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126

THE PILGRIMS OF THE SUN.

DEDICATION TO FIRST EDITION. TO THE RIGHT HONOURABLE LORD BYRON.

Not for thy crabbed state-creed, wayward wight,
Thy noble lineage, nor thy virtues high,
(God bless the mark!) do I this homage plight;
No—'tis thy bold and native energy;
Thy soul that dares each bound to overfly,
Ranging through Nature on erratic wing:
These do I honour, and would fondly try
With thee a wild aerial strain to sing:
Then, O! round Shepherd's head thy charmed mantle fling.

1. PART FIRST.

Of all the lasses in fair Scotland,
That lightly bound o'er muir and lee,
There's nane like the maids of Yarrowdale,
Wi' their green coats kilted to the knee.
Oh! there shines mony a winsome face,
And mony a bright and beaming e'e;
For rosy health blooms on the cheek,
And the blink of love plays o'er the bree.
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But ne'er by Yarrow's sunny braes,
Nor Ettrick's green and wizard shaw,
Did ever maid so lovely won
As Mary Lee of Carelha'.
Oh! round her fair and sightly form
The light hill-breeze was blithe to blow,
For the virgin hue her bosom wore
Was whiter than the drifted snow.
The dogs that wont to growl and bark,
Whene'er a stranger they could see,
Would cower, and creep along the sward,
And lick the hand of Mary Lee.
On form so fair, or face so mild,
The rising sun did never gleam;
On such a pure untainted mind
The dawn of truth did never beam.
She never had felt the stounds of love,
Nor the waefu' qualms that breed o' sin;
But ah! she showed an absent look,
And a deep and thoughtfu' heart within.
She looked with joy on a young man's face,
The downy chin, and the burning eye,
Without desire, without a blush;
She loved them, but she knew not why.
She learned to read, when she was young,
The books of deep divinity;
And she thought by night, and she read by day,
Of the life that is, and the life to be.
And the more she thought, and the more she read
Of the ways of Heaven and Nature's plan,
She feared the half that the bedesmen said
Was neither true nor plain to man.
Yet she was meek, and bowed to Heaven
Each morn beneath the shady yew,
Before the laverock left the cloud,
Or the sun began his draught of dew.
And when the gloaming's gouden veil
Was o'er Blackandro's summit flung,
Among the bowers of green Bowhill
Her hymn she to the Virgin sung.
And aye she thought, and aye she read,
Till mystic wildness marked her air;
For the doubts that on her bosom preyed
Were more than maiden's mind could bear.
And she grew weary of this world,
And yearned and pined the next to see;
Till Heaven in pity earnest sent,
And from that thraldom set her free.
One eve when she had prayed and wept
Till daylight faded on the wold—
The third night of the waning moon,
Well known to hind and matron old;
For then the fairies boun' to ride,
And the elves of Ettrick's greenwood shaw;
And aye their favourite rendezvous
Was green Bowhill and Carelha'—
There came a wight to Mary's knee,
With face, like angel's, mild and sweet;
His robe was like the lily's bloom,
And graceful flowed upon his feet.
He did not clasp her in his arms,
Nor showed he cumbrous courtesy;
But took her gently by the hand,
Saying, “Maiden, rise and go with me.
“Cast off, cast off these earthly weeds,
They ill befit thy destiny;
I come from a far distant land
To take thee where thou long'st to be.”
She only felt a shivering throb,
A pang defined that may not be;
And up she rose, a naked form,
More lightsome, pure, and fair than he.
He held a robe in his right hand,
Pure as the white rose in the bloom;
That robe was not of earthly make,
Nor sewed by hand, nor wove in loom.
When she had donn'd that light seymar,
Upward her being seemed to bound;
Like one that wades in waters deep,
And scarce can keep him to the ground.
Tho' rapt and transient was the pause,
She scarce could keep to ground the while;
She felt like heaving thistle-down,
Hung to the earth by viewless pile.
The beauteous stranger turned his face
Unto the eastern streamers sheen;
He seemed to eye the ruby star
That rose above the Eildon green.
He spread his right hand to the heaven,
And he bade the maid not look behind,
But keep her face to the dark blue even:
And away they bore upon the wind.
She did not linger, she did not look,
For in a moment they were gone;
But she thought she saw her very form
Stretched on the greenwood's lap alone.
As ever you saw the meteor speed,
Or the arrow cleave the yielding wind,
Away they sprung, and the breezes sung,
And they left the gloaming star behind;
And eastward, eastward still they bore,
Along the night's gray canopy;
And the din of the world died away,
And the landscape faded on the e'e.
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They had marked the dark blue waters lie
Like curved lines on many a vale;
And they hung on the shelve of a saffron cloud,
That scarcely moved in the slumbering gale.
They turned their eyes to the heaven above,
And the stars blazed bright as they drew nigh;
And they looked to the darksome world below,
But all was gray obscurity.
They could not trace the hill nor dale,
Nor could they ken where the greenwood lay;
But they saw a thousand shadowy stars,
In many a winding watery way;
And they better knew where the rivers ran
Than if it had been the open day.
They looked to the western shores afar,
But the light of day they could not see;
And the halo of the evening star
Sand like a crescent on the sea.
Then onward, onward fast they bore
On the yielding winds so light and boon,
To meet the climes that bred the day,
And gave the glow to the gilded moon.
Long had she chambered in the deep,
To spite the maidens of the main,
But now frae the merman's couch she sprang,
And blushed upon her still domain.
When first from out the sea she peeped,
She kythed like maiden's gouden kemb,
And the sleepy waves washed o'er her brow,
And bell'd her cheek wi' the briny faem.
But the yellow leme spread up the lift,
And the stars grew dim before her e'e,
And up arose the Queen of Night
In all her solemn majesty.
Oh! Mary's heart was blithe to lie
Above the ocean wastes reclined,
Beside her lovely guide so high,
On the downy bosom of the wind.
She saw the shades and gleams so bright
Play o'er the deep incessantly,
Like streamers of the norland way,
The lights that danced on the quaking sea.
She saw the wraith of the waning moon,
Trembling and pale it seemed to lie;
It was not round like golden shield,
Nor like her moulded orb on high,
Her image cradled on the wave,
Scarce bore similitude the while;
It was a line of silver light,
Stretched on the deep for many a mile.
The lovely youth beheld with joy
That Mary loved such scenes to view;
And away, and away they journeyed on,
Faster than wild bird ever flew.
Before the tide, before the wind,
The ship speeds swiftly o'er the faem;
And the sailor sees the shores fly back,
And weens his station still the same:
Beyond that speed ten thousand times,
By the marled streak and the cloudlet brown,
Pass'd our aerial travellers on
In the wan light of the waning moon.
They kept aloof as they passed her bye,
For their views of the world were not yet done;
But they saw her mighty mountain form
Like Cheviot in the setting sun.
And the stars and the moon fled west away,
So swift o'er the vaulted sky they shone;
They seemed like fiery rainbows reared,
In a moment seen, in a moment gone.
Yet Mary Lee as easy felt
As if on silken couch she lay;
And soon on a rosy film they hung,
Above the beams of the breaking day.
And they saw the chambers of the sun,
And the angels of the dawning ray
Draw the red curtains from the dome,
The glorious dome of the God of Day.
And the youth a slight obeisance made,
And seemed to bend upon his knee:
The holy vow he whispering said
Sunk deep in the heart of Mary Lee.
I may not say the prayer he prayed,
Nor of its wondrous tendency;
But it proved that the half the bedesmen said
Was neither true nor ever could be.
Sweet breaks the day o'er Harlaw cairn,
On many an ancient peel and barrow,
On bracken hill, and lonely tarn,
Along the greenwood glen of Yarrow.
Oft there had Mary viewed with joy
The rosy streaks of light unfurled:
Oh! think how glowed the virgin's breast,
Hung o'er the profile of the world;
On battlement of storied cloud
That floated o'er the dawn serene,
To pace along with angel tread,
And on the rainbow's arch to lean.
Her cheek lay on its rosy rim,
Her bosom pressed the yielding blue,
And her fair robes of heavenly make
Were sweetly tinged with every hue.
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And there they lay, and there beheld
The glories of the opening morn
Spread o'er the eastern world afar,
Where winter wreath was never borne.
And they saw the blossom-loaded trees,
And gardens of perennial blow
Spread their fair bosoms to the day,
In dappled pride, and endless glow.
These came and passed, for the earth rolled on,
But still on the brows of the air they hung;
The scenes of glory they now beheld
May scarce by mortal bard be sung.
It was not the hues of the marbled sky,
Nor the gorgeous kingdoms of the East,
Nor the thousand blooming isles that lie
Like specks on the mighty ocean's breast;
It was the dwelling of that God
Who oped the welling springs of time;
Seraph and cherubim's abode;
The Eternal's throne of light sublime.
The virgin saw her radiant guide
On nature look with kindred eye;
But whenever he turned him to the sun,
He bowed with deep solemnity.
And ah! she deemed him heathen born,
Far from her own nativity,
In lands beneath the southern star,
Beyond the sun, beyond the sea.
And aye she watched with wistful eye,
But durst not question put the while;
He marked her mute anxiety,
And o'er his features beamed the smile.
He took her slender hand in his,
And swift as fleets the stayless mind,
They scaled the glowing fields of day,
And left the elements behind.
When past the firmament of air,
Where no attractive influence came;
There was no up, there was no down,
But all was space, and all the same.
The first green world that they passed by
Had 'habitants of mortal mould;
For they saw the rich men and the poor,
And they saw the young and they saw the old.
But the next green world the twain pass'd by,
They seemed of some superior frame;
For all were in the bloom of youth,
And all their radiant robes the same.
And Mary saw the groves and trees,
And she saw the blossoms thereupon;
But she saw no grave in all the land,
Nor church, nor yet a church-yard stone.
That pleasant land is lost in light,
To every searching mortal eye;
So nigh the sun its orbit sails,
That on his breast it seems to lie.
And though its light be dazzling bright,
The warmth was gentle, mild, and bland,
Such as on summer days may be
Far up the hills of Scottish land.
And Mary Lee longed much to stay
In that blest land of love and truth,
So nigh the fount of life and day;
That land of beauty and of youth.
“O maiden of the wistful mind,
Here it behoves not to remain;
But Mary, yet the time will come
When thou shalt see this land again.
“Thou art a visitant beloved
Of God and every holy one;
And thou shalt travel on with me,
Around the spheres, around the sun,
To see what maid hath never seen,
And do what maid hath never done.”
Thus spoke her fair and comely guide,
And took as erst her lily hand;
And soon in holy ecstasy
On mountains of the sun they stand.
Here I must leave the beauteous twain,
Casting their raptured eyes abroad
Around the valleys of the sun,
And all the universe of God:
And I will bear my hill-harp hence,
And hang it on its ancient tree;
For its wild warblings ill become
The scenes that oped to Mary Lee.
Thou holy harp of Judah's land,
That hung the willow boughs upon,
Oh leave the bowers on Jordan's strand,
And cedar groves of Lebanon;
That I may sound thy sacred string,
Those chords of mystery sublime,
That chimed the songs of Israel's King,
Songs that shall triumph over time.
Pour forth the trancing notes again,
That wont of yore the soul to thrill,
In tabernacles of the plain,
Or heights of Zion's holy hill.
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Oh come, ethereal timbrel meet,
In shepherd's hand thou dost delight;
On Kedar hills thy strain was sweet,
And sweet on Bethlehem's plain by night:
And when thy tones the land shall hear,
And every heart conjoins with thee,
The mountain lyre that lingers near
Will lend a wandering melody.
 

Now vulgarly called Carterhaugh.

The extravagant and heterodox position pretended to be established throughout the poem, of the throne of the Almighty being placed in the centre of the sun, must be viewed only as of a piece with the rest of the imaginary scenes exhibited in the work; infinitude and omnipresence being attributes too sacred and too boundless for admission into an enthusiast's dream.

A friend of mine from the country, himself a poet, made particular objections to this stanza, on the ground of its being false and unphilosophical; “For ye ken, sir,” said he, “that wherever a man may be, or can possibly be, whether in a bodily or spiritual state, there maun aye be a firmament aboon his head, and something or other below his feet. In short, it is impossible for a being to be anywhere in the boundless universe in which he winna find baith an up and a down.” I was obliged to give in, but was so much amused with the man's stubborn incredulity, that I introduced it again in the last part.

2. PART SECOND.

Harp of Jerusalem! how shall my hand
Awake thy hallelujahs?—How begin
The song that tells of light ineffable,
And of the dwellers there; the fountain pure
And source of all, where bright archangels dwell,
And where, in unapproached pavilion, framed
Of twelve deep veils, and every veil composed
Of thousand thousand lustres, sits enthroned
The God of Nature?—O thou harp of Salem,
Where shall my strain begin?
Soft let it be,
And simple as its own primeval airs;
And, minstrel, when on angel wing thou soar'st,
Then will the harp of David rise with thee.
In that fair heaven the mortal virgin stood
Beside her lovely guide, Cela his name.
Yes, deem it heaven, for not the ample sky
As seen from earth, could slight proportion bear
To those bright regions of eternal day,
Once they are gained—so sweet the breeze of life
Breathed through the groves of amaranth—so sweet
The very touch of that celestial land.
Soon as the virgin trode thereon she felt
Unspeakable delight—sensations new
Thrilled her whole frame; as one who his life long
Hath in a dark and chilly dungeon pined
Feels when restored to freedom and the sun.
Upon a mount they stood of wreathy light,
Which cloud had never rested on, nor hues
Of night had ever shaded; thence they saw
The motioned universe, that wheeled around
In fair confusion. Raised as they were now
To the high fountain-head of light and vision,
Where'er they cast their eyes abroad they found
The light behind, the object still before;
And on the rarified and pristine rays
Of vision borne, their piercing sight passed on
Intense and all unbounded—onward!—onward!
No cloud to intervene, no haze to dim,
Or nigh or distant it was all the same;
For distance lessened not.—Oh what a scene,
To see so many goodly worlds upborne,
Around!—around!—all turning their green bosoms
And glittering waters to that orb of life
On which our travellers stood, and all by that
Sustained and gladdened! By that orb sustained?
No—by the mighty everlasting One
Who in that orb resides, and round whose throne
Our journeyers now were hovering. But they kept
Aloof upon the skirts of heaven; for, strange
Though it appears, there was no heaven beside.
They saw all nature—all that was they saw;
But neither moon, nor stars, nor firmament,
Nor clefted galaxy was any more.
Worlds beyond worlds, with intermundane voids
That closed and opened as those worlds rolled on,
Were all that claimed existence: each of these,
From one particular point of the sun's orb,
Seemed pendent by some ray or viewless cord,
On which it twirled and swung with endless motion.
Oh! never did created being feel
Such rapt astonishment, as did this maid
Of earthly lineage, when she saw the plan
Of God's fair universe (himself enthroned
In light she dared not yet approach!), from whence
He viewed the whole, and with a father's care
Upheld and cherished. Wonder seemed it none
That Godhead should discern each thing minute
That moved on his creation, when the eyes
Which he himself had made could thus perceive
All these broad orbs turn their omniferous breasts,
And sun them in their Maker's influence.
Oh! it was sweet to see their ample vales,
Their yellow mountains, and their winding streams,
All basking in the beams of light and life!
Each one of all these worlds seemed the abode
Of intellectual beings; but their forms,
Their beauty, and their natures varied all.
And in these worlds there were broad oceans rolled,
And branching seas: some wore the hues of gold,
And some of emerald or of burnished glass;
And there were seas that keel had never ploughed,
Nor had the shadow of a veering sail
Scared their inhabitants—for slumbering shades
And spirits brooded on them.
“Cela, speak,”
Said the delighted but inquiring maid,
“And tell me which of all these worlds I see
Is that we lately left? For I would fain
Note how far more extensive 'tis and fair
Than all the rest. Little, alas! I know
Of it, save that it is a right fair globe
Diversified and huge, and that afar,
In one sweet corner of it, lies a spot
I dearly love, where Tweed from distant moors
Far travelled flows in murmuring majesty,
And Yarrow, rushing from her bosky banks,
Hurries with headlong haste to the embrace
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Of her more stately sister of the hills.
Ah! yonder 'tis!—now I perceive it well,”
Said she with ardent voice, bending her eye,
And stretching forth her arm to a broad globe
That basked in the light—“Yonder it is!
I know the Caledonian mountains well,
And mark the moony braes and curved heights
Above the lone Saint Mary. Cela, speak;
Is not that globe the world where I was born,
And yon the land of my nativity?”
She turned around her beauteous earnest face
With asking glance, but soon that glance withdrew,
And silent looked abroad on glowing worlds;
For she beheld a smile on Cela's face,
A smile that might an angel's face become,
When listening to the boasted, pigmy skill
Of high presuming man. She looked abroad,
But nought distinctly marked, nor durst her eye
Again meet his, although that way her face
So near was turned; one glance might have read more,
But yet that glance was staid. Pleased to behold
Her virgin modesty and simple grace,
His hand upon her flexile shoulder pressed
In kind and friendly guise, he thus began:
“My lovely ward, think not I deem your quest
Impertinent or trivial—well aware
Of all the longings of humanity
Toward the first, haply the only scenes
Of nature e'er beheld or understood;
Where the immortal and unquenched mind
First oped its treasures; and the longing soul
Breathed its first yearnings of eternal hope.
I know it all; nor do I deem it strange,
In such a wilderness of moving spheres,
Thou should'st mistake the world that gave thee birth.
Prepare to wonder, and prepare to grieve:
For I perceive that thou hast deemed the earth
The fairest and the most material part
Of God's creation. Mark yon cloudy spot,
Which yet thine eye hath never rested on;
And though not long the viewless golden cord
That chains it to this heaven, yclept the sun,
It seems a thing subordinate—a sphere
Unseemly and forbidding—'tis the earth.
What think'st thou now of thy almighty Maker,
And of this goodly universe of his?”
Down sunk the virgin's eye—her heart seemed warped
Deep, deep in meditation, while her face
Denoted mingled sadness. 'Twas a thought
She trembled to express. At length with blush,
And faltering tongue, she mildly thus replied:—
“I see all these fair worlds inhabited
By beings of intelligence and mind;
O Cela, tell me this—Have they all fallen,
And sinned like us? And has a living God
Bled in each one of all these peopled worlds?
Or only on yon dank and dismal spot
Hath one Redeemer suffered for them all?”
“Hold, hold—no more!—thou talk'st thou knowest not what,”
Said her conductor with a fervent mien;
“More thou shalt know hereafter; but meanwhile
This truth conceive, that God must ever deal
With men as men—those things by him decreed,
Or compassed by permission, ever tend
To draw his creatures, whom he loves, to goodness;
For he is all benevolence, and knows
That in the paths of virtue and of love
Alone can final happiness be found.
More thou shalt know hereafter—pass we on
Around this glorious heaven, till by degrees
Thy frame and vision are so subtilized,
As that thou may'st the inner regions near
Where dwell the holy angels; where the saints
Of God meet in assembly; seraphs sing;
And thousand harps, in unison complete,
With one vibration sound Jehovah's name.”
Far far away, through regions of delight
They journeyed on—not like the earthly pilgrim,
Fainting with hunger, thirst, and burning feet,
But, leaning forward on the liquid air
Like twin-born eagles, skimmed the fields of light,
Circling the pales of heaven. In joyous mood,
Sometimes through groves of shady depth they strayed,
Arm linked in arm, as lovers walk the earth;
Or rested in the bowers where roses hung
And flowrets holding everlasting sweetness.
And they would light upon celestial hills
Of beauteous softened green, and converse hold
With beings like themselves in form and mind;
Then, rising lightly from the velvet breast
Of the green mountain, down upon the vales
They swooped amain by lawns and streams of life;
Then over mighty hills an arch they threw
Formed like the rainbow. Never since the time
That God outspread the glowing fields of heaven
Were two such travellers seen! In all that way
They saw new visitants hourly arrive
From other worlds, in that auspicious land
To live for ever. These had sojourned far
From world to world more pure—till by degrees
After a thousand years' progression, they
Stepped on the confines of that land of life,
Of bliss unspeakable and evermore.
Yet, after such probation of approach,
So exquisite the feelings of delight
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Those heavenly regions yielded, 'twas beyond
Their power of sufferance.—Overcome with bliss,
They saw them wandering in amazement on,
With eyes that took no image on their spheres,
Misted in light and glory; or laid down,
Stretched on the sward of heaven in ecstasy.
Yet still their half-formed words and breathings were
Of one that loved them, and had brought them home
With him in full felicity to dwell.
To sing of all the scenes our travellers saw,
An angel's harp were meet, which mortal hand
Must not assay. These scenes must be concealed
From mortal fancy and from mortal eye
Until our weary pilgrimage is done.
They kept the outer heaven, for it behoved
Them so to do; and in that course beheld
Immeasurable vales, all colonized
From worlds subjacent. Passing inward still
Toward the centre of the heavens, they saw
The dwellings of the saints of ancient days,
And martyrs for the right—men of all creeds,
Features, and hues. Much did the virgin muse,
And much reflect on this strange mystery,
So ill conform to all she had been taught
From infancy to think, by holy men;
Till looking round upon the spacious globes
Dependent on that heaven of light, and all
Rejoicing in their God's beneficence,
These words spontaneously burst from her lips:
“Child that I was, ah! could my stinted mind
Harbour the thought, that the Almighty's love,
Life, and salvation could to single sect
Of creatures be confined, all his alike!”
Last of them all, in ample circle spread
Around the palaces of heaven, they passed
The habitations of those radiant tribes
That never in the walks of mortal life
Had sojourned, or with human passions toiled.
Pure were they framed; and round the skirts of heaven
At first were placed, till other dwellers came
From other spheres, by human beings nursed;
Then inward those withdrew, more meet to dwell
In beatific regions. These again
Followed by more, in order regular,
Neared to perfection. It was most apparent
Through all created nature, that each being,
From the archangel to the meanest soul
Cherished by savage, caverned in the snow,
Or panting on the brown and sultry desert—
That all were in progression, moving on
Still to perfection. In conformity
The human soul is modelled—hoping still
In something onward; something far beyond
It fain would grasp,—nor shall that hope be lost!
The soul shall hold it; she shall hope, and yearn,
And grasp, and gain, for times and ages, more
Than thought can fathom or proud science climb.
At length they reached a vale of wondrous form
And dread dimensions, where the tribes of heaven
Assembly held, each in its proper sphere
And order placed. That vale extended far
Across the heavenly regions, and its form
A tall gazoon, or level pyramid.
Along its borders palaces were ranged,
All fronted with the thrones of beauteous seraphs,
Who sat with eyes turned to the inmost point
Leaning upon their harps; and all those thrones
Were framed of burning crystal, where appeared
In mingled gleam millions of dazzling hues.
Still, as the valley narrowed to a close,
These thrones increased in grandeur and in glory
On either side, until the inmost two
Rose so sublimely high, that every arch
Was ample as the compass of that bow
That, on dark cloud, bridges the vales of earth.
The columns seemed ingrained with gold, and branched
With many lustres, whose each single lamp
Shone like the sun as from the earth beheld;
And each particular column, placed upon
A northern hill, would cap the polar wain.
There sat, half-shrouded in incessant light
The great archangels, nighest to the throne
Of the Almighty; for—oh dreadful view!—
Betwixt these two, closing the lengthened files,
Stood the pavilion of the eternal God!
Himself unseen, in tenfold splendours veiled,
The least unspeakable, so passing bright
That even the eyes of angels turned thereon
Grow dim, and round them transient darkness swims.
Within the verge of that extended region
Our travellers stood. Farther they could not press,
For round the light and glory threw a pale,
Repellent, but to them invisible;
Yet myriads were within of purer frame.
Ten thousand thousand messengers arrived
From distant worlds, the missioners of heaven,
Sent forth to countervail malignant sprites
That roam existence. These gave their report,
Not at the throne, but at the utmost seats
Of these long files of throned seraphim,
By whom the word was passed. Then fast away
Flew the commissioned spirits, to renew
Their watch and guardship in far distant lands.
They saw them, in directions opposite,
To every point of heaven glide away
Like flying stars; or, far adown the steep,
Gleam like small lines of light.
Now was the word
Given out, from whence they knew not, that all tongues,
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Kindreds, and tribes, should join, with one accord,
In hymn of adoration and acclaim,
To Him that sat upon the throne of heaven,
Who framed, saved, and redeemed them to himself!
Then all the countless hosts obeisance made,
And with their faces turned unto the throne
Stood up erect, while all their coronals
From off their heads were reverently upborne.
Our earth-born visitant quaked every limb.
The angels touched their harps with gentle hand
As prelude to begin—then, all at once,
With full o'erwhelming swell the strain arose;
And pealing high rolled o'er the throned lists
And tuneful files, as if the sun itself
Welled forth the high and holy symphony!
All heaven beside was mute: the streams stood still
And did not murmur—the light wandering winds
Withheld their motion in the midst of heaven,
Nor stirred the leaf, but hung in breathless trance
Where first the sounds assailed them; even the windows
Of God's pavilion seemed to open wide
And drink the harmony.
Few were the strains
The virgin pilgrim heard; for they o'erpowered
Her every sense; and down she sunk entranced
By too supreme delight, and all to her
Was lost; she saw nor heard not—it was gone!
Long did she lie beside a cooling spring
In her associate's arms, before she showed
Motion or life; and when she first awoke
It was in dreaming melody—low strains
Half sung, half uttered, hung upon her breath.
“Oh! is it past?” said she; “shall I not hear
That song of heaven again?—Then all beside
Of being is unworthy: take me back,
Where I may hear that lay of glory flow,
And die away in it. My soul shall mix
With its harmonious numbers, and dissolve
In fading cadence at the gates of light.”
Back near the borders of that sacred vale
Cautious they journeyed; and at distance heard
The closing anthem of that great assembly
Of saints and angels. First the harps awoke
A murmuring tremulous melody, that rose
Now high—now seemed to roll in waves away.
And aye between this choral hymn was sung,
“O! holy! holy! holy, just and true,
Art thou, Lord God Almighty! thou art he
Who was, and is, and evermore shall be!”
Then every harp, and every voice, at once
Resounded Halleluiah! so sublime,
That all the mountains of the northern heaven,
And they are many, sounded back the strain.
Oh! when the voices and the lyres were strained
To the rapt height, the full delirious swell,
Then did the pure elastic mounds of heaven
Quiver and stream with flickering radiance,
Like gossamers along the morning dew.
Still paused the choir, till the last echo crept
Into the distant hill—Oh it was sweet!
Beyond definement sweet! and never more
May ear of mortal list such heavenly strains,
While linked to erring frail humanity.
After much holy converse with the saints
And dwellers of the heaven, of that concerned
The ways of God with man, and wondrous truths
But half revealed to him, our sojourners
In holy awe withdrew. And now, no more
By circular and cautious route they moved,
But straight across the regions of the blest,
And storied vales of heaven did they advance,
On rapt ecstatic wing; and oft assayed
The seraph's holy hymn. As they passed by
The angels paused, and saints, that lay reposed
In bowers of paradise, upraised their heads
To list the passing music; for it went
Swift as the wild-bee's note, that on the wing
Booms like unbodied voice along the gale.
At length upon the brink of heaven they stood;
There lingering, forward on the air they leaned
With hearts elate, to take one parting look
Of nature from its source, and converse hold
Of all its wonders. Not upon the sun,
But on the halo of bright golden air
That fringes it, they leaned, and talked so long,
That from contiguous worlds they were beheld
And wondered at as beams of living light.
There all the motions of the ambient spheres
Were well observed, explained, and understood.
All save the mould of that mysterious chain
Which bound them to the sun—that God himself,
And he alone, could comprehend or wield.
While thus they stood or lay (for to the eyes
Of all their posture seemed these two between,
Bent forward on the wind, in graceful guise,
On which they seemed to press, for their fair robes
Were streaming far behind them) there passed by
A most erratic wandering globe, that seemed
To run with troubled aimless fury on.
The virgin, wondering, inquired the cause
And nature of that roaming meteor world.
When Cela thus:—“I can remember well
When yon was such a world as that you left;
A nursery of intellect, for those
Where matter lives not. Like these other worlds,
It wheeled upon its axle, and it swung
With wide and rapid motion. But the time
That God ordained for its existence run,
Its uses in that beautiful creation,
Where nought subsists in vain, remained no more.
The saints and angels knew of it, and came
In radiant files, with awful reverence,
134

Unto the verge of heaven where we now stand,
To see the downfall of a sentenced world.
Think of the impetus that urges on
These ponderous spheres, and judge of the event.
Just in the middle of its swift career,
The Almighty snapt the golden cord in twain
That hung it to the heaven—creation sobbed,
And a spontaneous shriek rang on the hills
Of these celestial regions. Down amain
Into the void the outcast world descended,
Wheeling and thundering on! Its troubled seas
Were churned into a spray, and, whizzing, flurred
Around it like a dew. The mountain tops
And ponderous rocks were off impetuous flung,
And clattered down the steeps of night for ever
“Away into the sunless starless void
Rushed the abandoned world; and through its caves
And rifted channels airs of chaos sung.
The realms of night were troubled—for the stillness
Which there from all eternity had reigned
Was rudely discomposed; and moaning sounds,
Mixed with a whistling howl, were heard afar
By darkling spirits. Still with stayless force,
For years and ages, down the wastes of night
Rolled the impetuous mass!—of all its seas
And superficies disencumbered,
It boomed along, till by the gathering speed,
Its furnaced mines and hills of walled sulphur
Were blown into a flame, when meteor-like,
Bursting away upon an arching track,
Wide as the universe, again it scaled
The dusky regions. Long the heavenly hosts
Had deemed the globe extinct, nor thought of it,
Save as an instance of Almighty power:
Judge of their wonder and astonishment,
When far as heavenly eyes can see, they saw,
In yon blue void, that hideous world appear,
Showering thin flame, and shining vapour forth
O'er half the breadth of heaven!—The angels paused,
And all the nations trembled at the view.
“But great is he who rules them!—He can turn
And lead it all unhurtful through the spheres,
Signal of pestilence or wasting sword
That ravage and deface humanity.
“The time will come when, in like wise, the earth
Shall be cut off from God's fair universe;
Its end fulfilled. But when that time shall be,
From man, from saint, and angel is concealed.”
Here ceased the converse. To a tale like this
What converse could succeed!—They turned around,
And kneeling on the brow of heaven, there paid
Due adoration to that Holy One
Who framed and rules the elements of nature.
Then like two swans that far on wing have scaled
The Alpine heights to gain their native lake,
At length, perceiving far below their eye
The beauteous silvery speck, they slack their wings,
And softly sink adown the incumbent air:
So sunk our lovely pilgrims, from the verge
Of the fair heaven, down the streamered sky,
Far other scenes and other worlds to view.
 

It has often been suggested to me that the dangerous doubt expressed in these four lines, has proved a text to all Dr. Chalmers' sublime astronomical sermons. I am far from having the vanity to suppose this to be literally true; but if it had even the smallest share in turning his capacious and fervent mind to that study, I have reason to estimate them as the most valuable lines I ever wrote.

This whole account of the formation of a comet has been copied into several miscellaneous works, and has been often loudly censured for its utter extravagance by such as knew not the nature of the work from which it was taken. After all, I cannot help regarding the supposition as perfectly ostensible.

3. PART THIRD.

Imperial England, of the ocean born,
Who from the isles beyond the dawn of morn,
To where waste oceans wash Peruvia's shore,
Hast from all nations drawn thy boasted lore!
Helm of the world, whom seas and isles obey,
Though high thy honours, and though far thy sway,
Thy harp I crave, unfearful of thy frown;
Well may'st thou lend what erst was not thine own.
Come, thou old bass—I love thy lorldy swell,
With Dryden's twang, and Pope's malicious knell;
But now, so sore thy brazen chords are worn,
By peer, by pastor, and by bard forlorn;
By every grub that harps for venal ore,
And crab that grovels on the sandy shore:
I wot not if thy maker's aim has been
A harp, a fiddle, or a tambourine.
Come, leave these lanes and sinks beside the sea;
Come to the silent moorland dale with me;
And thou shalt pour, along the mountain hoar,
A strain its echoes never waked before;
Thou shalt be strung where greenwood never grew,
Swept by the winds, and mellowed by the dew.
Sing of the globes our travellers viewed, that lie
Around the sun, enveloped in the sky:
Thy music slightly must the veil withdraw
From lands they visited and scenes they saw;
From lands, where love and goodness ever dwell;
Where famine, blight, or mildew never fell;
Where face of man is ne'er o'erspread with gloom,
And woman smiles for ever in her bloom:
And thou must sing of wicked worlds beneath,
Where flit the visions and the hues of death.
The first they saw, though different far the scene,
Compared with that where they had lately been,
To all its dwellers yielded full delight.
Long was the day, and long and still the night;
135

The groves were dark and deep, the waters still;
The raving streamlets murmured from the hill.
It was the land where faithful lovers dwell,
Beyond the grave's unseemly sentinel;
Where, free of jealousy, their mortal bane,
And all the ills of sickness and of pain,
In love's delights they bask without alloy—
The night their transport, and the day their joy.
The broadened sun, in chamber and alcove,
Shines daily on their morning couch of love;
And in the evening grove, while linnets sing,
And silent bats wheel round on flittering wing,
Still in the dear embrace their souls are lingering.
“Oh! tell me, Cela,” said the earthly maid,
“Must all these beauteous dames like woman fade?
In our imperfect world, it is believed
That those who most have loved the most have grieved;
That love can every power of earth control,
Can conquer kings and chain the hero's soul;
While all the woes and pains that women prove,
Have each their poignance and their source from love.
What law of nature has reversed the doom,
If these may always love and always bloom?”
“Look round thee, maid beloved, and thou shalt see,
As journeying o'er this happy world with me,
That no decrepitude nor age is here;
No autumn comes the human bloom to sere;
For these have lived in worlds of mortal breath,
And all have passed the dreary bourne of death:
Can'st thou not mark their purity of frame,
Though still their forms and features are the same?”
Replied the maid, “no difference I can scan,
Save in the fair meridian port of man,
And woman fresh as roses newly sprung:
If these have died, they all have died when young.”
“Thou art as artless as thy heart is good;
This in thy world is not yet understood:
But wheresoe'er we wander to and fro,
In heaven above or in the deep below,
What thou misconstruest I shall well explain,
Be it in angel's walk or mortal reign,
In sun, moon, stars, in mountain, or in main.
“Know then, that every globe which thou hast seen,
Varied with valleys, seas, and forests green,
Are all conformed, in subtilty of clime,
To beings sprung from out the womb of time;
And all the living groups where'er they be,
Of worlds which thou hast seen or thou may'st see,
Wherever sets the eve and dawns the morn,
Are all of mankind—all of woman born.
The globes from heaven which most at distance lie
Are nurseries of life to these so nigh;
In those the minds for evermore to be
Must dawn and rise with smiling infancy.
“Thus 'tis ordained—these grosser regions yield
Souls, thick as blossoms of the vernal field,
Which after death, in relative degree,
Fairer or darker as their minds may be,
To other worlds are led, to learn and strive
Till to perfection all at last arrive.
This once conceived, the ways of God are plain,
But thy unyielding race in errors will remain.
“These beauteous dames, who glow with love unstained,
Like thee were virgins, but not so remained.
Not to thy sex this sere behest is given—
They are the garden of the God of heaven:
Of beauties numberless and woes the heir,
The tree was reared immortal fruit to bear;
And she, all selfish choosing to remain,
Nor share of love the pleasures and the pain,
Was made and cherished by her God in vain.
She sinks into the dust a nameless thing,
No son the requiem o'er her grave to sing;
While she who gives to human beings birth,
Immortal here, is living still on earth—
Still in her offspring lives, to fade and bloom,
Flourish and spread through ages long to come.
“Now mark me, maiden—why that wistful look?
Though woman must those pains and passions brook,
Beloved of God and fairest of his plan,
Note how she smiles, superior still to man,
As well it her behoves; for was not he
Lulled on her breast and nursed upon her knee?
Her foibles and her failings may be rife,
While toiling through the snares and ills of life;
But he who framed her nature knows her pains,
Her heart dependant, and tumultuous veins,
And many faults the world heap on her head,
Will never there be harshly visited.
Proud haughty man, the nursling of her care,
Must more than half her crimes and errors bear.
If flowrets droop and fade before their day;
If others sink neglected in the clay:
If trees too rankly earthed too rathly blow,
And others neither fruit nor blossom know,
Let human reason equal judgment frame:
Is it the flower, the tree, or gardener's blame?
“Thou see'st them lovely—so they will remain;
For when the soul and body meet again,
No 'vantage will be held of age, or time,
United at their fairest fullest prime.
The form when purest, and the soul most sage,
Beauty with wisdom shall have heritage,
The form of comely youth, the experience of age.
“When to thy kindred thou shalt this relate
Of man's immortal and progressive state,
No credit thou wilt gain; for they are blind,
And would, presumptuous, the Eternal bind,
Either perpetual blessings to bestow,
Or plunge the souls he framed in endless woe.
136

“This is the land of lovers, known afar,
And named the Evening and the Morning Star.
Oft, with rapt eye, thou hast its rising seen,
Above the holy spires of old Lindeen;
And marked its tiny beam diffuse a hue
That tinged the paleness of the morning blue;
Ah! did'st thou deem it was a land so fair?
Or that such peaceful 'habitants were there?
“See'st thou yon gloomy sphere, thro' vapours dun,
That wades in crimson like the sultry sun?
There let us bend our course, and mark the fates
Of mighty warriors, and of warriors' mates;
For there they toil 'mid troubles and alarms,
The drums and trumpets sounding still to arms;
Till by degrees, when ages are outgone,
And happiness and comfort still unknown,
Like simple babes, the land of peace to win,
The task of knowledge sorrowful begin,
By the enlightened philosophic mind,
More than a thousand ages left behind.
“Oh what a world of vanity and strife!
For what avails the stage of mortal life,
If to the last the fading frame is worn,
The same unknowing creature it was born?
Where shall the spirit rest? where shall it go?
Or how enjoy a bliss it does not know?
It must be taught in darkness and in pain,
Or beg the bosom of a child again.
Knowledge of all, avails the human kind
For all beyond the grave are joys of mind.”
So swift and so untroubled was their flight,
'Twas like the journey of a dream by night;
And scarce had Mary ceased, with thought sedate,
To muse on woman's sacred estimate,
When on the world of warriors they alight,
Just on the confines of its day and night;
The purple light was waning west away,
And shoally darkness gained upon the day.
“I love that twilight,” said the pilgrim fair,
“For more than earthly solemness is there.
See how the rubied waters winding roll;
A hoary doubtful hue involves the pole;
Uneasy murmurs float upon the wind,
And tenfold darkness rears its shades behind.
“And lo! where, wrapt in deep vermilion shroud,
The daylight slumbers on the western cloud:
I love the scene!—Oh let us onward steer,
The light our steeds, the wind our charioteer!
And on the downy cloud impetuous hurled,
We'll with the twilight ring this warrior world.”
Along, along, along the nether sky,
The light before, the wreathed darkness nigh;
Along, along, through evening vapours blue,
Through tinted air and racks of drizzly dew,
The twain pursued their way, and heard afar
The moans and murmurs of the dying war;
The neigh of battle-steeds by field and wall,
That missed their generous comrades of the stall
Which, all undaunted, in the ranks of death.
Yielded, they knew not why, their honest breath;
And, far behind, the hill-wolf's hunger yell,
And watchword passed from drowsy sentinel.
Along, along, through mind's unwearied range,
It flies to the vicissitudes of change.
Our pilgrims of the twilight weary grew,
Transcendent was the scene, but never new;
They wheeled their rapid chariot from the light,
And pierced the bosom of the hideous night.
So thick the darkness, and its veil so swarth,
All hues were gone of heaven and of the earth:
The watch-fire scarce like gilded glow-worm seemed;
No moon nor star along the concave beamed;
Without a halo flaming meteors flew,
Scarce did they shed a sullen sulphury blue;
Whizzing they passed, by folded vapours crossed,
And in a sea of darkness soon were lost.
Like pilgrim birds that o'er the ocean fly,
When lasting night and polar storms are nigh,
Enveloped in a rayless atmosphere,
By northern shores uncertain course they steer;
O'er thousand darkling billows flap the wing,
Till far is heard the welcome murmuring
Of mountain waves, o'er waste of waters tossed,
In fleecy thunder fall on Albyn's coast.
So passed the pilgrims through impervious night,
Till, in a moment, rose before their sight
A bound impassable of burning levin,
A wall of flame that reached from earth to heaven.
It was the light shed from the bloody sun,
In bootless blaze upon that cloud so dun;
Its gloom was such as not to be oppressed,
That those perturbed spirits might have rest.
Now oped a scene, before but dimly seen,
A world of pride, of havoc, and of spleen;
A world of scathed soil and sultry air,
For industry and culture were not there.
The hamlets smoked in ashes on the plain;
The bones of men were bleaching in the rain;
And, piled in thousands, on the trenched heath
Stood warriors bent on vengeance and on death.
“Ah!” said the youth, “we timely come to spy
A scene momentous, and a sequel high!
For late arrived on this disquiet coast
A fiend, that in Tartarian gulf was tossed,
And held, in tumult and commotion fell,
The gnashing legions through the bounds of hell
For ages past; but now, by Heaven's decree,
The prelude of some dread event to be
Is hither sent like desolating brand,
The scourge of God, the terror of the land!
He seems the passive elements to guide,
And stars in courses fight upon his side.
137

“On yon high mountain will we rest and see
The omens of the times that are to be;
For all the wars of earth and deeds of weir
Are first performed by warrior spirits here;
So linked are souls by one eternal chain,
What these perform those needs must do again:
And thus the Almighty weighs each kingdom's date,
Each warrior's fortune, and each warrior's fate,
Making the future time with that has been
Work onward, rolling like a vast machine.”
They sat them down on hills of Alpine form,
Above the whirlwind and the thunder-storm:
For in that land contiguous to the sun
The elements in wild obstruction run;
They saw the bodied flame the cloud impale,
Then river-like fleet down the sultry dale.
While basking in the sunbeam high they lay,
The hill was swathed in dark unseemly gray;
The downward rainbow hung across the rain,
And leaned its glowing arch upon the plain.
While thus they staid, they saw in wondrous wise
Armies and kings from out the cloud arise;
They saw great hosts and empires overrun,
War's wild extreme, and kingdoms lost and won:
The whole of that this age has lived to see,
With battles of the East long hence to be,
They saw distinct and plain, as human eye
Discerns the forms and objects passing by.
Long yet the time ere wasting war shall cease,
And all the world have liberty and peace!
The pilgrims moved not—word they had not said,
While this mysterious boding vision staid;
But now the virgin, with disturbed eye,
Besought solution of the prodigy.
“These all are future kings of earthly fame:
That wolfish fiend, from hell that hither came,
Over thy world in ages yet to be
Must desolation spread and slavery,
Till nations learn to know their estimate;
To be unanimous is to be great:
When right's own standard calmly is unfurled,
The people are the sovereigns of the world.
“Like one machine a nation's governing,
And that machine must have a moving spring;
But of what mould that moving spring should be,
'Tis the high right of nations to decree.
This mankind must be taught, though millions bleed,
That knowledge, truth, and liberty may spread.”
“What meant the vision 'mid the darksome cloud?
Some spirits rose as from unearthly shroud,
And joined their warrior brethren of the free;
Two souls inspired each, and some had three?”
“These were the spirits of their brethren slain,
Who, thus permitted, rose and breathed again;
For still let reason this high truth recall,
The body's but a mould, the soul is all:
Those triple minds that all before them hurled,
Are called Silesians in this warrior world.”
“Oh tell me, Cela, when shall be the time
That all the restless spirits of this clime,
Erring so widely in the search of bliss,
Shall win a milder, happier world than this?”
“Not till they learn, with humbled hearts, to see
The falsehood of their fuming vanity.
What is the soldier but an abject fool—
A king's, a tyrant's, or a statesman's tool?
Some patriot few there are—but ah, how rare!
For vanity or interest still is there;
Or blindfold levity directs his way—
A licensed murderer that kills for pay.
Though fruitless ages thus be overpast,
Truth, love, and knowledge, must prevail at last.”
The pilgrims left that climate with delight,
Weary of battle and portentous sight.
It boots not all their wanderings to relate,
By globes immense and worlds subordinate,
For still my strain in mortal guise must flow:
Though swift as winged angels they might go,
The palled mind would meet no kind relay,
And dazzled fancy wilder by the way.
They found each clime with mental joys replete,
And all for which its 'habitants were meet.
They saw a watery world of sea and shore,
Where the rude sailor swept the flying oar,
And drove his bark like lightning o'er the main,
Proud of his prowess, of her swiftness vain;
Held revel on the shore with stormy glee,
Or sung his boisterous carol on the sea.
They saw the land where bards delighted stray,
And beauteous maids that love the melting lay;
One mighty hill they clomb with earnest pain,
For ever clomb but higher did not gain:
Their gladsome smiles were mixed with frowns severe;
For all were bent to sing, and none to hear.
Far in the gloom they found a world accursed,
Of all the globes the dreariest and the worst.
But there they could not sojourn, though they would,
For all the language was of mystic mood,
A jargon, nor conceived nor understood;
It was of deeds, respondents, and replies,
Dark quibbles, forms, and condescendencies:
And they would argue with vociferous breath,
For months and days, as if the point were death;
And when at last enforced to agree,
'Twas only how the argument should be!
They saw the land of bedesmen discontent,
Their frames their god, their tithes their testament;
And snarling critics bent with aspect sour
T'applaud the great and circumvent the poor;
And knowing patriots, with important face,
Raving aloud with gesture and grimace—
138

Their prize a land's acclaim, or proud and gainful place.
Then by a land effeminate they passed,
Where silks and odours floated in the blast:
A land of vain and formal compliment,
Where won the flippant belles and beaux magnificent.
They circled nature on their airy wain,
From God's own throne unto the realms of pain;
For there are prisons in the deep below,
Where wickedness sustains proportioned woe,
Nor more nor less; for the Almighty still
Suits to our life the goodness and the ill.
Oh! it would melt the living heart with woe,
Were I to sing the agonies below;
The hatred nursed by those who cannot part;
The hardened brow, the seared and sullen heart;
The still defenceless look, the stifled sigh,
The writhed lip, the staid despairing eye,
Which ray of hope may never lighten more,
Which cannot shun, yet dares not look before.
Oh! these are themes reflection would forbear,
Unfitting bard to sing or maid to hear;
Yet these they saw in downward realms prevail,
And listened many a sufferer's hapless tale,
Who all allowed that rueful misbelief
Had proved the source of their eternal grief;
And all the Almighty punisher arraigned
For keeping back that knowledge they disdained.
“Ah!” Cela said, as up the void they flew,
“The axiom's just—the inference is true;
Therefore no more let doubts thy mind enthral,
Through nature's range thou see'st a God in all:
Where is the mortal law that can restrain
The atheist's heart that broods o'er thoughts profane?
Soon fades the soul's and virtue's dearest tie,
When all the future closes from the eye.”—
By all, the earth-born virgin plainly saw
Nature's unstaid, unalterable law;
That human life is but the infant stage
Of a progressive, endless pilgrimage
To woe, or state of bliss, by bard unsung,
At that eternal fount where being sprung.
When these wild wanderings all were past and done,
Just in the red beam of the parting sun,
Our pilgrims skimmed along the light of even,
Like flitting stars that cross the nightly heaven,
And lighting on the verge of Phillip plain,
They trode the surface of the world again.
Arm linked in arm, they walked to green Bowhill:
At their approach the woods and lawns grew still;
The little birds to brake and bush withdrew,
The merl away unto Blackandro flew;
The twilight held its breath in deep suspense,
And looked its wonder in mute eloquence.
They reached the bower, where first, at Mary's knee
Cela arose her guide through heaven to be.
All, all was still—no living thing was seen;
No human footstep marked the daisied green;
The youth looked round, as something were unmeet
Or wanting there to make their bliss complete.
They paused—they sighed—then with a silent awe
Walked onward to the halls of Carelha'.
They heard the squires and yeomen, all intent,
Talking of some mysterious event;
They saw the maidens in dejection mourn,
Scarce daring glance unto a yeoman turn.
Straight to the inner chamber they repair,
Mary beheld her widowed mother there,
Flew to her arms, to kiss her and rejoice:
Alas! she saw her not nor heard her voice,
But sat unmoved with many a bitter sigh,
Tears on her cheek, and sorrow in her eye!
In sable weeds her lady form was clad,
And the white lawn waved mournful round her head.
Mary beheld, arranged in order near,
The very robes she last on earth did wear;
And shrinking from the disregarded kiss,
“Oh, tell me, Cela!—tell me what is this?”
“Fair maiden of the pure and guileless heart,
As yet thou knowest not how nor what thou art;—
Come, I will lead thee to yon hoary pile,
Where sleep thy kindred in their storied isle:
There I must leave thee in this world below;
'Tis meet thy land these holy truths should know:
But, Mary, yield not thou to bootless pain,
Soon we shall meet, and never part again.”
He took her hand, she dared not disobey,
But, half reluctant, followed him away.
They paced along on Ettrick's margin green,
And reached the hoary fane of old Lindeen:
It was a scene to curdle maiden's blood—
The massy church-yard gate wide open stood;
The stars were up, the valley steeped in dew,
The baleful bat in silent circles flew;
No sound was heard, except the lonely rail
Harping his ordinal adown the dale;
And soft and slow upon the breezes light
The rush of Ettrick breathed along the night.
Dark was the pile, and green the tombs beneath,
And dark the gravestones on the sward of death.
Within the railed space appeared to view
A grave new opened—thitherward they drew;
And there beheld, within its mouldy womb,
A living, moving tenant of the tomb!
It was an aged monk, uncouth to see,
Who held a sheeted corpse upon his knee,
And busy, busy, with the form was he!
At their approach he uttered howl of pain,
Till echoes groaned it from the holy fane,
Then fled amain.—Ah! Cela, too, is gone;
And Mary stands within the grave alone!
With her fair guide her robes of heaven are fled,
And round her fall the garments of the dead!
Here I must seize my ancient harp again,
And chaunt a simple tale, a most uncourtly strain.
139

4. PART FOURTH.

The night-wind is sleeping, the forest is still,
The blare of the heath-cock has sunk on the hill,
Beyond the gray cairn of the moor is his rest,
On the red heather-bloom he has pillowed his breast;
There soon with his note the gray dawning he'll cheer;
But Mary of Carel' that note will not hear!
The night-wind is still, and the moon in the wane,
The river-lark sings on the verge of the plain;
So lonely his plaint by the motionless reed
It sounds like an omen or tale of the dead;
Like a warning of death it falls on the ear
Of those who are wandering the woodlands in fear;
For the maidens of Carelha' wander, and cry
On their young lady's name, with the tear in their eye.
The gates had been shut and the mass had been sung,
But Mary was missing, the beauteous and young;
And she had been seen in the evening still
By woodman, alone, in the groves of Bowhill.
Oh, were not these maidens in terror and pain?
They knew the third night of the moon in the wane:
They knew on that night that the spirits were free;
That revels of fairies were held on the lea;
And heard their small bugles, with eirysome croon,
As lightly the rode on the beam of the moon.
Oh! woe to the wight that abides their array!
And woe to the maiden that comes in their way!
The maidens returned all hopeless and wan;
The yeomen they rode, and the pages they ran;
The Ettrick and Yarrow they searched up and down,
The hamlet, the cot, and the old borough town;
And thrice the bedesman renewed the host;
But the dawn returned—and Mary was lost!
Her lady mother, distracted and wild
For the loss of her loved, her only child,
With all her maidens tracked the dew—
Well Mary's secret bower she knew.
Oft had she traced, with fond regard,
Her darling to that grove, and heard
Her orisons the green bough under,
And turned aside with fear and wonder.
Oh! but their hearts were turned to stone,
When they saw her stretched on the sward alone,
Prostrate, without a word or motion,
As if in calm and deep devotion.
They called her name with trembling breath;
But ah! her sleep was the sleep of death:
They laid their hands on her cheek composed;
But her cheek was cold and her eye was closed:
They laid their hands upon her breast,
But the playful heart had sunk to rest;
And they raised an eldritch wail of sorrow,
That startled the hinds on the braes of Yarrow.
And yet, when they viewed her comely face,
Each line remained of beauty and grace;
No death-like features it disclosed,
For the lips were met, and the eyes were closed.
'Twas pale—but the smile was on the cheek;
'Twas modelled all as in act to speak.
It seemed as if each breeze that blew,
The play of the bosom would renew;
As nature's momentary strife
Would wake that form to beauty and life.
It is borne away with fear and awe
To the lordly halls of Carelha',
And lies on silken couch at rest—
The mother there is constant guest,
For hope still lingers in her breast.
O, seraph Hope! that here below
Can nothing dear to the last forego!
When we see the forms we fain would save
Wear step by step adown to the grave,
Still hope a lambent gleam will shed
Over the last, the dying bed:
And even, as now, when the soul's away,
It flutters and lingers o'er the clay.
O Hope! thy range was never expounded!
'Tis not by the grave that thou art bounded!
The leech's art and the bedesman's prayer
Are all misspent—no life is there!
Between her breasts they dropped the lead,
And the cord in vain begirt her head;
Yet still on that couch her body lies,
Though another moon has claimed the skies;
For once the lykewake maidens saw,
As the dawn arose on Carelha',
A movement soft the sheets within,
And a gentle shivering of the chin.
All earthly hope at last outworn,
The body to the tomb was borne;
The last pale flowers in the grave were flung;
The mass was said and the requiem sung;
And the turf that was ever green to be
Lies over the dust of Mary Lee.
Deep fell the eve on old Lindeen;
Loud creaked the rail in the clover green;
The new moon from the west withdrew—
Oh! well the monk of Lindeen knew
That Mary's winding-sheet was lined
With many fringe of the gold refined:
That in her bier behoved to be
A golden cross and a rosary;
Of pearl beads full many a string,
And on every finger a diamond ring.
The holy man no scruples staid;
For within that grave was useless laid
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Riches that would a saint entice—
'Twas worth a convent's benefice!
He took the spade, and away he is gone
To the church-yard, darkling and alone;
His brawny limbs the grave bestride,
And he shovelled the mools and the bones aside;
Of the dust or the dead he stood not in fear,
But he stooped in the grave and he opened the bier;
And he took the jewels, of value high,
And he took the cross, and the rosary,
And the golden harp on the lid that shone,
And he laid them carefully on a stone.
Then down in the depth of the grave sat he
And he raised the corpse upon his knee;
But in vain to gain the rings he strove,
For the hands were cold and they would not move:
He drew a knife from his baldrick gray,
To cut the rings and fingers away.
He gave one cut—he gave but one—
It scarcely reached unto the bone:
Just then the soul, so long exiled,
Returned again from its wanderings wild;
By the stars and the sun it ceased to roam,
And entered its own, its earthly home.
Loud shrieked the corse at the wound he gave,
And, rising, stood up in the grave.
The hoary thief was chilled at heart,
Scarce had he power left to depart;
For horror thrilled through every vein:
He did not cry, but he roared amain;
For hues of dread and death were rife
On the face of the form he had woke to life:
His reason fled form off her throne,
And never more dawned thereupon.
Aloud she called her Cela's name,
And the echoes called, but no Cela came.
Oh! much she marvelled that he had gone,
And left her thus in the grave alone.
She knew the place and the holy dome;
Few moments hence she had thither come;
And through the hues of the night she saw
The woods and towers of Carelha'.
'Twas mystery all—she did not ween
Of the state or the guise in which she had been;
She did not ween that while travelling afar
Away by the sun and the morning star,
By the moon, and the cloud, and aerial bow,
That her body was left on the earth below.
But now she stood in grievous plight;
The ground was chilled with the dews of the night;
Her frame was cold and ill at rest,
The dead rose waved upon her breast;
Her feet were coiled in the sheet so wan,
And fast from her hand the red blood ran.
'Twas late, late on a Sabbath night,
At the hour of the ghost and the restless sprite;
The mass at Carelha' had been read,
And all the mourners were bound to bed,
When a foot was heard on the paved floor,
And a gentle rap came to the door.
Oh! why should a rap of such gentle din,
Throw such amazement on all within?—
A dim haze clouded every sight;
Each hair had life, and stood upright;
No sound was heard throughout the hall,
But the beat of the heart and the cricket's call;
So deep the silence imposed by fear,
That a vacant buzz sung in the ear.
The lady of Carelha' first broke
The breathless hush, and thus she spoke:—
“Christ be our shield!—who walks so late,
And knocks so gently at my gate?
I felt a pang—it was not dread—
It was the memory of the dead.
Oh! death is a dull and dreamless sleep!
The mould is heavy, the grave is deep,
Else I had weened that foot so free
The step and the foot of my Mary Lee;
And I had weened that gentle knell
From the light hand of my daughter fell.
The grave is deep, it may not be!
Haste, porter—haste to the door and see.”
He took the key with an eye of doubt,
He lifted the lamp and he looked about;
His lips a silent prayer addressed,
And the cross was signed upon his breast;
Thus mailed within the armour of God,
All ghostly to the door he strode.
He wrenched the bolt with grating din,
He lifted the latch—but none came in!
He thrust out his lamp, and he thrust out his head,
And he saw the face and the robes of the dead!
One sob he heaved, and tried to fly,
But he sunk on the earth, and the form came by.
She entered the hall, she stood in the door,
Till, one by one, dropt on the floor
The blooming maiden and matron old,
The friar gray and the yeoman bold.
It was like a scene on the Border green,
When the arrows fly and pierce unseen;
And nought was heard within the hall
But aves, vows, and groans withal.
The Lady of Carel' stood alone,
But moveless as a statue of stone.
“Oh! lady mother, thy tears forego;
Why all this terror and this woe?
But late when I was in this place,
Thou wouldst not look me in the face:
Oh! why do you blench at sight of me?
I am thy own child, thy Mary Lee.”
“I saw thee dead and cold as clay;
I watched thy corpse for many a day;
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I saw thee laid in the grave at rest;
I strewed the flowers upon thy breast;
And I saw the mould heap over thee—
Thou art not my child, my Mary Lee.”
O'er Mary's face amazement spread;
She knew not that she had been dead;
She gazed in mood irresolute:
Both stood aghast and both were mute.
“Speak, thou loved form—my glass is run,
I nothing dread beneath the sun:
Why comest thou in thy winding-sheet,
Thy life-blood streaming to thy feet?
The grave-rose that my own hands made
I see upon thy bosom spread;
The kerchief that my own hands bound
I see still tied thy temples round;
The golden ring and bracelet bands
Are still upon thy bloody hands.
From earthly hope all desperate driven,
I nothing fear beneath high heaven;
Give me thy hand and speak to me,
If thou art indeed my Mary Lee.”
That mould is sensible and warm,
It leans upon a parent's arm:
The kiss is sweet, and the tears are sheen,
And kind are the words that pass between;
They cling as never more to sunder—
Oh! that embrace was fraught with wonder!
Yeoman, and maid, and menial poor
Upraised their heads from the marble floor;
With lengthened arm and forward stride
They tried if that form their touch would bide;
They felt her warm,—they heard,—they saw,
And marvel reigns in Carelha'!
The twain into their chamber repair;
The wounded hand is bound with care;
And there the mother heard with dread
The whole that I to you have said,
Of all the worlds where she had been,
And of all the glories she had seen.
I pledge no word that all is true,
The virgin's tale I have told to you:
But well 'tis vouched, by age and worth,
'Tis real that relates to earth.
'Twas trowed by every Border swain
The vision would full credence gain.
Certes 'twas once by all believed,
Till one great point was misconceived;
For the mass-men said, with fret and frown,
That through all space it well was known,
By moon or stars, the earth or sea,
An up and down there needs must be.
This error caught their minds in thrall;
'Twas dangerous and apocryphal,
And this nice fraud unhinged all.
So grievous is the dire mischance
Of priestcraft and of ignorance.
Belike thou now can'st well foresee,
What after happ'd to Mary Lee—
Then thou mayest close my legend here:
But ah! the tale to some is dear!
For though her name no more remains,
Her blood yet runs in minstrel veins.
In Mary's youth, no virgin's face
Wore such a sweet and moving grace;
Nor ever did maiden's form more fair
Lean forward to the mountain air;
142

But now, since from the grave returned,
So dazzling bright her beauty burned,
The eye of man could scarcely brook
With steady gaze thereon to look;
Such was the glow of her cheek and eyes,
She bloomed like the rose of paradise.
Though blither than she erst had been,
In serious mood she oft was seen.
When rose the sun o'er mountain gray,
Her vow was breathed to the east away;
And when low in the west he burned,
Still there her beauteous eye was turned.
For she saw that the flowrets of the glade
To him unconscious worship paid;
She saw them ope their breasts by day,
And follow his enlivening ray,
Then fold them up in grief by night,
Till the return of the blessed light.
When daylight in the west fell low,
She heard the woodland music flow,
Like farewell song, with sadness blent,
A soft and sorrowful lament:
But when the sun rose from the sea,
Oh! then the birds from every tree
Poured forth their hymn of holiest glee!
She knew that the wandering spirits of wrath
Fled from his eye to their homes beneath,
But when the God of glory shone
On earth from his resplendent throne,
In valley, mountain, or in grove,
Then all was life, and light, and love.
She saw the new-born infant's eye
Turned to that light incessantly;
Nor ever was that eye withdrawn
Till the mind thus carved began to dawn.
All nature worshipped at one shrine,
Nor knew that the impulse was divine.
The chiefs of the Forest the strife begin,
Intent this lovely dame to win;
But the living lustre of her eye
Baulked every knight's pretensions high;
Abashed they sank before her glance,
Nor farther could their claims advance:
Though love thrilled every heart with pain,
They did not ask, and they could not gain.
There came a harper out of the east;
A courteous and a welcome guest
In every lord and baron's tower—
He struck his harp of wondrous power;
So high his art, that all who heard
Seemed by some magic spell ensnared;
For every heart, as he desired,
Was thrilled with woe—with ardour fired,
Roused to high deeds his might above,
Or soothed to kindness and to love.
No one could learn from whence he came,
But Hugo of Norroway hight his name.
One day, when every baron came,
And every maid and noble dame,
To list his high and holy strain
Within the choir of Melrose fane,
The lady of Carelha' joined the band,
And Mary, the flower of all the land.
The strain rose soft—the strain fell low—
Oh! every heart was steeped in woe!
Again as it pealed a swell so high
The round drops stood in every eye,
And the aisles and the spires of the hallowed fane,
And the caves of Eildon sang it again.
Oh! Mary Lee is sick at heart;
That pang no tongue can ever impart;
It was not love, nor joy, nor woe,
Nor thought of heaven nor earth below;
'Twas all conjoined in gleam so bright—
A poignant feeling of delight;
The throes of a heart that sought its rest,
Its stay—its home in another's breast.
Ah! she had heard that holy strain
In a land she hoped to see again;
And seen that calm benignant eye
Above the spheres and above the sky;
And though the strain her soul had won,
She yearned for the time that it was done,
To greet the singer in language bland,
And call him Cela, and clasp his hand.
It was yon ancient tombs among
That Mary glided from the throng;
Smiled in the fair young stranger's face,
And proffered her hand with courteous grace.
He started aloof—he bent his eye—
He stood in a trance of ecstasy!
He blessed the power that had impelled
Him onward till he that face beheld;
For he knew his bourn was gained at last,
And all his wanderings then were past.
She called him Cela, and made demand
Anent his kindred and his land;
But his hand upon his lip he laid,
He lifted his eye, and he shook his head!
“No—Hugo of Norroway is my name,
Ask not from whence or how I came:
But since ever memory's ray was born
Within this breast of joy forlorn,
I have sought for thee, and only thee;
For I ween thy name is Mary Lee.
My heart and soul with thine are blent,
My very being's element—
Oh! I have wonders to tell to thee,
If thou art the virgin Mary Lee!”
The Border chiefs were all amazed,
They stood at distance round and gazed;
They knew her face he never had seen,
But they heard not the words that passed between.
They thought of the power that had death beguiled;
They thought of the grave and the vision wild;
143

And they found that human inference failed,
That all in mystery was veiled,
And they shunned the twain in holy awe;—
The flower of the forest and Carelha'
Are both by the tuneful stranger won,
And a new existence is begun.
Sheltered amid his mountains afar,
He kept from the bustle of Border war;
For he loved not the field of foray and scathe,
Nor the bow, nor the shield, nor the sword of death;
But he tuned his harp in the wild unseen,
And he reared his flocks on the mountain green.
He was the foremost the land to free
Of the hart, and the hind, and the forest tree;
The first who attuned the pastoral reed
On the mountains of Ettrick, and braes of Tweed;
The first who did to the land impart
The shepherd's rich and peaceful art,
To bathe the fleece, to cherish the dam,
To milk the ewe and to wean the lamb;
And all the joys ever since so rife
In the shepherd's simple, romantic life.
More bliss, more joy, from him had birth
Than all the conquerors of the earth.
They lived in their halls of Carelha'
Until their children's sons they saw;
There Mary closed a life refined
To purity of soul and mind,
And at length was laid in old Lindeen,
In the very grave where she erst had been.
Five gallant sons upbore her bier,
And honoured her memory with a tear;
And her stone, though now full old and gray,
Is known by the hinds unto this day.
From that time forth, on Ettrick's shore,
Old Hugo the harper was seen no more!
Some said he died as the morning rose;
But his body was lost ere the evening close.
He was not laid in old Lindeen;
For his grave or his burial never was seen.
Some said that eve a form they saw
Arise from the tower of Carelha'
Aslant the air, and hover a while
Above the spires of the hallowed pile,
Then sail away in a snow-white shroud,
And vanish afar in the eastern cloud.
But others deemed that his grave was made
By hands unseen in the greenwood glade.
Certes that in one night there grew
A little mound of an ashen hue,
And some remains of gravel lay
Mixed with the sward at the break of day;
But the hind past by with troubled air,
For he knew not what might be slumbering there;
And still above that mound there grows
Yearly a wondrous fairy rose.
Beware that cairn and dark green ring!
For the elves of eve have been heard to sing
Around that grave with eldritch croon,
Till trembled the light of the waning moon;
And from that cairn, at midnight deep,
The shepherd has heard from the mountain steep
Arise such a mellowed holy strain,
As if the minstrel had woke again.
Late there was seen, on summer tide,
A lovely form that wont to glide
Round green Bowhill, at the fall of even,
So like an angel sent from heaven,
That all the land believed and said
Their Mary Lee was come from the dead;
For since that time no form so fair
Had ever moved in this earthly air:
And whenever that beauteous shade was seen
To visit the walks of the Forest green,
The joy of the land ran to excess,
For they knew that it boded them happiness.
Peace, love, and truth, for ever smiled
Around that genius of the wild.
Ah me! there is omen of deep dismay,
For that saintlike form has vanished away!
I have watched her walks by the greenwood glade,
And the mound where the harper of old was laid;
I have watched the bower where the woodbine blows,
And the fairy ring, and the wondrous rose,
And all her haunts by Yarrow's shore,
But the heavenly form I can see no more!
She comes not now our land to bless,
Or to cherish the poor and the fatherless,
Who lift to heaven the tearful eye
Bewailing their loss—and well may I!
I little weened when I struck the string,
In fancy's wildest mood to sing,
That sad and low the strain should close,
'Mid real instead of fancied woes!
 

There is another Border tale resembling this, which would make an excellent subject for a poem of a different description. It likewise relates to the reanimation of a corpse; and happened no earlier than in the recollection of several persons yet living. Squire R---y of Burnlee fell deeply in love with the daughter of a worthy magistrate of an ancient Border town, so deeply indeed that he declared, and even swore, that he neither could nor would exist without her. This hasty and injudicious resolution was not, however, put fairly to the test; for, after a short but ardent courtship, she became his wife, and the man of course was happy beyond all possible description.

But, as the old song runs,

“It happened ill, it happened worse,
It happened that this lady did dee—”
they had not been many months married when the lady fell into fainting fits one morning, and expired suddenly; and after the usual hurry of galloping for doctors, rubbing of temples, and weeping of friends was all fairly over, the body was laid quietly into the bier, and borne away to the churchyard on the shoulders of four stout men in deep mourning, while the long funereal train came slowly up behind.

The distance from Burnlee to the churchyard is not half a mile, but the road winds up by a steep and narrow path, and about midway there is an old thorn three, which throws its long, crabbed, unyielding branches across the road. The bearers inadvertently pressing the bier against one of these branches, it came back with a sudden spring, and threw the coffin from the poles, which, after nearly felling the unfortunate laird, was dashed to pieces in the path. The people gathered all round in great perplexity, but in a few seconds they betook them to their heels and fled. The corpse, having been thrown out, rolled down the steep in its dead-clothes, till some of them, laying hold of it, began to lay it decently out on the brae; when, all at once, it sat up among their hands, and fell a struggling to get its arms loose. This struck them with such horror that they could not stand it, but fled precipitately, the laird running as fast as any of them, and without his hat too, which the coffin had knocked off in its fall. Some ran this way, and some that; and when they looked back and saw the dead woman gushing blood at the nose, and tearing the dressings from her face with both hands, they ran still the faster. A smith, of the surname of Walker, was the first to turn the chase, which he did by cursing his flying compeers most manfully. “It was a domned sheame,” he said, “to see a hoonder men cheased by a dead woife, and hur never stworring off the beat nwother.”

To make a long tale short, the lady walked home on her own legs, wrapped as she was in her winding-sheet, and led by her affectionate and rejoiced husband on the one side, and by the parson on the other. She afterwards became a mother, and lived a number of years at Burnlee, though not perhaps so much beloved as she was during the first two or three months: at length she died again even more suddenly than she had done the first time. Every mean was used to bring about resuscitation in vain, and the lady was a second time laid in her bier, and borne away up the strait path to the churchyard. When the procession came to the old tree, the laird looked decently up, and said to the bearers, “I'll thank you to keep off that thorn.”

These lines, and all to the end, relate to the late Right Honourable Harriet, Duchess of Buccleuch and Queensberry, whose lamented death happened at the very time the first edition of this work was issuing from the press, and cast a gloom over a great proportion of the south of Scotland. Thousands then felt that their guardian angel was indeed departed. Among her latest requests to her noble husband, was one in favour of the humble author of these fairy lays; but that circumstance was not known to me till several years afterwards. It was not however forgotten by him to whom it was made, whose letter to me on that subject I keep as the most affecting thing I ever saw.

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