred winter storms have lower'd
With piercing floods, and hues of night,
Since first this remnant of his race
Did tenant his lone dwelling-place.
III
Say, did he come from East, from West?From Southern climes, or where the Pole,
With frosty sceptre, doth arrest
The howling billows as they roll?
Within what realm of peace or strife
Did he first draw the breath of life?
IV
Was he of high or low degree?Did grandeur smile upon his lot?
Or, born to dark obscurity,
Dwelt he within some lowly cot,
And, from his youth to labour wed,
From toil-strung limbs wrung daily bread?
V
Say, died he ripe, and full of years,Bow'd down, and bent by hoary eld,
When sound was silence to his ears,
And the dim eyeball sight withheld;
Like a ripe apple falling down,
Unshaken, 'mid the orchard brown;
VI
When all the friends that bless'd his prime,Were vanish'd like a morning dream;
Pluck'd one by one by spareless Time,
And scatter'd in oblivion's stream;
Passing away all silently,
Like snow-flakes melting in the sea:
VII
Or, 'mid the summer of his years,When round him throng'd his children young,
When bright eyes gush'd with burning tears,
And anguish dwelt on every tongue,
Was he cut off, and left behind
A widow'd wife, scarce half resign'd?
VIII
Or, 'mid the sunshine of his spring,Came the swift bolt that dash'd him down;
When she, his chosen, blossoming
In beauty, deem'd him all her own,
And forward look'd to happier years
Than ever bless'd this vale of tears?
IX
By day, by night, through calm and storm,O'er distant oceans did he roam,
Far from his land, a lonely form,
The deck his walk, the sea his home:
Toss'd he on wild Biscayan wave,
Or where smooth tides Panama lave?
X
Slept he within the tented field,With pillowing daisies for his bed?
Captived in battle, did he yield?
Or plunge to victory o'er the dead?
Oft, 'mid destruction, hath he broke
Through reeking blades and rolling smoke?
XI
Perhaps he perish'd for the faith—One of that persecuted band,
Who suffer'd tortures, bonds, and death,
To free from mental thrall the land,
And, toiling for the martyr's fame,
Espoused his fate, nor found a name!
XII
Say, was he one to science blind,A groper in Earth's dungeon dark?
Or one who with aspiring mind
Did, in the fair creation, mark
The Maker's hand, and kept his soul
Free from this grovelling world's control?
XIII
Hush! wild surmise!—'tis vain—'tis vain—The summer flowers in beauty blow,
And sighs the wind, and floods the rain,
O'er some old bones that rot below;
No other record can we trace
Of fame or fortune, rank or race!
XIV
Then, what is life, when thus we seeNo trace remains of life's career?—
Mortal! whoe'er thou art, for thee
A moral lesson gloweth here;
Putt'st thou in aught of earth thy trust?
'Tis doom'd that dust shall mix with dust.
XV
What doth it matter, then, if thus,Without a stone, without a name,
To impotently herald us,
We float not on the breath of fame;
But, like the dewdrop from the flower.
Pass, after glittering for an hour?
XVI
The soul decays not, freed from earth,And earthly coils, it bursts away;—
Receiving a celestial birth,
And spurning off its bonds of clay,
It soars, and seeks another sphere,
And blooms through Heaven's eternal year!
XVII
Do good; shun evil; live not thou,As if at death thy being died;
Nor Error's syren voice allow
To draw thy steps from truth aside;
Look to thy journey's end—the grave!
And trust in Him whose arm can save.
DESPONDENCY. A REVERIE.
I
'Twas on the evening of an August day,A day of clouds and tempests, that I stood
Within the shade of over-arching wood,
My bosom fill'd with visions of decay;
Around were strew'd the shiver'd leaves, all wet;
The boughs above were dripping; and the sky
Threw down the shadows of despondency,—
As if all melancholy things were met
To blast this lower world. I lean'd my side
Against an oak, and sigh'd o'er human pride.
II
I thought of life, and love, and earthly bliss,Of all we pine for, pant for, and pursue,
And found them like the mist, or matin dew,
Fading to nothingness in Time's abyss.
Upon the tablets that record their worth;
They have commingled with their parent earth,
And only in our dreams of yore are seen—
Our visions of the by-past, which have fled,
To leave us wandering 'mid the buried dead.
III
I thought of men, who look'd upon my face,Breathing and blooming, breathless now and cold;
I heard their voices issuing from the mould,
Amid the scenes that bear of them no trace.
I thought of smiling children, who have sat
At evening on my knees, and press'd my hand,—
Their cherub features and their accents bland,—
Their innocence,—and their untimely fate;—
How soon their flower was cropt, and laid below
The turf, where daisies spring, and lilies blow.
IV
I thought of sunless regions, where the daySmiles not, and all is dreariness and death;
Of weltering oceans, where the winter's breath
Beats on the emerald ice and rocky bay;
I thought me of the old times,—of the halls
Of ancient castles mouldering to the dust—
Of swords, long used in war, bedimm'd with rust,
Hanging in danky vaults, upon the walls,
Where coffin'd warriors rest, amid the night
Of darkness, never tinged by morning light.
V
The unshelter'd cattle low'd upon the plain;The speckled frog was leaping 'mid the grass,
Down to the lakelet's edge, whose breast of glass
Was wrinkled only by the tardy rain;
Dim was the aspect of the sullen sky;
The night scowl'd gloomier down: I could not throw
From off my heart the weary weight of woe,
But loath'd the world, and coveted to die;
Beholding only in the earth and air
Omens of desolation and despair.
THE ANGLER.
Is moralised in age and youth,
When all the comforts man can share
As wandering as his fancies are;
Till in a mist of dark decay
The dreamer vanish quite away.
Bishop King.
I.
'Twas a blithe morning in the golden monthOf July, when, in pride of summer power,
The sun enliven'd nature: dew-besprent,
A wilderness of flowers their scent exhaled
Into the soft, warm zephyr; early a-foot,
On public roads, and by each hedge-way path,
With vestures many-hued, and ceaseless chat,
The reapers to the coming harvest plied—
Father and mother, stripling, and young child
On back or shoulder borne. I trode again
A scene of youth, bright in its natural lines
Even to a stranger's eyes when first time seen,
But sanctified to mine by many a fond
And faithful recognition. O'er the Esk,
Swoln by nocturnal showers, the hawthorn hung
Its garland of green berries, and the bramble
Trail'd 'mid the camomile its ripening fruit.
Most lovely was the verdure of the hills—
A rich, luxuriant green, o'er which the sky
Of blue, translucent, clear without a cloud,
Outspread its arching amplitude serene.
With many a gush of music, from each brake
Sang forth the choral linnets; and the lark,
Ascending from the clover field, by fits
Soar'd as it sang, and dwindled from the sight.
The cushat stood amidst the topmost boughs
Of the tall tree, his white-ring'd neck aslant,
Down thro' the leaves to see his brooding mate.
'Mid the tall meadow grass the ox reclined,
Or bent his knee, or from beneath the shade
Of the broad beech, with ruminant mouth, gaz'd forth.
Rustling with wealth, a tissue of fair fields
Outstretch'd to left and right in luxury;
And the fir forests on the upland slopes
Contrasted darkly with the golden grain.
II.
Embathed in beauty pass'd before my sight,Like blossoms that with sunlight shut and ope,
The half-lost dreams of many a holiday,
In boyhood spent on that blue river side
With those whose names, even now, as alien sounds
Ring in the ear, though then our cordial arms
Enwreathed each other's necks, while on we roam'd,
Singing or silent, pranksome, ne'er at rest,
As life were but a jocund pilgrimage,
Whose pleasant wanderings found a goal in heaven.
But when I reach'd a winding of the stream,
By hazels overarch'd, whose swollen nuts
Hung in rich clusters, from the marginal bank
Of yellow sand, ribb'd by receding waves,
I scared the ousel, that, like elfin sprite,
Amid the water-lilies lithe and green,
Zig-zagg'd from stone to stone; and, turning round
The sudden jut, reveal'd before me stood,
Silent, within that solitary place—
In that green solitude so calm and deep—
An aged angler, plying wistfully,
Amid o'erhanging banks and shelvy rocks,
Far from the bustle and the din of men,
His sinless pastime. Silver were his locks,
His figure lank; his dark eye, like a hawk's,
Glisten'd beneath his hat of whitest straw,
Lightsome of wear, with gut and flies begirt:
The osier creel, athwart his shoulders slung,
Became full well his coat of velveteen,
As told by weather stains. His quarter-boots,
Lash'd with stout leather-thongs, and ankles bare,
Spoke the adept—and of full many a day,
Through many a changeable and chequer'd year,
By mountain torrent, or smooth meadow stream,
To that calm sport devoted. O'er him spread
A tall, broad sycamore; and, at his feet,
Amid the yellow ragwort, rough and high,
An undisturbing spaniel lay, whose lids,
Half-opening, told his master my approach.
III.
I turn'd away, I could not bear to gazeOn that grey angler with his rod and line;
I turn'd away—for to my heart the sight
Brought back, from out the twilight labyrinth
Of bypast things, the memory of a day,
So sever'd from the present by the lapse
Of many a motley'd, life-destroying year,
That on my thoughts the recognition came
Faintly at first—as breaks the timid dawn
Above the sea, or evening's earliest star
Through the pavilion of the twilight dim—
Faintly at first; then kindling to the glow
Of that refulgent sunshine, only known
To boyhood's careless and unclouded hours.
IV.
Even yet I feel around my heart the flushOf that calm, windless morning, glorified
A tiny boy, scarcely ten summers old,
Along blue Esk, under the whispering trees,
And by the crumbling banks, daisy-o'ergrown,
A cloudless, livelong day I trode with one
Whose soul was in his pastime, and whose skill
Upon its shores that day no equal saw.
O'er my small shoulders was the wicker creel
Slung proudly, and the net whose meshes held
The minnow, from the shallows deftly raised.
Hour after hour augmenting our success,
Turn'd what was pleasure first to pleasant toil,
Lent languor to my loitering steps, and gave
Red to the cheek, and dew-damp to the brow:
It was a day that cannot be forgot,
A jubilee in childhood's calendar,
A green hill-top seen o'er the billowy waste
Of dim oblivion's flood: and so it is,
That on my morning couch—what time the sun
Tinges the honeysuckle flowers with gold,
That cluster round the porch—and in the calm
Of evening meditation, when the past
Spontaneously unfolds the treasuries
Of half-forgotten and fragmental things
To memory's ceaseless roamings, it comes back,
Fragrant and fresh, as if 'twere yesterday.
From morn till noon, his light assiduous toil
The angler plied; and when the mid-day sun
Was high in heaven, under a spreading tree,
(Methinks I hear the hum amid its leaves!)
With healthful palates to our slight repast
Of biscuits, and of cheese, and bottled milk;
The sward our table, and the boughs our roof:
And O! in banquet-hall, where richest cates
Luxurious woo the pamper'd appetite,
Never did viands proffer such delight
To Sybarite upon his silken couch,
As did to us our simple fare that day.
V.
Bright shone the afternoon, say rather burn'd,In floods of molten golden, with all its rich
Array of blossoms by that river's side—
Wild camomile, and lychnis in whose cups
The bee delights to murmur, harebells blue,
And violets breathing fragrance; nor remote
The golden furze, that to the west-wind's sigh
Lent its peculiar perfume blandly soft.
At times we near'd the wild-duck and her brood
In the far angle of some dim-seen pool,
Silent and sable, underneath the boughs
Of low hung willow; and, at times, the bleat
Of a stray lamb would bid us raise our eyes
To where it stood above us on the rock,
Knee-deep amid the broom—a sportive elf.
Enshrined in recollection, sleep those hours
So brilliant and so beautiful—the scene
So full of pastoral loveliness—the heart
With pleasure overflowing—and the sky
God with his fair creation reconciled:
And O! to be forgotten only with
The last fond thoughts of memory, I behold
That grand and gorgeous evening, in whose blaze
Homeward with laden panniers we return'd.
Through the green woods outshot the level rays
Of flooding sunlight, tinging the hoar bark
Of the old pine-trees, and in crimson dyes
Bathing the waste of flowers that sprang beneath;
It was an hour of Paradise restored—
Eden forth mirror'd to the view again,
Ere Happiness had yet forsook its bowers,
Or sinless creatures own'd the sway of death.
All was repose, and peace, and harmony;
The flocks upon the soft knolls resting lay,
Or straying nibbled at the pastures green;
Up from its clovery lurking-place, the hare
Arose; the pheasant from the coppice stray'd;
The cony from its hole disporting leapt;
The cattle in the bloomy meadows lay
Ruminant; the shy foal scarce swerved aside
At our approach from under the tall tree
Of his delight, shaking his forelocks long
In wanton play; while, overhead, his hymn,
As 'twere to herald the approach of night,
With all her gathering stars, the blackbird sang
Melodiously, mellifluously, and Earth
Look'd up, reflecting back the smiles of Heaven:
For Innocence o'er hill and dale again
Of all but joy in grove and glade was hush'd.
VI.
Thro' the deep glen of Roslin—where ariseProud castle and chapelle of high St Clair,
And Scotland's prowess speaking—we had traced
The mazy Esk by cavern'd Hawthornden,
Perch'd like an eagle's nest upon the cliffs,
And eloquent for aye with Drummond's song;
Through Melville's flowery glades; and down the park
Of fair Dalkeith, scaring the antler'd deer,
'Neath the huge oaks of Morton and of Monk,
Whispering, as stir their boughs the midnight winds.
These left behind, with purpling evening, now
We stood beside St Michael's holy fane,
With its nine centuries of gravestones girt;
And, from the slopes of Inveresk, gazed down
Upon the Firth of Forth, whose waveless tide
Glow'd like a plain of fire. In majesty,
O'ercanopied with many-vestured clouds,
The mighty sun, low in the farthest west,
With orb dilated, o'er the Grampian chain,
Mountain up-piled on mountain, huge and blue,
Was shedding his last rays adown the shores
Of Fife, with all its towns, and woods, and fields,
And bathing Ben-Ean and Ben-Ledi's peaks
In hues of amethyst. Ray after ray,
From the twin Lomond's conic heights declined,
And died away the glory; and, at length,
And Twilight drew her azure curtains round,
From out the south twinkled the evening star.
VII.
Since then full often hath the snowdrop shownIts early flower, hath summer waved its corn,
Hath autumn shed its leaves, and Arctic gales
Brought wintry desolation on their wings:
When Memory ponders on that boyish scene,
Broken seems almost every tie that links
That day to this, and to the child the man:
The world is alter'd quite in all its thoughts,
In all its works and ways, its sights and sounds—
With the same name it is another sphere,
And by another race inhabited.
The old familiar dwellings, with their trees
Coeval, mouldering wall, and dovecot rent—
The old familiar faces from the streets,
One after one have now all disappear'd,
And sober sires are they who then were sons,
Giddy and gay: a generation new
Dwells where they dwelt, whose tongues are silent quite,
Whose bodily forms are reminiscences
Fading: the leaden talisman of Truth
Hath disenchanted of its rainbow hues
The sky, and robb'd the fields of half their bloom.
I start, to conjure from the gulf of death
The myriads that have gone to come no more:
And where is he, the Angler, by whose side
While life to both a sunny pastime seem'd?
Ask of the winds that from the Atlantic blow,
When last they stirr'd the wild-flowers on his grave!
THE TOMBLESS MAN. A DREAM.
I.
I woke from sleep at midnight; all was dark,Solemn, and silent, an unbroken calm:
It was a fearful vision, and had made
A mystical impression on my mind;
For clouds lay o'er the ocean of my thoughts
In vague and broken masses, strangely wild;
And grim imagination wander'd on
'Mid gloomy yew-trees in a churchyard old,
And mouldering shielings of the eyeless hills,
And snow-clad pathless moors on moonless nights,
And icebergs drifting from the sunless Pole,
And prostrate Indian villages, when spent
The rage of the hurricane has pass'd away,
Leaving a landscape desolate with death;
And as I turn'd me to my vanish'd dream,
Upon my spirit, dreary as before.
II.
Alone—alone—a desolate dreary wild,Herbless and verdureless; low swampy moss,
Where tadpoles grew to frogs, for leagues begirt
My solitary path. Nor sight nor sound
Of moving life, except a grey curlew—
As shrieking tumbled on the timid bird,
Aye glancing backward with its coal-black eye,
Even as by imp invisible pursued—
Was seen or heard; the last low level rays
Of sunset gilded with a blood-red glow
That melancholy moor, with its grey stones
And stagnant water-pools. Aye floundering on,
And on, I stray'd, finding no pathway, save
The runlet of a wintry stream, begirt
With shelvy barren rocks; around, o'erhead,
Yea everywhere, in shapes grotesque and grim,
Towering they rose, encompassing my path,
As 'twere in savage mockery. Lo, a chasm
Yawning, and bottomless, and black! Beneath
I heard the waters in their sheer descent
Descending down, and down; and further down
Descending still, and dashing—now a rush,
And now a roar, and now a fainter fall,
And still remoter, and yet finding still,
For the white anguish of their boiling whirl,
No resting-place. Over my head appear'd,
Sole harbinger of hope, a patch of sky,
Of deep, clear, solemn sky, shrining a star
Magnificent, that, with a holy light,
Glowing and glittering, shone into the heart,
As 'twere an angel's eye. Entranced I stood,
Drinking the beauty of that gem serene,
How long I wist not; but, when back to earth
Sank my prone eyes, I knew not where I was—
Again the scene had shifted, and the time,
From midnight to the hour when earliest dawn
Gleams in the orient, and with inky lines
The trees seem painted on the girding sky.
III.
A solemn hour!—so silent, that the soundEven of a falling leaflet had been heard,
Was that, wherein, with meditative step,
With uncompanion'd step, measured and slow,
And wistful gaze, that to the left, the right,
Was often turn'd, as if in secret dread
Of something horrible that must be met—
Of unseen evil not to be eschew'd—
Up a long vista'd avenue I wound,
Untrodden long, and overgrown with moss.
It seem'd an entrance to the hall of gloom;
Grey twilight, in the melancholy shade
Of the hoar branches, show'd the tufted grass
With globules spangled of the fine night-dew—
So fine, that even a midge's tiny tread
Notch'd with the growth of centuries, stretching round
Dismal in aspect, and grotesque in shape,
Pair after pair, were ranged: where ended these,
Girdling an open semicircle, tower'd
A row of rifted plane-trees, inky-leaved,
With cinnamon-colour'd bark; and, in the midst,
Hidden almost by their entwining boughs,
An unshut gateway, musty and forlorn,
Its old supporting pillars roughly rich
With sculpturings quaint of intermingled flowers.
IV.
Each pillar held upon its top an urn,Serpent-begirt; each urn upon its front
A face—and such a face! I turn'd away—
Then gazed again—'twas not to be forgot:—
There was a fascination in the eyes—
Even in their stony stare; like the ribb'd sand
Of ocean was the eager brow; the mouth
Had a hyena grin; the nose, compress'd
With curling sneer, of wolfish cunning spake;
O'er the lank temples, long entwisted curls
Adown the scraggy neck in masses fell;
And fancy, aided by the time and place,
Read in the whole the effigies of a fiend.
Who, and what art thou? ask'd my beating heart—
And but the silence to my heart replied!
That entrance pass'd, I found a grass-grown court,
Vast, void, and desolate; and there a house,
High-pointed, and with aspect all forlorn:
Four-sided rose the towers at either end
Of the long front, each coped with mouldering flags;
Up from the silent chimneys went no smoke;
And vacantly the deep-brow'd windows stared,
Like eyeballs dead to daylight. O'er the gate
Of entrance, to whose folding-doors a flight
Of steps converging led, startled I saw,
Oh, horrible! the same reflected face
As that on either urn; but gloomier still,
In shadow of the mouldering architrave.
V.
I would have turn'd me back—I would have fledFrom that malignant, yet half-syren smile;
But magic held me rooted to the spot,
And some inquisitive horror led me on.
Entering I stood beneath the spacious dome
Of a round hall, vacant, save here and there,
Where from the panelings, in mouldy shreds,
Hung what was arras loom-work; weather-stains
In mould appear'd on the mosaic floors,
Of marble black and white—or what was white,
For time had yellow'd all; and opposite,
High on the wall, within a crumbling frame
Of tarnish'd gold, scowl'd down a pictured form
In the habiliments of bygone days—
With ruff, and doublet slash'd, and studded belt—
'Twas the same face—the Gorgon curls the same,
And the same nose, with sneering upward curl.
VI.
Again I would have turn'd to flee—againTried to elude the snares around my feet;
But struggling could not—though I knew not why,
Self-will and self-possession vaguely lost.
Horror thrill'd through me—to recede was vain;
Fear lurk'd behind in that sepulchral court,
In its mute avenue and grave-like grass;
And to proceed—where led my onward way?
Ranges of doorways branch'd on either side,
Each like the other:—one I oped, and lo!
A dim deserted room, its furniture
Withdrawn; grey, stirless cobwebs from the roof
Hanging; and its deep windows letting in
The pale, sad dawn, than darkness drearier far.
How desolate! Around its cornices
Of florid stucco shone the mimic flowers
Of art's device, carved to delight the eyes
Of those long since but dust within their graves.
The hollow hearth-place, with its fluted jambs
Of clammy Ethiop marble, whence, of yore,
Had risen the Yule-log's animating blaze
On festal faces, tomb-like, coldly yawn'd;
While o'er its centre, lined in hues of night,
Grinn'd the same features with the aspick eyes,
And fox-like watchful, though averted gaze,
The haunting demon of that voiceless home.
VII.
How silent! to the beating of my heartI listen'd, and nought else around me heard.
How stirless! even a waving gossamer—
The mazy motes that rise and fall in air—
Had been as signs of life; when, suddenly,
As bursts the thunder-peal upon the calm,
Whence I had come the clank of feet was heard—
A noise remote, which near'd, and near'd, and near'd—
Even to the threshold of that room it came,
Where, with raised hands, spell-bound, I listening stood;
And, the door opening stealthily, I beheld
The embodied figure of the phantom head,
Garb'd in the quaint robes of the portraiture—
A veritable fiend, a life in death!
VIII.
My heart stood still, tho' quickly came my breath;Headlong I rush'd away, I knew not where:
In frenzied haste rushing I ran; my feet
With terror wing'd, a hell-hound at my heels,
Yea! scarce three strides between us. Through a door
Right opposite I flew, slamming its weight,
To shut me from the spectre who pursued.
And lo! another room, the counterpart
Of that just left, but gloomier: on I rush'd,
Beholding o'er its hearth the grinning face,
Another and the same; the haunting face
Reflected, as it seem'd, from wall to wall!
There, opening as I shut, onward he came,
With measured tread unwearied, like the wolf's
When tracking its sure prey: forward I sprang,
And lo! another room—another face,
Alike, but gloomier still; another door,
And the pursuing fiend—and on—and on,
With palpitating heart and yielding knees,
From room to room, each mirror'd in the last.
At length I reached a porch—amid my hair
I felt his desperate clutch—outward I flung—
The open air was gain'd—I stood alone!
IX.
That welcome postern open'd on a court—Say rather, grave-yard; gloomy yews begirt
Its cheerless walls; ranges of headstones show'd,
Each on its hoary tablature, half hid
With moss, with hemlock, and with nettles rank,
The sculptured leer of that hyena face,
Softening as backwards, thro' the waves of time,
Receded generations more remote.
It was a square of tombs—of old, grey tombs,
(The oldest of an immemorial date,)
Deserted quite—and rusty gratings black,
Along the yawning mouths of dreary vaults—
And epitaphs unread—and mouldering bones.
Alone forlorn, the only breathing thing
In that unknown, forgotten cemetery,
Reeling, I strove to stand, and all things round
Flicker'd, and wavering, seem'd to wane away,
Ebbing, as backward ebbs the billowy sea,
Wave after wave, till nought is left behind,
Save casual foam-bells on the barren sand.
X.
From out annihilation's vacancy,(The elements, as of a second birth,
Kindling within, at first a fitful spark,
And then a light which, glowing to a blaze,
Fill'd me with genial life,) I seemed to wake
Upon a bed of bloom. The breath of spring
Scented the air; mingling their odours sweet,
The bright jonquil, the lily of the vale,
The primrose, and the daffodil, o'erspread
The fresh green turf; and, as it were in love,
Around the boughs of budding lilac wreathed
The honeysuckle, rich in early leaves,
Gold-tinctured now, for sunrise fill'd the clouds
With purple glory, and with aureate beams
The dew-refreshen'd earth. Up, up, the larks
Mounted to heaven, as did the angel wings
Of old in Jacob's vision; and the fly,
Awakening from its wintry sleep, once more
Spread, humming, to the light its gauzy wings.
XI.
A happy being in a happy place,As 'twere a captive from his chains released,
His dungeon and its darkness, there I lay
Revolving silently the varied scenes,
Grotesque and grim, 'mid which my erring feet
Had stumbled; and a brightness darting in
On my mysterious nightmare, something told
The what and wherefore of the effigies grim—
The wolfish, never-resting, tombless man,
Voicelessly haunting that ancestral home—
Yea of his destiny for evermore
To suffer fearful life-in-death, until
A victim suffer'd from the sons of men,
To soothe the cravings of insatiate Hell,
An agony for ages undergone—
An agony for ages to be borne—
Hope, still elusive, baffled by despair.
XII.
Thus as an eagle, from the altitudeOf the mid-sky, its pride of place attain'd,
Glances around the illimitable void,
And sees no goal, and finds no resting-place
In the blue, boundless depths—then, silently,
Pauses on wing, and with gyrations down
And down descends thorough the blinding clouds,
In billowy masses, many-hued, around
Floating, until their confines past, green earth
Once more appears, and on its loftiest crag
The nest, wherein 'tis bliss to rest his plumes
Flight-wearied; so, from farthest dreamland's shores,
Where clouds and chaos form the continents,
To sights and sounds familiar—to the birds
Singing above, and the bright vale beneath,
With cottages and trees, and the blue sky,
And the glad waters murmuring to the sun.
LINES WRITTEN IN THE ISLE OF BUTE.
I.
Ere yet dim twilight brighten'd into day,Or waned the silver morning star away,
Shedding its last, lone, melancholy smile,
Above the mountain-tops of far Argyll;
Ere yet the solan's wing had brush'd the sea,
Or issued from its cell the mountain bee;
As dawn beyond the orient Cumbraes shone,
Thy northern slope, Byrone,
From Ascog's rocks, o'erflung with woodland bowers,
With scarlet fuschias, and faint myrtle flowers,
My steps essay'd; brushing the diamond dew
From the soft moss, lithe grass, and harebell blue.
Up from the heath aslant the linnet flew
And soar'd away, to sing
A farewell to the severing shades of night,
A welcome to the morning's earliest light.
Thy summit gain'd, how tranquilly serene,
Beneath, outspread that panoramic scene
Of continent and isle, and lake and sea,
And tower and town, hill, vale, and spreading tree,
And rock and ruin tinged with amethyst,
Half-seen, half-hidden by the lazy mist,
Volume on volume, which had vaguely wound
The far-off hills around,
And now roll'd downwards; till on high were seen,
Begirt with sombre larch, their foreheads green.
II.
There, there when all except the lark was mute,O beauty-breathing Bute,
On thee entranced I gazed; each moment brought
A new creation to the eye of thought:
The orient clouds all Iris' hues assumed,
From the pale lily to the rose that bloom'd,
And hung above the pathway of the sun,
As if to harbinger his course begun;
When, lo! his disc burst forth—his beams of gold
Seem'd earth as with a garment to enfold,
And from his piercing eye the loose mists flew,
And heaven with arch of deep autumnal blue
Glow'd overhead; while ocean, like a lake,
Seeming delight to take
From Western Kames to far Kilchattan bay.
Old Largs look'd out amid the orient light,
With its grey dwellings, and, in greenery bright,
Lay Coila's classic shores reveal'd to sight;
And like a Vallombrosa, veil'd in blue,
Arose Mount-Stuart's woodlands on the view;
Kerry and Cowal their bold hill-tops show'd,
And Arran, and Kintyre; like rubies glow'd
The jagged clefts of Goatfell; and below,
As on a chart, delightful Rothesay lay,
Whence sprang of human life the awakening sound,
With all its happy dwellings, stretching round
The semicircle of its sunbright bay.
III.
Byrone, a type of peace thou seemest now,Yielding thy ridges to the rustic plough,
With corn-fields at thy feet, and many a grove
Whose songs are but of love;
But different was the aspect of that hour,
Which brought, of eld, the Norsemen o'er the deep,
To wrest yon castle's walls from Scotland's power,
And leave her brave to bleed, her fair to weep;
When Husbac fierce, and Olave, Mona's king,
Rothesay Castle is first mentioned in history in connection with its siege by Husbac the Norwegian, and Olave, king of Man, in 1228. Among other means of defence, it is said that the Scots poured down boiling pitch and lead on the heads of their enemies; but it was, however, at length taken, after the Norwegians had lost three hundred men. In 1263, it was retaken by the Scots after the decisive battle of Largs.
Confederate chiefs, with shout and triumphing,
Bade o'er its towers the Scaldic raven fly,
And mock each storm-tost sea-king toiling by!—
Far different were the days,
When flew the fiery cross, with summoning blaze,
And round thy peak the phalanx'd Butesmen stood,
As Bruce's followers shed the Baliol's blood,
Yea! gave each Saxon homestead to the flames!
IV.
Proud palace-home of kings! what art thou now?Worn are the traceries of thy lofty brow!
Yet once in beauteous strength like thee were none,
When Rothesay's Duke was heir to Scotland's throne;
Ere Falkland rose, or Holyrood, in thee
The barons to their sovereign bow'd the knee:
Now, as to mock thy pride,
The very waters of thy moat are dried;
Through fractured arch and doorway freely pass
The sunbeams, into halls o'ergrown with grass;
Thy floors, unroof'd, are open to the sky,
And the snows lodge there when the storm sweeps by;
O'er thy grim battlements, where bent the bow
Thine archers keen, now hops the chattering crow;
And where the beauteous and the brave were guests,
Now breed the bats, the swallows build their nests!
Lost even the legend of the bloody stair,
Whose steps went downward to thy house of prayer;
Gone is the priest, and they who worshipp'd seem
Phantoms to us—a dream within a dream;
Earth hath o'ermantled each memorial stone,
And from their tombs the very dust is gone;
All perish'd, all forgotten, like the ray
Which gilt yon orient hill-tops yesterday;
Who fell with Græme in Falkirk's bloody fight—
Bonkill's stout Stewart,
The walls forming the choir of the very ancient church dedicated to the Holy Virgin are still nearly entire, and stand close to the present parish church of Rothesay. Within a traceried niche, on one side, is the recumbent figure of a knight in complete armour, apparently of the kind in use about the time of Robert II. or III. His feet are upon a lion couchant, and his head upon a faithful watch-dog, with a collar, in beautiful preservation, encircling its neck. The coat-of-arms denotes the person represented to have been of royal lineage. Popular tradition individualises him as the “Stout Stewart of Bonkill” of Blind Harry the minstrel, who fell with Sir John the Grahame at the battle of Falkirk—although that hero was buried near the field of action, as his tombstone there, in the old churchyard, still records.
Sir John Stewart of Bonkill was uncle and tutor to the then Lord High Steward, at that time a minor.
A female figure and child recumbent, also elaborately sculptured in black marble, adorn the opposite niche, and under them, in alto-relievo, are several figures in religious habits. Another effigy of a knight, but much defaced, lies on the ground-floor of the choir—the whole of which was cleaned out and put in order by the late Marquis of Bute in 1827.
Oft circles yet the peasant's evening fire,
And how he scorn'd to fly, and how he bled—
He, whose effigies in St Mary's choir,
With planted heel upon the lion's head,
Now rests in marble mail.
Yet still remains the small dark narrow room,
Where the third Robert, yielding to the gloom
Of his despair, heart-broken, laid him down,
Refusing food, to die; and to the wall
Turn'd his determined face, unheeding all,
And to his captive boy-prince left his crown.
On the 4th of April 1406, this unfortunate prince—over-whelmed with grief for the death of his eldest son, David, duke of Rothesay and Earl of Carrick, who miserably perished of hunger in Falkland Castle; and the capture, during a time of truce, of his younger son, Prince James, by the English—died in the castle of Rothesay of a broken heart. The closet, fourteen feet by eight, in which he breathed his last, is still pointed out, in the south-east corner of the castle.
Alas! thy solitary hawthorn tree,
Four-centuried, and o'erthrown, is but of thee
A type, majestic ruin: there it lies,
And annually puts on its May-flower bloom,
To fill thy lonely precincts with perfume,
Yet lifts no more its green head to the skies;
In the court of the castle is a remarkable thorn-tree, which for centuries had waved above the chapel, now in ruins; and which, at the distance of a yard from the ground, measures six feet three inches in circumference. In 1839, it fell from its own weight, and now lies prostrate, with half its roots uncovered, but still vigorous in growth.
The last lone living thing around that knew
Thy glory, when the dizziness and din
Of thronging life o'erflow'd thy halls within,
And o'er thy top St Andrew's banner flew.
V.
Farewell! Elysian island of the west,Still be thy gardens brighten'd by the rose
Of a perennial spring, and winter's snows
Ne'er chill the warmth of thy maternal breast!
And desolating storms roll far away,
While art with nature vies to form thy bay,
Fairer than that which Naples makes her boast!
Green link between the High-lands and the Low—
Thou gem, half claim'd by earth, and half by sea—
May blessings, like a flood, thy homes o'erflow,
And health, though elsewhere lost, be found in thee!
May thy bland zephyrs to the pallid cheek
Of sickness ever roseate hues restore,
And they who shun the rabble and the roar
Of the wild world, on thy delightful shore
Obtain that soft seclusion which they seek!
Be this a stranger's farewell, green Byrone,
Who ne'er hath trod thy heathery heights before,
And ne'er may see thee more
After yon autumn sun hath westering gone;
Though oft, in pensive mood, when far away,
'Mid city multitudes, his thoughts will stray
To Ascog's lake, blue-sleeping in the morn,
And to the happy homesteads that adorn
Thy Rothesay's lovely bay.
HYMN TO THE NIGHT WIND.
Of ebon Midnight, whither dost thou stray,
Whence didst thou come, and where is thy abode?—
From slumber I awaken, at the sound
Of thy most melancholy voice; sublime
Thou ridest on the rolling clouds which take
The forms of sphinx, or hypogriff, or car,
Like those by Roman conquerors of yore
In games equestrian used, by fiery steeds
Drawn headlong on; or choosest, all unseen,
To ride the vault, and drive the murky storms
Before thee, or bow down, with giant wing,
The wondering forests as thou sweepest by!
Of tumult, and of discord, and mankind,
When but the watch-dog's voice is heard, or wolves
That bay the silent night, or from the tower,
Ruin'd and rent, the note of boding owl,
Or lapwing's shrill and solitary cry,
When sleep weighs down the eyelids of the world,
Forth from thy cave, wide roaming thou dost come,
To hold nocturnal orgies.
Thou moanest wistfully, of dark abbaye,
And silent charnel-house; the long lank grass,
The hemlock, and the nightshade, and the yew,
Bend at thy tread; and thro' the blacken'd rails
Fleetly thou sweepest, with a wailing voice.
Wayworn and woe-begone, the traveller
Bears on thro' paths unknown; alone he sees
The bright star's fitful twinkling, as along
Night's arch rush sullenly the darksome clouds,
And wilds and melancholy wastes, and streams
Forlorn, and joyless all; no cottage blaze
Strikes through the weary gloom; alone he hears
Thee, awful Spirit! fighting with the stream
Of rushing torrent, torturing it to foam,
And tossing it aloft; the shadowy woods
Join in the chorus, while lone shrieks and sighs
Burst on his ear, as if infernal fiends
Had burst their adamantine chains, and rush'd
To take possession of this lower world.
His bosom sinks, his spirit fails, his heart
Dies in him, and around his captive soul
Dark Superstition weaves her witching spells;
Unholy visions pass before his mind,
Dreams rayless and unhallow'd; spectres pale
Glide past with rustling garments; wormy graves
Of melancholy hearses blast his view.
To pastoral regions wide and mountains high,
Man's habitations, or the forests dark,
Are circumscribed thy visitings: Behold!
Stemming with eager prow, the Atlantic tide,
Holds on the intrepid mariner; abroad
The wings of Night brood shadowy; heave the waves
Around him, mutinous, their curling heads,
Portentous of a storm; all hands are plied,
A zealous task, and sounds the busy deck
With notes of preparation; many an eye
Is upward cast toward the clouded heaven;
And many a thought, with troubled tenderness,
Dwells on the calm tranquillity of home;
And many a heart in supplicating prayer
Breathes forth; meanwhile, the boldest sailor's cheek
Blanches; stout courage fails; young chilhood's shriek,
Awfully piercing, bursts; and woman's fears
Are speechless. With a low, insidious moan,
Rush past the gales, that harbinger thy way,
And hail thy advent; gloom the murky clouds
Darker around; and heave the maddening waves
Higher their crested summits. With a glare
Unveiling but the clouds and foaming seas,
Flashes the lightning; then, with doubling peal,
Reverberating to the gates of heaven,
Rolls the deep thunder with tremendous crash,
Amid the severing clouds, that pour their storms,
Commingling sea and sky.
The monsters of the deep, and wheel around
Their mountainous bulks unwieldy, while aloft,
Poised on the feathery summit of the wave,
Hangs the frail bark, its howlings of despair
Lost on the mocking storm. Then frantic, thou
Dost rise, tremendous Power, thy wings unfurl'd,
Unfurl'd, but nor to succour, nor to save;
Then is thine hour of triumph; with a yell,
Thou rushest on; and, with a maniac love,
Sing'st in the rifted shroud; the straining mast
Yields, and the cordage cracks. Thou churn'st the deep
To madness, tearing up the yellow sands
From their profound recesses, and dost strew
The clouds around thee, and within thy hand
Takest up the billowy tide, and dashest down
The vessel to destruction—she is not!
But, when the morning lifts her dewy eye,
And to a quiet calm the elements,
Subsiding from their fury, have dispersed,
There art thou, like a satiate conqueror,
Recumbent on the murmuring deep, thy smiles
All unrepentant of the savage wreck.
An evil spirit ministering to good!—
Breathless; and sunlight, on the western hill,
Dies with a quick decay; then, O how dear,
How welcome to the dry and thirsty glebe,
And to the night of woods, where Pagods rise,
And Bramah's priests adore their deity,
From ocean, journeying with an eagle speed,
Come the delightful fannings of thy wing!
The grateful heaven weeps down refreshing dews,
The twilight stars peep forth with glittering ray;
And earth outspreads the carpet of her flowers,
In tenderness exhaling their perfumes,
To lure within their cups thy gelid breath:
There, 'mid the azure landscape, on his roof,
Piazza-girt, watching the evening star,
Among his myrtle blooms, the Indian sits,
Delighted, as with soft refreshing sighs,
Thou wanderest past, lifting his coal-black hair:
The smiles of Vishnoo gleam along the earth;
While by high plantain groves, by limpid streams,
The maidens roam, as subtile Cambdeo lurks
The Indian god of love. By a beautiful allegorical fable, his bowstring is said to be framed of living bees. Vide Southey's Curse of Kehama, for a wonderful tissue of oriental superstition woven into the loom of poetry. Vishnoo, the Preserver, in the Hindoo Pantheon. Meru Mount, the Olympus of eastern mythology, on which the deities are supposed to meet in conclave.—Vide Maurice's Indian Antiquities, Sir William Jones, &c.
Behind a lotus tuft, and, from his string
Of living bees, the unerring arrow twangs:
Malignant Genii lose the power to harm;
From Meru Mount the deities look down,
Well pleased, rejoicing in the general joy.
Thy glittering crest, Canopus, on the verge
Of the ungirdled hemisphere, and frown
In Nilus dipping, through the twilight sky,
Thou roam'st excursive; while, on minaret,
In solemn voice the Muezzin calls to prayer
His Moslem devotees. With thirsty beak,
The birds fly panting to the lilied verge
Of Mœris lake, where swans unnumber'd oar
Their snowy way, amid the azure sheet,
To drink refreshment; while, at thy approach,
Through all their countless multitude of leaves,
The forests murmur, like an infant pleased
Beneath a sire's caress; and nightingales
Sing to thee, through the lapses of the night.
Thou lovest, and where Desolation spreads
Her far-outstretching pinions; hoary weeds,
Like tresses hanging from the pillar'd pride
Of Balbec,
The curious reader would do well to consult Pocoke's Travels, where an accurate account of these wonderful and stupendous ruins will be found. Amid the frigid and formal exaggerations of Darwin's poetry, the description of the desolation of Palmyra in the Botanic Garden will be found at once picturesque and powerful.
Wistfully moaning through the column'd shrines,
By men deserted, and to Silence left,
Whose shadows in the moonlight darksome stretch
O'er the dry sands. The jackall from his den,
Where ancient monarchs held their revels high,
Wondering, comes forth, disturb'd, with upturn'd nose
Scenting the breeze.
Thou hold'st thy solitary way, the sands
Uptossing high, and mingling earth with heaven:
Beside the well, the wearied caravans
Rest; and while slumber weighs their eyelids down,
The mountainous surges o'er their destined heads
Thou heap'st relentless. Long at Cairo wait
Their joyless friends expectant, long in vain,
Till hope deferr'd is swallowed in despair.
That wander'st where thou listest, round the world
Thine endless march pursuing; o'er the peak
Of Alpine Blanc, or through the streamy dells
Of Morven, or beyond Pacific wave
Climbing the mighty Andes, or the vales
Peruvian chusing rather, there to sway,
With creaking sound, the undulating arch
Of wild cane framed, and flung athwart the depth
Of gulfy chasms; or, with demoniac howl,
While hazy clouds bedim the labouring moon,
Wafting the midnight Sisters on thy car,
To hold unhallow'd orgies on the heaths
Of northern Lapland.
In terror, not in love, we sing of thee!
THE SNOW.
I
The snow! the snow! 'tis a pleasant thingTo watch it falling, falling
Down upon earth with noiseless wing,
As at some spirit's calling:
Each flake seems a fairy parachute,
From mystic cloudland blown,
And earth is still, and air is mute,
As frost's enchanted zone.
II
The shrubs bend down; behold the treesTheir fingery boughs stretch out
The blossoms of the sky to seize,
As they duck and drive about;
The bare hills plead for a covering,
And, ere the grey twilight,
Around their shoulders broad shall cling
An arctic cloak of white.
III
With clapping hands, from drifted doorOf lonely shieling, peeps
The imp, to see thy mantle hoar
O'erspread the craggy steeps.
The eagle round its eyrie screams,
The hill-fox seeks the glade,
And foaming downwards rush the streams,
As mad to be delay'd.
IV
Falling white on the land it lies,And falling dark in the sea;
The solan to its island flies,
The crow to the thick larch-tree;
Within the penthouse struts the cock,
His draggled mates among;
While black-eyed robin seems to mock
The sadness with his song.
V
Released from school, 'twas ours to wage,How keenly! bloodless wars—
Tossing the balls in mimic rage,
That left their gorgeous scars;
While doublets dark were powder'd oer,
Till darkness none could find;
And valorous chiefs had wounds before,
And caitiff churls behind.
VI
Comrades, to work!—I see him yet,That piled-up giant grim,
To startle horse and horsemen set,
With Titan girth of limb.
Snell Sir John Frost, with crystal spear,
We hoped thou wouldst have screen'd him;
But Thaw, the traitor, lurking near,
Soon cruelly guillotined him.
VII
The powdery snow! Alas! to meIt speaks of far-off days,
When a boyish skater mingling free
Amid the merry maze.
Methinks I see the broad ice still;
And my nerves all jangling feel,
Blent with the tones of voices shrill,
The ring of the slider's heel.
VIII
A scene of revelry! Soon nightDrew his murky curtains round
The world, while a star of lustre bright
Peep'd from the blue profound.
Yet what cared we for darkening lea,
Or warning bell remote?
With rush and cry we scudded by,
And seized the bliss we sought.
IX
Drift on, ye wild winds! leave no tracesOf dim and danky earth;
While eager faces fill their places
Around the blazing hearth:
Then let the stories of the glories
Of our rough sires be told;
Or tale of knight, who lady bright
From thraldom saved of old.
X
Or let the song the charms prolong,In music's haunting tone,
Of shores where spring's aye blossoming,
And winter is unknown;
Where zephyrs, sick with scent of flowers,
Along the lakelets play;
And lovers, wand'ring thro' the bowers,
Make life a holiday.
XI
Sunset and snow! Lo, eve revealsHer starr'd map to the moon,
And o'er hush'd earth a radiance steals
More bland than that of noon:
The fur-robed genii of the Pole
Dance o'er our mountains white,
Chain up the billows as they roll,
And pearl the caves with light.
XII
The moon above the eastern fellsHolds on a silent way;
The mill-wheel, sparr'd with icicles,
Reflects her silver ray;
The ivy-tod, beneath its load,
Bends down with frosty curl;
And all around seems sown the ground
With diamond and with pearl.
XIII
The groves are black, the hills are white,And, glittering in the sheen,
The lake expands—a sheet of light—
Its willowy banks between;
From the dark sedge that skirts its edge
The startled wild-duck springs,
While, echoing far up copse and scaur,
The fowler's musket rings.
XIV
From cove to cove how sweet to roveAround that fairy scene,
Companion'd, as along we move,
By things and thoughts serene;—
Voiceless, except where, cranking, rings,
The skater's curve along,
The demon of the ice, who sings
His deep, hoarse under-song.
XV
In days of old, when spirits heldThe air, and the earth below,
When o'er the green were, tripping, seen
The fays—what wert thou, Snow?
Leave eastern Greece its fabled fleece,
For Northland has its own—
The witches of Norway pluck their geese,
And thou art their plumes of down.
XVI
The snow! the snow! It brings to mindA thousand happy things,
And but one sad one—'tis to find
Too sure that Time hath wings!
O, ever sweet is sight or sound
That tells of long ago;
And I gaze around, with thoughts profound,
Upon the falling snow!
THE CASTLE OF TIME. A VISION.
I
Up rose the full moon in a heaven of blue,And sweetly sang the hermit nightingale,
As, with slow steps, I saunter'd through the vale,
Brushing aside the wild flowers bright with dew:
There hung a purple haze athwart the hills;
And all was hush'd beside me and remote;
Gleam'd, as they trickled, the pellucid rills,
Or 'neath the sallows dark seclusion sought;
The stars, dim twinkling in celestial mirth,
Seem'd sleepless eyes that watch'd the slumbermantled earth.
II
A while I stray'd beneath broad arbute trees,As the scarce-breathing west wind, with a sigh,
The glittering greenness kiss'd in wandering by;
Around me roses bloom'd; and, over these,
Commingled their blown richness; perfume sweet
From wild flowers breathed, and violets exquisite,
Crush'd in their beauty by my careless feet;
O'er earth and air a slumbrous influence stole,
With wizard power, that charm'd the billows of the soul.
III
So, as reclining 'mid the blooms I lay,The moonlight and the landscape bland declined,
And, rapt from outward shows, the trancèd mind
Woke 'mid the splendours of another day.
It was a wondrous scene; receding far
Into the distance, hills o'er hills arose,
Of mighty shapes and shades irregular,—
Here green with verdure, and there capp'd in snows;
Here gorgeous groves, there desert wastes sublime;
And, gazing, well I knew the changeful realm of Time.
IV
In the midst a Castle stood, whose arches show'dAll architecture's grand varieties;
Carved columns rear'd their summits to the skies,
While, over others, the dark mould was strew'd:
Pile picturesque and wild! with spires and domes,
And pyramids and pillars manifold,
And vaults, wherein both bird and beast made homes;
And part was strongly fresh, and part was old,
And part was mantled o'er by Ruin grey,
And part from eye of man had wholly sunk away.
V
Methought a spirit led me up the tower,And bade me gaze to the east; there, calmly bright,
Revolving pageants charm'd my trancèd sight,
In that deep flow of inspiration's hour,
As changed the vision. On Moriah's steeps
Behold a victim son for offering bound,
While the keen knife the aweless Patriarch keeps
Unsheathed to perpetrate the mortal wound.
But, hark, an angel,—“Stay thy hand from death;
For God hath known thee just, Heaven murmurs of thy faith.”
VI
Now 'tis a desert vast; but wherefore roamThese countless multitudes? before them, lo,
The pillar'd smoke revolves, as on they go,
By Heaven directed to their promised home.
Their garments know not wear; the skies rain bread;
Out gushes water from the obedient rock,
By miracle at once sustain'd and led;
Until, at length, the Shepherd of the flock,
From Pisgah gazes down on Palestine,
Then shuts in death his eyes that glow with hope divine.
VII
A crimson battle-field! careering steedsOver the prostrate and the perish'd driven;
The moon turns pale, the sun stands still in heaven,
As Israel conquers, and the godless bleeds.
The Father; but from Ephraim, tidings dire
Smite on his heart; for Joab, triumphing,
Hath slain the erring in relentless ire:
Then bleeds his heart, then bows he in despair—
“Oh, Absalom, my son!” and tears his silver hair.
VIII
A banquet hall—'tis gorgeous Babylon,The palace, and the satraps; radiant shine
A thousand lamps; the heathen's festal wine
Brims golden cups that in God's temple shone;
Quench'd is the mirth, the music dies away—
Belshazzar trembles; for a visible hand
Writes on the wall the date of his decay—
Wealth reft, life forfeited, and bondaged land:
'Twas darkness then, but, ere red morning shone,
The Persian bursts his gates, the Mede is on his throne!
IX
Spirit of Homer! is it but a dream,It is somewhat remarkable that the mists of time should have so darkly intervened as to make at once the poet and his theme matters of dubiety; but so it has happened with the great epic bards of the east and west, with Homer and with Ossian.
“The question as to the truth of the tale of ‘Troy divine,’” remarks Lord Byron, “much of it resting on the talismanic word ‘απειρος;’ probably Homer had the same notion of distance that a coquette has of time, and when he talks of ‘boundless,’ means half a mile; as the latter, by a like figure, when she says eternal attachment, simply specifies three weeks.”
It is no bad example of the mutability and perishing nature of all earthly things, that a realm, whose very existence has become a matter of speculation to the classical antiquary, should have given rise to two of the grandest exhibitions of human genius, in the magnificent epic of the Greeks, and the exquisite epic of the Romans.
A spectre of the fancy, that reveals
To us such majesty and power, and steals
The bosom from what is, to what may seem?
It matters not; still Agamemnon reigns,
The king of men; by Chrysa moors the fleet;
Achilles in his chariot scours the plains,
Showing to Troy slain Hector at his feet;
Andromache laments, and Ruin lowers
On Priam's princely line, and Ilion's fated towers.
X
Behold the Persian—like a green bay treeFlaunting in summer beauty; to the shores
Of Hellespont an armed million pours
To shackle Greece—to subjugate the free:
Yet Xerxes, thou wert man, and shall not die
Thy passionate saying; still thy voice we hear,
As, o'er the peopled plain's immensity,
Flash to the sunset, corslet, helm, and spear,
“A century hence—and of this fair array
There beats no bosom now, but shall be silent clay!”
“One touch of nature,” as the all-observant Shakspeare remarks, “makes the whole world kin;” and really the little anecdote in the text goes far with me in atoning for the ambitious invasion of the proud and puissant Xerxes; for Nature is so steady and exact in her operations, that no heart but one originally benevolent and generous would have ventured on such an apophthegm at such an hour.
Fate, however, intended these myriads a much shorter duration than that which the monarch lamented, as the field of Marathon too bloodily illustrated—“When the sun set, where were they?”
XI
Behold on yon seven hills a city rear'd,In the text an endeavour is made to sketch the extent of the Roman empire. Perhaps to the loyal of our own country, it may not be a little gratifying to know, that imperial Rome, at the zenith of her glory, never commanded an extent of population equal to that of Great Britain at the present day. We know of no prouder illustration of the effects of mental energy over nature in a state destitute of cultivation, or paralysed by luxurious sloth.
Immense, majestic, mistress of the world;
O'er all the standard of her power unfurl'd,
By subject nations is obey'd and fear'd.
She calls her vassals—Mauritania pours
Her golden tribute; proud Hispania bows;
Rude Albion answers from her chalky shores;
The echo sounds o'er Scandinavia's snows;
Swart Scythia hears the summons; and, afar,
Blue Thule in the main 'neath Eve's descending star.
“Thule,” the Shetland of the ancients, is peetically characterised by Horace as “Ultima Thule,” from its being the most remote situation of olden geography, and consequently considered as one of the “ends of the earth.”
The lines of Seneca (Medea) pointing out the probable effects of future discovery, seem embued almost with the spirit of prophecy, and have been appositely affixed as the motto to the Life of Columbus by Mr Washington Irving.
XII
City of Dido, by the sounding sea!I know thee by thy grandeur desolate—
Green weeds wave rankly o'er thy levell'd gate,
The sea-fowl and the serpent dwell in thee—
Where are thine armies, that, with thundering tread,
Shook Rome to her foundation-rocks, and gave
Manure to Cannæ of the Roman dead?
Never, perhaps, except by the earlier invasion of Pyrrhus, was the independence of the Roman State so severely threatened as by the invasion of Hannibal.
As to the horrible carnage of Cannæ, some notion may be formed from the succinct account of Livy:—“Ad fidem, deinde, tam lætarum rerum, effundi in vestibulo curiæ jussit annulos aureos, qui tantus acervus fuit, ut, metientibus dimidium super tres modios explêsse, sint quidam auctores. Adjecit deinde verbis, quo majoris cladis indicium esset, neminem, nisi equitem, atque eorum ipsorum primores, id gerere insigne.”—Hist. lib. xxiii.
Nought of thy vanish'd state the silence speaks;
The fisher spreads his nets, on high the heron shrieks!
Few traces of ancient Carthage are said to remain, except the ruins of an aqueduct and the site of the harbour, now called El Mersa. The reader may consult Dr Shaw's Travels, vol. i., and Chateaubriand's Travels, vol. ii., although the accounts given by each are very dissimilar.
“The iniquity of oblivion,” apostrophiseth the eloquent Sir Thomas Browne, in his Hydriotophia, “blindly scattereth her poppy, and deals with the memory of men without distinction to merit of perpetuity. Who can but pity the founder of the Pyramids? Erostratos lives, who burned the temple of Diana —he is almost lost that built it. Time hath spared the epitaph of Adrian's horse, confounded that of himself. In vain we compute our felicities by the advantage of our good names, since bad have equal durations; and Thersites is like to live as long as Agamemnon. Without the favour of the everlasting register, the first man had been as unknown as the last, and Methuselah's long life had been his only chronicle.”
XIII
O, hundred-gated Thebes, magnificent!Thebes has been more fortunate than either Troy or Carthage, in the circumstance of some of its stupendous structures still remaining. By the modern natives it is called Luxor.
The most recent accounts of this ancient city are to be found in the travels of Belzoni, who collected from amidst the rubbish and sand some of his finest specimens of Egyptian antiquity. See also Carne's interesting Letters from the East.
As to the celebrated statue of Memnon, it may be only necessary briefly to observe, that, according to Pausanias, it was broken by Cambyses. The upper portion was seen lying neglected on the ground, but the lower division emitted duly at sunrise the sound resembling the breaking of a harp-string over-wound up.
From its grandeur Thebes was also called Diospolis, the city of Jupiter, or of the Sun; from its hundred gates it obtained the additional appellation of “Hecatompylos,” to distinguish it from Thebes in Bœotia, and was at one period the finest city of the world.
Where Memnon's image hymn'd the march of Time,
As sank the day-star 'mid the dewy prime,
In tones celestial with the sunrise blent,
I know thee by thy remnants Titan-like;
And thee, proud Memphis, proud, alas! no more,
Whose thinn'd and desolate fragments scarcely strike
The pilgrim's eye on thy blue river's shore;
And thee, Palmyra, 'mid whose silent piles
One of the chief wonders of this in every way wonderful city was the Temple of the Sun, many columns of which, according to Wood and Volney, yet remain. It is one of the “arcana” of political economy, how a city encompassed by a desert came to attain its power and population; and we would trouble Mr M`Culloch to explain this?
Still lingering grandeur sleeps, the unworshipp'd sun still smiles.
XIV
I see thee now, supreme Jerusalem!The city of the chosen, great in power;
Glory surrounds thee in thy noontide hour,
Of Palestine's green plains the diadem.
Now graves give up their dead 'mid thunders drear;
A murmuring multitude on Calvary see!—
The temple's vail is rent!—a sound of fear!
'Tis “Eli! Eli!” from the accursed tree;
Daylight shrinks waning from the scene abhorr'd,
And shuddering Nature shares the pangs that pierce her Lord.
Vide Gospel of St Matthew, chap. xxviii.—The reader need scarcely be directed to that most interesting of all sieges in the history of the Jews by Josephus, or to the recent beautiful scriptural drama, The Fall of Jerusalem, by Professor Milman.
For an account of the present state of a city, on many accounts the most remarkable in the world, whether we refer to its origin, its revolutions, or the scenes it has witnessed, the curious are directed to the Travels of Vicomte Chateaubriand, Dr Shaw, Mr Buckingham, and Mr Rae Wilson; but more particularly to the account of Dr Clarke—one of the finest things that ever came from the pen of that most accomplished traveller.
XV
From Danube, see, from Don, and Volga's banks,Come pouring to the South barbarian hordes,
Innumerous, irresistible; keen swords
Their only heritage, their home the ranks:
Erst like the locusts on Egyptian vales
They darken, and the treasured shores consume;
And Science is o'erthrown, and Courage fails;
And droop the eagles of imperial Rome;
Art palsied wanes; and Wisdom sighs to find
A second gloomier night o'ershadowing lost mankind.
XVI
A fierce acclaim! Alarm's loud trumpet-call—And up in arms the banded nations rise,
The Red Cross standards flout the morning skies,
The Crusaders bore on their banners or arms the symbol of the Cross, as marking out the cause for which they had taken up arms. The first account I can find of its being displayed on the banners and arms of war is in the instance of the troops of Constantine the Great, after his alleged miraculous conversion to Christianity—an account of which may be found in Milner's Church History, vol. iii., as abridged by him from Eusebius.
It is said that to Constantine and his army the figure of a cross had appeared one afternoon on the sky, with the inscription “Conquer by this.” The punishment of the Cross was thereafter abolished throughout his dominions, and the symbol made one of dignity and honour.
Alluding to the Cross, Mr Gibbon says, “The same symbol sanctified the arms of the soldiers of Constantine; the cross glittered on their helmets, was engraved on their shields, was interwoven into their banners; and the consecrated emblems which adorned the person of the emperor himself were distinguished only by richer materials and more exquisite workmanship.”
For a History of the Crusades, and a very interesting one, the reader is referred to the work of the late Mr Mills; and episodically to the Tales of the Crusaders, by the author of Waverley, who has therein found a subject, and produced a work, worthy of his genius.
To rescue Palestine from Paynim thrall:
The Lion-hearted girds his falchion on,—
Bright beams the Gallic ensign o'er the wave,—
Death's vultures crowd o'er carnaged Ascalon;
But Salem, unsubdued, resists the brave:
Where is the victim gone? His minstrel plays,—
And from false Austria's cell come back responsive lays!
XVII
Now rising from the dusk-subjected Earth,Forth walks Civilisation, to illume
With learning's light divine the Gothic gloom,
Awaking man as 'twere to second birth:
Towers city flourishing,—smiles hamlet home,—
Track venturous navies the engirding main,—
O'er willing lands Religion's banners roam,—
Dawns mental day—and Freedom's sacred pile
Is rear'd, by proud resolve, in Albion's favour'd isle.
XVIII
Most fortunate, most fortunate, for nowBroods over Gaul the tempest-cloud of blood!
Down, down it streams around, a crimson flood!
Afar the deluge pours, to overthrow
Peoples and empires; Chaos frowns on man
With midnight threatening; Reason is o'erthrown;
Red Murder roams in Desolation's van;
And frenzied Anarchy makes earth her own;
Hope trembles; and Religion, with a sigh,
Shrieks as her burning shrines rejoice the Atheist's eye.
XIX
Yet, Queen of Nations, yet in thee are foundThe buckler and the sword; thy war hath gone
Amid Heaven's foes, invincible, alone—
For all beside were bleeding, faint, or bound:
The rampart of the righteous, in the day
Of need, thy succouring arm is strongly felt:
Before thy flooding sunlight rush away
Hell's spectral legions, and in shadows melt;
Crush'd is the serpent brood—the unholy crew,
And triumph wreathes thy brows on deathless Waterloo!
XX
I listen, for a sound salutes mine earOf harmony divine; beneath the star
Of Eve, 'tis borne across the waves afar,
From isles that studding Ocean's robe appear:
Hearken ye now to Adoration's tones!
At Truth's pure shrine the heathen bows the knee!
Owns his low worthlessness, submissly owns
His trust in Him who bled on Calvary!
'Mid the blue main the sailor stays his oars,
Wondering at incense such from lone Pacific shores.
XXI
Not yet, not yet, not yet Heaven's sunlight dartsThrough Error's clouds and Ignorance's night:
Wide are the realms that, in their cheerless blight,
Pine darkling, with forlorn and sullied hearts.—
'Neath priesthood bigotry, 'neath tyrant thrall,
The wavering tremble, and the bold are mute;
Prone to the dust, o'erawed, earth's thousands fall
At the proud stamp of Superstition's foot:
Gleams the keen axe; outgushes the bright flood;
And Moloch's monstrous shrines are dew'd with human blood.
XXII
And these know not the name of Liberty;And those the boon of Reason cast aside;
Time is to both a dark predestined tide,
Floating their shallops to Oblivion's sea;
The immortal soul is sullied and debased;
A worthless gift is conscience, given for nought;
From man the Maker's stamp is quite erased—
Like Autumn leaf, or fly in summer's ray,
He shines his little hour, and vanisheth away!
XXIII
Then spake the Spirit,—“Turn thee to the West,And see what lies before thee.” It was dim;
For clouds on the blue air, with shadowy skim,
Were rolling their faint billows; and my breast
Tumultuously heaved, as forth I gazed
Upon that prospect's wild immensity;
For shadows show'd themselves, and then, erased,
Left not a trace on that decayless sky—
Bright forms, some fair like Hope; and some like Fear,
With spectral front sublime, stern, desolate, and drear.
XXIV
Now, 'twas Elysian, bright and beautiful,And now a chaos; though, sometimes, a star,
With momentary glitter, shone afar,
Through tempest-clouds that made its lustre dull.
All was a mystery, till the Spirit's touch
Open'd my eyelids, then the waste array'd
Its scenes in majesty, whose glow was such,
That dim seem'd that which first I had survey'd;
And such a scope was to that vista given,
That almost I could see the golden gates of Heaven.
XXV
Beneath 'twas peace and purity; the swordWas beat into the sickle; and mankind
(As if 'twere daylight pour'd upon the blind)
The crooked paths of Error quite abhorr'd:
Man's heart was changed; a renovated life
Throbb'd in his veins, and turn'd his thoughts to joy;
Sick'ning he shrank from blood and warlike strife,
Loathing the ire that led him to destroy;
Nations were link'd in brotherhood; and Crime
Was heard of but as what had stain'd departed Time.
XXVI
Then I saw Angels coming down from Heaven,And mingling with mankind, almost as pure;
For, through the atonement of the Cross, a sure
And marvellous redemption had been given:
All ends of the earth obey'd it—East and West,
And South and North, responsive echo gave.
The mighty sea of Discord, lulled to rest,
Was heard no more; Sin's storm was in its grave;
Religion's mandate bade the tumult cease;
And o'er each mountain-top the banners stream'd of Peace.
XXVII
In the same lair the tame beast and the wildTogether caved; the lion and the kid,
Half by the palm-tree's noontide shadow hid,
Roll'd 'mid the wild-flowers with the fearless child,
Together rushed as 'twere a folding scroll;
I knew the end of human destinies,
“Having played our parts,” quaintly observeth old erudite Burton, “we must for ever be gone. Tombs and monuments have the like fate:—
‘Data sunt ipsis quoque fata sepulchris.’Kingdoms, towns, provinces, and cities, have their periods, and are consumed. In those flourishing times of Troy, Mycenæ was the fairest city of Greece—Greciæ cunctæ imperitabat; but it, alas! and that Assyrian Nineveh, are quite overthrown. The like fate hath that Egyptian and Bœotian Thebes, Delos, commune Greciæ consiliabulum, the common council-house of Greece; and Babylon, the greatest city that ever the sun shone upon, hath nothing now but the walls and rubbish left.
‘Quid Pandioniæ restant, nisi nomen, Athenæ?’Thus Pausanias complained in his times. And where is Troy itself now, Persepolis, Carthage, Cyzicum, Sparta, Argos, and all those Grecian cities? Syracuse and Agrigentum, the fairest towns in Sicily, which had sometimes 700,000 inhabitants, are now decayed: the names of Hieron, Empedocles, &c. of those mighty numbers of people, only left. One Anacharsis is remembered among the Scythians; the world itself must have an end, and every part of it. Ceteræ igitur urbes sunt mortales, as Peter Gillius concludes of Constantinople; hæc sanæ quamdiu erunt homines, futura mihi videtur immortalis; but 'tis not so; nor size, nor strength, nor sea, nor land, can vindicate a city; but it and all must vanish at last. And, as to a traveller, great mountains seem plains afar off, at last are not discerned at all; cities, men, monuments decay:—
‘Nec solidis prodest sua machina terris.’The names are only left, those at length forgotten, and are involved in perpetual night.”
Nothing can be more beautiful in itself, or more illustrative of our subject, than that passage in the epistle of Servius Sulpitius to Cicero, wherein, from the contemplation of national, he endeavours to bear him up against personal calamities. “On my return from Asia, as I was sailing from Ægina towards Megara, I began to contemplate the prospect around me. Ægina was behind, Megara was before me; Piræus on the right, Corinth on the left; all which towns, once famous and flourishing, now lie overturned, and buried in their ruins,” &c.
How much and how often has the balance of power fluctuated among the different states of Europe, since the time that Italy was the leviathan among them? What is Italy now, though containing Rome, Genoa, and Venice, in its bosom, in comparison with Great Britain, with Russia, with France, with Austria, and others, which, at the era of her glory, were designated the “barbari,” or “barbarians,” with as little scrupulosity as a modern Parisian dancing-master desecrates the mob under the comprehensive epithet of the “canaille.” As to Norway, her political importance is entirely past, or, at best, merged into that of Sweden; the chivalry of Spain has degenerated into monkish superstition; and Poland, dismembered and torn to pieces, has no place among the modern divisions of the earth's surface.
“Labitur, et labetur in omne volubilis ævum.”And speechless awe oppress'd my shrinking soul;
When stood an angel, earth's unburied o'er,
And swore by Him that lives, that “Time should be no more!”
XXVIII
This was the end of all things, and I turn'dAround, but there lay Darkness, and a void—
Creation's map dim, blotted, and destroy'd—
The sun, the moon, the stars no longer burn'd.
Earth was not now, nor seem'd to have ever been—
Nor wind, nor wave, nor cloud, nor storm, nor shine;
Wide universal chaos wrapt the scene,
And hid the Almighty's countenance divine.
Then died my heart within me; I awoke,
And brightly on mine eyes the silver moonshine broke.
XXIX
I knew the trees above me—heard the rillsThat o'er their pebbles gently murmuring ran;
And saw the wild-blooms bathed in lustre wan,
And far away the azure-shoulder'd hills;
Then up I rose. But graven long shall last
On memory's page the marvels sleep hath shown—
With wonders spotted the receding past;
With mysteries manifold the future strewn;
The mouldering Castle of the spoiler, Time;
And Heaven's o'erarching dome, eternal and sublime!
The Poetical Works of David Macbeth Moir | ||