The Poetical Works of Robert Montgomery :: :: University of Virginia Library

“Of such,” the kingdom in the skies prepared.
Alas! how rarely do such words impress
An awe most vital, on the Souls which read
The letter only, but the life forego.
For here Philosophy and Reason stand
Rebuked, and silent; learning, language, art,
The palms of Mind, the laurels of Renown,
The shout of Senates, and the world's applause,
How weak, and worthless, absolutely nought
When rank'd beside the destiny of babes!
And yet, to souls of earth, who measure truth
By sight, organic flesh alone they seem
Scarce by a spark of intellect inspired!
A mother's plaything, or a father's toy,
Incarnate trifles, fit for woman's smile
To gild and welcome, or her lulling voice
To soothe and soften when the temper cries,
Such may they look, to undiscerning mind!
But, since Emmanuel hath the skies unveil'd
And taught Religion to behold them there,
As true inheritors of conscious bliss
In yon bright kingdom,—let our Faith a child
Revere; and look upon its pleading form
With love, by venerating awe subdued;
As well we ponder, how beneath that frame,
Though fragile as the web of dew, there lies
A spirit with eternity instinct!
Nor doubt, that He whose hallow'd unction gave
Prophets their light and brave Apostles zeal,
Through all its faculties can so diffuse
Enlarging grace, that what on earth appear'd
Little beyond a mindless form of clay,
At the first bound which into light it makes
When disembodied,—may at once eclipse
Archangels in their knowledge; and from God
A coronet beyond the Cherubim to match
In splendour, on its infant-brow receive!

But dare we, by some earth-born pride betray'd,
Presume to question, why a sinless babe
In this bleak world of wo and crime, should live?
If but a moment on this earth it breathe,
Untaught, untried, untempted and unskill'd,
Neither by reason proved, nor faith inform'd,
What is it, but a blank of being lost,
In life all mystery, and in death no more?

Yet who are we, but stammering babes of dust,
When upward as to God's untold designs
Fancy attempts to soar on fearless wing?
But thou, fond mother! o'er thy pallid child
In coffin'd beauty for the tomb array'd,
Cold as the flowers which on it calmly lie,
Hush the wild language of thy heart's despair!
For in the twilight of our doom there flash
Gleams of instruction through the cloud of death
By wisdom darted on believing souls.
See, how the Fall when infants die, is proved,
Stung by that fatal sting, which stingeth all!
Mute sermons preach they upon primal Sin
Beyond all pulpits, in their palmiest hour
Of eloquence and truth! O who that feels
The wear and waste of this soul-trying world
Where life is one long martyrdom to most,
However gilded, back would e'er recall
The child of mercy, unto heaven resumed?
The crown it wears, but has not fought the fight,
Reaches the goal, but has not won the race;
Balm to bereavement let this thought inspire!
But with it, may this added comfort blend,—
That as eternity the dead absorbs
Youthful, or aged, our affections seek
That mystic Home with more familiar sway.
'Tis not a solitude which awed Amaze
Dreads to encounter; but a peopled clime
Fill'd with the loved and lost, we long to meet
And once more welcome! And beyond this bright
Assurance may consoled Reflection press
Inquiry: for when shuddering Reason starts
To think on millions of unpitied babes
Mangled, and massacred in heathen climes,
How do those words, so tenderly profound
Of Jesus, light the path of Providence,

588

Which tell us, Heaven the murder'd child receives,
Whose death-pangs lift a stainless heart to God,
Through early martyrdom to glory rapt.

And hence, true mothers! ye, at least, are bound
To Jesus; in His words an echo dwells
To each inquiry, which beyond the grave
Longs to pursue an infant's parted soul.
Love to Emmanuel! let your motto be;
And so on Childhood's brow of beauty gaze,
As that whereon the Sacrament shall print
A sealing import; then, your child devote
Like Anna, early to the Lord of love,
And from the cradle guide it to the Cross!

NOBLENESS OF FAITH.

Deistic Thomas, with his doubting mind,
I envy not that most exacting man
Though eye to eye and face to face he stood
Before Messiah; and, with hand outstretch'd
And daring finger to his wounds applied,
Answer'd his doubt, and silenced unbelief
By evidence, which drew his adoration forth
With over-awed amazement. He to sight
And sense appeal'd; and well were both assured
When the mild Saviour to his eye appear'd,
Thrilling that doubter with resistless proof,—
E'en by the print, and pressure of those wounds
Whence gush'd salvation o'er a guilty world!
But rather let me, with a glance of faith
All time pervade, by Christ Himself inspired;
And in the glass of His describing Word
His life and lineaments of beauty trace.
Child of the Church, and by Her creed sustain'd,
By prayer, and praise, and Her memorial rites,
Doctrines and duties and the hallow'd round
Of fasts and festivals, oh! let me learn
The sense to crucity; and walk by faith
As prophets, patriarchs, and priests have done;
By grace empower'd beyond mere sight to live,
And earth-born feelings, in their finest mood.
For not to Thomas did that blessing come,
Which round the weakest who can now adore
And clasp Emmanuel with the mind's embrace,
Hovers like music,—from the lenient mouth
Of Christ descending on the souls of all
Who though they see not, yet the Lord believe
In risen glory. Thus can Faith exalt
Man out of self, and unto God reduce
His errant nature, as its proper home.

Sense but the shadow, Faith the substance holds;
And while the pageantries of Earth and Time
Like golden clouds which line the glowing west
In airy nothingness have died away,
That glorious Infinite of truth will beam
Brighter and brighter, which pure faith pursues:
Till what in weakness now we dimly scan,
By open vision future heaven shall prove,
And God unveil'd our spirit's glory be.

WORDSWORTH.

A thought the universe in worth outweighs
View'd as dead Matter, meaningless and dumb:
Hence, on some Form where intellect is shrined,
And genius dwells, in purity of power
To God and wisdom dedicate, we gaze
With no cold glance, by common love inspired.
And thus, on Him, that venerable Bard!
A laurell'd Priest of poetry and truth,
August with years, by mournful calm subdued,
With filial reverence my spirit look'd
When first I heard him, in his mountain-home,
My entrance welcome. Boyhood's pensive dawn
Ideal magic from his mental springs
So oft had drunk, that when their breathing Source
Before me stood embodied, all the spells
His numbers wielded seem'd in one combined
And round my soul in high remembrance drawn,
Till like a Seer, or Hierarch of mind
And melody, immortal Wordsworth thrill'd
My heart, and made it vibrate into tears!
For tones there are in his creative verse
By childhood not unecho'd: but when age
Deepens the character, and powers awake
To more majestic strains attuned, his thoughts
The hidden lyre of consciousness within
Electrically move, and mental chords
By him are touch'd, which prove the soul divine.

When thus indebted to his wealth of mind,
How could I gaze on that capacious brow
Open and high, and like an arch of thought

589

O'er eyes of intellectual blandness curved,
Or scan the lines, or view those silver'd locks
Which o'er his countenance a hoary grace
Suffused, and not ennobling homage pay.
What! shall mere Nature's majesty of forms
The eye entrance, where admiration glows,
Because, though mute, those forms to fancy hint
A soul in matter and a speech in things,—
And earth's own laureates be unreverenced
By mind? The human Race their debtor is;
Sea, air, and mountain, lake and lonely shore,
Forests and woods, and fields where freshness blooms
All are immortalised by radiance cast
From their high meanings, who the world transform,
And cast a beauty round the common lot
By making loveliness more lovely still.

A mental prophet and a priest of song
The bard of Rydal is to Souls who see
How heaven-born genius, like a mouth of God,
Opens some new apocalypse of Power
Which faith reveres, and meditation loves.
For have not Nature, Providence, and Man
Of both the centre, from his thoughtful muse
A sympathy of mild and mournful tone
Partaken, till Association's law
Have each invested with a beauteous charm?
Thus, mountain-grandeur and the grace of hills
Like thine, Helvellyn! in their hollow sweep;
Or forked Skiddaw with his famous brow;
Parnassean groves and glades of blissful calm
Where trees their twilight cast,—to him were dear
And with his being half incorporate grew.
The thorn had meanings; and a thistle spoke
Its own stern language; while each meadow-flower
A glow of beauty on creation's brow
In blooming radiance, seem'd by Angels dropt:
Nature to him was one almighty Speech
Significant, and deep, and full of God.
Nothing was lost, but all to love appeal'd,
The linnet's chaunt, a homeless cuckoo-song,
An eagle's majesty, or insect-mirth
To him were welcome, and some feeling touch'd.
All voices, visions, all of sense and sound
Home to his heart a deep impression sent
Which gave him partnership in nature's All,
As though 'twere conscious. Hence the landscapes were
An outward-token of the inward mind,
Loved in his life, and from the Spirit's lyre
Drew melodies of thought, which shall not die
While throbs the heart with poetry or prayer!

Not mere description, pensive, deep or grand,
His verse unfolds: but he the Mind has taught
How nature's sacraments and symbols speak
To mental reverence with a language mute
But mighty; how Her moods and motions are
Responsively to Man's more hidden world
With such accordance shaped, that heaven-born minds
See God and Angels, where a sensuous heart
Is charm'd by nothing but material show.

And human Life, and Providential love
To man reveal'd by Omnipresent acts
Of watching tenderness, from heaven at work,
His numbers prove with philosophic grace
And wisdom most benign. To him the scene
Of dark Existence was divinely touch'd
With sacredness and awe; whence prayer and praise
Were due, and godless Pride should learn to think,
And none seem orphan'd from the Father-God!
For as in nature, nothing is by Heaven
Forgotten, from the vaster forms of Life
And Being, down to each minutest speck,
But in the beam of God's parental eye
Remains for ever,—so that social World
Where Mind and Will their awfulness unfold
And character is moulded, to his gaze
An order'd scene of theocratic Law
Presented, where enthroned, the Godhead reign'd
And all were precious, who His cause maintain,—
Possible Angels, whom The Christ redeem'd.

All Nature thus made spiritually deep
By her significance of conscious life
To Soul responsive, and the moral World,
Where Providence to human will conjoins
Each plan and purpose, being hence enlink'd
With Glories uncreate,—no wonder Man
A true schekinah of transcendant powers
To Wordsworth seem'd; a Soul of priceless cost,
Whose incarnation, in its meanest guise,
Involves more grandeur than the “Worlds” contain!
Earth, space, and time, and all which tinsell'd pride
Amid the pageantries of wealth pursues
Or mere Convention by dull creed exacts
Before it vanish'd!—Individual mind

590

To him became the summit of his song:
And, how he trembled into wordless prayer
And grew religious, when unfathom'd depths
Of man's capacity for bliss or woe
Were open'd, and on Faith's predictive eye
The soul's hereafter like a vision rose
Self-realised, for heaven, or hell prepared!

FORTY LINES ON WELLINGTON.

I

Though shaded by death, yet his glory remains
Like beams on the billow when day-light is set;
And deeper than language the sorrow that pains
The heart of a Nation, enshrining him yet.

II

Oh! his was a greatness the good can admire,
Which Virtue may laurel, and Vice only dread;
And pure as the principles Truth can inspire
The wreath of renown which encircles his head.

III

From peasant to peer, from the cot to the throne
The thrills of dejection pervadingly ran,
When the myriad-wing'd Press to Europe made known
The death of a leader in Liberty's van.

IV

The soar of an eagle when sweeping its flight,
The heart of a lion which throbs o'er his prey,
But weakly can image the worth and the might
Of Wellington marching in battle-array.

V

Resistless in conflict, but simple and stern,
Serene in the tempest, and calm in the shock,
Let the valour of Youth thus patiently learn
When the whirlwind is raving,—to rival the rock!

VI

A Cæsar in battle, and Cato at home,
Protecting our Altars from infidel-hate,
We challenge the records of haughty old Rome
To boast of a Hero so gallant and great.

VII

When the war-hounds of France in horrors of blood
Had raven'd on Freedom, and outraged her laws,
The bulwark of Empires, brave Wellington stood,
And stifled Rebellion by quenching her cause.

VIII

Thus, onward he triumphs in prowess and pride,
A king of all subjects, yet subject to kings;
Till the banners of England wave out far and wide
And Earth o'er her ransom with jubilee rings.

IX

A pillar of Patriots, the foremost and first,
Erect in his grandeur of spirit and zeal
Ambition ne'er saw him, by self-aims accurst,
Pursue the bad triumphs we blush to reveal.

X

Then, deepen for ever the homage and praise
From past and from present, to Wellington due,
And hallow the glory which brightens the bays
He won for Mankind, when he gain'd Waterloo.

“BETTER DAYS.”

“All our pleasant things are laid waste.” Isa. lxiv. 11.

“Remember the days of old.”—Deut. xxxii. 7.

How eloquent the ruin'd shrine
August, or sad, or lowly!
'Tis haunted with a spell divine
Deeper than melancholy:
For still it breathes of poetry and prayer,
And mild dejection woos Religion there.

Temples, and tombs, and cities vast,
The roofless cot, or home
O'er which Destruction's wings have past,
And where pale memories roam,
How are we moved by their mysterious sway
And lulling sadness of severe decay?

Strange though it seem, not royal state,
Nor brilliant pomp and pride
Encircled round the earth-born great
To rank and wealth allied,
Attract the spirit with so true a power
As wreck and ruins in some pensive hour.

591

Engirdled are they by a spell,
A wordless charm of mind,
And something more than tones can tell
Sinks o'er the soul refined,
When the dead glories of departed Years
Moisten the eye with meditation's tears.

But, what are we, but wrecks of man,
A fallen race of sin,
Creatures who marr'd the Almighty plan
And let rebellion in,
Through that pure Will which Heaven created free,
Whose law was Love, and that was Deity.

And thus, perchance, for ruin'd Things
Our moral instinct wakes,
And o'er the heart's electric strings
A breath from Eden breaks,—
A mournful sense of forfeit-bloom and bowers
When Eve was perfect as the vestal flowers.

But if o'er what is dumb and dead,
A palace, shrine, or cot,
The tears of History are shed
And sanctify the spot
Where genius wept, or wisdom thrill'd and thought,
The martyr burn'd, or heroes bled and fought,

Shall not a living wreck of love,
An orphan sad and lone,—
Children whose angels stand above
So near the Glory-throne,
Soften the heart when sounds the touching phrase,
Heard in some homely tale of “Better Days?”

It is, indeed, a moving sight!
A pale and pensive child
Whose brow enthrones no young delight;
As though it ne'er had smiled;
Friendless and homeless, with dejected face
Too early touch'd with sorrow's withering trace.

Around it once fond parents hung
With love's enamour'd eye;
And Age itself again grew young
With that bright creature nigh!
Pangless the heart, the step was like the breeze
In bounding gladness borne above the seas.

Wealth, home and peace were there combined
To make that child secure;
And all which moulded heart and mind
Was radiant, sweet and pure:
Soft Innocence unveil'd her beauteous smile
And childhood flourish'd free from want and guile.

Prophetic dreams must oft have play'd
Around its virgin morn,
Ere baffled circumstance betray'd
A lot now bleak and lorn:
The future seem'd the poesy of life
Read by a heart with golden fancies rife.

But all is wither'd, changed and gone,
Friend, home and fortune o'er!
And hard-eyed worldlings cease to own
The wreck of wealth no more;
That once gay child is now a gloomy Thing
Wan with disease, or worn by suffering.

Blessings divine, then, hallow those
Who sheltering mansions build
To anchor from tempestuous woes
Children, whose hearts are fill'd
By past remembrance, blent with present grief,
Where life seems darkness, waiting death's relief!

Never till Christ unveils His throne
Whose heart beats human there,
And echoes to each plaintive tone
Breathed in the sigh, a prayer,—
Will the vast mercy these Asylums prove
Be understood, except by boundless love.

Long may they flourish! like the shrine,
St. Ann's of regal name;
Where better days, with love combine
To form a noble claim
For pleading orphans, and the helpless poor
In whom Christ owns His lot repeated o'er.

ENGLISH PEASANTRY.

(1826.)

Behold our peasantry! Britannia's pride
While baleful Luxury her boon denied;
The tyrant grasp of Desolation spoils
Each homely shelter for the labourer's toils;
While sad and far the houseless peasant flies
And mansions o'er his ruin'd hamlet rise:
For him no more shall bloom the garden flower,
No sabbath guest shall greet his hazel bower,
No winter's evening bring domestic bliss,
No laughing infants leap to share the kiss.

592

Inhuman Tyrants! whose destructive hand,
To grasp domain would desolate the Land;
Can barren pomp one joyous hour bestow
While Famine fills a thousand hearts with wo?
Can palisadoed lawns of wide extent
Please like the rural homes of calm Content?
Sweeter by far, methinks, were Wealth to pour
Diffusive blessings from her ample door;
And if the sick man pined, to visit there
And with the smile of Mercy, hush despair.
And dear the scene that charm'd the pilgrim's eye
Ere Luxury rose, or Avarice peal'd her cry,
Where cottage-homes, upon the green domain
Gave health and shelter to the toiling swain:
There many a way-worn traveller sighing stay'd,
And ask'd of heaven some equal hamlet-shade
Where humble life flow'd undisturb'd away,
And happiness led on each new-born Day.
The smoke enwreathing with the playful breeze,
A glowing produce ripening on the trees,
The laden bee low-humming in some flower,
Or pigeon cooing from his shaded tower,
With all the nameless charms that nestle round
The cottage-garden and the pasture-ground,—
Made every passing stranger stop awhile
And lit his lingering eye with many a smile!
Here was the home, where toil-worn age, at last
Might rest secure, and muse on labours past;
Here was the welcome round of rustic mirth,
The family-supper, and the blazing hearth,
The happy converse, and the cheerful gaze,
With all that Gratitude to Mercy pays!
Rare now a scene so simply pure as this,—
The quiet plenty and the cottage-bliss!
Oppressive Wealth usurps each lawny spot
Where bloom'd the garden and where rose the cot;
Mansions, and groves, and princely parks abound,
Stretch o'er the plain, and seize each rood of ground,
While Pomp frowns every meaner home away
And leaves the peasant but a scanty pay;
Doom'd through the day to bear the summer-blaze,
Or mend, 'mid ice and snow, the public ways;
Or else, beneath the bleak autumnal-showers,
In damp and pain to pass the tedious hours,
A pittance from the tyrant of the soil
Is all which pays him for his dismal toil:
Then, home he wanders to a cheerless shed
With discontented heart, and aching head:
Here shall no rosy babes, nor smiling wife,
Attend to make the sweetnesses of life;
No social case to keep the mind in tune
And shed delight around life's waning noon;
But starving infants with imploring eyes
Raising their pallid hands and piteous cries,
Till agony distract the parent's brain,
Flame the wild thought, or rack the soul with pain;
Till Want burst every tie of virtue free;
And Crime conducts him to the gallows-tree!

STARLIGHT ON MARATHON.

No vesper-breeze is floating now,
No murmurs shake the air;
A gloom hath veil'd yon mountain-brow
And quietude is there;
While night-beads on the dew-white grass
Drop brilliant as my footsteps pass.

No hum of life disturbs the scene,
The clouds are roll'd to rest;
'Tis like a calm where grief hath been,—
So welcome to the breast!
The warring tones of Day are gone
And starlight gleams on Marathon.

I look around from earth to sky
And gaze from star to star;
Till Grecian hosts seem gliding by
Triumphant from the war:
Like deathless spirits from the dead
Revisiting where once they bled.

What though the mounds which mark'd each name
Beneath the wings of time
Have worn away,—theirs is the fame
Immortal and sublime:
For who can tread on Freedom's plain
Nor wake Her dead to life again!

Oh! to have seen the marching Bands,
And heard the battle-clash,
Have seen their weapon-clenching hands
And eyes' defiant flash,
Their radiant shields and dancing crests
And corslets on their swelling breasts!

Then said the mother to her son
And pointed to his shield,
“Come with it, when the battle's done
Or on it, from the field!”
Then mute she fix'd her dreadless eye
That spoke of ages vanish'd by.

'Twas here they fought: and martial peals
Once thunder'd o'er the ground,
While gash and wound from plunging steels
Bedew'd the battle-mound;
Here Grecians trod the Persian dead,
And Freedom shouted while she bled!

593

But, gone the day of Freedom's sword
And cold the patriot brave,
Whose valour crush'd the servile horde
Like victims for the grave;
While Greece arose sublimely free
And dauntless as her own dark sea!

Yet, starlight sheds a pallid beam
For aye upon the plain;
And musing breasts might fondly dream
The Grecian free again;
For empires fall, and freedom dies,
But changeless beauty robes the skies.

May He whose glory veils yon sky,
God of the slave and free!
Hear every patriot's burning sigh
Hope dedicates to thee;
For thee, sad Greece! and every son
Who braves a Turk on Marathon.

LONDON BY MIDNIGHT.

(1828.)

The fret and fever of the day subside,
And London slumbers; but with murmurs faint
Like Ocean, when she folds her waves to sleep:
'Tis the pure hour for poetry and thought,
When passions sink, and Faith the heaven beholds,
As yearns an exile for his father-land.

O'er all a dim sublimity is spread,—
The garniture of night; amid the air
Darkly and drear yon airy steeples rise,
Like shadows of the past; the houses lie
In dismal clusters, moveless as in sleep;
And, towering far above the rest, yon Dome
Appears, as if self-balanced in the gloom,—
A spectre cowering o'er the dusky piles.

And, see! on ground I stand whose glorious name
Might turn the coward brave; on thy huge bridge
Triumphant Waterloo! Above,—how calm!
There moon and star commingling radiance shed
And bathe the skies in beauty. Smooth and pale
The pearly bosom'd clouds recline, enlink'd
Like wave-festoons upon the furrow'd deep.
Below, the Thames outspread, serene and cold;
And as I gaze, a cooling breath ascends
And melts upon my brow: like the worn heart
When harrowing cares have slept, the river seems
Peaceful and still; save when a wind-sigh wakes
The brooding slumbers of its breast; like dreams
That quiver on the marble face of Sleep.

Along each side the darkling mansions frown
Funereal in their gloom. Afar and faint,
The bridge-lamps glimmer o'er the tranquil stream,
As if enchain'd upon the air; beneath,
Gleams of pale lustre tremble through the gloom;
And, here and there, a tower and shadowy spire
Are imaged on the water; sad and shrunk
Like flower-leaves wither'd by the summer-blaze.

Yonder, in dim magnificence, behold
The many window'd Pile; apart and stern,
In lowering grandeur, like a lofty mind
Unmingling with the baser crowd. One half
Is clothed with moonlight's pallid veil;
Beneath, a darkness broods, whence portals yawn
In cavern-gloom upon the drowsy tide,
Like tombs unbarr'd.

But hark! from yonder Dome
Into Eternity the Day is toll'd:

How hollow, dread, and dismal is the peal
To heaven its vast account now rolling up!
Awhile it undulates, then dies away
In mutter'd echoes, like the ebbing groans
Of drowning men; and see! the lustrous Moon
Veils her white brow, and leaves me in night-shade,
Unseen, but by the sleepless One: O God!
I feel thine eye upon me, I shrink
Awe-smote beneath its gaze, like melting snow
By moon-beams touch'd, when golden radiance smiles.

How noiseless are the streets! A few hours gone,
And all was fierce commotion; car and hoof,
And bickering wheel, and chariot-rush, and crowds
Which rang with revelry and woe, were here,
Immingled with the stir of life; but now
A deadness mantles round the midnight scene;
Time with his awful wand the world has touch'd,
And soothed her myriads into sleep!—'Tis hush'd!
Save when a distant drowsy watch-call breaks
Intrusive on the calm; or rapid cars
That roll them into silence. Beauteous look
The train of houses yellow'd by the moon,
Whose tile-roofs, slanting down amid the light,
Gleam like an azure track of waveless sea!

594

But who was she, that with a fairy step
And lip of wreathing smiles, came floating by
Buoyant as April's breeze? Alas! alas!
Let nights of laughing agony, and crimes
Which burn their torture through the sullied heart,
Let sated passion and the form consumed,
Let these betray the orphan of the night!
As on her guilt-worn face a lamp-beam fell,
Reluctantly methought, her eye reveal'd
That curse of misery—gladness in disguise!

The squares, how haughtily reposed they stand
At this deep hour, with massy piles erect
And stately! where the windows broad and bright,
Like molten water shine; and freckled walls
In light are steep'd, which ripples on the stone;
Beneath, amid the laurel boughs that bend
Responsive to the breeze, the lamp-rays flit
In twinkling playfulness, like infant-eyes.

Once more upon the climbing moon, ere yet
Cloud-shaded she withdraw, a moment glance!
There, as we gaze, what undefinèd awe,
What thoughts ethereal flutter round the heart!
On Her fair brow we seem to write and read
The mind's quick fancies; all the Past awakes
Begirt with sweet creations, till the source
Of sympathy unlocks; and then a tear
Will venture brightly from the manliest eye,—
A precious tear, whose fountain is the soul.

The past,—Oh! who through London-streets can pace,
Nor vision forth the spirits which have been?
An atmosphere of genius quickens here
Remembrance of the dead! The storied nurse,
The ancient mother of the mighty, thou
Unrivall'd London! Sages, poets, kings,
And all the giant-race of glorious fame
Whose world-illuming minds, like quenchless stars
Burn through the night of ages,—triumph'd here,
Or martyrdom of mind endured! And now
Those Kings of mind, by death immortal made,
Forth from their tombs Imagination cites!

And who the midnight-scenes of life shall paint,
In this vast city, mart of human-kind!
In sleep some living wrecks of wo, are lapp'd,
And bless'd in dreams, whose daylight was a curse!
Some, heart-rack'd, on the sleepless couch recline,
And from the heated brain create a hell
Of agonising thoughts or ghastly fears;
While Pleasure's moths amid the golden sheen
Of princely halls, dance off the dull-wing'd hours;
And oh! perchance, in some infectious cell
Far from his home, unaided and unsoothed,
The famish'd wand'rer dies;—no voice to breathe
Mild comfort to his heart; no hand to smooth
His bed of death; no sainted eye to bless
The spirit hovering o'er another world!

But list! a laugh of Pleasure thrills the wind;
'Tis Folly's soulless idols sauntering home,
Faced with a mask of smiles. And One there is,
Upon whose haggard cheek a glance may read
A tale of blighted years and buried woes!
His home is reach'd; and where yon window-gleams
Dart o'er the street a dizzy chain of light
Awhile he gazes on his mirror'd face,
And sighs to mark what havoc Pleasure makes!
Then drops upon his couch, while round him float
In visionary throng, the glowing forms
Which beautified the night; and where are they?—
At home, heart-wearied, wilder'd as their dreams
And glad that Time another day has kill'd!

Turn to a nobler victim of the night:
Where yonder casement sheds a pallid gleam
Upon the breezeless air, aloft and lone
An unregarded wreck of Genius toils,
With throbbing brain and dewy brow. The Day
To rest hath gone: but slumber visits not
His sunken eyes! The gnawing fires of thought
Upon his youthful cheek have fed, and parch'd
His tongue, and from his lip drawn the life-stream;
The lightnings of the soul his form have seared.
But Fame stands beckoning; and he battles on
Through want and wo, until he win the goal,—
A welcome one, though Death should drag him there!

And shall this City-queen, this peerless mass
Of pillar'd fanes, and grey-worn towers sublime,
Be blotted from the world, and forests wave
Where once a second Rome was seen? Oh! say,

595

Shall rude grass cover England's royal streets,
And wild beasts howl where Commerce reign'd supreme?
Alas! her moral glance let Memory dart
Down vanish'd time, till summon'd Ages rise
With ruin'd empires on their wings! Thought weeps
With patriot-truth, to own a funeral day
Heart of the universe! may visit thee,
When round thy wreck some lonely man shall roam,
And, musing, say,—“'Twas here vast London stood!”

But hark! again the heavy bell has peal'd
Its doleful thunder; on their watch the Stars
Grow pale; the Moon seems wearied of her course;
And morn begins to blossom in the east;
Then, let me home; and Heaven my thoughts protect!

PAINS OF GENIUS.

Envy not the Poet's name,
Darken not his dawn of fame;
'Tis the guerdon of a mind
Free from thralls of earthly kind;
'Tis the fascinating Star
Brighter than the brightest far;
It often glitters o'er his doom,
A halo round an early tomb!

The whirling brain and heated brow,
The dreams which torture while they grow
The soaring fancy over-fraught;
The burning agonies of thought;
The sleepless eye and racking head,
The haunting terrors round him spread:
Or freezing smile of Apathy;
Or scowl of green-eyed Jealousy;
Or haggard Want, whose lean hands wave
Unto a cold uncover'd grave!—
Oh! these must win a Poet's name;
Then darken not his dawn of fame.

THE CATARACT.

In slumber, when some dream of daring night
Transcends creation, or out-dazzles earth,
Man's wither'd paradise may seem revived;
And oft when Poesy and young Romance
Imagination's throne together mount,—
What landscapes, fit for Seraphim to walk,
In the green loveliness of Nature's youth
Beneath their fascinating smile have bloom'd!
And yet, no dreaming pomp nor bardic spell
Can rival thee, by God himself array'd
With glory terrible, and beauty wild,
Thou earth-adorning Cataract!—once seen,
And seen for ever: heard by sense for once,
And in the spirit heard for evermore!

When, like some vision of a ruin'd world,
In foaming majesty I saw thee fall
From crag to crag terrifically swift,
My soul was hush'd, in trance of wonder bound;
A word was outrage! mute as thought, I gazed
Upon thee, vanquish'd by the dread sublime:
As in the presence of Almighty spells,
My being trembled: language was extinct!

Aloft, aloft, precipitate and loud,
The plunging torrent like a war-horse leaps
Adown the black ravine! and white with rage
And thunderingly hoarse, the headlong-wave
From rock to rock in froth and foam careers,
In tameless terrible, unwearied ire
For ever raving! Hark! the mountain thrills
And throbs, the leaflets palpitate with awe;
The branches quiver like the limbs of fear
On each grey elm; while, floating like the breath
Of conscious being, lo! the mist ascends
In tremor from yon panting surge below,
Lingers awhile, in airy balance hung,
Then trembles downward with a quavering fall
In rain-drops delicate as tears unshed.

King of stern waterfalls! thine awe pervades
And like the genius of romance creates
A spirit of enchantment round thy home:
The valley, hush'd as Desolation, loves;
The gloom chaotic of thine ancient hills
Torn by the tempest's savage wing, and deck'd
With foliage, touch'd by autumn's pale decay;
And drip of water, from the rocks dissolved
In feeble music, faint as dream-heard sighs,—
All these in one vast sentiment unite
Around thee, making sight and sound appeal
Like poetry, from Nature's heart evoked.

And while, with contemplation's spell-bound eyes,
Amid the spray, the thunder and the din,
Monarch of Waters! upon thee I gazed,
The witchery of deep association rose.—
On myriads, now in earth and darkness mute,
I ponder'd, who, like me, had feasted soul
And sense, and drank emotions rich as mine
From thine enchantment. Here the worldling came

596

And left, perchance, his worldliness behind;
Here Pride, Ambition, Avarice, and Hate,
Those Demons of the mind, their sceptres broke,
And shrunk, like Satan from the Saviour's word,
By thee o'erawed! and here the Poet dreamt
While sentiment and thought his heart o'er-whelm'd
With magic potency, till he became
Sublime in thy sublimity of scene!
And from the centre of his spirit felt
Warm inspiration, like a sunrise, break,
And meanings, full of worldless beauty, flow.

Farewell! thou roaring flood of Scynfa born,
In loud monotony of roaring ire
Rage on for ever! rule all hearts and eyes
Which bow before thee: Teacher of the wild
And wondrous! may thy voice eternal be,
And speak of HIM Whose Shadow is the sun,
Whom torrent, sea, and tempest loudly praise;
Whose Love by every breeze is syllabled
While, seated on Eternity's vast throne,
He wields His sceptre o'er ten thousand worlds!

Farewell! thou glory of a glorious Clime,
Farewell, the sight, but not farewell the sense
Of thee:—since in the core of memory's heart
The true dominion of thy scene will dwell;
And oft amid the dust of daily Life,
Or prose of dry existence, will beget
Sensations high, and feelings nobly-pure:
Or, wafted back on fancy's sun-bright wing,
My soul will visit thee, and hear again
The thundering harmonies of thy dread stream,
Like a huge wave in endless plunge and roar,
And own the Almighty by His work revealed!

VALE OF CLWYD.

Majestic Land of liberty and song,
And bardic fame and soul-exciting tales,
Of feudal glory! clime of old romance,
Whose records make the heart of History bound,
A stranger greets thee with exulting pride,
And grows a Cambrian; while thy woods and waves
Rouse the full voice of unaffected song.—
Poets are Nature's patriots; sea and sky,
Mountain and rock, and wood-hung vales and hills,
Deep glens, or lakes, and thunder-mocking cataracts
Round them appear like Inspiration's home.

Thy tower, St. Asaph! when the noon-bright heaven
With crystal arch o'er-canopied thy walls
And the breeze caroll'd like a bird of air,
I trod; beneath me, Arcady revived
Burst on the wonder of my ravish'd eye!
Painting ne'er form'd, nor poetry conceived
A paradise of more bewitching scene:
Leftward the river'd Vale of Cluid lay
Magnificent, with woods and trees adorn'd;
Where castled halls and princely mansions stood,
And towns remote, and cots, and hamlet-spires,
With white-faced homes in blossom'd trees embower'd,
'Mid meadows greenly-bright, and mountain-forms
Whose wavy outline on the sky was mapp'd,—
All on the gaze a mass of beauty pour'd
Beyond what Pòussin in Italian dreams described!
In calm sublimity of conscious strength
The Hills reposed; but when some cloudy shade
Form'd into life, a floating semblance fell
With dim surprisal on their meadow'd sides,
And chequer'd them with ever-changing hue.
Bright ran the river, with melodious speed
Contented; fit for fairy barks to sail,
Or Infancy beside its banks to roam
And gaily prattle to the new-blown flowers,—
So timidly the modest waters flow'd:
And yet, when rains and mountain-floods descend,
The demon-spirit of the water frowns!
In roaring swiftness o'er the prostrate fields
The exaggerated river foams along,
And ruins as it rolls! like some proud mind
That when unwrong'd in meek retirement dwells,
But, injured,—how the buried fire outbreaks,
And maddens round it withering and fierce!
Upon my right, in ivy-tress'd array,
Sublime in ruin, Rhyddlan Castle frown'd;
And, gazing there, the heart religious grew,
To think how glory, pomp, and all the world adores,
A dream becomes for moralist to scan!
Home of the Warrior! where the banner waved,
And Towers! where Cambrian kings and chieftains reign'd,
Whose halls within, the harp of Cymru rang,
While melodies, from Freedom's soul evoked

597

Pour'd tides of feeling over Princes' hearts,
In thy decay how eloquent thou stand'st!
Gigantic Emblem for the mind to read
How perishing is glory! while the Sea
In loud eternity of water beats
Grandly as ever on thy throbbing shore.

From thee, dread Monument of vanish'd days,
Baronial relic of the fierce and free,
Mine eye retreated; far as sight could roam,
Pictured on clouds, in outlined magic lay
The Peaks of Snowdon; silver-bright they shone,
And seem'd the very walls of Heaven! so fair,
So dazzling-white their towering beauty rose,
Like sculpture out of snow by sunshine carved.

Stranger! if ever pent in cities loud,
For many a month thy yearning eye has dream'd
Of Nature, throned amid the green romance
Of woods and waterfalls, thy heart might beat
In thrilling answer to the strain I sing,
Hadst thou beside me, from the sacred tower
This beauteous Vale beheld:—or ere I left,
One long, enamour'd, and delicious gaze
It bade me fasten on the faultless scene;
The sunshine in its golden lull reposed
On tree and mountain: cot and castle gleam'd,
And field and flower their blending graces show'd;
But when the breeze, in wingèd life arose,
How richly all the stirring Landscape flamed!
'Till the glad meads like emerald-sunshine flash'd,
So lustrously that living verdure play'd!

Soft be the winds that visit thy domain
And fair the flowers which gem thy matchless vale
St. Asaph! long may yon cathedral-tower
A sanctity around thy region shed!
For never, while a pulse of memory beats,
Can I that hour of thrilling awe forget
When first amid the gazing crowd I knelt,
A white-robed Novice; while with trembling lip
And soul that to its centre shook, and pray'd,
I vow'd to feed and watch the fold of Christ!

Vale of calm beauty! peace be ever thine
And plenteousness within thy cottage-homes,
Thy castled halls: when fateful years have fled
And worn the furrow deeper on my brow,
Vision'd by fancy, thou wilt yet remain
And help to form imagination's heaven!

ELLESMERE LAKE.

(1836.)

Calm as the beauty upon childhood's brow
On whose fair arch young tenderness is throned,
The Lake reposes; not a ripple mars
Its cloud-reflecting face; where hues of heaven
In soft variety of liquid smiles
Float o'er the water, in successive play
Of light and motion, exquisitely wild.
Oh! Nature, art thou not a spirit now,
While the rich poetry of silence reigns
Heard by the soul, which feels almost unearth'd
And girded round by inspiration's spell?

Pale Martyr of the feverish thought and care!
Sad Victim of a spirit-crushing world!
And Thou, who, dungeon'd in the gloom of self,
To thine imprison'd view art dwarfing down

598

All grand conceptions, all august desires,
Hither! and while the dreaming water basks
Beneath the play of noon's attemper'd smile,
Lull'd in a trance of thought, the Lake admire.

Above, the curved immensity of heaven
Attracts thee, making eye and heart ascend
To wander in those palaces of cloud,
Or fairy-chambers, by the sunbeams paved.
And ye! vast Hills, that in your towering pomp
Touch the bow'd sky, and belt the horizon round
With guardian might, how lofty and alone,
In stern supremacy of height and shape
Ye stand! And, gazing on your giant-forms,
The charm'd beholder grows exalted too,
Till wing'd emotions waft the mind aloft
And, mountain-like, from earth to heaven he soars!
But, hark! in gushes of unwearied song
From yon green isle the hidden birds outpour
Their ecstasy of voice; and round them flows
An atmosphere of melody and praise;
While here and there, some fairy insect-form
Floats on the air, and fans its playful wing;
Or butterflies, like soaring gems, abound,
And scatter forth their gleams of dazzling joy!

But, see! where Oteley with its terraced pomp
And sun-bright aspect through the foliage smiles
Imposingly serene; Oh! long around
That Home of hospitality and peace
May all the social graces throng and bloom!
And you, that gently on the lake encroach
Or round the shore a verdant twilight cast,
Majestic Trees! by summer-grace bedeck'd,
How lovingly your green array invites
The pausing Eye, while many-coloured leaves
Flash in the sun with fascinating hue.

And list, in undulating cadence rolls
The peal of bells from yonder gothic Shrine
Most venerably grey, as broad and dim
Through the bright air its dusky tower ascends;
While soft vibrations of the sacred chime
Ebb on the breeze;—and tenderly, of days
Now sepulchred in memory's tomb, they speak,
Till the fine chords of quick reflection thrill
And waken to the tones. That fane beneath
The dust of immemorial thousands sleeps,
Who once along the churchyard's haunted ground
Did ramble oft, and hear with soul unmoved
The very hymn that like a funeral dirge
The passing hour bemoans; or saw, perchance,
The sunbeams gambolling round their destined grave!

But now, mild eve advances, and the Lake
More winning tenderness of hue and sound
Begins to gather: beautiful delight
Art Thou, fair Scene of water! in thy calm,
As thus reclining; yet in sterner mood
There are who love thine eloquent harangue
Of tempest-voices, when the black-wing'd Storms
Revel above thee; and in sea-like rage
Thy tossing billows whiten, heave, and roar
Beneath the glances of uncertain light,
That downward in their arrowy fleetness dart
From the torn clouds, which let the sun-flash through.

Adieu, loved scene of meditative joy;
Yet, oh! how lingeringly the eye retires
From beauty fresh as thine! The world forgot,
And all its crowd of pale-faced cares repell'd,
In heavenliness of thought my heart has roam'd
Beside thy magic, drinking in awhile
The balm and freshness of a better world;
While Nature on the throne of feeling sits,
And reigns, accorded queen of heart and soul!

Farewell! to outward gaze a long farewell,
Perchance, for ever: yet the dreaming eye
Of Fancy, when the landscapes of the soul
Are imaged, often o'er thy charms will bend;
And pure sensations into life will flow
Of loveliness and verdure; while the tones
Of rippling water throb on Memory's ear,
Like those that warble round thy grassy shore.

Oh! that the heart of man would more and more
Hold converse with the Beautiful and Bright,
And hear those oracles of truth and love
Which come from Nature's everlasting shrine
To all who seek Her, and with filial awe
Her sanctities admire. And who can tell
How often, while along yon wheel-track'd road
The hard-eyed worldling in some dream of Self
Hath hurried, thou didst breathe a moment's balm
On that dry wilderness,—an earthly heart!
And thus, amid the blank of common things
Thou seemest, in the contrast of thy charm,
A page of sentiment by Nature spread
In the coarse volume of man's daily Life,
The eye to soothe,—or satisfy the heart
Which hungers for imagination's feast!

599

But lo! upon the placid brow of Eve
A star of glory like a gem is set,
And round the air a dreaming quiet broods;
While tree and lake in glimmering beauty lie,
And the rich shadows of a summer's night
Begin to deepen; once again, farewell
Thou ancient Water!—centuries o'er thy face
Have fleeted, and unnumber'd millions sunk
Back into breathless clay, but Thou, unworn,
Unwrinkled, and unchanged, art still preserved
In youthful glory: thus, while men decay
And generations toil, and weep, and die,
Some other bard in moralising dream
Will muse, perchance, along thy lovely shore,
And learn how nature, when the soul responds
To fine appeals, can into song awake
The music of the heart's mysterious lyre.

Ellesmere, June 14th, 1836.

ORGAN BOY.

He hath a spirit bright in its content
And playful in its poverty; the rain
Of English clouds and atmospheric gloom
Of this brave island-clime have not destroy'd
The mirthfulness of his brown cheek; nor quench'd
The lustre of those deeply-laughing eyes
Which sparkle forth the sunbeams of the soul!

Then breathe no pity on the organ-boy;
From his gay Land a stock of sterling bliss
And proud young feelings that can well out-wear
Each frown of Fate, the stripling wanderer brings.
Maternal smiles his heart still brighten round;
A father's blessing, when he climb'd his knee
At night, still sounds upon love's inward ear;
And when the streets are wintry, and the tones
His organ weaves fall fruitless on the air,
He dreams of home deep-bosom'd in bright vales
Of beauty; hill-spread vines, and fairy streams
That trifled sweetly as a sister's voice
Who prattled in her slumber: days will dawn
When he again those glowing vales shall thread,
And tell his travels with unwearied tongue
To fond ones, nestling round his own fireside.

Nor think his errant life too mean to sing:
Albeit no music tuned to courtly ears,
Which seem regardless of those native sounds
That raise sweet echoes in romantic souls,
From him is heard; there are of meeker taste
And simpler mind, who bid the roving boy
A welcome; and enchanted hear the notes
His organ wakes, of tenderness and truth.
As through the City's ever-busy streets
And darkly-winding lanes he roams and plays,
Many an ear drinks musical delight;
Many an eye with beams of vanish'd years
Is brightly charged; and from her window haunt,
Who makes the street to tingle with the sound
Of halfpence, thrown with no ungentle hand,
By some fair listener? Haply he woke dreams
Of childhood; thoughts which cannot breathe in words,
But live and fade in sighs of fond regret!

And round him what a throng of urchins group,
And dream his music sweet as Orpheus made!
The laughter hush'd, the noisy tongue asleep,
The hoop, as weary, on his shoulder hung,
A Schoolboy stands to listen, and admire
Those melodies which dance along his soul
Like ripples fleeting o'er a ruffled stream!

Then let the streets still waken to the sound
Of such boy-minstrels; when afar they roam
Through villages, where Music breathes a spell
Of magic in her meanest tone, may smiles
Of welcome flash along the rough-worn face
Of age, and ruddy offspring of the fields:
May gentle skies and glowing days attend,
And feelings toned to every tuneful hour!

There are who deem a Ballad-singer brings
No music which rewards harmonious ears;
To whom an Organ-boy but grating notes
Of discord scatters on the homeless wind;
Their sympathies are season'd high, and scorn
The gentle: envy not the ungenial souls!
For, hallow'd Nature! thou art ever true;
And he who wanders with an eye of love
And feeling wide among thy many haunts,
Through mountain-walks, or unambitious vales,
Where stream and meadow mingle their romance
Around, in storm and sunshine finds thee still
The same and magical! and so, in Life;
Her sweet humilities have grace and power
Beyond her loftiness and pomp: the Muse
Can never play the courtier; from the halls
And palaces of Kings she flies to glades
Of lowliness, where Faculties are found,
And Will and Action can their sway reveal:
Where beats a heart, there Poetry may breathe
Her spirit round it; beautifying look
And word, extracting all the soul of things,
And veiling Nature with a hue divine.

600

BALLAD-SINGER.

(1829.)

“As if the streets were consecrated ground,
The city one vast temple—dedicate
To mutual respect in thought and deed.”
Wordsworth.

The dewy spirit of a summer-rain
Falls not with fresher magic on the flower
Than flows sweet music through the soul of man:
In melody the heavens were hung; the Sea
Weaves music when she rolls her full-voiced waves:
The cloud-born Thunders sound an organ-peal;
And every breeze hath music in its breath!
What, wonder, then, while Nature hymns around,
That music is a sympathy to souls,
The power of exquisite delight? From lips
Of beauty, like aroma from the mind
Exhaling forth; or in the hoary aisle
Of dim Cathedrals dying slow away;
Or in some dream-built palace of the night,
Where angel-whispers make the spirit glow,
How sweet is Music!—with the Light twin-born.

And thy sad voice, poor Minstrel of the street!
Hath sweetness in its sorrow: wild thine air
And dim the meaning of that mournful eye;
For, blighting Poverty hath made thee droop
And worn the health-bloom of thy once fair cheek:
Pale-lipp'd thou art; and charity may read
Upon thy face the story of thy life;
The damp night-gush, the stony bed, the gripe
Of famine, and that fever of a soul
Whom not a smile hath visited through years
Of deep despair, hast thou not felt them, maid
Of many sorrows! yet so sweetly flows
The tide of music in thy homely song
Of tenderness, that when I hear thee sing,
As in a vision thou art beautified above
Thy lot; and tripping o'er the dew-clad hills
When young birds pipe their anthem to the Morn,
Like some bright Creature whom the wood-gods love
I see thee, in thy youth's elysian prime!

That voice, of misery, oh! was it born;
Or, breathed by Happiness into thy soul
When hand in hand o'er childhood's vanish'd fields
Down hawthorn-lanes, by margins of clear brooks
And laughing streams, she led thee in her love?
With cottage-hymn hast thou not hallow'd oft
The sacred hour of eve, and called the smile
Of holiness upon thy father's cheek,
As flowed his kindled feelings in thy song
Of adoration? Minstrel of the street!
Whate'er has been thy lot, thy ballads breathe
Of summer-days to me; and from each strain
My heart can gather echoes, which have wings
To bear it downward into Years, where lie
The buried Joys that will not bloom again!

London, February 14th, 1829.

STANZAS FOR MUSIC.

When the hush of Twilight deepens
Wake, music! then;
Or when the star of Hesper glows
And flings a beam of pale repose
Where yonder tide in beauty flows,
Wake, music! then.

When the yearning heart is melted
Wake, music! then;
As oft some dream of perish'd days
Comes floating o'er the spirit's gaze
'Till every pulse of memory plays,
Wake, music! then.

When the cloud of sorrow blackens
Wake, music! then;
Or, like the hymn of moonlight-bird,
Or rain-dew in the desert heard;
Or leaflet by a night-breeze stirr'd,
Wake, music! then.

When the storm of pain arises
Wake, music! then;
Like glory from an angel-eye,
Like pity in a parent-sigh,
In feeling softness tenderly
Wake, music! then.

SUMMER WAVES.

Exulting waters! how ye leap and laugh,
Instinct with rapture; while the restless beams
Of sunlight flash in sympathetic glee
O'er your glad bosom: hark! the hurried tones
Of sea-born music thrill the Air with mirth,
Till all around me, like a viewless swarm
Of bees, the humming atmosphere resounds.

Strand on Green, Kew, Sept. 1834.

601

MARIUS.

(1827.)

Sad on the echoing shore great Màrius mused,
Deserted and alone; his harass'd eye
The crested waves cast sullenly athwart,
Where rode the traitor's bark. How fallen now
Since that proud day when triumph fired his eye,
And Rome beheld her valorous saviour there!
To brighter days his dreams went back. He thought
Of that high morn, when, fronting Scipio's view,
With firm-paced step, and unretreating arm,
The foe he dash'd, and dragg'd him in the dust:
Of Rome's acclaim, when, throned upon his car,
Jugurtha's fetters clanking on his ear,
He moved triumphant, 'mid the banner'd throng
Who hail'd his Afric conquest: prouder still,
His memory hover'd round the laurell'd pile
Heap'd from the spoil'd Ambrones;—torch in hand,
And purple-clad, as veterans round him stood
He waved and whirl'd the blazing light to heaven,
While shields, and clashing spears, rang martial joy.
Of these he thought, and then Despair awoke,
And delved a frown upon his war-worn brow,
That bent with recollections dark and deep.

Thus Marius sat; and mused before the sea;
Till, bursting from his shroud of grief and gloom,
O'er bogs and wilds dejectedly he sought
A shelter from his foes. Unto the fens
With wild and weary step the wanderer came,
And found compassion in a cotter's hut:
Roused thence, he couch'd within a narrow cave,
Beside the river; there was Marius ta'en,
And naked dragg'd unto Minturnæ's walls!

Within a cell, whose dungeon-wall shed round
A dreadful gloom, the imprison'd Warrior lay,
Stern, fierce, and frowning, dubious of his fate
Like a chain'd eagle glaring at the skies!
The door burst open; and with clattering teeth,
And hand which trembled like a dizzy flame,
Stalk'd in a savage Gaul; but, ere he sheath'd
His gleaming dagger in a Roman breast,
From his fierce eyes a living flame there flash'd,
Like lightning from a cloud! Th' assassin shook
And reel'd, and shrunk affrighted from dread eyes
Whose flashes fell like phantom-darts of fire,
On that pale coward's face. Then Marius rose
And, with a voice of thunder, loud and deep,
“Darest thou do the murderous deed!” exclaim'd.

VIVE L'EMPEREUR!

(1827.)

By Wilid's banks the headlong river swept
Like whirlwind for its havoc! white with foam,
And plunging on in many a gurgled roar
Of furious rage! So fiercely flies the steed,
Unmanacled, that with his upshot ears,
And limbs vein-swelling in their wrathful glow,
Undaunted gallops over hill and dale
With name dishevell'd and his eyes on fire.
Each massy bridge was ruin'd; and afar
The giddy wrecks were battling with the flood
Till whirl'd below. 'Twas then Napoleon came
With his embattled hosts. That wondrous Man!
Whose daring spirit, with volcanic rage,
Breathed flame and ruin on the affrighted world.
His eyes the universe could span! His soul
Had fire enough to vanquish all! In vain
Wild Nature barr'd his progress with her crags
O'er-crested by the clouds; in vain the rocks
His path to block, their icy heads uprear'd
Or hurl'd their torrents at him! With a glance
Fierce as the eagle's, when his piercing eye
Gleams through the darkening air, he look'd beyond
Them all: Nature and He were giants twin,
And her impediments but forced the flames
Of genius from his soul; as thunder-clouds
Together clash'd, their lightning-gleams dart forth.

602

Upon the howling flood a glance he threw,
Such as the tiger darts, ere on his prey
He springs, to gnash it in his ravening ire;
Then fiercely cried “On! on! my valiant Poles!”
They answered not; but with a clanging stir
Goaded their pawing battle-steeds, and plunged
Amid the torrent's rush. Like loosen'd crags
Down-rushing on the sea, the warriors sank
Emburied in the stream; then buoy'd again,
And panting, cleaved their roaring track. Beneath
Their gallant burdens, bravely paw'd the steeds,
With blowing nostrils and dilated eyes,
And many a furious snort; against their breasts
The cloven waters foam'd, and flash'd behind
Their darting hoofs; and roar'd, and raged around
The dripping foemen, like a startled den
Of lions in the wood:—but vain the rush;
Midway the maddening torrent overwhelm'd
The struggling files; like a tremendous blast
Among autumnal leaves, it scatter'd all!
Rank after rank was buried in the flood,
Their steeds upon; while round their sinking heads
The waters yell'd, as victors o'er their foes:
But in that gasp, while yet their spirits hung
'Tween life and death, as feathers in the air,
Backward they gazed, and with triumphant shrieks
Of valour, fiercely sounded, “Vive l'Empereur!”

He heard their death-cries rolling on the blast;
And, as a lake just rippled into life,
His features flutter'd with terrific throes
Of suffering; then, his grinding teeth he gnash'd,
And dug the nails into his palms; and groan'd
In more than agony, whose deeps were dumb!

DEATH OF CORINNE.

(1828.)

All pale, and pillow'd on a chair she lay,
The beautiful, the passionate Corinne!
The brilliant language of her eyes no more
Darted around such eloquence of soul,
As when, amid the crowd, her feelings flash'd
The bright expression forth; while she herself
Was living poetry! Deep pensiveness,
And looks intense which tell the blighted heart,
Of coming death prophetically spake!

Ere yet her spirit breathed itself to heaven,
She yearn'd, upon the shrouded moon to gaze,
Silvering the mellow skies. Athwart her face
Floated that fatal cloud! the same she saw
When Melville woo'd her by the winding shore:
On him, enamour'd, kneeling at her feet,
She look'd, and in one look condensed
The buried anguish of a broken heart;
Her white lips feebly parted, then reclosed
For ever! Gazing then upon the sky,
She faintly beckon'd to the gleaming moon,
While down her neck her streaming ringlets fell
Like dropping sunbeams on the pallid air.

And now a change came on; back the blood retired
Her radiant cheek beneath; her eyelids moved
Like melting snow-flakes in the noontide-glow,
And all her beauty quite empyreal turn'd,
As if refining, ere to heaven it went;
Her hand fell downward with her farewell sigh,
And with eternity her spirit was!

CÆSAR ON THE BANKS OF THE RUBICON.

(1829.)

Amid the roar of revelry
Within Alesian's home,
He moved with glad but musing eye,
The vanquisher of Rome;
His spirit mingled with the gay,
And smiled the gloom of war away.

He tarried there till darkling Night
Threw round her dewy veil,
And shadows pall'd each Alpine-height
That beetled o'er the dale;
Then Cæsar rose, his bosom fraught
With incommunicable thought!

And swiftly sped the Hero on
Along his shadowy road;
And reach'd where roll'd the Rubicon,
That from the mountain flow'd;
And there,—prophetic thought's control
Becalm'd the dauntless Cæsar's soul!

Before him heaved the river-bound
Between great Rome and Gaul;
If cross'd—what trumpet-clangs would sound!
How many a foeman fall!
The vision'd future wild with woes
Before him, like a Spectre, rose!

603

He mused on battle, war, and blood,
On plunder'd cities' storm;
The impatient daggers of the good
Against a tyrant's form;
On all the mountain-perils thrown
'Tween Rome and triumph,—for his own.

Of what the unborn Times would say
At Rubicon's grand name,
Of Him who track'd with blood his way,
And with it built his fame:
Would he not seem a demon then,
Who ravish'd all the rights of men?

And thus reflecting Cæsar stood
And battled with his mind;
Then, gazed upon the fatal flood,
And dash'd his doubts behind!
Like a bent bow, his pride return'd,
And all the Roman in him burn'd.

“The die is cast! the die is cast!”
With reckless shout he cried;
Then swift the Rubicon was pass'd
And reach'd the Roman side;
Ere day had dawn'd he drew the sword,
And vassal Cities hail'd him lord!

A THOUGHT.

Dreams of our Youth! like birds of beauteous wing
Which haunt the paradise of morn and sing,
How have ye vanish'd into viewless air
And left the mind a Temple for despair!

July, 1833.

MORNING.

(1829.)

The Sun is seated on his ocean-throne,
Attended by a court of clouds. Around
And midway, rosy phantoms form and swell,
Advance, and, like battalions in array,
Mingle their pomp, and make a shining plain
Of crimson on the skies.

Beneath, the waves
In gleaming motion lie, like ruffled scales
Of liquid steel: and, lo! awaking now
With the white dew of slumber on her breast,
The Earth, all fragrant, fresh in living green,
And beautiful, as if this moment sprung
From out her Maker's hand. Athwart the trees
A verdant lustre shines; where matin-beads
With gems of light have jewell'd all the boughs;
While here and there, some gently-vocal stream
Touch'd by a sun-ray, laughs with conscious light.

The Flowers are waking, too, and ope their eyes
To greet the prying sun, while meads and dales
With hoary incense steam: and list! there floats
A buzz of life: myriads of insects now
Creep from their green-wood caves and mossy homes,
And wind their way to glitter in the sun;
While from yon wooded green the sheep-bells send
Their tinkling echoes down the forest-dale.

And is creation's heir, in slumberous calm
Unmindful of the morn? Ah, no: its beams
On the lone cotter's straw-roof'd hut hath smiled,
And call'd him forth. And see! the lattice oped,
Far o'er the landscape's freshen'd view His eye
Expatiates; while the choral breezes wake
Like matins from the harp of Air produced:
And then deep sentiments, by purity evoked,
Thrill the true heart; instructively it owns
The gloriousness of God; while faith ascends
On wings of prayer and praise the Mercy-seat,
And Him adores, Whom day and night reveal.

NOON.

The Sun is burning with his noontide-beams
Inflamed to fierceness. Cooling winds are dead;
The shallow lakes are film'd; and fetid pools
Gleam darkly from the arid ground, while hosts
Of swarming insects on the creviced soil
Basking and buzzing creep. The trees are tranced
In breezeless air; and at their matted trunks
The ploughman lies, his head upon his palms,
Watching between the leaves heaven's cloudless arch
Smile on him beauteously. The flowers decline,
As if they languish'd for a breezy draught;
And e'en the flirting bee, now honey-cloy'd,
Is humming languid on the rose's brim.
The world grows faint; and all is stirless, save
Yon sky-bird travelling to the sun; and hark!
Wing-poised, he peers undazzled at the blaze,
Hymning his heart-full of aërial strains.
Beneath this towering cliff behold the sea

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Magnificently spread! The billows pant
And revel in the beams, which crest and crown
Their heads with golden brightness; or adorn
The dimpling bosom of the calmer deep,
And gambol to the shore.

But, far beyond,
Behold a rock majestically rear'd;
Upon whose brow the eagle sits at noon,
Rolling his eye-balls at the blazing run;
High on the yellow beach, its hoary side
Is bared unto the ocean, and the breeze
Upwafted, like a tight and stately sail
When whitening in the glow of heaven. And look!
The feathery shapes of far-off sails are seen
Alone upon the billows; and like clouds
Which glance and tremble on the ocean-brim,
Their motion gleams upon the water's breast.

NIGHT.

Another day is added to the mass
Of buried Ages. Lo, the beauteous Moon,
Like a fair shepherdess now comes abroad
With her full flock of stars, which roam around
The azure mead of heaven. And oh, how charm'd
Beneath her loveliness creation looks!
Far-gleaming hills, and light-inweaving streams,
And fragrant boughs with dewy lustre clothed,
And green-hair'd valleys, all in glory dress'd,
The pageantries of Night compose. One glance
Upon old Ocean, where the woven beams
Have braided her dark waves!—Their roar is hush'd;
Her billowy wings are folded up to rest;
Till once again infuriate winds shall yell,
And tear them into strife.

A lone owl's hoot;
The waterfall's faint drip; or insect-stir
Among the emerald leaves; or infant-wind
Rifling the pearly lips of sleeping flowers,—
The stillness of the scene alone disturb:

Spirit of All! as up yon star-hung deep
Of air, the eye and heart together mount,
Man's Immortality within him speaks;
That Thou art all around! Thy Beauty walks
In dream-heard music o'er the midnight heavens;
Thy glory garmenteth the slumbering world.

SPIRIT OF TIME.

1830.

“Horæ quidem cedunt et dies, et menses, et anni: nec præteritum tempus unquam revertitur; nec quid sequatur, sciri potest.”—Cicero.

Another Year, methought a Spirit cried,
Another Year is dead! Still rolls the world
Magnificent as ever; bright the Sun,
And beautiful his native heaven; the Earth
Around looks fresh as on her birth-day morn;
And Man, as gay as if no knell had rung,
No heart been broken, and no tears been shed!
Where, then, the history of the buried Year,
Of weal and woe, of glory and of shame?
Eternal! not a minute fleets away
That to Thy throne a record doth not waft;
Time cannot die; the unapparent Years
Again will rise; and cited Ages come,
And in our human resurrection share.

A Year hath perish'd, who can tell his tale?
Ye Thunders! kings of cloudy wrath sublime,
With herald-lightnings to announce your power,
Say from your sleep shall ye be summon'd forth,
And tell your havoc, in the blaze of noon
And in the night-wing'd tempest darkly made?
Or, shall I bid unbosom'd Ocean yield
Her dead; or let the unfrequented graves
Expand, and show their ghastly inmates, there?

No moral is there loud enough and deep
The laugh of Life to hush above the tomb;
Time, accident, and change,—they melt forgot
Like clouds of feeling: not the dread alarm,
Of Nature can arouse the world to think.—
An earthquake was there in a far-off isle:
The heavens were blacken'd; and the grim waves yell'd,
While Ocean, heaving like a human breast
In agony, groan'd wildly from her depths:
All Earth seem'd fear-struck; on their bowing trees
The leaves hung shuddering; through the heated air
The dull wind mutter'd with a spirit-tone,
And fitfully the island-cities rock'd:
At midnight, came the Earthquake in his ire
And gloom, which made the world's foundations reel!
Temples and towers were shatter'd: shrieks and prayers
Rang in wild tumult through the riven skies;
And, crush'd to dust, a thousand corpses lay

605

Gulph'd in the ground and sepulchred by night!
Cold morning came; each brow a sadness cloak'd;
Yet none of Judgment in their doom could dream,
And in the Earthquake hear the Voice of God!

A Year hath vanish'd, and how many eyes
Are film'd, how many lovely cheeks are cold!
What lips, which let out music from the soul,
Are death-seal'd, now! Bend, human Pride, and see
The desolation and the curse of Time.
Monarch of millions! at whose royal feet
The treasures of the ransack'd earth were laid,
And on whose brow the pride of Ages sat,
Where slumberest Thou? the sleep of death is thine;
And worms will revel on thy pulseless clay
As on the meanest of forgotten dust.

What hast thou lost, unheedful World? Thy great
Have died; Spirits amid whose radiant track
In bright eclipse the common herd are lost:
Thy Kings, thy Warriors, and thy Statesmen too
Have perish'd: hast Thou mourn'd thy mighty dead?
Go, weep for One, the wonder of his day,
A mental Titan of amazing grasp,
A man whom England may exult to hail
Her own; a Patriot, round whose dying lips
Her name of glory like enchantment, clung.
His chief inheritance, a lofty soul,
He battled through the darkness of his lot
And shone aloft,—the brightest of them all
Who wrestled with the tempest of renown!
What genius glow'd that gifted mind within,
What eloquence came flowing from the fount
Of salient fulness there,—of Hearts demand
Which each word felt, like new-born feeling, pour
Warm inspiration round them, when with eye
That kindled with the kindling truth, he stretch'd
His mind o'er Empires; and round captive-isles
Bade Liberty her wings of light expand!

But, when the mighty die, the mean begin
To live; and thus with thee, departed One!
Scarce on the wind thy death-knell ceased to moan,
Ere darkly rose the pestilential breath
Of Slander's venal lip, thy name to blight,
And turn thy soul as tainted as her own.
Yes! they the thunders of thy voice who fear'd
In Retribution's high revenge, arose,
And on thy memory heap'd the hoarded wrath
Of envy;—let them riot in their shame!
What though some error cast a doubtful shade
Upon thy glories, shall we laud them less?
Are skies less beautiful, because the clouds
Sail o'er them? shines the morning sun less bright
Because a passing shade his brow profanes?—
A monument in noble minds thou hast,
That will not moulder; Time shall guard it there!

But not alone the glorious and the great
Hast thou entomb'd, thou unreturning Year!
'Tis in the noiseless sphere of common life,
In placid homes, by quiet evening-hearths
Where once the social hearts were gather'd round,
We trace a fearful havoc in thy flight.
Alas! how many whom the infant Year
Beheld in beauty, looking on through life
As through a vista of eternal Joy,
Have vanish'd, like the bloom of early hope!
What blue-eyed babes, the parent knee beside
Reflecting smile for smile, have flown away
Like birds of Paradise, to their own home!
What Creatures, budding into womanhood,
The silent walk who loved, and made the flowers
Companions of their virgin-thoughts, have gone
To graves, with all a mother's treasured hope!
Go, see the mournful chamber, where of yore
When Winter howl'd his dirge, the gush of song
And heart-warm fellowship of feeling hours
Was heard, now mute, as if the tones of Joy
Had never scatter'd echoes there! Alas!
For him, who in the green young spring had wed
The Heart he echo'd; brightly laugh'd the Sun
Upon that morn of love complete; long days
Of bliss, and all the warm romance of youth
In radiant vision gather'd round his heart,
And now, to him a tomb the world becomes!

And thou, dread Fashion, at thy gilded shrine
What victims have been offer'd up! From haunts
Where all the young Emotions bloom and dwell,
And Nature is the holy nurse of Thought,
What maiden victims have been brought to thee!
And saddening 'twas to see their piteous change
From innocence to each corrupting joy:
At home they wander'd in ancestral woods,
Follow'd the brooks, and felt a kindred ray
Flash from their surface o'er the sunny heart;
Yes, beautiful that magic reign of soul,

606

When air seem'd haunted with the vocal wings
Of spirits, who beatify the winds;
Or when, with looks expanded in delight,
The heavens they mark'd besprinkled o'er with clouds
And beams, and bless'd The Hand which hung them there:
Then life was holy, full of heavenward joy,
And all their thoughts, like sunbeams, where they fell
Shed brightness and a beauty round: oh! ill
Exchanged for gilded rooms and crowded halls,
For heartless pride and unromantic hours!
Then work'd the havoc of the mind within;
The fount of generous feeling frozen up,
The heart-laugh tamed to an obsequious smile,
And young affection slowly wither'd down
To bleak and barren pomp,—they died;
And heavy knells were rung, when marriage-peals
Like merry prophets, should have loudly hail'd
The coming years;—'twas Fashion stopt their course!

E'en thou, pale Genius! whose unearthly tones
The world intrance, within the grave art sunk,
Since her dim gates Eternity unbarr'd
To let the dead Year in. Yet, one there lived
On whom Oblivion's pall should not have dropt
Her gloom; he never heard a great Man's name
Without a thrill, electric as divine;
He never saw a monument to Mind
But Glory came, and sat him on her throne.
The haughty light I saw, which lit his brow,
The emulation from his soul reveal'd
And mantling all his features with the mind,
When first that ever-haunting dream of Youth,
The goal to which ambitious thoughts would run,
The City-queen of England,—met his gaze
Of wonder. Round him flow'd her streams of life;
Temples, and Towers familiar with the clouds,
And Streets gigantic, in their glittering flow
Branching away like rivers in the sun,
Claim'd tributary awe; but soon grew dim:
From ancient times a mental shadow came,
And in it, his enthusiastic eye
Saw Heroes, Lords and Lights of man and mind!

But genius to itself a martyr is;
And that immortal lava of the soul,
That fire he felt for which there is no name,
Consumed him, while it glorified each thought:
One midnight, when, deserted and untrod,
The Capital had lock'd her thousand limbs
In slumber, and a silence shrouded all
With a cathedral-awe, alone he stood
Some mute vast square amid; and deeply watch'd
The heavens, and spread his spirit to the stars,
That seem'd to brighten as his fancy glow'd!
The mystery of Being; and the might
Of Him, whose fiat moulded sumless worlds;
And Life; and Death; the silence of the grave,
That dark Unknown we all are doom'd to know!—
Assail'd him now; 'twas his last hour of dreams;
The orbs of heaven on him ne'er look'd again,
The Morrow saw him shrouded for the grave!

No more of sorrow for the fleeted year:
No tears can cancel, or recal it now:
Hereafter, when before the throne of God
Dead Ages shall revive, all its crimes
And Virtues will be summon'd to their doom.—
Hark! from a host of dimly-vision'd Spires
The midnight-hour is rolling to the skies,
While doubtful echoes undulate the air,
Then glide away, like shadows, into gloom.
A solemn peal, a farewell-voice of Time,
It leaves a lingering tone in many a heart
Where merriment a home had made! The young
Who hear it in the festive chamber, sigh,
And send their thoughts, sad pilgrims to a tomb;
The aged hear it, and the Dead revive!

A Year hath vanish'd, and another Year
Is born; what awful changes will arise,
What dark events lie hidden in the womb
Of Time, imagination cannot dream.
Ye Heavens! upon whose brow a stillness lies,
Deep as the silence of a thinking Heart
In its most holy hour, the world hath changed,
But ye are changeless; and your midnight-race
Of starry Watchers view our glorious isle,—
Beaming, as when amidst her forest-depths
The savage roam'd, and chanted to the moon.

O England! beautiful, and brave, and free,
With Ocean, like a bulwark round thee thrown,
Thoughts of Thy destiny the heart awake
To fearful wonder; from the wildest state
Of darkness, raised and magnified by Heaven!
What though a troubled Spirit walk the earth
And Fancy hear the distant war-drums roll,
Long may thy sceptre proudly awe the waves;
Still o'er the world enthroned as Island-Queen
While each new year adds glory to thy name,
May Time be vanquish'd, ere he conquer Thee.

607

HYMN.

[Thy temple, Lord! creation stands]

Thy temple, Lord! creation stands,
Magnificently vast;
And o'er it Thine adorning hands
A roof of heaven have cast.

And there, all sights and sounds proclaim
The glory of Thy power,
And preach Thine everlasting name
To every conscious hour!

But though Thy temple be all space,
The heaven of heavens Thy throne,
Yet deign with condescending grace
This earthly fane to own.

O here may vocal incense rise,
And songs of Zion sound;
And lowly hearts and lifted eyes
Thy Presence feel around.

Salvation through the Blood of Him
Who conquer'd Death and Hell,
Assist us, O ye seraphim!
In strains like yours to tell.

And may thy living Gospel reign
Till sin and darkness flee,
And ransom'd Earth be pure again
As when it came from thee!

HYMN.

[How sacred is that chosen spot]

How sacred is that chosen spot
Where praise and prayer arise,
And earth and time seem half forgot,
While Faith unveils the skies,
And visions bright in beauty roll
Around the tranced believer's soul!

One hour within Thy Temple, Lord,
When blending hearts can meet,
And banquet on Thy blessed word
Before the Mercy-seat,
The antepast of heaven may prove,
And teach us how Thine angels love.

And ever in this calm abode
May Thy pure Spirit be,
And guide us on the narrow road
That terminates in Thee;
While dews of Thine absolving grace
Descend upon our fallen race.

Before the Cross where Jesu bled
On Calvary's fated hill,
With bended knee, and bowing head,
And soul devoutly still,
May each adoring sinner find
Salvation awe and soothe his mind.

And by Thy Blood, and by Thy Tears,
By all Thy pangs unknown!
Allay, O Lord, our rising fears,
And make these hearts Thine own;
Till each with loud hosannah sings,
Hail! Lord of lords, and King of kings!

A DREAM OF WORLDS.

(1839.)

Those starry Wonders, everlasting Worlds
Of light and loveliness, I saw them all,
As on the magic wings of mystery borne
Methought my unembodied spirit swept
Immensity. Vast multitudes there shone
Of beauteous Orbs, whose brightness was intense,
Beyond the noon in its most sunny reign.
Majestic, o'er a measureless extent
Of azure, moved those high immortal spheres,
Less terrible in beauty, but more shaped
To mortal vision; as they onward roll'd,
Each sounded as instinct with melody.

'Twas but an eye-glance that such pomp reveal'd;
And yet, before it pass'd a heaven-like host
Of Forms, and Phantoms which can never die
While memory lives. Who hath not charm'd the air
To rapturous delusion? Who hath lived
And yet not loved? and loved, and hath not shaped
His angel? Who a paradise not dream'd,
When from within a glorious longing woke
For that which earth and earthliness to none
Supply? Let Nature answer; she will tell
What shapes of beauty throng'd a dream of Worlds.

The Midnight!—how we gaze upon its pomp
Of orbs, and waft ourselves among their host,
As though they were bright Palaces for Souls
When clay doth not corrupt them. Who shall prove,
That such are not bright Eden's of pure bliss
Where myriads reap eternity? On high
The Seer of old mysteriously was rapt

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To blessedness; aloft Elijah soar'd,
Rapt in dread thunder through the riven skies
'Mid fiery chariots and emblazon'd clouds!
And He, the sanctifying Lord of Life,
Through air ascended to His throne eterne ...
Ever have awe and glory, love and hope
Divine, the gaze of rapture skyward turn'd.
And oh! the cold may laugh, the worldly jeer,
Mocking whate'er their miserable clay
Partakes not of the mind's celestial dream—
Yet are there spells of beautifying power
And passion, which a stern Reality
Can never reach. Go, ask the widow'd heart
Of young Affection, when she walks the night
As in a vision of departed hours,
If all which day-charms yield, her love transforms
To such a blissful heaven of memory,
As that sweet lonely Star, whose angel-gaze
Like Mercy looks upon her lifted eye!
Or, ask a friend, of some bright Soul bereaved,
When stars expressively the sky adorn,
What radiant solace from their beam is caught,
While Fancy sighing thinks, “My friend is there!”

Ye holy Watchers! who this earth have view'd
In darkness rolling on to destiny
Through countless ages, and are glorious still,
With no feign'd worship sing I your romance.
My boyhood was Chaldean; and your beams
Like rays of feeling quiver'd round my heart:
Yes, I remember, when becalm'd and still
My school-companions on their couches slept,
With moonlight on their beautiful young brows
Like holiness arraying them for heaven,—
Unhinder'd, to my casement I would steal,
And muse; and gaze upon the midnight-orbs
Until my spirit seem'd the skies to float.

Such homage for the heavens is not extinct:
For now, when weary of the heartless stir
Around me, and sad nothings which o'erwhelm
The daylight, and our nobler mind disease;
When darken'd by unkindness, or deceived
By finding clouds where sunshine should prevail:
In such dark mood, upon those peaceful worlds
That shame us with their bright sublimity,
I gaze, and woo unheavenly fancy off
By visioning eternity.—Mere time
Too great a burden on our spirit lays;
We bow before our idols, and adore
The glittering falsehood of some fading scene;
Forgetful of yon glorious Sky, where, day
And night, Divinity is marching forth,
In sun or darkness, thunder or in worlds!

We know not what these heaven-illuming orbs
May be; to us—but Mysteries, that roll
And shine. Yet, none upon them ever gazed,
Whose eye could gather beauty which the soul
Can image, nor within him felt a spell
Of admiration, spreading o'er the mind
Till it became a mirror of delight
Reflecting back the glory that it hail'd.
And oft have I some heaven-born influence caught,
When sick of human Festival, where smiles
Are tutor'd till the heart forget to reign,
And eyes are beaming with hypocrisy;
While that soft tongue, whose angel-accents fall
In honey'd accents on the flatter'd ear
Can play the dagger, when the moment comes!—
How often, tired with such delightless pomp,
I've hail'd the homeward solitary way:
Here, once again, the immeasurable sky
Around me, and a starry wilderness
Open and free, for spirit to expand,
With what a worship hath my soul return'd
To night and nature, to itself and heaven!

A FADING SCENE.

A fading scene, a fading scene
Is this false world below;
And not a heart has ever been
Which hath not proved it so.

The clouds are dying while we gaze
Upon them, young and warm;
And sweet flowers in the summer-rays
But perish while they charm.

The trees that woo'd us as we pass'd
With many a leafy strain,
Bow, wither'd by autumnal blast,
When visited again.

The music which the soul doth melt
Like magic from the skies,
Though sweetly-heard, and softly-felt,
In swiftest echo flies.

Our pleasures are but fainting hues
Reflected o'er the waves;
Our glories,—they are phantom-views
Which lure us to our graves!

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And Beauty,—see her 'mid the crowd
A night-queen in her bloom!
To-morrow, in her maiden shroud
A martyr for the tomb!

And Love,—how frequent does it mourn
For some remember'd scene;
Or, doom'd in darkness reft or lorn
To live on what hath been.

And Friends,—alas, how few we find
That consecrate the name,
With glowing heart and generous mind,
To feed their hallow'd flame:

But should there be some blessed one,
However sad or lone,
Whom dearly we can look upon
And feel such friend our own,

The iron wings of Fate unfold
And bear him far away:
Or else, we mourn him dead and cold
Companion of the clay.

Oh, no! there's nothing on this earth
We fashion, or we feel,
But death is mingled with its birth
And sorrow with its weal.

Then, hail the hour of glorious doom!
That wafts my soul away
To regions radiant with the bloom
Of everlasting day.

THE DEPARTED YEAR.

“In silent night the vision of the dead passed by—
I saw our friends all pass,—
And oh! in silent night I saw the open graves—
I saw th' immortal host!”
Klopstock's Odes.

A vision, by eternity unveil'd,
When midnight in a trance of darkness lay,
My soul beheld. Methought that time and earth
Had vanish'd, while the unforgotten Dead
In glory bright and bodiless appear'd.
How deep their gaze! oh, how divine their smile!
A pensive mildness, an immortal grace
Each Semblance wore; the father had not lost
That light paternal which his living eyes
To greet his children, loved to have express'd;
Still on the mother's placid brow was throned
A tenderness, which triumph'd o'er decay;
And perish'd babes, whose beauty dazzled time,
In the young bloom of resurrection rose
Serenely glad, and innocently-bright.

And thus, by dreams of never-dying soul,
The Dead around us, with a voiceless power
Are present, mentally distinct and known;
As though some chain, whose links are unbeheld,
The living and the dead conjoin'd, that love,
E'en in the grave, no gloomy trance might bear,
But throb immortal in the spirit's core!

Thought flies the banquet, to embrace the tomb:
And, oh! if joy-wing'd hours awhile seduce
A faithful mourner from his fond regret;
If the dull prose of daily life contract
And dry his feelings into worldly dust,
Or selfish duty,—how divinely-pure
The calm of intellectual grief again!
Thus can creative fondness from the world
Of parted spirits, all it loved evoke:
And he whose years are chronicles of wo,
From the strange earth, where few companions dwell,
Can wander where the hopes of youth repose,
And make eternity his mighty home.—

A hollow knell heaves mournful on the air,
And my dark song in solemn echo rolls
To that dread music. From this orb of time
Another in the noon of manhood call'd
To lie and fester with unfeeling clay!—
Oh, God! the terror of Thy rising frown
Mantles the universe with more than night:
Each Kingdom, like a childless Rachel, mourns;
A Power of darkness, on the wings of death,
Hath travell'd earth with pestilential speed,
And left but havoc to declare his flight.
How many tombs this Year hath dug! what homes
Are fill'd with desolation's fearful calm!
The chairs are vacant where the Forms we loved
So oft reposed, where still their semblance chains
Our fix'd and fond delusion! In the streets,
Like silent mourners in a talking crowd,
Cold mansions tenantless and still remain,
From whose glad chambers rush'd the household-tones
That made sweet music to a social mind;
And many a garden, whose luxuriant green
And laurell'd bowers the sunbeams loved to grace,
In weedy ruin is decaying now:

610

The hands it welcomed with rewarding bloom,
Are iced by death, and ne'er can tend it more.
'Twas exquisite for him, whose town-worn life
Was fever'd by the hot and fretful day,
When evening, like an angel-wing, could waft
His spirit home, to greet yon tranquil cot
Again, and bid the vexing world depart.
How dear the beauty of each dawning flower,
How rich the melody of choral leaves,
To him, whose wisdom was a feeling mind!

And thou, lone sharer of a widow'd lot!
Where is the language, though a Seraph hymn'd
The poetry of heaven, to picture thee,
Doom'd to remain on Desolation's rock
And look for ever where the Past lies dead!
What is the world to thy benighted soul?
A dungeon! save that there thy children's tones
Can ring with gladness its sepulchral gloom.
Placid, and cold, and spiritually-pale,
Art thou; the lustre of thy youth is dimm'd,
The verdure of thy spirit o'er: in vain
The beaming eloquence of day attracts
Thy heart's communion with Creation's joy;
Like twilight imaged on a bank of snow
The smile that waneth o'er thy marble cheek!

Oh, when shall trial, tears, and torture cease?
Despair, and frenzy, and remorseless gloom,
Defiance, and the Thoughts which crouch before
The bright severity of Virtue's eye,
When shall their mystery lie unweaved, and bare?
When shall the lips of Agony be dumb,
And the dark wail of wounded Nature hush'd?

A Tragedy of twice three thousand years
Hath almost ended; soon perchance, may fall
A Curtain, whose unfolding darkness brings
Oblivion o'er the universe decay'd.
Already looks Earth's final scene begun:
The elements, like human limbs unnerved,
Forego their function; seasons out of tune
Creation's harmony of change destroy;
And in their wildness of unwonted act
Reflective eyes an awful omen read,
By Nature given to prophetic man
Of Time's conclusion. Sea and Air confess
A strange excitement; through the trackless heaven's
Immensity the unheard Comet rolls;
No vision'd eye his path may comprehend,
Nor dread imagination dream, what orbs
May crumble, or what blighted planets shrink
As on the burning Desolator sweeps
And blazes o'er annihilated worlds!

Spoiler of hearts and empires! vanish'd Year,
Ere for eternity thy wings were spread
Alone I listen'd to thy dark farewell.—
The moon was center'd in the cloudless heaven
Pallid as beauty on the brow of death;
And round about her, with attracted beams,
Group'd the mild stars; the anarchy of day
Was hush'd, the turbulence of life becalm'd.
From where I stood, a vast and voiceless plain,
A City garmented with mellow light
Lay visible; and, like romance in stone,
Shone gloriously serene. All sounds were dead:
The dew-drop, stirless as a frozen tear
Gleam'd on the verdure; not an air-tone rang;
The leaves hung trancéd as the lids of Sleep;
Around me Nature in devotion seem'd,
The Elements in adoration knelt,
Till all grew worship,—from the heart of Things
Material, to the conscious soul of man!
'Twas then, sepulchral, hollow, deep, and loud,
The bell of Midnight on the stillness burst
And made the air one atmosphere of awe.

Sublime of hours! I thought on all the grave
Had buried, since the infant Year began:
What dreams, what agonies untold
Dead as the hearts whose depth they once turmoil'd,
Lay motionless, and mute! Of pomp in dust,
Of wither'd pride, of wealth from glory hurl'd,
Of lull'd ambition and appeased despair,—
Of each I dreamt: and then, in sad array,
Pale visions of the Kings of thought arose,
The wise, the wondrous, the adored, whose deaths
Enrich'd eternity with added mind,
Sleep with the Patriarchs now! and one how great!
For whom the costly tears of genius fell;—
The wand is broken, and the Wizard gone!

Many and mighty are the stars of Fame;
But his deep splendour has outdazzled all
Since Shakspeare, that unrivall'd planet! rose,
Whose radiance clad the intellectual heaven.
Yes, he hath vanish'd; but his country wears
A veil of glory that shall garb her clime
For ever. How we hung upon his parting hour!
And when it summon'd the transcendant Mind
From earth to heaven, the souls of myriads felt
O'ershadow'd; Europe bow'd in dim eclipse,
And Kingdoms mourn'd round his imagined tomb.

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Monarchs of time, and ministers of thought,
Felt in the frame of intellectual life
As rolls the blood-tide through our breathing form,
Where is the palace of your spirits now?
In what immensity are ye enshrined,
Imperishably pure? Was quiet earth
In beauty, but an archetype of heaven?
Your dreams, your towering aspirations high,
The far-off shadows of each Truth divine,—
Are all absorb'd in beatific light,
And this world like a rain-drop in the deep
Of time, for ever from the soul dissolved?
Our craving passion for the Unreveal'd
Fain would it know, to what vast height removed,
To what perfection of sublimest powers
Ye are ascended: but, the baffled Wish
Is driven earthward, and cold Nature cries
In tones as thrilling as the touch of Death,
“Back to thy clay, Mortality! and bend
Like Faith, before the infinite Unknown.”

As water copies a portentous cloud
By stern reflection, so the spirit's gloom
Lies darkly-mirror'd on the mimic page.
And if some features of a faded Past
Be thus recall'd, they bring no aimless grief
To deaden song, by female worth inspired.
For seldom, since the groan of earth began,
Hath Woman shone more visibly-divine
Than in the gloom of this remember'd year!
When Forms all spirit, moulded by the touch
Of Nature in her most ethereal power,
Whose beauty, delicate as painted air
At the light breeze seem'd ready to dissolve,
Transform'd by feeling, have at once become
Heroical, for superhuman aid!
Behold that chamber, where a feeble lamp
Is quivering, pulse-like, with a dying flame;
There, by yon couch, a soft-eyed mourner fades
Night after night, with uncomplaining brow:
While a soul flutters in that Form revered
From whence her being,—though her brain should parch
Till the flush'd eyelids hang like drooping flowers
About to wither, still, her watch endures!
The bough may blossom from the tree removed,
Ere young affection, from its parent torn,
Can live and flourish, while one ebbing pulse
Articulates within those precious veins!

And thus, calamity with glory comes:
From out its gloom, as streams from caverns pour,
The tides of human tenderness proceed.
And virtues, which the noon-bright hour of joy
May dazzle, when a cloud of anguish breaks,
Dawn into birth, and decorate the soul
With heaven-born lustre; like the pale-eyed stars
That shut their lids when gaudy daylight rules,
But ope them on the sun-forsaken night.

Then let the scorner, whom the vernal glee
Or laughing wildness of delighted youth
Hath taught, that pleasure would to pain deny
The sacrifice of one exalted tear,
His creed forego: the fount of Woman's heart
Lies deeper than his shallow gaze detects!
For Beauty, that a soulless idol seem'd
Rear'd on the breath of some adoring night,
Oh, let one pang a cherish'd mind convulse,
The mist is scatter'd! and the unblemish'd heart
Free from the world, like day from darkness comes,
And acts at once the ministry of heaven.

Then look at Woman, when by love sublimed:
Misfortune moulds her by a graceful power
To fit the cast of fate; and in her wo
Each mental attribute can bloom as bright
As when the home was costly, and her smile
Fell like a glory on attracted eyes.
As stoops an eagle from his lordly height
Where once he soar'd, companion of the cloud
And storm, so sinks, with a triumphant fall,
Her spirit down to some domestic vale;
There, looks more beauteous in each act and thought
Through the meek round her cottage-virtues run,
Than when it reign'd amid the hall of kings.
A mortal Weakness by the world admired
Let others paint her; and, in Woman find
The uncertain heart by light-wing'd impulse led,
The mind which fruitless admiration feeds,
The tottering purpose, and the tameless will:
There is a passion, that with fine eclipse
O'ershadows all such failing hours present,
When the soul falters,—'tis maternal love!
Unbounded feeling! Space, and Scene and Time
Succumb before thee: infinite in power
As fathomless in depth; no rack affrights,
No dungeon quells, no agony impedes
Thy wondrous action; in the horrid grave
Thou darest to cherish the unconscious Dead,
And heaven admits Thee, when thou soarest there!

Lo, how that feeling with transforming might
Shapes a wild spirit to its tender will!

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Gay as the breeze and dainty as the flower
To-night behold her, on whose jewell'd head
Fashion hath set an ever-fading crown:
Again regard her!—and the trace of God
Is character'd on that ethereal change
Mien, mind, and manner all have undergone;
As broods a Poet o'er some wordless thought
Affection gazes on her unborn child;
And, ere its being into life expands
Love, like a seraph when the soul departs
For glory, waiting to receive its charge,
Stands on the threshold of commencing Life
Bright with the welcome of a mother's bliss!

Charm of the world! whose light makes human love,
If I apparel with too rich a robe
The fascinations which around thee float,
And on thy beauty let no dimness fall
To mar its radiance, 'tis an error blest,
Though blind: for Thou, in thy transcendent worth,
Art lifted to the highest sphere of Song,
When, like a human providence below,
Thy days are consecrate to deeds of heaven.

Lincoln College, Oxon, 1833.

REFLECTIVE STANZAS.

There is a sadness in my soul,
But whence, and why, I cannot tell;
As though a Spirit's dark control
Had bound it with a deadening spell.

The sun wears not that glorious brow
Poetic morns were wont to bring;
And many a wind which mourneth now,
A song of rapture used to sing.

For all my summer-glow of thought
Hath sadden'd into wintry gloom;
And much that Fancy shaped or sought
Lies buried in oblivion's tomb.

Yet, dream not that I nurse the grief
Which discontented moments bring;
Or sullen gloom, whose sole relief
Comes flowing from a bitter spring.

For human hearts, where'er they breathe,
Have still their human charm for me:
I would not bind a selfish wreath
Without one bud of sympathy!

Then let me not a mournfulness
From clouds of hidden sorrow steal;
Nor wring from thee a vain distress
A bosom soft as thine would feel.

A scene of sunshine and of gloom,
Like human life my page will be;
And, mutter'd o'er our mortal doom,
Will sound a dark Soliloquy!

Thou wilt not deem such verse supplied
By superstition's haggard gaze;
Nor think that Fancy's wing hath tried
To wander in forbidden ways.

Who paints His beauty on the cloud,
Or smileth on the breezy shore,
Or wraps Him in a whirlwind-shroud
Or speaketh in the thunder-roar,

That Power, the visionless and dread,
In words where inspirations dwell,
By His almightiness hath said,
Earth wears a shadow cast from Hell!

The Spirits and the Powers of air
In mystery and in might they roam;
Unseen they act, unknown they dare,
And make the evil heart their home.

And One, their centre and their soul
There is; the demon-god of sin
Who o'er the wicked hath control
And fires the hell we feel within.

And such a Wanderer o'er the earth
The viewless Power I've dared to draw;
And mentally have given birth
To all he felt, and all he saw:

To each avenging throe of thought
That might so dread a Spirit thrill,
With hateful ruin ever fraught,—
Yet blasted and believing still!

Thus Virtues are as Heaven reveal'd,
And Love and Truth eternal shown;
While whatsoe'er the Tempter wield,
Is darkly hued, and stamp'd his own.

Nor marvel thou, if scenery bright
And beautiful by Nature made,
If sight and sound that yield delight,
Are in elysian charm array'd:

For who can bliss or beauty know
Like him, a Rebel from the skies,
Who, though his doom be endless wo,
Hath witness'd all pure Angels prize?

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And such the matter of my verse
Whate'er its fate or force may be,—
Inwoven with the primal curse,
But, hailing immortality.

An awful maze for human Mind!
And enter'd with a holy fear;
God of my sires! where I am blind,
Descend, and make Thy glory clear.

How darkly-bound this scene of life,
How dread the mysteries of time,
And all our being's passion-strife
With things unholy and sublime,

I ever felt:—and deeply now,
As o'er the page my fancies steal,
My spirit seems in awe to bow
Beneath a Sense the bravest feel.

The wings of Darkness are unfurl'd,
The Earth lies hush'd, as in her grave;
And all the sound that thrills the world
The rocking of yon midnight-wave!

Who hath not own'd such tragic hour,
The sadness, and the dream it brings,
Solemnity and spirit-power
Reflected from Eternal Things?

O'er time and destiny we weave
Our inward-fancies, thick and fast;
And start to see, how moments leave
The present, to begin the past!

And we, my friend, howe'er our doom
Of life and years may varied be,
Must pierce the dampness of the tomb
And mingle with eternity.

And what art Thou?—The dark Unknown
Thy name to mortals bound and blind;
Yet like a faint-heard mystic tone
Thy meaning hovers o'er my mind.

I see Thee in the vigil-star,
I hear Thee in the muttering Deep;
And, like a feeling from afar,
Thy Shadow riseth o'er my sleep:

Thou comest where the witching power
Of festive hearts alone should be,
Till life itself appears an hour
That flutters o'er eternity!

Away with this! and may I feel
Whatever cloud o'erhang my lot
There is a joy Time cannot steal,
There blooms a flower which fadeth not.

And might I doom my future days,
Like thee, I'd seek some calm retreat
Unhaunted by the public gaze,
And only to the pensive sweet.

For nobler far thy noiseless life
Than all the gayer World can give;
Whose best reward's a wretched strife
'Tween fear to die, and hate to live!

I see thee oft, my guardian friend,
Companion of the mead and bower,—
What glories from the hills descend,
What meekness flows from every flower!

To thee, the hymn of winds and brooks,
The waving joy of wood and field,
With all fresh Nature's thousand looks,
A love and holy feeling yield.

And long be thine the unruffled hour
That leaves thee guiltless as thou art;
And never may one evil power
Profane the heaven within thy heart.

Thus, blooming shall thy pleasures last,
And leave thee grateful, calm, and sage;
While Memory, smiling o'er the past,
Shall be the vesper-star of age.

And when mysterious time is o'er
And round my soul are scenes divine,
Oh, may it reach th' Eternal Shore
As placid and as pure as thine!

BEAUTY.

(1827.)

Oh, Beauty is the master charm,
The syren of the soul,
Whose magic zone encompasseth
Creation with control;
The love and light of human Kind,
And foster-flame of ev'ry mind.

'Twas Beauty hung the blue-robed heavens,
She glitters in each star;
Or trippeth on the twilight-breeze
In melody afar;
She danceth on the dimpled stream,
And gambols in the ripple's gleam,

She couches on the coral wave,
And garlandeth the sea;
Or weaves a music in the wind
Which murmurs from the lea;
She paints the clouds, and points the ray,
And basketh in the blush of day.

614

She sits among the blossom'd trees
And streaks the bud and flower;
Becharms the air, and drops the dew
Upon the moonlit-bower:
'Tis she unwreaths the locks of Night,
And freshens nature with delight.

And Woman!—Beauty was the power
That with angelic grace
Breathed love around her glowing form,
And magic in her face;
She twined the tendrils of her hair,
And on that brow—Her throne is there!

Oh! Beauty is the master-charm,
The syren of the soul,
Whose magic zone encompasseth
Creation with control:
The love and light of human Kind,
And foster-flame of ev'ry mind.

A DAUGHTER'S APOSTROPHE TO A DEPARTED MOTHER.

(1827.)

If gentle spirits wing'd away
To some elysian sphere,
Can hear Affection meekly pray,
Or mark a mourner's tear;

Pure Spirit! shrined in realms of love
Beyond this earthly wild,
Oh! breathe calm influence from above
To bless thine orphan-child.

As oft at pensive eve I roam
Thine image visits me;
While Fancy paints the radiant home
Once so adorn'd by thee!

The smile which rambled o'er thy cheek
And shamed the pang of art;
The mellow tones I heard thee speak,
Still linger round my heart.

That glowing welcome of thine eye,
The fondness in thy fear;
The meek borne anguish in thy sigh,
The pity in thy tear;

The mild reluctance in each frown
That won me ere it changed;
The glance which charm'd my spirit down,
When giddily it ranged;

Those lips that lull'd each maiden wo
And bade the smile to play,
Nor left the scalding tears to flow
But kiss'd them all away,

Yes! these, and all the spells of love
That charm'd my childhood's hour,
Oft bear me to yon home above
To thy seraphic bower.

Oh, if thou hear my orphan-prayer
And yearning fondness see,
Thou know'st I sigh to enter there
And be at rest with thee!

STANZAS.

[Oh! rest thee in thy green-turf grave]

(1825.)

Oh! rest thee in thy green-turf grave,
There is no sorrow there;
For tomb'd within, the wretched have
A freedom from despair.

No more shall come the hour of wo,
Nor hope's delusive light;
Untroubled is thy sleep below,
Upon the bed of night.

The dews of anguish damp'd thy brow,
Thine was the wither'd heart;
No stormy woes can scare thee now,
So dreamless as thou art!

Then rest thee in thine early tomb
Beneath the dewy sod,
Till Mercy shall unshroud the gloom
And summon thee to God.

THE CRUCIFIXION.

(1827.)

Rock of the Church, and Rest of wearied souls!
Thou that wert bosom'd in the searchless depths
Of uncreated Light, before the world
Roll'd fresh and glittering from almighty Hands,
The hymning Choristers, who harp on high,
Alone the sorrows of Thy love can sing;
Of love, that snatch'd a universe from hell
And oped for man the starry gates of heaven!

Lo! in yon pillar'd hall, amid the hum
Of fierce-tongued soldiers, God incarnate stands
All quivering from the scourge! around they rave,

615

And tear His lowly dress with tiger-hands,
Then robe Him in an azure vest, and crown
His godlike temples with entwinèd thorns:
At last, as from His pierced and flesh-torn brow
The heavy blood-drops ooze, with impious jeer
Within His hand the sceptre-reed they place,
And kneel, and bow, and smite His awful head,
And spit upon His grief-worn face, and cry,
“Hail, Monarch of the Jews!”

That mockery's o'er;
And now, to crucifixion see Him led
His cross in front by some Cyrenian borne.
Oh, never yet was such an Altar rear'd!
Oh, never yet was such an Offering slain!
His agony is dumb; they scoff, and taunt,
And grind their murderous teeth, but not a throe
Of ire can ripple His Almighty calm!
Forgiveness is His prayer: The undying souls
Of those long swallow'd in the eternal gulph,
And they who are, and they that shall be born
To battle with the Flesh; the Throne of God,
And all the bright-wing'd Choirs, whose harps shall ring
“Salvation!” through the star-roof'd halls of heaven
To welcome back the Heir of Glory,—these
Are imaged round His heart: and deadly pangs
Force no resentful frown.

At Golgotha
The blessed Christ behold! Upon the Cross,
Upon the cross His holy limbs are stretch'd;
And every nerve and vein is rack'd, and wrench'd,
By agonies unspeakable; and look!
How through His palms the hammer'd nails have pierced,
And through His bare and unresisting feet
The red wounds gape, and bleed! Stupendous hour
Of awful pain,—the martyr'd Son of God
On yon dread Tree uprear'd, the World to save!
Approach! and gaze; and wonder till ye weep!
Convulsive lines of torture grave His face,
And flutter o'er His breast; the veins unroll
In loose and languid stretch, and from His brow
The lukewarm life-stream trickles slowly down,
And clots beneath His feet. His head is bent
Blood-matted o'er His shoulder: while His eyes
Dim-grown, and hollow with the rack, look meek
Upon His butchers round the Cross, who scoff,
And o'er His riven garment cast their lots.

And, lo, with eye upturn'd in voiceless wo,
His Virgin-mother! all a mother's pangs
Of pity for her tortured Son upheave
Her bosom, and array her bloodless cheek;
Nor can the deadly riot of His pains
Chill the warm current of celestial love:
Adown, with tender gaze of truth, He looks,
And to the bosom-partner of his toils
Confides the weeping Mary, to a Son!

And sad, but ignominious Sight! two thieves
In bloody fellowship with Christ are hung:
One turns around, with sidelong-glance of scorn,
To rail, and mutters from his parchèd throat
A hideous jeer: the other, meek and faint,
Dejected cries, “Remember me, O Christ!
When Thou art in the palace of Thy love!”
Divine, and glorious answer! “Ere the Day
Shall die, in Paradise with Me thou'lt walk.”

But, see, in clouds the Sun hath sunk away
As if aghast! A pall of darkness shrouds
The land of Palestine; a speechless gloom
More ghastly than Tartarean night. The hills
Grow dim; the Rivers moan as if in dread;
And men, with quailing limbs and ashy lips
Come forth, and stare, tongue-tied, upon the skies!
And hark: from off the Cross, is loudly heard,
In piercing tones of death, “My God! My God!
Oh, why hast Thou forsaken me?”—Again!
“My God! My God! oh, why dost Thou forsake?”
'Tis o'er! the blood-red Eye is film'd, and shut
Within its socket; 'gainst His weary breast
The last heart-pulse hath beat; and now, behold
In death's pale slumber, while His tender lips
Have sweet compassion printed on their curve,
The Christ! a Sacrifice for lost mankind.

Oh, never since the infant beam of Time
Glanced on the new-born world, was such an hour!
To symbol it, the Temple's veil was rent;
The Sun of Israel set; the God-breathed curse
With holy Blood was blotted out; Earth quail'd
As though some impulse out of Hell had come
To heave her huge foundations! Every rock
And mountain throbb'd, while o'er the muttering Deep
The dismal waters coil'd, as if they fear'd!
And last, the graves themselves unlock'd, and Shades
Stalk'd out, and glided through the quaking Town,
And floated by the living, like faint gleams
Of pallid moonlight o'er some haunted Shrine.

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Hell heard; and shudder'd as it heard the wail
And dying words of Christ; while Satan howl'd
And gnash'd his teeth, amid the furnace-glow
Of everlasting Fires, to know his wrath
Should ne'er be glutted on the World; that Heaven
Was won, and to rebellious Man unbarr'd.
Unbarr'd!—oh, if Imagination may
Plume her young wings, and wander faith-born, there,
A peal more joyous than the choral Stars,
Upon the birth-day of created Worlds,
Re-echoed round her crystal domes; while all
The countless Seraphs wreathed their lustrous wings
In awe, before the lightning-shrouded Throne
Of God invisible; then, woke their harps
To melodies divine, and hail'd The Lamb
Triumphant from His martyrdom below!

Two thousand Years have almost floated down
The gulph of time, since on the glorious Cross
Divinest Martyr! Thou wert nail'd: the world
With all its pageantry and pride prevails;
Men smile and struggle, labour, sin, and die
As if Thy Blood had never blotted out
The crimes of earth; as if, at last, Thy might
And majesty should not appear! Still, Thou
Hast prophesied, again the Incarnate God
This earth will visit and her dead restore.—
But, not as homeless orphan of the world,
To wander on in pain and wo, and weep,
And perish on the Tree; but on Thy car
Of lightning, rolling from unfathom'd depths
Of heaven, while seraphs robed in radiant light,
Brandish their glitt'ring banners o'er Thy throne,
And all the clouds like burning billows flash
And bound beneath Thy feet!—The Trump shall peal
That dead-awakening blast, more full and loud
Than thunder in its deepest roar: the Sea
Shall yawn, and all her buried hosts arise;
The graves burst open, and the dust unite
Into a living Form; and then, shall come
The Judgment, and our Everlasting Doom!

STANZAS WRITTEN IN DEJECTION.

I.

The pining leaf, the perish'd flower,
The tints of autumn thrown
In pensive ruin o'er some bower
Where gay spring-buds had grown;

The faltering wave, the feeble cloud
Which faints like thought away,
With Nature's warning unavow'd
Predict our own decay.

And who can look down Life's dim vale
Where buried hours repose,
Or listen to the rueful tale
Of man's recurring woes,

Nor feel within the spirit-core
A pang of mute regret,
For feelings that exist no more,
For joys whose sun is set!

Yes, Lady! in this life of dreams
My heart has had its share;
And still around wild fancy beams
The wreck of visions fair;

But hollow laugh, and heartless smile,
And tones of mirth untrue,
Can barely mock the soul awhile
And veil it from thy view.

Another to the countless mass
Of Spirits who have fled,
I add my sigh, as on I pass
To regions of the dead!

II.

Yon sunbeams in their brightest mirth
Are dancing o'er the sea,
And hues and harmonies of earth
Betoken summer's glee.

I watch the clouds with fairy glide
Athwart the blue air gleam,
And view them mirror'd on the tide
Like features in a dream:

The very leaves are toned with joy
And carol to the wind,
Gaily as when, a pangless boy,
They echo'd back my mind:

Gladness and glory blend their sway
Around this ocean scene;
And yet, to me the brightest day
Is dark, to what hath been!

The flowers of hope, the young and fair,
Are dewless, cold, or dead;
The lip may laugh, but where, oh, where
The inward sunshine fled?

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I hear the voice of vanish'd Hours,
And mourn the buried Past;
Oh, why should feeling e'er be ours,
And nought but memory last!

Oystermouth, July, 1833.

THE DREADFUL PRAYER.

(1827.)

No priestly vows avail'd: gaunt Famine stalk'd
Through Cairo's streets by day and night, and suck'd
The life-blood from her hungry thousands there.
From wall to wall, from house to house, were heard
The gasping yells of famish'd men, and wail
Of mothers, with dead infants at their breasts,
Whose bakèd lips, and eyelids curling up
Like wither'd violet-leaves, and fleshless hands,
Were blasted by the pest of Famine's touch!
In agony some gnaw'd their nails; some groan'd
And with a horrid glare their eyeballs work'd,
Rooted their tresses,—and expired! And here
Pale groups, with bony cheek and beamless stare,
Stagger'd abroad, and choked themselves with cries
For death; while others, 'neath funereal-palls
Moved slowly on, like sable thunder-clouds;
Then sat, and howl'd upon the new-dug graves!
So ghastly look'd the bloodless Shapes around,
That Cairo seem'd a charnel-house revived
Whose dregs were crawling into life again!

In vain the Priests with agonising prayer
Storm'd the mute Heavens; no Mercy smiled
An answer to their vows. Still, Famine swept
Her thousands into dust; still, every wind
Wing'd to the skies the howlings of Despair!
At length, unspotted babes, whose milk-white robes
Gleam'd pure as dove-wings on the radiant air,
By Imans led, the Minaret-spires up climb'd
For pestilence to pray, the Famine's cure!
There, on the gilded peaks their hands were raised
In adoration clasp'd, as if with prayer instinct;
And while their cherub-mouths in lisping tones
The plague besought, a pale-eyed Crowd below
Stirr'd like a moaning Wind upon the deep;
Their lean lips moved, and mutter'd, “Let it be!”

That prayer Heaven heard: a Pestilence came down,
And made an atmosphere for death! Men dropp'd
Into corruption, thick as winter blights
Upon the poison'd bushes. Hill and dale,
Hamlet and city, groan'd with ghastly piles
Of green-eyed dead: the houses turn'd to tombs;
And they who roam'd the Desert's dewless wilds
Were plague-smit by the way, and moulder'd there
Like riven branches from a forest-tree:
And thus was Cairo cursed, till by the dead
The Plague, itself corrupted, died away!

INFANCY.

“The smile of childhood on the cheek of age.”

A child beside a mother kneels
With lips of holy love;
And fain would lisp the vow it feels,
To Him enthroned above.

That cherub gaze, that stainless brow
So exquisitely fair!
Who would not be an infant now,
To breathe an infant-prayer?

No crime hath shaded its young heart,
The eye scarce knows a tear;
'Tis bright enough from earth to part
And grace another sphere!

And I was once a happy Thing
Like that which now I see;
No May-bird on ecstatic wing
More beautifully-free:

The cloud which bask'd in noontide-glow,
The flower that danced and shone,
All hues and sounds, above, below
Were joys to feast upon!

Let Wisdom smile, I oft forget
The colder haunts of men,
To hie where infant hearts are met,
And be a child again:

To look into their laughing eyes
And see the wild thoughts play,
While o'er each cheek a thousand dyes
Of mirth and meaning stray:

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O Manhood! could thy spirit kneel
Beside that sunny child,
As fondly pray, and purely feel
With soul as undefiled,

That moment would encircle thee
With light and love divine;
Thy gaze might dwell on Deity
And heaven itself be thine!

BEAUTIFUL INFLUENCES.

“Suppose the singing birds musicians;
The flowers fair ladies; and thy steps no more
Than a delightful measure, or a dance.”
Shakspeare.

(1829.)

Oh for a summer-noon, when light and breeze
Sport on the grass like ripples o'er a lake
Alive with freshness; when the regal Sun,
With God's own smile upon his forehead seen,
Walks in his golden radiance through the path
Cerulean.—Vast and overhanging heaven!
Arching the earth with thy majestic sweep,
At such an hour, with what unsated eye
We look upon thee, till the mind seems lost
In thine immensity, and we appear
O'erwhelm'd by such a vision.

Care-worn man!
Whom Duty chains within the city-walls
Amid the toiling crowd, how grateful plays
The fresh wind o'er thy sickly brow, when free
To tread the elastic turf; and hear the trees
Wave music on the gales; to catch the voice
Of waters, gushing from their fount unseen,
And singing as they wander:—How sublime
Upon a time-blanch'd cliff to muse, and while
The eagle glories in a sea of air,
To mingle with the scene around! survey
The sun-warm heaven, or at the cavern'd base
Of yon wood-crested mount, the ocean view
With radiant billows ruffled by the breeze:
Then, dawns the resurrection of thy youth
In dewy freshness o'er thy wither'd heart!

Nor is the scene, though unbeheld, forgot;
The eye is faithful to a feeling heart:
When torn from some Arcadian haunt, we thread
The crowded city's unromantic streets,
The spot we love refreshing influence yields;
Beneath our feet a fairy pathway flows;
The grass still flutters in the summer-winds,
The dusky wood and distant copse appear,
And that lone stream, upon whose chequer'd face
We mused, when noon-rays made the pebbles gleam
With gem-like dazzle through the wrinkled tide,
Is mirror'd to the mind: though all around
Be rattling hoofs and roaring wheels, the eye
Seems wandering where the heart delights to dwell.

Are there not hours of an immortal birth,
Bright visitations from a purer Sphere,—
A trance of glory, when the Mind to heaven
Attuned, can out of dreams her worlds create?
Oh! none are so absorb'd, as not to feel
Those calming thoughts which harmonise the mind.
When prayer, the purest incense of a soul,
Hath risen to the Throne of heaven, the heart
Is mellow'd; and the shadows which becloud
Our state of darken'd being, glide away;
The heavens are open'd; and the eye of Faith
Looks in, and hath a mystic glance of God!

And, Genius, undisputed gift of heaven,
From Thee what feelings flow! the passions own
Thy sway, and waken at thy quickening power
Like flowers expanding to the breath of morn.
Then bind his temples with a fadeless wreath;
Give him the proudest seat, a princely rank
And all the deeper homage of the mind,
Who like a god among mankind is felt,
And, from the purest sunshine of his soul
Sends forth the rays which glorify the world!

Who hath not felt the might of genius rise,
And stir his spirit to a storm of thought?
Oh! had I kingdoms, I would yield them all
To him, whose thoughts like angel-wings exalt
The fancy, and a thousand springs unlock
Of feeling, that have never gush'd before.
So noble is such joy, that I have blush'd
For all dark thoughts, for all demeaning cares.
In such rapt mood our solitude is fill'd
With bright creations; and clysian scenes
Ope in a vision on the eye of Thought.
Thus charm'd by Genius, hie thee to the haunts
Where Nature shows her blooming face! how bright
The sun, how beautiful the liquid air,—
Like floating music! and the soft-toned wind
Around thee warbling like a conscious joy.
A veil of beauty o'er the world is drawn,
Till thy heart seems to beat for all mankind,
And, full of glorious feeling, thou wouldst fain

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Become an Angel to adore thy God,—
A more than mortal to complete His praise.

And will not Mind a beauteous influence yield?
Oh, glorious 'tis, amid some room antique
To study, all alone, those pictured Shapes
From the soul's Eden call'd! where genius sheds
Spells of entrancement round you; and while the eye
Banquets on beauty, from a painter's soul.
Whether a landscape, whose ethereal lights
Like gleams upon the water, glow o'er tree
And bower, and sky luxuriantly bespread,
Or love-shaped forms, or features angel-bright
Float o'er the enamour'd gaze,—a rich
Excess, a harmony of feeling rules
The fancy, when again the world we greet;
The mind with loveliness is bathed, which yearns
Enchantment over common scenes to throw,
And make dull earth draw nearer heaven, at last!

Who hath not felt the spirit of a Voice,
Its echo haunt him in romantic hours?
From Melody's own lip who hath not heard
Sounds which become a music to his mind?
Music is heaven-born! In the festal home
When throbs a lyre, as if instinct with life,
And some sweet mouth is full of song, how soon
From eye to eye a rapture flows, from heart
To heart! while, floating from the past, the Forms
We love, are re-created; and the smile
Which lights the cheek is mirror'd on the heart.
So beautiful the potency of sound,
There is a magic in the homely chime
Of village-bells; I love to hear them roll
Upon the breeze; like voices from the Dead
They seem to hail us from a viewless World!

And yet, nor music, nor the painter's mind
Upon the canvas breathed, a charm imprints
So deeply-faithful, as the piercing glance
Of young-eyed Beauty. Beauty!—she hath been
The witching tyrant of the universe
Since her young blush in Paradise began;
Her throne Time cannot shake; stern Wisdom bows
Before her; warriors are her slaves; and half
The vassal world hath worshipp'd at her feet!
Her glance is conquest; and the Mind is moved
Like air by music haunted, when her name
Melts on the ear, and makes the heart serene.
Then, cursed be he that with unhallow'd eye
Can look on Beauty; which for heaven is born,
The boast of nature, and the spell of souls!

LOST FEELINGS.

“But yet we stand
In a lone land,
Like tombs to mark the memory
Of hopes and joys which fade and flee
In the light of life's dim morning.”

Oh! weep not, if our beauty wears
Beneath the wings of time;
That age conceals the brow with cares
That once appear'd sublime.

Oh! weep not if the clouded eye
No sunny thought can speak;
And fresh and fair no longer lie
Joy-tints upon the cheek;

And weep not, if the ruin-trace
Of wasting years is seen
Around the form, and in the face
Where youthful lines have been:

But mourn the inward wreck we feel
As blighted hours depart,
And Time's corroding fingers steal
Young feelings from the heart!

Those bounding thoughts which rise and spring
From out the buoyant mind,
Like summer-bees upon the wing
Or echoes on the wind;

The hopes that sparkle every hour,
Like blossoms from a soul
Where sorrow sheds no blighting power,
And care has no control,

With all the rich enchantment thrown
On Life's fair scene around,
As if the world within a zone
Of happiness were bound,—

Oh, these endure a mournful doom
As day by day we die;
Till age becomes a barren tomb
Where perish'd Feelings lie!

March, 1828.

THE TRANCE.

A FRAGMENT.

(1827.)

------One faint and lingering glance I took,
And then, all vanish'd in the sickly light
That swam around the bed; all seem'd to melt,
Shaded by indistinctness, like the shore
From those who wander far on ocean-waves:

620

A dazzling giddiness my brain dissolved;
The eye-balls sunk; and coldly press'd like lead,
While creeping chills my pallid form bedew'd,
That shrank as if it shudder'd at itself,
Or would condense, like water ere it freeze!
My life-fount curdled into clotted blood;
Then, cold and nerveless lay each marble limb,
And moisten'd with the mystic dews of death.

Sightless, and breathless, thus entranced I lay;
Though motionless, with feeling so acute
As if it doubled, to make up for sight:
Thus, like a solitary cloud, I seem'd
Self-balanced in a universe of gloom!

And, oh! how sad it was, to hear and feel
Fond friends around me, dreaming Death had closed
All sense of life; their blood-warm lips to feel
Upon mine ice-cold face, and then to hear
Their heart-swell'd groans, and choking sobs and sighs
While gazing on my hush'd and breathless form!

When midnight-bells had toll'd the World to sleep,
A young, but unforgetting sister, came
To meditate, and sorrow o'er my doom:
Her printless steps I knew, as on they stole
Like twilight o'er the flowers. And, when she took
My pulseless fingers in her pale-worn hand,
And kiss'd the marble brow, and talk'd so sweet,
And lisp'd her mournful love,—how horrible
That Language could not speak my conscious mind!

Two days departed; then, the wonted shroud
Enwrapp'd me, and around my body clung
Like ruffling waters: last, the coffin came,
And well I knew, as with a fear-like touch
Of trembling hands, my dead-cold form they lay
In funeral vest enveloped. But more drear
Than all, was that long, sad, and silent hour
When, one by one, the speechless mourners took
Their last and lingering glance; their sighs I felt,
And tears which burn'd my cheek,—but yet, was still!

And, oh, most horrible!—The nails I heard
Pierce the crush'd wood and seal my coffin-lid;
And then, the rattling hearse, the grave-side prayers,
The thick and careless clods, which patter'd down
Upon my bier, till bedded with the dust;
And then ------

TO * * * *

Oh, Lady! in my boyish hour
Perchance thou seest me gay as young,
The dazzled slave of pleasure's power,
With rapture in the heart and tongue.

Yet, think not thus I ever seem,
As though beyond the world's alloy;
For darkness girds our brightest dream,
And sorrow tones our deepest joy!

I never knew a moment yet
Which did not wear some withering stain,—
An outline of a dim regret,
Or shadow of some coming Pain!

Alone amid the world I move,
With scarce a smile, or tear, for me,
And not a heart to share the love
That springs from bosom-sympathy:

Without it, what can realms bestow
Of all harmonious natures feel?
It is to kindred mind we owe
The magic Time delights to seal.

But, may no winter-shade intrude
Upon the spring-time of thy lot,
And all which mars my gayest mood
In thy young freshness be forgot:

May heaven attend thee, wheresoe'er
The bright-wing'd years may waft thee on;
And nothing cloud that blissful air
All eyes have loved to look upon!

September 4th, 1829.

LONELINESS.

“We are not happy, sweet; our state
Is strange, and full of doubt and fear;
[OMITTED]
Hiding from many a careless eye
The scorned load of agony.”

Lost in the peopled desert of the world,
Cheer'd by no heart which echoes back our own,
How feverish all the pomp and play of Life!
A solitude there is which lifts the mind

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To lofty things,—seclusion from the rush
And stir of that unfeeling Crowd, whose days
Reap scarce a thought to sanctify their flight.
Far from the city-din, may Wisdom haunt
Her veil'd retreats, and yet not live alone;
For, is there not the fellowship of books
Divine, a company of gracious thoughts,
And all which Nature yields a grateful mind?
Such is not loneliness!—Around to look
Life's crowded world, and 'mong its myriad-hearts
No sympathies to find, our own to nurse,
Oh, this makes loneliness! that solitude
Of mind, which bids the world a desert seem.
What is the guerdon of ambition worth,
Of common lips the cold applause, the crown
Of genius, or the envied wreath of Fame,
Graced by no smile from some congenial soul?
For, when the heart is full, an overflow
Of bliss, by being shared, is sweeter still:
The bashful flowers which in the May-breeze shake,
Bloom out together: and belated Stars
Of night walk not yon pathless heavens alone,
But twinkle, though unseen, in blissful play
Of sympathetic beams; all beauteous Things
Hold mystic fellowship; and fine-toned hearts
Without responding hearts,—how bleak and bare!
In sorrow lone, in happiness the same.

A man I knew, in mind and fame supreme
And yet, not happy, though by happiest ones
Admired. A loftiness of feeling sprung
From centuries dead and ancestors unknown,
Together with a soul-born pride, which soar'd
Far o'er the varied scene of vulgar life,
In childhood fill'd him with a thirst of fame.
High fancies, from the hills and mountains caught;
And inspiration born of lovely streams,
And silence-loving woods; and all the rays'
Of beauty which creative mind attracts
From scenes by Contemplation sought,—awoke
His genius into glorious play; the lyre
He struck; a World admired, and wreathed his brow
With the green laurels of a lofty fame;
For him a thousand tongues grew eloquent!
A thousand eyes would sparkle forth his praise;
And, when amid the brilliant throng he sat
A gay-tongued hypocrite, the hour to charm,
And not obstruct the flow of joy, the dreams
Of young Ambition brighten'd at his praise;
Alas, how often his unecho'd mind
Clothed its mute anguish with concealing smiles!
That soul within a secret blank remain'd
Which admiration could not fill. Alone;
No trusting heart, no gentle voice of love,
No happy faces round his evening-hearth
Were his to love; and what was brief renown?
A shade! and he?—a soul in solitude.

Epsom, October, 18th, 1828.

STANZAS.

[The hour is past, the pleasure o'er]

“The flower that smiles to-day,
To-morrow dies;
All that we wish to stay,
Tempts and then flies:
What is this world's delight?”

The hour is past, the pleasure o'er,
And dumb the heart of glee;
Young feet no longer trip the floor
Alive with melody.

Those fairy brows, those forms of love
That wake the dreamer's sigh,
Like Shapes who leave their bowers above
To charm a human eye:

All, all are gone! the lights have fled
From yon deserted room;
Dim as a chamber of the dead
And voiceless as the tomb:

And now I am alone again,
With feelings undefined;
A pilgrim in a world of pain,
An unpartaken Mind.

The silent walk, the sickly moon,
And melancholy sky
Unite to make me feel how soon
These hours of beauty fly.

Oh, pleasure! brief as bright thou art,
A momentary ray,
A dream roll'd o'er a vacant heart
To charm, and melt away!

June, 1828.

STANZAS.

[Who hath not watch'd the heaven of eve]

(1825.)

Who hath not watch'd the heaven of eve,
When round the horizon seems to weave
A sea of clouds, whose bosoms heave
In floating beauty, there?

Those lovely phantoms, how they glide,
In all their calm and airy pride,
Moved by the breath of eventide
Along the dew-lipp'd flowers!

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Some, crimson-wove, voluptuous sail;
Some, girdled with a ruby veil;
And others, beaming brightly-pale
As Beauty's pensive brow.

And thus smiles now this rose-wreathed room,
Where float along in braid and plume
All blushing with their virgin bloom
The maidens of the night.

Lo, yonder trips a blue-eyed troop,
Who bend their glowing heads and droop,
As graceful as a lily-group
All languid with perfume.

And near them glides a gentle pair
That dance their grape-like clustering hair,
As if their very ringlets were
Communing with their joy!

On each fair cheek a life-blush warms,
While, radiant with expressive charms,
The virgins twine their ivory arms
And circle through the dance.

Like moon-gleams shivering on the lake
Their feet with dizzy motion shake,
As down the dance their steps they take
With love-beams in each eye.

Then, why, amid this heaven of joy
Should dreams of darkening woe annoy,
Or thoughts of blighting gloom destroy
The elysium of the hour?

Alas! the scene will swiftly fade;
The music cease; depart the maid,
And cold-eyed Day the room invade,
With uncongenial smile!

Some hearts will pine, and some will weep,
And many in the grave will sleep,
And every eye shall sorrow steep
Ere we unite again!

Yes, many a Shape of love and light
Whose eyes are glittering with delight
Like starry Dreams that visit night,
Shall wither into clay!

A SAD THOUGHT.

I love the present; but the past
Hath such a spell around it cast,
That oft from all I hear or see
I turn, dead Time! to gaze on Thee;
And o'er the grave of buried hours
Bid Memory strew her pallid flowers!

THE TOMB OF GRAY.

(1836.)

The poetry of dreams that spot surrounds
Where Genius ponder'd; when oblivion's pall
In mocking darkness on the tomb of kings
Descendeth, memories bright and deep pervade
The quiet scene where once a Bard has been.
For him the laurel deathless! when the wreath
Dyed by the blood of Victory's crowning hand
Withers to nothing on the warrior's brow,
How many a foot, where pensive Gray hath roved,
Will love to linger! 'Tis the spell of mind
Which consecrates the ground a Poet trod;
With living thoughts the air is eloquent,
And fine impressions of his favour'd muse;
While Inspiration, like a god of song,
Wakes the deep echoes of his deathless lyre.

In the calm glory of declining eve
'Twas mine to wander where the tomb of Gray
In green seclusion stands. Around me smiled
A Landscape, veil'd with sunlight's pallid robe
Of beauty, over tree and landscape drawn.
On such, (by contemplation's dream enticed
Like Isaac, oft at eventide to muse)
The Bard had gazed; and drew from Nature's heart
How many a touch of grace, and tone of song!
While Eton, with her turrets grey, her towers
Antique, in azure distance frown'd;
Or round him, in their rich confusion, throng'd
The sounds that wait on sunset's balmy hour:—
The lay of birds; the sheep-bell's lowly chime;
The chirping insect in the grass conceal'd;
The bough made vocal by the exciting breeze;
Or shout of home-returning shepherd boy,
And city-hum,—all charm'd his dreaming ear.

But, lo, the churchyard! Mark those “rugged elms,”
That “yew-tree shade,” yon “ivy-mantled tower,”
And thread the path where heaves the “mouldering heap;”
Then, Stranger! thou art soulless earth indeed,
If the lone Bard beside thee does not stand
Form'd into life by Fancy's moulding spell!
'Twas here he mused; here Poetry and Thought,
And Silence, their enamour'd Sister, came;
And Taste and Truth their kindred magic blent,

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And proud Attempt, and pure Conception rose,
While Melody each chord of mind attuned;
Till soft Religion, like an Angel, smiled,
And bade his genius make the grave sublime.

Sweet Bard! whose mild and meditative lays,
Or lyric numbers, warm with classic fire,
Heal the torn mind, or thrill young Memory's heart
With deathless pleasure, Time hath not despoil'd
Thy crown poetic of one glorious leaf:
Yet many, since thine eyes in death were veil'd,
Have grasp'd the laurel; harps of witching tone,
And thrilling strains of more impassion'd swell,
Round the rich world of Poesy have flung
Enchantment,—yet thy page is precious still.
And wherefore? 'Tis because the moral heaven
Remains unsullied by thy words, and dreams:
And hence, amid the Babel-voice of song,
In such pre-eminence to thy calm powers
Accorded. Thus, when lays corruptly-sweet,
The flash and fire of o'er-excited verse
And mock intensity, have ceased to charm,
Back to thy page, by purity inspired,
The Heart returns; and finds a magic there
Of thoughts which bloom beyond the earth's decay:
And hence, when Stars of more ambitious light
Shine dimly through the hazy depths of Time,
Bard of the Soul! for ever wilt thou reign
An Orb of beauty in the heaven of song.

Whittington, near Oswestry, Shropshire.

THE MINSTREL'S FUNERAL.

“Thou shalt go to thy fathers in peace; thou shalt be buried in a good old age.”—Gen. xv. 15.

“The hoary head is a crown of glory, if it be found in the way of righteousness.”—Prov. xvi. 31.

“Even to your old age I am He; and even to hoar hairs will I carry you.”—Is. xlvi. 4.

A Christian never dies; in coffin'd dust
What though he slumber, and the speechless grave
With cold embrace his pallid form receives,
Religion, like the shade of Christ, appears
To heaven-eyed Faith beside the tomb to smile;
And from her lips, seraphically fired,
Rolls the rich strain, “O Death! where now thy sting?
O Grave! thy victory, where?”—extinguish'd both,
And baffled; stingless Death, and strengthless Law
Together round the Cross like trophies hung
Self-vanquish'd; Death himself in Jesus died!

The Christian never dies; his dying hour
To him a birth-day into glory proves:
For then, emerging fetterless and free
From this dark prison-house of earth and sin,
(All sensual dimness like a veil withdrawn)
In mystic radiance soars the seraph-mind
To regions high and holy; where the Truth
Essential, Beauty's uncreated form,
And Wisdom pure, in archetypal state
To souls unearth'd their trinal blaze reveal.—
Unchain the eagle, break his iron bars,
And when aloft, on wings exultant poised,
Sunward he sweeps through clouds of rolling sheen
And makes the blue immensity his home,
Go, mark him! while the flash of freedom breaks
Forth from each eye-ball, in its burning glee;
And there, the imaged rapture of a mounting Soul
When prisonless, from out the body pure,
May fancy witness!—far away it flies,
And where the Sun of Righteousness enthroned,
Eternal noon-tide round His ransom'd pours,
Basks in the smile of glory, and of God!

And thus of thee, the venerably-good,
The mild old Man with apostolic mien,
Let memory in some heavenward moment, think;
Thou art not dead, but from thy bondage free!
Alive, as in the sunbeam lives the mote,
Art thou, encinctured with the blaze of heaven
In that Assembly, where the crown'd ones chant,
With robes blood-whiten'd by the wondrous Lamb.
Oh, what a sunburst of immortal truth
In keen effulgence on thy spirit broke
When forth, from out the fettering walls of flesh
It soar'd!—the dull eclipse of death no more,
The daylight of eternity begun!
Thy bed around, while children knelt and pray'd,
And sorrow trembled into tears and sighs,
Thine was the song ecstatically-loud
From harping Angels, and from hymning Saints
In concord, round the throne of Jesu raised!
And who, when gospel-music charm'd thine ear,
Or promises with preciousness divine
Deep-laden, lighted up thine aged eyes

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With more than youth's glad lustre,—who that heard
Thy holy breathings for the better Land,
And did not from his eyelids dash the tear
Of mourning, when he thought, that thou wert there!
In that pure Home of perfect light and peace
At length arrived! to that bright City brought,
Whose silver-turrets oft thy faith beheld,
When down the streets Imagination walk'd,
By angels, and the Church's first-born lined!

Around that tomb, where thy cold ashes sleep,
The unbought homage which a good man wins
'Twas mine to witness, when the gather'd crowd
Attended, with a train of weeping Hearts
Who knew thee best, and therefore mourn'd thee most.
And well that Scene thy pure and placid life
Betoken'd; Feeling deck'd thy funeral;
The moral blazonry of Christian grief
Was there, and touchingly the whole array'd
With more than splendour,—with the truth of tears!

The hoary Minster, eloquent as vast,
Lifting its forehead with cathedral-grace,
Whose form revered some twice three hundred years
Have girt with grandeur, like a zoning spell
That binds bewitchingly; the tombs antique
By jagged walls, in sculptured ruin bent;
The graves of myriads, like a sea of mounds
In swells of grass on all sides rank'd, and ranged
In death's confusion,—till their cited dust
Leaps into life beneath the trumpet blast
Of Time's archangel, striding Earth and Sea!
The rock-hewn church-yard, with its green uprise
Of monumental landscape, where the grief
Of Nature, and the grace of Sculpture vie
In soft contention, each expressing each,
And hiding death between them, by the spell
That o'er the grimness of the grave is thrown;
All this, while high in front, severely-calm,
The fearless Knox in stony grandeur frown'd,—
Together met, a scene of soul combined,
And made one Sentiment the whole become
Of sacredness and silence! Childhood hush'd
Its laugh; and Youth each lawless smile forewent;
And the mute Crowd a single mourner seem'd,
When slowly, to its last long home was borne
Thine earthly portion! Heaven the better took;
Thy tomb within, one farewell-gaze we had,—
The heart out-speaking with a tongue of tears,
While friend on friend a look of meaning turn'd,
And said no more! The soul must speak above;
No language learns it in this world of graves
And gloom; for silence forms a spirit-voice,
When Faith and Feeling by the tomb embrace.

Pure on the bosom of almighty Love
From sin and sorrow thou art resting now:
And who would bring thee, might availing tears
Be answer'd, back to this cold earth again!
To peace and glory, to perfections high
Around thee smiling, rather may we mount
On these sure wings of faith that carried thee;
And o'er the track thy saintly virtues trod
Her way let holy Imitation wend,
Her eye on Him intently fix'd, and firm,—
Our bright Precursor to the Cross and crown!

And now, farewell! If age's hoary charm;
If gentleness, with solid worth combined;
If faith and truth, by patriarchal grace
Bedeck'd; if boundless love, that god-like smiles
Serenely, over Sects and Names enthroned;
If these were thine; with all the enriching spell
Of temper, cloudless as the crystal noon,
And feelings, tuned by every tender call;
While round about thee hung the glow
Of youth's gay morning, by the eve of age
Subdued, like spring and autumn's blended smile,—
Then, o'er thy grave recording Truth may bend;
And drop, not undeserved, the simple wreath
Of memory, a Muse has ventured now.

Farewell! A few more rolling suns and years
Will yon dark Minster from his turret speak
Of Time's departure, with an iron-voice

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Wailing a hollow dirge o'er life's dead Hours,
And the roused Earth at ev'ry pore will heave
Around thee! Myriads from their pulseless clay
In throbbing consciousness shall rise, and bound
Warm into being!—What a mass of life
Under the trumpet's dead-awaking call
Will stand, and tremble in the gaze of God!
And thou wilt rise; nor rock, nor mountain seek
To crush thee, from the piercing eye of Him
Array'd in lightnings of resistless glare,—
Immanuel! on the Judgment's burning throne
Of glory, wheeling through the heaven of heavens.
And when creation in a tomb of fire
Shall welter, and the wicked lift a cry
Of quenchless agony, beneath the frown
Of truth's Avenger, undismay'd thine eyes
Will greet Him; thou shalt look on God, and live!

PROVIDENCE.

Frail king of dust, Man loves to look around,
And think,—“for me the elements abound
With life and motion; shade and sunshine wait
In mixt attendance on my human state;
Light, sea, and air, their glorious spell maintain
That I alone, as Lord of Earth, may reign!”
And yet, what art thou?—but a fleeting breath,
A pulse of life which throbs away in death!
Myriads of creatures round thee move and die,
Minute beyond the ken of mortal eye;
Perfect as thine, their bright existence teems
With beauty, in a paradise of beams;
Or in some crystal-world of water play
A floating populace of insects gay;
And He who bade exalted Man to be
An Image of His own eternity,
Alike to them a form and feature gives,
And not a mote but in His mem'ry lives!

IN MEMORIAM

C. H. E. M.

Vanish'd Infant! years have fled
Since thou wert coffin'd, pale and cold;
Yet, to me thou art not dead,
But still mine inward eyes behold
The fairy brow, and form, and cherub feature
Perfect as when they graced the living creature.

Little dream unloving Hearts
Which never thrill'd with parent-gladness,
Seldom from the soul departs
A shade of unpartaken sadness,
Cast by the death of some sweet babe who died,
As though this World its young soul terrified.

Coil'd within man's secret mind
Mysterious chords of feeling dwell;
But they ne'er their charms unwind
Till something wakes their dormant spell,
When lo! at once with magic life they move
Deeper than passion, but divine as love.

Ever thus, in casual street
A nursling pillow'd on the breast
If alone I chance to meet,
How oft it brings a fond unrest!—
The aching flutter of a wordless thought
With more than mem'ry in full action fraught.

Almost in my hand I feel
The cling and clasp of baby-fingers,
And a life-breath o'er me steal
Which faintly ebbs, and fondly lingers;
Till once again a cradled form I see,
And breathe, dead Flower! a father's prayer for thee.

Like a dove-wing in the sky
Melted and mingled with soft light,
Hast thou faded from an eye
That when it saw thee, grew more bright;
But still, in love's eternity thou art
A living infant to thy father's heart.

DIVINE OMNISCIENCE.

Mere chance exists not; 'tis a libel dread
On Providence, which those unblest of mind,
Poets of Vice, and laureates of Despair,
Often pronounce,—who into merest fate
The motions of our moral world resolve.
For, God o'er all eternally presides;

626

And, from the quiver of the bladed grass,
To wheeling Systems, hung in starry space
Enormous as unnumber'd,—all occurs
How, when, and where, His guiding will decrees.
And we, who now with backward-gaze revolve
The hoary annals of Mosaic time,
Behind the curtain of that outer-scene
Where man was acting, view His prompting Hand
At work for ever: Hist'ry's moving form
Points like an index to that secret God;
E'en as the timepiece, which the hour reveals,
The hidden motion of a main-spring shows.

SOVEREIGNTY OF DIVINE GRACE.

Goodness to all may infinitely come,
But pard'ning Grace for sinners only, acts.
And thus, o'er evil triumphs endless good
Beyond all words (save what in Heaven they speak)
Rightly to equal with o'ertaking praise,
Or rapture. Yet, in this a Will Supreme
Itself must glorify, by calling whom
The counsel of the Holy One decreed
To make a monument of grace divine
Ere Time to count his awful hours began.
Yes, though in justice no election acts,
But each award to character applies
With truth unerring; yet, when Mercy smiles,
Prerogative alone the Godhead shows
Unquestion'd, such as men, nor angels, scan,
Nor measure.—Motive God hath none;
For that, from His completeness steals a ray,
And on the orb of true Perfection casts
A veiling shadow: Motive, End, and Aim,
All in Himself eternally abide.
His reasons are His attributes alone;
And each vast grace the Trinity unfolds
In mercy's fulness, acts divinely-free.

THEOLOGY FOR MOTHERS.

And, oh, fond mothers! whose mysterious hearts
Are finely-strung with such electric chords
Of feeling, that a single touch, a tone
From those ye fondle, some responsive thrill
Awakens, when at night, a last long look
Which almost clings around the form it eyes,
Ye take of slumb'ring Infancy, whose cheeks
Lie softly pillow'd on the rounded arm,
Rosy, and radiant with their dimpling sleep,—
Well may ye waft upon some wingèd prayer
A grateful anthem to your Lord enthroned,
Who, once an Infant on His mother's knee,
Not in His glory childhood's life forgets!
For He, while systems, suns, and countless worlds
Hang on His will, and by His arm perform
Their functions, in all matter, space, and time,
Can hear the patter of an infant-foot,
List to the beating of a mother's heart,
Or, seal the eyelid of some babe at rest.

A MOURNFUL TRUTH.

But, like the lustre of a broken dream,
How soon the fairy grace of morning-life
Melts from the growing child! Corruptive airs
Breathed from an atmosphere where sin is bred,
Around them their contaminating spell
Exhale; and Custom, with its hateful load
Of mean observances, and petty rites,
Bends into dust those Instincts of the skies
In the pure heart of genuine Childhood seen,
And, so enchanting! Then, comes artful Trick,
With forced Appearance, and the feeling veil'd,
When Fashion's creed or Folly's plea forbids
A free expression. These, with blending force
The sweet integrities of Youth assail
For ever: mar the delicacy of mind,
And from the power intact of conscience take
Its holy edge; and soon the Child impress
With the coarse features of corrupted Man.
And, add to this, how omnipresent sin,
That from the womb of being to our grave
Infects our nature with a fiendish blight,
Will act on passions earthly, and desires
Malignant, base, or mutinously warp'd
From virtue,—and, alas, how quick we find
The vestal-bloom of Innocence depart!
Then, what remains of all that blessèd prime,
That blooming promise, which the fair-brow'd Child
Of beauty gave in home's domestic bowers?—
Lisping God's love beside parental knees,
And seeming oft, as if the Saviour's arms
Had compass'd them, and left a circling spell
Round his soft being! Where, oh! where is gone
The unworn freshness of that fairy Child?

GOD'S INFANTS.

Yes! eloquent, and touching more than tears,
Those incarnations of maternal dreams,—
Infants, by Beauty's plastic finger shaped,
Have ever been: in all their ways and moods
A winning power of unaffected grace

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Poetic faith, or pious fancy, views.
Wild as the charter'd waves, which leap, and laugh
By sun and breeze rejoicingly inspired,
Till the air gladdens with the glowing life
They shed around them,—who their happy frame
Can mark; or listen to their laughing tones;
Behold their gambols, and the fairy gleams
Of mirth which sparkle from their restless eyes,
Nor feel his fondness to the centre moved
Beyond a mere emotion? But, to watch
The tendrils of the dawning mind come forth,
The buds and petals of the soul expand
Day after day, beneath a fost'ring care
And love devoted,—this Religion deeply loves!
How the Great Parent of the universe
The outward to the inner-world hath framed,
With finest harmony; and for each sense
Some region of appropriate joy secured,
Philosophy may there, with reverence, learn,
As grows the virgin-intellect of youth
Familiar with all forms, effects, and moods
Of Nature, in her majesty or might.
And, what a text on Providence we read
In the safe life of shielded Infancy!
For, who can count the multitude of Babes
That look more fragile than the silken clouds
Which bask upon the bosom of the Air
They brighten,—God's o'ershading Hand secures!
And number, if Arithmetic can reach
The total, what a host of tiny feet
Totter in safety o'er this troubled world!
Though all around them throng, and rage
Destructive Elements, whose faintest shock
Would strike an infant into pulseless clay.

HEAVEN POPULOUS WITH INFANT SOULS.

Then, look not lightly on a pensive child
Lest God be in it, gloriously at work!
And blind Irrev'rence touch on truths, and powers
And principles which round the Throne are dear
As holy. Never may our hearts forget
That Heaven with infancy redeem'd is full;
Crowded with babes, beyond the sunbeams bright
And countless. Forms of life that scarcely breathed
Earth's blighting air, and things of lovely mould
Which, ere they prattled, or with flowers could play,
Or to the lullaby of watching Love
Could hearken, back to God's own world were call'd:
And myriads, too, who learnt a prayer to lisp,
Bend the soft knee, and heave Devotion's sigh,
Or caroll'd with a bird-like chant the psalms
Of David, with the Church in Heaven are found.

THE HEART'S SANCTUARY.

And thus, there is a loneliness of heart,
In all deep souls a never-enter'd shrine;
Where neither love, nor friendship takes a part,
Which no eyes witness, but, Jehovah! Thine.

But, shall we mourn, that each is circled round
With veiling mystery from the ken of man?
That waters deep within the soul abound
No word has fathom'd, and no wisdom can?

No, rather let such merciful disguise
Move the just thinker unto grateful prayer;
For, who could live beneath terrestrial eyes
If such could witness all secreted there!

And if no mantle by our God were thrown
Round fallen souls, to hide man's world within,
How should we hate, what now we love to own,
And cry for darkness to conceal our sin!

“THE HOLY CHILD JESUS.”

How beautiful the brow of Jesus was,
Methinks Imagination's hallow'd dreams
Would fain adumbrate. Virgin-born was He!
Not shaped by sin, but, through o'ershading power
Divinely-perfect, His conception took
Human Reality in flesh and form
Embodied. Never did one taint of earth,
A touch of sensual feeling, or a tone
Of temper, harshly-loud, or rudely-quick,
Assail the soul of that mysterious “Child.”
And therefore, Beauty's most ethereal power
Haply upon His forehead's arching grace
Was throned; and from His eye's divine appeal
Broke a soft radiance, exquisite and deep;
Or, on His lips pure Inspiration sat;
While from the glory of His heaven-born face
There beam'd expression on the gazer's mind,
Awfully mild, and full of melancholy;
And, like the cadence of an Angel's sigh,
Could such be sadden'd, moving more than tears.

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REASON AND FAITH.

By Unbelief our primal nature fell
From light to darkness; and by Faith it mounts
Back to the glory whence its pureness sank:
But still, that fatal tyranny of Sense,
Which Adam first around the virgin-soul
Allow'd to cast its paralysing chain,
Abides; and needs a disenchanting spell
Beyond mere Reason, in its brightest noon,
To shame or silence.—Yes, the Felt, the Seen,
And Tangible, alone appears the True!
Our touch must regulate the law of truth,
And to the Body must our high-born Soul
Stoop like a slave, before the mind admits
Motives divine, and miracles of grace,
Or myst'ries, where the Infinite Unknown
Enshrines His nature, and His love reveals.
Yet, 'tis the madness of outrageous pride,
The dismal lunacy of self-esteem;
And Reason here a suicide becomes,
When god o'er God it thus presumes to be,
And dwarfs the Everlasting down to Man!
But, faith is reason in its noblest form;
And boasts an evidence most heavenly-bright,
Sublimely-equal to our Spirit's need,
In whatsoe'er submissive Love believes
From Deity derived, our world to save.
For, breathe we not the Church's sainted air
Where all is fragrant of the truths of old?
And ritual Forms, and ceremonial Types,
With each high record of auxiliar sway,
Historic truths, traditionary lore,
And monuments of sacramental Grace,—
These have we not? And, though rejecting pride
Back on the blaze of this commingled orb
Of evidence, a sneer presume to cast,
Yet, have the wise and wondrous to such light
Their hearts submitted, and repose enjoy'd.
And, more than this, a clear-eyed wisdom finds:
For if unrisen were our spirit's King,
Then long ere this the Galiléan Lie
Had vanish'd!—for the Creed its claims involve,
Binds on the world offensive purity
Which flesh endures not: and if Christ were dead,
Tomb'd in the darkness of sepulchral clay,
How could His promise with our souls to be
Present for ever,—still on earth be proved
Infallible, through faith's unbounded world?
A living Christian proves a living Christ
As firmly to the soul, as if the heavens
Were now uncurtain'd, and our eyes entranced
Look'd through the Veil and saw Him shining there
In glory, bright as what the Martyr view'd,
When Stephen mounted from his mangled clay
In bleeding triumph, to his Master's breast.

GOD IN MATERIALISM.

God in creation is a glorious thought;
Making the Matter, which we touch, or see,
Like mute religion on our senses act;
And to all forms and faculties of Things
A power imparting, more than mere delight.
'Tis thus, in nature God alone we hail
The ground of Being, and the grace of all
That in this temple of Creation stands.
No dead Abstraction, no almighty Law
To faith suffices:—Life itself is God
In will, and wisdom, actively employ'd:
It spurns the idol, Second Cause, and springs
On to the Infinite and only First!
Creation a Theocracy becomes,
When thus perceived; intelligibly ruled
By that Great King, Whose hidden sceptre sways
Alike the dew-drop, and the host of worlds.
And, blest is he, who thus through nature walks
Companion'd by its Author! Scenes and sounds
Are unto him as Tokens of His power,
Perpetual Teachers of mysterious love.

Feeling the work, but Faith the worker views
Devoutly: and the pomp of heaven's display,
The floor of ocean, the green face of earth,
And each variety which Objects wear,
With more than language to his mind appeals,
Proclaiming Him, Whose Power no sabbath keeps
But quickens nature with incessant laws.
And how this acts where'er we walk, or muse!
Freshens the grass, and beautifies the flower,
Gives to the canopy of heaven a grace
Beyond the symmetry of clouds to form;
And so with reverence the soul attunes,
The very air-song seems to warble truths
Celestial; syllables by Angels toned,
Haunt the pure breathings of the balmy wind
Around us heard: and when along the shore
Haply we roam, in some reflective dream
When life hangs heavy on the grief-worn heart,
The billows make a litany of sound
Which half interprets what sad Thought suggests.

God in creation!—'tis a Creed sublime
Which makes all nature solemn; and the mind
With such desire for veneration fills,
The universe one vast Shechinah grows
Whence Piety, creation's priestess, draws
Prophetic glimpses, as the tribes of old
Drew from the Breastplate, where the Urim gave
Responsive radiance and unerring law.

629

THE CHURCH IN CANADA.

(INSCRIBED TO THE BISHOP OF TORONTO.)

Records of Grace divinely move
The Church's heart with hymnèd praise,
When the deep thought, how guardian Love
Has camp'd around her peril'd ways,
In some high mood of heaven-born calm
O'er mem'ry breathes a solemn balm;
Till Christ Himself in shadows seems
To rise upon Her ancient dreams.

“For ever with you, I shall be,”—
Here is Faith's charter, strong as heaven!
Framed by incarnate Deity
And to His mystic Body given,
When, for Her mission-work on earth,
The sacrament of second Birth
Her Lord imparted; and the grace
To spread it o'er earth's boundless race.

Though manacled in murd'rous flame,
The martyr'd herald of The Cross
Hath gloried in Messiah's name
And counted life, not death, a loss:—
That Charter, like a living power
Sustain'd him in some tortured hour;
While viewless Angels, hov'ring nigh,
Wafted to heaven his farewell-sigh.

Yes, fire and sword, and dungeon-gloom,
And all which Hell and Hate have done
To bury truth in falsehood's tomb,
And blast the triumphs Faith has won,
The heroes of the Church have braved:
And never left Her cause enslaved,
Since all they suffer'd, fann'd the zeal
Her sacramental Warriors feel.

Thus Canada! thy church and creed
Pure as our own, from England bred,
When Loyalty was doom'd to bleed
And banner'd Treason myriads led,
A sworn allegiance nobly kept
While havoc round thee raged, and swept,—
Ark'd in the promise of thy Lord,
And safe within His shelt'ring Word.

By Lake Ontario's rocky shore
Where creedless pagans once abounded,
And exiles heard the torrent roar
By wood and wilderness surrounded,
Churches arise; and saintly Bands
Have come from far and famous lands;
And apostolic Symbols reign
O'er rescued swamp and ransom'd plain.

But never, till that Day of light
When God shall grief and guilt disclose,
Will thankless myriads learn aright
What to her Church Canadia owes:
For, social worth, and moral grace,
Freedom divine, and all we trace
Of present heaven in heart and home
From Faith, and not from Culture, come.

The churchless, soon, are godless, too!
The unbaptised grow base and blind;
And where no sacraments renew
The sin-worn heart and earth-toned mind,
All virtues die; all vices bloom;
The soul becomes a sensual tomb,
And men the Saviour yearn'd to cherish,
Eternalise their guilt, and perish!

Hence, laurell'd with a wreath of love
Be Stuart's patriarchal name;
While Langhorn, in the Church above
With Addison, of kindred fame,
May oft, perchance, the Past revive,
And view salvation's harvest thrive
From germs divine 'twas theirs to sow
Through scorching years of toil and woe.

THE INSPIRATION OF DREAMS.

No incantation which the outer-sense
In the full glow of waking life perceives,
Rivals the magic by mysterious Night
Evoked, when Dreams, like messengers from heaven
Rise from eternity, and round the soul
Hover and hang, ineffably-sublime;
But mocking language, when it tries to catch
The true expression of their awful power.

And, how religious is the sway of Dreams,
Which are the movers of that secret-world
Where most we suffer, learn, and love,
Building our Being up to moral heights,
Stone after stone, by rising truths advanced
To full experience, and to noble aims.
The tombs of time they open, till the forms,
The faces and the features of our Dead
Lighten with life, and speech, and wonted smiles!

630

While mem'ry beautifies the Thing it mourns,
And to the Dead a deeper charm imparts
Than their gone life in fullest glory had.
And thus, in visions of the voiceless night,
Apparel'd with that beauty which the mind
Gives to the loved and lovely, when no more,
Rise from their tombs the Forms of fleeted days,
Friends of bright Youth, the fascinating-dear!
Till back returns life's unpolluted dawn;
And down the garden-walk, or cowslipp'd field
Where once he prattled, full of game and glee,
The man, transfigured back to childhood, roves
Tender as tears. So, on the wind-bow'd mast
The sailor-boy in dreams a mother hails,
And hears her blessing o'er his pathway breathed;
Or, pale and gasping, ere his life-drops ebb
For ever, how the Soldier thus depicts
In the soft dream of some remember'd day,
The hands which rear'd him; or the hearts that heaved
With omens, when the charm of tented fields
Seduced him from the sweets of sainted home
And virtue. Dreams are thus half-miracles;
All time they master; and all truths embrace
Which melt the hardest, and our minds affect
With things profounder than our Creed asserts.

SACREDNESS OF INFANCY.

A dew-drop, trembling on the stem of Life;
A rose-bud peeping into fairy bloom;
A billow on the Sea's maternal breast
Leaping, amid some jubilee of airs
By glad winds caroll'd; or, a dancing beam
Of sunlight, laughing in its brightest joy;
In truth, whate'er is delicate and soft,
Minute and fragile, innocent or gay,
Oft to the mirror of the mind presents
Types of that beauty which a tender babe
To feeling Manhood's fascinated eye
Affordeth; touch'd at times with solemn hues,
Which Hearts prophetic cannot fail to cast
Round a frail Heritor of life unknown!

But, when o'er Revelation's book we bend,
There do we find, with more than love confirm'd,
Whatever Nature by her mute appeals
Hath prompted: for the Bible e'en to babes
Lends the sweet mercy of its soft regard
And bland protection. Other creeds may scorn
Such aidless Being; and the gibing laugh
Of Science o'er their frailness may uplift
Its godless péan; but in this we boast,—
That Christianity the cradle seeks,
Stoops to a babe with condescending brow;
And while the Pagan, by her creed transform'd
From yearning softness into heartless stone,
Commits her infant to broad Ganga's stream
Foodless to perish, Christ in Spirit comes,
Commands the Priesthood on its forehead plant
The sealing water, and the mystic sign,
And bids it welcome to His Ark of grace.

CHRIST IN THE HEART'S CLOUD.

He stood before her, but she could not see
That Holy One: and oh! how often, thus,
The sad experience of a stricken mind
Like Mary, cannot view the Lord it loves,
Though in the mercy of our ev'ry breath,
And in the promise of His perfect Word,
In prayer, and praise, and sacramental life,
Together with that unbreathed thought which tells
Home to the heart acceptance in the skies,
When the free spirit of assuring grace
Glows in our bosom,—though in each and all
Christ to the conscience doth himself present,
Yet, Mary-like, the soul mistakes Him, still!
Some carnal shade, or clouding sin prevents;
And the high faculty of seeing Faith
Grows undiscerning; or, in nature's eye
The tear of sorrow doth so thickly stand,
That through it, God himself grows unbeheld
A moment: nothing but dark grief is seen!

WORLDLINGS.

How much Anxiety the heart corrodes
Wasting the moral health of man away,—
We seldom ponder, till too late perceived!
When, under burdens, which ourselves inflict,
The Intellect of half its glorious life
Is sapp'd, while conscience turns a crippled thing;
The heart gets agèd ere the head grows old,
And those bright virtues, which might nobly shine
In that clear firmament of thought and power
Where lofty Manhood would exult to act,
Rarely, if ever, into influence dawn.
For else the grandeurs, graces, charms, and scenes,
The smiles of matin, and the shades of night,
Sun, moon, and star, wild mountains and glad seas,
Meadows and woods, and winds and lulling streams,

631

With fruits, and flowers like hues of paradise
Amid us scatter'd,—would so well impress
The moral being, that responsive Mind
Upon the Beautiful would back reflect
An answer, most intelligibly pure,
To each appeal of Beauty. But the World
Can so infect the myriads of mankind,
That all those latent harmonies, which link
Nature to man by loveliness and might,
Lie undiscern'd; and though a spirit deep,
A living sentiment of love and truth,
In all Creation cultured souls may find,
How few perceive it! but, on objects gaze
With eye unmoved; as if by God unmade
Their beauties, and by Him unform'd their powers!
Nature to them in all her shrines is mute;
Nor to Her mystic oracles, which yield
Such music to Imagination's ear,
Can the cold worldling condescend to list.

THE PEOPLE AND PRAYER BOOK.

Nor be forgot, that England's Prayer Book gives
Pure, full and plain, The Word by which she lives;
Not dungeon'd in some dead and alien tone,
But where the peasant-boy perceives his own.

There, lisping Childhood, when it longs to learn
Truths for which Prophets bled, and Martyrs burn,
In such pure liturgy of grace may find
All which can feed the heart, and form the mind.

For, Common Prayer, if catholic and true,
Must not be tinged with individual hue,
But be proportion'd to the soul of Man,
In deep accordance with Redemption's plan.

INDIVIDUAL PROVIDENCE.

And, there are moments, when mysterious Life
Is so attended with a train of Facts
Sudden and strange, through which a mercy glares
With such intensity of sacred light
Full on the conscience,—that Paternal care
To us revealing God's elective will,
Runs through the heart with overwhelming proof!
And bids it, like ecstatic Hagar, cry,
By Heaven when mercy-struck to more than prayer.
And He, the Infinite by Form array'd,
Who took our Nature in all sinless truth
Into His Own, as Man embodied loved,
In modes and shapes of individual cast.
For, while in Providence th' unblemish'd Lord
Moved on the lines of Justice and of Truth,
Boundless, beyond respect of single homes
Or spirits; He, in walks of social life
Loved like a Man, and chose the friend He will'd:
And hence, the winning might Emmanuel wields
By His example! for, on Person, Place,
And Time, His pure affections deign'd to shed
Their fullness. He who wept a City's doom,
As if the crashing of its crumbled walls
Rang in his ear, while Roman butchers bathed
Their swords in slaughter, also, by a grave
Wept o'er the dead, most humanly perturb'd,
And to His bosom took the mild St. John!

A PRODIGAL'S RETURN.

And now, behold him, wither'd, tatter'd, bow'd;
Pale with long famine, wearily he drags
His homeward-track; but, so by suff'ring worn,
That through the village, where his boyhood dwelt,
Unknown he steals, disguised in haggard woe.
Oh, what a tide of memory there rolls,
And what a gush of agony and grief
Runs through his being, when that hill he gains,
Climb'd in calm hours of vanish'd innocence,
And underneath him in the sunset pale
Looks on the landmarks of paternal home!
Mute with remorse, amid the tranquil scene
Awhile he ponders; till the silent forms
Of Things grow eloquent with meek reproach:
Meadow, and tree, and each familiar nook
Instinct with meaning, to his mind appeals
With more than language from Rebuke's harsh lip.
For, Nature yet her old expressions wore,
And each loved haunt remain'd familiar still.
There, was the olive he had loved to watch;
There, was the vine his infant hand had pluck'd;
And there, a field-path, where he often paced
As bright in spirit as the joyous beam
Beside him, and with step as gaily-swift
As the wild breeze which hurried o'er his head;
Nothing look'd alter'd:—for, the fig-tree stood,
And caught the day-gleam in its dying glow
As oft his boyhood watch'd it, when he sat

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Under the twilight of its laden boughs
And fondly wove his fancies; and, how sweet
The lulling cadence of yon well-loved stream!
E'en as of old, so wound its waters still
In stainless beauty, down their pebbled way:—
Nothing has changed; but, oh, how changed is He!

MORAL INFLUENCE.

Our moral centre is a point minute:
But our circumference, oh! who can grasp,
In action, suff'ring, or involved Result?
A smile, a glance, a single breath, a tone,
A look of meaning, or a laugh of scorn,
The mere expression of the hectic mind
Clothing our features,—each may, haply, thrill
Some chord which touches by effectual ties
Events unborn; and make th' eternity
We dread, to vibrate with the deed we do!

Oh! for a sense of Duty more sublimed,
In all our ways, our wishes, and our words:
A sense that we are links in that long Chain
Of Consequence, which e'en from Adam's sin
To our last error, its unbroken length
So reaches, that we cannot act alone!
But rather, each with each is so inwove
By past connection, or by future power,
That Conduct grows immortal; and the act
From soul to soul with multiplying power,
Itself repeateth, when the Agent sleeps
In cold oblivion, by the world forgot.
The blemish'd morals and the blotted mind
How often thus our Rev'rence would escape!
And 'stead of reckless pride, religious care
The paths would purify where Virtue walks,
And solemnize existence. Action, then,
Inward, or bodied forth in social form,
Of sacredness in every sphere would breathe;
Till the whole Earth a mystic Temple grew
Hallow'd by God, by angels overwatch'd,
And by Humanity in all its moods
Devoutly-trodden: then would Duty spread
Its canopy above our ways and walks,
E'en as the heaven o'ervaults the varied earth
For ever: Faith would be our Law supreme,
And guarded Life one long religion prove.

THE LAKE OF BEAUTY.

A MORNING SCENE AT VEVAY.

Lake Leman! in the hush of this deep hour
The poetry of waters is thy power;
And o'er my spirit steals that lulling calm
Which bathes the earth in some celestial balm.

Here from my window, with a spell-bound gaze,
I view yon shore beneath a silver-haze
Unshroud its glories; till, with dim uprise
The Alpine summits cleave the sun-lit skies.

Far to the east, those mountain-kings enthrone
Their rocky grandeurs o'er the ice-born Rhone,
Whose foreheads, pure as angel-brows, present
Their dazzling whiteness to the Firmament.

And who can mark thine awful Mountains gleam,
When faintly-hued with morn's seraphic beam;
Or, crimson'd o'er with magical array
Caught from the rosy death of ling'ring day,

Nor feel them, like an infinite Control,—
Embodied hymns, where Silence to the soul
Speaks more of God, than thunder, wave, or wind,
With dark-wing'd Terrors, from the storm combined?

Thus may true Poets from their presence gain
Fresh purities, which o'er the conscience reign;
Till thoughts grow vaster than the lyre can own,
And Man seems lifted to his Maker's throne.

But, Leman! once again to thee I turn,
And from thine everlasting beauty learn
Profounder Wisdom than a sage can teach,
Whose words are bounded by the sense's reach.

While soft, yet stern, though mild, majestic too,
Serenely-bright, and exquisitely-blue,—
Almighty Taste around thy scene hath cast
What makes thy loveliness the unsurpass'd!

For ever varied!—rock, and terrace, field,
Vineyards and turrets, tower and village yield
A concentrated Spell, which thus imparts
A more than landscape to melodious hearts.

And seldom, since the bend of beauteous skies
Enrich'd thy waters with reflected dies,
Hast thou, fair Leman! more ideal bliss
For mind created, than on morns like this.

The grace, the gentleness, and glow of heaven
Now to thy charms are so intensely given,
That on thy waveless sea of fairy sound
The Heart seems floating, as we gaze around.

And hark! the drip of yon descending oar
In wafted grace as glides the boat ashore,
With what a cadence it enchants the ear,
And drops in radiance, like a dazzling tear,

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Down on the waters!—where a breezy strife
Makes Leman palpitate with rippling life,
And liquid glances, as the broken sun
Laughs on the dimpled stream it lights upon.

Earth, air, and sky, and range of rocky pass,
Glaciers, and crags, and sternly-wild morass,
The bird, and foliage, field and distant towers,
Vine-mantled hills, and fancy-haunted bowers,

Blent with the mellow chimes of matin-bell
Heaved o'er the Lake with deep and dying swell,—
Oh! how can words such pictured Whole combine,
Or Leman roll through this imperfect line?

E'en like a Consciousness of sound and scene
Nature doth now her master-spells convene;
And lovingly this hour for man array
As though She treasured what his eyes survey;

While leafy murmurs from yon flutt'ring trees
Quiver abroad like new-born ecstasies,
And gleams come dancing down the golden air,
As though bright angels hover'd everywhere.

Yet, in mine incapacity of speech
This lulling paradise of Lakes to reach,
Still can I feel, that even thus the soul
Bows in its unbreathed thought to that Control

Which God intended, Who to scene imparts
Predestined magic, framed for deathless hearts,
Whose pulse with His eternity shall glow—
When Earth has vanish'd like an air-born show.

A purifying calm of central power
Attunes high feeling to this chasten'd hour;
And from the World's more artificial scene,
Oft shall it woo me to this Lake, I ween.

Meanings divine endow a Morn like this
With magic that outsoars an earth-made bliss;
The very soil grows sanctified and fair,
And deepens poetry to silent prayer.

Beauty is hallow'd, when on mind it leaves
An impress grander than mere Sense conceives;
Till all without, within, below, above,
Becomes transfigured to almighty Love.

And thus, that God from Whom vast nature flows
Inspires religion through the heart's repose;
And so connects it with creation's plan
That heaven seems throbbing through the earth on Man!