The poetical works of William H. C. Hosmer

Hosmer, William H. C. (1814-1877)

VOL. I.

VOL. II.

Collapse All | Expand All expand section

2. VOL. II.

OCCASIONAL POEMS.

THE IDEAL.

INSCRIBED TO MY FRIEND O. H. MARSHALL, OF BUFFALO, N. Y.

“Sweet Phantasy alone is young forever.”—
Schiller.

Vast are thy radiant halls, Imagination!
And through them who loves not, at times, to walk,
While airs are breathed like those at Earth's Creation,
And silvery voices talk.

And it is well that man—awhile retiring
From the dim outward world—in blissful dreams
Walk through those halls, a purer air respiring,
And catch elysian gleams.

There, with his sickle idle and rust-eaten,
Sleeps the pale Mower of our mortal joys;
And amber drops of purest nectar sweeten
A cup that never cloys.

There, with the loved and lost again uniting,
Can we discourse serenely of the past,
Couched upon roses that no worm is blighting,
Or killing northern blast.

There will the child we laid in earth, to meet us
In wild delight stretch forth its little arms—
There will the mother, that we mourned for, greet us—
Renewed her youthful charms.

There will the bride who woke our young affection
Blush as if still she heard the marriage bell;
Ah! nevermore, with look of deep dejection,
To falter out farewell!

Is the poor Bard repaid for years of trial,
And vigils that untimely bow the frame—
For tears in secret shed, and self-denial,
By the green wreath of fame?

Is gold a fitting recompense for sorrow
That fixes ever in his breast a dart,
While hopes that bud, to wither on the morrow,
Leave canker in the heart?

Oh, no! the grudging world can grant no guerdon
Prized like the sunshine of those happy hours,
When fate permits him to throw down his burden,
And pluck unwithering flowers!

Permits him through the gate of dreams to wander,
And look on scenes that painter never drew,
While in his throbbing, yearning soul grows stronger
Love for the good and true;

Permits him to hold glorious communion,
With mighty spirits who have done with time,
Bound by a league, to never know disunion,
In brotherhood sublim

Back! back for him, the past withdraws its curtain,
And round him throng old sovereign-lords of mind,
Not seen like objects through a haze uncertain—
Each figure well defined.

Lo! he beholds some mighty truth enforcing,
Or gracing with rich imagery his theme,
Great Plato walk through fairer groves, discoursing,
Than those of Academe.

That Greek arrests his glance who talked with ocean
Until its awful bass was in his tone,
And sweet-voiced Tully skilled to draw emotion
From hearts, inert like stone.

Paths, paved with pearl and diamond, he may follow,
Through blooming meadows to a temple grand—
Home of a priesthood who have served Apollo
In every age and land.

Through the stained glass darts tempered light, bestowing
A blush on pictured walls and spangled floors—
And rivers of rich melody are flowing
For ever from its doors.

The crowning pride of Hellas, blind and hoary,
Before him rears his tall, majestic form,
Surrounded by inheritors of glory,
And breathes a welcome warm.

Tones of the old, Hellenic spirit tremble
On the proud strings of his heroic lyre,
While o'er him charmed divinities assemble
In chariots of fire.

A crowd of lesser minstrels borrow lustre
From the full splendor of that epic orb,
As snowy clouds that round the day-god cluster,
His blaze in part absorb.

In pauses of the mighty strain he listens
To Doric reed and Lesbian lute forlorn,
Till in his eye, enlarged with wonder, glistens
A tear of rapture born.

The courtly Virgil, model of politeness!
He marks near Flaccus of the rosy face,
While Pindar comes, with eye of eagle brightness,
Fresh from the chariot race.

The naiad watches by her silver fountain—
The dryad in the shade of aged trees,
And, darting through green pines upon the mountain,
The oread he sees.

Milton, divinely beautiful, upraising
His speaking face receives a heavenly glow,
And, grandly stern, the Tuscan downward gazing,
Pierces the depths of woe.

Calm Shakespeare towers with regal wand controlling
Broad seas of thought, wild passion and romance,
As Dian sways the pulse of ocean rolling
With her benignant glance.

And at his feet a youthful form reclining
Wears the pale front of Bristol's wondrous boy;
His face, so mournful when with hunger pining,
Changed into lark-like joy.

Apart the lord of Newstead pours the billows
Of his tremendous song upon the gale,
While star-eyed Shelley, propped by golden pillows,
Bids dream-land lift the veil.

In the great concert Celtic bards are singing,
Drest in the garb that wizard Merlin wore,
And, wild and high, the Cambrian Harp is ringing
Above the torrent's roar.

The Minnesinger's chant, alive with feeling,
Wafts gently by the notes of breeze and bird,
And in rude lays, that Gothic scalds are pealing,
The trampling surf is heard.

Fair shapes from vine-wreathed balconies are leaning
While sweeps the troubadour his lute below,
And silenced not by ages intervening,
Druidic numbers flow.

Through halls, with hangings like the rainbow braided,
A group of famous women glide along;
The mighty spell that keeps their bloom unfaded,
Is the glad work of song.

That Cretan lady, on the beach forsaken
By Athen's lord, is still divinely fair;
No leaflet from her rose of beauty shaken
By woe and black despair.

Aspasia, with a brow by genius lighted,
Flits by with that immortal child of song
Who buried in the sea, by Phaon slighted,
All memory of wrong.

Young Hero, rescued from the caves of ocean,
Walks with her own Leander by her side;
Well-won reward of faith and fond devotion,
Alas! too rudely tried!

Forgetful of the Roman's mad caresses,
Stalks grandly by old Egypt's wanton queen,
With jewels flashing in her night-black tresses,
Full bust and royal mien.

With a strange lustre in her dark eye playing,
Prophetic lip, clasped hands, and hair unbound,
In thought Cassandra, back to Phrygia straying,
Beholds her sire uncrown'd:

And near a radiant and majestic creature,
Whose deadly charms the towers of Troy brought low,
Moves, with a winning grace in every feature,
And mouth like Cupid's bow;

And higher natures, holy hearts enshrining
The noblest deeds by woman done recall;
Pure as the morn on young creation shining
Before the primal fall,

Rose Standish fairer than a star new risen,
Sweet, early martyr of our western wild!
Leads by the hand, escaped from death's chill prison,
Powhatan's dusky child;

And giving sign of more than mortal vigor,
Awoke to breathing life from ashes pale,
The Maid of France appears—a martial figure
In knighthood's glittering mail.

Realm of the vast Ideal ! smiling ever
Is thy unclouded arch of iris-dyes,
And on thy hill-tops, that are darkened never,
Eternal sunshine lies.

The brows of thy inhabitants are wearing
The seal of deep tranquillity and love—
Unknown the falcon that on earth is tearing
With bloody beak the dove.

Streams, over precious sands in music creeping,
Their silvery arms round magic islets fling,
While holy-day the happy elves are keeping
With Oberon their king.

Fairer than Paphos, or those orient arbors
Where jewels light, like stars, the leafy glades,
Stretch thy broad parks where Cytherea harbors,
Attended by her maids.

Grottoes more lovely than Egeria's dwelling
Open their portals of enchanted green,
Filled with the drowsy chime of waters welling,
Purer than Hippocrene.

Enamored birds are in thy garden singing
Where serpent never wound his glittering coil,
And asphodel and amaranth are springing
From its celestial soil.

The toiling scholar is thrice blest who tarries
For a brief season on that haunted shore,
And back to shadowed earth his spirit carries
A might unknown before.

In dreams the grand old Masters wandered thither
A wardrobe for the Beautiful to find,
And sunny wreaths, that would not drop and wither,
Her airy brow to bind.

Thence came those opal tints for ever playing
On the quaint page where Spencer is revealed,
And Una's charm, in fearful places straying,
White innocence her shield.

Thence came the light and shade that lend such graces
To Chaucer's tale, and rhyme of classic Ben—
And that loved scroll made brilliant by the traces
Of gallant Sydney's pen.

From thence the bard derives a rich requital,
Though crowds that pass him by look dark and cold;
The star-emblazoned deed that gives him title
To realms of price untold.

There is a flower of glorious apparel
That opens in the hush of lonely night,
And ere the morning lark begins her carol
Is sadly touched with blight;

The honey of its cup is never tasted
By the swift humming bird—gay sprite of air!
Why, on the solemn darkness, is thus wasted
A loveliness so rare?

Type of that flower was Keats, the young and gifted,
Charming with song a cold and thankless world,
While the black clouds of woe above him drifted,
And Hope her banner furled.

The light of fame, at last through darkness streaming,
Came falling not upon his living head,
But, like some funeral torch, a fitful gleaming
Threw only on the dead.

Not always, while a deathless task achieving,
Did sorrow bring to that high heart eclipse,
Ambrosial drops, though fate his shroud was weaving,
Fell on his fevered lips.

His subtle spirit often was translated
From the weak flesh to that still lovely land
Where Art can point to works before created,
Never by mortal hand:—

And I would fain recall a vision pleasant,
Seen ere the dappled morn of youth was o'er,
In that romantic realm where every peasant
Is rich in minstrel-lore.

In the deep midnight Fancy broke the tether
That makes us bondsmen in our waking hours,
And ranged the land of dark, blue lake and heather,
Culling poetic flowers.

Bewitching moonlight wrapped the hoary mountains,
The rugged birthright of the hardy Gael,
And streams, that glinted forth from sparkling fountains,
Met roaring in the vale.

A sky-roofed glen within its heart received me,
The floor and sides in grassy velvet drest,
And a wild sorrow that too long hath grieved me,
Awhile was lulled to rest.

To look on famous bards I felt a longing,
Nursed in the home of eagles and of storms,
And suddenly there was a glorious thronging
Of proud, and plaided forms.

Unearthly splendor rested on their faces,
As moonlight silvers marble with its glow,
That fair to vision made the many traces
Of want, neglect, and woe.

Awful of mien, his long white hair outstreaming,
Bearing an antique harp of massy frame,
While misty light around his head was beaming,
Majestic Ossian came.

I thought of those proud words in memory cherished
By all who drink at Song's old, haunted springs,
“My voice will not be silent when have perished
Temora's haughty kings.”

The mighty Painter of the middle ages
Towered, staff in hand, above the tuneful throng;
Immortal weaver of enchanted pages—
The Wouvermans of song!

Far, in the distance, clustered bright creations
Evoked from darkness by his spell of might
That chased the gloom from graves of men and nations
With its victorious light,

To right and left the proud assembly parting
Gave place to Burns, in “hodden gray” attired;
His large, black eye, electric flashes darting,
Told of a soul inspired:—

And he was there who sang in life's glad morning
Of Hope, to cheer both hall and cottage hearth,
With a rapt look, as if “Lochiel's Warning”
Was struggling into birth.

Old Allan Ramsay, blythe of mood and pleasant,
Attuned his trembling reed, and woke a lay
That Pan would have provoked, had he been present,
To throw his pipe away.

Mild, musing Thomson wore a mantle splendid,
And on its ground of wintry white were seen
Autumnal gold, and summer crimson blended
With stripes of vernal green:

And he who wrote “Kilmeny,” as if listening
The silver bells of fairy-land to hear,
Stood, with the night-dew on his tartan glistening,
The “Gentle Shepherd” near.

One I beheld whose bay will never wither,
Though bitterly his cup was drugged with ill,
The bard who sang of “Jessie” and “Balquither,”
The mournful Tannahill!

Nigh Ferguson, all chapleted with willow,
Towered Cunningham, in mould gigantic cast,
With harp that mocked the roll of ocean's billow,
And creak of bending mast.

Young Bruce I saw, who pined away uncherished,
Though hallowed, aye, his muse Lochleven made,
And gifted Leyden who untimely perished,
A pale, and piping shade!

I saw impassioned Pollock upward gazing,
The glow of deep devotion on his cheek,
As if he prayed the stars, above him blazing,
Of Heaven's high joy to speak.

Logan, whose “Cuckoo” will sing on forever,
For a brief moment, my attention caught;
And Home, whose tragic wreath will mildew never,
Folded his arms in thought.

Near a famed “Minstrel,” fond of Spencer's measure,
Hawthornden's classic poet took his stand,
And the sweet lute, that cheered his hours of leisure,
Flashed, gem-like, in his hand:—

And Pringle, who had heard the lion waking
Wild Echo, in the desert, with his roar,
On the worn garb that veiled his bosom aching
The dust of travel bore:—

Dark Motherwell, a weird and wild magician!
Leaned with a lowering aspect on his lyre,
While images of some old Norse tradition
Thronged on his soul of fire.

And pious Graham, whose chaste muse selected
The holy “Sabbath” for its quiet theme,
And with the sinless birds his name connected,
Was present in my dream.

Awe to the scene dim, rearward shapes were giving,
Wraiths of a band, without a funeral stone,
Whose songs, like echoes in the glens, were living,
Although their names unknown.

Forgotten minstrels, who had bravely trodden
Red battle-fields, in old baronial times,
Breathing out woe, when came the day of Flodden,
In rude but touching rhymes:—

Lads that, in keeping tryst beneath the cover
Of flowering thorn with snooded maiden, found
Vent for the fluttering transport of the lover
In words of tuneful sound:—

Shepherds, who caught rare gleams of inspiration
While couched their flocks around them on the hill—
Children of toil-ennobling lowly station,
Whose tongues would not be still!

At length an airy whisper, as of warning,
That ran from front to shadowed rear, I heard,
And voiceful pine-boughs, in the breath of morning,
Like martial plumage stirred;

Then wild Æolian melodies diverted,
For a brief space, my wondering regards;—
I looked again—the valley was deserted—
Gone Albyn's plaided bards.

Shooting across the bounds of time and distance,
Can Fancy thus pursue her viewless track—
Cheering the gloom of every day existence,
Bringing rich treasures back.

Thus aliment is furnished that gives vigor
To the rapt student in his chamber lone,
Or sculptor bidding some majestic figure
Leap into life from stone.

And shifting, gorgeous tints are thus transmitted
That on the canvass of the painter blaze,
And Eloquence, to blast corruption, fitted
With one indignant gaze.

Thus from the poet's heart is banished sadness,
And golden radiance on his spirit flung—
His teeming brain possessed of that “fine madness,”
Of which old Drayton sung.

If we were chained forever to the Real,
God's benison would be indeed withdrawn;
Without rich glimpses of the bright Ideal,
In vain would morning dawn.

Upward, on pinions of sublime devotion,
The soul would cleave its native sky no more,
But loathsome grow, a pool devoid of motion,
Foul to its weedy floor.

Perish the thought! that in our bosoms never
Should wake those airy raptures that were ours
Ere fled the freshness of our youth forever—
When Joy was crowned with flowers;

Perish the thought that life in its transitions,
Should cease at last to look this earth beyond—
Ringing the funeral knell of glorious visions
That on our childhood dawned!

Our grosser nature ever strives to win us
From worship of the beautiful and bright,
And deaf are many to the voice within us,
That whispers,—“Seek the light!”

Not they alone work faithfully who labor
On the dull, dusty thoroughfare of life;
The clerkly pen can vanquish, when the sabre
Is useless in the strife.

In cloistered gloom the quiet man of letters
Launching his thoughts, like arrows from the bow,
Oft strikes at Treason, and his base abettors,
Bringing their grandeur low.

Armed with a scroll the birds of evil omen
That curse a country he can scare away,
Or, in the wake of error, marshal foemen
Impatient for the fray.

Scorn not the sons of Song! nor deem them only
Poor, worthless weeds upon the shore of time;
Although they move in walks retired and lonely
They have their tasks sublime.

When tyrants tread the hill-top and the valley,
Calling the birth-right of the brave their own,
Around the tomb of Liberty they rally,
And roll away the stone.

Or roused by some dark peril they have written,
Words that awe Guilt behind his guarded wall,
Or, by the lightning of their numbers smitten,
Beheld the bigot fall.

Though fierce, uncurbed emotions running riot,
Hiss like Medusa's vipers in the breast,
The witchcraft of harmonic sound can quiet
The turmoil into rest.

Who through the chieftain's castle hall is stealing
With the light foot-fall of some beast of prey,
While vengeance hushes every softer feeling,
Nerving his arm to slay?

Where is his home?—to flame its roof was given,
And heavy clouds above the ruin lower,
While the dread foe, by whom his soul was riven,
Unwarned is in his power.

Where are his kinsmen?—ask the fox and raven
That feed upon their corpses, gashed and red;
And will he now turn back a trembling craven,
What, what arrests his tread?

Young Annot Lyle, her Highland clairshach waking,
Trills an old ballad to remembrance dear—
And dagger-hilt his rugged hand forsaking
Brushes away the tear.

Thus can a strain of home, with power disarming,
Cause feudal Hate to lay his weapon down,
To softness change, (the tiger-passions charming,)
His black and baleful frown.

Lo! the proud Norman and his hots are flying,
While in pursuit, with fierce triumphant cheers
That drown the groans of horse and rider dying,
Press on the Saxon spears.

What stays their flight?—the song of Rolla rising
In angry swell above the dreadful roar—
Again they charge!—the bolts of death despising,
And Harold's reign is o'er.

Dread power of Song! whose voice can thus awaken
Notes that consign an empire to the grave;
Or when recoils a host, by panic shaken,
From rout the valiant save.

The fearful mantle that the seer is wearing
Derives from thee its tints of living fire—
And higher mounts Philosophy when sharing
The wealth of thy attire;

And, in the distance, to thy vision brightly
Gleam happy homes beyond this land of graves,
As airy domes and towers, at sunset, lightly
Rise from Sicilian waves.

There, luminous with effluence from Heaven,
The lost are found—the dead again descried;
Their ransomed natures, freed from earthly leaven,
Their tears forever dried.

When History, her task but ill achieving,
Fails some far epoch faintly to illume,
The Muse, her thread like Ariadne weaving,
Conducts us through the gloom.

She fronts the morn—and on the purple ridges
The virgin-future lifts her veil of snow—
Looks westward, and an arch of splendor bridges
The gulf of “Long-Ago.”

She speaks—and lo! Italian sunlight flashes
Over the dark expanse of northern skies;
Death hears her thrilling cry—and cold, gray ashes
Take mortal shape and rise.

When factions vex a state, and new abuses
Bring to her drooping banner-fold disgrace,
And mind, forgetful of its nobler uses,
Grows sensual and base—

When “the gray fathers” of a nation falter,
Muffling their faces for the funeral knell—
A lightning-flash from her poetic altar
The darkness can dispel.

Orion, as an oracle informs us,
In the sun's pathway may regain his sight,
And in the track of song that cheers and warms us,
We bid farewell to night!

Then honored be the Bard! a heavenly mansion
Alone could be the birth-place of an Art
That gives to deathless intellect expansion,
And purifies the heart.

UTILITY OF IMAGINATION.

INSCRIBED TO HON. C. P. AVERY, OWEGO, NEW YORK.

Something besides the judgment in alliance
With memory evolves both heat and light,
When a resistless march is made by science
Against the brood of night.

How circumscribed would be our mortal vision
Without this subtle faculty of mind—
Catching no flowery scent from fields elysian,
Weak, grovelling, and blind!

The will to dare, with this strange power combining,
Derives a force that overcomes mischance;
It warms the breast a noble heart enshrining—
Flames in the poet's glance.

It is the minister that talks divinely
Of things invisible to mortal gaze;
The star that beamed on Milton so benignly
When fallen on evil days.

Though nature grew a blank, and opened sadly
His clouded orbs that found the dawn no more—
While foes rejoiced in his affliction madly,
And blocks were soaked with gore;

All was not dark, for eyes within were planted,
And the great Master looked with reverence still
On grove and fountain by the Muses haunted,
And Zion's heavenly hill.

Those intellects—reverse of the conceptive,
To aught sublime, have never given birth,
Like pictures, without background or perspective,
They are of little worth.

The cestus worn by Venus comprehended
All that could win or charm, the Greeks avow,
But more of beauty with the wreath is blended
That binds a poet's brow.

Ever the graceful and the grand begetting,
Imagination cheers us on our way,
Gives to the gem of truth a golden setting
That makes more rich its ray.

It lends enchantment to our tasks diurnal,
For starry Contemplation builds a tower,
And Love, rejoicing in a youth eternal,
Leads to a deathless bower.

Impatient of all bound, on pinion soaring,
It speeds across wide waste and weltering main,
Or mounts aloft the spirit-world exploring,
That weird and wild domain!

Outshining morn, it gives a purple glory
To mossy rock, herb, flower, and lapsing stream—
Touches the head with time and trouble hoary,
While back comes childhood's dream.

The world of thought could know no worse bereavement
If God who gave should take this power away;
Of the earth, earthy, would man's best achievement
Be from that fatal day.

What moonlight is to holy night, dismissing
The gloom that wrapped both wave and ocean-shore,
Or, as a minstrel truly warbles, “Kissing
Dead things to life” once more,

Is this pure agent to our mental being
Darkness transforming into landscapes fair,
While round to bless and charm our inward seeing
Throng wonders rich and rare.

Although the soil of thought is noble Reason,
Where golden grain by memory is sown,
Our souls would famish—dawn no harvest season,
If fed by these alone.

Imagination is the radiant essence,
The sun maturing fruit on which we feed,
Clothing the soil with rainbow efflorescence,
Quickening the buried seed.

A sense of beauty, grace, and chaste proportion
Flows from its action—otherwise would Art
Nothing produce but shapes of grim distortion
To chill, not warm the heart.

Its agency may ever be detected
When Genius plumes his wing for higher flight,
Or images of grandeur are reflected
From the soul's mirror bright.

Those who decry its influence, and have clamored
Most loudly for the practical and true,
In childhood, of its blossoms were enamored
Pearled with the morning dew.

Poetic raptures in their bosoms springing
Owed to this vital principle their birth,
While music floated round them like the singing
Of angels on the earth.

Of sky and plain it was the rich adorner,
And the full blaze of its enchantment fell
On story books, that to the chimney corner
Bound them as by a spell.

I know that never those ecstatic feelings
That cheered our years of innocence, come back,
That manhood brings its terrible revealings,
Resistance and attack.

But hearts are changed to tombs where wholly perish
Emotions that once made each fibre thrill,
While May-time lingers in the breasts that cherish
Some boyish feeling still.

Of strong Imagination talk not lightly,
It gives the present its progressive start;
To comeliness converting the unsightly
In law, religion, art.

The mind becomes without this throbbing movement
To rouse and thrill, mechanical and cold;
Content to slumber on, without improvement—
Mute slave of custom old!

Deep longings for a nobler life can only
Find home in bosoms glowing with its fire,
Whether they beat in hall or hovel lonely—
Wear mean or rich attire.

To things, without an archetype, is given
Ideal presence, form and color bright,
When by its aid away the mist is driven
That clouded mental sight.

Through its strong action unity essential,
In things that seem to differ we detect;
Hence arguments, conclusive and potential,
Philosophers erect.

It kisses the pale, faded wreath of sorrow
Till back comes fluttering life and vernal green,
And the clear promise of a fairer morrow
Is in the orient seen:

It breathes upon the strings of our existence,
And sweet Æolian melodies arise,
While seraphs wave their white wings in the distance
Called earthward from the skies:

It rears aloft, for man to hold communion
With higher natures, free from mortal leaven,
A golden ladder that produces union
Between dark earth and Heaven:

It blows a silver trumpet when we falter
In upward march, those Alpine heights to gain,
Where gather round an ever-burning altar
A priesthood free from stain

It tolls a solemn curfew, sweetly bringing
To weary Labor balm and soft repose;
And Grief, to hear the deep vibration ringing,
Of rest enamored grows:

Wild lawless Mirth forsakes his work of riot,
The honey-dew of slumber falls on Care—
The lulling sounds have even power to quiet
That Stygian ghost—Despair!

It is the dazzling rainbow overbending
Time's wave, made turbid by a crumbling shore—
Weaver of colors, with the present blending,
And all we loved of yore:

It whispers in the hoary ear of Ocean
And chaunting sirens quit their coral caves,
While sounds are heard that charm to gentler motion
His ever-throbbing waves:

It visits us at night, and we are guided
By singing phantoms to melodious streams,
And walk with lovely shapes that reign divided
Hold in the land of dreams:

It finds the student in his cell despairing,
And drapes the walls with crimson and with gold,
While grandly enter, crown and laurel wearing,
The mighty ones of old:

Deep marks they bear upon their calm proud faces
Of bitter trial borne to win renown;
For all who struggle up to lofty places
Must feel the storm come down.

Call not a fleeting shadow an illusion—
A power that wields such dread and vast control;
That moulds to grace and harmony confusion,
And nerves the drooping soul.

It is the loom that forms a web to cover
With brightness all that sage or bard has wrought—
The “Ακαματον Πυρ” that flashes over
The firmament of thought.

Transmuting spirit! why is Romance grieving
For genii vanished on the “posting air,”
As if the lustrous shapes of thy conceiving
Our mortal doom could share.

Still a response Dodona's oaks are giving,
And naiads haunt Arcadian fount and rill,
In murmuring groves are faun and dryad living,
And Jove is mighty still.

Round Erin's ruined castle lightly sailing,
Where Valor sued for Beauty's hand of yore,
The mystic banshee wakes a note of wailing
For those who come no more.

In merry England nightly to their revel
Mischievous elves and trooping fairies throng,
Waking the silence of her meadows level
With laugh and antique song.

King Arthur, still, with plume and pennon streaming,
To battle hurries from his castle hall,
And famous knights, in dinted armor gleaming,
Obey his trumpet call.

Lithe Ariel, on Prospero that waited,
Twines by the moonlight still her magic wreath,
And the Weird Sisters, by thy wand created,
Dance on the blasted heath.

Imagination is a gift celestial
That Eden's loss to man in part restores;
Starring the twilight of this scene terrestrial
With rays from heavenly shores.

The soul within a breezy tower it stations,
Things high above this rolling orb to note,
As through thin air of lofty elevations
Seems nearer the remote.

Ah! if the spirit never left its prison
Till the pale flag of finite life was furled,
No prophet clothed in terror would have risen
To warn a guilty world.

That preacher follows a mistaken calling
Whose sermon is not living with its flame;
Guilt is not startled from a trance appalling
When utterance is tame.

To common stature would a Webster dwindle,
And spell to charm a Clay no longer own,
Did not this lightning of the mind enkindle
Eye, action, word, and tone.

It waits not for Death's ferryman to row us
O'er the dark waters to a port unknown,
But in our dreams Elysium can show us.
Or Pluto's gloomy throne.

Oh! call not unsubstantial—but a vapor—
That which can stir the heart's unsounded deep,
And prompt Ambition, by his midnight taper,
Long, wasting watch to keep;

Can vivify, exalt, refine, transfigure—
Of true impassioned eloquence the source,
From which cold fact derives a pulse of vigor,
Mere words, victorious force.

Unreal? no! in transport it unites us
To climes of milder sky and purer air,
And with a sweet, persuasive tongue invites us
To taste of nectar there.

Dry learning, force, and logical acumen
Would not hand Plato down from age to age,
Did not this god-like attribute illumine
His philosophic page.

Prose must be pregnant with its spirit burning,
Or in some dusky nook aside be flung,
Even some patient antiquary spurning
The place with cobwebs hung.

Its royal stamp can never be mistaken
On works that bear the searching test of time,
Alike emblazoned on the page of Bacon
And Chaucer's rude old rhyme.

Costly morocco, clasp and gilded cover,
Will not avail a barren book to save,
And black Lethean waters soon close over
Its unrecorded grave.

Ethereal sparks must flash through what is written
To make an author's name a household word
On loving lips, though states with wreck are smitten,
In court and cottage heard.

A pensioned press and critical pretenders
May give the vapid passport for a day,
But when assailed by merit's true defenders
It melts like mist away.

The product must be genuine, or fashion
And shifting taste will prove it worse than vain;
The mocking forms of counterfeited passion
Impress nor heart, nor brain.

A vivid outline must be first engendered,
Forerunner of a ripening into deed;
To mortal work was never homage rendered
That did not thus proceed.

Our inward eye beholds the stately building
Ere corner-stone is laid, or hammer rings,
Hall, winding stair, and chambers rich in gilding,
Base, buttress, tower and wings.

Language provides poor symbols of expression
When roused Imagination, holding reign,
Sends airy forms of grace in vast procession
Across the poet's brain.

An Orphic tongue would be too weak an agent
To tell the tale of inspiration's hour;
To paint an outline of the gorgeous pageant—
A Titian have no power.

The meagre, written record of the closet
Saves but a few, pale glimmering pearls—no more—
When the lashed waves roll inland to deposit
Their wealth along the shore.

Within, a stream of poesy is gushing
That spoken word would freeze in its wild flow,
And lovelier tints the current deep are flushing
Than art will ever know.

The Queen of Beauty and her blushing daughters
In Crathis bathed—that old poetic stream—
And each dark ringlet from the sparkling waters
Imbibed an amber gleam.

Thus thoughts that send and will send on forever,
From the dim plains of long-ago, a light
Caught from Imagination's golden river
Their glow divinely bright.

When done with life, its fever, din and jostle,
How scant and poor a portion after all
Of Nature's Priest and Art's renowned Apostle
Lies hid beneath the pall.

Though grazing herd and hosts with clanging sabres
Their graves forgotten trample rudely o'er,
To tribes and nations, through their crowning labors,
They speak for evermore.

Oh! Genius! dowered with privilege immortal,
Thus from the wastes of time to stretch thy hand,
And, with a touch, unfold the glittering portal
Of an enchanted land!

Death knows thee not, though long ago were blended
Thy bones with indistinguishable clay,
The dead are they whose mission here is ended—
Thy voice is heard to-day.

Heard on the honeyed lip of Juliet melting—
In dreaming Richard's cry of guilty fear;
In shouts that rise above the night-storm pelting
From old distracted Lear.

Heard in the organ-swell of Milton pealing—
In Gray's elegiac sorrow for the past—
In flute-notes from the muse of Spencer stealing,
And Dryden's bugle-blast!

Heard in the matchless works of thy creation,
Speaking from canvass, scroll, and marble lips,
In those deep, awful tones of inspiration
That baffle death's eclipse.

THEMES OF SONG.

INSCRIBED, WITH GRATEFUL RECOLLECTIONS, TO HON. JOHN GREIG, OF CANANDAIGUA.

Where lives the soul of Poetry? It dwells
In the lone desert, where no fountain wells
Speaks in the Kamsin's blast, dread foe of man,
That overthrows the luckless caravan,
And in a tomb, unknown to friendship, hides
The toiling camels and their Arab guides;
Dwells in the boiling mælstrom deep and dark,
That roars a dismal warning to the bark,
And lingers where volcanic mountains throw
A burning deluge on the vale below.

Where lives the soul of Poetry? Dark caves,
Worn by the foamy buffeting of waves;
The blue abysses of the moaning sea,
Where coral insects fashion dome and tree,
And mermaids chant, by mortal eye unseen,
And comb in sparry halls their tresses green;
The broad savannah, where the bison strays,
And come in herds the fallow-deer to graze;
The mossy forest, far from haunts of men,
Where the wild wolf prepares his savage den;
The giant Andes, round whose frosty peaks
The tempest hovers and the condor shrieks;
Cold, cheerless Greenland, where the ice-berg hoar
Strikes with a deafening crash the barren shore,
While roves the white fox, and the polar bear,
In quest of prey, forsakes his icy lair;
Bright tropic bowers, within whose depths of green
The pard and savage tiger lurk unseen;

Where the fierce scales of deadly reptiles shine,
While round the trunks of giant palms they twine;
The spicy groves of Araby, the blest,
In fadeless robes of bloom and verdure drest,
Where birds of gorgeous plumage perch and sing
In varied strains, or wander on the wing;
Romantic Persia, where the dulcet lay
Of the glad Peri never dies away;
While the light pinions of the wooing wind
Fan the young leaves of date and tamarind,
And nightingales, amid the branches throng,
Own the glad presence of the soul of Song.

The rich, warm hues, that flush the western cloud
When yellow twilight weaves her glorious shroud;
The babbling cascade, that descends in foam
And flashing beauty from its rocky home;
The mingling tones of laughing earth and air,
When morn braids purple in her golden hair;
The dance of leaves, the lulling fall of rain,
The river, on its journey to the main;
The quiet lakes, that spread their sheets of blue,
A sweet enchantment lending to the view;
The fierce tornado, parent of dismay,
Uprooting sylvan giants in his way;
The lulling winds of summer, or the blast
That howls a requiem when the leaf is cast;
The pearly moonshine of an autumn night,
When glen and glade are bathed in spectral light,
And lawn of spring, with varied flowers inwrought,
Are the pure nurses of poetic thought.

Go where Parnassus lifts his hoary brow,
Though classic Delphi lies in ruin now,
And the grim robber lurks, with wary eye,
Round the rich fount of storied Castaly;
Stroll where the walks of Tempe, broad and green,
Proud Ossa and Olympus spread between,

While through bright bowers the swift Peneus strays,
And foamy tribute to Ægean pays.
The bearded corsair, chants in foreign tongue,
Where the blind King of epic grandeur sung;
No voice of onset rises from the plain,
Where rapt Tyrteus woke the martial strain;
Thine isle, oh, Sappho! mourning waters gird,
But there no music like thine own is heard;
Where the proud mother hurried to the field
Her only son, and giving him a shield,
Said, with an accent of heroic joy,
“Bring, or be brought upon it back, my boy!”
Now Grecian girls their tinkling rebecks string,
And the soft magic of the blind god sing—
By moonlight gaily link their rosy hands,
And dance the glad Romaika on the sands.
In beauty still the tumbling billows break
On the lone shore of Lerna's reedy lake,
Still the green olive trembles in the breeze,
Though there no Hydra roves—no Hercules;
Pactolus glides, to deathless beauty wed,
But gold no longer flashes in his bed—
Above that sea the sky still looks divine,
Where Delos darted from the cradling brine—
The tide yet sweeps where blushing Venus rose,
But Triton there his horn no longer blows.
Go where the top of old Hymettus towers,
Haunt of the bee, and odorous with flowers,
While far below, the cool Cephissus winds;
A name of kindling fire to classic minds,
Pause, where the streams of wooded Ida flow,
Though guardian naiads fled, long, long ago:
The verdant sides of dewy Latmos climb,
Rich in the precious lore of olden time,
Where star-girt Dian, from her throne of blue,
Came down the young Endymion to woo—

Stand on old hills that overlook the seas,
Though gone their nymphs, the wild Oreades—
In fancy view the dolphin cleave the wave,
And bear the minstrel from a watery grave;
Hear proud Amphion wake his master-tone,
And give life, joy, mobility to stone;
On old Egina fix your kindling glance—
Round Athens linger in poetic trance—
The sacred groves of fallen Greece explore,
Home of the laughing Dryades no more,
And own, although her star of power hath set,
The soul of kingly Song is present yet.

The sun looks fondly on the crumbling dome,
And fallen pile of desecrated Rome,
And the wan moon her horn of silver fills,
To bathe in dazzling light her seven hills—
As rolled his wave when Italy was free,
Still rolls old father Tiber to the sea:
Morn on his breast a red enchantment throws,
His waves still blush when day is near its close,
And floating sweetly through majestic trees,
Come the wild songs of herdsmen on the breeze.
Though creeping ivy veils imperial wrecks,
And the dark brow of victor Ruin decks—
Though nodding weeds of loneliness are high
Where marble triumphs of the chisel lie—
Though the dark bat and solitary toad.
Find in the hall of Cæsar an abode
No longer hung with hostile banners furled—
And trophies wrested from a subject world—
Though wall-flowers grow beside the prostrate shrine,
And mingling piles that cumber Palatine,
A voice of many tones goes up from wave,
Dark ruin, storied haunt, and green old grave.
It whispers of past triumphs, when the street
Was strewn with flowery carpets for the feet;

When wreathy clouds of grateful incense rose
From smoking altars, white as drifted snows:
When horse and foot went by with iron clang;
While the shrill trump and brazen clarion rang—
When came the captive host and spoils of war
Behind the victor in his glittering car,
With golden ball, refulgent on his breast,
In flowing robes of kingly purple drest.

A voice goes up from Numa's sacred mount,
Deserted temple and neglected fount,
From snowy columns piled in fluted heaps,
And the round tomb, where proud Metella sleeps;
From emptied urn, and broken arch of stone
That breathes a saddening tale of glory gone:
That voice, like echo in sepulchral halls,
On the quick ear of musing genius falls,
His spirit pluming for a flight sublime,
While round him rise the wasting wrecks of time.
Where Brutus bared the steel, Childe Harold heard
That voice of mourning, and his soul was stirred,
Swept his proud harp beneath Ausonian skies,
And woke his wildest, sweetest melodies.
When music trembled on the evening breeze,
And moonbeams lighted architrave and frieze,
Within the lofty Coliseum stood,
The Lord of Newstead, in his saddest mood,
On the square block and corridor beheld
The mark of Vandal, and the stain of eld,
While the pale light through broken arches stole,
To deck decay and beautify the whole.
The Pilgrim thought of men ignobly brave,
The purpled master, and submissive slave,
Whose voices wildly mingled in one yell
Of savage pleasure when some victim fell.
Fresh grew his memory of those golden days,
When Flaccus chanted his immortal lays—

Gave point and polish to satiric shaft,
While glad Apollo praised his skill and laughed;
When tuneful Maro, epic monarch, strung
His lyre of deathless harmony and sung:
The daring pinion of his fancy spread,
And fadeless lustre on old Ilium shed:
When graceful Tully in the forum spoke,
Enkindled anger, or amazement woke,
While the fell traitor, pale with terror, heard
The knell of crime in each denouncing word.
Back on his mind came that terrific night
When dreaming thousands woke in wild affright;
When the loud blast of Gothic trumpets fell
On Roman ears of hope the horrid knell,
And through rent gates, with lance and lifted sword,
Came Alaric, the mighty, and his horde.
Oh, dreadful hour! when startled Tiber ran
Red with the light of flames and blood of man,
When blazing domes changed darkness into day;
Enticing Lust to Innocence his prey.
Where was thy matchless race of iron men,
Thy victor Eagle, Queen of Empires, then?
What strange mutation in thy heart was wrought?
Thy children trembled where their fathers fought—
Thy Bird of Conquest, like a timid thing,
With drooping neck and darkly folded wing,
Saw kneeling matrons, red with infant gore,
In vain the wild barbarian implore.

Though Rome is fallen from her high estate,
Her grandeur gone, her palace desolate;
Although her haughty flag no longer flings
On trampled lands the shadow of its wings,
She is the home of memories that stir
With inspiration all who visit her;
The wondrous magnet of thy world, oh, Thought!
By wisdom haunted, and by scholar sought

Where the proud sons of Taste and Science find
Forever spread the festival of mind.
The sibyl of Egeria hath fled—
Where Cato trod assassins boldly tread—
Across her bridge that spans the troubled tide
Pomp moves no longer with colossal stride—
Gone are the genii of her bowers and plains,
But the sweet soul of deathless Song remains.

Land of the Holy Sepulchre! thou art
The noblest theme to rouse poetic heart,
For every rock beneath thy glowing sky
Rang with the awful tones of prophecy:
On the bright mountains of thy clime have trod
The sweet, seraphic messengers of God—
With the pure presence of that Lamb who died
To save a world thy rivers are allied:
Within thy bowers, and groves of beauty rare,
His meek disciples have knelt down in prayer;
The dying martyr, in exulting strains
Hath sung of triumph on thy sacred plains,
And saints have often meekly bent the knee
On the green shore of breezy Galilee.

Through wasted vales, in rich barbaric garb,
The haughty emir guides his flying barb;
Above the sod of apostolic graves
The pallid glory of the crescent waves—
Where the swift Arnon in his channel foams
The dusky reader of the Koran roams;
Where Carmel rises, rich in sacred lore,
Goes up the smoke of sacrifice no more—
The sons of Islam pitch their tents of snow
Where rang the harp and timbrel long ago;
Where the winged angel woke the dreaming wave,
And healing power to cool Bethesda gave.
The cry of “Allah!” on each wind that blows,
Is borne where Sharon gloried in her rose,

Where Hermon shone, with heavenly dew-drops wet,
And beauty made her home on Olivet.
Though on the banks of Jordan now are mute
The notes of sackbut, dulcimer, and lute,
Still the proud cedar lifts his verdant cone,
And makes the top of Lebanon his throne.
Bright robes of glory still invest the place,
Where dwelt the parents of the human race,
Still Horeb towers whereon the Prophet stood
When the mad whirlwind shook the crashing wood,
Heard the loud thunder in the vaulted sky,
And knew Jehovah by his flashing eye.
Oh, words are feeble vehicles of thought
To paint a clime where miracles were wrought,
Unless the tongue that gives them voice can sing
Like rapt Isaiah or the Shepherd-King.

Go where the Nile, to slake the torrid sand,
Leaps from his bed, and overflows the land—
Where the red sun-burst of the morning hour
The harp of Memnon woke with mystic power—
Where lofty Science from her cradle sprung,
And over Greece her burning mantle flung;
Where infant Sculpture made the marble warm,
To wondrous sphinx and hippogrif gave form—
Where Memphis boasted of her wealth untold
Her spacious halls of porphyry and gold:
Where the proud Queen of Victors brightly wove
Round Roman hearts the matchless spell of love,
Lifted the gilded beaker to her lip,
In one proud draught the wealth of kings to sip—
Lay on her blazing couch of queenly rest,
By Cupids fanned, voluptuously drest,
While her swift galley down the Cydnus flew
Rich in its freight, and sail of purple hue,

Spread out by winds that bore the tone of lute,
And the low warblings of the dulcet flute.
O, mourning Mother of lost arts! thy name
Stirs with unwonted sympathy my frame—
Wakes in my heart affection's holiest thrill,
Although thy ruins whiten vale and hill.
I know that Turkish conquest in a day
Thy heaps of letter'd wisdom swept away,
That turbaned pachas wield the scourging rod
Where Ptolemy and proud Sesostris trod,
But still thy fount of lore by learning sought,
Gives sight to blindness, and a glow to thought.

In fancy visit that neglected site
Where Carthage rose in majesty and might,
By Dido founded on old Afric's strand,
With Neptune subject to her dread command.
That chief recall who left his ocean home
To battle for the mastery with Rome—
Across the frosty Alps his legions led,
While kingdoms shook beneath his iron tread—
Recall her peerless ships of old renown
That long ago beneath the wave went down—
Think of her awful destiny, and pour
A wail for grandeur that will live no more
No vestige lingers of her triple walls,
Her flanking-towers, her storm-proof arsenals;
Of her strong bulwarks, sword, and fire, and time,
To charm the gaze, have left no wreck sublime;
The laurel crown is faded on her brow—
Amid her ruins sits no Marius now;
For empire lost, and glory in the grave
There is no mourner, save the chainless wave.

Ye solemn cities of the dead!—bereft
Of brightness, being; ye have something left—
A power to wake the pulses of the soul,
And back the darkling tide of ages roll—

A charm that robs pale silence of his chain,
And fills with light the chambers of the brain;
A talismanic witchery that calls
The shrouded mighty from their charnel halls,
Fills air with regal spectres, while the hand
Of buried magic grasps a broken wand—
Calls the fierce chieftain from forgotten tomb,
With breast-plate, greave, strong helm, and nodding plume,
To wake with trump wan multitudes of slain,
And lead them madly to the field again.
Ye haunts of lofty musing! though the flood
Of wild invasion merged your pomp in blood,
Though column huge and obelisk of taste
Lie darkly buried in the sandy waste,
Though the tall ostrich flaps his stately wings,
And bitterns boom above the dust of kings—
Though in your courts the ministers of death
Breathe on the wind their pestilential breath,
Ye have a mystic potency of spell
That sways the bosom to its inmost cell,
A magic lamp that sheds redeeming day
On desolation, darkness, and decay.

Romantic Spain, for years of glory flown,
Breathes on the wind her melancholy moan;
No more the pennon of her Cid will wave
Its green, triumphant folds above the brave,
But roving fancy, in her olive bowers,
To charm mankind still culls poetic flowers—
Finds tale of wonder on her lonely strand,
And warlike legend in her mountain-land—
Strolls where Granada lifts her verdant hill
On which the tall Alhambra glitters still
Rich in its fret-work, and mosaic floor,
That echoes back the tread of kings no more.
On the fair banks of gentle Rio Verde,

In dreams again the Moorish horn is heard,
While Leon, waking with a battle shout,
Lifts the red lance, and flings her banner out.

Land of the Claymore, and the rugged rock,
Burn, broomy knowe, gray cairn, and stormy loch,
On the proud altar of thy bardic fame
Full brightly burns imperishable flame!
With partial art Apollo tuned thy lyre,
And tone celestial gave each trembling wire;
No brighter stars within his temple shine,
Land of the pibroch and the plaid, than thine!
No more thy Fingal, when the camp is still,
Moves in his armor on the windy hill,
With ghostly Trenmor dialogue to hold,
While awfully roll back the times of old.
No more the sons of woody Morven throng
With shield and helmet to the hall of song,
Call on the bard to weave his mystic spells,
And lend enchantment to the feast of shells;
Borne on the pinions of the hollow blast,
No more dark Loda's spirit journeys past,
But Ossian lives, and in his bardic crown
Gleams the rich germ of thy mature renown.

Thy heart within its greenest cell inurns
The lasting, lofty memory of Burns,
And proudly throbs when seek the pilgrim throng
His lowly cot and scenery of his song—
Stand on the banks of wooded Ayr, or tune
Their harps to praise him in the bowers of Doon.
Thy sad, decaying fabrics of the past,
Gloom on the relics of the mighty cast—
Fair Melrose Abbey holds in solemn trust
The heart of Bruce and Douglas, changed to dust;
The roof of Dryburg bends above the place
Where rest lost scions of a noble race,
And the fresh grave where Scott lies darkly shrined,
The crowning rose in thy proud wreath of mind.

Tweed, Carron, Nith, Sweet Clyde, romantic Dee,
And all thy streams that journey to the sea—
Ben Nevis, Lomond, Cruachan, Cairn-Gorm,
And all thy peaks that battle with the storm—
Thy yawning caves, green shaws, romantic dells,
Where brownies gather, and the warlock dwells,
And lonely moors, with heather overspread,
His muse to immortality hath wed.

Land of the Shamrock! Island of the Brave!
Thy broad, green fields are trodden by the slave,
But my weak hand one flower of song will cast
On the dark tomb that hides thy buried past.
Dim is thy 'scutcheon with obscuring dust,
And dark thy spear with thick, corroding rust;
The sword of Brefni, with its terror gone,
Hangs in its scabbard, blunted and undrawn;
No garland braids thy brow of settled gloom—
Thy red-haired chieftain hath a noteless tomb—
No banner floats from Tara's mouldered walls,
And heard no more is harping in thy halls.
Gone is the child who wept thy waning day,
Woke on thy mournful shore funeral lay,
Flowing so wildly sweet to mortal ear,
That even mailed oppression paused to hear;
The gate of grandeur and the cottage door
Are open flung to welcome him no more—
Thy lonely exile under distant skies,
Starts at the name of Carolan and sighs—
True bard who perished, warbling to life's close
Thy song of sorrow and thy tale of woes.

Oh, Erin! yet a pulse beats in thy soul—
To earth thy hand hath dashed the damning bowl—
One tear is wiped from off thy cheek of woe,
Pledge that thy star another morn will know;
Though bondage, block, foul treason and the sword,
A gory deluge on thy brows have poured,

The flower of genius, watered by thy tears,
Blooms mid the pleading wrecks of former years.
Swept by a Moore, the harp of Innisfail
Gives out complaining murmurs to the gale;
He found the matchless instrument unstrung.
On its cold frame the spider's web-work hung—
Beneath his hand, from chords for ages hushed,
Rich streams of wild, delicious music gushed.
Oh! may the minstrel, ere he looks his last
On thy green fields, revived, behold the past—
Thy Sun-Burst glittering on the gale once more—
The long night ended, and thy heart-ache o'er,
While brave men, wronged, march forth in stern array
To roll from glory's tomb the stone away.

Thy Curran, Grattan, Sheridan, and Flood,
In the bright vanguard of the mighty stood,
And roused to rend thy unrelaxing chain
The thunders of their eloquence in vain.
In bondage thus thou givest birth to sons
Whom earth enrols among her peerless ones;
What will thy children be when they awake,
And every strand in grief's black cable break?
Lamps in the hall of learning to the blind,
Gems of the world—bright polar stars of mind!
Too long have sable vestments wrapped thy form:
Too long howled round thy naked head the storm:
In Freedom's temple, rescued from disgrace,
The Lear of nations yet shall find a place.

The peerless isle that gave our fathers birth,
Hath many spots of consecrated earth;
Though victor time, in his remorseless march,
Hath worn the cloister dim, and Gothic arch—
Left stain of darkness on the tomb of pride,
Where strength and beauty slumber side by side.
Trace back her story to that distant day,
When tuneful Merlin woke the bardic lay,

And the wild Briton, in his savage car,
Met, with bare breast, the Roman shock of war.
No daring son of Cader Idris, now
Sleeps in the cavern, on his rocky brow,
While wizards string his harp with glowing chords,
And give his tongue the gift of burning words;
But the rude pile of Stonehenge still uprears
Colossal fragments dark with cloudy years;
Each rugged rock of Druidism tells—
Shrines red with gore, and wild, unholy spells.
No more the priest, in robe of snowy fold,
Climbs the tall oak with knife of gleaming gold,
And cuts, while chant the mystic throng below,
Balm for all ill, the precious mistletoe.
No more the victim vainly shrieks for aid,
The groves of Mona in the dust are laid,
And the bright Star of Bethlehem sheds light
On the dense vapor of Druidic night.

No more Old England hears, in good greenwood,
The merry bugle of her Robin Hood;
His bow is broken, and entombing mould
Roofs the dark mansion of his outlaws bold;
From her green glens, like misty shapes, have gone
The merry court of monarch Oberon.
No more the gaze of wondering Romance
Beholds her fairy throng prolong the dance,
When mellow star-light gives a lustrous glow
To Cam and gentle Avon as they flow:
No more beholds her knight throw down the glove,
And couch the lance to please his lady-love—
Tilt in the tourney against fearful odds,
While beauty waves her 'kerchief and applauds.
No more her Richard draws the fatal sword,
To smite the fiery Soldan and his horde,
But castled wrecks of feudal grandeur still
Crown with their mossy battlements, her hill,

And airy Fable seeks old haunted springs
To gem with dew her ever-changing wings;
Her gray, monastic ruins, darkly keep
Their lonely vigils on her blooming steep;
Her princely homes, round which the ivy twines,
Tell olden tales of her baronial lines,
When winking mirth on Valor fondly gazed,
Then to his lip the cup of wassail raised—
Or murder bared his deadly knife, and found
Tomb for his prey in dungeons under ground.
On battle plain where now the heifer feeds,
The clang of armor and the rush of steeds,
At midnight startle the belated swain,
And chill the red warm current in his vein.

Oh, Land of Inspiration! where the Nine
Came to uprear an everlasting shrine,
When blood was mingled with Castalian dew,
And dark with cloud the sky of Hellas grew—
Thy queenly name and lion flag are known
From the parched Tropic to the frozen zone.
What true descendant of the Pilgrim stock,
Who shouted “freedom!” on the Plymouth Rock,
Feels not true pride, green jewel of the sea,
To think he drew his parentage from thee?
Well may the children of thy rock-bound coast,
Tell of thy fame to every land, and boast,
“Here Chaucer wrote, and Spencer swept the lyre,
With tuneful ear and necromantic fire;
Here nursing Nature, with caresses fond,
To Shakespeare gave her wonder-working wand;
Smiled, when her idol, with one mighty stroke,
A boundless sea of thought and feeling woke;
Here the bright muse of Milton, spurning earth,
With angels sang, where light and life have birth;
Then flying downward, by an awful spell,
Laid bare the dreadful mysteries of Hell!

Though storied Europe, of the past may boast,
Her heirs of deathless fame, a countless host!
Presiding spirits over mount and vale,
Dark haunt of ghost, and legendary tale—
Tombs of the mighty, and the wrecks of art,
That stir, with mournful memories, the heart,
Our own free land is rich in glorious themes,
And lofty sources of poetic dreams.
Earth, that conceals the dust of patriot sires,
No pompous aid from fading art requires;
Above their bones no pyramid uprears
Its grand proportions mystical with years;
The mounds that mark the places of their rest,
Poetic rapture kindle in the breast;
Instil a love of country that will brave
Despotic wrath on land or rolling wave.
Their blood, by which our liberty was bought,
Hath sanctified the places where they fought;
And when the Muse of History unseals
Her mighty tome, deep, thrilling joy she feels
When pointing out, amid the names that fill
With light her fadeless pages, “Bunker Hill!”

We, too, have dark memorials of the past,
With cloudy robes of doubt around them cast!
And plodding science, to dispel the shade,
In vain calls wild conjecture to her aid.
Our western caves within their wombs of stone
Hide mortal wrecks, to memory unknown;
Bones of the mammoth, that appal the gaze,
Majestic relics of departed days!
And broad, green prairies, in their sweep infold
Vast mounds constructed by the tribes of old.

Where can the children of Apollo find
More lovely haunts to please romantic mind
Than those that grace our own green land of woods,
Fair skies, bright vales, and fertilizing floods?

Clad in the gaudy costume of his race,
Here the fleet red man panted in the chase,
Swept the light paddle, or in thickest shade
For painted foe the deadly ambush laid.
Here the broad boughs of sylvan giants wove
His green cathedral in the mossy grove—
Beneath its roof an altar-stone he raised,
And the Great Spirit of his people praised,
Read his kind mercy in the sun-light warm,
His anger in the whirl-wind and the storm.
Like some proud oak when lightning scathes the rind,
That lives awhile, then falls before the wind,
While fragrant flowers of evanescent dyes,
That loved its shadows, droop and close their eyes—
So when the whites applied the worm of grief
To the dark bosom of the Indian chief,
He fell a ruin, and his tribe in vain
Mourn for the limits of their old domain,
And broken-hearted, follow, one by one,
His path to isles below the setting sun.

Our mossy groves and mighty inland seas,
That bare their broad, blue bosoms to the breeze;
Our lofty hills, that guard the fruitful vale
Rich in tall forests bending to the gale;
Our mighty stretch of coast, from sea to sea,
Where man alone to God inclines the knee;
Where, free from gale, with canvass idly furled,
Might snugly moor the shipping of the world;
Our streams, embracing in their winding arms,
All that enchanted vision chains or charms;
And Niagara, when the storm is loud,
Who drowns the deep roar of the thunder-cloud,
Clad in his bright, magnificent array,
Of rain-bow, storm, white foam, and torrent spray,
Woo genius forth to win a crown of light,
And plume his pinion for an epic flight—

From air invoke divinities to guard
Glen, grot, and mountain, sacred to the bard.

The hand of fame no purer wreath can twine
Round mortal brow, sweet Poesy, than thine!
For blushing carnage and the tear of grief
Dim not the beauty of its fadeless leaf,
And the fresh odors of its bloom impart
Balm to the bitter ailments of the heart.
Who, who would fling thy precious flowers away,
To gird his temples with heroic bay,
Or tread in dust thy garland of renown
To snatch from pomp his regal robe and crown?
Oh, not true bard and holy, in whose breast
The wave of earthly passion is at rest!

When gentle Music, sister art, is mute—
Her viol broken, and unstrung her lute,
When the proud triumphs of the painter fade,
Lose their rich tinting, and grow dark with shade—
While Sculpture mourns her form of breathing stone,
By cruel change and Vandal overthrown,
While Taste beholds her fairest fabrics fall,
And o'er them Nature weave her ivied pall—
While charm the sons of Thespis for a day,
Then melt, like dew-drops of the night, away,
While Conquest moulders in his martial shroud,
A rayless star behind a dusky cloud—
While cities slumber in volcanic graves,
And isles of beauty sink beneath the waves,
The bright creations of the poet live,
And joy to passing generations give—
Borne on the wandering winds of every clime
Assault defying of decay and time.

Where is the Land of Song?—oh, not alone
To famous fields where War his trump hath blown
And Earth's proud places are its bounds confined:
It owns a royal empire in the mind:

Beyond the bright blue curtain of the skies,
Where living verdure fadeth not, it lies—
No clouds obscure the radiant prospect there,
And ever throbs with melody the air:
Oh, there, at last, a harp will minstrel wake
Whose silver chord no rending blast will break,
There, in full tide, will his free numbers flow,
There will his strain no dying cadence know.

Cleopatra.

THE PIONEERS OF WESTERN NEW YORK.

[_]

READ BEFORE THE LITERARY SOCIETIES OF GENEVA COLLEGE, AUGUST 1, 1838.

[_]

[This Poem was most kindly received on its “delivery,” as the phrase is, and a committee, consisting of several distinguished gentlemen, one of whom was my “most loved and honored friend,” the venerable John Greig, so eminent for every social and civic virtue, addressed the author the following request, which was complied with: “Dear Sir-The poem read by you this day, before the Literary Societies of Geneva College, and the numerous assemblage of citizens and strangers who attended the exercises at the College Commencement, was universally admired for its poetical beauties—for its appropriate description of the part of the country in which we reside, and of the perils and privations incident to its early settlement. Some of your friends among the old settlers, and their descendants, will be highly gratified to see the Poem published, and we solicit a copy for publication.”]

Our hardy pioneers, the men who—nursed
Amid the blooming fields of cultured lands—
Forsook the scenes of infancy, and first
With hearts of lofty daring and strong hands
Pierced old primeval groves—by hunter bands
And beasts of carnage tenanted alone—
And lit their camp fires on the lonely strands
Of lakes and seas, to geographer unknown,
Deserve the bard's high lay—the sculptor's proudest stone.

Noblest of human conquerors were they!
For, mighty though the bonds that bound the heart
To home and its endearments, far away
From mourning kindred and the crowded mart,
And earth for funeral uses set apart,
Where lay their honored dead in solemn rest,
They bore the precious seed of useful art
To wild, benighted regions of the West;
Since the creation-day in unpruned beauty dressed.

Let Ruin lift his arm, and crush in dust
The glittering piles and palaces of kings,
And, changing crown and sceptre into rust,
Doom them to sleep among forgotten things—
Let time o'ershadow with his dusky wings
Warriors who guilty eminence have gained,
And drank renown at red, polluted springs—
Sacked peaceful towns—the holy shrine profaned,—
And to their chariot wheels the groaning captive chained:—

But the self-exiled Britons who behind
Left Transatlantic luxuries, and gave
Their parting salutations to the wind,
And, scorning the vile languor of the slave,
Rocked with the little May Flower on the wave,
To immortality have prouder claim.
Let the bright Muse of History engrave
Their names in fadeless characters of flame,
And give their wondrous tale an everlasting fame.

No empty vision of unbounded power—
No dream of wild romance—no thirst for gold
Lured them from merry England's hall and bower—
Her Sabbath chime of bells, her hamlet old;
At home religious bigotry controlled
The struggling wing of thought; a gloomy cloud,
Charged with despotic wrath above them rolled;
And haunts they sought where man might walk unbowed,
And sacred truth might raise her warning voice aloud.

No waving flag, gay plume nor gleaming casque,
Proclaimed them masters of war's bloody trade:
Less daring spirits from the mighty task
In terror would have shrunken. Tender maid,
And daughter gently reared, for God to aid
Their feeble natures, breathed the words of prayer,
And in heaven's panoply their souls arrayed—
Speeding the good work on, though frail and fair,
When sterner manhood felt the faintness of despair.

Old Sparta in exulting tones may boast
Of ancient matrons who could deck the bier
Of sire and husband, slain where host met host,
And, in the flush of pride, forget the tear:
Our pilgrim mothers, too, could conquer fear,
And stifle sorrow; but their hearts enshrined
The soft affections: who loves not to hear
Their praises sung?—their constancy of mind,
Amid thy daughters, Greece, we strive in vain to find!

White lay the snow flakes on the lonely shore,
And winter flung his banner on the blast—
Behind swept angry waters; and before
Spread waving woods, dark, limitless and vast,
When a new continent received at last
Our houseless sires. The red-man, gaunt and grim.
On the strange scene his falcon vision cast;
And nameless terror shook his tawny limb
While, drowning ocean's roar, went up their triumph-hymn;

And when the bold survivors of that band
Reached the decaying autumn-time of life,
And locks were white, and palsied was the hand,
Barbaric swarms, with axe and deadly knife,
And painted, plumed and quivered for the strife,
Rushed from their trackless lairs to burn—despoil—
Butcher the cradled babe, the pleading wife;
Then swept the nodding harvest from the soil,
And scattered on the wind the fruits of patient toil.

The marble of Pentelicus, whereon
Exquisite taste majestically reared
The polished columns of the Parthenon,
By classic recollection is endeared;
But when its grandeur is no more revered—
Its peerless fabric gone,—the storied rock
On which our fathers landed, will be cheered
By grateful voices; and the ruffian-shock
Of billows, white with foam, its iron brow will mock.

The Pilgrim Spirit faded not in night
Like that misguiding lamp of frantic zeal
That led crusaders forth, in banded might,
To propagate christianity with steel,
In distant Palestine, and roll the wheel
Of bloody revolution: but its blaze
Thick clouds of war and storm could not conceal—
Round Lexington it poured undying rays,
And shamed the boasted deeds of old baronial days.

The Pilgrim Spirit! its converting power
And potent sway are felt wherever man
Is battling error in his hoary tower;
And virtue in defiance of the ban
Of popular opinion, leads the van
In purging guilty earth—where freedom dares
Unfurl his banner for the winds to fan;
And his dread sabre for the conflict bares,
Or, from despotic grasp, the rod of bondage tears.

The Pilgrim Spirit on our noble frame
Of government is written; for the road
That broadly leads to honorable fame
Lures humble merit from his rude abode,
Though lowly-born, and fainting with a load
Of wo and want, to struggle for the prize;
And proudly tread where gifted Sherman trode,
Or like great Franklin penetrate the skies,
And strip the blinding veil from nature's mysteries.

When the green, shrouding moss of time o'ercrept
Mounds in the vale and on the mountain side,
Where the stern founders of our empire slept,
Improvement moving with gigantic stride
Still hurried onward: patient labor plied
The ringing axe; and from his old domain
Fled drowsy solitude; while, far and wide,
The scene grew bright with fields of golden grain,
And orchards robed in bloom on hill and sunny plain.

The wand of enterprise to queenly states
Gave wondrous being; rivalling the spell
That reared round Thebes a wall of many gates
When proud Amphion swept his chorded shell,
The tuneful gift of Hermes: pastoral bell,
With tinkling murmurs, woke savannahs green,
And roused wild echoes in the woody dell,
Where late the cougar of terrific mien,
Devoured the fawn, or rocked upon his perch unseen.

With his penates, to the distant shores
Of our broad western streams, Adventure hied,
And pierced the soil for rich metallic ores,
Or with a keen, prophetic vision spied
An unborn mart upon the river-side;
While traffic trimmed her bark to brave the gale,
And met the terrors of a chartless tide—
In nameless havens furled her tattered sail,
Or toward Pacific seas, pursued the red man's trail.

The buskined lords of bow and leathern quiver
Were thy admiring sponsors long ago,
And named thee—“Genesee”—my native river,
For pleasant are thy waters in their flow!
Though on thy sides no bowers of orange grow,
The free and happy in thy valley throng,
O'er which the airs of health delight to blow—
No richer, brighter charms than thine belong
To streams immortal made by proud Homeric song.

Although thy tide that winds through pastures now,
By fleecy flock and lowing kine is drank,
A river of the wilderness wert thou,
When mixed in deadly combat on thy bank,
The yelling savage and impetuous Frank:
Thy wave lifts up no mourning voice to tell
Where the red, bubbling stream of carnage sank,
When rattling gun, loud groan, and fiendish yell,
Thy hollow murmur drowned, and gasping valor fell:

And Nature, in the moss of time attired,
On her green throne of forest sate, when came
The host of Sullivan, with vengeance fired,
To rouse upon thy shore the beast of game,
And wrap the lodges of fierce tribes in flame,
Fresh from unhappy Wyoming, and red
With scalps of hoary age and childless dame:
Gone from thy borders are the oaks that spread
Their yellow autumn palls above the martial dead.

Eastward the soldiers of that campaign bore
Glad tidings of unpruned but pleasant lands,
Washed by thy surges, like those spies of yore
Who brought ripe grapes from Eshcol to the bands
By Moses led across the desert sands.
Regardless of the sons of Anak, soon
Bold men of dauntless hearts, and iron hands
Left home, while life was in its active noon,
To hear the forest-wind thy flood's deep voice attune.

They fled not, like scourged vassals in the night,
From dungeon, rack, and chain, with footstep fleet:
The halls of their nativity were bright,
And fraught with recollections, fond and sweet,
Of childish hours; and hearts that loved them beat
Beneath their pleasant roofs:—forsaking all—
They roused the wood-wolf from his dim retreat,
And boldly reared the gloomy cabin wall
Of rude, misshapen logs, amid the forest tall.

They little thought, while roving near the site
Of thy proud City, deafened by the sound
Of waters tumbling from a fearful height,
And darkened by the wilderness around,
That soon its hollow roaring would be drowned
By the deep murmur of the mighty crowd,
Amid thick domes, with tower and turret crowned;
The din of whirling ears, and clatter loud
Of mills by human art with iron lungs endowed:

Nor did they dream that, in communion grand,
Broad Erie's wave, and Hudson's mighty tide,
Within a channel shaped by mortal hand,
Ere half a century elapsed, would glide:
That soon fair Buffalo, in queenly pride,
Would spring the Carthage of our inland seas,
And wave her sceptre o'er the waters wide—
To shipping change the patriarchal trees,
And launch a thousand barks to battle with the breeze.

The foreign tourist, gazing on thy vale,
By rural seat and stately mansion graced,
Stands mute with wonder when he hears the tale
Of thy redemption from the sylvan waste:
That only fifty years their rounds have traced
Since Phelps, the Cecrops of thy realm, forsook
The peopled haunts of genius, art, and taste;
While doubting friends with apprehension shook,
And love upon his form fixed sad, regretful look.

On the broad, green acclivities that round
The lovely lake of Canandaigua rise,
The groves in deep, majestic grandeur frowned,
Hiding their gloomy secrets from the skies,
And scarred and worn by storms of centuries,
When painted hordes with streaming locks of jet,
Terrific garb, and wildly glancing eyes,
Him and his daring band in treaty met,
Though late with Christian gore the tomahawk was wet.

A magic mirror girt by emerald,
In shade embowered, the diamond waters lay;
While the proud eagle, king-like, fierce, and bald,
Throned on the blasted hemlock, eyed his prey:
Sweet wild-flowers, guarded from the blaze of day,
Delicious odor on the soft air flung;
And birds of varied note and plumage gay
On shrubs and vines, with ripening berries hung,
Folded their glittering wings, and amorously sung.

The water rat—and darting otter swam
Amid the reedy flags that fringed the shore;
And the brown beaver to his rounded dam
With patient toil, the tooth-hewn sapling bore.
The lonely heron, surfeited with gore,
Smoothed on the pebbly beach his plumage dank:
Earth, sky, and wave an air of wildness wore,
And nimbly down the green and sloping bank,
Came stag and timid hind, on silver hoof, and drank.

The pen of voiceful narrative may well,
That solemn congress in the forest call
A thrilling and romantic spectacle:
The trunks of oaken monarchs, huge and tall,
Were the rough columns of their council-hall;
Thick bows were interwoven overhead,
And winds made music with their leafy pall:
Below, a tangled sea of brushwood spread,
Through which, to far-off wild, the beaten war-path led.

Few were the whites in number, and about
The council fire were gathered dusky throngs
From whose dark bosoms time had not washed out
The bitter memory of recent wrongs.
Some longed to wake their ancient battle songs,
And on the reeking spoils of conflict gaze—
Bind the pale captive to the stake with thongs,
And hellish yells of exultation raise,
While shrivelled up his form, and blackened in the blaze.

The compact for a cession of their land
Was nearly ended, when a far-famed chief
Rose with the lofty bearing of command,
Though lip and brow denoted inward grief:
Nought broke the silence save the rustling leaf
And the low murmur of the lulling wave;
He drew his blanket round him, and a brief,
But proud description of his fathers gave,
Then spoke of perished tribes, and glory in the grave.

“And who be ye”—he said, in scornful tones,
And glance of kindling hate—“who offer gold
For hunting grounds made holy by the bones
Of our great seers and sagamores of old?
Men who would leave our hearths and altars cold—
Unstring the bow, and break the hunting spear—
Our pleasant huts with sheeted flame infold,
Then drive our starving, wailing race in fear
Beyond the western hills like broken herds of deer!”

“Wake, On-gue-hon-we! strike the painted post,
And gather quickly for the conflict dire;
Yon Long Knives are forerunners of a host
Thick as the sparks when prairies are on fire:
Let childhood grasp the weapon of his sire—
Arm, arm for deadly struggle, one and all,
While wives and babes to secret haunts retire:
The ghosts of buried fathers on ye call
To guard their ancient tombs from sacrilege, or fall!”

Dark forms rose up, and brows began to lower,
While many a savage eye destruction glared;
But one came forth in that portentous hour
Ere shaft was aimed, or dagger fully bared,
And hushed the storm:—old Honneyawus dared
His voice upraise; and by his friendly aid
The knife was sheathed—the pioneer was spared.
Above that humane warrior of the shade
Let marble tell the tale in lines that cannot fade.

Tribes of the solemn League! from ancient seats
Swept by the whites like autumn leaves away,
Faint are your records of heroic feats,
And few the traces of your former sway;
Loved woodland haunts, deep, shadowy and gray,
No longer wave defiance to the roar
And rush of whirlwinds 'mid their cool retreats;
The wild beast harbors in their depths no more,
And ploughmen turn the glebe they darkly clothed of yore.

Tribes of the mighty! dwindled to a few,
Dejected, trampled children of despair;
And only like their ancestors in hue,
And the wild beauty of their flowing hair;
With laughter rude inquisitors lay bare
The ghastly secrets of your green old graves,
To moulder, peacemeal, in dissolving air;
Forgetful of past glory, when your braves
Surrounding nations made poor, weak, dependant slaves.

Where are your hoary magi—wrinkled seers—
Clad in their dread apparelling, who made
Rude, rocky altars, stained and mossed with years,
And held terrific orgies in the shade?
Where is the pliant oar of slender blade
That urged the birchen vessel on the stream?
Your council halls with cedar bark o'erlaid?
Gone, like the shapes that populate a dream,
Or twinkling dew drank up by morn's effulgent beam.

And where those whooping legions, fierce and free,
Who back the tide of French invasion bore,
Defeating warriors trained beyond the sea,
And bathing guarded Montreal in gore?
Their day of power is ended, and no more
Ring out their pæans louder than the sound
Of booming waters on an iron shore,
While captive hundreds, bleeding, faint, and bound,
Expire in flame, or fall transpierced by many a wound.

Ye were wild Romans of this Western Land
When the far parent of our inland seas
Beheld your bowmen print his barren strand
Flushed with a thousand woodland victories;
And heard the war-shout on his frosty breeze,
While the red monarchs of the bleak domain
Bowed to your fierce supremacy their knees;
And when the scared Neperceneans of Maine
Sought Hudson's icy bay to shun the captive chain.

Where are your thrilling orators, who caught
Their eloquence from nature, and allied
Wild powers of fancy to the glow of thought,
And grace of gesture to ancestral pride?
Their sylvan voices on the wind have died:
And your last master of the honeyed tone,
Commanding port and gesture dignified,
No longer wails an empire overthrown,
And near his couch of dust, Niagara makes moan.

All hail our early settlers! though with storm
Their sky of being was obscured and black,
And Peril, in his most appalling form,
Opposed their rugged march, and warned them back;
They faltered not, nor fainted in the track
That led to empire; but with patience bore
Cold, parching thirst, and fever's dread attack;
While ancient twilight, to return no more,
From far Otsego fled to Erie's rock-bound shore.

They toiled, though Hunger with his wasted mien,
Stalked through their infant settlements, and night
Lured from the gloomy cavern, gaunt and lean,
Droves of disturbing wolves that hated light,
Some wan and trembling mourner to affright
With their dismaying howls, around the place
Where, coldly still, and newly hid from sight,
Earth folded loved ones in her damp embrace,
Without recording tomb, their forest mounds to grace!

From clearing rude, and dismal swamp undrained,
Fumes of decaying vegetation rose;
While the fell Genius of Distemper reigned,
And filled the newly-opening realm with woes;
Brave Manhood smiting—though his lusty blows
Tall ranks of warrior-oaks in dust had bowed,—
And robbing widowed Beauty of her rose,
Or weaving, while the voice of wail was loud,
Round childhood, early-lost, the drapery of the shroud.

On his low couch of suffering, ere death
Cooled the mad fever of his throbbing vein,
And hushed the hoarse, deep rattling of his breath,
In dreams the settler homeward went again;
And absent comrades of his youth, in vain,
While sped the weary hours, invoked to quell
The burning, beating pulses of his brain,
And darkness from his blinded orbs dispel,
In tones too wildly strange for words to picture well.

Born in the lap of plenty and of wealth
Mindless too oft are children of the sire
Who purchased, at the fearful price of health—
And even life, their heritage!—the lyre
Should call forth music from its proudest wire
In praise of men who brave, to bless their kind,
Tempest, the sword, foul pestilence and fire;
Their names in grateful hearts should be enshrined,
When crumbled are their bones—their ashes on the wind:

And those who left the venerated breast,
And soil of proud New England, to reclaim
Our smiling El Dorado of the West
From centuries of gloom, and haunts of game
Change to Arcadian loveliness, and tame
The virgin rudeness of the shaded mould,
Should not be unremembered:—on the same
Eternal page where Fame, in lines of gold,
Hath pilgrim virtue traced, their names should be enrolled.

Their triumphs are around us:—lawn and mead,
Spreading their verdant carpets far away
Whereon the flock and lowing heifer feed,
And the gay yeoman trills his rustic lay,
Were hidden lately from the glance of day,
And ranged by untamed animals of chase;
While yon fair sheet of limpid waters lay,
Known only to a roving hunter race,
A bright, neglected gem within a desert place.

Now, Art leaves shining footprints on the shore,
And, “dancing to their own sweet minstrelsy,”
The waves, like vassals, kiss the flashing oar
That speeds the barge of commerce; while the sky
Bends over domes that lift bright roofs on high,
Raised by a spell than hers more wondrous far
Who woke the seer at Endor—glancing eye
Beholds no child of want, the scene to mar,
And on no fairer spot look down sun, moon and star.

Offspring of worthy sires! while wave and land
To make ye blest their treasuries unlock,
And glory beckons with inviting hand,—
Cherish the graces of the parent stock.
While shoal, entangling reef, and hidden rock
Wreck nations floating on a factious sea,
Too much abased to brave the whelming shock,—
Here the bright wing of lordly thought is free,
And no imbruted serf to pomp inclines the knee.

Be Pioneers of mind! with glowing eye
Pierce wilds of doubt, and streams of darkness ford;
Within the boundless realms of knowledge lie
Neglected gems in cave and grotto stored,
Bright Cyprian Isles, and Edens unexplored!
Those laurelled kings of science, who have won
The highest peaks of wisdom, sloth abhorred:
While birds of night the dazzling noontide shun,
Young eagles flap the cloud, and look upon the sun.

The world unfolds its portals! from the bowers
Of cloistered learning go ye forth, while youth
Wreathes round the brow a coronal of flowers,
And far and wide extend the bounds of truth;
Let not demoniac vice, with venomed tooth,
Destroy ennobling principle, and nurse
The germ of future crime, remorse and ruth;
Bliss is the meed of virtue, but a curse
Falls on the wretch who blights the Moral Universe.

Rochester.

Lake Superior.

Red Jacket.

THE PROSPECTS OF THE AGE.

[_]

READ BEFORE THE LITERARY SOCIETIES OF THE UNIVERSITY OF VERMONT, AUGUST 3, 1841.

While lettered idlers turn the mouldy page
For dreamy records of a Golden Age,
Ere the dark seed of mortal ill was sown,
And crime and want and misery were known—
When ancient Pan attuned his classic reeds,
And faun and dryad danced on flowery meads;
Regret the fate, with aspect cold and sour,
That makes them insects of the present hour,
Born like the leaf or herb to pass away,
Heirs of disease and premature decay,
Ours be the nobler task to scan aright
The prospects opening in this AGE OF LIGHT.

Now is the hallowed time!—from Heaven a voice
Calls on the race of Adam to rejoice;—
Roused by the glad, regenerating sound,
The startled bondsman wakes, and looks around;
While, one by one, the clouds begin to roll
From the long veiled horizon of his soul,
He asks his Lord, with stern, undaunted eye:
“Why chained these limbs, and thine unshackled—why?
Alike the dusty atoms are that form
Our grosser parts, my haughty brother worm!
Alike the laws that govern our career
From the low cradle to the darkened bier:
Great, equal Nature, liberal to all,
Pours the same radiance on the hut and hall,

Decks in the same impartial green the mould
Above the bones of king or beggar old,
Sends the same airs of breathing balm to kiss
The homeless outcast and the child of bliss,
Nor glads the couch of down with dream more bright
Than the coarse straw where poor men rest by night.
Though storm and hardship have imbrowned my skin,
Immortal longings multiply within,
And the bright land that lies beyond the grave,
Distinction knows not between prince and slave.
Whence then thy right to rack my limbs with toil,
And bear away the produce of the soil;
Leave my poor babes in rags the blast to feel,
Wet with hot tears their scant, unwholesome meal,
And earthward, like the beasts that perish, gaze
From springtime to the winter of their days?
Whence, in assuming and insulting tones,
Thy right to ask what God himself disowns?
Lift while you may the scourge of high command,
The fall of Guilt Anointed is at hand—
Robbed millions on thy palace will have traced
Their vow that man no more will be abased!”

Thus mighty thought begins at last to shed
Reviving beams upon the humblest head;
Gives poor abused humanity a tongue,
An eye to pierce the gloom around it flung,
A breast of steel the conflict to abide—
Firm as the granite that beats back the tide.

Though blind oppression marvels at the change
Wrought in the mass, and deems it passing strange—
Friends of the wronged and stricken wonder more
That the good work did not progress before.
What hear we but an outcry for redress
Wrung from the broken heart of wretchedness;
The loud demand of labor why it pines,
And licensed fraud in glittering raiment shines;

Of o'er-tasked sorrow why so dark its lot,
And drunken sloth live on, and suffer not?

Gray Error trembles in his cloudy hold
To mark the banner of reform unrolled,
Dreads, like some hermit-owl, one ray of light
That glimmers through the pall of ancient night,
Retaining still the mummery of sway
While melts the substance of his power away.
Vain his endeavor, in resentment blind,
To crush the growing energies of mind;
As well the reed might try to check the force
Of the loud whirlwind in its rushing course,
Or pattering rain essay to drown the roar
Of ocean breaking on a rocky shore.
Come will a day of jubilee ere long,
When power will cease to legalize a wrong,
When tottering kingcraft, to prolong its reign,
Will point to ancient precedent in vain
And laws enacted in a barbarous time
Will cease to give authority to crime.

Far back in years philosophy may date,
While viewing man improved in his estate,
The fair beginning of this war sublime
Against corrupting usages of time.
Thick clouds and darkness gloomed around our race,
And peace, the dove, could find no resting place;
Uncurbed Ambition gave his life to guilt—
Red Murder boasted of the blood he spilt—
By day fierce Rapine for his booty prowled,
And Hell a note of exultation howled—
Nations and tribes, imbruted and despoiled,
Like driven cattle for their tyrants toiled,
When, lo! a Star of clear, benignant ray
Rolled from the source of everlasting day,
While brighter far than flash of jewel'd crown,
Its full-orbed blaze on Galilee poured down.

Before its golden pathway, like a dream,
Fled the foul mist that rose to quench its beam.
Oh, THEN commenced the long, unended fight
Between the powers of darkness and of light—
Then learned the pauper that his frame of earth
Enshrined a living pearl of priceless worth,
Formed to shine on, when dimmed the ruby red
Worn by the great who gave him stone for bread!
Oh, then more potent than the battle-storm,
The gospel proved an agent of reform:
Refreshed by draughts from its immortal fount
Upward the human soul began to mount,
And shook the dust from its immortal plume.
Emerging from an atmosphere of gloom.
Heaved, like the sea, the bosom of the mass—
Bands from the spirit fell like shivered glass;
Hope, from the house of mourning doomed to roam,
Found in the broken heart once more a home;
Balm in the wound of misery was poured,
Cleansed was the leper, and the lost restored;
Strong grew the weak—the lame arose and walked,
Their sight the blind received, the voiceless talked.

Christ sought nor tower, nor palace-hall, nor throne
To make his high, divine commission known;
An honored vessel, in his cause to aid,
Of meek, neglected lowliness he made,
And chose unlettered champions to confound
Dissembling sophist, and the sage renowned.
While spake his clear, melodious voice THE WORD,
The poor, in deep, respectful silence heard,
Though haughty ruler, pharisee and scribe
Their scorn evinced by taunt and heartless jibe.

Plumed Pomp contemned a teacher and a guide
Who taught our world the nothingness of pride,
Divested him, though magnet of all eyes,
Of florid mask and fanciful disguise,

Then oped the portals of his heart of sin,
And proved though fair without, how foul within!
Rapacious Power could ill a teacher brook
Who heeded not the terror of his look,
Nor prized his rod of regal office more
Than crutch of crippled vagrant at his door;
Whose wondrous love, within no bound confined,
Embraced the high and low of human kind—
Whose doctrines tended to redeem the slave
Lost in the midnight of a moral grave,
And clear his clouded vision to behold
How vile the wretch to whom his flesh was sold!

Though oft in huts where penury abides,
A famished wretch the hunted felon hides,
And fallen manhood, charged with liquid fire,
On injured woman vents his brutal ire,
Or tattered frenzy stalks, of wasted form,
Beneath a roof that ill keeps out the storm;
Oh, seldom there, with dark, despairing eye,
Is found the fiend of infidelity.
Among the poor, degraded, and untaught
Our Savior's grandest miracles were wrought;
Called by his voice, the widowed one of Nain
Beheld her tomb-robed child arise again.
He came in light to cheer the saddest hearth,
And banish inequalities from earth;
No right of primogeniture he knew
Nor wall that hedged the many from the few;
All with their Maker's breathing image stamped,
Upon earth's common battle-ground encamped,
From kingly Saul to Lazarus despised,
Alike by his impartial heart were prized.

Those born beneath a more auspicious star,
Who journey on in fortune's dazzling car,
Too oft by pleasures of the world enslaved,
Frame creeds to suit an appetite depraved.

Awhile their frail mortality forget,
And deem no limit to their glory set.
Another class, with pride of knowledge filled,
On crumbling sand their airy systems build,
And oft, with foolish and derisive smile,
A fiction old, that sacred volume style.

Ye learned in vain! Your eyes on nature turn,
And from her page one truthful lesson learn!
Look on that field of ripe and waving corn,
Swept by the breeze, and colored like the morn—
Behold ye not how proudly from the mould,
Rise the light stalks that bear no ears of gold,
While others, burthened with the precious grain,
Kiss with their tasselled garniture the plain!
Though high your heads in arrogance are raised,
False, fleeting lights, to lure ye on, have blazed—
For ye in vain hath burned the midnight oil,
Chaff is the product of your lettered toil;
With the meek temper of a sinless child,
Again peruse the book ye have reviled,
And see through clouds a SUN that never sets,
While wisdom deep humility begets.

The common people of our world have caught
From HOLY WRIT the quenchless fires of thought:
Learned that terrestrial grandeur is a shade,
And that all things for Cæsar were not made.
Gone are those evil days when tyrants sealed
The lip of woe, and wrong went unrevealed;
When the spurned vassal, cursing in despair
A yoke that nature could no longer bear,
Was gravely charged with treason, foul and black,
And mangled by the headsman or the rack.
The plundered thunder execration now
When robbers gather where they do not plough,
Nor stand in fear of torture or the block
Though rotten thrones to their foundations rock.

“Our bread is taxed”—says one—“by drones we feed!
In war our veins, to pamper villains, bleed!”
Exclaims another—“Up, ye sons of toil,
And sweep the greedy locusts from the soil!
Why looks yon titled fopling down in scorn
On the brown yeoman who is cottage-born,
And envies him his share of sunshine mild—
Was not the Bard of Ayr a peasant's child,
And poor the mother who, delighted, heard
Her infant Shakespeare breathe his earliest word?
While rolls the sluggard in his coach and four,
Shall famine enter honest labor's door?
No! on the wings of mighty winds send forth
The seed of freedom, and enfranchise earth!”

In frozen climes, and under tropic skies,
Up the bruised victims of injustice rise,
To rend the shackles that their fathers wore,
Roused by a voice that thunders—“Sleep no more!”
In lone and far-off islands of the brine
Dull night beholds her ancient sway decline,
Alarmed, forsakes her couch of hoary moss
While christians plant the banner of the Cross.
The fires of human sacrifice are quenched,
Purged are the tribes in carnage lately drenched;
Foul shrines and broken images of stone
Fall while the trump of Calvary is blown;
No more the war-note of the conch is heard
While savage forms for murderous conflict gird;
His dread repast the cannibal abjures
To bathe in bright, atoning blood that cures—
Looks on the star that to a Savior leads,
And with the bread of life his spirit feeds.

Be hushed, ye pale alarmists of the day,
Who look on man, awaking, with dismay,
Then lift your croaking voices, and oppose
Bold hearts who dare to tyranny be foes!

In vain ye toil to fetter pen and speech—
Long since exploded was the creed ye teach,
That human nature is in essence, vile—
Lawless, when free—when trusted, full of guile;
When honored, vicious, and no worse, enslaved—
False when refined; intelligent, depraved,
And only harmless when by fear restrained,
From youth to age in base submission trained.
While ye are struggling with innoxious rage,
To fetter down the spirit of the age,
Think of the lesson taught us by the Dane,
Who breathed his mandate to the bellowing main;
On swept the waters in their sandy track,
Though waved his puny wand to roll them back!

Look on our fair Republic of the West,
And know the question settled, and at rest,
Regarding man's capacity on earth
To rise progressive in the scale of worth!
Who were the fathers of our country?—men
Who bearded the grim Lion in his den,
Nor feared his fang, nor trembled at his roar,
Although his bristling main was steeped in gore.
Corruption in high places they assailed,
And the vile tricks of hollow courts unveiled:—
High Priests of independence, here they found
Hesperian groves where man might walk unbound!
Green Mountain Boys! I know that ye are proud
Of these rude peaks that rise to kiss the cloud,
For on New-England's rocky shrine first blazed
The fiery column by the Pilgrim raised:
With Allen's rifle and the shaft of Tell
Guard through the coming years that beacon well!
Here sons of genius, though in hovels bred,
Bright paths that lead to posts of honor tread:
Fame open flings his temple-gate full wide,
And merit enters unappalled by pride,

Albeit he frowns and turns a “shoulder cold,”
As if his flesh was formed of rarer mould.
Not on light sand-hills of the desert waste
Our fabric of Free Government is based,
But on the rock of public virtue rests,
Its shield a breathing wall of free-born breasts.
Our future, pregnant with sublime events,
Will gladden seas, and isles, and continents,
And realms, at last, will flourish uncontroll'd
By sceptered things whose “gods are blood and gold.”

Unbar the gloomy portals of the past—
How red the shroud round perished Empire cast!
Thick as the bearded grain by Labor mown,
Lie bannered hosts in battle overthrown.
From cottage homes and thronging cities rise
Yells of expiring millions to the skies.
Ambition, pleased, bemocks their horrid groans,
And, shod with iron, treads on crumbling bones.
Tasked is the strength of thousands to upbuild
Colossal tombs with coffined grandeur filled.
The place of beast by manhood is supplied,
Whipped onward, harnessed to the car of Pride—
Foul Priestcraft, mantled in an ebon stole,
Abroad walks forth with blood upon his soul;
Clasps his polluted hands in Godless prayer
While tortures rend the sinews of despair,
Or, with disdain in his relentless eye,
Exacts the little all of misery.
Anointed Folly from his regal seat
Points to proud arch, or labyrinth of Crete,
As monuments to memorize his sway
When kingdom, crown, and court have passed away.
Renowned Apelles prostitutes his art
Esteem to wake within a tyrant's heart—
Wit wildly revels in the joys of sense,
And terror chains the tongue of eloquence.

No voice, inspired, the cause of justice pleads,
Or God invokes to punish evil deeds:
A venal harp the laurelled minstrel strings
To flatter pomp and win applause from kings,
And pensioned learning false deduction draws,
To prove that Nero sanctions wholesome laws.
Here prowls unsparing bigotry at work,
In her ensanguined hand a sheathless dirk.
Her deeds—too dreadful for the lyre to tell—
Her dooming eye—“a glimmering type of Hell.”
There laughs the lord who governs half the globe,
Wrapped in the foldings of his purple robe,
While bounds the famished lion from his den
Matched in unequal strife with naked men,
And corpses cumber, half afloat in gore,
The broad arena's thickly sanded floor.

Another leaf in history is turned—
Another lesson have the nations learned;
Clouds, charged with moral lightning, sternly lower
Above the heartless satellites of Power—
The Mother-land by crime too long defiled,
Is taking healthful counsel from her Child,
And, one by one, from her old bleeding heart
The greedy vultures of misrule depart.
One wild misnomer of the mournful past,
That led our sires astray, is changed at last;
Conquest, enthroned on heaps of slain up piled,
Is rebaptized, and wholesale murder styled.
No common cause now hurries to the field
A Christian soldier, armed with spear and shield
And empires ponder patiently and long,
Before they war for some imagined wrong.
With grave rebuke Philosophy looks down
On that dread phantom, National Renown,
Whose star hath lighted nations to their graves,
And flooded groaning Earth with crimson waves.

Green Erin lifts her head above the deep,
Roused from the torpor of her drunken sleep,
And tunes the harp of Tara to a lay
That breathes of joy, and darkness chased away.
Late through her isle a demon strode unchecked
Who laughed while round him were her children wrecked;
Of human skulls a hideous throne he made,
And woe, disease, and death his call obeyed—
In dungeon, churchyard, and on scaffold grim
Courts, that make manhood blush, were held by him,
And Mars, astonished, flung away his lance,
Eclipsed in horror by Intemperance.
Now, from her fields a triumph cry goes up,
Indignant hands dash down the poisoned cup;
Away dark weed from Emmett's grave she clears,
A radiant smile is beaming through her tears,
And, while the brand of Cain her brow forsakes,
The withe that bound her limb, like Samson, breaks.

Right, reason, and religion have combined
Vice to denounce, and purify mankind.
Not the blind impulse of a mob impels
The public heart that glows, and heaves, and swells,
Engendering acts of outrage and of shame,
With ruin fraught, and terrible to name.
A spirit, by philanthropy approved,
Glides calmly on and multitudes are moved:
It makes no mad appeal to carnal force,
Nor speeds by war companioned in its course,
While follow wolves and ravens to devour
Dismembered fragments of the battle hour;
Plays not the Teian with existence brief,
Pleased with an odorous rose, or myrtle leaf,
While locust-swarms, that sky and air imbrown,
On the green fields of bliss are settling down.

It asks not for political success
That props the strong—gives wealth a gayer dress;

On outward, cold magnificence depends,
And only comfort to the happy sends;
That boasts of steeds, caparisoned and fleet,
Whirling the car of triumph through the street,
Of temple, column, pile, and massive dome,
Though Peace, like Judah, roves without a home;
But that perfection in the social plan
Which throws an ægis o'er degraded man,
Diffusing light throughout the common herd,
While grief's black depths are to the bottom stirred

Love for our dying brotherhood it feels,
To common sense and equity appeals;
Explores each haunt where lust the wine-cup quaffs,
And o'er the corse of ruined beauty laughs;
Tracks human sorrow to its fountain springs—
Ill-gotten gold from hard extortion wrings;
Locks with a touch dark slander's perjured lips,
And thin disguise from base pretension strips;
A lamp of safety fashions for the mine,
And airs the work-shop where Earth's orphans pine
Gives fiery pinions to an iron steed,
A rival of the thunderbolt in speed;
Charters the sun-beam faithfully to trace
A breathing outline of the human face;
Launches strange barks, defying wind and flood,
To make of earthly realms, one neighborhood;
Goes on a quest of mercy to the cell
Where pale remorse anticipates his knell;
Denies the right of ermined law to doom
A felon, even, to an early tomb,
Tall gibbet rear, or scaffold redly drench,
And fires, that God can only kindle, quench.
It scans the future with prophetic gaze,
And whispers promise of millennial days,
When man will tread on flowers, that know not frost,
Perfumed like those that graced his Eden lost;

And wear, unsullied by one leprous stain,
His crown of primal innocence again,
Dashed from his lustrous and majestic brows,
While yet his lip was warm with broken vows.

Truth, beaten down on many a luckless field,
Bears now this stern device upon her shield—
“Away with sleep, while bigot, knave, and fool
Sit throned with high, exclusive right to rule!”
Though black and adverse flags are on the blast,
How can she fail of victory at last!
Cased is her towering form in burnished mail,
Proof against rust, barbed lance, and iron hail—
Timed is her march to battle by the sound
Of golden harps, the throne of God around,
And, tempered with pure lightning from the sky,
Flames the charmed weapon that she lifts on high.

Brothers, a word!—From quiet, classic bowers,
Where long our hands have cropped immortal flowers,
With ears accustomed only to the flow
Of silver, welling waters, forth we go!
Soon will the rushing surge of active life
Greet our approach with roar that tells of strife—
Envenomed monsters, hungering for their prey,
Paths that our feet must follow now, waylay;
Our moral armor we must well inspect,
Nor antedate our ruin by neglect:
Oh! cease we never to guard well the fires
Thas lit the bosoms of our Saxon sires,
And while we rove, by gales of fortune blown,
From the parched tropic to the frozen zone,
Glassed in the wave of memory, clear and deep,
Bright let each heart New-England's image keep!
Her vales forget not, and her mountain peaks
Round which the cloud revolves, the eagle shrieks—
Where Beauty dwells, and intellect conforms,
In strength and grandeur, to her rocks and storms,

And reigns Religion, 'mid a world of woes,
Pure as her streams and spotless as her snows.
On us, in pleading tone, our Alma calls
Never to shame her consecrated halls—
To banish serpent-passion from our hearts,
And, in the cause of right, play noble parts,
While round our steps celestial light is shed,
And sleep in honored sepulchres when dead.

HISTORIC SCENES.

INSCRIBED TO HON. JOHN BRODHEAD, NEW YORK.

THE SHADE OF THEODOSIUS.

[“Constans II. retained a jealous fear, lest the people should one day invade the right of primogeniture, and seat his brother on an equal throne. By the imposition of holy orders the grandson of Heraclitus was disqualified for the purple; but the ceremony was insufficient to appease the suspicions of the tyrant; and the death of Theodosius could not expiate the crime of his royal birth. His murder was avenged by the imprecations of the people, and the assassin went into voluntary exile. The remorse of his conscience created a phantom, who pursued him, by day and by night; and the visionary Theodosius presenting to his lips a cup of blood, said, or seemed to say, ‘Drink, brother, drink.’”]

Gibbon's Decline and Fall.

From his pale brow the diadem he tore,
And with a look of fear expressive, then
Aside the purple robe of Empire flung.
The watchful sentry of the palace gave
No warning sign of danger lurking near,
And visible was naught that could awake
Within the bosom of a timid child
One thrill of dread. As if communing with
Unearthly forms, the Ruler of proud Rome
Like some enchanter, wildly gazing, stood
Pale and affrighted by his own creations.
The start convulsive, and the trembling frame,
Bespoke the fearful tempest of the soul;
And oft his throbbing brow he fiercely smote,
For memory was working madness there.
In his own shadow breathing life he saw,
And the soft music of the summer winds,
That like a spirit through the lattice stole,
Gave to his hollow cheek a deadlier hue.
His long, loose locks were prematurely gray,

And gone for ever was the bearing high
That one beseems invested with stern power.
He spake at length, as if his ashy lips
The fearful secret could no longer guard,
In the wild tones of agony and guilt:

“Grim Phantom! quit my sight—
To me extend not that appalling bowl!
Its crimson contents cannot make my soul
From torture free and white:
Malignant smiles upon thy face appear,
As if exulting in my mortal fear.

“Wilt thou confront me yet—
Still fix on me thy wild, terrific gaze,
And to my lips again the chalice raise
With slaughter warm and wet?
Depart, depart! thou wan, unbidden guest,
And with the secrets of the charnel, rest!

“When mingling with the gay,
Thy presence chills the life-drops in each vein,
And thou art with me on the tented plain
When hosts my nod obey:
Thy presence chases slumber from mine eye
When night in sable robes the earth and sky.

“Unseen by other men,
Thou art my pale attendant in the halls
Where ring with song and merriment the walls—
And thou art with me when
Poor, crouching vassals gather in the street,
And thousands fall in homage at my feet.

“Upon a distant shore,
Across the wide expanse of waters blue,
In vain methought affrighted I should view
Thine awful face no more;
Clad in the vestments of the starless grave
Thy spectral form went with me o'er the wave.

“Ah! noiseless is thy tread
When thou art stealing fiercely by my side
Through the dark chambers of this dome of pride,
Bearing the goblet red.
Oft I behold with horror on the floor
Thy gliding feet leave tracks of smoking gore.

“Leave me one hour alone!
My knife long since drank purple from thy veins,
Through fear thy hand would take away the reins
Of empire from mine own;
I could not bear to even dream thy brow
Would wear the crown I cast far from me now.

“The shroud that wraps thy form
Moves not when winds are sporting with my locks,
And thy tall, ghastly figure likewise mocks
The fury of the storm;
I have beheld thee standing on the wave
As if the chainless rover was thy slave.

“Suppress those hollow sighs!
And let thy brow a milder aspect wear;
My stout frame withers in the fiendish glare
Of those dark, searching eyes—
Recall once more the rose-flush to thy cheek,
And in the sweet tones of forgiveness speak.

“‘Drink, royal brother, drink,’
Is thy sole answer, while the gory chalice
Recalls a deed of blood in my own palace—
This wasting form will sink
Ere long, unlighted by the frost of Time,
Beneath the weight of agony and crime.

“Oh, brandish not the steel
That won for me the name of ‘Fratricide,’
But throw away that weapon, redly dyed.
Dizzy and faint I feel!

Ha! fleshless arms my reeling form uphold—
Loose, loose me, brother, for thy grasp is cold!”

Of what avail are counterfeited smiles
That light the haggard face of hiding guilt!
On scorching brain and heart there is a worm
That darkly feeds until the tongue at last
Proves traitor to the secret, and proclaims
The horrid truth:—that worm is keen Remorse!

LAMENT OF PERICLES.

[“Pericles neither wept, nor performed any funeral rites, nor was he seen at the grave of any of his nearest relations, until the death of Paralus, his last surviving son. This at last subdued him. He attempted, indeed, then, to keep up his usual calm behavior and serenity of mind; but in putting the garland upon the head of the deceased, his firmness forsook him. He could not bear the sad spectacle, and broke out into loud lamentation.”]

Plutarch.

Chide not these tears! my fondest hopes are blighted,
And life henceforward will a burthen be;
Chill airs of death at length have disunited
The noblest scion from its parent tree:
Beneath yon dark and veiling pall extended,
The pallid wreck of youth and beauty lies,
The quick pulsation of that breast is ended,
And light hath early faded from those eyes.

While sadly gazing on those darksome tresses
That still their silken loveliness retain,
I feel once more his passionate caresses,
And hear that lip breathe melody again.
Lost boy! my days, hereafter, will be clouded,
For grief is deeply rooted in my breast;
While gazing on thee, pale and darkly shrouded,
I almost envy thy unbreathing rest.

The voice of grief falls on that ear unnoted—
Those arms will wreathe around my neck no more;
The face of him on whom my bosom doated
Wears not the look of earthliness it wore.
I little thought while summer winds were drying
The childish tear upon thy dimpled cheek,
Soon, like the work of some rare sculptor lying,
Mine eyes would gaze upon thy corse, young Greek.

Unfeeling tyrant! when the smile is brightest,
Why call away the beautifully fair?
Why still the pulses when the step is lightest,
And wretched leave the bowed and gray of hair?
Ah! the last blossom of my house is faded,
And the cold sternness of my look hath fled;
The pale sepulchral chaplet I have braided
Around the icy temples of my dead.

MOORISH MEMORIES.

[_]

SUGGESTED BY A TILE FROM THE ALHAMBRA.

An hour of precious romance, I owe, my friend, to thee,
And on the wings of Fancy my spirit crossed the sea;
The same transporting magic did to thy gift belong
That sparkled in Aladdin's Lamp, old theme of Eastern song!
An Andalusian summer clad earth in brightest guise—
Gave dark green to the foliage, deep azure to the skies,
And sternly mountain-barriers uprear'd their crests of snow,
While palace-spire and minaret flashed at their feet below.

Approached by winding avenues, Granada lay in sight—
Gay pleasure-ground and gardens basked in the dazzling light;
To groves of palm and cypress flocked birds of plumage rare,
And happy genii were afloat upon enchanted air.
Throned on a height commanding the Darro's vale of flowers,
I saw the red Alhambra's tall battlements and towers;
Oh! would that mine were language to paint its pictured walls,
Its colonnades and court-yards, its galleries and halls.

Methought the dreams of childhood were realized at last,
And magic hands uplifted a pall that hid the past,
While looking on its panels with colored stone inlaid,
And alabaster vases on which the sunbeam played.
In gem-embroidered caftan, and grave with cares of state,
Dispensing equal justice, a king was at the gate—
The hajib was in waiting, to hear his high command,
And in the foreground gathered proud nobles of the land.

Luxurious rooms I entered through quaintly carven doors,
And trod on fretted pavements and tesselated floors;

And in secluded chambers for beauty's use designed,
On gorgeous silken cushions voluptuous forms reclined.
To win their smile full often had gallant cavaliers
Met with a shock, like thunder, at the Tournament of Spears,
And all had won the homage by Love and Valor paid,
When, under moon-lit balconies, awoke the serenade.

Xariffa, rose of sunset—Zorayda, star of dawn!
Ye never can be numbered with things of beauty gone;
Poetical embalmment bestows a glorious light,
That frights away the minions of darkness, dust, and blight.
Umbrageous courts I traversed, where lime and orange grew,
And fig and date their shadows on beds of roses threw,
Then bathed in perfumed waters, and listened to the sound
Of singing founts diffusing grateful coolness round.

While silvery Xenil wandered through blooming bower and plain,
Back came once more the splendor of Moorish rule in Spain:
I heard the stormy clarion, the atabal's deep roll,
And felt the joy of battle awake within my soul.
Elvira's gates unfolded, and, grim with many a scar,
A host of Moorish horsemen rode fiercely forth to war;
The standard of the prophet above them was unrolled,
And dallied with the lifting wind its green and golden fold.

Gemmed saddle-cloth and armor were blinding to the gaze,
And burnished lance and scimetar flashed back the sun-beam's blaze,
While prancing in the van, as if their nostrils scented gore,
The milk-white steeds of Yemen, king, sheik and emir bore.
When fled that martial pageant, like vapor on the gale,
Woke on the banks of Darro a startling voice of wail,
And tones so full of sweetness, and wild, despairing woe,
Were never heard by listening ear from mortal lips to flow.

Prime Minister.

COSMO.

AN ITALIAN SKETCH.

One morn the Princes from the wall
Took down the weapons of the chase,
And issued from the ducal hall,
Their sinews in the hunt to brace.
The mother with an anxious eye
Beheld her manly sons depart,
And vainly strove to quell the sigh,
For grief was heavy at her heart.

She saw them ere they went away,
The tangled wild and glen to range,
By frowns their settled hate betray,
And looks of stern resolve exchange.
When gently on the land and flood
The dusky veil of eve was thrown,
The youngest hunter from the wood
With horn and hound came back alone.

The stain of purple on the hilt
Of his keen dirk suspicion woke;
His looks expressive were of guilt,
Though in a mirthful tone he spoke.
When loudly questioned why he came
Without his brother, he replied,
“I left him still pursuing game,
Alive and well, ere eventide.”

A band of liegemen, tried and true,
The ducal palace left at night,
And vainly warning bugle blew
To guide their absent prince aright.

Within the forest, lying dead,
The missing one at last was found;
And damp with slaughter was his bed,
Upon the dark and trampled ground.

Duke Cosmo, when the tidings came,
His fingers clenching, smote his brow,
And spake, while horror shook his frame,
“My fondest hopes are blasted now!
His body to that chamber bear,
Where hang the portraits of my race;
And—mark me—hide with utmost care
Stiff limbs and cold distorted face.”

His princely garb the father rent,
And long and bitterly he wept;
Then slyly to that chamber went
Wherein the guilty hunter slept:
The mourner wiped his tearful eyes—
The storm of grief had made them dim—
And calmly bade the youth arise,
And from the chamber follow him.

The wretched parent led the way
With hurried stride to that dread room,
In which the lifeless brother lay,
Wrapt in the raiment of the tomb.
The slayer by the hand he took
And fixed on him a dark keen eye,
But in his quietude of look
No trace of terror could espy.

His arm uplifting, Cosmo cried,
“Affect not calmness, guilty youth!
Or fruitless efforts make to hide
From God and man the awful truth:

Add not to thy foul crime deceit,
But rather deeply feel remorse.”
Then, lifting up the gory sheet,
Unfolded to his view the corse.

“Wild frenzy should consume thy brain
While gazing on that ghastly brow,
And blood should curdle in each vein—
Can thy lips guard the secret now?”
How still he lies! upon his flesh
The worm will soon in darkness feed:
Those gaping wounds that bleed afresh
Disclose the author of the deed!

“To me address no vain appeal!
Fix not on me that pleading eye!
Thy doom is written on the steel
That drank his blood—and thou must die!
Last of my house, my only one!
Stern justice claims atoning gore—”
Deep struck the father, and the son
Fell gasping on the marble floor.

Fond, gentle mother of the slain!
For thee it was a fearful night—
The fire of madness scorched thy brain,
And fiends howled round thee to affright
When morning tipped the hills with flame,
And flushed the waves that slept below,
Death, like a kind deliverer, came,
To free thee from thy sumless woe.

ZILLAH. [FRAGMENT OF A JEWISH TALE.]

INSCRIBED AS A MEMORIAL OF LONG AND FAITHFUL FRIENDSHIP TO MY ESTEEMED TOWNSMAN, WILLIAM C. HAWLEY, ESQ.

[“A Saracen Captain sailing from a port in Spain captured a vessel having on board several Jews of distinction, among whom were a young man and his wife, a woman of exquisite beauty. Having received some insults from the Captain, she asked, ‘Shall those who are drowned in the sea revive at the Resurrection?’ She was answered in the words of the Psalmist: ‘The Lord said, I will bring again from the depths of the sea;’ and she immediately flung herself into the waters.”]—

Jus Regium Hebr.

The din of conflict ceased;—on high
Dark clouds ascended from the main
As if to robe the vaulted sky
In mourning vesture for the slain
Who late with exultation heard
The soul-arousing signal word
Go up, when met the hostile ships,
In thunder from a thousand lips:
Who lately, prodigal of life,
Moved sharers in the gory strife,
While Havoc shook his wings of flame,
And Death, in terror shrouded, came.
No sheet, within its tarry fold,
Wraps mournfully their bodies cold;
Nor yew, nor solemn cypress throws
Sepulchral gloom where they repose.
For ever deaf to boatswain call
They sleep in Ocean's charnel-hall,
And monarch waters, in their might,
Above them roll with crowns of white.
No eye shed tributary tear
When darkly ended their career,
Nor were the brave “with dirges due”
Committed to the waters blue.
Far from the quiet hearths of home
The blood of sire and brother gave

Deep tints of crimson to the foam
That crested fearfully the wave.
War furled his wing:—the Infidel
His ocean conquest dearly bought,
For in the hour of trial well
The sons of Israel had fought.
The cry, “our hold a leak has sprung!”
In them, though shroud in tatters hung,
And reeling deck was strewn with dead,
Had woke no unresisting dread.
Despair, in that appalling hour,
Had nerved the feeble frame with power,
And, with the strength of manhood, strung
The untried sinews of the young.
When the tall mainmast, like some oak,
Uprooted by the whirlwind, fell,
In stern defiance through the smoke
Had rang their battle yell.
Admiring Athens deified
Such children in her day of might,
And Fame inscribed their names, allied
To daring, with a look of pride,
Upon her tablets bright:
And worthy would have been such sons
Of Judah, when her mighty ones,
With Maccabæus in the van,
Smote down the vaunting Syrian;
Or in that hour when Jew of old
Proud Rome with desperation met,
While, red with slaughter, Kedron roll'd
And charging shouts shook Olivet.
It is a melancholy sight
To see that bird of regal sway
Who holds, in dazzling realms of light,
Proud converse with the King of Day,

By shaft of hunter wounded lie,
With ruffled plume and closing eye,
On common earth far, far below
His throne where Alpine blossoms grow:—
It is a melancholy sight
To mark the hungry raven hover,
When ended is the stormy fight,
Above the father, friend, or lover;
To see, unmindful of the rein,
The gallant steed, with nostril spread,
And gore-drops clinging to his mane,
In death extended on the plain
That echoed to his tread,
When hills sent back the charging cheer,
And sunlight shone on casque and spear:
But far more saddening to the view
To scan some ship bereft of sail,
Deserted by her hardy crew,
And drifting wildly with the gale.
One gazing on that floating wreck
Bethinks him sadly of the day
When hundreds stood upon the deck,
And winds made glad her way;—
When weeping on some distant shore
Stood faithful wife and sylph-like maid
To see the flying bark, that bore
Their loved ones, in the distance fade.
While that lone wreck with riven sides
Dismasted on the billow rides,
The trembling gazer asks the main
To tell her history in vain—
In fancy vieweth wan Despair
Cling wildly to the broken mast,
While wreaths of foam bedeck his hair,
And sweeps in terror by the blast.

Where are the barks that lately gave
A ruddy radiance to the wave,
While the stern voice of War from sleep
Awoke the monsters of the deep?
One floats with helm and cordage gone,
And deck in carnage deeply dyed,
Unguided through the sea whereon
She lately rode a thing of pride:
With spar of strength, and mast that vies
In grace the palm, the other flies,
And proudly on the water flings
The shadow of her mighty wings.
The dolphin, in her dazzling track,
Comes up to “bare his golden back,”
And with the rustling of her shroud
The white surge blends its murmur loud.
With glance, expressive of command,
Her turbaned captain waves his hand,
And, courted by the whistling gale,
Streams haughtily the crescent pale.
Rich goods and bags of Jewish gold
Are lying in her darksome hold—
Ferocious is the chief, whose sway
The tenants of that ship obey;
On his forbidding brow and cheek
Deep scars his bloody trade bespeak.
With hasty stride and eye of fire
He walks the deck in proud attire;
A scarlet turban, fringed with gold,
Begirds his brow with silken fold—
Beneath his oriental vest
With jewels sparkling heaves a breast
Wherein compassion never dwelt,
That never thrill of terror felt.
One gazing on his swarthy face
The darkness of the soul would trace,

And inly whisper:—“Not more vain
Would be petition to the main,
When tempest-sprites their wings unfold,
And revel on his bosom hold,
Than wild appeal to him for life
From lip of foeman in the strife”—
The crooked weapon at his side
His arms in many a fight hath tried,
And never more unsparing sword
Drank blood in grasp of ocean lord.
At times he cast his vengeful eye
Upon a group of captives nigh,
Replying to the word of fear,
And anguished cry with brutal jeer—
Surveying chain-encircled limb,
And gaping wound with visage grim,
Then murmuring with purpose dark—
“A pretty banquet for the shark!”
Or drowning with his crew in song
The wailing of the captive throng.

SONG.

We lead not the life of the slave,
We fear not the frown of a king;
But free as the foam-crested wave
We wander like birds on the wing
Our foemen, though valiant, despair
When our ebony hull is descried;
The streamers we give to the air,
In the purple of conquest are dyed.

We exult when the signal is made
To clear our broad deck for the strife!
We exult when the gleam of each blade
Is dim with the red tide of life.

We had rather have Ocean our grave
Than, Earth, in thy bosom repose!
For a shroud the white foam of the wave,
And sleep where the red coral grows. ...

Amid the sad, desponding crowd
Yon matron mark of bearing proud—
Her regal spirit scorns to show
Submission to the Paynim foe;
No outward sign betrays the storm
That rages inwardly; her form
Is like the work of sculptor rare,
Or shape that haunts the poet's dream—
Inwoven with her sable hair
Gems of transparent lustre gleam,
The coral beads are dull in hue
Contrasted with her lip of dew;
Her robes with diamond lustre blaze,
But her dark eye has brighter rays—
Their lids, by tear unwet, proclaim
That courage nerves her fairy frame—
While gazing on the pirate chief,
Her looks are unallied to grief;
The face of Judith when she bent
To dye her snowy hand in gore
Above the victim in his tent,
A like expression wore.
While sullen clang of iron gyves
From manly cheek the color drives,
Her features, beautifully fair,
The flush of indignation wear.
While startling peals of corsair mirth
In other hearts to fear give birth,
With frown that would befit a queen
When murmurs rise from subject hands,
And lordly anger in her mien
The lovely Jewess stands

100

Strong in affection by the side
Of one whose glances seem to say,
“Yon waves that now so gently glide,
Ere long will clap their hands, my bride,
Above their unresisting prey!”

One month on fleeting wing hath flown
Since Zillah gave her heart to him
Whose soul was kindred to her own;
And fancied, in the future dim,
She saw beneath a cloudless sky
The sea of life untroubled lie,
While on its breast a graceful pair
Their barks to blissful ports were steering,
With features by the hand of care,
And touch of time, undimm'd appearing.
She thought not on her bridal day,
As mirth within her breast held sway,
That blight would ever mar the rose
Expanding in the light of love—
That waves of trouble soon would close
Her radiant dreams of bliss above—
While uttering the marriage vow
In accents passionately sweet,
The light of joy was on her brow,
And thrillingly her pulses beat.
No Sibyl of the future threw
Athwart her path one darkling shade,
Proclaiming that the rainbow hue
Of cherub Hope too soon would fade.
No warning voice rang in her ear,
“Thy horoscope is overcast—
The time of agony is near—
Thy dreams are fated not to last!”
While leaning fondly on her lord,
Whose ear drank in each honeyed word,

101

Unto her lips she little thought
The minister of ill would raise
His cup with deadly poison fraught,
In the glad spring-time of their days ...

Morn on the mighty deep! from rest
Light winds awake his billowy breast,
And sunlight, on the plumy snow
Of Ocean, flings a crimson glow.
Thy waters wide, majestic sea!
Roll onward with a voice of glee,
When dawning gilds with radiant glance
The beauty of thy broad expanse—
When blushing morn looks fondly down
On isles, green jewels in thy crown,
Whose shores are musical with birds
That feed upon thy scaly herds.
Strange shapes to hail the first bright streak
In throngs the upper waters seek
With plashing fin, in mimic strife,
As if they felt a newer life.

Morn on the waves! yon gallant bark
Whose hull is ominously dark,
Moves bird-like on the heaving waste,
As if to reach her port in haste.
The subject waters seem to say
That dash against her sides in spray,
“Proud Queen, submissively we feel
The touch of thy dividing keel!”
As if rejoicing that old Night
No longer veils the foamy seas,
Exultingly her wings of white
Are flapping in the breeze.
Who would not think, while in her course
Yon vessel spurns the billows hoarse,
And walks the deep, a thing of grace,
Swift as the charger in the race,

102

While welkin blue and gilded brine
Of coming ill disclose no sign,
That hearts with happiness replete
For such a vessel would be meet?
Ah, sunlight often robes the sky
When storms and death are lurking nigh—
Oft crouching in the thicket green
The panther marks his prey unseen;
The rose, within its inmost fold,
The dark, devouring worm may hide,
And grace may fashion in her mould
Things to impurity allied.
Mild autumn like a mourner grieves
For all things withering away,
While robes of loveliness she weaves
That vie in tint the close of day;
And dying beauty on her cheek
Too often wears deceptive glow,
When pulse is tremulously weak,
And hollow is the voice and low.

Yon vessel, moving with the speed
Of falcon by the keeper freed,
When, startled by the tramp of feet,
The heron leaves his lone retreat,
Bears one upon her deck whose soul
Is dark, unlike his own bright clime,
And outlaws own his stern control
Who daily quaff at founts of crime.
Strong men, with hearts about to break,
And tender wives, with features wan,
Are gazing on her snowy wake
Empurpled by the smile of dawn
It is the bark that Zillah bears—
She stands amid yon captive crowd,
Her pallid countenance still wears
An aspect of endurance proud.

103

While others raise the cry of wail,
And clank in agony their chains,
The peerless subject of my tale
To give her sorrow voice, disdains
In the pale beauty of her face
Observant eye can changes trace,
While speakingly her glances show
The beautifying power of woe.
The spectral outlines of her frame
Grief's desolating touch proclaim—
Though hum of insect in the glade,
Or dash of wavelet, plumed with foam,
In better days her bosom made,
Of pleasant thoughts, the angel home—
In vain, in vain, the swelling sea,
And lulling winds that gently stir
The canvas with a voice of glee,
Awake their minstrelsy for her.
Ah, joys that once illumed her brow
No longer hold her heart in thrall,
The melodies of nature now
Upon her ear unheeded fall:
For one is missing from her side
Who was the idol of her soul,
In hoarse accord the waters wide
Above his mangled body roll.

When Night upon her starry throne
Held undisputed sway and lone,
And moonlight to the trembling wave
A soft but spectral radiance gave,
He seized with iron grasp his chain,
As if endued with giant strength,
And after many efforts vain,
While glowing madness fired his brain,
From bondage burst at length.

104

The cunning corsair heard the sound
Of strong link breaking, with a clang,
And stealing lightly, with a bound
Upon his frenzied victim sprang;
His right arm, used to felon-deed,
The corsair raised with ready skill—
One thrust of his stiletto freed
The crazed one from his load of ill.
The pleading look and wild appeal
Of Zillah could not stay the steel;
She saw him fall, and from his side
The red stream gush in bubbling tide,
Then fell herself, as if the blade
A sheath of her own breast had made,
While fearfully his spouting gore
The white robe purpled that she wore.
Her ear heard not the gurgling sound
Of hungry waters closing round,
As hastily the ruffian cast
His victim to the ocean vast,
Or marked the grim exulting smile
That lighted up his face the while:
Extended on the deck she lay
As if the war of life was over,
As if her soul had fled away,
To realms of never-ending day,
To join the spirit of her lover.

She woke at last from her long swoon,
To hope that death would triumph soon,
And the mad pulses of her frame
With icy touch forever tame:
She woke with features ashy white,
And wildly gazed upon the plank
That deeply, freely in the night
The crimson of his veins had drank;

105

Then raising heavenward her eye
In still, expecting posture stood,
As if a troop from realms on high
Were coming down with battle-songs,
To wash out sternly in the blood
Of coward hearts her many wrongs:
No tear-drop came to her relief
In that wild, parching hour of grief:
The tender plant of love, she knew,
Would into verdure break no more—
The spot was arid where it grew
In green luxuriance before.
She knew henceforth her lot below
Would be to quaff the cup of pain—
On thing of earth she could not throw
The sunlight of her smile again—
The voice was still whose melting tone
Had vied in sweetness with her own—
The hiding wave had closed above
The only object of her love:
And Rispah, as strict watch she kept,
While cold, like forms of Parian stone,
Her sons on gory couches slept,
Felt not more desolate and lone.

In many hearts the gloomy sway
Of sorrow lessens day by day,
Until the charms of life at last
Blot out remembrance of the past:
As winds may kiss the trampled flower,
And lift again its bruised leaf,
So Time, with his assuaging power,
May stay the wasting march of grief:
But hearts in other bosoms beat
Where anguish finds a lasting seat—
That heal not with the lapse of time:

106

Too delicately strung for earth,
Whose chords can never after chime
With peals of loud, unmeaning mirth.
Weeks flew: but Zillah in their flight
Strove oft, but vainly, to forget
The horrors of that fatal night,
When her beloved star, whose light
Made bondage pleasant, set.
No murmur from the lip outbroke,
Though suddenly her cheek grew thin—
No quick, convulsive start bespoke
The desolating fire within.
Her dark eye rested on the wave
By day and in the hush of eve,
As if, ere long, the wet sea cave
Her buried one would leave,
And, drifting suddenly in view,
His murderer with dread subdue!
Ah, I have said the stately mien
Of Zillah would befit a queen,
That lawless crime would ill withstand
Her innate bearing of command.
Alas! regality of soul
Gives agony supreme control,
And prompts the wretched one to hide
Consuming pangs from vulgar gaze—
To nurse, in uncomplaining pride,
The scorpion that preys.

One blessed evening when the light
Of starry hosts made ocean bright,
An aged Rabbi woke the lay
Of Judah in her mightier day—
Of olden time when gladsome strains
Ascended from her holy plains;
When every rock beneath her sky
Rang with the voice of prophecy—

107

When musical were grove and glade
With prayer by simple herdsmen made—
Ere fires of sacrifice grew pale
On blooming height, in flowery vale—
Then changing skilfully his strain,
While newer life each sinew strung,
And triumph in his breast held reign,
The glory of his fathers sung.
The music in its proudest swell
Cold on the ear of Zillah fell—
Bold notes, with patriot ardor fraught,
No change in her appearance wrought—
She tamely heard ancestral praise,
And fixed no kind approving gaze
Upon the Rabbi, as his lay
In trembling cadence died away.
Her love of olden time had fled,
Her heart was with the early dead.

While marking her abstraction lone,
The old man said, with darkening brow,
And stern displeasure in his tone:—
“Unthinking one! forgettest thou
Jerusalem, the home of sire—
Of beauty the perfection, where
King David woke the sacred lyre,
And moved his tuneful lip in prayer?
Shall apathetic fetter bind
Thy native majesty of mind,
While the wrapt minstrel breathes with pride
One name to Israel allied?
Why gaze as if thy murder'd mate
Was near in disembodied state?
Why sorrow that his form of grace
Yon ocean folds in wet embrace?
From his shut eye the fitful ray
Of frenzied grief hath fled away;

108

No dreams of startling horror now
Contort the marble of his brow:
His manly heart is well at rest,
By throb of madness unoppress'd—
Full many fathoms low his head
Lies sweetly on a briny bed,
Nor taunt, nor execration deep
Disturbs the quiet of his sleep.
If word of mine was fraught with power
To animate the dead this hour,
I would not call thy lover up
From his calm resting in the main,
To curse existence, and the cup
Of horror deeply quaff again,
Unless to blanch, with spectral stare,
The visage of that man of guilt,
Who stole upon him unaware
Of danger, in his deep despair,
And plunged the dagger to its hilt!”
The growling voice of ruffian nigh
Outspoke ere Zillah could reply—
“That weapon mark! its crimson hue
Tells fearfully of him I slew—
Beware, old dotard, ere its blade
Familiar with thy heart be made!”
The old man started, and his look
Withdrawing from the mourner pale,
Saw, while the blood his cheek forsook,
The Corsair of my tale:
His features in the moony light
A smile of evil import wore;
The scar of some terrific fight
His turbaned forehead bore:
The stern expression of his face
At length to irony gave place;
And hellish satisfaction shone

109

On each dark lineament impress'd,
While thus in simulating tone
His captive he address'd:—
“Though passion fires that sunken eye,
The young in years and gray of hair,
United in the marriage-tie,
Will never make a loving pair.
Much rather would yon matron feel
The pressure of this hand of steel
Than round her fairy waist have thrown
An arm, all shrivell'd, like thine own!”

Roused by the taunt of the Pirate Chief
From her drooping attitude of grief,
The sufferer stood with eye upcast,
As if her prayer had been heard at last,
And a message from Heaven was borne on the air
That seraphs would hasten on pinions of light,
And her soul, from the thrall of mortality, bear
To a realm never dim with the presence of night.
From her brow the sign of health had fled,
And the shrunken veins were there instead;
By robe invested was her frame
That well the white of her cheek became:
Inwoven with dark ringlets, shone
The dazzling blaze of a diamond stone
That her passionate lover gave away,
With a stolen kiss, on her bridal day.
O, that some sculptor
With chisel in hand,
While the warm glow of thought
By religion was fann'd,
Could the Jewess have seen
Looking sweetly to Heaven,
And her angel-like glance
To cold marble have given—

110

Or some exquisite painter,
In that mystic hour,
When Genius best governs
The pencil of power,
Could one fleeting moment
On Zillah have gazed,
With her wan lips apart,
And her dark eye upraised.
Has she heard from her Maker
The mandate—“Live on?”
I know not—her gaze
From the sky is withdrawn,
And imploringly rests
On the Rabbi, who stands
With his old limbs encircled
By prisoning bands:
She addresses him now—
“When the last trumpet calls,
And the sleepers of Earth
Leave the gloom of her halls,
Will the dead whose bones whiten
The floor of the deep,
Hear the life-giving summons,
And waken from sleep?”
While the mingling emotions
Of grief and surprise
In his mien are depicted,
The Rabbi replies:—
“Is the promise of God
Not familiar to thee?—
‘Again will I bring
From the depths of the sea!’
That Being whose arm
The mad waters divided,
And our fathers through haunts
Of the sea-monsters guided;

111

That Being whose terrible
Majesty gave
For a tomb to proud Egypt
The bed of the wave,
Will make, the Last Day,
His Omnipotent word
In the most secret place
Of yon Ocean be heard.”
He spake:—and the beautiful
Mourner appears
Like saint newly freed
From the sorrow of years—
One moment she lingers
With foot on the rail,
While around her the moon
Throws a loveliness pale—
The next, shrieking wildly,
“I come, murder'd lover!”
Leaves her perilous footing—
Wild waves roll above her!

112

THE REVENGE OF ROSAMOND.

[“Alboin, the conqueror of Rome, in a palace near Verona, feasted the companions of his arms. After draining many capacious bowls of Falernian wine, he called for the skull of Cunimund. The cup of victory was accepted with horrid applause by the circle of Lombard chiefs. ‘Fill it again with wine!’ exclaimed the inhuman conqueror. ‘Carry this goblet to the queen, inform her it is the skull of her father, and request in my name, she would rejoice with him.’ In an agony of grief and rage, Rosamond had strength to utter:—‘Let the will of my lord be obeyed,’ and touching it with her lips, pronounced a silent imprecation, that the insult should be washed away in the blood of Alboin.”]—

Gibbon. “And this is blood for blood.”—
Barry Cornwall.

The haughty king of Lombardy, the conqueror of Rome
His valiant chiefs convened within his splendid palace-home,
And loudly spoke, surveying the circle with his eye—
“Each guest with rich Falernian, his wassail cup fill high!
With those the blood-bought spoils of conquest shall be shared,
Who, undismayed, the perils of battle with me dared;
Let those who bravely follow my pathway o'er the slain,
At banquet-board, with Alboin the flowing goblet drain.’
“Long life,” replied each reveller, “to our unrivalled king!”
And, with applauding shouts, they made the vaulted palace ring.
With savage exultation, then, the wine-awakened throng
Recalled their deeds of hardihood, and sang the battle-song;
The king, with martial ardor and potent draughts inflamed,
To one of his attendants near, ferociously exclaimed:
“Bring forth the skull of Cunimund, to grace the banquet-hall;
The memory of glorious deeds that goblet will recall!
Bring forth the precious trophy!—The relic of a foe
Can even give Falernian wine a richer taste and glow.
Let purple nectar occupy the palace of the soul,
For meet it is the warrior should drink from such a bowl!”
The reckless king received it with a loud and scornful laugh,
And from the cup of victory he bade each Lombard quaff;
Then said in bitter irony:—“Fill up the bowl again,
And carry to my blooming queen this relic of the slain;

113

The rosy tide will pleasant thoughts within her breast inspire,
When sparkling in the grinning skull of her lamented sire:
And, page, be sure to bring me back fair Rosamond's reply—
Discharge thine errand faithfully, or by this hand you die!”
With words it were impossible to paint the burst of rage
With which the queen accepted the goblet from the page;
Though strength she had to utter:—“His will I shall obey,”
In secret she resolved her wrongs with blood to wash away.
Then to her lips she wildly raised with trembling hand the brim,
While gushing tears of agony her beauteous eyes made dim.
The base, inhuman husband soon, with love and wine inspired,
From the festive board unto his downy couch retired.
The injured queen his weary head did pillow on her breast,
And, with caress affectionate, the monarch lull to rest;
Then slyly left the chamber, and gave a signal-word,
And stealthy steps approaching her were indistinctly heard.
At length masqued figures entered; in each determined hand,
A taper faintly shedding light, disclosed the battle-brand.
“Tread softly, brave avengers, and not the sleeper rouse:
For few in prowess match the king,” whispered the false spouse.
“What is your errand, warriors?” alarmed the monarch spoke:
The answer to his question was the deadly sabre-stroke.
His keen and trusty battle-blade hung useless by his side,
Prevented from unsheathing it by his revengeful bride.
When, bleeding from an hundred wounds, she saw her lord expire,
Burst forth, “I now have well revenged the murder of my sire;”
And spurning fiercely with her foot his wound-disfigured clay,
“My wrongs,” she cried exultingly, “in blood are washed away.”
Though partially the elements may yield to man's control,
He cannot calm in woman scorned the tempest of the soul.

114

ASDRUBAL'S WIFE.

[“The flames spreading rapidly, they continued to fly from one part of the building to another, till at length they got on the roof.

“Here Asdrubal's wife appeared, uttering the most bitter reproaches against her husband, exclaiming:—‘Inglorious wretch! what degrading actions hast thou perpetrated to preserve an existence so dishonorable!’ Having stabbed her two infants with a dagger, she precipitated them from the temple's top, and leaped after them into the flames.”]

Upon the temple-roof she stood,
Unbraided was her hair,
And loud shouts from the multitude
Rose wildly on the air.
Pale terror in her fragile frame
Awoke no icy thrill:
She stood, as if the leaping flame
Was subject to her will.

Maternal love each sinew strung
With more than mortal power,
For two fair infants trembling clung
To her in that last hour.
Did not their father, in his gore,
With thousands sleep below,
While haughtily that mother bore
Vile tauntings of the foe?

No!—standing by the Roman chief,
While fiercely spread the fire,
He heard his children for relief
Call vainly on their sire.
The Pride of Carthage lay around,
Of unclean birds the food,
And purple was the groaning ground
Whereon he basely stood.

115

His well-known form the dauntless wife
Saw dimly through the smoke,
And sending up no prayer for life
Indignantly thus spoke:—
“Thrice happy they who nobly die
Beneath the steel of foemen,
And scorn, at honor's price, to buy
Existence from the Roman!

“Inhuman wretch! the blush of shame
May well suffuse thy cheek—
Faint are thine infants, and my name
Their lips refuse to speak.
A red sea rolls its burning surge
Their utterance to choke;
The roar of Ruin is their dirge,
Their winding-sheet the smoke.

“The savage vulture will not fly
From his affrighted mate
And ‘unshell'd brood’ when foes are nigh,
But stay and share their fate:
But man, to guard a worthless life,
The tie of nature breaketh—
To save his little ones and wife
Not one brave effort maketh.

“The deed is mine,—but oh, the guilt
On your black soul shall rest!”
She plunged a dagger to the hilt
Within each infant's breast;
Then wildly to the hungry flame
Their bleeding corpses flung—
One loud, appalling shriek went up,
And after them she sprung.

116

THE FALL OF AQUILEIA.

[“When Attila invaded Italy, he received a severe check before the walls of Aquileia. After repeated failures to storm the place, he rode round the walls, and observing a stork take wing, he exclaimed:—‘A creature fond of human haunts would not abandon these walls if they were not doomed to a speedy overthrow.’ He renewed the attack with redoubled energy, and a breach being made near the stork's nest, the barbarians rushed in and hurned the town, having previously butchered the inhabitants.”]—

Gibbon.

Broad meadows of the Danube
Sent forth a Hunnish horde
To reap in groaning Italy
Red harvest with the sword;
But howls of rage from front to rear
Convulsed the dark array,
When Aquileia reared her walls
That fearful march to stay.

Close to the town their leader spurred
With monarchs in his train,
While darts from tower and battlement
Fell round his head like rain—
“Weak, trembling cowards of the south,
Unbar these gates,” he cried,
“Or over your dismembered forms
My cavalry shall ride.”

The brave, devoted garrison
Sent back these taunting words:—
“The corpses of you swarthy crew
Shall feed our carrion birds!”
The broad square frame of Attila
Grew tremulous with ire,
And glanced within its socket deep
His rolling eye like fire.

117

The fierce beleaguerers advanced
In vain to storm the town,
By showers of hissing javelins
Arrested and struck down.
The flourish of barbaric horns,
The neigh of wounded steeds
Were mingled with the groans of men,
Ambition's broken reeds.

Night came:—and to their camp retired
The squadrons of the Hun;
No breach within the rampart made—
The citadel unwon:
Invincible they deemed no more
The chosen scourge of God,
Though many a tribe of earth had bowed
Beneath his iron rod.

When morning dawned, the mighty king
Round Aquileia rode,
And marked with joy an aged stork
Abandon its abode:
“Old dweller amid human haunts,
Thou leavest yonder wall,
By instinct taught that dome and tower
Are doomed this day to fall.”

The signal of assault he gave,
And thundered in the van,
While tidings of an omen fair
Were borne from man to man;
Against that portion of the work
The living torrent prest,
Where Attila beheld the stork
Forsake its ancient nest.

The crumbling masonry gave way,
A fissure opened wide,

118

While yells arose that would have drowned
The roar of Ocean's tide.
Dark clouds of Hunnish horse rushed in
To glut themselves with blood
And not a roof was left to tell
Where Aquileia stood.

That citadel, the human heart,
Must look to its defence;
For woe betide it, if the Bird
Of Hope takes flight from thence.
Dread tenant of the ruin wild,
Remorse will vainly moan,
A constant mourner for the shrine
Of beauty overthrown.

For some dread augury without
The powers of darkness wait,
That they may enter in, and leave
Its chambers desolate.
Let Truth be watchman on the wall,
And Love abide within,
And, weary of assault, will fly
The baffled host of sin.

119

FREEDOM'S OAK.

IN COMMEMORATION OF THE LANDING OF THE PILGRIMS.

They landed not a bannered host
Eager the battle-shock to brave,
Upon a rude and rocky coast
Lashed by the moaning wintry wave.

No hungering desire for gain
Far, far away lured son and sire
From pleasant homes beyond the main,
Cheered by church-bell and village spire.

Frail ones to hardship uninured,
Maid, wife, and grandam, bowed and pale,
Without complaining word endured
The buffet of the freezing gale.

They recked not, though the beast of prey
By night was on his bloody walk,
And prowled the red man forth to slay,
Armed with his murderous tomahawk.

Oh! higher, holier motives far
Than painful quest of golden sand,
Or love of desolating war,
Nerved to high deed that little band!

What brought they to a wild remote?
Stern hearts that danger could not quell—
The zeal with which a Milton wrote,
The creed for which a Hampden fell.

120

Clad in coarse, pilgrim garb, they came
To give a mighty empire birth,
And kindled up an altar-flame
That lights the gloom of guilty earth.

On them devolved a mighty task—
They robbed the bigot of his cowl,
And wrenched from tyranny the mask
That curtained features black and foul.

An acorn in the soil by them
Was sown beneath a frowning sky,
From which an oak of giant stem
Grew up, and tossed its boughs on high.

Gashed victims of the greedy sword,
While thunder shook the conflict-ground,
The best blood of their hearts have poured
Its firm, extending roots around.

And now, beneath its guardian shade,
When hunted from their native shore,
Gather thy wronged, oh Earth! afraid
Of quest-hounds on the track no more.

Then honored be those Pilgrims old,
Who planted well that noble tree,
While springs a blossom from the mould,
Or roll the waters of the sea!

Proud of descent from such a stock
Let gratitude our bosoms warm,
And ever hallowed be the Rock
On which they landed in the storm!

121

BRUTUS IN HIS TENT.

“How ill this taper burns!—ha! who comes here?”—
Shakespeare.

On wall-girt Sardis weary day hath shed
The golden blaze of his expiring beam;
And ring her paven walks beneath the tread
Of guards that near the hour of battle deem—
Whose brazen helmets in the starlight gleam;
From tented lines no murmur loud ascends,
For martial thousands of the battle dream
On which the fate of bleeding Rome depends
When blushing dawn awakes, and night's dark curtain rends.

Though hushed war's couchant tigers in their lair
The tranquil time to one brings not repose—
A voice was whispering to his soul—“Despair!
The gods will give the triumph to thy foes.”
Can sleep, with leaden hand, our eyelids close
When throng distempered fancies and depart,
And thought a shadow on the future throws?
When shapes unearthly into being start,
And, like a snake, Remorse uncoils within the heart?

At midnight deep when bards avow that tombs
Are by their cold inhabitants forsaken,
The Roman chief his wasted lamp relumes,
And calmly reads by mortal woe unshaken:
His iron frame of rest had not partaken,
And doubt—dark enemy of slumber—fills
A breast where fear no trembling chord could waken,
And on his ear an awful voice yet thrills,
That rose, when Cæsar fell, from Rome's old Seven Hills.

122

A sound—“that earth owns not”—he hears, and starts,
And grasps the handle of his weapon tried;
Then, while the rustling tent-cloth slowly parts,
A figure enters and stands by his side:
There was an air of majesty and pride
In the bold bearing of that spectre pale—
The crimson on its robe was still undried,
And dagger-wounds, that tell a bloody tale
Beyond the power of words, the opening folds unveil.

With fearful meaning towers the phantom grim,
On Brutus fixing its cold, beamless eye;
The face, though that of Julius, seems to him
Formed from the moonlight of a misty sky:
The birds of night, affrighted, flutter by,
And a wild sound upon the shuddering air
Creeps as if earth were breathing out a sigh,
And the fast-waning lamp, as if aware
Some awful shade was nigh, emits a ghostly glare.

Stern Brutus quails not, though his woe-worn cheeks
Blanch with emotion, and in tone full loud
Thus to the ghastly apparition speaks—
“Why stand before me in that gory shroud,
Unwelcome guest! thy purpose unavowed;
Art thou the shaping of my wildered brain?”
The spectre answered, with a gesture proud,
In hollow accents—“We will meet again
When the best blood of Rome smokes on Philippi's plain.”

123

ÆGEUS.

[“Theseus set sail for Athens in the same mournful ship in which he came to Crete, but forgot to change his sails, according to the instructions of his father; so that when his father beheld from a watch-tower the ship returning with black sails, he imagined that his son was dead, and cast himself headlong into the sea, which was afterward called Ægean Sea, from his name and destiny.”]

Andrew Tooke.

“A mast above the waters
Is rising tall and fair,
And hither bound, with glory crowned,
Welcome, my princely heir.”

A king these glad words uttered,
His white locks streaming free
Beneath a golden circlet,
In his watch-tower by the sea.

When nearer drew to Athens
The bark that bore his son,
The monarch, with an altered mien,
This loud lament begun:

“Those sails are sails of mourning—
They flap above the dead,
And winds that fill them whisper
Low lies the laureled head!

“Vain, vain the hope, long cherished,
That this old hand of mine
To Theseus, in dying hour,
Would royal robe resign!

“Though black the sails and rigging
Of yon ill-omened bark,
In my despairing bosom
There is a night more dark.”

124

High, high the broken billow
Its wreath of foam did fling,
When, headlong from the dizzy tower,
Plunged, in his woe, the king.

Thenceforth, august Athena!
Thy sea, for beauty famed,
The bards of classic story
Ægēum maré named.

A waste of troubled waters
Is, aye, the Poet's dower,
And royal thought keeps vigil
Within a lonely tower.

Rich fancies have been trusted
To Fortune's varying gale;
And eagerly the watcher marks
Yon home-returning sail.

Perchance on board are riches
To cheer the minstrel's lot,
And Glory's amaranthine crown,
Whose purple fadeth not.

Winds drive the vessel nearer,
And well their wrath she braves—
“Ho, watchman! swells her canvas,
A white cloud o'er the waves?”

“Thy visions, Bard, are perished—
Thy golden hopes have fled!
Those sails are sails of mourning—
They flap above the dead!”

125

TASSO.

[“A Prince of royal birth confined the Poet in a mad-house for more than seven years; the great and wealthy left him to a precarious life; but a Mountain Robber, by the road side, controlled in his favor the instinct of his gang, and craved forgiveness at the hands of the Author of the ‘Gerusalemme.’”]

Life of Tasso.

The swarthy Captain of the Band
Before the weary wanderer stood,
And the keen poniard in his hand
Had often tasted blood.
Awaiting but a sign from him,
In view were lawless men and bold,
Deep scars upon their features grim
Of strife and carnage told.

“Thy purse, or life!” exclaimed the chief—
But savage look and threat'ning tone
Fear woke not in a heart where grief
Held mastery alone.
“Our trade admits of no delay—
The quest-hounds of the law are near;
No longer hesitate—OBEY,
Or end your journey here!”

“These hollow cheeks—this mean attire,
And hair untimely streaked with snow,
But little aid from speech require
To tell of want and woe.”
Out spoke the robber in reply,
More darkly frowning than before—
“Perchance some wealthy friend would buy
Thy life with yellow ore.”

126

Then mournfully the Pilgrim said:
“At night, upon the dewy sod,
I often rest this aching head—
My only friend is God!
Not always was my fate so hard,
Raised high my fellow men above—
While a proud princess bade the bard
His lute-strings tune to love.”

“Those rags do not become, I ween,
The regal glance of those dark eyes:
I clearly trace in thy proud mien
Some lordling in disguise!”
“Ah! I am not unknown to fame,
Though a poor outcast now I roam;
Grim robber! Tasso is my name—
The world's wide street my home.”

“Flame and the sword I would defy
To shield thy person, Child of Song!
An hundred deaths would rather die
Than see thee suffer wrong.
Thy verse beneath his sable wave,
Oblivion can never hide;
Forgiveness is a boon I crave,”
The kneeling robber cried.

Although the rich had heard him pour
A prayer for aid with cold disdain—
Though long within a cell he wore
The flesh-consuming chain—
A man whose soul was dark with crime,
Whose heart compassion seldom felt,
Before the bard of strain sublime
In admiration knelt.

127

FALL OF LISBON.

Listen! is that startling sound
Some distant thunder-peal?
Or rolls upon the solid ground
The heavy chariot-wheel?
Yon pale wretch flying from his home—
The piercing shriek of woe—
The loud crash of the falling dome,
And temple, answer—no!

The soldier—who had borne a part,
When war his banner spread,
With stalwart arm and fearless heart—
Now, terror-stricken, fled:
The dying aid besought in vain—
The vaulted sky grew dark,
And, on the madly-heaving main,
Unguided rode the bark.

The castle proud, and humble shed
Alike were overthrown;
With cottage-born and palace-bred
The trembling earth was strown.
Some cowered by dwellings prostrate laid,
Blank monuments of fear;
Others looked wildly round for aid—
No aid, alas! was near.

128

“The sea is coming—we are lost!”
Despairing voices cried,
While, landward, like a charging host,
Swept on the chainless tide.
Above Art's gorgeous wreck did close
The billow darkly then;
And wildly from the flood arose
The cries of drowning men.

An awful scene, unlike the first,
With mournful twilight came:
From Lisbon's tortured heart outburst
Black smoke and hissing flame.
Then temple, arch, and glittering spire,
By wave and earthquake spared,
Wrapped in red banner-folds of fire,
The common ruin shared.

A picture of the great earthquake.

129

THE MURDERED CZAR.

[“Paul caused the corpse of his father, Peter III., to be taken up and brought to the palace, to receive similar honors with that of the empress, his wife. Prince Baratinsky and Count Alexius Orloff, two of the murderers of the unfortunate czar, were fixed on to officiate as chief mourners.

The imperial crown was placed on the coffin of Peter; and in presence of the assembled court, and amidst sable hangings, lighted tapers, and all the solemnity of woe, the two mourners took their station. Orloff, whose nerves were strong, endured the scene, unshaken; but his companion fainted beneath his emotions.”]—

Mavor.

A dark procession from the tomb
The body of their monarch bore,
With blazing torch and sable plume,
Infolded in a shroud of gore.
From turret and from tower the toll
Of chiming bells rose on the air,
While, muffled in his dusky stole,
The holy priest knelt down in prayer.

A stately figure joined the train,
And slowly walked behind the bier—
Whose haughty spirit strove in vain
To check the unavailing tear.
No golden circlet graced his head,
Nor glittered on his breast the star;
But funeral garb, and lordly tread,
Proclaimed the mourner and the czar.

When nearer to the palace proud
The bearers drew in dark array,
To young and old they cried aloud—
“Room for the bier! make way, make way!”
Like flashing waves before the prow,
The mourners thronging round, divide;
And solemnly they enter now
The lofty dwelling-place of pride.

130

The chandelier and lamp threw light
On every object in the hall;
And, darker than the wing of night,
Broad hangings rustled on the wall:
While nobles, in superb attire,
And prostrate serf, their homage paid,
Paul, on the coffin of his sire,
The diadem of empire laid.

In presence of the courtiers then,
With downcast eye and timid look,
Reluctantly two noblemen
Their station by the coffin took.
A trembling thrilled each iron frame,
And bloodless waxed their “tell-tale” cheeks—
Oh! guilt and agony and shame
Are vultures with unsparing beaks!

The taper shed a ruddy glare
On the bruised features of the dead,
And gory beard and clotted hair
In all awoke an icy dread.
Ah! fearfully the brow was still
Contorted by the pang of death,
And pomp with dust accorded ill,
Deprived of motion, mind and breath.

Why sits that ghastly watcher by
The corse, with frenzy in his gaze?
The fearful wildness of his eye
A storm, at work within, betrays:
He looks upon the pall and shroud
With face, as stainless marble, pale,
Afraid the slumberer to the crowd
Would tell the heart-appalling tale.

The mystic pencil cannot paint
The frightful look his visage wore,

131

When, reft of consciousness and faint,
He sunk exhausted on the floor.
Awaking from the swoon, with hands
Outspread for aid, the ruffian cried:—
“Vengeful the sheeted victim stands,
With arm uplifted, by my side!”

These startling words his guilt reveal,
His bosom wildly throbs with fear;
Loud shriek of death, and vain appeal
To stony hearts, ring in his ear;
The cup he bade the monarch drain,
With poison fraught, he now beholds,
And clenches in his hand again
The napkin with its bloody folds.

Ah! phantoms, unallied to earth,
That other eyes cannot discern,
Are feeding, with their hellish mirth,
Fierce flames that in his bosom burn:
In vain the mind-destroying bowl
Was brought his anguish to allay,
No draught will ever from his soul
The stain of murder wash away.

132

LYING IN STATE.

“Why, what is pomp, rule, reign, but earth and dust?
And, live we how we can, yet die we must.”

The palace floors of marble
Resound to falling feet,
And in a vast apartment
A mighty concourse meet;—
From lamp and candelabra
Stream waves of golden light,
And martial plumage flutters
On helmets, tall and bright.

From vine-wreathed goblets quaff not
That bright and brilliant throng,
And absent is the merry laugh,
The breathing lute and song.
How ill comports with sorrow
That gayly lighted hall,
Where banner-fold and trophy
Hang on the sculptured wall.

The sage and fawning courtier,
The mail-clad knight and chief,
And young and old have gathered
In all the pomp of grief;
The conqueror of conquerors
Hath thrown a deadly dart,
And stricken, in an evil hour,
An empire to the heart.

Pale on a couch of purple
A kingly form reposed—
His stalwart arm was motionless,
His eye forever closed;

133

The crimson wreath of victory
His brow encircled yet,
Though Glory's star, so radiant long,
In mournful night had set.

Of death in awful mockery
A gorgeous crown he wore,
As if the glittering symbol
Could old command restore—
As if his right hand powerless
Could grasp the truncheon still,
And make surrounding nations
The vassals of his will.

Pale pearls and sparkling diamonds
Bedecked his costly vest,
And a cross, with jewels studded,
Reposed upon his breast;
These proud words were upon it—
“By this thou wilt subdue!”
Once traced, in lightning characters,
On morning's arch of blue.

Slow, near him, waned the taper
With a still, unwavering flame,
And royal raiment shrouded
His soul-forsaken frame:
Lo! state and army officers
Kneel down beside the bed;
And yield, with mock solemnity,
Allegiance to the dead.

Can pomp restore the spirit
To its death-corrupted shrine?
That ghastly wreck of majesty
To kindred dust resign!
On brow and wasted bosom
Let hiding dust be thrown;
The worms are waiting for their prey—
The grave must have its own!

134

LAMENT FOR GRANADA.

Alas for thee, Granada!
The Crescent waned away,
When traitors leagued to shatter
Thy mace of royal sway.
Unworthy of the mother
That warmed them into life,
They heard the Gothic trumpet,
And armed not for the strife.
Look round! an earthly paradise
Is changed into a tomb,
A blight is on thy loveliness,
And mildew on thy bloom;
Where streamed the Moorish penon
Triumphantly of old,
Decay and mournful silence
Divided empire hold.

Alas for thee, Granada!
Thy chiefs are shadows now,
And ashes have been sprinkled
Upon thy crownless brow:
Thy glory is departed,
Thy day of pomp is o'er,
And “Allah illah Allah!”
Is a battle-cry no more.
Castilian valor vainly
To cloud thy glory strove
Ere Treachery within thy walls
His cunning web-work wove;
By bloody parricidal hands
Inflicted was the blow
That brought thee, gem of cities!
In all thy grandeur low.

135

MARTIAL LYRICS.

INSCRIBED TO MY KINSMAN, MAJOR WILLIAM R. ANDREWS.

CAPTAIN MAY.

[_]

[Air.—“The Men of Ninety-Eight.”]

Loud plaudits for our bold Dragoon,
The gallant Captain May!
The light of glory's dazzling noon
Will gild his name for aye.
Though fast and hot the hurtling shot
Fell round his little band,
He paled not, he quailed not,
But drew his glittering brand.

More lurid grew the battle-cloud,
But not a horseman spurred;
Their leader, on his charger proud,
Sate waiting for the word;
Though far around the trampled ground
Was with the fallen strown,
He paled not, he quailed not,
As if his form was stone.

The General galloped to his side,
And issued order stern—
“Now forward with your squadron ride,
And deathless honor earn;

136

That battery must taken be
Ere Mexico is tamed”—
He paled not, he quailed not,
But—“Follow me”—exclaimed.

There was a rush of men and steeds,
Fierce struggling for renown,
And hostile ranks, like shiver'd reeds,
In that wild charge went down:
Brave Vega yields, though many fields
Had heard his warlike shout,
And pale now, and quail now
His thousands put to rout.

Twine garlands for our Cavalier,
The gallant Captain May!
A knight without reproach, or fear—
A Bayard in the fray!
When flags that wave above the brave
Are scorched by battle's breath,
He pales not, he quails not,
But fronts the face of death.

On every breeze should grandly swell
A Nation's funeral hymn
For those, the staunch and true, who fell
In that encounter grim:—
To grace the plain where they were slain
Proud piles should tower on high:
They paled not, they quailed not,
But died as heroes die.

137

A LAY OF BRITTANY.

[_]

SUGGESTED BY READING MICHELET'S SPIRITED DESCRIPTION OF THIS OLD PROVINCE IN HIS HISTORY OF FRANCE.

Bretons love their native land
With its coast so dark and sterile—
Men of iron heart and hand,
Framed from youth to cope with peril.
Oft have Breton heads and breasts
Fierce invading cohorts driven
Back, with shorn and humbled crests,
And their armor hacked and riven.
Though the soil is cold and hard,
Small return to labor giving,
Scenes we point to, by the bard
Linked to song forever living.

Name of terror to the brave—
Lair of danger ever lowering;
Grim Cape Raz above the wave
Full three hundred feet is towering.
Thither on the rocking surge,
Have the old sea kings been drifted,
While the tempest howled a dirge,
And rough hands in prayer were lifted.
On our dark and frowning strand
Crushed are vessels every winter,
And in vain a ghastly band,
Drowning, clench frail oar and splinter.

138

Deadman's Bay within its breast
Hath entombed the lost for ages,
For a tide that knows no rest
War against the seaman wages.
Since the bearded Norsemen bold
By its hungry depths were swallowed,
Art of man, in sluggish mould,
Deeper charnel hath not hollowed.
In a last embrace entwined,
Wrecked at midnight black and cheerless,
To its custody consigned
Down have sunk the fair and fearless.
Treasure-house of wealth untold,
Jewels, amid bones, lie scattered,
Knightly arms inlaid with gold,
Dinted helm, and hauberk battered.

Islands rise above the wave,
Chained by fearful shoals together,
Where the Sacred Virgins gave
To the Celt sunshiny weather;
There their orgies drowned the gale,
Growling surf, and osprey screaming,
While around the distant sail
Glanced the lightning redly gleaming.
Mariners, far off at sea,
To the shrouds in terror clinging,
Heard their chant of hellish glee,
And barbaric cymbals ringing.

Rifted rocks are near the coast,
Girdled by the billows hoary,
And each one of them can boast,
Stranger! its romantic story.
One that lifts its rugged brow,
With the spray around it curling,

139

Though so bare and dreary now,
Was the haunt of Wizard Merlin:
Never more will work his spell,
Nor the magic rhyme be spoken,
But of him our legends tell
Though his mighty wand is broken.

Listen to that mournful roar,
To the ground-swell's measured beating!
Clamoring for graves on shore
Ghosts of shipwrecked men are meeting.
Fair the weather, or serene,
Newly-born the day, or dying,
Two black ravens may be seen
O'er yon rocky islet flying.
They are spirits of the dead—
Of a king whose doom is written.
And a child, whose beauteous head
By the same dark blow was smitten.
On yon rock in thunder rolls,
With its snow-white crown, the water,
Fitting dirge-note for the souls
Of King Grallo and his daughter.

Bretons love their province old,
Rugged nurse of gallant spirits—
Traitors cannot bribe with gold
Heart that Breton blood inherits.
Now, as in the glorious past,
France may trust in Breton daring;
When the sheath aside is cast,
Breton steel is aye unsparing.
Hohenlinden's Chief was nursed
By a dauntless Breton mother;
Let the storm of battle burst,
Breton prowess naught can smother!

140

History her leaves may turn,
And no braver name discover
Written than Latour D'Auvergne,
Glory's pure and faithful lover!
When at Waterloo eclipse
Dimm'd our hopes, one brave defender
Shouted out with Breton lips:—
“We can die, but not surrender!”
If in strife we meet once more
British bosoms, woe betide them!
Naught, upon our iron shores,
Foes e'er won but graves to hide them!

141

THE DRAGOON TO HIS STEED.

[_]

SUGGESTED BY SEEING BLACK WARRIOR, THE HIGHLY PRIZED CHARGER OF MAJOR MERRILL, OF THE SECOND DRAGOONS OF THE U. S. ARMY.

Old war-steed, while combing
Thy dark-flowing mane,
In thought I am roaming
Through fields of the slain:
Brave comrades are leaping
To saddle once more,
And follow me, steeping
Their sabres in gore:—
Through squares, formed of steel, that are shattered like glass,
Outspeeding the rush of the whirlwind, we pass.

Through wastes, hot and sterile,
Swamps, dismal and dread,
Companion in peril!
How oft have we sped:
Though night, dark and dreary,
Her curtain had drawn,
Thy limbs never weary
Would hurry me on;
And back the grim scar that is trenching thy neck
Brings a terrible vision of carnage and wreck.

A host is defending
Molino del Rey,
And clouds are ascending
To curtain the day.
Friends drop, torn asunder
By chain-shot and shell,

142

The hill-shaking thunder
Of cannon their knell;
But on press survivors, while guarded by walls
Foes check their advance with a tempest of balls.

Loud yells of derision
Prove vain the attack—
Like waves from collision
With rocks, they fall back:—
Chill horror is goading
The brave to despair,
And black mines exploding
Hurl corpses through air;
But, true to their colors, they rally and form—
Though man cannot live, and confront such a storm.

Lo! lancers in motion,
Rank bristling on rank,
Rush like waves of the ocean,
To charge us in flank;
But signal to meet them
Our bugleman blows,
And long sabres greet them
With skull-cleaving blows:
Horse and rider go down that fierce onslaught before,
And thousands are flying to rally no more.

Companion in danger!
Though now growing old,
For thee would the stranger
In vain offer gold.
The trumpet will cheer not,
My courage decay—
That morn when I hear not
Thy welcoming neigh;
For never was cavalier seen on the back
Of steed that could rival my own gallant Black.

143

THE GRAYS AT AVON.

AN IMPROMPTU.

They come! the gallant Grays—
With firm but measured tread,
And their polished arms flash back the rays
By an August morning shed;
And a cry of welcome, long and loud,
Breaks from the lips of the gazing crowd.

They move as if one soul
Beat in their proud array,
Timing their march to the drum's deep roll,
And the trumpet's stormy bray—
Oh! matchless strain! the Spartan fife,
And Orlando's horn had less of life.

Lo! they are passing by—
Those men of martial mien!
And at vine-wreathed porch and casement high
Fair ladies may be seen,
While flowers, bright flowers to the warlike band
Are flung by many a snow-white hand.

The banner disappears—
No more the music rings,
And a heavy tramp to listening ears
Alone the zephyr brings,
While helmet, plume, and glittering blade
From view like a dream of romance fade.

144

Sons of the steel! adieu!
When honor calls, I know
That to home and hearth ye will be true,
And a terror to the foe;
For banner never flung its fold
O'er forms of more heroic mould.

When on the darkened shore
Of time to death ye yield,
And your ordered ranks are seen no more
On life's great battle-field,
May command by the Lord of Hosts be given
That your tents be pitched on the plains of Heaven.

145

DEATH OF ROB ROY.

[“When this chieftain was on his death-bed, a gentleman whom he had reason to consider as an enemy, came to see him. On being requested to admit him to his bed-side, he said: ‘Raise me up, buckle on my arms, then admit him!’ The guest was received with cold civility, and in a short time departed. ‘Now,’ said Rob Roy ‘call in the piper.’ The piper came, and he expired with the voice of war pealing around him.”]

With heather pillowing his head
The dying outlaw lay,
And plaided clansmen round his bed
Stood watching in dismay.
Wild throes of dissolution shook
His worn and wasted frame,
But native lordliness of look
Distemper could not tame.

The walls of his rude dwelling-place
Were hung with weapons bright—
With branching antlers of the chase,
And trophies won in fight.
His tall, gaunt hound of proven worth,
Acute of eye and ear,
Slept idly on the lighted hearth,
Forgetful of the deer.

Cold dew—that herald which precedes
The winding-sheet, and wail
Of mourning ones—in clammy beads,
Stood on his forehead pale.
Faint grew the swell of his proud breast
And dim his falcon eye,
But manfully his lip suppressed
The groan of agony.

146

While ran his blood with feebler flow,
Strode in a clansman stout,
And told the chief, in accents low,
“A stranger waits without!”
Then syllabled the name—a word
Unwelcome to his ears,
Which darkly in his bosom stirred
The hoarded hate of years.

“No member of a hostile clan,
While heart or pulse can beat,
Shall see me,” said the dying man,
“In posture of defeat.
Array me in the spoils I took
From enemies laid low;
Clad thus, Macgregor cannot brook
The presence of a foe.

“Bring forth the bonnet that I wore
When blood was on the heather,
Though in the mountain wind no more
Will nod its eagle feather;
Gird on my sword, of temper tried,
Old beam of hope in danger,
To deeds of hardihood allied,
And then admit the stranger!”

Attendants clad the dying man
In garb that well became
The leader of a martial clan,
A warrior of fame;
Admitted then his guest, who met
Reception stern and cold;
The Highland Chief could not forget
The bloody feuds of old.

The stranger soon withdrew. “Now call
The harper in, to cheer

147

My passing spirit with the strain
Most welcome to my ear!”
The hoary minstrel brought his lyre,
To notes of battle strung,
And, fingering its chords of fire,
In stormy concert sung:—

“The plaid round his shoulders our leader hath thrown,
And a gathering blast on his bugle hath blown;
He calls on the dauntless and ready of hand
To gather around him with bonnet and brand;
Like hounds scenting out the retreat of the stag,
We quit, for the Lowlands, our home on the crag.

“The dirk of our fathers in gore we must dye!
Will the falcon forbear, when the quarry is nigh?
The Saxon dreams not, in his flowery vale,
That our pennon is flung to the welcoming gale;
That we come from the mountains to scourge and destroy,
And the chieftain we follow is dreaded Rob Roy.

“On the head of Macgregor a price hath been set,
With the blood of our clan Lowland sabres are wet;
Elated by triumph, red wine freely flows,
And loud is the song in the camp of our foes;
But to shrieking will change their demoniac joy,
When sound our glad pipers the charge of Rob Roy!”

Ere died the battle-song away,
Rose up the voice of wail,
While motionless the chieftain lay,
With face like marble pale.
No kindly word from him repaid
The harper for his strain;
The hushing hand of death was laid
On heart, and pulse, and brain!

148

SONG FOR POLAND.

Up, for encounter stern,
While unsheathed weapons gleam;
The beacon-fires of Freedom burn,
Her banners wildly stream;
Awake! and drink at purple springs—
Lo! the “white eagle” flaps his wings
With a rejoicing scream
That sends an old, heroic thrill
Through hearts that are unconquer'd still.

Leap to your saddles, leap!
Tried wielders of the lance,
And charge as when ye broke the sleep
Of Europe, at the call of France:
The knightly deeds of other years
Eclipse, ye matchless cavaliers!
While plume and pennon dance—
That Prince, upon his phantom steed,
In Ellster lost your ranks will lead.

Flock round the altar, flock:
And swear ye will be free;
Then rush to brave the battle shock
Like surges of a maddened sea;
Death, with a red and shattered brand
Yet clinging to the rigid hand,
A blissful fate would be,
Contrasted with that darker doom,
A branded brow—a living tomb.

149

Speed to the combat, speed!
And beat Oppression down,
Or win, by martyrdom, the meed
Of high and shadowless renown:—
Ye weary exiles, from afar
Come back! and make the savage Czar
In terror clutch his crown,
While wronged and vengeful millions roar
Defiance at his palace door.

Throng forth with souls to dare,
From huts and ruined halls!
On the deep midnight of despair
A beam of ancient glory falls;
The knout, the chain, and dungeon cave
To frenzy have aroused the brave;
Dismembered Poland calls,
And through a land opprest, betrayed,
Stalks Kosciusko's frowning shade.

Poniatowsky.

150

ERIN WAKING.

Light streams through a rift in the cloud
That hangs over green Innisfail—
While voices of millions are shouting aloud,
The satraps of tyranny quail:
The collar of shame hath been worn
Through ages of folly and woe—
Too long hath thy neck, O Hibernia! borne
The yoke of a merciless foe,
Whose creatures, while perfidy sharpened the dart,
Like vultures have crimsoned their beaks in thy heart.

Hot winds from the waste of despair
On thy blood-bedewed shamrock have breathed,
But the leaves, growing verdant in liberty's air,
Again round her brow shall be wreathed:
And chisel of art on the stone
Shall name of that martyr engrave
Who prayed for a sepulchre, noteless and lone,
While foot of one heart-broken slave
Polluted the green of that beautiful shore,
By steel-harnessed champions trodden of yore.

Gone forth hath the gathering word,
And under Hesperian skies
Fond exiles the call of their mother have heard,
And homeward are turning their eyes:
They send o'er the murmuring brine
In answer a shout of applause,

151

And drops, that give warmth to their bosoms like wine,
Are ready to shed in a cause
That cannot march on with a faltering stride
While Truth wears a buckler, and God is a guide.

Land of the valiant! at last
The brow of thy future is bright;
In return for a shadowed and comfortless past
Is dawning an era of light:
The Lion of Britain in vain
Is baring his teeth for the fray—
Thy children have sworn that dishonoring stain
Shall be wiped from thy forehead away;
The bones of thy martyrs have stirred in the tomb,
And glimmers the starlight of Hope through the gloom.

Invaders thy valor have rued—
To deeds that will aye be admired,
Bear witness, Clontarf! where the Dane was subdued,
And Brian, the dauntless, expired:
Thy sons on the scaffold have died,
The block hath been soaked with their gore,
And long ago banished thy splendor and pride;
But idle it seems to deplore—
Unbending resolve to blot out thy disgrace,
In hearts of the brave, to regret should give place.

The Genius of Erin from earth,
Uprising, hath broken the bowl,
Whose tide to a black-crested viper gave birth,
That long dimmed the light of her soul;
And millions of high-hearted men
Who thus can wild passion restrain,
Though driven for refuge to cavern and den,
Will arm for the conflict again—
And, venturing all on the hazardous cast,
Prove victors, though worn and outnumbered, at last.

152

Thou isle, on the breast of the sea
Like an emerald gracefully set,
Though feet shod with iron have trampled on thee,
A brightness belongs to thee yet:
In bondage thy magical lyre
Hath thrilled a wide world with its strains,
And thine eloquent sons have awakened a fire
That fast is dissolving thy chains:—
The Saxon is watching the issue in fear—
He knows that thy day of redemption draws near.

153

FLING OUT THAT STARRY BANNER.

SONG OF WILLIAMS' LIGHT INFANTRY.

Fling out that starry banner!
We love its shining fold,
A brighter never fluttered o'er
The knightly men of old;
And never muse of history
Traced in her golden tome
A prouder motto than it bears:
“Our country and our home!”

Fling out that starry banner!
The wild winds love it well,
Eyes flash to see its blazonry,
And hearts with valor swell,
Proud symbols graced thy battle-flag,
Thou Queen of Victors, Rome!
But on it flamed no words like these:
“Our country and our home!”

Fling out that starry banner!
A sign of dread to foes—
Untwining from its staff around
A radiant light it throws;
Beneath it we will brave assault,
As rocks the white sea-foam—
Strike for our wives and lady-loves,
“Our country and our home!”

154

SONG OF TEXAS.

[_]

[Air—“A life on the Ocean Wave.”]

Make room on our banner bright
That flaps in the lifting gale,
For the orb that lit the fight
In Jacinto's storied vale.
Through clouds, all dark of hue,
It arose with radiant face;
Oh! grant to a sister true,
Ye stars, in your train a place!

The blood of the Saxon flows
In the veins of men who cry—
“Give ear, give ear unto those
Who pine for their native sky!
We call on our mother-land
For a home in Freedom's hall—
While stretching forth the hand,
Oh! build not dividing wall!

“The Mexican vaunteth no more;
In strife we have tamed his pride;
The coward raps not at your door,
Speak out! shall it open wide?
Oh, the wish of our hearts is strong,
That the star of Jacinto's fight
Have place in the flashing throng
That spangle your banner bright.”

155

ERIN'S WAR-SONG.

Up! Erin's battle-shout
The tombs of old is waking—
Fling the green banner out,
The Saxon yoke is breaking!
The heart-wrung sighs of centuries
Will soon be hushed forever,
And Slavery's brand our native land
Again shall blacken never!
Up! &c.

Bare to the light once more
The blade that Brian wielded,
When, 'mid wild battle's roar,
The haughty Norseman yielded!
Achievements high of days gone by
Shall nerve us for the trial,
Though drops are shed on valor's head
From Fate's most deadly vial.
Up! &c

Con of the Hundred Fights
Awakes the green sod under;
Fired are the beacon-lights,
Our watch-word peals like thunder;
Old Tara's lyre with chords of fire
Unearthly hands are stringing,
And the proud lays of other days
Dim phantom forms are singing.
Up! &c.

156

Swear by our martyred dead
Whose praise sad bard hath spoken;
Swear by the brave who bled
When Felim's shield was broken,
That Erin free, above the sea
Shall lift her head long clouded,
Or slain we'll rest, each pulseless breast
In war's deep crimson shrouded!
Up! Erin's battle-shout
The tombs of old is waking—
Fling the green banner out,
The Saxon yoke is breaking!

157

LAMENT OF AN AUSTERLITZ VETERAN.

My glance was not fearfully dim,
Nor the hair on my temples all hoary
When, guided through danger by him,
I came from the fight, red with glory—
Old badges of valor recall
The Hero that sleeps far from Gaul.

When I think of that isle in the brine
Where his cold, shrouded relics are lying,
Where winds with rough surges combine,
And his dirge are eternally sighing—
Tears, tears like the rain warmly fall
For the Hero that sleeps far from Gaul.

In dreams of the night I behold
His legions to battle advancing,
And conquering eagles unfold
Bright wings o'er his cavalry prancing,
And again I rejoice in the call
Of thy world-waking trumpet, oh, Gaul!

Once more, on my withering cheek,
The storm of the Switzer is blowing
And the vulture of war whets his beak
Where the sands of the desert are glowing,
And our Chief in the Mameluke tall
Views a foe not unworthy of Gaul.

Again the red war-eagle builds
His perch in the tottering Kremlin,
And the sunbeam of Austerlitz gilds
The field with artillery trembling;

158

But morning robs night of her pall,
And I mourn the lost Hero of Gaul.

I was steadfast to suffering France
When the wild-winds of Faction blew on her,
And Hate shook the murderous lance,
And he gave me this bright cross of Honor—
These scars, won at Lodi, recall
The Hero that sleeps far from Gaul

If I could have stood by his bed
When his soul, from the fetter that bound him,
To mix with mad elements fled,
That long had been warring around him,
One heart would have burst as the pall
Was flung o'er the Hero of Gaul.

O would that yon Seine near his tomb
Could wander, his requiem swelling,
That the sunshine of France could illume
The cold, earthen roof of his dwelling,
That the tears of remembrance could fall
On the grave of thy Hero, oh, Gaul!

Repining is vain! near the place
Where he moulders, the willow is trailing,
And Ocean the rock-guarded base
Of the desolate isle is assailing,
And the storm-cloud alone weeps the fall
Of the Hero that sleeps far from Gaul.

159

INDEPENDENCE ODE.

[_]

[Air—“Marselloise Hymn.”]

Ye sons of sires who gathered proudly
Our flag of stars and stripes around,
When rang the dread alarum loudly,
And paled Oppression at the sound—
Bless God—the just, the Ever-living,
Who guarded with his mighty shield
Young Freedom on the battle-field,
And shout an anthem of thanksgiving!
Cheer on! cheer on the march
Of mind throughout the globe,
Till wit and worth ennoble man,
Not crown and purple robe!

That ground is hallowed where one martyr
For holy truth contending dies,
And vile are they who would not barter
Gems, gold, and blood for such a prize;
Oh! dark the doom is of that vassal,
Lost in a maze of mental night—
Too abject to maintain the right,
Who hungers that his lord may wassail—
Then cheer, cheer on the march
Of mind throughout the globe,
Till wit and worth ennoble man,
Not crown and purple robe.

Our nation's dark and dismal morning
Hath brightened into cloudless day,
But notes of deep and fearful warning
Call on the wise to watch and pray.

160

From mountain, vale, and cavern lonely—
From Lexington and Monmouth ground,
Breathe out these words of solemn sound—
“In union there is safety only!”
Then cheer, cheer on the march
Of mind throughout the globe,
Till wit and worth ennoble man,
Not crown and purple robe.

The valor that found voice in thunder
On Bunker's glorious battle-hill,
And made the nations gaze in wonder,
Is living yet, is burning still.
Hark to the screaming of our eagle
Where fly, before a dauntless band,
The men of Montezuma's land,
Like frightened hares before the beagle!
Nine cheers, then, for the brave
Whose fame will know no blight!
They prove that mind wins mastery,
Not numbers in the fight.

A beacon on our coast is lighted
That kindles up the gloom of earth,
And guides the wanderer benighted
To Freedom's altar-stone and hearth
Would not our sires, entombed and sleeping,
Leap with their rusty brands from dust,
Should we prove faithless to the trust
Sternly committed to our keeping?
Yes, yes:—then cheer the march
Of mind throughout the globe,
Till wit and worth ennoble man—
Not crown and purple robe.

161

BATTLE-SONG OF THE POLISH LANCER.

To saddle, to saddle, with lances in rest!
By heel of the tyrant our greensward is pressed—
Yon Lord of the Balkan, while hurrying on
Long columns of footmen and hordes from the Don,
Dreams not that his laurels will wither to-day—
That a whirlwind of horsemen will crush his array!
Old Poland for ever!

Though muskets rain lead, and black cannon belch fire,
Beaten back by the shock, will the “Lancers retire?”
No!—an oath we have sealed, with the cross in our hands,
To charge! though our foemen outnumber the sands—
Aye, winged with the speed of a hurricane, ride
Through the ranks of the Czar, as a ship cleaves the tide.
Old Poland for ever!

The war-note of Poland's “White Eagle” we hear!
He will scream soon a knell in the Muscovite's ear—
Our chargers, impatient, are pawing the ground—
They long, like their riders, for trumpet to sound!
Oh, when will the signal our bugleman blow,
To bear like a thunderbolt down on the foe!—
Old Poland for ever!

While growl for red banquet these Bears of the North,
From Warsaw's bright turrets the lovely look forth;
Fair hands wrought the flag by our legion unrolled—
Bright eyes in the battle our deeds will behold:
Oh, who would not forth for his country to fight,
With the graves of her dead and her altars in sight!
Old Poland for ever!

163

SONGS AND BALLADS.

THE POET'S HOME.

Give answer, rolling waves!
Where must the minstrel go
To find some quiet land,
Unvisited by woe?
Some consecrated spot,
Where partings are unknown,
And on the violet turf
A blight is never thrown?
The waves reply, while bursting on the strand,
“Earth, in her ample bounds, owns no such land.”

Answer, ye voiceful winds!
Where can the minstrel find
A wreath amid whose leaves
No cypress is entwined?
A crown of beauteous flowers
That may become a brow
O'er which neglect's cold hand
Hath driven Grief's dark plow?
And the winds answer, “Sunset hath not smiled,
On wreath like this in all our wanderings wild.”

Oh! answer, aged Earth!
Where will the bard obtain
Reward for airy dreams
Created by his brain?

164

A recompense for toil
In haunts obscure and cold,
While one by one his hopes,
Expiring, turn to mould?
Earth makes reply, “The bard's reward is rest
Under the green robe on his mother's breast.”

Give answer, journeying birds,
That northern fields forsake
In quest of tropic grove,
Green isle and sunny lake—
Will ye not reach a clime
Whose radiance may control
The wild, unsated wish
That haunts the poet's soul?
And the birds warble, “By our flight be taught
That not in vain are homes of beauty sought.”

Give answer, twinkling stars!
For lord of lute and lay
Cannot some kingdom fair
Be found far, far away;
Where sleep may fall like balm
Upon his wounded powers—
A sunny land of calm,
Unlike this world of ours?
And the stars answer, “At the fount of song,
In heaven, no more the minstrel suffers wrong.”

165

INDEPENDENCE ODE.

When our fathers in vain sought redress from the throne,
And the Tyrant grew mad in his thirst for dominion—
Earth shook, while the bugle of conflict was blown,
And our Eagle unfolded his newly-fledged pinion:
Men with hair thin and white,
Bared their arms for the fight,
And the lad of sixteen made the dull weapon bright,
While gilding the battle-storm, rolling in wrath,
The sunlight of freedom streamed full on their path.

Fierce bands of Oppression were marshalled in vain,
Though the Cross of St. George fluttered haughtily o'er them,
Unmoved as the rock, beating backward the main,
Frowned the phalanx of Liberty darkly before them:
With the dying and dead
Was the battle-field spread,
And the rain of destruction fell reeking and red;
But Britain soon learned that she could not prevail,
For the war-shout of Washington rang on the gale.

In earth, by their prowess and fortitude won,
From the grasp of Invasion, our grandsires are sleeping,
And proud are the columns that gleam in the sun,
Where moss o'er each sepulchre slowly is creeping;
But the triumphs of Art
Can no glory impart,
When the names of the mighty are traced on the heart,
And deeds that have hallowed hill, valley, and shore,
Are linked to the turf that they trod, evermore.

166

The valor that burned in the breasts of our sires
Is living in hearts of the free-born and daring,
Who nobly, while poets are stringing their lyres,
Our flag to the Mexican stronghold are bearing:
Thronging hosts in the fray,
Veiled the lustre of day
With the smoke-cloud of guns, but their march could not stay,
And earth feels the tread of their conquering feet,
While the heart of an Empire is ceasing to beat.

Proud heirs of a legacy bought by the sword,
May the South and the North ever live in communion;
May the vials of doom on the traitor be poured,
Whose lip ever mutters that foul word—“Disunion”—
Guard the Home of your birth
Where the wretched of earth,
When scourged by the Despot, find altar and hearth,
And the splendor of Rome will be dim to the fame
That our Land, in the Congress of Nations, will claim.

167

KE-U-KA REVISITED.

Loved Lake! I have seen thee once more,
And the hills that slope down to thy wave,
And gazed on thy picturesque shore,
While nature a welcoming gave.
Old woods, like the sun-bow arrayed,
By the breath of October were stirred
And music to soothe me was made
By wind, singing ripple and bird.

How sweet was the murmuring roll
Of each wavelet that broke on the strand!
And I thought I was wafted in soul
From earth to some magical land.
Circling over thy bosom of blue
The light, graceful gull was afloat,
And gravelly Bluff Point loomed to view
From the deck of our beautiful boat.

Though changed since the summit I trod
In the deep green of summer-time drest,
It towered a grand altar of God,
And mist rose like smoke from its breast.
My hat waved in air at the sight,
And I cheered in my fullness of joy,
While back came a sense of delight
That I knew, when a wild, dreaming boy.

The red man may well with a sigh
Look there on a paradise lost,

168

While the bones of his forefathers lie
Exposed to the gale and the frost.
His pines, so majestic of old,
Stand dreary, like battle-thinn'd ranks;
The stone of his altar is cold,
His trail blotted out on thy banks.

Ke-u-ka! thrice blest would I be,
Could a home by thy waters be mine;
No monarch beyond the blue sea
Would drink such a draught of life's wine.
My harp, draped no longer in black,
Would wake to a rapturous strain;
The dream of romance would come back,
And my spirit grow youthful again.

The child of my love has an eye
Like the deep azure tint of thy breast,
And her cheek wears the roseate dye
On thy mirror by sunset impressed.
I caught the bright gleam of her hair
In thy swell, edged by morning with gold,
And the snow of her forehead so fair
In the flash of thy foam did behold.

How grandly the wood-belted hills
In thy surf dipped their gray, rocky feet,
While leaped down a thousand bright rills,
Like children their mother to greet!
Three cheers for the steamer Steuben!
May she aye be a stranger to wreck,
Not forgetting that jewel of men,
The Captain who paces her deck.

Crooked Lake.

169

THE ROSE-BUD.

Methinks thy gift to wandering bard
Who weaves for thee this careless strain,
Will prove an amulet to guard
From outward ill and inward pain.
Oh! precious is the bud to me
That once on thy fair bosom lay!
For richest pearl in Omar's sea
I would not barter it away.

Thy touch hath made it, leaf and stem,
A priceless and a hallowed thing,
Meet for Titania's diadem
While dancing in the fairy ring.
When faded its voluptuous hue,
A life will linger in the flower
That needeth not sustaining dew,
Or golden sunshine's nursing power.

By day, and in the hush of night,
Grief's shadow from my brow to chase,
Its leaves will summon back to sight
Thy graceful form and classic grace.
To the bard's dreamy, gorgeous land
In spirit may we often fly,
And wander shadowy, hand in hand,
Through rose-wreathed halls of fantasy.

What nonsense have I written down!
I am not self-possest to-day—
On brow the world hath taught to frown
The light of song should never play.

170

Can “Witch Imagination” warm
A heart whose passion-streams are dry?
Mere man of parchment and of form,
And slave of wrangling fools am I.

Should maid, then, blest like thee, require
From me the tributary rhyme?
The peerless child of laurelled sire
Will share his fame in after-time.
Thou needest not the praise of one
From whom life's romance is receding,
Who haunts a land without a sun—
The barren realm of special pleading.

Farewell! I quit thee with regret
To struggle in the war of life;
I would not for the world forget
Thy words of—hush! I have a wife,
And two sweet children—one a boy
Who wears the dark hair of his mother,
And, full of innocence and joy,
A radiant little girl the other.

171

HUNTING SONG.

Would that one I love were here
Where the monarch-pine is waving,
And the Susquehanna near,
Broad, majestical and clear,
Wanders on, the valley laving!
Where tall peaks to kiss the cloud
Far above his tide are swelling,
Beauteous when a misty shroud
Hovers round their foreheads proud,
I would make my sylvan dwelling.

Round my home the sun would throw
Tints of rosy light when dying:
Though the vale far, far below
Warms not with a sunset glow,
In a robe of shadow lying.
From the blasted pine, his throne,
I would mark with folded pinion,
Feathered sovereign, fierce and lone,
While the rocking boughs made moan,
Gazing on his wild dominion.

I would rove with hound and gun,
When the dawn of day was breaking,
And the dim stars, one by one,
Paled before their lord, the sun,
In a blaze of glory waking:

172

I would blow a bugle-blast
Loud romantic echoes rousing;
Then, with footstep fleet and fast,
Seek the greenwood deep and vast,
Where the antlered deer are browsing.

With the spoils of chase at night,
Gladly to my home returning,
I would haste, with footfall light,
Guided by a beacon bright
On my rugged hearth-stone burning.
There my bride, in accent clear,
While my frugal meal preparing,
With a song would lull mine ear,
And repay her mountaineer
For a life of toil and daring

173

THOUGH THY DREAR WORDS.

“The roses of my spirit, as well as of my cheeks are fled, and I fear, my friend, that the few pale flowers which are still lingering in the garden of my youth would soon become scentless and tasteless to you.”

Stella.

Though thy drear words are fraught with solemn truth,
And the soft light of thy dark eye is waning—
Though roses in the garden of thy youth,
Like mourners, few and frost-bleached, are remaining—
My heart with deep affection to its core
Will thrill whenever thy sweet name is spoken,
And love thee till its pulse can throb no more,
And its frail chords are tuneless, stilled and broken.

Think not that maid of more enticing mien—
Of lip more red, and darker, richer tresses,
Though in the jewelled drapery of a queen
Her form of Phidian witchery she dresses,
Will teach me falsehood by her potent wiles,
And the fond ties that knit our souls dissever,
Or, with the dazzling radiance of her smiles,
Dim Stella's image in my bosom ever.

Though pain and sorrow on thy forehead fair
Have left their deep and melancholy traces,
I prize thy pensive mournfulness of air
Far more than joys that kindle happier faces.
I think of thee when Night is on her throne,
And Dian in her car of pearl is riding,
And when I wander in the woods alone
Thy sylph-like figure in my path seems gliding.

174

The wild, inconstant bird our northern bowers
Forsakes, when winds are chill and leaves are dying;
In quest of lands where ever blush the flowers
Across the blue and briny waters flying:—
Unlike that bird from thee I will not fly
When the brief summer of thy bloom is ended,
And with the tints of life a deadlier dye,
That whispers of the winding-sheet, is blended.

Ah! if it be thy destiny to lie
In the cold hall of dreamless rest before me,
My tears, until the fount of grief is dry,
Will 'dew the funeral turf that blossoms o'er thee:
Nor will I worship, with adoring gaze,
Some dawning orb of loveliness, forgetting
The lost, extinguished star of other days
That flung on me its latest beam while setting.

175

FLORENCE AND PAUL.

By ocean's rocky ledges
She clasped his wasted hand,
And the surf, with whitening edges,
Came booming to the land.
His sweet, pale face, wore ever—
By day and twilight lone—
The look of one who never
Had childish pastime known:
But love, unto each other,
Had closely knit the pair—
Why, with her little brother,
Came gentle Florence there?

PAUL.
Hark! dearest sister, hearken!
To that low, mournful strain,
While landward breezes darken
The mirror of the main.
Is it the snow-gull glancing,
A rover wild and free—
Far off the white-caps dancing,
Or phantoms that I see?

FLORENCE.
I hear no voice of sorrow
Of roaring ocean born,
And his azure garments borrow
Fresh lustre from the morn.

176

A misty mantle covers
The waters far away,
And nothing ghostly hovers
Above the dashing spray.

PAUL.
A lady beckons, sister!
Who pale and shrouded seems,
Oh! I have often kissed her,
And talked to her in dreams.
Her presence wakes within me
Vague memories of the past;
Oh! would that she might win me
To her embrace at last.

177

HEBREW MELODY.

“Thou hast covered thyself with a cloud, that our prayers should not pass through.”—
Lamentations, 3:44.

We have prayed, in the midnight deep,
For Salem doomed by thee;
Oh! when will thine anger sleep,
And our fettered limbs be free?
Her princes wail aloud,
And fly while foes pursue—
“Thou hast covered thyself with a cloud,
That our prayers should not pass though.”

Joy of the earth no more,
Her strongholds are destroyed,
And the glittering crown she wore
Of brightness is devoid.
For sackcloth, lo! the proud
Change robes of scarlet hue—
“Thou hast covered thyself with a cloud,
That our prayers should not pass through.”

For corn and wine in vain
Her famished children call,
And drugged is the cup they drain
With the wormwood and the gall:
In dust are the mighty bowed
With their ruined homes in view—
“Thou hast covered thyself with a cloud,
That our prayers should not pass through.”

178

She, on whose queenly head
The gifts of heaven were showered,
Droops, widowed by the dead,
With watching overpowered.
The tears of a ghastly crowd
Her walks and courts bedew—
“Thou hast covered thyself with a cloud,
That our prayers should not pass through.”

179

LAY OF THE CRUSADER.

Ginevra!—Ginevra!—
Thy girlish lip is mute:
And silent, in ancestral hall,
Hangs now thy gilded lute.
With trophies from the Holy Land
Hath come thine own true knight,
To wildly wish the desert sand
Had drank his blood in fight!

Ginevra!—Ginevra!
By palmer wert thou told
That, on the plains of Palestine,
My corse was lying cold;
And, credence giving to the tale,
Went up wild prayer to die,
While suddenly thy cheek grew pale,
And lustreless thine eye.

Ginevra!—Ginevra!—
No more thy lulling voice,
When twilight paints the sky, will trill
The ballad of my choice.
Thy parting gift, my buried bride,
Will nerve this arm no more,
When speeds my barb with fetlock dyed
In Saracenic gore.

180

Ginevra!—Ginevra!
Death holds in icy thrall
Thy loveliness of form and face
In his unlighted hall.
With laurels from the Holy Land
Hath come thine own true knight,
To wildly wish the desert sand
Had drank his blood in fight.

181

A FESTAL SONG.

Fill high, fill high, with good old wine,
The bowl our fathers drained—
Fill high, fill high, though its golden rim
By the mist of age is stained.
In nectar now bedew the lips,
And wake the voice of song,
For clouds will gather, and eclipse
The light of bliss ere long.
Fill high, fill high, with good old wine,
The cup our fathers drained—
Fill high, fill high, though its golden rim
By the mist of age is stained.

The foam-bells on the ruby tide
Are types of passing things,
Reminding us that Joy soon dies—
That gray-beard Time hath wings—
And a few more days will dawn and end,
A few more moons wax old,
Ere friend will darkly follow friend
To homes in church-yard mould.
Fill high, fill high, with good old wine,
The bowl our fathers drained—
Fill high, fill high, though its golden rim
By the mist of age is stained.

Around this ancient festal board
Glad spirits met of yore,
But their merry strains are hushed in death—
Their laugh will ring no more:

182

Under the yew trees, mossed and green,
May their quiet graves be found;
But in soul they hover nigh unseen,
While tale and jest go round.
Then fill high, fill high, with good old wine,
The bowl our fathers drained—
Fill high, fill high, though its golden rim
By the mist of age is stained.

183

HEART SHADOWS.

“Me nec fœmina, nec puer
Jam, nec spes animi credula mutui,
Nec certare juvat mero,
Nec vincire novis tempora floribus.”
Horace.

The rack that weaves a vapory pall
Between the sun and earth,
Soon passes, and the birds again
Make melody and mirth;
But, ah! there is a darker cloud
That will not thus depart,
But flings, though roll away the years,
A shadow on the heart.

The dim and misty veil that drapes
A sombre April sky,
Is kindled, now and then, by gleams
Of day's bright golden eye;
But through a denser, darker cloud
The sunbeam cannot dart—
It coldly flings for evermore
A shadow on the heart.

It may be study that has brought
This deep, abiding gloom—
Blind, erring Love, whose roses frail
Catch odors from the tomb;
Or Pleasure wild, that beckons us
To sail without a chart,
May fling, till o'er the stormy cruise,
A shadow on the heart

184

Let Music wake her sweetest note,
And Joy his loudest strain—
The light that cheered and warmed of old
Comes never back again:
The mantle of a night that morn
In twain will never part,
Flings heavily for evermore
Chill shadows on the heart.

185

A WAIL.

Wail! wail! wail!
Filling earth with the sound—
Alas, the Old Year
Lieth dead and discrown'd!
Happy dreams, sunny joys,
Pleasant thoughts that we cherished,
Were born while he ruled,
And with him have they perished;
A phantom with scythe
And frail glass hurried by
Who palsied his limbs,
And who curtained his eye.

Croak! croak! croak!
Outcalleth the crow,
Perched on the tree-top
A prophet of woe!
Black are his vestments,
And vigil he keepeth
Over the spot where
The weary one sleepeth.
Fled have bright schemes
With the year that is gone,
And pall o'er the coffin
Of love hath been drawn.

Wail! wail! wail!
The knell of the year
Telleth children of dust
That the night-time is near—

186

That Beauty in vain
Watcheth over her flower—
That her march to the grave
Groweth faster each hour:
Wail! wail! wail!
Filling earth with the sound,
Alas! the Old Year
Lieth dead and discrown'd.

187

THE GIRLS OF SONG.

Come back to memory, and wear
Your chaplets of poetic glory,
Bright Laura of the golden hair,
And Tasso's royal Leonora!
But wakeners of a brighter throng
Of pleasant thoughts and visions airy,
Are those immortal Girls of Song—
Sweet “Bonny Jean” and “Highland Mary.”

Fair picture to poetic eye
Is Una with her white lamb straying,
Or Rosalind, a masquer sly,
The part of boy in Arden playing;
But never toward those rustic belles
My heart will in attachment vary
Who weave for me poetic spells—
Young “Bonny Jean” and “Highland Mary.”

I love, in inspiration's hour
While Fancy her weird realm discloses,
To think of love's own passion flower,
Young Juliet with her wreath of roses.
But never walked elysian plain,
Or lingered in the “Land of Faëry”
Forms dearer than that precious twain—
Blithe “Bonny Jean” and “Highland Mary.”

The lassies still are young and fair,
Defying Death and Time's endeavor;

188

Their lover was the Bard of Ayr,
And in his lay they live forever.
Methinks the sun would be less bright—
Less beautiful the welkin starry,
Had never woke to life and light,
Blithe “Bonny Jean” and “Highland Mary.”

189

THE HALLOWED WELLS OF LEARNING.

The hallowed wells of Learning
No wasting may they know,
But sparkle, fed by lucid streams,
Unceasing in their flow;
And may their waters catch no stain
Of deep and Stygian dye,
Though error for an hour hold reign
Beneath a darkened sky.

The sacred bowers of Learning,
Be blight apart from them!
No tree grow up with serpent-folds
Entwining round the stem;
No bud of precious promise feel
The frost of cold neglect,
And heard no solemn funeral peal
For Genius early wrecked.

The stately halls of Learning,
Forever may they stand!
And Truth walk down the sounding aisles,
With Honor hand in hand;
The columns that uphold the roof
Be men of noble mould,
And beauteous daughters, armed in proof,
Stern war with wrong to hold.

The holy shrines of Learning,
May no polluting flame

190

Be lighted on one altar-stone
By fiends who mock at shame;
But cloudless light be shed abroad
A guilty world to cheer,
And men forget to worship God
In superstitious fear.

191

ODE.

IN COMMEMORATION OF THE SETTLEMENT OF WESTERN NEW YORK.

High was the homage senates paid
To the plumed conquerors of old
And freely at their feet were laid
Rich piles of flashing gems and gold

Proud History exhausted thought—
Glad bards awoke their vocal reeds
While Phidian hands the marble wrought
In honor of their wond'rous deeds;

But our undaunted pioneers
Have conquests more enduring won,
In scattering the night of years,
And opening forests to the sun:

And victors are they nobler far
Than the helmed chiefs of other times,
Who rolled their chariots of war
In other lands and distant climes.

Earth groaned beneath those mail-clad men,
Bereft of beauty where they trod—
And wildly rose from hill and glen
Loud, agonizing shrieks to God

Purveyors to the carrion-bird,
Blood streamed from their uplifted swords,
And while the crash of states was heard,
Swept on their desolating hordes.

192

Then tell me not of heroes fled—
Crime renders foul their boasted fame,
While widowed ones and orphans bled
They earned the phantom of a name.

The sons of our New England sires,
Armed with endurance, dared to roam
Far from the hospitable fires,
And the green, hallowed bowers of home.

Distemper, leagued with famine wan,
Nerved to a high resolve, they bore,
And flocks upon the thymy lawn
Ranged where the panther yelled before.

Look now abroad! the scene how changed
Where fifty fleeting years ago,
Clad in his savage costume, ranged
The belted lord of shaft and bow.

No more a woody waste, the land
Is rich in fruits and golden grain,
And clustering domes and temples stand
On upland, river, shore and plain.

In praise of Pomp let fawning Art
Carve rocks to triumph over years—
The grateful incense of the heart
Give to our living Pioneers.

Almighty! may thine outstretched arm
Guard, through long ages yet to be,
From tread of slave, and kingly harm,
Our Eden of the Genesee.

193

A SCOTTISH BALLAD.

“We perish, or avenge him!”
The fierce Mc Ians cried,
When, stricken by an arrow,
The brave young Ronald died.

Noon saw them stem the battle
With targe and broad claymore,
But moonlight fell upon them
Crouched darkly in their gore.

Mourn, mourn, ye houseless widows!
Ye orphan children, wail!
Nor son, nor sire, nor brother
Come back to tell the tale!

Ho! pale and plaided maiden,
Of light, but hurried tread—
Thy quest is vain; for Ronald,
Thy Highland lad, is dead!

At last she found her lover
Stretched on the dewy turf—
His face, all streaked with crimson,
Colder than wintry surf.

The brooch on his hushed bosom
Flashed in the wan moonlight,
And low and dirge-like music
Rose on the blast of night.

194

She wildly kissed his cold lips,
And over him she spread
Her chequered plaid, believing
Its warmth might wake the dead.

Poor, crazed, heart-broken Flora,
Thy time of woe was brief,
For blue-eyed morning found thee
A corse beside thy chief!

Deep grave the herdsmen hollowed
Within the valley lone,
And there ye rest together
Without memorial-stone.

195

THE POLE'S FAREWELL.

Warsaw, farewell! alone that word
Fame's dark eclipse recalls;
The voice of wail alone is heard
Within her ruined walls—
Her pavement rings beneath the tread
Of bondsmen by a master led.

Hope kindles on my native shore
No more her beacon-fires—
The northern Bear is trampling o'er
The dust of fallen sires,
And signal ever to destroy
Has been his growl of savage joy.

Oh! for one hour of glory gone—
An arm of might to hurl
The Czar in thunder from his throne,
And Freedom's flag unfurl;
Then welcome like a bride the grave
Unbranded by the name of slave.

Our snow-white Eagle screams no more
Defiance high and loud;
The wing is broken that could soar
Through battle's smoky cloud,
And wounded by a coward's spear,
His perch is now lost Poland's bier.

Once happy was the hall of home,
Now desolation's lair—
Blood stains its hearth, and I must roam,
A pilgrim of despair,
Leaving, when heart and brain grow cold,
My weary bones in foreign mould.

The ensign of Poland is a White Eagle.

196

THE PRESS.

Ere the glorious Art that we love was invented,
Restoring the lustre Earth wore in her morn,
A picture the map of creation presented,
How bleak and forbidding—how lost and forlorn!
More dark than the midnight of dreary November,
A pall was spread over the region of mind;
The fires of the past had gone out, and no ember
Was saved from the wreck to illumine mankind.

The Genius of Liberty, bleeding and fettered,
Lay mute and heart-crushed in a pestilent cave,
While cowled Superstition, morose and unlettered,
Consigned with rude hand murder'd Hope to the grave.
Truth walked through the world with a visage dejected,
And Error, appareled in sable, was King;
The harp of the poet hung mute and neglected,
The red rust of ages corroding each string.

Then hail to the Press, by which fetters were broken,
And dungeons unbarred to the visit of day—
Our glorious Art, that in thunder hath spoken,
The night-hag of Ignorance chasing away.
Plumed minions of pomp, with their pageantry hollow,
Before its effulgence dissolving, grew pale,
As vapory clouds at the smile of Apollo
Roll back, and the face of the waters unveil.

And hail to our brother, calm Tamer of Lightning,
The pride of his country and terror of kings!
Whose fame, though his body is dust, ever bright'ning
A pure, holy light on America flings.
The Staff of the Sage in his hand was a weapon
That aided in conflict a Washington's glaive;
While guard we the relic, no foe will dare step on
The green turf that covers a patriot's grave.

197

SERENADE.

List, lady, listen,
While brightly glisten
The lulling waves in the sweet starlight,
For music hath woke
Her echoes, and broke
The dreamy hush of the summer night.

Fairies awaking
Dells are forsaking
The magic fall of my strain to hear:—
Star of my being!
Darkness is fleeing,
And sprites, in the green-wood born, are near.

Wake, dearest, waken,
Moonbeams have taken
From queenly Night an eclipsing cloud—
Billows kiss brightly
My skiff rocking lightly
Beneath the porch of thy dwelling proud.

Angels are near me,
Water-nymphs hear me,
Their pearl-cars float on the glassy tide—
Winds have been wooing,
With whisper subduing,
Blossoms that blush on the mountain side.

While wavelets glisten,
List, lady, listen,
For notes to the landward breeze are given
Sweet as that lay
Thou wilt hearken alway
When thy soul leaves Earth to gladden Heaven.

198

FISHING SONG OF SHETLAND.

The mermen who dwell
In the fathomless deep
Are lulling the turbulent
Billows to sleep;
And will leave soon their
Cold, sparry caverns to guide
The bark of the fisherman
Over the tide.

In the halls of Valhalla
Dwell none but the bold;
We will rival in daring
Our fathers of old—
They thought not of danger
While plying the oar,
And left to the coward
The hovel on shore.

In childhood our nurse
Was the murmuring sea,
The roar of its waters
Proclaims—we are free.
The thunder of waves, and
The shriek of the gale
Keep time to our voices
While trimming the sail.

Our wives blandly smiling
Will greet our return;
On the hearth, the red peat-fire
Will merrily burn.
The sky is serene, and
The ocean, this day,
To our bearded harpoons
A rich tribute shall pay.

199

THE SEA-NYMPH'S SONG.

Sound is he sleeping
Far under the wave,
Sea-nymphs are keeping
A watch for the brave:
Deep was our grief and wild—
Wilder our dirge
When the doomed Ocean Child
Drowned in the surge.

Within a bright chamber
His form we have laid;
With spar, pearl, and amber
The walls are arrayed—
Though high rolls the billow,
He wakes not at morn,
And sponge for his pillow
From rocks we have torn.

I heard thy name spoken
When down came the mast,
His hold was then broken—
That word was his last.
A picture is lying,
Lorn maid! on his breast—
That picture in dying
His hand closely prest.

Why turns thy cheek paler
These tidings to know?
The truth of thy sailor
Should lessen thy woe:
The wave could not chill it
That stifled his breath;
Pure love—can aught kill it?
Give answer, oh, Death!

200

JUNIPER ISLE.

Oh! fairy scenes are in many lands,
Bright lawns lie spread amid desert sands;
Green Edens, swept by the cooling breeze,
Their brows lift up above Indian seas,
While the billows break, in lengthened swells,
And strew the shore with rose-lipped shells;
But Nature in her loveliest spot—
Arcadian bower, or Egerian grot,
Gave never the light of a sweeter smile
Than rests on the face of the Juniper Isle.

A bow-shot or more, from its gleaming strand,
A rock looms up all dark and grand,
Girt by an azure, watery zone,
Like faith in a shifting world alone:
Old hills beyond, a continuous chain,
Give bounds to the realm of proud Champlain,
And clothed in robes of cerulean dye
Resemble clouds that have left the sky,
Woo'd down by the scene's romantic charms,
Like Dian to young Endymion's arms.

Back memory will often stray
To the quiet scene of that summer day
When I heard the combing billows break
On the polished beach of the breezy lake;
But the brightest feature of the scene,
Though skies were clear, the meadows green,
And airy tongues, dispelling care,
Made musical both earth and air,
Was nature's gem, the Juniper Isle,
That basked in the sunset's golden smile.

201

THE HEARTH-CRICKET.

I love thy chirping notes,
Black watchman of the night!
They summon from the cloudy past
Bright hours of lost delight.
The wildwood haunts of home
In thought I tread once more—
Rock, thicket, glade, and torrent wear
The loveliness of yore.

Around the lighted hearth
That gave thee lodging warm
While fell the cold, November rain
Or howled the wintry storm,
In calm contentment meet
The forms of vanished days,
And voices of familiar tone
Breathe old, remembered lays.

When eve again returns,
Steal forth on nimble feet
From cranny in the chimney-wall,
Thy tempest-proof retreat;
For thy shrill, household song
Is worker of a spell
Whereby that thief, Forgetfulness,
Unlocks his treasure-cell

Re-visiting in soul
My father's rose-wreathed cot,
The briers of this “work-day world”
Awhile torment me not—
The loved and long-lost dead
Seem palpable to sight,
Awakened by thy chirping note,
Black watchman of the night!

202

MY LOVED—MY OWN.

Nor the hush of the shadowy night,
Nor the glare of the busy day,
Nor the many cares of the world, from thee
Ever lure my thoughts away.
In dreams thou art by my side,
With thy babe, a rose unblown,
And thy voice for me breathes melody,
My loved—my own!

The page of the laurell'd bard
Thrills me not, since thou art gone;
And from earth below, and the sky above,
Is an olden charm withdrawn.
Come back with thy beaming smile,
For my heart is mournful grown—
Fast the wild bird flies, when her sad mate cries,
My loved—my own!

I have prayed for a spell whereby
I might question the wind of thee,
And learn if thy cheek was flushed with health,
Or wan while afar from me.
And I start when the casement jars,
And I hear a hollow moan,
But the churlish gale will tell no tale,
My loved—my own!

Not sooner the noon-parch'd flower,
Would revive in summer rain,
Than a glimpse of thee and my laughing boy
Would my sick heart heal again.
We have been, since wed, like leaves
By the breath of autumn blown;
But home's green bowers may yet be ours,
My loved—my own!

203

LAMENT OF A SPIRIT.

Down poured the sleet, when ceased to beat
The pulse of the poor Old Year;
And at midnight hour, a voice of power
From dreams I woke to hear:
“He lieth low in a robe of snow,”
It shouted in thrilling tones—
“Proud heir! unmeet is such winding-sheet
For thy father's royal bones.

“On his frozen corse with pitiless force
The blows of Winter fall,
While light feet bound to the viol's sound
In Pleasure's glittering hall:
And the crownless head of a Monarch dead
Reclines on a snowy bank,
While wine is poured at the festal board,
And thy health with plaudits drank.

“No bell is tolled for the slumberer old—
No bier with sable hung;
Save the hollow moan of the blast alone,
No ‘ullalulla’ sung:—
He felt the smart of a broken heart
When the flowers grew pale and died,
And the leafy crown of the oak grew brown,
And tattered his robe of pride.

“Go through the storm to the lifeless form
Of thy royal sire, and see
What thyself ere long, though young and strong,
Gay reveller, wilt be!
My warning mark!—round thy body stark
The night-blast too shall rave—
Twelve flaps of the wing of Time, proud King,
Shall waft thee to thy grave.”

204

THE MARINER'S WELCOME HOME.

“Music, when soft voices die,
Vibrates in the memory.”—
Shelley.

She knew me not, although her breast
Had pillowed oft my head,
And thought I long had been at rest
With Ocean's ghostly dead.
Full on my wan and wasted face
She fixed her melancholy gaze;
But there, alas! she could not trace
The look of other days.

She knew me not!—the flight of time
An iron form will bow;
And bondage in a tropic clime
Had darkened cheek and brow:
I spoke of friends with look cast down,
Who shared her joy in better hours—
Whom Death had added to his crown
Of darkly folded flowers:—

In vain!—the mourning one no glance
Of love or welcome gave;
She thought beneath the blue expanse
Of ocean was my grave:
I then sang airs that in the cell
Of hoarding memory long had slept,
And with a look tongue cannot tell,
She clasped my neck and wept.

205

CHRISTABEL.

Sick at heart, I have retreated
From the dance to muse alone
In this bower where, often seated
By thy side, the hours have flown.
Here, in accents sweetly thrilling,
Words of magic import fell
From thy lip, my bosom filling
With mad transport, Christabel!

Thou wilt live, with brow unclouded
And a look like summer skies,
When thy victim, early shrouded,
In his voiceless dwelling lies.
Blossoms on the floor lie faded,
Brought by me from wood and dell,
That were yester-morning braided
With thy locks, false Christabel!

Nightly here thy ardent lover,
While swift time unnoted fled,
From yon book with gilded cover,
Tales of burning passion read.
Long within the deep recesses
Of my breaking heart, will dwell
(Though thy smile another blesses)
Our last parting, Christabel!

206

LAMPS OF SILVER HANG ABOVE

Lamps of silver hang above me,
Shedding floods of rosy light,
And the looks of those who love me,
Chide my cold reserve to-night.
Leafy coronals are flinging
Round their gifts of odor sweet;
Vaulted roof and floor are ringing
With the fall of dancing feet.
While young Joy, with tress unbraided,
Charms with viol-note the ear,
Darkly is my forehead shaded—
Thou art not here!

Often, often have I lifted
To my lip the cup of mirth,
When the beautiful and gifted
Crowded round the festal hearth.
Once this aching heart, of brighter,
Gayer feelings, was the shrine,
And no dancing foot fell lighter
In the mazy reel than mine.
Ruby lips are breathing gladness—
Eyes of fawn-like ray are near;
Why, then, is my brow all sadness?
Thou art not here!

207

OUR FATHERS.

Renown to the band—that free, bold band
Who forsook the paternal hall,
And in maze lone of a wild unknown
Dared to rear the cabin-wall!
The wolf from his lair fled with bristling hair,
And old Night from his couch upsprung,
For his slumber was broke by the clashing oak—
The knell of his empire rung—
Then praise to the band—that free, bold band
Who went forth from paternal hall—
Nor the wintry gale, nor famine pale
Could their storm-proof hearts appall.

Where roved the wild man, with his whooping clan,
In the vale of the Genesee,
Now the lap of art, and the busy mart
Hold the spoils of land and sea:
Proud vessels ride on the waters wide
Where darted the birch canoe—
Like a ghost of the night scared by morning light,
Fled the groves—all moss'd—from view.
Then praise to the band—that free, bold band
Who forsook the paternal hall—
Nor the wintry gale, nor famine pale
Could their storm-proof hearts appall.

208

IBLA.

Rise, Ibla, rise!
From cloudless skies
Look down the moon and stars;
And near the shore
With boat and oar,
Keep watch, my gallant tars.
Oh, fly this hold of Turkish power,
For land beyond the wave,
Where woman lives a cherished flower,
And not a gold-bought slave!

Fear not the guard!
Through buckler hard
His heart my dagger found;
And redly now
His turbaned brow
Lies pillowed on the ground.
Haste, Ibla, haste!—my bark for thee
Flings out her canvas white,
And the blue waters of the sea
Will leave no trace of flight!

209

TWIN ACORNS.

On one fair stem two acorns grew,
Browned by the golden summer weather;
Together drank the silvery dew,
Rocked in the lulling air together.

Crown jewels of the royal oak,
A brief, brief time his forehead wore them,
For the black tempest came, and broke
The leaf-fringed diadem that bore them.

When the wild storm was overpast,
A maiden, through the forest hieing,
Chancing around her eye to cast,
Found the twin acorns lowly lying.

She picked them up with hand of snow,
A lesson from their fate to borrow,
Deeming them types of love in woe,
Of two fond hearts unchanged by sorrow:

Saying—“When suns no longer shine,
And the red rose of joy is blighted,
Oh, that some breast would beat with mine,
True to the last, and disunited!”

210

LOVE'S STAR.

Though friendship's clear moonlight is sweet, Rose,
With falsehood its glow is replete, Rose—
The sunbeam of joy is a cheat, Rose,
But fadeless is Love's holy light;
It shines, though the storm-demon rave, Rose,
And gilds with a halo the grave, Rose,
When gone are the fair and the brave, Rose,
Restoring their features to sight.

My bosom was colder than stone, Rose,
And long was I cheerless and lone, Rose,
But full on my darkness hath shone, Rose,
An orb in Love's canopy set;
While cheered on my course by its ray, Rose,
That turns the deep night into day, Rose,
Though fame and its visions betray, Rose,
A heart to press on have I yet.

211

ROSE OF THE DESERT.

FROM THE ARABIC.

Sweet Rose of the Desert! thy Hassan will never
The glow of thy beauty with treachery blight,
For curses would rest on his spirit for ever
If false to the vow he has plighted to-night.
In regions of bliss I will fashion thy dwelling,
And teach blushing vales to re-echo thy name:
There forests drop balm, and the fountain is welling,
A mirror of light in an emerald frame.

The cinnamon tree will wave gently above thee—
The timid gazelle like an arrow whiz by;
Dream not of affliction, for Hassan will love thee,
Though time rob thy lip of its coralline dye.
My charger is neighing, impatient to bear thee
From wastes that nurse only the deadly simoom;
I came not in meshes of love to ensnare thee,
Then leave thee forsaken, with blight on thy bloom.

212

FALSE LADY! NO MORE SHALT THOU TRIFLE.

False Lady! no more shalt thou trifle
With one who was faithful to thee—
Dissembler! henceforth I will stifle
Each throb of affection for thee.
The hand that I prized as a jewel
To others I gladly resign;
A nature inconstant and cruel
Shall never be-mated with mine.

Old poets have feigned that a Fairy
Of peerless deportment and charms,
First tempted her victim to marry,
Then turned to a hag in his arms:
Thy beauty thus veiled for a season
A heart that was hollow and cold,
But Love turned to ashes when reason
Detected the counterfeit gold.

213

LUCY'S DIRGE.

[The subject of the following tribute was chosen May Queen by her mates. When the day of festivity arrived, she lay wrapped in her little shroud.]

“She was not made
Through years or moons the inner weight to bear
Which colder hearts endure till they are laid
By age in earth.”—
Byron.

May is here with golden tresses,
Tresses wreathed with flowers—
Tresses starred with dew-drops gleaming,
In the pleasant south-wind streaming,
Giving many-colored dresses
To the fields and bowers—
May is here with golden tresses,
Tresses wreathed with flowers.

May is here, my little maiden,
Maiden passing fair!
Maiden like a seraph gifted,
Ever high in thought uplifted
Earth above with sorrow laden,
Darkness and despair—
May is here, my little maiden,
Maiden passing fair!

Hark! a voice replieth sadly,
Sadly like a dirge—
Sadly like some childless mourner:
“To the church-yard they have borne her,
And torn hearts are throbbing madly,
Washed by sorrow's surge—”
Hark! a voice replieth sadly,
Sadly like a dirge:

214

“Oh! she longed for May to greet her
With a honeyed kiss—
Greet her where bright eyes are glancing
And the forms of sylphs are dancing
In the sunny lawns to meet her
With the boon of bliss—
Oh! she longed for May to greet her
With a honeyed kiss.

Ah! the sun of May is sailing
Through yon azure deep—
Sailing with a face unclouded;
But sweet Lucy, pale and shrouded,
Heareth not the voice of wailing
In her dreamless sleep,
Though the sun of May is sailing
Through yon azure deep.

Like the wondrous flower she faded
That unfolds at night—
Faded, but in fields Elysian
She rejoiceth angel vision,
While a wreath for her is braided
That will know no blight—
Like the wondrous flower she faded
That unfolds at night.

Oh! too oft the ghostly reaper
Moweth down the young—
Reaper of the scythe unsparing,
For the stricken little caring,
Though they bend above the sleeper
With their hearts unstrung—
Oh! too oft the ghostly reaper
Moweth down the young.

Fare thee well! bright child of heaven!
Heavenly dreams were thine—

215

Heavenly beauty gave forewarning
Of departure in life's morning,
And to thee a soul was given
Filled with thoughts divine—
Fare thee well! bright child of heaven!
Heavenly peace is thine.

MY CHILD.

A knell is ringing
In the belfry of my soul;
Voices are singing
That wildly breathe of dole.

The lyre I waken
Is draped with funeral black;
One away is taken
Who never can come back.

She was my fairest,
A child of promise bright;
Beauty, the rarest,
Is first to feel the blight.

I think of her nightly,
When home is far away,
And visions brightly
Around my pillow play.

The thought is pleasant,
That she is by my side;
In spirit present,
My wandering feet to guide.

216

SONG TO STELLA.

Young rovers on life's changeful sea,
By darkening tide and wild wind driven,
Full many miles from home are we,
And friends who made that home a heaven.

Fair scenes are round us, and the flowers
In winter's lap are sweetly growing
And sunny rills through laurel bowers,
Alive with birds, are brightly flowing:—

But still our thoughts will wander back,
And seek the haunts of laughing childhood,
Though there with storm the sky is black,
And faded are the lawn and wild-wood

Here gentle airs and pleasant gales
Sweep o'er the blossoming savannah,
But dearer are thy storied vales,
Dark Genesee and Susquehannah!

Our northern groves their charm have lost,
For the green crowns they wore are faded,
And the cold fingers of the frost
Wan wreaths have round the hill-top braided.

But in the halls of home, my love!
Warm hearts a summer-time are making,
Though white the roof with snow above,
And storm without is uproar waking.

217

FAREWELL TO AVON.

Dear Avon! my home, looking down on a vale
By its river of sweet waters beautiful made;
Sad music is wandering by on the gale,
And dim lie the scenes of my childhood in shade.
Above is the roof that protected my head
From tempest and rain when an innocent child,
Beneath the same floor that rang out with my tread
When beat my young pulses in ecstasy wild.
Around me are objects that greeted my sight
When hope gave the future a chaplet of light;
And memories, mournful but pleasant, from rest,
Like ghosts that are summoned, awake in my breast.

The desolate moment of parting is near,
And care on my forehead sits mantled in gloom—
Not sadder is maid bending over the bier
Whereon lies her chosen one drest for the tomb;
When the toil and loud tumult of daylight are o'er,
And a family group take their seats by the hearth,
One sigh for the absent—I ask for no more!
A wish he were present to share in the mirth.
I shall miss, when the gale of adversity blows
That being who guarded my cradle-repose—
Where Ocean is baring his breast to the storm,
In visions her kiss on my cheek will be warm.

On the morrow I part with my reverend sire,
And vacant my place in his hall will be soon—

218

Full early the spirit of song on my lyre
Will sleep, for the chords have been long out of tune;
The rich, airy dreams of poetical days,
Like the vapor of morning, have faded away.
On thy loveliness, Avon! the stranger will gaze,
When moulders thy bard in his grave far away:
On the spot where my lute was first tunefully strung,
It is meet, it is meet that my last lay be sung;
Dear home! where companions and relatives dwell,
Fate calls me away—fare thee well! fare thee well!

A SCOTTISH SONG.

Giftie we gie, brother! giftie we gie!
Not yellow gowd, nor pale pearl frae the sea;
Though they may glimmer brighter than simmer,
Richer by far is the giftie we gie.

Mair meet than this warl's gear for lad wha can sing
The wood-notes of Rob, is the buik that we bring;
The strains of a bardie whase sang canna dee
Have hallowed the page of the giftie we gie.

Loved name of the dead on its cover behold!
Oh! would we could warm up the heart that is cold!
In soul he is present, though viewless to ee,
While sadly, dear brother! this giftie we gie.

219

FUNERAL ECHOES.

THE DROWNED BOY.

“Give sorrow words.”—
Shakspeare.

A cup of bitter waters has been drained,
And o'er ye, mourners, roll the clouds of woe!
He, the beloved and beautiful, who made
Your mansion, yester noon, the home of joy,
Lies on a dreamless couch.
Poor heart-wrung sire!
And was the task of trial thine to bear
From Allan's fatal stream, that luckless boy
And his drowned play-mate? Aye, that task was thine!
Parental instinct guided thee through gloom
To the drear scene of death; the lost was found,
But oh! in form and lineament how changed!
Locked were his fingers in a rigid clasp;
His eye, late beaming with affection, dim;
His cheek, that felt a mother's morning kiss,
All swollen and discolored—gone its rose;
And the bright locks that she had often smoothed,
Or parted on his brow with gentle hand,
Drenched, soiled and matted by the cruel waves.
It was a time of jubilee, and noise
Of festal cheer was on the breeze of night,
But thou wert conscious of thy loss alone,
And heard it not.

220

In dull, unmeaning words,
Why tell of the return to home's sad bower,
A cold and lifeless burthen in thine arms,
The mother's shriek while bending o'er her child,
Fraught with a wild, unutterable woe,
Shroud, funeral, darkened bier and swelling mound?
Turn we away from scenes like this, and dwell
On the bright virtues of the early dead,
Who was your pride—the first-born of your house!
The flowers of seven summers had he seen
When the waves wrapped him in their cold embrace;
But during his brief pilgrimage on earth
His tongue was ever musical with truth—
His breast the spotless altar-place of love:
Kind, dutiful, and full of budding thought
That promised fruitage in maturer years,
Tinged by unshadowed wisdom's golden light,
He was the cherished idol of fond hearts,
A star of hope in life's beclouded sky.

I know that ye will miss him morn and eve:
A vacant seat by saddened board and hearth,
His idle implements of boyish sport,
The pictured book on which he loved to gaze,
The rounded hoop that he will roll no more,
And raiment that his beauteous form once graced,
Hanging unused, will often call up tears
From agony's unsounded sunless depths:—
But comfort feel ye, parents, in your grief,
To think that ye have reared a saint for Heaven—
A radiant spirit for that better land,
Where Death, the skeleton, has never breathed
Blight on the passing wind!
A few more years,
Like twilight's flitting hues, will pass away,
And earth's extinguished lamps will fling once more

221

Around our feet the light of other days—
The precious fragments of the “golden bowl”
Be fashioned into symmetry again—
Ties rudely sundered in this “weary land”
Once more unite, while Sorrow, changed to Joy,
Divests her limbs of sackcloth, and walks forth,
Arrayed in garments brighter than the stars.

DIRGE OF AN INFANT.

Cold on the bier he lies—
Light from his azure eyes
Early hath fled:
Tinged like the sky of morn,
Sweet roses, newly born,
Pillow his head.

Ah! the refreshing air
With his bright silken hair
Playeth in vain;
Never, in rosy rest,
Will a maternal breast
Shield him again.

Soft wind, or sunny ray
Warmth to that frame of clay
Cannot restore;
There he lies coldly sweet—
His little heart will beat
Wildly no more.

Hush! should the heart be wrung
When the beloved and young
Blossom-like die?
When souls from human strife
And the mad war of life
Heavenward fly?

222

WEBSTER.

“Omnes eodem cogimur.”—
Horace.

A cloud is over Marshfield, and the wail
Of a vast empire floats upon the gale;
One without peer has shaken hands with death,
And yielded to the elements his breath:
Admonished that the last great change was nigh,
Majestic in decline, he came to die
Back to the rural scenes he loved so well,
Cheered by the low of kine, and pastoral bell—
Back, where his ear once more might catch the roll
Of the roused Ocean—symbol of his soul!

The agony is o'er—the goal is won—
Earth opens to receive her greatest son!
The world seems poorer now, the sky less fair,
And reigns a brooding sadness everywhere!
Mourn, stern New England! mother of the dead!
Bow to the dust thy richly laurelled head!
He was thy pride—the prop of thy renown—
The brightest jewel in thy dazzling crown;
Thy battle-fields of liberty he trod,
Holding thy soil in reverence next to God,
And the proud triumphs of his matchless mind
Are closely with thy heart-strings intertwined.

Well may ye mourn, confederated states!
For what a void a loss like this creates;
A crowning glory from the land is gone,
And a dark pall seems over nature drawn.

223

He was our boldest watchman on the tower,
Our strongest champion in the trial hour;
Through all disguises could his magic glance,
Eager and keen, detect a foe's advance;
First by his voice was loud alarum pealed,
Uplifted first his interposing shield:
Discordant horn in vain sedition blew,
While pale with fear the front of Treason grew.
Unawed by threats he gave the stroke of fate
To howling Faction, Fraud, and barking Hate;
And in defence of ancient landmarks stood
A guardian lion of the public good.

A varied lore enriched his high discourse
Grandly pronounced in words of Saxon force,
While arguments, in logical array,
Aught that opposed swept easily away.
Grace to his speech imagination gave,
Like a foam wreath upon a rushing wave;
For a deep vein of pure poetic gold
Ran through that mighty mind of granite mould.
Regarding not the creed of caste or clan,
His soul embraced the brotherhood of man,
And party withes that tend to dwarf the mind,
Could not the limbs of such a Titan bind.
Who can forget his eloquent appeal,
When struggling Greece leaned on her broken steel?
Roused by his voice, were treasuries unlocked,
While armed avengers to her standard flocked,
And rose full soon to Heaven, from land and sea,
The glad announcement, “Greece once more is free!”

What have wretches gained who dared to shower
Their missiles round him in his dying hour?
Darts blunted in the cowardly attack,
And infamy, beyond expression black.
Could puny malice hope to overthrow
Earth's greatest statesman with one feeble blow,

224

Or fling the shadow of obscuring shame
On the colossal column of his fame?
As well might pigmies gather to displace
The rock-ribbed mountain from its ancient base.
Not limited by continents, though vast,
Was a renown that empires will outlast;
The proudest office in the wide world's gift,
To higher state a Webster could not lift;
On him would honors, play-things of a day,
Stars, garters, ribbons have been thrown away—
Titles have proven but an empty sound,
Conferred on one so truly world-renowned.

As sinks, full-orbed, some blazing tropic sun
Until night's sable boundary is won—
Between no waning ray, no twilight-time,
Gilding the gloom as in our colder clime:
So sank till reached Death's realm of dark repose,
His sun-like mind unclouded to the close.
Ye nations mourn! the foremost man of earth
Has looked his last on home and sacred hearth—
A great light is extinguished on the shore
Of crumbling time, for Webster is no more!

No more?—away with that disheartening word!
His voice in other ages will be heard,
Its clarion music ringing on the ear
To wrong a knell—to right a sound of cheer:
Still can its thunder deaden with alarm
The plotting head and parricidal arm—
Its utterance, unstifled by the grave,
Rouse from lethargic indolence the brave,
Should fierce Rebellion light polluted fires
On soil made holy by the dust of sires.
As Egypt gave the dead within her tomb
Both preservation and a sweet perfume,
Alone not immortality is given
To Webster's fame, but odor as of Heaven.

225

THE CENTENARIAN.

[_]

[Written in memory of Abner Morgan, Esq., who died at Avon, aged 100 years. He graduated at Harvard in 1763, was a member of the bar of Massachusetts, resided many years at Brimfield in that state, and held the rank of Major in the Army of the Revolution.]

Weep not for him! Those white, thin locks that shade
A brow majestical and high, the winds
Of an eventful century have stirred.
The gay companions of his infant years,
And jocund mates in academic halls
Grew old and died, while that tall, wasted form,
Now shrouded for the sepulchre, along
The chequer'd pathway of existence moved.

Weep not for him! The Present was a page
Wherein his dim and glazing eye could trace
Not one redeeming character of joy.
Decay unstrung the harp of memory
Long ere his pulses were forever hushed,
And on his blunted ear her jarring notes
Fell like funereal echoes, while the world
Lost its familiar aspect. When the springs
Of brilliant thought grew dry, and Darkness fixed
Her habitation in the torpid brain,
His native dignity of mien survived,
And a faint fire would light his hollow eye
When others read of battle.
Like a gleam
Of sunlight in a cloudy sky, sometimes
The pleasant Past came back, and he would call
The members of his household by the names
Of buried comrades of his childhood hours,

226

And those who snatched, like him, avenging sword
From rust and slumber, when the bugle-peal
Of waking Liberty aroused the land,
And willing martyrs fell at Lexington.

Weep not for him! The maladies of flesh
That daily quench the fires of middle age,
And blight the vernal promise of the young,
Infused no deadly poison in his veins;
But left him, like some venerable oak
Spared by the storm that overthrows the wood,
To perish in the kindly arms of Time.
In him the houseless beggar found a friend,
And the pale orphan from his open door
Went with a tearless cheek and lighter heart.
His frugal habits to voluptuous man
Spoke with a loud and monitory voice;
And, proudly resolute of soul, he shunn'd
The whirlpool of ebriety that lures
Too many of thy gifted sons, O, Earth!
To sink, poor wrecks, in its dissolving womb.

One look, the last!—Now give with solemn rites
The veteran of liberty a grave!
He needs no proud memorial of art
To consecrate his ashes; for the soil
He aided in redeeming from the rule
And cruel presence of despotic power,
Is more endearing record of his deeds
Than pompous marble or a pyramid.

227

EPICEDIUM.

“But, O the heavy change, now thou art gone,
Now thou art gone, and never must return.”
Milton.

When her brow, untouched by corroding care,
Like the fold of a summer cloud, was fair;
When the glance of her bright dark eye outshone
The dazzling blaze of the diamond stone;
In treacherous guise the spoiler came,
And a wintry chill ran through her frame:
From branching vein and soft lip fled
Celestial blue and the brightest red;
Her smile, ere the vital spring was dried,
To a world like ours was unallied;
On her cheek the rose grew strangely white
And she melted away like a shape of light.

Since the cold remains of the sleeping maid
In the silent hall of death were laid,
The bright autumnal moon hath shed
Its purest beam on her narrow bed,
And winds, with sorrow in their tone,
On the dampened mould dead leaves have thrown.
Her spirit dwells in that radiant land
Where the blighted blossoms of earth expand;
Where dews from the throne of mercy fall,
And things unknown are shroud and pall;
Where beauty, safe from winter's rime,
Enjoys an endless summer time.

Her look, all love, had the magical power
Of gilding the darkest, the loneliest hour;

228

On her sylph-like form the old would gaze
And remember the freshness of younger days:
Henceforth there will be a vacant seat
In halls where the gay and lovely meet;
The brightest star of the festal throng
Will gladden the breast no more with song;
Her tuneful voice is no longer heard—
On her lip hath died the warbled word.

When sunset gilds yon azure lake,
And murmuring winds the surges wake,
She will leave, she will leave on the pebbly shore
The print of her fairy foot no more.
From his broad lap soon will youthful spring
Bright robes of green on the meadow fling,
And blossoms, gemming the velvet sward,
With her couch of rest will well accord;
For our lost one was a peerless flower,
By the foe cut down in its dawning hour.

If shadows of gloom becloud the brow
When sere leaves fall from the parent bough;
If sorrow-pains convulse the heart
When the weary and gray of hair depart—
Well may the storm of grief unseal
The tearful fount in a breast of steel,
When frost descends from the clear, cold sky,
And the buds of blesséd promise die;
When the ghastly king his banner rears,
And calls to his realm the young in years.

229

MARY'S DIRGE.

“Weep not for her! her memory is the shrine
Of pleasant thoughts.”—
Dr. Moir.

A low and gentle strain! for she was gentle
Whose lips have breathed farewell to life and light,
Consigned to rest beneath the summer mantle
That Earth is wearing on her bosom bright.
But yesterday her voice was heard in singing,
And kindly smiles her visage overspread,
And, now, the minstrel tearfully is stringing
His yew-wreathed lute in honor of the dead.
When skies were fairest, and young roses giving
Elysian odor to the passing air—
When even Age found luxury in living,
She heard a whispered warning to prepare.

In sluggish mould a grave was never hollowed
For one more dear to those who knew her well,
And young and old, in deep dejection, followed
The white-robed sleeper to her narrow cell;
All, in the long and dark procession walking,
Felt, knocking at their hearts, no common grief,
While many, in sad undertone, were talking
Of ills endured until she brought relief:
And one poor father a remembrance cherished—
That on the pall, obscuring with its shade
The coffin of his child all pale and perished!
A wreath of emblematic flowers she laid.

He little thought ere many moons had vanished
The turf would open for that gentle friend;

230

The rose of beauty from her cheek be banished,
The blight from skies without a cloud descend.
The heart that mourns, a consolation borrows
In knowing that her triumph is our loss;
A glorious crown the Man of many sorrows
Gives to the lowly bearer of his cross.
For a wise purpose are we here delaying
Our upward march to realms more rich and vast,
Like weary sea-birds for a moment staying
Far from the land upon some rocking mast.

Our pulses, here, are numbered in their beating,
And Death stands ever watching at the gate;
The morning pearl-drop and the shadow fleeting
Are emblems of our transitory state.
The forest eagle, ere he furls forever
His iron wing, a century completes,
And on the moss-fringed oak, in vain endeavor,
While kingdoms rise and fall, the tempest beats;
But Man, the boasted ruler of Creation,
Floats a few days upon a troubled sea!
Then sinks from view, exceeded in duration,
By the wild wandering bird, and senseless tree.

Why cling then to the fleeting, false and fading,
Oh, Man! with lofty faculties endowed?
Thy future lot a mystic veil is shading,
But light eternal beams behind the cloud.
Cords of affection, in this rude world broken,
Will knit, at last, to part no more in twain,
And ashy lips, that farewell words have spoken,
In a long kiss of love unite again.
Be reconciled with God! devoted mother!
And hope for blest reunion with your child:
And thou—her o'erfond father—try to smother
The woe wherewith your brain is waxing wild.

Death laid cold finger on her eyes terrestrial
Those of the soul enfranchised to unseal,

231

And would ye call her back from joys celestial
The pangs that vex ye here, again to feel?
Your daughter dear is now a glad partaker
Of aliment divine, we are assured;
For, pure in heart, she looks upon her Maker—
Hushed every moan, her mortal anguish cured;
Looks where no cloud around His throne is rolling,
Not darkly through a glass, but face to face,
Beyond this orb where bells are ever tolling
The bitter knells of loveliness and grace.

Though painful and unlooked-for was the closing,
In this dark valley, of her mortal day!
Be reconciled—a holy trust reposing
In Power Supreme who gives and takes away.
I know that darkness rests upon your dwelling,
And cold the hearth of home so bright before,
While bird and breeze, and rustling leaf seem telling
A tale of her who will come back no more.
In dreams of night I know that she is present,
With her mild look and unobtrusive air,
And that ye hear her accents, low and pleasant,
Her light, familiar footstep on the stair.

Turn from the house of flesh, in ruin lying,
And with the steady eye of faith behold
Its bright inhabitant released, undying,
In Heaven's full concert waken harp of gold;
Pray that, in watches of the midnight dreary,
A note of that sweet music reach your ears,
Healing the heart with sorrow bruised and weary—
Drying the fount of unavailing tears!
A low, sad, gentle strain, for she was gentle
Whose lips have breathed farewell to life and light,
Consigned to rest beneath the summer mantle
That Earth is wearing on her bosom bright.

232

A FATHER'S LAMENT.

“And ere a man hath power to say, ‘Behold!’
The jaws of darkness do devour it up,
So quick bright things come to confusion.”—
Shakspeare.

The world without is dim to view,
Though fair to other eyes,
For sorrow gives its own dull hue
To valley, hill, and skies;
Thick darkness that will not depart,
Seems brooding over earth:
A heavy cloud is on my heart,
A shadow on my hearth.

My youngest—child of love and hope!
Away the spoiler bore;
Her beauteous orbs of azure ope,
When morning calls, no more.
The rose is blanched upon her face,
Her pulse forever stilled;
And now my dwelling is a place
With funeral echoes filled.

Oh! ever she was first to hear
My homeward step at night,
And laughter, silvery and clear,
Betokened her delight;
But now the door of home I seek
With bosom chilled to stone,
For Desolation, grim and bleak,
Hath made my roof his own.

233

Deep in my bleeding heart the knife
Of agony found way,
When warned in whispers that her life
Would not outlast the day;
I kissed her cheek, I breathed her name,
But heard no fond reply:
Her visage wan more sharp became,
More dun her closing eye.

On God to save I wildly called—
Unheard the prayer of sin;
She died, and utter darkness walled
My groaning spirit in;
A cold, benumbing torpor slept
Like nightmare on my brain;
A feeling, as of winter, crept
Through every wandering vein.

These ringlets, to remember dear,
So bright that one might deem
The sunlight of a purer sphere
Had touched them with its beam,
Bring back the beauteous head to sight
On which their clusters grew,
Her rounded brow of radiant white,
And cheek of rosiest hue.

Her bonnet gay, with ribbons graced,
The doll she used to hold,
And shoe that daintily encased
Her foot of fairy mould,
The gift of mournful speech possess
When on them fall mine eyes,
And tell how much of loveliness
In earth all wasted lies.

In dreams I hear her prattling tongue
Essay my name to speak;

234

Her little arms are round me flung,
Her lips are on my cheek;
But waking in my tortured breast
Begets a wilder throe,
For, bordering the land of rest,
Black lies the realm of woe!

There is a grief, like April's cloud,
That melts in rain away;
A little while the head is bowed,
Then comes a brighter day:
Not such is mine—no drops refresh
My weary soul, that fain
Would rend these bonds of melting flesh,
And join the lost again.

HYMN ON THE DEATH OF A DAUGHTER.

Though eyes of Heaven's own blue are dim,
Brow, lip, and cheek to coldness wed;
From God she came, and back to Him,
In her unsinning morn, hath fled.

An angel whispered in her ear
The message by her father sent—
Sweet words that she alone could hear,
And spotless to his arms she went.

Oh! precious child of hope and love!
Our hearts to thee too fondly clung,
And God, to turn our thoughts above,
Each trembling chord hath wildly wrung.

Then, mourning mother! let us pray,
When we have done with Earth and Time,
That she, whom we deplore to-day,
Embrace us in a brighter clime.

235

CATHARINE.

Wail for the loved and gifted,
Untimely snatched away,
While golden morn gave promise
Of long, unshadowed day;
While mind with light was filling
The chambers of her brain,
And flowers of thought were growing
Like leaves in vernal rain;
While, magnet of admiring eyes,
The bowers of home she cheered,
Fond idol of parental hearts,
To old and young endeared!

When, one by one, are torn away
Our dearest earth-born ties,
In vain, in vain above us spreads
The blue of summer skies—
In vain we hear the warbling bird,
Low wind and rustling leaf;
For nature hath no tone to lull
The deafened ear of grief—
Though earth is gay with blossoms,
And sunny waters roll,
A drear and wintry loneliness
Holds empire in the soul.

We mourn not those who vanish
In the autumn time of life,
Wan with the blight of sorrow,
And weary of the strife—
Ripe for the Land of Shadows,

236

They seek their narrow beds,
And sweetly in the peaceful mould
Repose their pillowed heads:
But hearts should bleed and break, when Death
Unlocks his hall of frost,
And thither bears in icy arms
The loved and early lost.

But yesterday the glow of youth
Was on her radiant face,
Pure innocence in every word—
In every motion grace;
But yesterday her lustrous eye
With gentle meanings shone,
And tinted were her tuneful lips
Like roses newly blown—
Now dust and hiding darkness fill
The mansion of her rest,
And green the hillock dwells above
Her cold, insensate breast.

For her harp disused to song
In vain a kinsman sweeps—
Its untaught note alone recalls
The damp earth where she sleeps:
No tone its shattered chord hath caught
From that immortal clime,
Where her unsullied spirit dwells
Triumphant over Time—
His drooping fancy cannot soar
Above the burial-sod,
And reconcile to anguished hearts
The mystic ways of God.

237

REQUIEM.

“Forget the dead, the past! O yet
There are ghosts that may take revenge for it;
Memories that make the heart a tomb.”
Shelley.

When the warring voice of storm is heard,
Across the sea goes the summer bird;
But back again the wanderer flies
When April's azure drapes the skies,
With carol sweet
The morn to greet;
But the radiant girl whom we deplore,
To the bower of home will return no more.

Decay, a loathsome bridegroom, now
Kisses with mildewed lip her brow;
Her heart is colder than the rill
When Winter bids its tongue be still,
Yet Spring will come,
With song and bloom,
And unchain the silvery feet of waves,
But break no bond in voiceless graves.

Wasting away with a sad decline,
Far from her own green hills of pine,
She would wander back to them in dreams,
To hear the roar of their rushing streams;
And often spoke
Of a favorite oak
On the door-sill flinging pleasant shade,
And under which, a child, she played.

238

When beat no more her snow-white breast,
Strange hands the lovely ruin drest,
Smoothing, upon the forehead fair,
Loose, glittering flakes of golden hair;
And strangers gave
To our dead a grave,
Sprinkling above the fair remains
Mould moistened by autumnal rains.

Ah! since she died, a wilder wail
Is uttered by the midnight gale,
And voices mourning something gone,
Rise from the dead leaves on the lawn;
And sadness broods
Above the woods,
Moaning, as if endowed with soul,
For through their depths she loved to stroll.

The lute that answered when she sung
Old airs at twilight, is unstrung—
She wakes where the sainted dwell alone
An instrument of richer tone;
And angels smile
On her the while,
And to garland her sinless brow of snow
The rarest blossoms of Heaven bestow.

239

TRIBUTE TO THE DEAD.

“Absint inani funere næmæ,
Luctusque turpis, et querimoniæ.”
Horace.

Rest from the strife, brave spirit! uncomplaining,
With evil fortune thou hast battled long;
While heavy drops from sorrow's cloud are raining,
A lyre, long silent, vibrates into song:
I would not, if I could, thy form awaken,
To wrestle with sharp throes another hour,
Though one like thee could, with a mien unshaken,
Rob death's dissolving pang of half its power.

With the plague-spot upon thy visage hollow,
Floridian shores were trod by thee in vain;
When northward Spring sent forth her herald swallow,
Panted thy heart to visit home again:
Once more to native scenes and pleasant places
Back camest thou o'er Ocean's flashing foam;
Once more thy glance on old familiar faces
Rested, while sitting by the hearth of home.

Once more thy loving and devoted mother
Thy couch beside outwatched the stars of night;
Once more thy sire a groan would try to smother,
For skill was vain to stay the work of blight:
Brief was thy stay:—Autumnal winds are flinging
Pale, withered leaves upon thy funeral mould
While overhead are feathered armies winging
Their way to lands unvexed by frost or cold.

240

And friendly hearts belief are entertaining
That thy soul journeyed to a brighter clime—
Fount of unclouded light that knows no waning,
Far, far beyond this crumbling strand of time:
How otherwise believe?—for aspirations,
That in true hearts have birth alone, were thine;
A will to dare those troubles and vexations
That drug with gall, too oft, life's sparkling wine.

Rest from the strife, brave spirit! who would wake thee,
To waste and burn with fever-fires again;
While friends are tortured at the sight, to make thee
Feel for another hour Promethean pain?
Not all of thee is lost while comrades cherish
Fond recollections of thy worth, my friend;
Though gone, the bright example cannot perish
Of courage that upheld thee to the end.

241

DANSVILLE CEMETERY.

The murmur of waters I hear,
A pleasant but slumberous sound,
And the hum of the crowd faintly falls on mine ear,
While I linger by head-stone and mound:
Their boughs oak and pine interweave,
And shade on the hallowed place throw,
While winds in their emerald tops seem to grieve
For the sleepers that moulder below;
And never belonged to Arcadian scene
Hill-slope and valley of lovelier green.

It is meet that a home for the dead
The living should thus set apart—
A pillow provide for the reverend head,
And rest for the sorrow-touched heart.
Let beauty that early feels blight,
And manhood untimely o'erthrown,
In earth's brightest places be buried from sight
Till the trumpet of judgment is blown;
Where fields stretch away like a picture unrolled,
Above their remains should be rounded the mould.

Frail blossoms of childhood, that caught
A blush from the day-break, then died,
Have hither by parents been tenderly brought,
And lovingly rest, side by side;
Ah! poor, little lambs of the flock
That rudely were torn from the fold,
Away with the pomp of the chisel-carved rock
To mark where ye turn into mould!

242

Where plaid by the spring-time is soonest displayed,
And first seen the blue-bird, your graves should be made.

When swathed in the cold winding-sheet
Is the friend that from youth we have known,
And his generous heart hath forgotten to beat
In friendly response to our own,
It is pleasant to think that he lies
In earth that is hallowed like this,
While round him old hills, crowned with evergreen, rise,
And zephyrs the violets kiss;
While leaf-harp, and wavelet that melts on the shore,
For the loved and the lost wake a dirge evermore.

Here mourners can wander in thought,
Unawed by the presence of death,
To the beautiful field father Abraham bought,
With its cave, from the children of Heth;
And Grief, draped in sable, may find
In these leaf-shaded alleys a balm,
For this pastoral landscape disposes the mind
To a holy and heavenly calm;
And, wreathing the pale reaper's sickle with flowers,
Glad souls seem to flit through these whispering bowers

243

DIRGE.

[_]

[Air—“True love can ne'er forget.”]

“Lowly the Lord of Song,
Reckless of woe and wrong,
In the grave's chamber strong
Moulders alone!”

Thus sang an airy sprite
Flowers dropping, pale with blight,
While round his tomb, by night,
Autumn made moan.
No head-stone marks his place of sleep,
No mourner wanders there to weep—
But sings a voice at midnight deep,
These words with touching tone:—
“Lowly the Lord of Song,
Reckless of woe and wrong,
In the grave's chamber strong
Moulders alone!”

Thorns made his journey rough,
He had lived long enough—
Black sorrow's leaden stuff
Weighed down his soul;
Fame had a phantom proved,
Hollow the hearts he loved;
Well might he reach unmoved
Life's dreary goal.
On the blossom of his youth
Fed the worm's envenomed tooth,
And in vain the light of truth
Was on his pathway thrown—

244

“Lowly the Lord of Song,
Reckless of woe and wrong,
In the grave's chamber strong
Moulders alone!”

What to one were home and hearth,
Beauty's smile, or childhood's mirth,
Founts and flowers that gladden earth,
Who prayed for death and night—
One, with heart of kingly mould,
More wretched than the beggar old
Who couches on the pavement cold
Until the morning light?
Though Hate and Slander babble still,
They cannot work him further ill;
For no more his voice can thrill
The nations with its tone.
“Lowly the Lord of Song,
Reckless of woe und wrong,
In the grave's chamber strong
Moulders alone!”

245

CHURCH-YARD FLOWERS.

Flowers of the church-yard!
Ye are as bright of hue
As sisters that in greener spots
Quaff drops of morning dew:
A charm to the house of death ye gave,
Springing in beauty on childhood's grave—
Waving your heads in the wind, to and fro,
Types of the innocent sleeper below.

Flowers of the church-yard!
A part of her ye seem,
Who in that heavy slumber lies
That knows no pleasant dream:
I saw her blue eyes in your violet gems,
The grace of her form in your flexible stems,
In diamonds of morn on your petals that lay
Her tears, that the sunshine of joy chased away.

Flowers of the church-yard!
Your leaves are odorous still;
Ye died before the biting frost
Of winter-time could kill;
Though vanished our lost one from earth's fading bowers,
Remembrance of her is like fragrance of flowers;
She dawned on our vision a creature of light,
And passed ere the day was o'erclouded by night.

Flowers of the church-yard!
Her narrow house was cold;
Ye sprang, and warmed with summer tints
The damp and gloomy mould;

246

Thus came, when the path of existence was drear,
Our darling, the hearth of our homestead to cheer,
But ah! when our blossom was fairest to sight,
Gnawed the worm of decay, and descended the blight.

Flowers of the church-yard!
Another spring will wake
A painted band as deep in dye
Her grave-couch bright to make;
But ah! never more will our threshold be cross'd
By mortal, the peer of our loved and our lost;
Darkened earth was too poor such a treasure to own—
Heaven's casket is meet for such jewels alone.

247

MONODY.

She lies the green turf under,
Regardless of our tears,
From sun and air excluded
In the May time of her years:
Wild violets are springing
To decorate the spot,
And birds are blithely singing,
But, ah! she hears them not.

When frosts, untimely falling,
Kill fragile flower and leaf,
Within the heart a feeling
Awakes akin to grief;
And often in the summer
We mark, with look forlorn,
Thick clouds that darken suddenly
The lustre of the morn.

Think not of blossom withered,
Or over-clouded dawn,
When those of rare endowments
Forever are withdrawn;
Beneath the turf we lay them
In anguish hard to bear,
And resignation comes not
To brighten our despair.

I know that friends may whisper,
Though bitterly bereaved:

248

In sorrow's funeral web-work
Are threads of gold inweaved:
They died ere chilled the fountain
Of bliss within the soul,
Or sin's deforming characters
Made dark life's chequered scroll.

We ill can spare thus early
A loveliness so bright:
To helpless age more fitting
Is death and starless night:
We fain would clasp such treasures
The bower of home to cheer,
And lend a gleam of sunshine
To earth so dark and drear.

Though many were her rivals
In learning's crowded hall,
She won the prize of honor,
Esteemed and loved by all;
The modesty of merit
Was written on her face,
And by her mates unenvied
She held the highest place.

Not all of her hath perished!
Her young and ardent mind
Hath left a written record
Of burning thoughts behind;
And memories of her outlive
Death's desolating power,
Like fragrance clinging to the leaf
When blighted stalk and flower.

249

DIRGE FOR THE MIGHTY.

Fallen is our chief and sage,
Lonely is the Hermitage!
Muffled drum and tolling bell,
And sad dirge-notes on the gale,
Through the land he loved so well
Tell the tale.

Warning he will give no more—
His long strife with pain is o'er;
Honors paid the worthy dead,
And the sable weeds of woe
Whisper that his laurelled head
Lieth low.

Calmly he hath laid him down
In the fullness of renown,
And the soil he proudly trod
Would in blood be darkly steeped
Ere the foe polluted sod
O'er him heaped.

Might to him belongeth still,
Though no more his pulse will thrill;
For his name—a watch-word stern!
Would affright invading host,
Should the fires of battle burn
On our coast.

Millions sorrow for the fall
Of a warder on the wall;

250

One who well his station high
Through the night of peril kept,
And whose keen, far-seeing eye
Never slept.

Heavenly radiance bathed his soul
As he neared the welcome goal,
And the closing of his day
To a sun resemblance bore—
Brightening, as it passed away,
More and more.

Let his glorious battle-sword,
Dreaded by oppression's horde,
Grace the nation's banner'd hall—
Where, if treason should be breathed,
It would clatter on the wall,
Half-unsheathed.

His memorials are his deeds—
No sarcophagus he needs,
Nor stone column reared by art,
To perpetuate his fame;
For an empire's mighty heart
Bears his name.

251

REST!

[“A few rods from the barrier-gate of Fort Niagara was the burying-ground. It was filled with memorials of the mutability and brevity of human life, and over the portals of entrance was painted, in large and emphatic characters, the word ‘Rest.’”]—

Judge De Veaux.

Earth, upon her ample face,
Boasts no sweeter burial-place
Than a small enclosure green,
Near an ancient fortress seen;
Mossy head-stones here and there
Names of fallen warriors bear,
But no eulogistic phrase,
Cut on rock, that meets the gaze,
Can our reverence command,
Like that brief inscription grand,
On the portal arch impressed—
“Rest!”

River wide, and mighty lake
For the dead an anthem wake,
And with old, forgotten graves
Well comports the wash of waves,
Motto of the hallowed ground
Murmuring with solemn sound;
Birds that by like spirits pass,
Winds that murmur in the grass,
Seem repeating evermore
That one word the gateway o'er,
Word that haunts a troubled breast—
“Rest!”

Pilgrim, for a moment wait
Near the narrow entrance gate,

252

And one word peruse—no more—
Boldly traced the portals o'er;
Mortal heart was never stirred
By a more emphatic word;
One with deeper meaning fraught,
Or the power to quicken thought;
Sermon, hymn, and funeral lay,
Eloquence the soul to sway,
In four letters are compressed—
“Rest!”

253

IMPROMPTU.

WRITTEN AFTER A STROLL AMONG TOMBS.

I wandered round the grave-yard
When dews were falling fast,
And clouds, with darkness banner'd,
The wan moon overcast;
Below me far the city
Sent up its roofs and spires,
No longer giving back the gleam
Of sunset's reddening fires.

Memorials of love and death
On every side were seen,
And snow-white palings graced the yard
That kept each hillock green—
But in the fast-departing light
I vainly strove to find
The dust-couch of the pure in heart—
The beautiful of mind!

It mattered not!—for near me there
In spirit walked the dead,
And calmness, never felt before,
My heart's wild sea o'erspread—
I heard her voice of lute-like thrill
With evening's wind go by—
Once more—once more upon me shone
Her sweet love-lighted eye!

254

Oh! land of shade and silence,
Though chill thy valleys be,
Sometimes a voice from out thy depths
Comes back to comfort me—
A sign that beauty's faded rose
Will bud and bloom again—
And golden links in Heaven unite
That break on earth in twain.

255

A SISTER'S LAMENT.

—“Omnium
Versare urna, serius ocius
Sora excitura, et nos in æternum
Exilium imposition cymbæ.”
Horace.

Where is that loved one of heroic bearing,
Proud in his joy, majestic in his grief—
His brow the seal of lofty purpose wearing,
My beau ideal of a Highland Chief?
Farewell, I heard him falter out when dying,
And vainly tried his sluggish pulse to warm—
The mould is fresh upon the sleeper lying,
And new the shroud that wraps his frozen form.

And other ties have mournfully been sundered—
The wide, wide earth seems draped in funeral black;
Home's casket of its jewels has been plundered,
And the pale robber will not give them back.
Around the board are many vacant places,
Our household-hearth has lost its circle gay:
Vanished for ever are those pleasant faces
That cheerful made the dullest wintry day.

Blow follows blow, the hollow world divesting
Of charms that once I thought would ne'er depart;
A heavy weight upon my soul is resting,
The gloom of midnight on my breaking heart.
Why, pleading friendship! vainly try to smother
The vulture grief, that on my bosom preys?
Far, far away, my youngest, dearest brother
Has fallen in the morning of his days.

256

Home of my childhood! once so full of gladness,
Few enter now thy hospitable door;
And from thy lonely halls usurping sadness
Has banished bright-eyed mirth for evermore.
Oh! that the morn could send one beam of cheering
To chambers that seem haunted by the dead—
That I could see the darkness disappearing,
And hear again his light, familiar tread.

A REMEMBRANCE.

Within a sad, deserted house
I passed an hour of gloom;
Behind the wainscot crawled the mouse—
The bat was in the room:
What heard I in that dreary house?
The sweet, low spirit-voice of one
Called early to the tomb.

That voice was thine, my daughter dear!
It came my heart to thrill,
And, like an ocean-shell, mine ear
Retains the music still;
She said: “Be joyous, father dear!
Unclouded morn will break at last
Upon a night of ill.”

And I will rend the bonds that hold
In thrall my higher powers,
As broke the mighty man of old
Green withes, like chains of flowers;
Though hearts that should have loved are cold,
And eyes flash scorn that should have beamed
Like sunshine after showers.

257

THE EARLY TAKEN.

I stood with the childless—
A desolate pair—
When, drest for the grave,
Lay the sinless and fair,
Who died like a lily that droops on its stem,
And torn were my heart-strings with sorrow for them.

Outshone by the curls
That the slumberer wore
Was the mid-summer light
Streaming in at the door,
And clung to her lip a more delicate red
Than tinted the rose-wreath encircling her head.

More drear than a desert
Where never is heard
The singing of waters,
Or carol of bird,
Are homes in this dark world of sorrow and sin,
Uncheered by the music of childhood within.

And round one frail blossom
Your hopes were entwined—
One daughter of beauty
Affection made blind;
Before her ye saw a bright future outspread,
But dreamed not of dirge-note, nor shroud for the dead.

Oh! blest is the spirit,
Unstained by the clod,
That mounts in the morn
Like a sky-lark to God:—

258

A glittering host the new comer surround,
And welcome the harp-strings of Paradise sound.

Ye stricken! oh, think,
While your wailing is wild,
That above this dim orb
“It is well with the child!”
And pray for reunion with her ye have lost,
Where love knows no heart-ache, the blossom no frost.

THE MOURNER'S APPEAL.

Hide her not from mortal eye,
Sunshine lingers in her hair—
Who would wish the clod to lie
On a form so passing fair!
Life is glowing in the rose
On the oval of her cheek—
Those sweet eyes will yet unclose,
And those lips of coral speak.

Can it be that Death would leave
Such a matchless grace behind?
Could the tyrant thus deceive,
And a father's eye make blind!
Wake, my daughter! from thy sleep,
Or wild woe will craze my brain;
Wake, as was thy wont, and leap
Into these fond arms again.

No response to my appeal—
No awaking to my call;
Ah! that heart has ceased to feel—
Lay her in Death's sunless hall!
Let the beauteous shell decay
That a priceless germ encased,
Meet for Heaven's eternal day,
Not for earth's dark, dreary waste.

259

BLIGHTED BLOSSOMS.

Oh! mourn not for those
Who in childhood depart,
Ere sin darkly throws
A dread blight on the heart;
Though the worm and the frost
Rob their beauty of bloom,
Oh! deem them not lost
When they lie in the tomb.

Three bright, blissful years,
With a soul undefiled,
Through this desert of fears
Walked our innocent child;
Then her spirit, too white
For earth's sullying clod,
Passed, through portals of night,
To the sunshine of God.

Doubly sad is the home
Of such bright ones bereft,
And wherever we roam,
Nothing lovely seems left.—
But who would call back
Those who vanish at morn,
To groan on the rack,
And be pierced by the thorn?

Little children were dear
To our Saviour on earth—
Never deaf was his ear
To their innocent mirth;

260

And when they repose
On his sheltering breast,
They are saved from the woes
That this dark world molest.

A DIRGE, TO L. E. L.

Far away, ah! far away
From her own green isle she died,
And for shroud that wraps decay
Early changed the garb of bride.
Fatal to our northern flower
Was the glare of tropic day;
Wretched was her dying hour,
Far away!

Never more, ah! never more
Will she glad the festal throng,
Faded is the look she wore,
Voiceless is her lip of song.
Gifted daughter of the Nine!
Well may friends thy fate deplore,
They will hear a strain like thine
Never more!

Fare thee well, ah! fare thee well!
Dark thy life grew near its close;
Mildew on thy spirit fell
Like wan blight upon the rose.
Ended is thy warbling now,
Mistress of the chorded shell;
Dust is on thy withered brow,
Fare thee well!

261

SONNETS.

PRE-EXISTENCE.

[_]

[Cicero, in his treatise on “Old Age,” remarks in support of Plato's doctrine:—“Magno esse argumento homines scire pleraque antequam nati sint: quod jam pueri, quum artes difficiles discant, ita celeriter res innumerabiles arripiunt, ut eas non tum primum accipere videantur, sed reminisci et recordari.”]

Why, like a flash of light, upon the mind,
When lost in thought upon a foreign shore,
Cometh the strange impression that we find
The features of a landscape known before?
Oh! why, at times, when high discourse we hold,
Rusheth a wild remembrance on the brain,
That, wrapped in shadow, we rehearse again?
Words breathed, we know not where, in times of old,
Are present like a mirror that reflects
Scenes of a pre-existence, passing strange—
A dark and narrow isthmus that connects
The far-off Heretofore with Future change—
Wisdom, by years of pain and toil amassed,
Naught but a resurrection of the Past!

On the sensation that still uneffaced
Are characters of ante-natal lore,
His phantasy majestic Plato based,—
That knowledge is remembrance—nothing more:
And Tully, too, the silver-tongued and wise!
Fancied the Present but a passing show,
An apparition dim of long ago,
Waking a train of glorious memories;

262

And the gray laurelled bard of Rydal deems
That earth was not our starting-place, and Thought
Is conscious of a learning, elsewhere taught,
Compared with which attainments here are dreams;
The dazzling revelation of to-day
Light from an old Elysium far away.

TO HELENA.

ON SEEING A DAGUERREOTYPE BY GABRIEL HARRISON, REPRESENTING “HELENA” AS THE GODDESS OF THE ART.

Well may the sun be sire of one like thee,
Impersonation of celestial grace!
Less of divine and bright was in the face
Of new-born Venus rising from the sea.
Daughter of Light! upon thy breast appears
A star less radiant than thy lifted gaze
That seems to pierce the distance veiled in haze,
And read the riddle of the coming years.
The musing bard, in inspiration's hour,
A glimpse of nobler features never caught—
Blending the charm of deep, prophetic thought
With beauty's wild and overmastering power.
Fair pictures crowd the galleries of old,
But boast no shape of such a lustrous mould.

263

TO A BOUQUET OF FLOWERS.

Ye, Flowers, together bound of various dyes,
Were beauty's own:—did not the sun-lit bow
Of promise quit its station in the skies,
And break to pieces in the meadows low
Where grew ye, daughters of the morn—to each
A different shade imparting, from the blue
Of summer Ocean to the faint red hue
That paints the shell upon his whitened beach?
Oh! would that fairy ministers with dew
Could fill once more your withered cup, or rain
Bathe with refreshing drops your life again;
But the hoar frost is lying where ye grew,
And howls the storm—and with your lifeless stems
Will zephyrs sport no more, ye vegetable gems!

AN ARROW-HEAD.

Crossing yon field an arrow-head I found
Shaped from the flinty rock with wondrous art;
No other trace upon the furrowed ground,
Though patiently I broke the clods apart,
Was visible of ancient Indian rule—
When the grim forest, to its dusky heart,
Thrilled with the whoop of war and hunter's shout,
Frighting the wild-duck from her rushy pool,
And from green lair the trooping antler'd herd,
Faint impress leaving, like the passing bird:
Thus are the tracks of nations blotted out,
Save when the world, erst trod by them, is stirred
By other races—giving to the light
Some yellow crumbling bone, or implement of fight.

264

ON A CASCADE NEAR WYOMING.

A brook, the woody mountain's bounding child,
With a deep murmur in its silvery flow,
Falls, in its journey over rocks up-piled,
On the green carpet of the glen below.
Above the cascade aged hemlocks throw
Their mossy branches, flecked with drops of spray,
Like warders old that watch around bestow,
Stationed on rocky battlements of gray.
In haunts like these, when baffled in the fight
That drenched a groaning land with crimson showers,
The sturdy champions of the true and right
Have gathered to repair their wasted powers:
And rousing hymns of God and Freedom heard,
Sung by the tumbling wave and tameless bird.

JOHN AUGUSTUS SHEA.

Another voice is hushed—another lyre
Hangs on a dead and leafless bough, unstrung;
Of wrongs that curse humanity he sung;
But changed to ashes is his heart of fire.
Far from the luckless Isle that gave him birth,
Wrapped in the raiment of the grave he lies:
Though Freedom there no more finds home and hearth,
Dying he thought of her green fields and skies—
Before his fading sight, in dim array,
Shades of the martyred and the mighty passed,
And light unearthly round the minstrel cast,
A harbinger of everlasting day;
They came to guide his spirit to a land
That knows nor broken heart nor fettered hand.

265

TO F. G. H.

Wake, sleeping bard! too long bedimming rust
Has rested on the chords of thy rich shell—
Wake, sleeping bard, and people mount and dell
With deathless beings of the mind!—from dust
The gifted men of olden time call up,
And speak to them when Night is on her throne,
Learning the secrets of a world unknown:
Oh! raise once more the bright, enchanted cup
Of romance to thy thirsting lip and drink,
And in the chain of inspiration be
A dazzling, proud, imperishable link:
Let thy rapt muse, emerging from thick gloom,
Fairer than Venus rising from the sea,
For epic flight her wing majestically plume.

TO A LONG-SILENT SISTER OF SONG.

Where art thou, wood-dove of Hesperian climes,
The sweetest minstrel of our unshorn bowers?
In dreams, methinks, I faintly hear at times
An echo of thy silver-sounding rhymes;
Alas! that blight should fall on fairest flowers,
Eternal silence on angelic lips;
That tender, starry eyes should know eclipse,
And mourning love breathe farewell to the hours!
Speak! has the grave closed on thee evermore,
Daughter of Music?—hath thy golden lute,
With dust upon its broken strings, grown mute;
Thy fancy, rainbow-hued, forgot to soar?
To hush thy warbling is a grievous wrong—
Come back! come back to sunlight and to song!

266

THE SHADOW OF A GRIEF.

The substance, not the shadow of a grief,
Embitters my existence:—though, perchance,
From the green bowers of ever-bright romance
My feeble hand has plucked one laurel leaf.
Few are the souls on earth that sympathize
With toilers who outwatch the stars of night
In searching for the beautiful, while blight
Dims many a hope—still unattained the prize.
Oh! ever welcome is the prayer of one,
Like thee, endowed with “faculty divine,”
And if a charm to ward off ill were mine,
Thy day of joy would know no setting sun;
By sorrow never would thy head be bowed—
Darkened the sky above thee by no cloud.

WILLIAM P. HAWES.

Well may we cherish a sad thought of thee,
Oh, Hawes! called hence ere finished was thy task;
Where can we find a soul so full of glee—
Wit with so fine and keen an edge, I ask?
The subtle essence of true genius lurks
Both in thy tuneful prose and careless lays;
Pervaded by rich humor are thy works,
Like that which on the page of Elia plays
Too soon wert thou arrested in thy course,
Cut down at noon on life's great battle-field.
Well may we mourn when such a fount is sealed,
By death untimely frozen at its source!
Those who with thee the wreath of friendship twined,
Should not forget the loved ones left behind.

267

TO A CHIMNEY-SWEEPER.

Poor son of Afric! in the deepest cell
Of thy swart bosom mirth has taken root—
Thy calling is a lofty one, and soot
Accords with thy complexion passing well.
Thou art an actor, and thy “ching-e-ring,”
While standing on the top of chimney dark,
All grinningly, like Jim Crow at the Park,
In gravity unlocks the comic spring.
By way of flues to win a station high
Bespeaketh true originality.
Thou canst not twice thy coat the same way don,
For collar, sleeve, and back are partly gone,
And Time, who is not partial to the graces,
Hath run his dagger through in many places.

NIGHT.

Oh, night! I love thee, as a weary child
Loves the maternal breast on which it leans!
Day hath its golden pomp—its bustling scenes;
But richer gifts are thine:—the turmoil wild
Of a proud heart thy low, sad voice hath stilled,
Until its throb is gentler than the swell
Of a light billow—and its chamber filled
With cloudless light, with calm unspeakable:
Thy hand a curtain lifteth, and I see
One who first taught my heart with love to thrill,
Though long ago her lip of song grew still:—
A strange, mysterious power belongs to thee,
To morning, noon, and twilight-time unknown;
For the dead gather round thy starry throne.

268

EMMA GILLINGHAM BOSTWICK.

Sing on! unrivalled warbler! never more
Will mortal ear be blessed by such a strain—
Its sweet, enamored echo will remain
Until the fever of this life is o'er.
Such notes were heard in Eden, ere its bowers
Were sullied by the clinging taint of sin—
When all was pure the human heart within,
And sunshine lay upon unfading flowers.
I would not for a blest hereafter pray—
A Heaven for which the troubled spirit longs—
If, in its halls, I could not hear alway
Enchanting, thrilling music like thy songs.
Sing on! thou bird of melody! and fill
My heart with rapture till its pulse is still.

OH, SHE WAS YOUNG!

Oh! she was young, and beautiful and good,
But called away, while age toils faintly on—
Gone to the voiceless land of shadows—gone
In the bright morning of her womanhood.
Cheered by the blue-bird's warble of delight,
Spring-time, the tender twilight of the year,
With bursting bud and sprouting grass is here,
And nature breathes of resurrection bright:
It seems unmeet that one so fair should die,
When sounds are heard so charming to the ear,
And sights beheld so pleasant to the eye:
Hush, vain regrets! a land of fadeless bloom
Is now her home—its passage-way, the tomb.

269

WITHDRAW NOT YET THAT LOOK.

Withdraw not yet that look of wildering sweetness,
Or gloom will follow, as dull night the day—
Time hath a golden wing of wondrous fleetness,
When thou art near to banish grief away.
The pressure of thy snowy hand in mine
Sends an electric shiver through my frame—
Full freely would I barter wealth and fame,
Could I but gain thy love, and intertwine
Our fates together:—dim are gems compared
With light that flashes in thy soul-lit eye;
A prism would a palace seem if shared
With thee, thou star of my idolatry!
Whose radiant glances sway the troubled soul
As moonlight spells old Ocean's pulse control.

271

MISCELLANEOUS POEMS.

ODE.

EPODE I. a.

Eternal Reason! Effluence from God!
All hail to thy regenerating power!
On crimson fields where guilty men have trod
Thou pourest down, to purify, thy shower.
Old systems, rotten with pollution long,
Before thy rising star are waning fast;
In palace-chambers, at the feet of Wrong
The gage of bloodless battle hath been cast.
Moans in this dreary wilderness of woe
By thee are changed to music soft and low,
For thou art parent of ennobling deeds,
Binding up broken reeds;
Dull Ignorance hath heard thy loud appeal;
His soul begins to feel
Faint throb of immortality at last—
A vibratory motion that precedes
The rending might of Truth's electric shock,
That soon will crush his gyves, as powder blasts the rock.

EPODE II. a.

Bright essence of all purity, whose mansion
Is in the hall of every human heart;
Agent that giveth thought sublime expansion,
A day-beam from the great White Throne thou art.

272

Echoes that shake our mortal prison-bars,
Gentle forewhisperings of future life,
Of perfect bliss beyond the holy stars,
When ended turmoil and this fever-strife—
Are emanations from that well of wells
Where dread Omniscience utters oracles;
As gush sweet waters from a mountain spring,
And cool the valleys, summer-parched, below,
Companioned by the zephyr wandering;
So all that scarred earth boasts of good and fair,
Her green spots in the desert of despair,
To thee, to thee we owe!

STROPHE a. I.

When man's immortal nature yearns
From low desires of dust to flee,
Proudly before him moves and burns
A glowing column reared by thee:
Thou art his monitor within—
A wakeful warder on his spirit's wall,
When the persuasive tongue of sin
Chants in his ear some dulcet madrigal.
Thrilled by thy voice his harp the poet strings,
Clouds from his golden pathway driven,
While sailing upward on ethereal wings
He lives awhile in heaven:
Prompted by thee his blade the patriot draws,
And throws the sheath away—
Philosophy tracks consequence to cause,
And fills the caves of ancient night with day.

STROPHE b. II.

Calm element of light in human kind!
As Dian sways the pulses of the sea,
Tuning its tide to strains of harmony,
Soon will thy beams control the deep of mind.

273

Prophetic murmurs on the wind are borne,
Signs are abroad, and banners are unfurled:
Be comforted, ye wretched ones that mourn,
Another morn is dawning on the world!
Mysterious hands are lifting up the veil,
And clank of breaking chains is heard afar—
Robbed of his crested helm and polished mail!
In myrtle bower reclines the slumbering god of war.

ANTISTROPHE. a.

A fructifying radiance gilds the gloom,
And precious seeds of peace are springing up;
For Evil, Right is scooping out a tomb,
And Joy is dropping balm in Sorrow's cup;
The windows of the Future, partly raised,
Reveal the foreground of a view unmarred
By one deforming object, and high bard
On a recovered paradise hath gazed:
Love will yet melt the hardened ice
That chills the breast of Avarice;
Wolves on the trail of Want will cease to prowl,
And Hate will lose his black, appalling scowl;
Earth, full of years and graves, will wear once more
A lustrous, primal beauty on her brow;
From her green face, with flowers enamelled o'er,
One stainless altar rise, and round it bow
A rosy brotherhood of glorious forms;
The sun, from his blue watch-tower in the sky,
Will look on land and sea with golden eye,
Rejoicing in the flight of clouds and driving storms.

274

SOLOMON'S JUDGMENT.

SUGGESTED BY A PICTURE.

The painter's art has well portrayed the scene—
The mighty monarch of majestic mien,
The pleading mother, and that hardened one
Who falsely cried—“The living is my son!”—
A warlike figure of gigantic height
Towers in the foreground, terrible to sight;
His right hand lifting high the fatal blade,
While in his left he grasps the child dismayed;
Ready, with muscle braced and swelling vein,
The little trembler to divide in twain.

Mark—on the features of the woman vile,
Who said—“Divide it”—blended guilt and guile;
Although, demanding tributary tear,
The corse of infant innocence is near;
A blighted flower that on her bosom lay,
A thing of life and gladness yesterday—
The playmate that its little hand had fed:
A favorite dog, true only to the dead.

So much of wildering beauty charms the gaze—
So much of life upon the canvas plays,
That colors match the power of spoken word:
Hark! are not tones of earnest pleading heard
A voice that cries aloud in accent wild—
“In no wise slay—give her the living child!”
Those touching words, and that beseeching tone
Could flow from fond, paternal lips alone;
And the king said—“The sword shall not destroy—
She is the mother—give her back the boy!”

275

HEAD QUARTERS OF WASHINGTON,

WHEN NEW YORK WAS EVACUATED BY CLINTON.

It is a structure of the olden time,
Built to endure, not dazzle for a day:
A stain is on the venerable roof
Telling of conflict with the King of Storms,
And clings to casement worn and hanging eaves
With thread-like roots the moss.
Gray shutters swing
On rusted hinges, but the beams of day
Dart with a softening radiance through the bars.
Colossal domes of chiselled marble made,
Religion's fanes, with glittering golden spires,
And Mammon's airy and embellished halls,
Wearing a modern freshness, are in sight;
But a cold glance they win from me alone.

Why do I turn from Art's triumphant works
To look on pile more humble? Why in thought
Linger around this ancient edifice?
The place is hallowed—Washington once trod,
Planning the fall of tyranny, these floors.
Within yon chamber did he bend the knee,
Calling on God to aid the patriot's cause,
At morn and in the solemn hour of night.
His mandate, pregnant with a nation's fate,
Went forth from these plain, unpretending walls.
Here towered in warlike garb, his stately form,
While marshalled thousands in the dusty street
Gave ear to his harangue, and inly vowed
To die or conquer with their matchless Chief.

276

Methinks at yon old window I behold
His calm majestic features—while the sound
Of blessing rises from the throng below.
Have not the scenes of other days returned?
Do I not hear the sentry's measured tramp,
Clangor of mail and neigh of battle-steed,
Mingling their discord with the drum's deep roll?
No! 'twas a dream!—the magic of a place,
Allied to memory of earth's noblest son,
Gives form and seeming life to viewless air.

Relic of our Heroic Age, farewell!
Long may these walls defy dissolving time,
Mock the blind fury of the hollow blast,
And woo the pilgrim hither, while a voice
Comes from the shadowy caverns of the past,
Full of instruction to a freeman's soul—
A mighty voice that speaks of Washington,
And prompts renewal of stern vow to guard
Pure fires that on my country's altar glow.

277

JUDGMENT.

Ezekiel, in the valley, when the bones
Of a great army moved, with life endowed,
While reconstructed skeletons arose,
Wearing the raiment of the flesh again,
Felt not a deeper awe than chills my heart
While looking on this picture.

Ye, who heed
No warning in the spoken word, draw near,
And tremble in the presence of your Judge,
Who sits enthroned upon the Holy Hill!
Dim is the lustre of midsummer noon
Compared with radiance streaming from his crown.
His calm, unalterable gaze is fixed
Upon a sea of tossing heads below,
And trumps are blown, and angels on the wing:
Green graves are opening, and their tenants throng,
Aroused from heavy slumber, to their doom.
Pale ashes of men martyred for the truth,
Scattered by wildly-wafting winds abroad
In other ages, gather and take form;
And dusty particles, dissevered long,
Meeting—to change and be disjoined no more,—
Attract to its old home the wandering soul.

From sandy wastes, dark woods and polar fields—
The gorges of gray mountains, and deep caves
That open their grim portals in the sea,
To Judgment march the tribes of humankind,

278

From Adam to the last-born of his line.
A summons, piercing Earth's old heart, is heard;
Wearing the signet faith can give alone,
In pity turn the faces of the just
On Sin and black Despair, whose looks denote
Unutterable agony and woe.
Regardless of the gold beneath his feet,
The miser lifts a supplicating glance;
Tearing a blood-stained garland from his brow,
With frantic gesture lost Ambition prays;
The ties of nature, rudely broken, wake
Wailing more loud than ocean's wildest roar—
The separating Angel, in mid air,
To right and left extends his beck'ning arms.
The guilty mother to her spotless babe,
Decked for the bowers of bliss in robe of light,
Clings with fierce grasp in vain—and from the side
Of his tyrannic master bounds the slave,
To bear his palm-branch to the gates of heaven.
The poor man, who, with God and virtue, walked
Upon a thorny pathway to his grave,
Is greeted with glad welcome by the saints:
No more will Pomp—a trembling beggar now—
Treat him with cold disdain, or hear unmoved
His tale of wrong. The children of his love,
Starved! when a fellow-worm, in tinsel clad,
Trampled on law, both human and divine,
To rob him of his right to toil for bread:
But, lo! the scattered household round their sire
Flock after parting long, and seem to say:—
“Rejoice, dear father! we will feel the pangs
Of hunger, thirst, and pinching cold no more.”

Suggested by a painting.

279

HUCKNALL TORKARD.

[“Every sight and sound seemed calculated to summon touching recollections of poor Byron. The chime was from the village spires of Hucknall Torkard, beneath which his remains lie buried.”]—

Irving.

Oh! what a power in sights and sounds about
Earth's hallowed ground—eloquent battle-fields,
Wrecks of monastic pomp, or crumbling halls—
Sad, haunted places, where heroic veins
Have poured their crimson out in honor's cause,
Or lonely grave that holds some mighty heart
In voiceless custody.

Such thoughts were thine,
Immortal pilgrim from our western world!
When Hucknall Torkard, on the breeze of morn,
Sent from its gray and venerable spire
A deep-toned mellow chime:—another voice
Found echo in the chambers of his heart
While listening, with charmed ear, to that old bell—
A still mysterious voice that told of bard,
At rest beneath the pavement of the church,
Who needed not heraldic blazonry
To make his name undying.

On the spot
Through dim, stained glass of gothic window poured
Attempered, softened light—oh! contrast strange
To wild and dazzling radiance that around
The noble bard of Britain fell in life;
Warming the buried grandeur of the past,
Till dim, dismembered empires from their sleep,
Re-clothed with majesty, arose once more,
And icy gyves, by the pale tyrant forged,

280

Dropped from the bony arms of buried power,
Dissolved like sunlit dew.

A landscape fair
Before the vision of the pilgrim spread,
In all its features whispering of peace.
The vale of Newstead, with its silver waves,
Tall patriarch oaks in which the rook found home,
Lawns populous with hardy English flowers,
Memorials of knighthood and the monk,
And hamlets sending up blue, smoky wreaths,
Were objects unto which poetic heart
Might cling through changing years, and never feel
The burden of satiety:—and yet
The wayward lord of such an Eden bright
Went forth in youth to battle with the world,
Its passions and its perils—feel the shaft
From bow of ambushed slander darkly sent—
Hear the loud cry of envy's craven brood,
Eclipsed in brightness by his young renown,
Or read the lying verse of scribbling hate,
Until his heart, by nature kind, became
A fount, like Mara, bitter:—then he roved
Far from his household gods and princely towers—
His genius waking wonder in all lands,
While an abiding sorrow made the locks
That clustered round his glorious forehead gray,
And woke, alas! although his years were few,
A yearning for the shroud.

Oh! that his life
Beneath the shades of Newstead might have passed—
No chord of his unequalled harp deranged,
Wedded to one in boyhood's hour adored
With love that knew no limit to its strength—
His Mary—Annesley's bright Morning Star.

281

HEATHER BLOSSOMS.

[Written on receiving at the hands of Miss McL---n a few sprigs of heather plucked at the foot of Old Ben Nevis, in the valley of Glencoe.]

And was your birth-place at the base
Of Old Ben Nevis, beauteous flowers?
On your bright leaves I still can trace
The loveliness of by-gone hours.
Thanks to the lass who gave the bard
These sweet memorials of a land
Where flourish, though the soil is hard,
A race of open heart and hand;
Where Bruce has fought, and Ossian sung,
And lyres in every glen are strung—
Where streams that down the mountains pour
Have tongues that tell of other times,
While splintered rock and ocean-shore
Shame the tame scenes of softer climes—
Where stormy cairns yet tower to show
Where heroes perished long ago,
And battle-fields, in song renowned,
Make moor and mountain hallowed ground.

And were ye brought across the sea,
Ye heather blossoms, to awake
Such kindling memories in me,
And rouse wild longings to forsake
These western groves, and tread the land
Of plaid and pibroch, harp and brand?
Ah! while I look upon these leaves,
A darker web witch Fancy weaves;

282

For blood your sister-blossoms nursed
When clansmen tried in vain to rally,
And Vengeance like a night-cloud burst,
While Murder bared his steel accursed
In green Glencoe's romantic valley.
Full many moons have waxed and waned
Since war your birth-place redly stained,
But blood still crying from the ground
Seems clinging both to flower and stalk;
And though your leaves give out no sound
Of crime and woe, they more than talk.

Though dimmed the brightness that ye wore,
And paled your tints for evermore—
A mighty spell is yours to speed
The poet's soul across the main,
While martial lay and warlike deed
Chase slumber from his throbbing brain.
Ye jewels from “Auld Scotia's” breast,
Blest be the hand that gave, thrice blest.

283

THE NIGHT-BLOOMING CEREUS.

A lighted lamp in the green-house hung,
And thither thronged the old and young,
The birth of a wondrous flower to mark,
That blooms when the world in shadow lies,
And, ere the matin of the lark,
Droops, hangs its beauteous head, and dies.
A plant, without a leaf, was seen
Upcoiling like a serpent green;
And the chain-swung cresset showering down
A stream of radiance, rich and full,
Disclosed a stem of reddish brown,
Adorned with a wavy fringe-like wool,
And bearing a bud about to burst
By the balmy breath of evening nursed.

The pealing cannon rends the sky,
And tremble bells in the turret high,
When a royal heir the million hail,
And clearly rang on the perfumed gale
A startling noise like a glad salute,
When the pulsing and expanding heart
Of the cactus broke its bonds apart,
And the listeners round stood charm'd and mute.
A dazzling halo round it gleamed—
A type of purity it seemed,
While the broken casket of the gem
Was changed to a starry diadem.

284

A spotless crown the lily wears,
But a tenderer hue the cactus bears,
And the white rose in her fragrant bower
Sat veiled, outshone by a fairer flower.
Its cup, inlaid with glistening gold,
Was meet for the elfin queen to hold,
When bright, nectarean wine is poured
By waiting fays at her dainty board;
And in form had more of antique grace
Than foliated, classic vase
That modern art to rival tries
In vain beneath Ausonian skies;
Its clear, transparent depths displayed
A delicate and greenish shade,
That a fanciful poet would declare
Was like in hue to a mermaid's hair.

Its leaves of pure and pearl-like white
Woke dreams of innocence and Heaven;
Oh! why was such a gem to night,
And not to rose-lipped morning given?
That mother nature might impart
A lesson to the breaking heart,
And on the cloud of sorrow lone
A gleam of loveliness be thrown—
That eyes, all dim with tears, might see
An emblem fair of hope unfold,
Telling of glory yet to be—
Of bliss, by mortal voice untold,
In a land that is stranger to mildew and gloom,
Basking in light, and forever in bloom.

This flower makes an audible report when it bursts its sheath. Strange that a thing so beautiful should so love the night!

285

THE QUIET ARBOR

“Hence let me haste into the midwood shade,
And on the dark green grass, beside the brink
Of haunted stream, that by the roots of oak
Rolls o'er the rocky channel, lie at large.”

When study pales my visage, and I feel
Oppressive languor chaining heart and brain,
Away from toil and books I often steal,
Exploring haunts where Quiet holdeth reign.
I love the wild, the picturesque—and when
Her nest of moss the roving linnet weaves,
And the low thorn is beautiful with flowers,
I seek my favorite glen,
While warm winds wanton with the twinkling leaves
And pass in pleasant idleness the hours.

Where a dark arbor, by the mingling boughs
Of two gigantic hemlock trees, is made,
I rest my limbs, and with wild shout arouse
The ruffed grouse from her cover in the shade.
The tapping flicker does not keep aloof,
But plies his noisy bill above my head,
To greet my coming, while the summer heat
Falls on the verdant roof
That canopies my green, luxurious bed,
With the fresh odors of the forest sweet.

I lie and listen to the lulling tones
Of the clear brook that works its winding way,
Far down through brush, and over mossy stones,
The green marge wetting with its silver spray.

286

The path is steep and perilous that leads
To the cold, flashing waters—and few dare
Descend to quaff refreshment from their flow;
For thick, entangling weeds
In the loose soil seem matted to ensnare
The foot of him that ventureth below.

In the rich bottom of the dale, a grove
Of sylvan giants woos the roving eye;
The topmost limbs wave not their leaves above
The shrubby brow of the declivity.
Sometimes in musing indolence I stand,
And drink in rapture from the peaceful scene,
Or call up old rememberings from sleep;
Then pluck with careless hand
The ripe red berries of the winter-green,
That blush like rubies on the verdant steep.

I watch the wild bees, from my cool retreat,
Hum tunefully around the blue harebell,
Before they enter to extract the sweet
That lieth hidden in each fragrant cell.
The small ground-squirrels leave their dwellings dark,
In the black, slaty soil, and gambol oft
On an old oak with star-moss overgrown,
And reft of branch and bark;
While the fierce hawk forsakes his realm aloft,
And settles on the blasted pine, his throne.

Where the broad banks slope gently downward, grow
The sassafras and other fragrant trees;
And the bright lilies of the wave below
Give nods of recognition to the breeze.
In mild accordance with the quiet scene,
Beat tranquilly the pulses of my heart;
While fancy populates the place with fays,
In robes of dazzling sheen,

287

Who dance to merry music and depart,
While other fairy visions cheat the gaze.

Around the sapling, like a verdant belt,
The claspers of the honeysuckle twine;
The Dryads of Argos never dwelt
Within a bower more beautiful than mine:
The humming-bird is near me on the wing,
And the warm breeze with dulcet tone is stealing
Through the green plumage of the hemlocks old,
A spiritual thing;
While butterflies round marshy spots are wheeling,
Clad in their dazzling liveries of gold.

The dusky lord of knife and hatchet roves
Near my wild haunt of loveliness no more;
He saw, amid his old ancestral groves,
Throng pale invaders from a foreign shore—
Then heard thy sylvan monarchs, one by one,
With all their leafy diadems laid low,
And sought an undiscoverable lair
Toward the dim setting sun,
With empty quiver and a broken bow,
And gloomy brow contorted by despair.

The game he hunted craftily is gone,
And meadow-grass conceals his ancient trail;
The flock is feeding where his camp-fire shone,
And rang his whoop of triumph on the gale:
His implements of battle and the chase
Are often found near my romantic bower,
For the rich scene about it is allied
To legends of his race;
And mournful traces of his day of power
Make classic grove, and glade, and river-side.

Frost, washing rain-drops, and the plough, lay bare
The rude graves of his sires on hill and plain,

288

Exposing their white secrets to the air,
And the rough foot-fall of the whistling swain.
When Autumn robes the forest in a dress
Of many colors, he returns no more,
To pay due homage to ancestral dust
From distant wilderness;
The wave no longer flashes with his oar,
And crusted is his tomahawk with rust.

His wood-land language cannot wholly die,
While swift Conesus rolls in rippling glee
Between broad, swelling banks of verdant dye,
To mix his waters with the Genesee.
These tall old hemlocks tell of other days,
When the red warrior rested in their shade,
The painted ruler of the scene around:
And the far hills, that raise
Their wooded tops, by summer lovely made,
In marks of ancient Indian rule aboud.

When the life-stream is frozen in my veins,
And hollow are my features with decay,
I fondly hope my cold and stiff remains
May not be hidden from the light of day,
In the dark yard where hundreds hide their dead;
For I would rather have a pleasant grave
Beneath the roofing of my arbor green,
With wild grass overspread;
While far below sing bird and gurgling wave,
Through the dense, rustling thicket, dimly seen.

289

LAMENT FOR SUMMER.

A softened light falls on the hill's misty head,
And voices of mourning cry “Summer is dead!”
In the depths of the wood there are signs of decay,
And the green of the meadow is fading away;
Round pools that the rain-storm hath left in the street,
A golden-winged bevy, the butterflies meet—
A delicate blue is erased from the sky,
And the beard of the thistle is sailing on high.

Glad mother of beauty, lost Summer, wert thou—
A rosy tiara encircled thy brow;
Dew, fresh from the starr'd urn of night, was thy wine,
What face in the lakelet was glassed fair as thine?
Festooned by the ivy—with lattice supplied—
Thy hall in the green wood was airy and wide,
Bird, breeze, leaf and streamlet discoursed there in glee,
And the Genius of flowers spread a carpet for thee.

The nymph that we worshipped in mould hath been laid,
There is gloom in the fields, on the sun's disc a shade—
The cricket, in sable habiliments dress'd,
Is piping a dirge near the place of her rest;
Low winds murmur prayer for the sleeper's repose,
The locust sad note on his clarion blows,
And hollow-voiced spirits that whisper of dole,
Throng nightly around her funereal knoll.

Death came to thee, Summer, in loveliest guise,
All bright was thy smile when he curtained thine eyes—
Though deep in thy bosom was planted his dart,
There was bloom on thy cheek—there was warmth at thy heart,

290

As gentle Autumnus bent over thy bier
He whispered “Awake thee—arise, sister dear!”
So life-like were tints that each feature retained,
Though the wine of thy fleeting existence was drained.

Where bruised by the wheel and armed hoof of the steed,
Blooms on by the wayside the lowly may-weed;
Yon dove-flock is gleaning each kernel of grain
That falls from the creaking and o'erloaded wain:
In glossy black coat sits the clamorous crow
On the top of tall oak, and he prophesies woe
While the first withered leaves of the forest are shed
On the newly-made grave of the loved and the dead.

When coral-lipped Summer breathed mournful adieu,
A landscape enriched by her smile was in view—
The cheek of the cloud was with violet tinged,
And an edging of azure the forest-top fringed;
Light airs passing over the dewy buckwheat,
Perfume bore abroad that was grateful and sweet,
And bees in the blossoms that whitened the field
Found nectar more pure than Hymettus can yield.

Mourn, mourn for the peerless and jovial-hearted
To the shadowy climate of silence departed!
Ere south had the passenger-pigeon retired,
Or gone was the robin, young Summer expired;
Dew-webbed is the stubble and pasture at morn,
And rubies are set in the crown of the thorn—
The boughs of the orchard with fruit are depress'd,
But cold lies the clod on the Slumberer's breast!

291

AUTUMNAL MUSINGS.

An opening in the cloud!
And sunlight, gushing tremulously through,
Drinks up the white, thin shroud
That spread where lately shone the summer dew.

The sky is dark again;
And, roaming sadly in the wood-land path,
I deem that grove and plain
Lie in the shadow of celestial wrath.

The pleasant leaves are dead,
And make sad music when the north-wind stirs
The branches overhead,
And gathers them to forest-sepulchres.

The crow, in accents harsh,
Gives voice to Sorrow in his olden haunt;
But nigh the reedy marsh
I hear no more the black-bird's merry chaunt.

The brook no longer winds
In silver beauty by the homes of men,
And, full of laughter, finds
A green concealment in the shrubby glen.

But melancholy tones
From the worn, pebbly channel faintly rise,
Like low, despairing moans
That leave maternal lips when childhood dies:

And well the brook may mourn;
For the bright leaves that shaded from the sun
Its tripping wave, are torn
From the dark, wind-toss'd branches, one by one:—

292

And on yon herbs that made
Its margin beautiful, the hoary frost
A blighting finger laid,
And their green witchery of hue is lost.

The flowers no longer raise
Their cups of fragrance, courted by the bee;
But the blithe squirrel pays
Enriching visits to the walnut-tree.

Dry twigs beneath my feet
The secret of my neighborhood betray,
And from her still retreat
The partridge flies on whirring wing away.

What teachers are the oaks,
With their torn mantles waving in the blast;
While the black raven croaks
A dirge for beauty in the dust at last!

How sweetly do the skies,
And the wide earth that withers far below,
Though tongueless, sermonize
On that great change we all must undergo!

The distant hill up-towers,
With its gray top in smoky verdure clad;
And, robbed of sunny flowers,
The meadows round look desolate and sad.

What eastern monarch owns
A robe of richer color than these leaves
That speak in rustling tones,
And fall in rainbow flakes when autumn grieves?

Though blest the distant coast,
Where grow the flowering lemon and sweet lime,
No foreign land can boast
The passing beauty of our autumn-time.

293

THE OLD YEAR.

When a year ends its mission, nature's harp
Is tuned, methinks, to notes of mournfulness—
The leafless wood is filled with dirge-like sounds,
Unheard at other times—and on the beach
Of lone blue lake, or ocean's wilder strand,
The waves send up a melancholy roar,
As if bereaved of something that they loved;
Snow, newly fallen, on the wintry waste,
Lifted in whirling masses by the gale,
Is shaped by fancy into ghostly forms
Treading the dance of death—and air-borne clouds
That brush the mountain's top, whose surging pines
Make music for the dark procession meet,
Seem like a funeral escort following
The Old Year to his grave.
Oh! not unmourned
By winged sprites, believe the fabling bards,
Though mortal tongue no lamentation raise,
Vanish the seasons with their varied charms—
Their flowers, their fruits, their many-colored groves,
And fireside joys, when howl the blasts of night.
Another wreck, with treasure in her hold,
Hath reached the port of dark eternity,
Furling her ragged canvas, nevermore
To brave the treacherous shoal, the hidden rock.
Her deck was crowded with a laughing throng
When merrily the voyage she began,
Flapping her white wing like some joyous gull
Disporting on the bosom of the brine.
Not all outlived the bark that bore them on—

294

Some perished when no cloud was in the sky,
And air was balmy with the breath of flowers—
And others, heart-chilled by unfriendly gales
That blew from Want's inhospitable coast,
Isles of complaining sorrow, dark with yew,
And over ice-fields, by Misfortune owned,
Lashed to the plunging plank, have disappeared.
Many are floating in a vessel launched
An hour agone to stem the tide of time,
Their tongues full loudly shouting, while she scuds
Before the breeze—“Health to the Outward Bound!”
On! on! though fair the weather be, or foul,
Thou restless rover on a troubled sea!
Ah! with a gallant bearing, like thine own,
The wreck, of which I spake, once walked the waves;
Exultant Hope was at the helm, and Joy
Her topmast with a painted streamer decked,
And now her cruise is o'er—her keel at rest.
The freight she bore, alas, was like thine own!
The golden visions of romantic youth;
Fancies of girlhood, delicate and sweet;
The growing selfishness of frosty age;
Love's cherished jewels, and majestic plans
Engendered by ambition's burning brain;

The coffin and the cradle, stowed away
In her deep hold, with toys and mourning weeds,
In the same varnish glittered side by side;
Pale winding-sheet, and bridal-garment, packed
In the same trunk together, were on board;
The myrtle and the cypress intertwined
In a strange wreath their foliage, and oft,
By tolling bell, the lover's lute was drowned.

On to thy sunless haven, fated bark!
Beauty, the waker of a wondrous spell,
Manhood, rejoicing in his lusty thews,
And childhood, warbling like a lark at morn,

295

Must perish by the way, but pause not thou!
Twelve moons will wax and wane before thy place
Of everlasting anchorage is found;
And in that space of time the world may wear
An aspect that it never knew before.
The bonds are snapping, one by one, that bind
The beaten slave unto a laboring oar:
The lifted veil unfolds a brighter scene
Than the dark back-ground of the mournful past;
Preluding notes of a triumphant song,
Rousing besotted nations, on the wind
Wander like spirits that will not be laid.
The human soul, a mirror darkened long
By passion's mist, and vapor black and dense
Uprising from the fens of ignorance,
Shall be unclouded as it was of yore,
Ere mildew fell on paradise—again
Its surface flashing back the light of heaven.
Old poets feigned that the revolving months
Were in obeyance to Biformis wise,
Who forward looked, and backward threw his glance.
Watch by Time's mighty outward gate he kept,
A janitor of grave and reverend mien!
Who aided, with his hand, the faltering steps
Of each out-going, palsy-shaken Year,
While in rushed blithe successors, with a bound.
Thereby unfolded was a startling truth;
For Life, and his wan, shadowy brother, Death,
Exit and entrance at one door-way find.
Outlasting generations of mankind,
The tallest Titan of the woods must fall,
And turn again to inorganic mould,
Retaining, though complete the ruin seems,
The rudiments of form and majesty,
And principle of efflorescence still.
Despair not, laborer for human weal!

296

Though perish, one by one, thy golden hopes;
Ashes remain in which some living spark
May veil its brightness, destined to illume
Cimmerian darkness with electric gleams.
Despair not, mourner, though the work of change
Is with the pale departed going on!
Despair not, dying maiden, while the leaves
Are paler growing in thy blighted rose!
The perishable flesh will waste to dust,
But through the portals of Decay will stream
A dazzling blaze of loveliness once more.
Transmuted by inevitable laws,
Loathsome putrescence will soon beauteous be,
The crumbling wreck become a fabric fair.

297

NEW-YEAR MUSINGS.

Another year of bloom and blight
Is dead, with darkness for a shroud—
Gone, like some phantom of the night,
Gone, like the shadow of a cloud.
Wild polar spirits chime a dirge,
And, mingling with the dreadful roar,
I hear old Ocean's angry surge
Beat time upon the frozen shore.

Love, count thy jewels!—not a few
Have vanished from thy casket frail,
More false than diamonds of the dew,
Or rounded drops of summer hail.
Look, Hope! upon thy cherished flowers,
So bright of hue twelve moons ago!
May will not wake them with her showers,
Nor warm them with her genial glow.

Ambition! what is left thee now,
Too proud to beg, too brave to moan?
Scorn points to thy dishonored brow—
Hate taunts a rival overthrown.
Mad builder on a treach'rous bank,
Washed by a fierce devouring stream,
How thy tall, misshapen towers sank,
Poor frame-work of a frantic dream!

Ho! Avarice! halt a little while,
And hold communion with thyself—
But banish that complacent smile
While gloating o'er ill-gotten pelf.

298

Thy poor allottery of time
Is drawing near its darkening close,
And awful is old age when crime
Gleams, hell-like, through its gath'ring snows.

Give back to Woe the little all
Wrung by thy hard, exacting hand;
The king of hearse and night-black pall
Will not be bribed by golden sand.
Give back to Want the lowly shed,
By law-craft and its wiles made thine;
Give back, extortioner, the bread
For which her pleading orphans pine.

Children of grandeur! know ye not,
While merry over Christmas cheer,
That, weary of their wretched lot,
A beggar'd crowd were starving near;
That mothers, while chill night came on,
To garrets, dens, and cellars crept,
And found the last poor fagot gone,
While shivering infants round them wept?

Votaries of mirth! were ye aware,
While moving in the graceful dance
To notes of some enlivening air,
And warmed by beauty's beaming glance,
That Genius, with his bleeding feet,
And war with famine doomed to wage,
Was wandering, homeless, in the street,
Rejected by a coward age?

To Worth give not a groat away—
The public goose let Barnum carve:
Enrich the humbugs of to-day,
But let the heirs of Fulton starve.
Give the poor soldier, maimed in fight,
Allowance scant of bitter bread,

299

But thousands, in a single night,
To some famed cantatrice instead.

Let Valor in his nameless grave
Commingle with ensanguined mould;
The surplus of your earnings save
To load Jack Harlequin with gold.
The passport of the “Upper Ten,”
Though borne by knave, or downright fool,
Must be obeyed by vulgar men,
For fashion, not the sage, should rule.

Another pilgrim, faint and worn,
Has reached the caverns of the Past,
While Winter winds his icy horn,
And trooping demons ride the blast.
To some he brought a golden shower,
Sweet bridal joys, and home-delights;
Pearls, wrested from the clutch of power,
Bright happy days, and peaceful nights:

To others he has brought despair,
And wreck upon the stormy waves;
Flight from oppression's bloody lair—
Chains, scaffolds, broken hearts, and graves.
But, Hungary, thy chosen chief
Will back in arms ere long return;
The skies give promise of relief—
Air is alive with voices stern:—

The northern bear his brood may wake,
But they shall gnaw thy heart no more;
But on his own grim carcass make,
When roused the pack, a meal of gore.
Back, savage, to thy deserts dread,
Where night her umbrage loves to fling!
The British Lion lifts his head—
The Western Eagle flaps his wing.

300

And, Poland, may this new-born year
Thy glad redemption usher in,
While perish, smit with mortal fear,
The vassals of anointed sin.
Walk, tyrant, with a guarded tread—
Let not your pulse too proudly beat!
The heavens are darkening overhead,
And earth is mined beneath your feet.

Though shades of martyrs haunt thy shore,
Isle of the blue, embracing sea!
There is deliverance in store,
A place in freedom's hall for thee.
Thy tears of blood shall yet be dried,
Thy funeral sackcloth thrown away,
While robed in splendor, like a bride,
The beams of joy around thee play.

Another wave upon the beach
Has dashed its freight of good and ill;
Our hands abroad we vainly reach,
In quest of those whose hearts are still.
Another mile-stone we have gained—
The goal of rest is drawing nigh,
And sadly is the vision pained
By pictures that once charmed our eye.

Oh! sooner rake in ashes cold
For letters that have fed the blaze,
Than seek to find the bliss of old,
The transports of our younger days
Enough, though hushed the voice of glee,
If in our breasts contentment calm
Sits, like a halcyon on the sea,
Dispensing an oblivious balm.

301

NEW YEAR FANCIES.

Time's belfry trembles with another knell!
Another year hath vanished like the snow
That wastes beneath young April's melting glance.
The forest, naked to the lightest twig,
Is now a mournful instrument of sound,
From which the blast, a wild performer, calls
Mysterious music, swaying its old boughs,
And a deep Spirit Voice in unison
Chants this wild hymn, in memory of the lost.

HYMN.

To the sunless land of death
The poor, white-haired Old Year
Hath gone with his children twelve,
Brave sons and daughters dear:
And the sides of the wooded hill
Are threshed by the Storm King's flail,
And rusheth through the glen,
With a hollow sound, the gale.

Bright openings in the cloud
Cheered the Old Year's dying days,
While he thought of the summer flowers,
And of autumn's purple haze;
And a dream “that such things were,”
Though it bathed in light his heart,
Was a call from another world,
And a warning to depart.

302

Last born of a little flock
Wert thou, December wild!
And, shuddering, looked thy sire
On his dark, ill-boding child;
For a fiend in the Old Man's ear
Had screamed a warning loud,
That the twelfth one of the band
Would bring him to his shroud.

More wan his visage grew
When the luckless reign began,
And a chill crept through the veins
Of the venerable man:
And how heartless was thy laugh
When descending hail and sleet
On the palsy-shaken form
Of the bowed old Pilgrim beat.

On the dead and shrivelled leaves
With a trembling step and slow,
Craving refuge from the storm,
Marched that hoary man of woe;
And he roved through church-yards bleak,
Reading names he loved the best;
Then in faltering accents prayed
For a couch of endless rest.

Now he lieth stark and mute,
With the mighty ones of old;
He hath gone with all his joys
And his sorrows manifold;
But seed by the Old Year sown
Will in other hours uprise,
And the plants of evil bear,
Mixed with blossoms for the skies.

303

THE WITCH.

[FROM AN UNPUBLISHED TALE OF SHETLAND.]

The beldame on the waves below
Flung the dark contents of her chalice,
Dimming the brightness of their snow,
With scowl denoting demon-malice,
And bosom cold to mortal pain—
Then, making circles with her wand
Sang in a low, mysterious strain
The power of bard to paint beyond.

Ministers of vengeance leave
Gloomy grot and sunless cave!
Ere the dewy reign of eve
Death must triumph on the wave:—
Habited in robes of wrath,
Let your follower be Grief!
Guide his vessel on the path
Leading to this fatal reef;
Word, with insult fraught, of me
He hath spoken daringly,
And a leader claims the skill
Of her troop to work him ill—
He must drown!

Spirits, who beneath the deep
Darkly build the wrecking rock!
Wake the dreaming storm from sleep,
And the doors of safety lock!
Fleetly, on their palfreys white,
Swept the Fatal Sisters by
His old castle yesternight,
Shrieking out—“Thy doom is nigh!”

304

Genii of the clouds! array
Arching sky in black to-day;
For the tongue of leader dread
To her ghastly troop hath said—
He must drown!

Though far below the haunted crag
Sang moaningly the frothy surge,
Erect and demon-like, the hag
Stood on its beetling verge;
While sunlight gave the mountain, brown
And verdureless, a golden crown,
Her gaze was fixed upon a sail
That lightly flew before the gale;
And meaningly the cliffs around
Gave back her laugh of wild delight,
The curlew starting with the sound,
While faded mast and spar from sight.

Not well could pen portray the face
And figure of that grim, weird woman;
One, gazing, would have thought the race
She darkly sprang from superhuman.
The garment round her shoulders cast
Was by a silver brooch made fast;
And, crested by a raven feather,
A bonnet muffled up her head,
Dark with the stains of time and weather;
Her shrivelled neck was bare,—and thread,
Whose coloring was caught from night,
Depended from a distaff light,
That near her lay, with noxious weeds,
On which the dew yet shone in beads,
And plants of power that flourish best
When plaintively the night-wind grieves—
When day has faded in the west,
And other flowers have shut their leaves.

305

Low on the forehead of the crone
The hair in grisly masses grew;
Her lips were shrunken, and the bone
Of her lean cheek shone clearly through
The parchment-like and wrinkled skin,
That lay in furrows long and deep:
Like some foul votary of sin,
Just risen from a dreamless sleep,
And merry with a fearful mirth
By reason of return to earth—
Exulting that foul charm again
To generate disease and pain
Was in her keeping, stood the hag
Surveying ocean from the crag
The glad bird hushed its warbled strains
When flitting by.—Within her veins
The fountains of vitality
Long in appearance had been dried,
Though the red twinkle of her eye
Debility of frame belied;
And fiercely by the fire of hate
Her glance at times was lighted up.
In one hand, to unravel fate,
She held an old enchanted cup,
Whose handle cunningly resembled
The knotted snake in act to spring,
While lightly in the other trembled
A wand of magic fashioning.

Of freestone made and granite block,
A mossy structure capp'd the rock,
And stood as if the wind and rain
Of centuries had beat in vain
On rugged roof and side of stone
With hanging lichen overgrown.
The lintel of the cot was low,
And piping winds could come and go

306

Through fissures in the granite gray,
Defying tempest, time, decay.
The regal pine, that loves to toss
Its plumage on the mountain head,
Proud perch of eagles! in the moss
Of ages richly habited,
Grew not in stately beauty there,
Green banners flinging to the air;
But the lonely spot was a fitting home
For the mystic being of my story;
Beneath lay ocean, flecked with foam,
And round were piled,
In grandeur wild,
Rocks with the flight of ages hoary.
Above, ribbed with fragments of porphyry stone,
The mountain raised its leafless cone;
And, wearing channels deep and wide,
The torrent came down its precip'tous side.
Murmurs, born in caverns dark,
Came up where the lonely crag was rifted;
And reefs, to wreck the gallant bark,
Above the wave their edges lifted.
Against the coast, with dark rock bound,
The waters struck with earthquake sound,
Or, rushing on, to madness toss'd,
In cold, unlighted caves were lost.
No leafy shrub, with blossoms hung,
Rich odor on the light winds flung;
Nor bush with dewy berries bright
The small birds tempted to alight;
And not one blade of grassy green
Gave freshness to the barren scene;
But meet was the place of for its occupant old,
Communion with spirits of evil to hold.

307

THE MEMPHIAN MUMMY.

“O, I could pass all relics
Left by the pomps of old,
To gaze on this rude monument
Cast in affection's mould.”
Mrs. Hemans.

Daughter of Egypt, on thy shrunken face
The hues of life and health no longer glow;
And change hath written on thy coffin-case
Those words of mournful import—“long ago.”
The light, in thy unseeing eye, is dead—
Thy teeth no longer shame the ocean pearl:
The dewy freshness of thy lip hath fled,
And gone thy pride of curl.

The debt of nature myriads have paid,
And o'er them closed Oblivion's misty wave,
Since weeping friends thy breathless form arrayed
In the sad vesture of the starless grave.
Those hollow eyes with pleasure may have beamed,
Or tears, perhaps, that dusky cheek have wet;
Upon thy brow, for aught sage knows, hath gleamed
Some queenly coronet.

Perchance thine ear, so very dull and cold,
The mystic lyre of Memnon often heard,
When sunrise tinged the morning sky with gold,
And all its strings melodiously stirred.
An infant may have slumbered in those arms,
That hang so still and nerveless by thy side;
Perchance some Pharaoh, yielding to thy charms,
Made thee his royal bride.

308

The breathing statue and the speaking bust
Of all their grace and beauty have been reft,
And dome and tower have crumbled into dust
Since thy freed soul its mortal prison left.
Although the rock, for many ages, hid
Thy rigid features from the light of day,
Thou standest up, like Egypt's pyramid,
Defying stern decay.

Amid the chords of some love-kindling lute
Those taper fingers may have often strayed;
Thy tongue, which hath for centuries been mute,
To Apis or to Isis may have prayed.
When ancient Memphis was the seat of power—
When mirth and music reigned within her walls,
Perchance of throngs thou wert the worshipped flower,
That sought her princely halls.

The yellow sunlight falls upon thee now,
But cannot melt the icy chain of death;
The zephyr's wing is fanning thy dark brow,
But thou art reckless of its balmy breath.
When joy held empire in thy stony breast,
Hadst thou no haunt upon the Nile's green shore,
To muse upon his waters, when at rest,
Or listen to their roar?

Did ever cross thy mind the chilling thought,
While drinking rapture from the vernal gale,
That e'er thy form by strangers would be bought,
And made the theme of many an erring tale?
When the last trump shall animate the tomb,
And call the dead from out the sea and earth—
Maiden, thy spirit will its dust resume,
Far from thy place of birth.

309

THE SEXTON OF TIME.

The windows were fastened, and bolted the door—
One mouldering brand threw faint light on the floor,
When, followed by twelve heavy beats of the clock,
A spirit unseen at my casement did knock;
“Who is here?—who is here?”—with a shudder I cried,
And a voice, hollow-toned like the night-wind, replied:

“The sad, withered heart of that traveller old,
The gray-headed Year is now silent and cold;
On a pallet of straw wan and wasted he lies,
No warmth in his veins, and no light in his eyes;
I come, hither called, moody Sexton of Time!
From my cavernous home in a mystical clime.

“A king, many months, did he rule in the land,
And the sceptre of empire befitted his hand;
In June his proud palace with azure was hung—
Through its picturesque halls witching melody rung—
Rich emerald carpet each floor overspread,
Embroidered with blossoms, to soften the tread.

“Oh! where shall I trench a receptacle deep;
Where find for the pilgrim a chamber of sleep!
Oh! not by the wayside, for over his grave
A banner of white would the storm-demon wave,
And frolicsome steeds, ringing bells on the blast,
While Mirth held the reins, would be hurrying past.

“Oh! not in the woods would I build him a tomb—
Gone, gone are their crowns, and no violets bloom;
In their desolate depths not a warbler is seen,
The brook hath no murmur—its margin no green,

310

And the sobbing of winds, and the creaking of boughs,
From rest might the heart-broken slumberer rouse.

“He dropped, causing deeper the verdure to grow,
Bright dew where the lost and the lovely lie low,
And sent golden sunshine, and pattering showers,
While bright grew the desolate grave-yard with flowers,
But earth, once so fair by his agency made,
Will furnish no cell where his bones may be laid.

“Dark bearers will come at the blast of my horn:
His corse shall be gently to Shadow-Land borne,
And the Sexton of Time will a sepulchre build
In its valley by winter, the tyrant, unchilled;
While the newly-crowned Year, a wild rioter, laughs
At the wassailing board, and a full bumper quaffs.

“Revel on!—revel on! with the youthful and gay.
Proud heir of the fallen! thy locks shall grow gray,
Though the days of thy life inexhaustible seem,
They will melt like the dew—they will pass like a dream;
From spring-time to winter the journey is brief,
And the fields of delight stretch to deserts of grief!”

The voice died away, and a trumpet was blown—
I looked from my window in terror, I own,
And phantom-like forms, by the snow-light, beheld,
A dim figure leading them, hoary with eld,
The funeral it seemed of the friendless Old Year,
For borne, in their midst, was a shadowy bier.

311

TRIUMPHS OF PEACE.

From palace, cot and cave,
Streamed forth a nation in the olden time
To crown with flowers the brave
Flushed with the conquest of some far-off clime,
And louder than the roar of meeting seas,
Applauding thunder rolled upon the breeze.
Memorial-columns rose
Decked with the spoils of conquered foes,
And bards of high renown their stormy pæans sung,
While Sculpture touched the marble white,
And, woke by his transforming might,
To life the statue sprung.
The vassal to his task was chained—
The coffers of the state were drained
In rearing arches, bright with wasted gold,
That after generations might be told
A thing of dust once reigned.

Tombs, hollowed by long years of toil,
Were built to shrine heroic clay,
Too proud to rest in vulgar soil,
And moulder silently away;
Though treasure lavished on the dead
The wretched might have clothed and fed—
Dragged merit from obscuring shade,
And debts of gratitude have paid;
From want relieved neglected sage,
Or veteran in battle tried;
Smoothed the rough path of weary age,
And the sad tears of orphanage have dried.

312

Though green the laurel round the brow
Of wasting and triumphant war,
Peace, with her sacred olive bough,
Can boast of conquests nobler far:
Beneath her gentle sway
Earth blossoms like a rose—
The wide old woods recede away,
Through realms, unknown but yesterday,
The tide of empire flows.
Woke by her voice rise battlement and tower,
Art builds a home and Learning finds a bower—
Triumphant Labor for the conflict girds,
Speaks in great works instead of empty words;
Bends stubborn matter to his will,
Drains the foul marsh, and rends in twain the hill—
A hanging bridge across the torrent flings,
And gives the car of fire resistless wings.
Light kindles up the forest to its heart,
And happy thousands throng the new-born mart;
Fleet ships of steam, deriding tide and blast,
On the blue, bounding waters hurry past;
Adventure, eager for the task, explores
Primeval wilds, and lone, sequestered shores—
Braves every peril, and a beacon lights
To guide the nations on untrodden heights.

313

THE MIGHT OF SONG.

[“I was in the hall of the castle, disguised as a harper from the wild shores of Skianack. My purpose was to have plunged my dirk in the body of the ‘M'Auley with the Bloody Hand,’ before whom our race trembles; but I saw Annot Lyle, even when my hand was on the hilt of my dagger. She touched her clàrsach (Highland Harp) to a Song of the Children of the Mist. The woods in which we had dwelt, pleasantly rustled their green leaves in the song, and our streams were there with the sound of all their waters. The fountains of mine eyes were opened, and the hour of revenge passed away.”]—

Legend of Montrose.

Disguised as a harper,
I stood in the hall,
And loud was the clatter
Of arms on the wall.
Dark, dark grew my brow, for the sheen of their blades
Was dim with the blood of our old men and maids.

The scourge of my people,
The Red Hand, was near
And whispered the ghosts
Of the slain in mine ear—
“Shall a foeman be safe while a Son of the Mist
Wears the dirk of his ancestors chained to his wrist?

“Shall terror the veins
Of the fatherless freeze,
While the bay of the black hound
Comes down with the breeze?
Shall our hearth-stones be roofless, and Ronald forget
In the blood of the monster to cancel the debt?”

“No! no!—by the bones
Of the dead we have sworn
Ere night fall the Laird
For his brother shall mourn:

314

With the slaughter of kinsmen his tartan is red,
And the plumes of our chief grace his bonneted head.”

Toward the weaponless slayer
I made but one stride,
With hand on the hilt
Of the dirk by my side,—
When, thrilling my heart to its innermost cell,
On mine ear a wild burst of rich melody fell.

At length my glance rested
On Annot the fair,
Whose smile vies in brightness
The gold of her hair;
To a song of our race her light clàrsach was strung,
And, bathing my cheek, dropped the tears while she sung.

I saw our own streams
Glide in beauty along,
And the voice of their waters
I heard in the song;
The rustling of leaves, and wild carol of bird
In glens where my forefathers slumber, I heard.

My hand the dark hilt
Of my weapon forsook,
For my frame, like an aspen,
With sorrowing shook;
And my childhood came back with its innocent shout,
While the fire of revenge in my bosom went out.

Harp. Vide Macleod's Gaelic dictionary.

315

THE DEAD HUNTER.

Here, here at last I've found thee
Torn by the beast of prey—
The dim old forest round thee,
Thy couch the dark wet clay.
From lip and cheek have faded
For aye the tints of life;—
Soiled is the belt I braided
With the red rain of strife.
I told thee yestermorning
That foes lay ambushed near,
For borne was note of warning
Unto my dreaming ear
From the far Spirit Land.

No more thine arms will rattle
Light bracelets in the dance—
Thine eye no more in battle
Flash forth indignant glance.
My voice that once could cheer thee
Thrills not that bosom now;
Thy bow lies broken near thee,
And blood-stained is thy brow:
With pace the moose outspeeding
To hunt the antlered herd,
Thou wentest forth unheeding
The sadly-whispered word
Of the far Spirit Land.

Oh, bitterly my nation
Will mourn thy timeless fall,
For who can fill thy station
Within the council-hall?
My cone-like lodge is lonely—
The fount of joy is dry,

316

For life was pleasant only
When thou, dead chief, wert nigh!
My tree of hope is blighted,
Its trunk is in the dust;
But we will be united
Ere many moons, I trust,
In the far Spirit Land.

A dwelling, cold and narrow,
Must now the strong arm hide
That best could wing the arrow,
Or the light paddle guide;
The muttering storm is hiding
With veil of gloomy dye
The day-god lately riding
With lustrous pomp on high;
But while the cloud is shedding
Cold rain-drops on thy breast,
Thy warlike ghost is treading
The chase-grounds of the blest
In the far Spirit Land.

The wolf stalks by thee heeding
Thy fatal aim no more—
The doe and fawn are feeding
Near thy lone couch of gore.
The quivered band will never
Thy war-shout hear again;
The hand is stilled for ever
That once piled high the slain;
But, thick as bees that cluster
In hollows of the wood,
Thy clan for combat muster,
While a wild cry for blood
Thrills through the Spirit Land.

317

BLAKE'S VISITANTS.

[_]

[“Blake, the painter, forgot the present in the past. He conceived that he had formed friendships with distinguished individuals of antiquity. He asserted that they appeared to him, and were luminous and majestic shadows. The most propitious time for their visits was from nine at night till five in the morning.”]

The stars shed a dreamy light—
The wind, like an infant, sighs;
My lattice gleams, for the queen of night
Looks through with her soft, bright eyes.
I carry the mystic key
That unlocks the mighty Past,
And, ere long, the dead to visit me
Will wake in his chambers vast.

The gloom of the grave forsake,
Ye princes who ruled of yore!
For the painter fain to life would wake
Your majestic forms once more.
Ye brave, with your tossing plumes,
Ye bards of the pale, high brow!
Leave the starless night of forgotten tombs,
For my hand feels skilful now.

They come, a shadowy throng,
With the types of their old renown—
The Mantuan bard, with his wreath of song,
The monarch with robe and crown.
They come!—on the fatal Ides
Of March yon conqueror fell;
For the rich, green leaf of the laurel hides
His baldness of forehead well.

318

I know, though his tongue is still,
By his pale, pale lips apart,
The Roman whose spell of voice could thrill
The depths of the coldest heart—
And behind that group of queens
Bedight in superb attire,
How mournfully Lesbian Sappho leans
Her head on a broken lyre!

That terrible shade I know
By the scowl his visage wears,
And the Scottish knight, his noble foe,
By the broad claymore he bears.
That warrior king who dyed,
In Saracen gore, the sands,
With his knightly harness on, beside
The fiery Soldan stands.

Ye laurell'd of old, all hail!
I love, in the gloom of night,
To rob the Past of his cloudy veil,
And gaze on your features bright.
Hah! the first bright beam of dawn
On my window redly plays,
And back, to their homes of dust, have gone
The mighty of other days.

319

UNDINE.

“Thy themes—
Subjects of old romance, and ocean's realm,
A spacious province, where the wandering thought
And 'wilder'd fancy, erring, may be lost,
Are without limit.”—
Simms.

I have brought, I have brought,
In my pearl-studded car,
Proud spoils for the lost one,
From grottoes of spar—
To shroud her cold bosom
A raiment of flowers
That blush, fading never,
In coralline bowers.

I have brought, I have brought
From the stillness of cells,
Whose roofs are encrusted
With rainbow-like shells,
Bright gems to inweave
Her long tresses of gold
That lie on a forehead
Pale, pulseless and cold.

When the blue, upper waters
From slumber arise,
And Death paints with ominous
Sable, the skies—
When the tall bark contends
With the storm-fiend in vain,
Her home will be quiet
Far down in the main.

Her wave-girdled couch,
When the water-snake trails,
Will flash with the glitter
Of rainbow-like scales—

320

And here amidst forests
That never knew blight,
The dolphin will leave a
Broad pathway of light.

Though dead is the pulse
In her death-frosted veins,
I will guard, from the tooth
Of decay, her remains—
And preserve by the might
Of a wonderful charm,
Her freshness of cheek and
Her fullness of arm.

When months, years and ages,
Like shadows, have fled,
Her lip shall retain its
Voluptuous red;
And beauty will dimple
Her face with a smile,
When the palace lies low,
In her own native isle.

Sweetly mournful shall steal,
Through the waters by day,
From the hall of the wave-sylph
Some heart-piercing lay;
And delicate sprites,
In the red coral bower,
Will chant for the lost
Maiden, dirges of power.

Nigh her couch of repose,
The blue shark will be made
By the magical wand of
Dread Undine afraid—
For I am the spirit
Whose mystical sway
The hell-guided agents
Of ruin obey.

321

THE LOST DAUGHTER.

“As the earth when leaves are dead,
As the night when sleep is sped,
As the heart when joy is fled,
I am left lone, alone.”
Shelley.

All lonely is thy hearth,
Dusk shadows round it fall,
And tones of love and mirth
Are hushed within thy hall.
Her lips have drank the brine;
Her pulse is cold and still;
A mournful lot is thine,
Though jewels of the mine
And gold thy coffers fill.

The church-yard turf below
Her sainted mother lies,
And there spring up and grow
Bright flowers of varied dyes;
And sorrow for thy child
Less desolate would be,
If near that mother mild
Her grave-mound was up-piled
Beneath the same old tree.

For thee the dawn is bright,
Eve gemmed with stars in vain;
Thou mournest for a light
That ne'er can shine again:
Thy garden bowers with grass
And weeds are overrun;

322

The friends of old, alas!
Ungreeted by thee pass,
For thou with earth hast done!

By night her eyes of blue
Upon thee sweetly gleam,
But morning proves untrue
The brief but blissful dream;
Her lute no longer rings
To dust and silence wed,
And to its shattered strings
The spider's drapery clings—
Drear sign that she is dead.

With mutter sad and low
Why read those lines—her last—
Then with a cry of woe
Interrogate the blast?
The star of hope grows dark,
And ocean's barren shore—
With straining eye to mark
Some home-returning bark—
Is paced by thee no more.

Cheer up! the sands of life,
Old man, are running fast;
The fever and the strife
Will terminate at last!
Beyond time's drifting strand
An everlasting rock
Towers in a radiant land,
And round it, hand-in-hand,
Will meet love's scattered flock.

323

BYRON'S FAREWELL.

Sweet Mary! I have looked again
Upon thy speaking face,
And only did the wreck remain
Of former bloom and grace;
A fearful blight was on the rose
That once thy beauty wore;
Pale token that within had froze
Joy's fount, to flow no more.

The babe that nestled in mine arms
And sported on my knee,
Inherited those matchless charms
Once prized so much in thee;
And boyhood, with the sunny tress,
That bounded through the door,
Woke a drear sense of loneliness,
A thought that all was o'er.

Why am I sad? The light is gone
That cheered my darkened way;
The star, when night was coming on,
That turned my gloom to day:
We parted, and no tear was shed,
For love's wild dream was o'er;
I think of thee as of the dead;
Lost, lost for evermore!

My soul retains thine image yet,
Though bliss is in the grave;
As splendor falls, when the sun is set,
On purpling wood and wave;

324

For perished joy I will not weep,
Affection crushed deplore,
Though memory in mourning deep
Is clad for evermore.

Thine was a witchery of mien
That found its type in charms
By the painter drawn of Love's own queen
Springing from Ocean's arms;
And siren music, that ensnared
Frail barks, though far from shore,
Was discord, to the voice compared
That I must hear no more.

A face of pensive sweetness long
Will haunt my troubled dreams,
When couched, in the mystic land of song,
On banks of golden streams:
I gazed on thee as Tasso gazed
On high-born Leonor,
And like the bard, by passion crazed,
Must hope for peace no more.

My sail is flapping in the bay,
The breakers foam and roll,
And airy voices shout “Away!
Away! poor troubled soul!
The wine-cup cannot waken mirth,
An Eden lost restore;
Away, away! on English earth
Thy feet must tread no more!”

325

THE TRIAD.

My first-born! I have marked in thee
A soul that loves to dare—
Wild winds across a stormy sea
Thy bark of life will bear.
Young eaglet of the household-nest,
Turned sunward is thine eye;
A pulse is in thy little breast
That beats full strong and high!

I tremble when I hear thee speak
In tones of clear command;
Ambition's flush is on thy cheek,
His iron in thy hand.
Oh! guard thy ruling passion well,
Or wrecked thy bark will be;
Alone can virtue ride the swell
On glory's troubled sea.

More bright than gift of fairy land,
My second born, art thou!
The breath of Heaven never fanned
A lovelier cheek and brow.
An angel art thou, child, sent down
To cheer my darker hours,
And gifted with a spell to crown
E'en Grief's bowed head with flowers.

Daughter!—(Love's most enchanting word)
Thy voice is music's own,
And ever like the note of bird
Announcing winter gone.

326

June gave thee birth, and in thine eye
Her azure I behold;
On that soft cheek her roseate dye
In those bright locks her gold.

My last born! if I read aright
The language of thy glance,
Thou hast a soul to drink delight
From streams of old romance.
Each nerve is delicately strung,
And through thy little heart,
When minstrel-lay is played or sung,
Wild thrills of rapture dart.

A star, of ray benign and clear,
Presided at thy birth,
And filled, in slumber, is thine ear
With music not of earth.
Thy bolder brother's prayer will be
To sway the fitful throng—
Thine, gentle boy—“Enough for me
The golden lute of song!”

327

JACK'S BURIAL.

[“Shall we fill the maintopsail, sir?” demanded Mr. Leach, after waiting a minute or two in deference to the Commander's feelings, “or shall we hook on the yard-tackles, and stow the launch?” “Not yet, Leach—not yet: it will be unkind to poor Jack to hurry away from his grave so indecently.” *** “The boats, sir?” “Let them tow awhile longer. It will seem like deserting him to be rattling the yard-tackles, and stowing boats directly over his head.”]—

Cooper.

“All hands!” cried the captain, “to bury the dead!”
When dipped into ocean the sun's disc of red;
And the west with those soft, pearly tints was imbued
That paint morn and eve of a low latitude.

Stretched eastward a coast lined with hillocks of sand,
Dread bound of a waste, uninhabited land;
In other directions the briny swell heaved,
Its gloom by the skies' shifting color relieved.

While passengers gathered, all mournful of look!
And post at the gangway each officer took,
Old Salts, with whom long he had furrowed the wave,
Round the corse of poor Jack mustered silent and grave!

Astern had they seen, with a thrill of dismay,
The blue, gliding shark on the watch for his prey—
And a spell of repose on the vessel was cast,
With her courses hauled up—topsail laid to the mast.

In hammock, a shroud for bold sea-rover meet,
Poor Jack lay enveloped, with lead on his feet—
A stain on the cloth to beholder betrayed
The deep wound beneath by war's messenger made.

When burial-service was solemnly read,
And lingering word of farewell had been said,
By signal the body was loosed from the plank—
A dull, heavy plunge, and forever it sank!

328

“Shall we fill the maintopsail?” demanded the mate,
“Or hook on the yard-tackles?” “Wait awhile, wait!
Unkind it would be, on our homeward-bound track,
To hurry away from the grave of poor Jack!

“A mark of respect to our comrade we owe
Who sleeps in a tomb without record below,
Far away, far away from the land of his birth,
And the spot where his fathers rest sweetly in earth!

“His dangerous station he kept at the wheel,
Though sounded his knell in the musket's loud peal;
And grasping the spokes, to yon star-flag that flew
With blue wing on the gale, died the mariner true!”

“The boats, sir?” hoarse voice of the officer cried,
“Let them tow awhile longer!” his captain replied;
“It would seem like deserting him—canvas to spread,
Or rattle the yard-tackles over his head!”

The fast-closing day grew more gloomy of dye—
Moaned sadly the waters—clouds met in the sky,
As if sympathized nature, in aspect and tone,
With the sorrow-touched hearts of those mariners lone!

329

OUR PIONEERS.

“Fortes ereantur fortibus et bonis.”

Thanks to the son of art whose hand
Has nobly labored to portray
The features of that gallant band
Who pioneered for us the way.

Bold forest-tamers! they have scared
The wild beast from his savage den—
Our uplands to the sunshine bared,
And clothed with beauty hill and glen.

And never in the battle's van
Have men at death more calmly smiled
Than our first settlers who began
The work of culture in the wild.

The perils of a frontier life
They braved with breasts of iron mould,
And sternly waged victorious strife
With famine, thirst, and pinching cold.

They vanish from us, one by one,
In death's unlighted realm to sleep,
And, oh! degenerate is the son
Who would not some memorial keep:

Whose sordid heart yearns not to save
A transcript of their reverend faces,
When the dark curtains of the grave
Have closed around their coffin-cases.

The car of steam is thundering by
The place where blazed their cabin-fires.
And where rang out the panther's cry
Thought speeds along electric wires.

330

They toiled, that WE the prize might share—
They conquered, that WE might possess,
Converting to our Eden fair
The terrors of the wilderness.

The bard, with soul to beauty wed,
Is filled with rapture to behold
The portraits of the mighty dead
That crowd the galleries of old.

While the weird light of painting warms
The pictured canvas on the walls,
Attended by majestic forms,
The solemn past unlocks its halls.

I deem those hearts of little worth,
In view of such a pageant bright,
And lodged in frames of common earth,
That wake not to a wild delight.

Lo! Power resumes his ancient reign—
Wrecks change to cities on the shore;
All that was dead revives again,
All that was lost is found once more.

The martyr at the stake still bears
Unflinching witness to the truth,
And freedom's scarred apostle wears
The glory of a second youth:—

And the “gray fathers” who have laid
An empire's deep foundation here,
In life-like tints should be portrayed
When generations disappear.

While heirs to win as pure renown,
By their example taught—endeavor,
Their honored faces should look down
From consecrated walls forever.

Suggested by a view of Kimble's Pioneer Portrait Gallery, Rochester.

331

THE OLD WHITE STORE.

“Old faces glimmered through the doors,
Old footsteps trod the upper floors.
Old voices called me from without.”
Tennyson.

A whisper comes from the Old White Store,
No longer sought by the busy throng,
“Entrance seek at some other door,
These walls to the worm Decay belong!
Pass on, and pause not, child of sin,
You would purchase naught that he keeps within!”

Unscared by smoke, the weary bird
Its wing on the chimney-top may fold,
And shuffling feet are no longer heard
Crossing the door-sill as of old:
When the night-blast shakes its crazy walls,
In mildewed flakes the plaster falls.

Moss on the sloping roof is green,
And the cornice wears a dusky tinge;
Thick and red may the rust be seen
On window-bar and grating-hinge;
And Ruin traces, with cloudy line,
His own sad name on the faded sign.

In summer-time the swallow flies
Through broken panes of the sash decayed,
But hurries back to the free blue skies,
As if of fearful shapes afraid;
And weeds display their sickly leaves
On window-ledge and rotting eaves.

The ceiling, damp and white with mould,
Hath lost the paint of other days;

332

The crumbling bricks of the hearth are cold,
Once bright with the crackling fagot's blaze;
And trails, where unclean things have crept,
Furrow the dust of floors unswept.

Dark shelves are draped with cobwebs gray,
Once laden with goods and costly wares;
And wood-worms work their spiral way
Through mouldering boards and cellar-stairs;
Counter, and desk, and broken stool
Tell a touching tale of Time's misrule.

Grass shoots up near the portal wide,
But spell hath the place to waken thought;
Garments there for the blushing bride,
And winding-sheets for the dead were bought:
In sunken graves tall nettles grow,
And bloom from the bride fled long ago.

When came the holidays of yore,
Flocked thither merry girls and boys,
For a famous place was that Old White Store
For tempting gifts and glittering toys;
And the farmer, there, full bags of grain
To market brought in his harvest-wain.

The shingles, weather-browned and worn,
Wild winds lift up and bear away,
As, one by one, the locks are torn
From a head with age and sorrow gray;
And the cheerful homes of the living near
Comport but ill with a place so drear.

How lone is the Old White Store at night,
When lamps at the village casements gleam,
And sparks that emit a ruddy light
From the roaring smithy upward stream!
Divided reign a fearful pair,
Darkness and silence, are holding there!

333

TO TORQUATUS.

HORACE, ODE VII. BOOK IV.

Snows are dissolved;—now herbage to the plain,
And foliage to the trees return again.
Earth's courses change, and with diminished tide
Along their banks the rivers gently glide.
The sister Graces, in the joyous dance,
Naked, together with the Nymphs, advance;—
The year, and rapid flight of pleasant day
Warn us that earthly things soon pass away.
To cold the zephyrs mitigation bring,
And summer follows close upon the spring,
Dying when fruitful autumn sheds his stores,
Then back comes sluggish winter to our shores.

The waning moons their wasted lustre mend;
But when to nether regions we descend,
Where Tullus, Ancus, Æneas are laid,
Naught we become but mouldering dust and shade.
Who knoweth that the gods to-morrow's space,
In his brief sum of days, will give a place?
Good things of earth, that with a friend we share,
Escape the greedy clutches of an heir.
When once consigned, Torquatus, to the tomb,
And Minos shall have sealed our awful doom,
Nor eloquence, nor family, nor worth
Can you recall from darkness unto earth.
Not even Dian, back to life and light,
Can call Hippolitus from death and night.
And Theseus has no power in twain to rend
Hell's chain that fetters Pirithous, his friend.

334

FAIR MARGARET

[A LEGEND OF THOMAS THE RHYMER.]

[_]

[I am indebted to Hugh Cameron, Esquire, of Buffalo, N. Y., for this strange and strikingly beautiful legend. Mr. C. informs me that it has long formed a part of the fire-side lore of his own clan; and from a remote period has lived in the memory of Scotland's peasantry. He expressed surprise that men of antiquarian taste, in compiling border ballads and tales of enchantment, had not given “Fair Margaret” a conspicuous place in their pages; and at his suggestion I have attempted to clothe the fanciful outlines of the original in the drapery of English verse. The Elidon tree referred to in the poem, was the favorite seat of Thomas the Rhymer, and there he gave utterance to his prophecies.]

Old yews in the church-yard are crumbled to dust,
Deep shade on the grave-mound once flinging:
But oral tradition, still true to its trust,
Her name by the hearth-stone is singing;
For never enshrined by the bard in his lay
Was a being more lovely than Margaret Gray.

Her father, a faithful old tenant, had died
On lands of Sir Thomas the Seer—
And the child who had sprung like a flower by his side,
Sole mourner, had followed his bier;
But Ercildoun's knight to the orphan was kind,
And watched like a parent the growth of her mind.

The wizard knew well that her mind was endowed
With sight mortal vision surpassing—
Now piercing the heart of oblivion's cloud,
The Past, in its depths, clearly glassing;
Anon sending glance through the curtain of dread
Behind which the realm of the Future lies spread.

He gave her a key to decipher dim scrolls,
With characters wild scribbled over;
And taught her dark words that would summon back souls
Of the dead round the living to hover:

335

Or oped, high discourse with his pupils to hold,
Old books of enchantment with clasps of bright gold.

The elf-queen had met her in green haunted dells,
When stars in the zenith are twinkling,
And time kept the tramp of her palfrey to bells,
At her bridle-rein merrily tinkling:
By Huntley Burn oft, in the gloaming, she strolled
Weird shapes, that were not of this earth, to behold.

One eve came true Thomas to Margaret's bower,
In this wise the maiden addressing:—
“No more will I visible be from this hour,
Save to those sight unearthly possessing;
But when I am seen at feast, funeral or fair,
Let the mortal who makes revelation beware!”

Long years came and passed, and the Rhymer's dread seat
Was vacant the Elidon tree under,
And oft would old friends by the ingle-side meet,
And talk of his absence in wonder:
Some thought that, afar from the dwellings of men,
He had died in some lone Highland forest or glen:

But others believed that in bright fairy land
The mighty magician was living—
That newness of life to worn heart and weak hand
Soft winds and pure waters were giving;
That back to the region of heather and pine
Would he come, unimpaired by old age or decline.

Astir was all Scotland! from mountain and moor,
With banner-folds streaming in air,
Proud lord and retainer, the wealthy and poor,
Thronged forth in their plaids to the fair;
Steeds, pricked by their riders, loud clattering made,
And, cheered by his clansmen, the bag-piper played.

336

Gay lasses with snoods from the border and hills
In holiday garb hurried thither,
With eyes like the crystal of rock-shaded rills,
And cheeks like the bells of the heather;
But fairest of all, in that goodly array,
Was the Lily of Bemerside, Margaret Gray.

While Ayr with a gathering host overflowed,
She marked with a look of delight
A white-bearded horseman who gallantly rode
On a mettlesome steed black as night,
And cried, forcing wildly her way through the throng,
“Oh, master! thy pupil hath mourned for thee long!”

Then, checking his courser, the brow of the seer
Grew dark through his locks long and frosted,
And making a sign with his hand to draw near,
Thus the lovely offender accosted:—
“By which of thine eyes was thy master descried?”
“With my left I behold thee,” the damsel replied.

One moment he gazed on the beautiful face,
In fondness upturned to his own,
As if anger at length to relenting gave place,
Then fixed grew his visage like stone:—
On the violet lid his cold finger he laid,
And extinguished forever the sight of the maid.

337

CAROLAN'S PROPHECY.

[_]

[It is related of Carolan Twalogh, the Irish Handel, that in his gayest mood he could not compose a planxty on a Miss Brett, the daughter of a noble house in the County of Sligo. One day, after a vain attempt to compose something in honor of the young lady, in a mixture of rage and grief he threw his clàrsach aside, and, addressing her mother in Irish, whispered:—“Madam, I have often, from my great respect to your family, attempted a planxty to celebrate your daughter's perfections, but to no purpose. Some evil genius hovers over me; there is not a string in my discordant harp that does not vibrate a melancholy sound—I fear she is not long for this world.” Tradition says that the event verified the prediction. See sketch of Carolan in the Edinburgh Encyclopedia.]

The castle hall is lighted—
Its roof with music rings,
For Carolan is sweeping
The clàrsach's quivering strings;
And catching inspiration
From faces fair around,
His voice is richer far than gush
Of instrumental sound.

Of Erin's banner, green and bright,
Of Tara's mighty kings,
Who never to invader knelt,
Exultingly he sings;
And on the glittering sands that edge
The blue and bellowing main,
Beneath the blade of Bryan falls
The yellow-bearded Dane.

The master touches other chords—
His brow is overcast—
And tears from his old, withered orbs
Are falling warm and fast:
In soul he looks on Athunrée,
Disastrous field of gore!
The glory of O'Conner's house
Expires to wake no more.

338

As died, in mournful echoings,
The wond'rous strain away,
Approving smile and word requite
The minstrel for his lay;
And by the hand of high-born maid
The golden cup was filled,
Commotion in a heart to hush
By grief too wildly thrilled.

When tuned to lighter airs of love
His harp of magic tone,
Quoth Carolan—“What bard will not
The sway of Beauty own?
Kind hostess, I will now compose
A planxty, promised long,
In honor of thy daughter fair,
Oh! matchless theme for song!”

A few preluding notes he woke,
So clear and passing sweet,
That, timing to the melody,
The heart of listener beat;
But when the white-haired bard began
His tributary lay,
The soul of music from the strings
Wild discord drove away.

Thrice, with the same result, his hand
Upon the chords he laid—
He turned the keys, but harsher sound
The trembling clàrsach made:
In honor of the mother, then,
A planxty he composed,
And perfect was the harmony
Until the strain was closed.

Then other ladies urged the bard
To celebrate their charms,

339

But he replied—“No rapture now
My fainting spirit warms;
By shadows from another world
My soul is clouded o'er—
Oh! would that I might never see
The light of morning more!”

“What gives a paleness to thy cheek,
Meet only for the dead—
What sorrow weighs upon thy heart?”
His noble hostess said:
The minstrel whispered in reply—
“The daughter of thy heart,
Before the flowers of summer-time
Are faded, will depart.”

Ere morning dawned, old Carolan
Went sadly on his way;
To bid green Erin's Flower farewell
He could not, would not stay;
But sought, ere vanished many days,
That lordly hall again,
And through its gateway, moving slow,
Defiled a funeral train.

340

A BRUMAL RHYME.

[“There never was a truer rhyme. Let us cast nothing away, for we may live to have need of such a verse.”]
Shakspeare.

Crossing the dreary wold
Speeds by a wild, weird form—
Below is the frozen mould,
Above the blackening storm;
And, hark! a chant—while the crinkling rime,
And swaying, groaning boughs keep time.

The flowers are in their graves—
The leaves lie dead around,
And the silver feet of waves
Are motionless and bound:
Not a bird flaps wing on the biting gale,
And the gray oaks glitter in frosty mail.

Over the wintry waste
Of many a ruined soul
Despair stalks onward, ice-encased,
While above the black clouds roll,
And mutters—“Peace is a blighted thing—
Not a bird of joy is on the wing!”

No beam of hope illumes
The darkly-frowning sky—
In pale and frozen tombs
The shapes of beauty lie,
And founts where Pleasure quaffed of yore,
Congealed to marble, flow no more.

341

LITTLE BESS.

[_]

[The subject of the following lines was born one bright day in the month of March. “The color of our lives,” says Hazlitt, “is woven into the fatal thread at our births: our original sins and our redeeming graces are infused into us; nor is the bond that confirms our destiny, ever cancelled.”]

Fitful gusts, o'ershadowed arch,
And chill rains belong to March:
But relaxed his visage sour—
Shot mild radiance from his eye,
And his lip forgot to sigh
When unclosed our youngest flower.

No wood-nymph, with kirtle green,
Tripping through the woods was seen;
But the landscape's look forlorn
To a golden smile gave place,
Lighting up earth's darkened face,
When my little Bess was born.

Eight brief moons have waxed and waned
Since our flock a fourth one gained
In this fairy of a girl,
With the lily's snow endowed,
Showing, when she laughs aloud,
Through rose-lips a gleam of pearl.

Like a sunbeam breaking through
Winter's pall of sable hue—
Or a moon-flash on the brine
When the blast no longer raves
Racing o'er its waste of waves,
Camest thou, sweet daughter mine!

342

Not a leaf the forest cheered,
Scarce one grass-blade had appeared,
But so lovely was the day
That the squirrel of the ground
Left his den with frolic bound,
Thinking of the reign of May.

Day of birth, so bright and warm,
In a month of cloud and storm,
Augurs that our little Bess
Was in mercy sent to light
Dreary sorrow's coming night
With a ray of happiness.

343

THE FORSAKEN.

SUGGESTED BY A PICTURE.

“Do any thing but love;
Or if thou lovest, and art a woman,
Hide thy love from him whom thou dost worship.”

She was the scion of a gentle race,
And wealth and beauty were her queenly dower;
Her form was fashioned in the mould of grace,
And many owned her love-inspiring power;—
On one alone, with breast devoid of guile,
The maiden flung the sunlight of her smile

Perchance some daughter of a brighter clime
Had fired his bosom with a quenchless flame;
Suspicion hinted that a life of crime
Was darkly ended by a death of shame;
And Hope no longer, to her trusting heart,
Could dreams of bliss and happiness impart.

The maiden stood, in bridal robes arrayed,
On a lone rock that overhung the wave;
The breeze of evening with her ringlets played,
And to her cheek a glow of beauty gave.
She knew within her breast, convulsed with pain,
That peace could never rear a shrine again.

The thunder rolled along the vaulted sky,
The murky cloud sent forth a pinion flashing,—
The sea-bird blended its appalling cry
With the wild music of the billow dashing,—
But trembled not her finely moulded form
While holding converse with the angry storm!

344

Her hollow cheek had lost its rose-like red,
A broken heart, she knew, could be healed never;
Far down, where Ocean sepulchres his dead,
She longed to still its fitful throbs forever,
And wildly thought her long-lost mariner
Would slumber sweetly side by side with her.

At times she called upon her absent lover,
But to her voice the winds and waves replied;
She knew that pain and sorrow would be over
By one wild plunge beneath the yeasty tide:
Her funeral dirge the tempest-spirit sung,—
Of death regardless, from the rock she sprung!

345

WHISPERINGS OF CONSCIENCE.

[_]

[“No more on me will fall the hues of sunset or the shades of evening—no more the sweet coolness of the twilight air—no more the vesper song of birds. Farewell, ye shady seats, and ye rich and hanging boughs—turf altars of the heart, and Druid groves of love! The dew of heaven and the breath of the fragrant earth may restore freshness to the flower, but they have no balm for the withered heart!”]

There are times when, kindred meeting,
Stern and gloomy I appear,
And each fond and joyous greeting
Falls unnoted on my ear.

In their songs I find no sweetness,
In their looks no sunshine warm,
And I turn away with loathing
From each fair and well-known form;

For my thoughts, attuned to sadness,
Dwell on dreams for ever flown,
And I leave the hall of gladness
For my chamber cold and lone!

Ghosts of precious moments wasted
Haunt the temple of my soul,
And deep voices of upbraiding
In mine ear alarum toll.

Then I wildly think how altered
Would have been my earthly lot
If my foot had never faltered,
If my heart had fainted not!

If, when counsel most I needed,
With my passions uncontrolled,
Warning whispers had been heeded
From loved lips now pale and cold.

346

On the sea of life benighted,
I have sought with careless oar
Traitor-fires by evil lighted
On the wreck-encumbered shore;

And though ruin frowned before me,
And my bark was torn and tossed,
While the bitter surf washed o'er me,
And black demons shouted “LOST!”

Yet nor wind nor wave I minded,
But, with Conscience hushed and scared,
And an eye by Pleasure blinded,
To Destruction's portal steered.

Oh! I am to madness driven
While the past I thus recall,
Knowing that the wrath of heaven
On the guilty head must fall!

347

A VOICE FROM GLEN-MARY.

Sweet Lady! when the glen I sought
That bears, and long will bear thy name,
Of thy sad history I thought,
Forgetful of a brighter fame;
The wild-bird singing in the tree,
Each rustling leaflet spoke of thee.

Thy cottage-home hath lost the light
That gladdened it in other hours;
Its vines are withered, and a blight
Hath fallen on thy once-loved flowers;
I crossed its threshold, and within
There was a gloom to-night akin.

Cold was the hearth, and on the wall
Gray web-work had the spider hung,
And solemn as a knell, the fall
Of feet through each apartment rung:
The south-wind sighed through open doors,
Lifting the dust from unswept floors.

The features of yon view remain;
The waves flow on, the mountains rise;
Dawn wakes, and twilight brings again
Her gentle dews, and star-lit skies;
But here no more will voice of thine
Fill air with song at day's decline!

Ah! nigh in soul perchance thou art,
Though far away thy grave is green,

348

For clung the tendrils of thy heart,
While living, to this lovely scene:
And slumbers here thy first-born child,
Within a tomb undrest and wild.

'T is not unmeet that shade of one,
So young and fair, through lawns like these
Should wander, when the day is done,
And burden with its plaint the breeze;
Or visit at lone midnight's hour
Glen-Mary's cot and wasted bower.

349

MUSINGS.

The fleeting hours, the fleeting hours,
They pass like dreams away—
Pale blight hangs on the nectar'd flowers
That opened yesterday—
The low wind like a mourner grieves
While shaking down their faded leaves.

Where is the laurelled son of Mars
A nation greeted yester morn,
The hero of an hundred wars
On his proud charger borne?
The tongue of chivalry is dumb—
The requiem was the muffled drum.

Where is the young, bewitching belle
Who dazzled yesterday the sight;
Whose matchless beauty from his cell
Might lure an anchorite?
Where are her thrilling pulse and lute?
The grave will answer—both are mute!

Where are the pale-browed heirs of thought—
The bard—the orator—the sage—
Who yesterday a wide world taught,
And dignified their age?
Their great ambitious hearts are cold,
And fellowship with dust they hold.

Then ask me not for false renown
To waste away the midnight oil—
Though grandeur and a gilded crown
Are the rewards of toil:

350

Pure jewels and the types of power,
What are they in the dying hour?

Or, rather urge me to forsake
The vanities that here have birth,
And, in the morn of being, break
Base bonds that bind to earth,
And bridge, while yet a thing of breath,
With trusting hope the gulf of death.

351

LAKE WYALUSING.

[_]

[This lake lies in a circular basin, on the top of a thickly wooded mountain in Northern Pennsylvania. Nothing in water scenery surpasses it in features of the picturesque.]

Joy like a wave o'erflowed my soul,
While looking on its basin round,
That fancy named a sparkling bowl
By hoop of fadeless emerald bound,
From which boon Nature's holy hand
Baptized the nymphs of mountain land.

It blushes in the morning's glow,
And glitters in the sunset ray,
When brooks that run far, far below
Have murmured out farewell to day:
The moonlight on its placid breast,
When dark the valley, loves to rest.

Wheeling in circles overhead,
The feathered king a war-scream gave;
His form, with pinion wide outspread
Was traced so clearly on the wave,
That seemingly its glass was stirred
By flappings of the gallant bird.

Nor far away were rocky shelves
With the soft moss of ages lined,
And seated there a row of elves
By moonlight would the poet find:
Fairies, from slumber in the shade
Waking with soft-voiced serenade.

352

The waters slept, by wind uncurled,
Encircled by a zone of green:
The reflex of some purer world
Within their radiant blue was seen—
I felt, while musing on the shore,
As if strong wings my soul upbore.

Lake, flashing in the mountain's crown!
Thought pictures thee some diamond bright—
That dawn had welcomed—fallen down
From the starred canopy of night;
Or chrysolite, by thunder rent
From Heaven's eternal battlement.

353

THE ROYAL PINE.

Three cheers for the Pine, the Royal Pine,
Throned high on the hill's green brow;
While ranks of trees, in the rushing breeze,
Below like vassals bow;
When the hue of wine, at day's decline
Bepaints the solemn west,
A golden crown on his brow falls down,
Though the vale in gloom is drest.

With a heated brow, beneath his bough
The red man oft hath lain,
Worn out with toil, while his antler'd spoil
On the velvet moss lay slain;
And beneath his shade the Seneca maid
Hath warbled her wood-land lay,
While braiding flowers, and counting the hours
That kept her chief away.

When winter reigns, and the river chains
With fetters chill and white,
In the cold thin air, with branches bare,
The tall oak pains the sight;
But, on the hill thy banner still
Flings out defiance high,
Though no tint of green in the glen is seen,
And the blast comes growling by.

Long life to the Pine, the voiceful Pine,
Who mourneth for the past,
When the morning breeze sweeps his emerald keys,
Or the fitful midnight blast;

354

My thoughts, when I hear, in moonlight clear,
His surge-like anthem rise,
Are of seers of eld who, on hill-tops, held
Communion with the skies.

Three cheers for the Pine, the Royal Pine!
Though lord of a region grim,
The tempest loud, and the eagle proud
Are friends who talk with him.
May he lift his head, by well-springs fed,
In sunshine and in shower,
And his plumage green by the bard be seen
While the gray old hills up-tower.

355

MY OWN DARK GENESEE.

They told me southern land could boast
Charms richer than mine own:
Sun, moon, and stars of brighter glow,
And winds of gentler tone;
And parting from each olden haunt,
Familiar rock and tree,
From that sweet vale I wandered far—
Washed by the Genesee.

I pined beneath a foreign sky,
Though birds, like harps in tune,
Lulled Winter on a couch of flowers
Clad in the garb of June.
In vain on reefs of coral broke
The glad waves of the sea;
For, like thy voice they sounded not,
My own dark Genesee!

When Christmas came, though round me grew
The lemon-tree and lime,
And the warm sky above me threw
The blue of summer-time;
I thought of my loved northern home,
And wished for wings to flee
Where frost-bound, between frozen banks,
Lay hushed the Genesee.

For the gray, mossed paternal roof
My throbbing bosom yearned,
And ere the flight of many moons
My steps I homeward turned;

356

My heart, to joy a stranger long,
Was tuned to rapture's key,
When ear the murmur heard once more
Of my own Genesee.

Ambition from the scenes of youth
May others lure away
To chase the phantom of renown
Throughout their little day;
I would not, for a palace proud
And slave of pliant knee,
Forsake a cabin in thy vale,
My own dark Genesee.

357

LAY OF A WANDERER.

A FLORIDIAN SCENE.

Where Pablo to the broad St. John
His dark and briny tribute pays,
The wild deer leads her dappled fawn
Of graceful limb and timid gaze;
Rich sunshine falls on wave and land,
The gull is screaming overhead,
And on a beach of whitened sand
Lie wreathy shells with lips of red.

The jessamine hangs golden flowers
On ancient oaks in moss arrayed,
And proudly the palmetto towers,
While mock-birds warble in the shade;
Mounds, built by mortal hand, are near,
Green from the summit to the base,
Where, buried with the bow and spear,
Rest tribes forgetful of the chase.

Cassada, nigh the ocean shore,
Is now a ruin wild and lone,
And on her battlements no more
Is banner waved or trumpet blown;
Those doughty cavaliers are gone
Who hurled defiance there to France,
While the bright waters of St. John
Reflected flash of sword and lance.

358

But when the light of dying day
Falls on the crumbling wrecks of time,
And the wan features of decay
Wear softened beauty like the clime,
My fancy summons from the shroud
The knights of old Castile again,
And charging thousands shout aloud—
“St. Jago strikes to-day for Spain!”

When mystic voices, on the breeze
That fans the ruling deep, sweep by,
The spirits of the Yemassees,
Who ruled the land of yore, seem nigh;
For mournful marks, around where stood
Their palm-roofed lodges, yet are seen,
And in the shadows of the wood
Their monumental mounds are green.

An old Spanish fort.

359

TO MY WIFE.

Mother of my children! listen
While the moon above is bright,
And the starry watchers glisten—
Jewels on the brow of night.
Thou hast waited, pale and lonely,
For my coming, late and long.
Oh! mine own thou art—mine only—
And the muse that prompts my song.

In my dreams angelic faces
Look on me, though far away;
Happy smiles and infant graces
Round soft lips and dimples play:
And my little flock they gather
Closely round my vacant chair,
With a yearning wish that father
Would come back their sports to share.

On the bosom of her mother,
Like a rose-bud, Florence lies,
Looking at her little brother,
With his large, blue, sparkling eyes:
Near, some book of story reading,
Sits my daughter, eldest-born,
And blithe Charlie by is speeding
With a laughing look like morn.

Oh! how fragile and uncertain
Were the hopes that once were ours,
But beyond life's sunset curtain
We will find unfading flowers.

360

Till that closing hour, together
We will wander hand in hand,
And, though fair or foul the weather,
Live and love, by sea and land.

While I know for me that nightly
Lifted is thy voice in prayer,
Beats my laboring heart more lightly,
And the landscape looks more fair:
Pray that I may soon caress thee,
While affection's accents flow,
Once more to my bosom press thee,
And celestial rapture know.

361

DANDELIONS.

Dandelions of the velvet lawn,
Golden brooches on the plaid of May;
Living tints of beauty ye have drawn
From the noontide of some cloudless day!

A prolific sisterhood are ye,
Blooming in the common paths we tread,
Giving lustre to the grassy lea,
Growing on the green mounds of the dead.

Tulips nod on longer, fairer stems;
Blue-bells swing more gracefully in air,
Roses boast far richer diadems—
Gayer dress the jewelled lilacs wear.

Wherefore then so dear are ye to one
Finding sweet romance no more in life,
Struggling on beneath a clouded sun,
Daily covered with the dust of strife?

Drinking gladness from the gentle rain,
Looking upward to yon concave blue—
Faded chaplets ye recall again,
Worn by May-time when my years were few:

When I plucked ye in my rural walks,
While the ground-bird framed her nest and sung;
Piping gayly on the hollow stalks,
Changing them to ringlets with my tongue.

When ye graced with yellow dots no more
Pastures old, through which I loved to stray,
Filmy globes of silver that ye bore,
With a breath I used to blow away.

362

Emblems were they of delusive schemes
Wildly shaped in boyhood by my brain,
Passing joys, and evanescent dreams,
Perished, never to revive again.

Some at rest beneath the turf of spring,
Dear to me in those enchanted hours,
Back with looks they wore in life, ye bring;
Back with shouts, and laughter wild, ye flowers!

363

THE MORNING STAR OF ANNESLEY.

[“The chamber, like all the other parts of the house, had a look of sadness and neglect; the flower-pots under the window, which once bloomed beneath the hand of Mary Chaworth, were overrun with weeds; and the piano which had once vibrated to her touch, and thrilled the heart of her stripling lover, was now unstrung and out of tune.”]—

Irving.

With pale, high brow Childe Harold oft
To this neglected chamber came,
And heard, in accents low and soft,
His first love syllable his name.

Beneath yon window, pots of flowers
Untended give their sweets to air,
That well repaid, in former hours,
With blush and fragrancy her care.

Yon instrument, unstrung and still,
Will chime no more with warbled words;
Her hand hath lost the witching skill
To wake its passion-breathing chords.

Where gifted Harold stood, I stand,
And view bright walks extending wide,
Where oft he wandered, hand-in-hand,
With her who should have been his bride.

And eloquence that hath no tongue,
Is breathing from yon antique wall,
For often hath it sweetly rung
With her light step and gleesome call.

The Poet-Lord of Newstead here
Drank love undying from her gaze—
Love that, in many an after year,
Gave mournful sweetness to his lays.

Where are they now?—the bard is tost
No longer on a stormy sea;
And death conceals, in hall of frost,
His “Morning Star of Annesley.”

Byron's name for Mary Chaworth.

364

A POET'S WISH.

Mine be a pretty country lass,
With soft transparency of cheek,
Through which, like red wine in a glass,
The blushes eloquently speak
Of charms that will outlive the rose
Worn proudly by the city belle,
When, full of vanity, she throws
Round burning hearts her spell.

Mine be the company of books,
And one fair girl to read my lay;
A smiling cot that overlooks
Some lone lake stretching far away,
Whereon my boat, with sail of white,
At times can wander from the strand,
While glad waves in a song unite
With low winds from the land.

To gird my dwelling I would spare
Old giants of the forest dim,
For I am one who cannot bear
The prostrate trunk and cloven limb;
In hunting vesture I would brace
My sinews on the hills at morn;
The red fox or the roe-buck chase
With hound and mellow horn.

When Glory lights her dazzling torch,
Peace vainly mourns her perished dove;
The breathings of ambition scorch
The flowers of innocence and love.
Let others mix in worldly strife,
Self-wasting meteors to shine;
The calm, sequestered walks of life,
Unvexed by storm, be mine!

365

THAT OLD SONG.

Sing on! I love that olden lay,
Though mournful are the notes and wild,
It drives the haunting fiend away—
It thrilled me when a child.
Long buried gold the past reveals—
Charmed by the magic of that strain,
My weary heart refreshment feels,
And I am young again.

Sing on! the land of shadows now
Hath raised its curtain dark and dim,
Back comes my sire with furrowed brow,
That smile belongs to him.
Each old, familiar word invokes
The phantoms of the pictured past,
And sighing through ancestral oaks,
I hear the midnight blast.

Sing on! for, borne on music's tide,
My soul floats back to other days—
From dust rise up the true and tried
To greet my yearning gaze:
And she, meek violet that grew
In rosy boyhood's Eden lost,
Springs up as if her eye of blue
Had never known the frost.

Sing on! sing on, entranced I hear,
While bloom once more earth's perished flowers;—
A mother warbled in mine ear
That song in other hours;
And when the sad refrain is breathed,
Her gentle spirit hovers nigh—
Fond arms are round the wanderer wreathed,
Kind voices make reply.

366

THE DOOMED ONE.

There is on that sweet young face
A dread but dazzling whiteness,
And in that eye of love I trace
A wild, unearthly brightness.
By faithless man betrayed,
The world seems dark before thee,
And soon, in hall of silence laid,
Will the green turf blossom o'er thee.

Thy voice is sadder now
Than the wind-harp's wail at even,
And victim of a broken vow,
Thine only hope is heaven.
Nor mineral of earth,
Nor balm of leaf or blossom
Can tune again to throb of mirth
The chords of thy torn bosom.

Old songs, the precious keys
To memory's golden treasures,
Have lost their magic power to please,
Though sang to touching measures.
By friendly lip in vain
Is soothing language spoken,
For ruined is the fine-wrought brain,
And thine o'er-tasked heart is broken.

Thy darkest doom, oh earth!
For that cold, base deceiver,
Who calls the star of affection forth,
Then dims its light forever—
And when the mortal goal
He reaches unforgiven,
For aye may his polluted soul
Feel the withering curse of heaven.

367

FOREST CAROL.

I breathe more free and deep
With my foot on the forest-ground,
When winds awake from sleep
The huge, old Titans round:
I love the organ's peal
In fanes upreared by art—
But nearer God I feel
In the green-wood's leafy heart.

To every bush a tongue
Is given by the breeze,
And a thousand harps seem hung
High on the mossy trees:—
From oak, and elm, and pine,
Comes whispering a voice,
Saying—“Thine ear incline,
Sad poet, and rejoice!”

The cloud forsakes my brow,
And grief's wild throb my soul,
While murmuring leaf and bough
Mock ocean's distant roll;
True time my pulses beat
To notes of joy and love,
With moss beneath my feet,
And the swinging boughs above.

The shade of woods I seek,
When tired of strife with men—
Old voices comfort speak
In thicket, glade and glen;
I love the organ's peal
In fanes upreared by art—
But nearer God I feel
In the green-wood's leafy heart.

368

MY STUDY.

I love the circuit of thy narrow bounds
While my pale lamp gives light,
And, unattended by tumultuous sounds,
Presides the holy night.

A quiet nook for reverie thou art
In the dim hour of shade,
When that wild, wondrous instrument, the heart,
Is lulled and tranquil made.

My books—old friends that know not frigid change—
When come the evil days,
Unfold their lettered treasures, rich and strange,
To my enamored gaze.

While folly wastes, in lust and midnight wine,
Manhood and moral health,
True wisdom seeketh jewels in the mine
Of intellectual wealth.

Haunt sacred to retirement and to thought!
At midnight deep and lone,
Within thy hallowed precincts I have caught
Gleams of that world unknown,

Where the soul harbors when this life is o'er,
And closed our war with time,
And the hushed belfry of the heart no more
Rings with a numbered chime.

369

THE DESERTED HALL.

To a mortal heart how humbling
Is a view of yon old hall,
Into dust and darkness crumbling,
While rude winds shake roof and wall.
Moss is round the casement spreading,
And no more the windows blaze
When the weary day is shedding
His last red and quivering rays.

Under the neglected arbor
Foxes in the night-time bark,
And the bat and spider harbor
In its chambers drear and dark.
Weeds, about the door-stone growing,
Whisper of decay and blight—
On the hearth no ember glowing
Sheds a warm and cheerful light.

Near the ruin is a river,
And the waves while flowing on,
From their lips of crystal, ever
Breathe that word of mourning—GONE!
Round the place old poplars cluster,
And the leaves give out strange tones
When the moon flings pallid lustre
On the roof and basement stones.

Saddened and deserted dwelling!
Of a wronged and broken heart,

370

While the dirge of hope is knelling,
Oh! a mournful type thou art!
Flowers of love, untimely perished,
In its barren realm lie waste,
Like thy garden-grounds once cherished
By the moulding hand of taste.

Creatures that haunt places lonely
In thy empty halls are bred,
And that HEART is peopled only
By the shadows of the dead.
As yon moon, with look subduing,
Lights the home of days gone by,
In that heart—a nobler ruin—
Sadly glimmers memory.

Suggested by a moon-lit view of a mansion in ruins upon the Susquehanna, at Owego.

TO AN INEBRIATE.

The price of kingdoms was the pearl
A queen dissolved in wine,
But thou art wasting in the cup
A gem of ray divine.
The deed of Egypt's daughter proud
Is foolish styled alone,
But thou art perpetrating crime
That fiends should blush to own.

God's glorious gift—the deathless soul,
Is lightly held by thee;
The brand of SLAVE is on thy brow,
Poor wretch! misnomer'd FREE.
Oh! wake thee from thy trance of sin,
And knock at mercy's door—
Dash down! dash down that hell-drugged bowl
And be a man once more.

371

FIR-CROFT.

Sweet Fir-Croft! nestling at the feet
Of uplands ever green,
When high the pulse of summer beat,
Before me spread thy scene.
Pines on the hill, like watchmen placed
Thy fields below to guard,
The background of a picture graced
That chained the glance of bard.

The deep-voiced Susquehanna through
The foreground swiftly rolled,
And sunlight on his bosom threw
A flood of molten gold;
A river of more varied charms
Wild wind hath never swept,
And in his bright, embracing arms
Full many an islet slept.

I looked upon thy fountain bright
That round a coolness flung,
And fancied that each beam of light
With radiant pearl was strung.
Brooks, welling forth from rocks up-piled,
Woke echoes on their way,
As if a thousand naiads wild
Were racing through the spray.

My blessing, Fir-Croft, on thee rest,
And on thy worthy lord!

372

May sorrow ne'er within his breast
Awake one jarring chord!
The dust of earth's great battle-ground
Dims not thy landscape fair,
And in thy quiet shades I found
A spell to conquer care

The wood-paths up thy mountain-side
That led to quiet bowers—
Thy meadows, laughing in a wide
Embroidery of flowers—
Thy rushing and romantic streams—
Each glen—each fairy knoll—
Will oft be visible in dreams
To bathe in bliss my soul.

The country-seat F. H. Pumpelly, Esq., upon the bank of the Susquehanna.

A CHARADE.

My First is often heard
By the lip of children spoken,
And we murmur out the word
When earth's dearest tie is broken.
My Second gives delight
To the desert pilgrim jaded,
In isles of verdure bright,
By the graceful palm o'ershaded.

My Whole to memory brings
One in the kirk-yard lying,
Whose wild and wailing strings
Woke melody undying:
A bard whose tender strain
The snooded maiden treasures,
While Norse-kings live again
In his more heroic measures

373

THE IRISH MOTHER.

“They shall hunger no more.”—
Revelation, vii. 16.

I heard the lament of a poor Irish mother,
As watch by the forms of the famished she kept;
The wan, wasted features of sister and brother
Were bathed by the drops she had uselessly wept:
Oh! sweet was her lay for the burden it bore—
“They shall hunger no more.”

While winter's rude wind through each cranny was sighing,
The last blackened crumb to my first-born I gave;
I opened my veins when my youngest was dying,
Aroused by a mother's wild instinct to save—
The lips of my darling are wet with the gore—
She will hunger no more.

Food flung by the fox-hunting lords of this nation,
With prodigal hand, to their hounds, would subdue
In many a hovel the pangs of starvation,
And thankfulness waken that pomp never knew:
Poor babes! I regret not that anguish is o'er—
Ye will hunger no more.

While famine the flesh on their bones was consuming,
It crazed me to hear their low moans night and day—
No brand on the desolate hearth-stone illuming
Their couches of cold, musty straw with its ray;
Now calmly they rest, side by side, on the floor—
“They shall hunger no more.”

374

Oh! dark is the cloud that impends over Britain!
The wrongs of the wretched make barren her soil:
That country with curses should ever be smitten
Where perishing Want is forbidden to toil—
Where Hunger kills more than disease or the sword,
And white handed Sloth finds a plentiful board.

EVERGREENS.

Come to the House of Prayer,
Where willing knees to Providence are bowed,
For earth is mantled in a snowy shroud,
And seems no longer fair;
And though we cannot view
The violet peeping from the velvet sod,
Maidens have decked the holy House of God
With wreaths of emerald hue

Sin-smitten mortals, come!
The green festoons that do the walls adorn—
Fresh as when watered by the dews of morn—
Are eloquent, though dumb;
For the leaf-laden bough
That Winter fades not with his frosty breath,
Is like the spirit, living on when death
Touches with ice the brow.

Come to the House of Prayer,
Poor human toilers in this world of strife—
Gaze on those emblems of eternal life,
And learn a lesson there;
For those green garlands tell
The dying Christian of a brighter shore,
Where blinding tears will dim the eye no more,
And shapes Angelic dwell.

375

THE WARNING.

[“The spirit of an ancient ancestor of the McLeans of Lochbury is heard to gallop along a stony bank, and then to ride thrice around the family residence ringing his fairy bridle, and thus intimating approaching calamity.”]—

Walter Scott.

The plaided Chief, with dog and gun
Strode forth from his castle old
When the first bright beams of the morning sun
Crowned the far-off hills with gold.
Through mist that wrapt the mountain-side
He tracked his dangerous way,
The red-deer, king of a desert wide!
In his heathery lair to slay;
But he came not back to his blushing bride,
At the clouded close of day.

When heavy night began to lower,
And western skies were dim,
She looked abroad from the highest tower,
With an earnest gaze for him:
Dishevelled was her golden hair,
Her visage wan of hue,
And listened long that lady fair
For short or shrill halloo—
But no sound came on the wafting air,
And the darkness deeper grew.

“Why comes he not? why, comes he not?”
The weary watcher said;
Then started back,—for the night-wind brought
A barb's impatient tread;
She knew by the ring of the bridle-rein,
And a wailing sad and low,

376

That the soul of a famous chieftain slain
In battle long ago,
From the “Silent Land” had been called again,
A messenger of woe.

Fear, bloodless fear, a hand of ice
Did on the lady lay,
For no mortal horseman galloped thrice
Around the castle gray;
And a horrid thrill through her bosom ran
While the blast this warning bore—
“Mourn! for the hounds of a hostile clan
Have drunk their fill of gore.”
Back to his home, a living man,
McLean returned no more.

AN AUTUMN THOUGHT.

Like the depths of the wood when October is cold,
By the sting of the frost turned to purple and gold,
Are the virtues of heart, sad and tender, that owe
All their beauty and brightness to sorrow and woe.

Like the pine on the mountain unchanged by the frost,
When the beech-tree and maple their verdure have lost,
Is the heart of a friend that is steadfast and true
When the tears of misfortune our pathway bedew.

377

WHEN THE WILD LOVE OF FAME.

When the wild love of fame, with its anguish and fever,
No more in my soul kindles withering fire,
And this sensitive bosom is pulseless for ever,
And wrapped are my limbs in their funeral attire,
Bear not my pale relics where thousands are sleeping
In clustering graves near the populous mart—
Where the dew-fall of eve the dark cypress is steeping,
And stones rise in pomp, hewn and polished by art.

Oh! bear my cold corse to the brow of the mountain,
Where cedar and pine groves may over me wave—
Where the day-god may fling from his luminous fountain
A blushing farewell, when he sets, on my grave;—
Where the scream of the panther, while darkness is reigning,
And the long, mournful howl of the wolf may be heard,
And night summon forth, while the sad moon is waning,
From oak-hollowed dwelling her anchorite bird

A tomb by the deer and the war-eagle haunted
Is meet for a lone one who hateth the crowd;—
A tomb where a dirge for the dead will be chanted
When lightnings flash death and the thunder is loud.
Some friend, from the heat of the stag-chase reposing,
While his indolent hounds flap their ears in the shade,
By the mossed rock of granite rude letters disclosing,
Will know the wild spot where the minstrel is laid.

THE END

University of Virginia Library

2. VOL. II.

OCCASIONAL POEMS.

THE IDEAL.

UTILITY OF IMAGINATION.

THEMES OF SONG.

THE PIONEERS OF WESTERN NEW YORK.

THE PROSPECTS OF THE AGE.

HISTORIC SCENES.

THE SHADE OF THEODOSIUS.

LAMENT OF PERICLES.

MOORISH MEMORIES.

COSMO.

AN ITALIAN SKETCH.

ZILLAH. [FRAGMENT OF A JEWISH TALE.]

INSCRIBED AS A MEMORIAL OF LONG AND FAITHFUL FRIENDSHIP TO MY ESTEEMED TOWNSMAN, WILLIAM C. HAWLEY, ESQ.

SONG.

THE REVENGE OF ROSAMOND.

ASDRUBAL'S WIFE.

THE FALL OF AQUILEIA.

FREEDOM'S OAK.

BRUTUS IN HIS TENT.

ÆGEUS.

TASSO.

FALL OF LISBON.

THE MURDERED CZAR.

LYING IN STATE.

LAMENT FOR GRANADA.

MARTIAL LYRICS.

CAPTAIN MAY.

A LAY OF BRITTANY.

THE DRAGOON TO HIS STEED.

THE GRAYS AT AVON.

AN IMPROMPTU.

DEATH OF ROB ROY.

SONG FOR POLAND.

ERIN WAKING.

FLING OUT THAT STARRY BANNER.

SONG OF WILLIAMS' LIGHT INFANTRY.

SONG OF TEXAS.

ERIN'S WAR-SONG.

LAMENT OF AN AUSTERLITZ VETERAN.

INDEPENDENCE ODE.

BATTLE-SONG OF THE POLISH LANCER.

SONGS AND BALLADS.

THE POET'S HOME.

INDEPENDENCE ODE.

KE-U-KA REVISITED.

THE ROSE-BUD.

HUNTING SONG.

THOUGH THY DREAR WORDS.

FLORENCE AND PAUL.

HEBREW MELODY.

LAY OF THE CRUSADER.

A FESTAL SONG.

HEART SHADOWS.

A WAIL.

THE GIRLS OF SONG.

THE HALLOWED WELLS OF LEARNING.

ODE.

IN COMMEMORATION OF THE SETTLEMENT OF WESTERN NEW YORK.

A SCOTTISH BALLAD.

THE POLE'S FAREWELL.

THE PRESS.

SERENADE.

FISHING SONG OF SHETLAND.

THE SEA-NYMPH'S SONG.

JUNIPER ISLE.

THE HEARTH-CRICKET.

MY LOVED—MY OWN.

LAMENT OF A SPIRIT.

THE MARINER'S WELCOME HOME.

CHRISTABEL.

LAMPS OF SILVER HANG ABOVE

OUR FATHERS.

IBLA.

TWIN ACORNS.

LOVE'S STAR.

ROSE OF THE DESERT.

FROM THE ARABIC.