The heir of the world, and lesser poems

The subject of the Poem is the command of God to Abraham to sacrifice his son Isaac on Mount Moriah. The first XVII stanzas, descriptive of native scenery and individual feelings, are intended as an introduction to that sublimest of all acts of devotion—sublimest, because least influenced by any expectation of fame or hope of reward on earth. To a description of the scene of Abraham's dwelling-place succeeds his vision of future days,—and the author has attempted to epitomize the history of the Jews.

The expulsion of Hagar and Ishmaël.

Portraits of Abraham and Sara.

The perfection of Abraham in prosperity leads God to try him in adversity; and the unparalleled command is given. Closing scene between Abraham and Sara. The scene of the sacrifice.

THE HEIR OF THE WORLD.

I.

Haunted by dreams of beauty and of bloom,
And far creations of a restless mind,
That dwells in worlds beyond the starless tomb,
Yet robes all things with love of human kind,
I lay and listened to the living wind,
And drank the sunset of the autumn sky,
As stirred the firs like sighs of seraphs shrin'd,
And wavy clouds gleamed on the lifted eye,
Till my freed spirit found its holy home on high.

II.

And as I gazed on woods, and waters wild,
That foamed and brawled along their rugged way,
Methought, 'twere bliss to be once more a child,
And plash amid the brook the livelong day,
And sleep in tangled forests, and belay
The virgin moon with wishes that have wings,
And clothe with life the rainbow and each ray,
And shrine a soul in all unbodied things,
And worship at the heaven the voiceless spirit brings.

III.

While in the world's highways we roam and sigh,
And seldom meet the man the soul reveres,
Back, like the sunflower, turns the wearied eye,
To drink the limpid light of o'erpassed years—
The troubled stream of mingled hopes and fears!
Forsaking, then, as we have been forsaken,
The world whose smile, like sea delirium, wears
Hope's mockery,—let the trampled heart awaken
And bloom, tho' every flower from every bough is shaken.

IV.

'Tis bliss to be full oft alone and shed
The tears of rapture unremarked and still;
None mock thee then with gloom of feelings dead,
None curb the proud expansion of thy will;
The sunbright currents of thy bosom fill
The sea that rolls around the holy throne;
The harp of Hope again doth wildly thrill
With the deep memory of a loved one gone,
And mind communes with God in silence and alone.

V.

Free from the tyrant task of daily toil,
The burden and the weariness of strife,
The contact of the worthless, and the smile
Of hypocrites who bear a carrion life,
The o'erworn heart then springs with beauty rife,
And soars like stars that bear their souls to heaven,
And all the love that clings round child and wife,
And mother, sister, friend,—like holy even,
Thrills the pure bosom with a hope not vainly given.

VI.

The purity of passion,—the sublime
And glorious consummation of desire,
That waves its pinions through a darkened time,
And pants to mount and join the laurell'd choir,
In scenes whose solemn stillness can inspire,
Come o'er us like the music of the stars,
And teach us to forget, the altar fire
Too oft is quenched by sorrow, that debars
Our hearts from Heaven's blest love by Earth's inglorious wars.

VII.

Then while we linger till the appointed hour,
'Tis wisest in the solitude of wood

Or soundless room, to commune with the Power,
That bore and sanctified the Holy Rood,
And learn in silence to be just and good;
For mid the jar and clash of them who seek
Wealth and its peasant power,—a bloated brood!
Like nether millstone grows the spirit weak,
And high-toned hearts must bear their anguish till they break.

VIII.

So in the gloom of Wissihiccon came
My thoughts like felt shapes and before me stood!
And then I wandered o'er the realm of fame,
And mourned the cruelty of kindred blood;
And hoarse below the swoln and turbid flood,
Boiling o'er shaggy rocks, in wrath replied,
And the dark cedars, in my dreamy mood,
Seemed giants watching o'er the blackened tide;
And desolation's hues clothed all the steep hillside.

IX.

Like Youth's first love, the cool airs kissed my brow,
While twilight deepened in the sinking glen;
Yet sunset crowned the haunted mountain now
As high mind triumphs o'er the guile of men;
'Twas Thought's own hour of pride and glory, when,
All self-sustained, its heavenly fantasies
Came forth like nymphs from some rough centaur's den,
Flushed the pale cheek, illumed the lifted eyes,
And passed like parted souls beyond the boundless skies.

X.

And all life's blest humanities,—the heart
That pardons while it quivers under wrong,
And the clear intellect, that doth impart
Its self-approving sadness to its song,

The mind that blends not though it dwells among
The world it loves not though it scorns to hate,
And walks abroad in conscious virtue strong,
Though much to bear and suffer is its fate,—
These o'er me gently come when torrent woes abate.

XI.

For in the love of Nature, and the peace,
That glides in shadowy softness o'er her face,
The gall and wormwood of deep passion cease
To track with poison all life's weary race;
Gently we breathe the mild delicious grace
Pervading all the matchless works of God,
And through each scene of magic scenery trace
Wisdom that speaketh from the living sod,
And Love that whispers peace where man hath ever trod.

XII.

In the communion of young wedded love,
Much evil have we seen, my Genevieve!
Yet we have sought our solace from above,
And one fair flower forbids us now to grieve;
Though poor, yet proud, the world cannot bereave
Our hearts of bliss the world could never give,
And in the passage of our days we leave
The fiendlike few who slander while we strive,
And deem it boundless joy in heaven's sweet smile to live.

XIII.

But at this late hour, while the world o'erflows
With multitudes that hourly hurry home,
How wild would throng our voiceless, breathless woes
In sudden knowledge of such awful doom
As erst, in the deep utterance of the tomb,
Went forth against the chosen and the just!

Oh! how our hearts would quiver in their gloom,
Fail in their faith and tremble in their trust!
Should we obey and praise and triumph in the dust?

XIV.

While thy sweet babe upon thy bosom lay,
Wrapt in the visions of a sinless sleep,
Pure, bright, and beautiful as early day
When it swells upward from the billowy deep,
And its first beams along the mountains sweep—
Couldst thou, ev'n then, thy firstborn, only, take
And give him to the death ordained, nor weep
O'er the dread sacrifice his sire must make
Of one whose smile hath charmed when fortune did forsake?

XV.

Couldst thou resign him to the God who gave?
And see him die beneath a father's hand?
—Oh, no! more dreadful than a common grave
The awful doom of that most stern command!
And thou wouldst shudder, and not helpless stand,
But weave thine arms around thy much-loved child,
And thus deny him to his Giver! land
And sea, or boundless wave or trackless wild,
Thou wouldst compass to save the son that on thee smiled!

XVI.

Yet not unlike the scene of that great deed,
Bold Wissihiccon spreads his piny woods;
And not unlike the sage, we and our seed
Dwell strangers mid thick peopled solitudes.
The voice of lonely wilds and troubled floods
Moans like an omen; and I can but feel
As once he felt who traversed desert roods
To offer up his only child, and kneel
Before His throne of light whose word is human weal.

XVII.

Thus led by solemn mind, methought, 'twere well,
Though sceptics scoff and unbelievers sneer,
An olden tale in modern song to tell,
How faith o'ercame affection's wildest fear,
And rendered up, when summoned to appear,
The WORLD'S YOUNG HEIR, the SIRE OF NATIONS vast!
That all who roam, oppressed and hopeless here,
May catch wise knowledge from the shadowy past,
And learn that He who made will try us at the last.

XVIII.

Fair rolled the river in the evening light
Of that rich clime where flowers forever blow;
Soft sigh'd the breeze along the cedared height,
And curled the waters as they slept below;
The dark-blue heaven, o'ergushed with one deep glow,
Smiled o'er the beauty that a rainshower spread,
Nebo and Carmel on their brows of snow
Crowned the thron'd glory ere its radiance fled,
And far Libanus raised his proud and glittering head.

XIX.

O'er rolling pastures, where no landmarks stood,
The green grass sprung and breathed the exulting joy
Of a young being, when the bounding blood
Leaps in wild music through the high-souled boy.
—Alas! that time and trial should destroy
The bloom and beauty of that brief blest hour,
And interest mix its dark and base alloy
With the pure heart, and minds of matchless power
Bend at the world's cold shrine and grasp the idol's dower!

XX.

Like a young maiden with a breezy foot
From Shenir's groves the antelope came forth,

And the roe followed with a footstep mute
As if it worshipped the bright blushing earth;
All living creatures revelled in their birth;
The clustering vines from bending tree tops played,
The spice shrubs scattered, in their frolic mirth,
Delicious odours through the Eden shade,
And even the Sun did pause to share the bliss he made.

XXI.

On Merom's waters and the silvery sea
That drinks Gadara's laughing waves, and lies,
Like innocent and joyous infancy,
In meadows green beneath transparent skies;
On Tabor's solemn woods, that seem to rise,
While the entranced eye beholds, as they would soar
Into the heaven, whose soft and sweet air flies
O'er oleander banks from shore to shore—
The glorious sunlight falls, and hills and dales adore.

XXII.

In Hebron's vale and mid its pleasant woods
The son of Shem walked in a voiceless mood,
For in the depth of such great solitudes
The full heart floweth like a deep broad flood,
Bearing its treasures silently! The good
So blest become in beauty that the tongue
Lacks speech, and the brain tho't, the thrilling blood
Reveals unto the heart in virtue young
The poetry of heaven that never yet was sung.

XXIII.

The hallowed silence of the hills—the low
And gentle voice of brooks that leapt along—
The far-off gleam of Jordan, and the glow
Of countless mountain pinnacles; the song
Of shepherds on the heights who bore no wrong
And none inflicted—the wild hum of bees,

As Hybla's numberless—and, like a gong,
The noise of foaming cataracts—all these
Came o'er the Patriarch now upon the soul-like breeze.

XXIV.

Folded in blessings from his youth, and bred
In the deep love of heaven, his days had been
Cheerful, though changeful, and he ever fed
His tempered thoughts, in many a quiet scene,
By still communion with a heart serene
In its high faith, till he had learned to trust
The silent vision of that cloud-veil'd mein,
Which led him on by wisdom ever just,
And canopied with heaven the darkness of the dust.

XXV.

From raven blackness into hoar and white
His beard and hair had changed,—and many a line,
Furrowing the floweriness of young delight,
Marked years not reckless, tho' not stained by wine;
For time, however blest, doth surely twine
Its poisoned tendrils round the loftiest tree,
And silently corrode,—though sunbeams shine,—
Till the leaves fall,—the boughs grow sear;—thus he
Stood mid the nations now in old sublimity.

XXVI.

Through groves luxuriant as the poet's dream,
Where rivulets alternate played and slept;
O'er green savannahs, where the sun's last beam
A lingering revel and rejoicing kept,
And many a wood-dove sung, and white lamb leapt,
Slowly he walked, and in his spirit shrined
The joy of all things, till he bowed and wept,—
Wept from the fulness of a grateful mind,
That deemed its God too good to one of human kind.

XXVII.

Then suddenly the living air hung still,
The deep woods quivered, and the waters flowed
With an awed music, and the heaven-crown'd hill
Seemed to bow down before the present God!
A fearful reverence floated all abroad,
And the hush'd heart shrunk back and watched and prayed;
The unimagined Soul of Godhead rode
Through the wide world, and prostrate Earth obeyed
The Power that all her charms and countless joys portrayed.

XXVIII.

And then a voice was heard whose mellowed power
And solemn sweetness thrilled the vital air,
And Nature quailed as at the primal hour
When first Sin ratified the world's despair,
And, in the voiceless sanctity of prayer,
The Prophet worshipped as the Spirit passed;
Then in such tones as pierce the heart and bear
Its thoughts to heaven upon a sun-wing'd blast,
The Apocalypse of Time was heard unto the last.

XXIX.

“Fear not! I am thy shield and thy reward!
“Thou shalt inherit, and thy seed shall reign
“O'er all the lands that call the heathen lord,
“Though not till pride is purified by pain!
“No paynim Syrian from Damascus' plain
“Shall rule exulting in thy wealth and might,
“But thine own son shall bear, without a stain,
“The crown and sceptre of a kingdom bright
“And glorious as the stars that diadem the night!

XXX.

“From the vast heights of sky-crown'd Lebanon
“To fertile Edom; from the midland sea,

“On whose fair shores dwells many a faithless son
“Of Ham, to the bright hills of Araby,
“The nation of thy people, great and free,
“Shall reign and prosper, when the days of wo
“And vassalage 'neath iron sovereignty
“Have pass'd, and Jordan's stream hath ceas'd to flow,
“And the Sun paused o'er Ajalon's wide overthrow.

XXXI.

“Look where the darkness deepens and behold
“The sabaoth of heaven! thy race shall be
“As glistering and as countless; yet, like gold,
“They shall be tried by sore captivity
“And tests inscrutable to them and thee!
“Toiling in stranger lands that are not theirs,
“And tasked by wealth that shall not set them free,
“From Babel's streams shall rise desponding prayers,
“Halan's and Habor's towers and many a realm of cares.

XXXII.

“Prepare thy sacrifice!” The altar stood
Prepared and plucked flowers o'er the victims strown,
Whose fair leaves drank the sin-atoning blood,
That brought redemption from the viewless throne,
Then spake again the voice: “Lo! not alone
“Thou dwellest with the Philistine!” before
The reverend Patriarch's heaven-touch'd vision shone
Myriads of hosts on mountain, plain and shore,
And voices like the sea did gloriously adore.

XXXIII.

“Thine eye beholds thy children,” said the Voice,
“Who live in ages unrevealed and dark,
“And even now thou seest them rejoice,

“And worship round the consecrated ark
“Late rescued from the Infidel,—now mark!
“Blaspheming Rephaims mingle with the host,
“The priest of Heaven beneath his shrine lies stark,
“The hideous gods of every idol coast
“Glare through the sea of incense,—Israel! thou are lost!

XXXIV.

“Now look where giant Philistines enslave
“In field, trench, cavern, thy weak rebel race,—
“Yet they shall turn again as from the grave,
“And worship and rejoice in boundless grace;
“Till, haughty grown, again before my face
“Heathen diviners to dark deities
“Shall offer up in MY most holy place
“Victims to poison every living breeze,—
“Till Shalmanezer scourge the race that trust in these.

XXXV.

“Where babes fall gasping mid the idol fires
“Of Arpad and Adrammeleck,—there in wrath
“Fierce Baladan shall light a nation's pyres,
“And leave a burning desert in his path;
“And all the pomp Heaven's glorious temple hath
“Shall crown the Spoiler's throne,—the Nisrock's shrine;
“And wo and waste, and guilt and utter scathe
“Shall come, till scorn look down on Palestine,
“And Ruin triumph where God's glory shone divine.

XXXVI.

“Like withered leaves o'er boundless deserts driven,
“Thy race,—my Chosen, shall be cast and left,
“Ages of agony, uncheered by heaven,
“In fear and bondage to all nations,—reft
“Of hope,—vassals and victims,—rent and cleft,
“Wasted and heartless,—slaves, yet secret kings!

“The rack shall riot on them,—and the heft
“Of the red sword cleave to the hand that brings
“Death to the cowering Jew,—who yet to earth-life clings!

XXXVII.

“Yet fear not! doubt not! good shall much abound,
“And truth, love, fellowship to God and man;
“The voice of prophets from the holy ground
“Shall never cease to mitigate the ban.
“Be just and fearless as thou hast began,—
“Thy seed shall spread, shall triumph and bear sway—
“Till from the vale of Seven to farthest Dan,
“When dawns in distant years the atoning day,
“Shall throng thy Race Restored and worship and obey.”

XXXVIII.

O'er the Chaldean came an awful change,
When ceased the voice and heart-felt darkness fell,
And terror glided through thought's utmost range,
And awfulness no son of song can tell;
Pale shrouded shapes from each lone silent dell
Gibbered and glanced,—dim creatures of a dream!
O'er clouded earth and heaven a fearful knell
Sounded,—and bickering eyes did wildly gleam,
And Horror's giant form to fill the world did seem.

XXXIX.

Years without epoch passed,—for quiet minds,
That bless in silentness and daily praise,
Float o'er the world like pure and placid winds,
That waft sweet odours o'er Spring's sunny days.
All hours are cheerful in life's flowery ways
To him whose power to bless doth match his will,
And ne'er too long the glorious sun delays,
Nor the blonde moon, that blooms o'er shadowy hill,
To image virgin dew and mirror woodland rill.

XL.

The Egyptian boy,—dark featured Ishmael
In beauty grew and manliness,—his eye
Glowed like the sun o'er Nile, and, like a bell
On sabbath morn, his voice went through the sky;
His proud lip curl'd, and on his cheek the dye
Of days of archery sunk dark and deep;
Tall, strong and flexile grew his form, and high
His dusky brow, and, all too proud to weep,
His sovereign spirit soar'd,—his heart that could not sleep!

XLI.

But, doomed to be his own sole world of pride,
And driven forth by jealousy and scorn,
The lord of Arabs wandered by the side
Of outcast Hagar many an eve and morn,
O'er realms of death where nought but hardy thorn
Shelters the basilisk and sand-storms roll!
—To be the sire of nations he was born,
Of nations conquerless,—time o'er his soul
Burst like the electric light of glorious northern pole!

XLII.

In Paran's waste and burning wilderness,
With none to counsel, none console—alone,
Alone, where none could love, admire and bless,
His spirit lightened o'er the seasons gone,
Resolved to conquer all that had been done,
Rise unsupported and reign uncontrolled;
And many a bold Bedouin on his throne,
And many a Barcan chief of iron mould,
Hath sternly proved that steel may triumph over gold.

XLIII.

And in her age the Hebrew Mother clasped
The heir of Salem to her withered breast,

And in the breathlessness of rapture grasped
Despair's deep hope that made her wildly blest;
And in the pride of woman, who hath pressed
The image of her beauty, she forgot
Lone wandering Hager and her son distressed,
And recked not of the evils of their lot—
But there was One whose eye and justice slumbered not.

XLIV.

For through the vast and shoreless universe
No deed, no thought, no passion, no design
Passeth unseen, unjudged by Him whose curse
Withers—whose blessing sheds a light divine
O'er earth and heaven. O, all that lives is Thine!
Supremest Good! and evil but the gloom
O'er which thy glory doth intensely shine,
Changing the darkness to a radiant bloom,
And opening golden gates beyond the darkened tomb!

XLV.

While roamed o'er lone Idumea's desert wild,
Forsaken, hopeless, banished to despair,
The Egyptian mother and her high-soul'd child,
Sara exulted o'er her matchless heir,
And exiled from her heart all mortal care;
For her electric spirit laughed and leapt,
And love, hope, rapture floated every where,
And in the breeze that harp'd, the dew that wept,
The sun, sea, sky was joy, as forth her eagle spirit swept.

XLVI.

She had been beautiful in earlier days,
And kings had knelt enamoured to her pride
Of loveliness, and breathed adoring praise,
And gone in sackcloth when they were denied;
And still her proud majestic form did glide
The absorbing lodestar of enchanted eyes,

Like Cleopatra o'er the glassy tide,
Or Artemisia in the sanctities
Of love that shrines the dead, and but with last death dies.

XLVII.

Yet furrowless and fair, her blue-vein'd brow
Glowed with the glory of her maidenhood,
And her wild, orient, Juno eye did glow
With much of youthful mind and sudden blood;
And over all her face, at times, a flood
Of untrained passions, spurning common forms
Of wise dissembling for each other's good,
Lowered like a lauwine when burst alpine storms—
All that adorn the heart—and one that all deforms.

XVLIII.

For features, burning in the quenchless pride
And scorn of all beneath her pomp and power,
Seemed to exult in all that could deride
Inferior birth or unexcelling dower.
And deeply did that haughty spirit cower
Beneath the judgment of the Lord who made
The mortal frail in this probation hour,
That He might pardon what He first forbade,
And teach the haughtiest here that He must be obeyed.

XLIX.

But how shall pen of youthful Bard portray
The prince, the priest, the prophet—the sublime
And peerless man of Faith?—Muse of the day,
Ere exile, wo and death pursued first crime,
When angels sung the birth of light and time,
Cast o'er my soul the blossom of thy smile!
And to the unfolding picture of my rhyme
Impart a solemn beauty, that awhile
May human hearts from mirth most winningly beguile.

L.

Rich in all joys earth's children so desire,
From youth to age he toiled not, but abode,
Not idle, though not earnest to acquire,
Where'er his flocks found pasture, or his God
Designed his sojourn; and he ever trode
The bright and bloomy earth content to breathe
The soft and sunny breezes as they rode
Thro' the clear vault and fann'd the flowers beneath,
And praise in shadowy glen or copse on grassy heath.

LI.

Mild, reverend, patient and serene, he went
A stranger into many lands, and dwelt
With many godless nations; but he lent
To all the deep religion that he felt,
And with all men like a wise monarch dealt!
His frown did punish more than kingly doom,
And his forgiveness of the erring melt
The heart to virtue's mould, that else in gloom
Of guilt had sunk unwept to oblivion's voiceless tomb.

LII.

Chaldean, Amorite and Philistine,
Dusky Egyptian and gaunt Syrian brown,
All loved, revered, obeyed the heart divine,
Whose mercy did its godlike justice crown,
Whose deep benevolence seemed not its own
To will and do—but sorrow's; for to each,
Who drooped, and fell, in helpless anguish down,
Sinful or sinless, he his hand did reach,
And thus to heathen men God's glorious wisdom teach.

LIII.

Not mint and cummin—tythes of outward form,
But a touched heart, the rabbins never knew,

He daily offered from an altar warm
With the pure fire of heaven; like holiest dew,
His prayers arose, spread beauty ever new
O'er the glad earth—and mingled with the skies;
He drank the amreta cup of bliss, and grew
Nearer the Eden his adoring eyes
Beheld through all the clouds of darkened destinies.

LIV.

“But he who long hath basked in Fortune's sun,
“And known no want his wish could not supply”—
(The busy Fiend to many a potent one
Among the nations,—stealing tow'rd the sky,—
With serpent tongue averred and doubting eye,)
“Could not o'ercome stern trial of his faith,
“And would not yield,—but howl, blaspheme, and fly!
“Who loves not life that knows not common scathe?
“Let his God test him once!”—Thus Hell's dark tempter saith.

LV.

The nations listened to the Fiend, and seemed
To watch for evil with a burning thirst;
Too bright and good and blest they long had deemed
The stainless sun that on their sins had burst.
Like him who doomed the Grecian sage, the worst
They could arraign was life immaculate;
But purity of being from the first
Hath met worse foes than envy, pride and hate,
War, avarice, iron guilt and all the fiends of fate.

LVI.

Impurity abhors deeds undefiled
And shudders at light of life that leaves
No shadow on its orgies; the fair child
Is loathsome to the prodigal who weaves

The net he dies in; and lost virtue grieves
At sight of innocence and hates its bliss.
—Oh! settled sin the earthly heart bereaves
Of all that charms,—home peace, love's smile and kiss,
Of hope in purer worlds, and every joy in this.

LVII.

And, thrown into the Hinnom of the mind,
All evil passions rage like fires of hell;
The skies seem furnace brass,—earth black, the wind
The heart breathed breath of upas, that will swell
To stifling agony, though kill not,—tell,
Mad slaves of sin! oh, tell the joys that lead
The proud, bright boy from all he loved so well,
That bear him on through each excess to need,
And bid him curse the good and smile to see them bleed!

LVIII.

Misguided youth! lack ye the eye to trace
Whence Fate and Fortune come? or think ye, Truth
In deep disaster veils her virgin face,
And craves, like falsehood, bribery's bitter ruth?
—Know ye, that Virtue bears eternal youth,
And Honour gleams on time's tumultuous sea,
And Faith doth smile though flesh should fail, in sooth,
And tried Devotion, on wings bright and free,
Triumphs o'er death, o'er time, in God's eternity!

LIX.

The immaculate, omniscient Lord, who holds
The hearts of all, and breathes in every breath,
And every evil in His wisdom moulds
In pleasure's image,—even guilt and death,
And all the guile of gnashing fiends beneath,—
The Demon heard, and, hearing, in the joy

Of his imagined triumph,—while the wreath
Of hellish prowess won his scowling eye,—
Thus spake in organ tones from midnight's glorious sky:—

LX.

“Go, take thy son,—thine only son,—the Heir
“Long promised of thy wealth, and hope and fame,
“And to the Land of Vision sole repair,—
“Moriah, hence to be a deathless name,—
“And there to Him, who gave and well may claim,
“Offer thy son a sacrifice! and prove
“To Earth and Heaven the martyr Faith that came
“To guide thy youth and bless thine early love?”
And echo lingered long while soar'd the awful voice above!

LXI.

Morn broke,—the Patriarch rose,—how dark the dawn,
How wan the glory of that fearful day!
As quick from mount and limpid stream withdrawn,
The vail of night did fade and float away,
And the mists crimson in each gushing ray;
In the strange silence of a spirit strung
To bear all suffering save an hour's delay,
Around his bleeding, bursting heart he flung
The iron robe of grief,—and trusted not his tongue.

LXII.

The camel and the dromedary stood
Caparison'd, and snuffed the racy breeze,
And asses, loaded with a fragrant wood,
Gazed tethered from the midst of broad palm-trees;
And many a vassal mutely looked on these,
And marvelled that their Chief spake not a word,
And passed unmarked, in his dark fantasies,
The pomp of Tyre and Egypt,—save a sword
He seiz'd with quivering hand and shudder'd and ador'd.

LXIII.

In voiceless anguish all too terrible
For human utterance,—such wo as rends
The palpitating heart, and none can tell
Save they who suffer when they have no friends,
Before his tent the altered Patriarch wends
With hurried footstep and a corpse-like brow;
Though great, yet human, like a reed he bends,
But springs again triumphant,—even now,
Cast down, forsaken not, he ratifies his vow.

LXIV.

“Bring forth the boy! he worships with his sire!”
He came. “Why comes the mother with the lad?”
“To ask thee, son of Shem! why burns that fire
“Upon thy brow? and why the voice, that bad
“Thy child appear, did sound so strange and mad?
“And why thou worshippest on that far hill,
“And leavest dark my bosom ever glad
“To worship in thy smile and to fulfil
“In tenderness and love the utmost of thy will?”

LXV.

“So God revealed in dream of yesternight!”
His voice did falter and he turned aside,
And a deep shadow fell upon the light
Of his unequalled faith,—and all the pride
Of manhood in his stricken bosom died
Before the fixed gaze of that eye which drank
His unvoiced pain. “I will not be denied!
“Not thus in other days you from me shrank,
“And witless deem'd my love and woman's counsel rank.

LXVI.

“What ails thee, Abraham?” “Thou shouldst not know,
“Nor question, Sara! but thy father was

“A perfect man, and thou in all my wo
“Hast borne the heavier portion; there is cause
“For all thy dower of piety,—alas!
“And all thy meekness, faith resigned and truth
“Of holiness professed,—for o'er us pass
“Trials we thought not of,—in awful sooth,
“The fair boy of our age,—must die,—in all the bloom of youth!”

LXVII.

“Must die? who says it?—Isaac! Isaac die?
“That beautiful, that intellectual head,
“That dark, luxuriant, oriental eye,
“That brow which oft hath Heaven's own glory shed,
“That form like Tyre's fair god upon his bed
“Of golden flowers,—must perish?—and for what?
“Are there no lambs? hath not the bullock bled?
—“Must die? my first born, only born be not!
“Slaughtered and burned by thee and then on earth forgot!

LXVIII.

“Accursed be the day that gave him birth,
“If he so late was born to perish so!
“Let darkness, ruin, death possess all earth,
“And desolation laugh and sing!—but no!
“It is not thus,—I see thy features glow
“With something like a smile; 'twas but to test
“A late made mother's love, and o'er her throw
“Imagined danger, that more deeply blest
“She might give heaven to him who hung upon her breast!

LXIX.

“Have I forgot my child's first step, first word?
“And shall I not remember that delight?
“Oh! have I not in blissful stillness heard
“His low breath mid the slumbers of the night?

—“And shall I lose him now when proud and bright
“And gifted with the eloquence of heaven?
—“Good sooth, thou art to blame, and castest slight
“O'er one untried that ne'er with thee hath striven,
“Nor dared to think the thoughts to thee abundant given.

LXX.

“Enough for me, beloved, to love again,
“To breathe the laurel-rose, watch thy return,
“And with our boy's smiles sooth the weary pain
“Of absence. Go! and when thine altars burn,
“Think not that she who loves can ever spurn
“The God of love, or deem his service grief,
“Or scorn His laws, or vainly hope to earn
“Free bliss so visible in every leaf,—
“Go, pray for me, for all, but for our son the chief!”

LXXI.

“Vain is thine anguish,—vainer yet thy hope,—
“The God, who gave, commands,—wilt thou deny?
“The mortal with the Immortal think to cope?
“The Almighty dare throned in the boundless sky?”
—“Gives He, then, sons in glowing youth to die,
“And even bid the father strike the blow?
—“Command, sayst thou?—A strange dream o'er thine eye
“And ear cast sights and sounds thou didst not know,—
“Jehovah bade thee not! it must and shall be so!”

LXXII.

“Com'st thou from Ashdod, that thou dost arraign
“The urim and the thummim of thy God?”
“No! I can bear the bitterest pangs of pain,
“Submit in silentness and kiss the rod—
—“O any thing but this! on coldest sod
“Or shaggiest rock my bosom I will bare

“And perish where the fierce death-angel trod—
—“But spare my child—my princelike Isaac spare!
—“O God of worlds! why coils thy brow in such despair?

LXXIII.

“Wilt thou devote him to a dream?—a cloud
“Of vain fantastic visions?—and once more
“Deny the love that wails and shrieks aloud,—
“The heart that doth in agony adore?
“My Lord, my husband! shall this heathen shore
“Exult and shout from Gaza unto Gath
“O'er worship bloodier than Dagon's?—o'er
“Thy face cast not thy mantle! Heaven's wild wrath
“Pursues alone the fiends down hell's dark lava path.”

LXXIV.

“Farewell, poor Sara!—in thy tent put on
“Sackcloth and ashes! God shall judge his own!”
—Like thought, the Patriarch and his son have gone,
And Sara sitteth in the dust alone!
One long wild shriek, and, blest in reason flown,
She murmurs maniac songs and laughs inane,
And wanders forth, and mingles many a moan
With much of mindless mirth and many a strain
Of happy love with low and deepening notes of pain.

LXXV.

The bright and beautiful and laughing sun
O'er Besor's banks and limpid waters threw
A shadowy charm, a glory new begun,
The freshness of the bosom bathed in dew,
When life is young and every beauty new.
Rich music burst from every bowered grove,
Rainbow-winged birds like happy fairies flew,
While heaven's sweet light, like holiest light of love,
Gushed with a silvery song, by spirits heard above.

LXXV.

But Abraham gazes on the lovely scene
As one who recks not of earth's loveliest light;
Nature oft glorious to his soul had been—
Clear rills that kiss green valleys—mountains bright
In the deep smile of daybeams, or at night
In the soft glory of the starlight—all,
That thrills the bosom ere the mouldering blight
Of sorrow comes and weary woes enthral—
But nature wears to him the last curse of the Fall!

LXXVI.

And on he journeys voicelessly; green dale,
And wooded meadow and meandering river
In burning characters reveal a tale
O'er which the senses faint, the heart doth quiver;
And onward, where his last hope must forever
Sink in the oblivion of an awful doom,
He hastes, and offers to the Almighty Giver
His life whose every breath to him was bloom,
Whose voice could charm in wo, in want, in death's cold gloom.

LXXVII.

O the great majesty of that old Faith!
Ancient Religion! where is now thy trust?
“Do!” and 'tis done. “The Lord thy God thus saith!”
He is obeyed. Wise, patient, pure and just,
The olden sages from their councils thrust
Earth and earth's passions—God was judge and king,
And his their homage, for their moulded dust
Breathed but his breath like each created thing,
And gloried in His smile—mind's fair and flowery spring.

LXXVIII.

The land of vision mid the pinewoods lowers,
And evening twilight lingers round its brow,

And gilds the bold Philistine's mountain towers,
And darkness deepens in lone ravine now.
“Thou goest, my father! to fulfil thy vow,”
Said the fair son of Abraham,—“but where,
“Where is the victim? fire and wood enow,
“But where the lamb?”—“Jehovah will prepare!”
Oh! how that simple speech did crush the patriarch in despair.

LXXX.

In Elah's vale, beside a brimming well,
Whose waters cooled the burning air, and seemed,
Glancing beneath the light that rose and fell,
As if of beauty, song and love they dreamed,
The pilgrims paused; the stars all countless gleamed;
And all save Abraham slept the sleep of toil.
Alone in silent agony, he deemed
His trial great, yet one approving smile
Of heaven worth all the pomp and glory of earth's guile.

LXXXI.

Red rose the sun like lurid basilisk.
“Here part we, vassals!”—and the patriarch passed.
The torrid storm loomed o'er the ghastly disk,
And o'er the desert flew the purple blast;
The shattered clouds far streaming, deep and fast,
Rode on the whirlwind, and the thunder sent
The music of Eternity o'er waste
And wood, and from the rolling firmament
Came back as if the heart of the universe was rent.

LXXXII.

The son of Sara trembled in the glare,
The solemn grandeur of the storm, and turned
Toward his father in his young despair
While the fierce lightning o'er the darkness burned:

And in his speechless agony, he yearned
For one kind smile, the unrequired bequest
Of happier days when love domestic spurned
All cold observances,—when bosoms blest
Pour'd forth their love like birds in their high mountain rest.

LXXXIII.

But, fixed in stony agony suppressed
In the deep heart, the voiceless Father gave
No sigh, no smile, no glance; breath from his breast
Burst in wild sobs as if the darkened grave
Did palpitate with life! in vain to save
His secret soul had striven with the Power,
Who gives in mercy ere despair can crave
When wisdom sanctions mercy; and the hour
Of final doom had come and awfully did lower.

LXXXIV.

Masses on masses of most coal-black clouds
Threw midnight o'er midday; and by the pyre,
O'er which thick firs and cedars hang like shrouds,
Beside his bound son stands the martyr sire,
While smokes the censer with the living fire,
And lifts his heart-fill'd eye,—and then looks down
Upon his sole heir ready to expire,
His joy and expectation, glory, crown,
His light of life, his son, all brotherless, alone.

LXXXV.

All stars,—all worlds,—the very air doth glow
With angel faces numberless, whose eyes,
Radiant with Heaven's pure light, sublimely throw
Ten thousand glories o'er the troubled skies;
And suddenly the storm doth hush its cries
An moans amid the forest; and the song

Of seraphs high triumphing seems to rise
From hill, vale, wood and stream, and sound along
The countless worlds that know nor human wo nor wrong.

LXXXVI.

“Isaac! my child! speak yet once more, my son!”
“Father, farewell!—Jehovah cannot err;
“Yet, oh, remember, when the deed is done,
“And love me still; and for my mother,—her,—
“The hour hath come,—and hark! a quivering stir
“Amid the wood,—Heaven's angel is abroad!
—“Once more, farewell! diluvian mariner
“Ne'er on the Deep with such a spirit rode
“As thrills me now to meet my Giver and my God.”

LXXXVII.

“Farewell, my son!—and yet once more farewell!”
He drew the sword, but when he caught the beam
Of Isaac's dovelike eye,—the weapon fell.
“Look not upon me, child! or I may deem
“Jehovah's vision but a maniac's dream,
“And spare thee yet, my only-born!—So, close
“Thine eyes and while the dreadful blade doth gleam,
“Pray for thy father's and thy mother's woes,—
“O let thy spirit speak and plead in every drop that flows!”

LXXXVIII.

Again he seized the sword,—again drew near,—
And lifted up his hand to slay,—again
His heart did faint,—his weapon fell,—a tear
Beading the point without a living stain!
At length, o'ercoming more than mortal pain,
He clutched the knife and turned aside his head,
And gazed upon the heavens! the ethereal plain
With myriad glories burned, the dark clouds fled,
And thus from highest heaven the Voice of Glory said:—

LXXXIX.

“Lay not thy hand upon the lad, well-tried,
“Faithful, devoted! loose his bonds and take
“Thy son unto thy bosom!” O the tide
Of all a father's love, when from the stake
He wildly springs. “For his lone mother's sake,—
“And for my own, great Giver! I adore!”—
—“Behold!—a victim in the thorny brake!”—
Beside the holocaust in bliss adore
Father and child while joy shouts loud on heaven's wide shore.

XC.

“For this,” the angel of the Lord did cry,
“Thy chosen seed shall multiply and reign,
“Countless as worlds that gem the eternal sky,
“Or golden sands on ocean's azure plain;
“Thy priests, thy kings, thy sages shall attain
“To pomp and purity and wisdom known
“Nor to Assyrian fierce, nor Greek profane;
“And, when Earth's centuries have been and gone,
“Jerusalem shall sit upon her glorious throne!”

XCI.

Sara sat moaning in Beersheba's wood
When through the forest rolled the camel's tread;
And to her broken mind in solitude
It seemed the strange voice of the parted dead;
Again she moaned,—and laughed,—and slowly said
“I had a son,—but he is not,—and so
“My breast no more can pillow his fair head!”
—What bounding Form draws near like fleetest roe?
Mother and Son have met, and bliss is born of wo!

That is, temporarily ceased to flow when the Israelites entered the Promised Land.

THE HOUR AT WILL.

1. PART I.

'Tis only when the heat and dust and toil
Of day have passed, my better heart can smile;
'Tis only when, in weariness and pain,
My task hath ceased to bind my dizzy brain,
That gentler thoughts and holier feelings come,
Like angel visitants, and guide me home—
Home to the hallowed temple of the mind,
Where Heaven's own music rolls upon the wind.
And, oh, while wandering mid the cold and low,
And mocking Mammon with a smile and bow,
While doomed to wear, o'er deep contempt, applause,
And crush my nature 'neath the world's vain laws,
How, like a lost child, seeking home once more,
My bosom brightens and my soul doth soar!
How, like the eagle of my native clime,
Genius aspires beyond the reach of Time!
Then, for a moment, glad oblivion throws
Its deep veil o'er my trials and my woes,
And trickling touches of a kindlier mood,
Like summer evening o'er the ancient wood,
Sooth evil passions, lull the heart to rest,
And blend the spirit with the pure and blest;
And I forget that Fortune is my foe,
And Man the fiend that reigns in human wo;
That lineal hatred o'er my childhood spread
The gloom, though not the slumber of the dead,
And yet prevails to sadden every scene
Where hope and love and loveliness have been.

All these pass from me, in the hour of pride,
Like smouldering wrecks down ocean's billowy tide.
With downcast eyes and tiar'd head declin'd,
His gold-wrought purple floating on the wind,
Gazing on valley, forest, stream and flood,
Against a rock the Persian monarch stood;
While, far below, his vassal millions lay
Like bristling tigers couchant for their prey,
Ardent as eagles, joyous as the lark
Whose music melts along the silvery dark,
Full of high hope of conquest, power and fame,—
That golden shroud for every mortal name!
And, as he gazed upon this pomp of power
One trump had summon'd to his palace bower,—
The haughty Despot wept that Time should cast
Their names, like ashes, on the fire-wing'd blast,
That, ere threescore of hurrying years went by,
His glorious millions,—each and all would die!
Each for himself, philosopher or bard,
Must toil uncheered and be his own reward
Through evils countless as the midnight dews—
The victim votary of the thriftless muse—
Till bursts the sun of Fame's rejoicing day,
And the hours blossom like the buds of May,
And Youth's dim hope outblazes like a star
High throned in heaven and gleaming from afar,
And flatterers crawl around the honoured one
Mocked when obscure and trampled when unknown!
What recks the world—stern, haughty, and austere—
From whose swoln eye slow drops the undried tear?
What recks the world if care and grief assail
The heart that suffers though it will not quail?
If doubt and darkness gather round his way,
Whose spirit revels in the light of day?
If, poor and friendless, Genius must submit
And pannier'd Dulness crush the choicest Wit?

If Earth becomes, by man's inhuman guile,
A hell, the deeper that the sunbeams smile?
And Mind, new lighted at the throne of God,
Darken and sink and mingle with the sod?
What recks the world, ere wakes the sun of Fame,
Who blights and execrates an unknown name?
Or who bands forth a menial miscreant host
And triumphs o'er archangel spirits lost?
—Dark are the shades that cloud thy mortal hours,
Poor lonely wanderer from elysian bowers,
And few the joys, earth's silken sons possess,
Light the wild horrors of thy wilderness!

As sable clouds along the evening sky
Glow with the glories of the sun's bright eye,
So the dull toils of daily life assume,
When Genius smiles, the beauty and the bloom
Of unseen realms, where holiest spirits sing
Mid the fair gardens of an endless spring.
Few and uncertain mid the cares of life,
The sin, the sorrow, and the hate and strife,
Are the brief hours devoted to the shrine
Of Love, whose purest worship is divine,
But these quick moments gladden and uplift,
And bear us through the subtlety and thrift,
The coldness, darkness, solitude and want,
The woes that wither though they cannot daunt,
Raise and refine the grovelling works of man,
And lead us back where Life in Love began.

Like summer showers, when wanes the burning day,
These hours of pride, athwart our weary way,
Gleam with a mellow gladness and repose,
That strengthen bleeding hearts to bear their woes,
And through all wrong and evil guide us on,
Though poor yet proud, though friendless not alone.

Then fruit and blossom mingle on each tree,
The soul soars gladly and the heart is free;
Soft airs float by with music on their wings,
And the lyre warbles from a thousand strings;
The heart's best feelings—all the joys of youth,
Dreams in the green-wood—hope and love and truth,
Thoughts by lone fountains, in their freshest bloom,
And chastened sorrow o'er affection's tomb—
All—all come back and win the soul afar
From earth's dark galley toil and rankling war,
Gild the dense gloom of error, fraud and sin,
And crown the altar of the heart within.

Yet, like wild lightning lifting, fold on fold,
Such awful gloom as wrapt the world of old,
To show how green and beautiful beneath
The earth lies, covered with the veil of death,
These high revealments mock the dazzled mind,
Leave, as they vanish, deeper gloom behind,
Melt the touch'd heart that should be proud and stern,
And, like frankincense gushing from an urn,
O'erpower the vision, that should settle on
The thin cold ashes of the dead alone.
With feelings purified and sense refined
And the veil'd glories of a mighty mind,
The Bard goes forth, from solitude sublime,
To meet and grapple with a world of crime,
Like a bright seraph in some distant star,
To feel his spirit with his fate at war,
To know his greatness and to bear the scorn
Of miscreant menials on the dunghill born,
To walk abroad, with radiant Genius crowned,
While crowded solitude hangs coldly round,
And seek, once more, the muse's lonely room,
And sigh to sink to slumber in the tomb!
Such is, hath been, will be the doom of minds
That cast their glories on the world's vain winds!

2. PART II.

Stars of the heart! immortal lights, that glow
Along life's lone and weary way of wo,
That lengthens, lingers like a pilgrim vowed
To some far shrine he parts from in his shroud,
How soft and soothingly ye come, and spread
A blooming veil around the changed and dead,
Lift the faint mind, inspire each drooping thought,
And hymn the magic beauty ye have wrought!
There's not a desert on the Earth so drear,
But fountains sometimes gush and gurgle near;
There's not a wilderness so sad and lone
Without its dweller and a kindred one;
There's not an iceberg in the arctic sea,
But bears life, feeling, joy and liberty;
And every heart—however worn and lost
To all it loved and idolized the most,
However pierced and manacled, and cast
A wreck and ruin on life's dewless waste—
Against the storm of grief may still bear up,
Though it hath drained affliction's poison cup,
And smile oft-times and blend its wonted powers
With minds unknown in childhood's leafy bowers.
Such Nature's hest; while life prevails, there's hope,
And strength still given with despair to cope—
Despair! oft uttered in a reckless mood,
But by earth's victims never understood,
The grim, gaunt tyrant of the fiends who fell,
Born of Remorse—the quenchless fire of hell!

From bosoms dark and rugged gushes forth
Full many a stream to fertilize the Earth,
As from the black rock of the desert poured
The clear cold waters while the host adored;
And they, who walk in wisdom and in truth,
May oft, 'mid strangers, drink the joys of youth,
And find their sojourn gladdened by some voice,
That bids the fainting and sick heart rejoice.
Good, through victorious evil, oft appears,
Justice may mark the guiltless suppliant's tears,
Hope may rejoice in happier days to come,
And truth leave not the world in utter gloom.
Man clings to man through every wo and wrong,
And woman wins the daring and the strong.
To all, on whom the heartless world hath laid
Its ban—to all confiding and betrayed
By serpent lures—repulsed and cast aside
By the red Moloch hand of menial pride—
How bright, how cheeringly—the world forgot,
And all the evils of the poor man's lot—
Loved faces smile around their home of Love,
Loved voices breathe the gladness of the Dove,
And sooth the anguish of proud spirits stirred,
By the soft magic of a gentle word!
Passions as dire as winds in wildest wrath
And desolating as the lava's path,
Sink into slumber, broken and subdued
By the low voice of Love's sweet solitude.
Deep hate and wild revenge have oft foregone
Their fixed resolves while some beloved one,
With few kind words and one ambrosial kiss,
Filled a dark bosom with a seraph's bliss.

Laws, manners, morals and traditions old,
And customs antique as the banner's fold,
Fortune and faith—dominion, pride, and power,
And all that magnifies man's scepter'd hour,

Rose up, like spectres, when in secret spoke
Woman—and forth the Persian edict broke!
When War's deep trump awakes the world to arms,
Search out the cause in woman's fatal charms!
When peace flies smiling o'er the bloomy realm,
Lo! angel love directs the monarch's helm!
When the fierce Bandit leaves the work of death,
His wrong'd heart melts beneath affection's breath;
When the blest Sabbath o'er the city throws
A cheerful sanctity and hushed repose,
Gaze on the mother as her children kneel—
Few worship God—but every heart can feel!
When drops the dagger from the madman's grasp,
Who folds his writhing form in love's own clasp,
And with prophetic vows and burning tears,
Leads mind to triumph in the coming years?
Who on the Statesman, in his household bowers,
Bestows the tenderness of youthful hours,
And pillows on her breast the mighty mind
Revered, admired, and dreaded by mankind?
Who shield the weakness, guides the scornful pride,
And sooths—deserted by the world beside—
The bitter sorrows of ambition thrown
On the dark desert of despair alone?
Who casts o'er ruined hope and glory passed
Verdure that breathes and blossoms o'er the waste?
Who, like the sunset of an autumn even,
Gives unto Earth the glorious light of heaven?
Woman, devoted, cheerful and serene,
Lives in all laws and blends with every scene;
Pours proud ambition through each burning vein,
And tends the soldier on the battle-plain;
Gives to the poet all his might of mind,
And gilds the desert Fancy leaves behind;
Uplifts the feeble, quells the daring, throws
The hues of heaven o'er all desponding woes,

Moves upon earth the pilgrim bound to love,
And mounts, a seraph, to her God above!

Oft, when forsaken, trampled and reviled
While on my solitude no eye hath smiled,
When left to breast and buffet, as I might,
The faithless billows of a stormy night,—
Oft have I found in one beside me now,
(Her of the starry eye and sunny brow)
A tender solace and a mild content
Earth could not give with all her blandishment.
And she hath cheered me with a spirit free
To range the realms of high philosophy,
A heart imbued with such ethereal power
As wraps the saint in his sublimest hour,
While her fair features, soft as twilight's gush,
Lightened and flashed, and, with a solemn rush,
Her words of truth and hope and love came o'er
My heart, like moonlight on a rock-barr'd shore.
And I have borne the coward's dark attack,
Hate's dungeon ordeal, envy's midnight rack,
The scorn of fools, the sayings of the vile,
The branded felon's hypocritic smile,
The altered eye of friends, the sapient saws
Of dotard pedants, and the moral laws
Of convicts guiltier than the dungeon cell
E'er held in chains, or deepest vault in hell—
With a calm eye, a conscious brow that threw
The reptile back to feed on demon dew.
For still the angel of my pathway said
‘'Twere just—but oh, strike not the serpent dead!
‘He bears a death—a living, scorpion death
‘In every pulse and vein and thought and breath,
‘Leave him the doom thy righteous hand would end—
‘Leave him on earth without a single friend!’
Shall I not praise the wise and winning art
That drew the lightning from my burning heart?

Shall I not feel as time leaves all my foes
In the oblivion of unblest repose,
And on our mingled tides of being run
In little channels glancing to the sun,
That wisdom dwells with loveliness and gives
A hallowed pleasure to our troubled lives,
A conscious trust of happier days in store,
For hearts undoubting, that in grief adore?
Without a fear that Truth will not prevail,
Without a glance at slander's thrice-forged tale,
Prizing heaven's gifts too high to boast or vaunt,
Feeling a heart which danger cannot daunt,
And, with contempt ineffable and strong,
Beholding rioters in human wrong,
With thee, my bride!—and thee, my bright-eyed boy!
I share my sorrow—ye partake my joy.
Earth holds a home and coming time a name,
That may not vanish from the roll of Fame!

SONNET I.

O'erweening dotard! poor cornuto, hail!
Man of miscarried Letters! Southern sage!
All do admire thy deep poetic rage,
And thy rich verse that soundeth like a flail:
The dark researcher doth adore thy page,
And all that dwell in antiquarian mould,
And all that grope for interdicted gold,—
For mystery is all their heritage!
Ho for a beaker! ye minores! kneel!
The man of seals and stamps and rhymes draws nigh
In all the fury of his majesty—
The very air his presence seems to feel!
Marquis of France! thy Eulogist doth come
With the deep music of his kettle drum!

SONNET II.

Howl on, chained demons, howl! I yet can bear
More than your petty hatred can invent!
I never quailed at menaces nor bent
Meanly to meanness in averting prayer,
Nor ever will, though misery and despair
Crush and consume me: never have I leant
On outward aid, but suffered what was sent
In solitary silence:—if ye dare,
Howl on, hyænas! bastard brood of hell!
And let your cry be heard; I shall not shrink,
Nor fear, nor shudder, nor forbear to think
A smile fit answer to your bootless yell.
Ye howl around me as I sit in peace,
Like the bann'd Fiends blaspheming for release!

MY NATIVE LAND.

Highest among the Nations hast thou stood,
My Country! since the dark and trying hour,
When, from the waste of anarchy and blood
Thou didst arise, Minerva-like, to power,
High-souled asserter of the rights of man,
The holy Zoar of exiles from afar,
Emancipated from the tyrant's ban
Beneath the banner of thine own fair star.
And well hast thou in triumph borne thy sway
Among the constellations of thy sphere,
Giving high promise of a brighter day,
When all shall worship thee in love and fear.
Mocked and blasphemed on Europe's vassal shore,
Monarchs have watched thee in unceasing hate,
And bann'd the nation that for ever more
Shall fix the boundary of tyrannic fate;
And subtle Statesmen, in o'erweening pride,
And bigots, brooding o'er their blighted realm,
Like magi menace thou wilt not abide
When Anarchs fierce shall guide thy mighty helm,
And bribery poison, and corruption gnaw
The great heart of thy people, and the sword
Be, as in Sylla's days, supremest law,
And each high hearted man no more be heard
In the deep councils of his country's weal,
Than the poor serf, who saved his native land
To reap the guerdon, all must reap who feel,
Unquestioned villenage to brute command.
Wild rage (they say) shall sunder the great bond
Of Union—and proud oligarchs arise,

Bringing dismay and death—and so beyond
The veil of thy bright power, their serpent eyes
Behold what ages never shall reveal,
As Heaven forefend! for to thy mighty breast
Ten thousand heart-strings, quick to throb and feel,
Bind all the freeborn Nations of the West.

Yet, oh! thus early in thy proud career,
Wilt thou forget the world stands gazing on?
And deem the danger scarcely worth thy fear,
That, like a shade from empires lost and gone,
Comes o'er thee now?—My Country! shall thy brow
Shed sunshine on the path of him who lifts
His will above thy law, and dares to throw
Defiance—while he scorns not basest shifts
To seize a power, that must, in evil hands,
Bring desolation and despair and death
O'er glad societies, and prospering lands—
And leave pale Senates but a fearful breath?
So soon wilt thou prove faithless to thy trust,
And scorn the last farewell thy great Chief left,
When, e'en in death, his judgment, ever just,
Not of its brightness nor its truth bereft,
Warned thee and counselled—like a father cried
Aloud to save the fabric of thy fame?
And shall the prayer of wisdom be denied,
And war pursue the worship of a name?
Wilt thou fulfil the dark dreams of thy foes,
And aggrandize the worthless and the vain,
Pamper rude passion, gild, with tints of rose,
Low vice, and scatter pearls like sunny rain
Around red Mars and his dwarf satellites—
The savage reptiles of a darkened day—
The filthy serpents of the fen?—Ye rights
Of action, triumph while ye can and may!
Shall Slaves be Tyrants? shall the villein herd

Who bear the warrior to our throne of State,
Rule with a gesture, stifle with a word,
Sit high, and toll the curfew of our fate!
To what vile arts and black hypocrisies
The lust of dark dominion will debase
Low thoughted man, who, mixed with things like these,
Runneth through marsh and brier, a maniac race,
The gray locks of his unrepentant age
Waving in every breeze, and spectral care
Throned on his brow, that, furrowed o'er by rage
Of wild ambition, darkens in despair!

Dare not, my Country! leave the path once trod
By the one Hero of thy trying time!
He yet beholds thee from the mount of God,
Yet walks the mountains of his glorious clime,
And cries aloud in every wind—“Beware!
“Can ye not prize the diamond bought with blood?”
“Go, go to Vernon! plot and practise there!”
Hear ye the parted Sage—who long withstood
Foreign intrigue, domestic treachery,
And every guile that evil spirits use?
He speaks in tones whose echoes cannot die,
His country's prophet, and her history's muse!
Shall monarchs gloat o'er tidings of misrule,
And leaden lords in chuckling triumph tell
How voting boors were left in ‘dismal dule,’
When the old Chieftain's wrath and sabre fell?
Shall purse-proud men, to glut ignoble pride,
Ape the poor fashions of a worn-out realm,
Happy to float, gilt pageants, on the tide,
While black ambition guides the rushing helm?
—Thou yet hast sons, whose voices must be heard,
Ere desolation on thy shore descends;
And hearts, like fountains by an angel stirr'd,
Send up deep murmurs, whose wild music blends

With every thought and magic feeling true
To love and peace, and liberty and power;
Thou yet hast sons whose life blood may imbrue
The Idol's altar—God avert the hour!

SONNET III.

My firstborn boy! bud of my darkened spring!
Angelo! welcome to a world whose joys
No longer charm my dim and weary eyes,
Whose hopes have faded in their blossoming!
Welcome as summer showers or dewy eves,
Or starlight intercourse in sinless Youth,
Or that great miracle—the honest truth,
Unto a heart that gushes, while it grieves,
With deepest, holiest love to thee, my boy!
Thou bear'st my name, my brow,—may Heaven avert
Thy Father's fate! and ne'er on what thou wert
Mayst thou look back with any thing but joy!
May the great Giver guide thee free from all
The foes that would exult in thy proud Father's fall.

LA JEUNESSE DE L'ESPRIT.

To him, whose spirit drinks the fading hues
Of life's young sunlight, and o'er parted bliss
Lingers, whose odour's wafted on the wings
Of hurrying years, 'tis pleasant to recur
To scenes unvisited except in dreams;
For meditation sage, and solemn thought,
And true philosophy, attend the steps
Of him, who, weary of the noise, and glare,
And dark hypocrisy, and hoary guilt,
And gloomy mirth, and madness of this life,
In silence treads the hallowed temple where
His heart first offered up its sacrifice.
Familiar as the face well known for years,
That ever beams with kindness, all the scene
Expands before him—all his wonted haunts
The reverend oak, the bosky brook, the hill,
The vale, the mansion of his birth, the room
Where long he took his slumbers—all are here;
But where are they who shared his blisses? where
The eyes that glowed in welcome? Closed in death!
Voices whose music fell upon the heart
Like dew on budding spring flowers? Heard afar,
Perchance, by those who love them not—their tone
Of joyance changed to hollow notes of wo
Betokening wasted hearts, affections scorned,
And spirits crushed by years of servitude.
The places where true friends held kind discourse?
Empty—or, worse, filled by the stranger stern,
Who turns upon the wanderer a cold eye,
And questions his intent in colder words.
What doth he there amid the unconcerned,

The heartlessly unmannered? Not with them
Holds he communion; with his only friends,
The sunny rivers, the perpetual hills,
The groves of beauty, and the places still
'Mid forest-depths, he interweaves his thoughts,
And bows his spirit down before the shrine
Where stand the faded images of dreams
That faintly gild the darkness of his fate.
What is and what has been! A fiery waste
Parts them asunder, which we pass to find
A desert in our Eden. What we are
And what we have been!—'tis an awful thought,
That seldom should o'ershadow us. The friends
We loved in earlier years, and those who wear
The mask of policy, and suit their hearts
To the fiendlike expediency of men!
Dare not the contrast of the sunny brow
And the deep treachery that lurks beneath
The bosom of the wordly wise! We die
With every hour that leads us far away
From the bright youth of life—the bloomy days
When love is innocence, and hope is bliss,
And the warm heart is its own heaven—Alas!
The quivering pulses of our bosoms tell
Alone the blessedness that hath been ours,
But never must be more! O'er the dark bowers
Of memory gleams a glorious light, to veil
The pallid features of the dead who sleep
In silence there. In melancholy minds
There is a subtle chain, that, link by link,
Gathers, as life wanes by, connecting all
The events of being with the reigning thoughts
And feelings of our childhood; there they cling,
Through all the cares and woes and sufferings,
That wait upon us here; and every glance
At other days is guided by that chain,
Till every link is numbered; then we rest

Upon the sunny spot where life began,
And half forget how far the chain extends.
'Mid contemplation of our being's morn
And all the clouds that chequered it, arise
Deep thoughts and solemn feelings—from the heart
Gushing like sunny waters from their spring.
Before his eye, whose life counts many years,
Oft will the grave be opened to receive
The young, the beautiful, the loved and dear.
Yet, 'mid the waste of brighter hopes than his,
The desolation of far happier loves,
He stands unwounded, and the hurtling darts
Fall harmless at his side! And why? Pause there,
And think, vain infidel! why art thou spared?
Hath Nature wise reversed her laws for thee?—
The sun shone on thee with unnatural light?—
The elements foregone their rage, and heaven
Assumed a smiling aspect at thy wish?
The speech prophetic and the hope intense
Of the forgotten had a prouder tone,
A loftier range, than thine; where are they now?
Earth had its charms for them—the love of power,
The spell of praise, the glory of young hearts,
And the green fields, the pictured skies, the gush
Of summer rivulets, came o'er their souls
Like visions and sweet music. What availed
The soaring mind, the feeling heart, the eye
Of beauty, and the thought of power? The dust
Lies quietly upon them—and the turf,
In dark luxuriance, waves above their rest!
Thou hast been spared—consider well for what!

THE REWARD OF FAME.

To gain a name, and be the thing the world
Mimics and mocks, cajoles, calumniates,
Dooms to despair, and destines for the shrine
Of fame; to feel the butterflies of earth
Drinking the essence of almighty thought;
To see the raven wear the glorious plumes
Of the sun-daring eagle, and to be
The vassal camel of a mental waste,
Toiling for things detestable, who goad
With gilded lances creatures finely wrought
In the fair mould of Heaven's divinity!
'Mid vigils of deep thought to feel the breath
Of most reviving morn steal o'er the fires
Of the hot brain, and hear the day-spring airs
Chant mid the dewy leaves to hopeless wo,
Mocking the spirit's ear! To look abroad
O'er earth and heaven, and weave in sunny web
Thoughts pure and delicate, conceptions high,
Creations glorious as an eastern dream,
Threads spun in paradise, and knit and linked
By magic skill of mighty intellect!
To think, toil, fancy thus—and yet to know
That we create an Eden for base worms,
Serpents of venom, reptiles foul, and things
Beneath all name—it is the dream of Hell!

And then the cold neglect, the stinging scorn,
The autocratic look, the demon sneer,
That calls itself a smile, the taunting speech,
That words its malice in fair compliment
To aggravate its bitterness; the eye,

Whose earth-bent gaze doth seem to scorn and laugh
At what the curl'd lip utters; the oblique leer
Of cruel envy, telling standers-by
That its approval is the baited barb,
Which all-confiding Genius swallows down
To its own ruin! These are not a tithe
Of all the votary of living Fame
Must silently endure. His ocean thought
Commingles with the universe, and rolls
In tides sublime along the eternal shore,
Its billows swelling amid worlds of light
And sounding immortality! around
Floats holiest music, and, above, ascend
The pillar'd battlements of Mind's own home,
Warded by spirits of the sun—below—
O son of Genius! Earth is not for thee!

SONNET.

Down to the dust, Cain-branded Liar! down!
Wither and rot beneath my blasting curse!
“Than what thou art, I could not wish thee worse,”
Of vice and guilt and infamy the crown!
There is no double baseness not thy own,
No shuffling fraud, or falsehood black as hell;
No sneaking malice that thou know'st not well—
Yes, well as jailors know their victim's groan!
For thou canst lie, in the broad gaze of heaven,
Till calumny seems truth, and still canst wear
Virtue's false mask, and, like a parson, swear
That thou to utter Truth art sorely driven;
But, 'tis thy ‘Christian Duty,’ thou dost say!—
Is Hell then seen amid the blaze of Day?

THE MANIAC MOTHER.

My life hath felt Hope's withering blight,
But fancy's tearful eye
Will turn to Thee,—the dearest light
In Retrospection's sky.—
Prentice.

Silence hung listening from the pale blue sky,
And Nature slumbered in a deep repose,
When on the maniac mother's sleepless eye
The Phantom Spirit of her lost son rose;
His long loose shroud seemed swelling into life,
His pale brow quivered in mysterious strife!
His step was echoless, and through the gloom
Of the lone hut he glided to the place,
Where, mid the sheeted victims of the tomb,
He stood,—the ancient fathers of his race,
With fixed eyes gazing on the widowed one
Left in a dark and cruel world alone.
In shadowy awe and solemn stillness there
He stood; the mortcloth of the grave,—the earth
Piled o'er him,—nor the might of death could bear
His spirit down, when she, who gave him birth,
Called from the depths of sorrow on her son,
Her loved, her lost, her true and only one.
The ghastly pallor of his veinless brow,
The unearthly light of his mysterious eye,
His thin wan lips, that wont to blush and glow,
And his proud bearing as he left the sky,—
All spake the spirit raised at midnight hour
By Love,—the crowning spell of magic power!

And well that mighty Love may dare to look
Upon the Death-King, for it doth discern
Through every change that lovely face which took
Its features from the mother; though the urn
Hold the cold ashes of the dead, the heart
Retains its empire o'er the better part.
Though that may moulder into dust, yet still
Its fine affections live and breathe and glow
Forever,—and the soul may drink at will
The thoughts of the departed; they will flow,
Like limpid waters from a quenchless spring,
Till Life on earth mounts on its heavenly wing.
For though weighed down by countless woes and ills,
The atrophy and paralysis of mind,
Yet in the twilight woods of sky-crown'd hills,
And the blue tents of the mysterious wind,
The spirit soars sublime and finds its home
Where Love, without its woes, may ever come,
And spread abroad its beauty and its bliss,
The hallowed joys of memory shrined and blest,
The perfect peace of happier worlds in this,
The glory of a high and endless rest!
Unbar thy portals, Death! thou canst not quell
The heart that triumphs in its doing well.

The unseen presence of the Dead pervades
The very atmosphere we hourly breathe:
Its voice is heard among the rustling shades
Where wild birds sing and fragrant woodbines wreathe;
It blends with thought and with the feeling glows
Of all it loved mid earthly sins and woes.
So thou didst think, O maniac mother! when
Thy voice was heard, at midnight's awful hour,
Amid the darkness of thy native glen,
Summoning thy lost son to his native bower;
E'en in thy madness dwelt the conscious trust
That he would hear and meet thee from the dust.

And here he stands in thy lone shealing,—now
Cease thy wild coronach and speak to him!
Affection hovers o'er his pallid brow,
And his lips quiver and his eyeballs swim;
Now lift thy voice and on the spirit call,—
Now while his shadow rests upon the wall!
Alas! in deep dreams of the night alone
In the mind's depth strange voices utter words,
That waft us wildly o'er the past and gone,
And bind our bosoms like unbreaking cords:
But while the spirit wakes in weary clay,
The spectre speaks not,—nor in light of day.
His reign is silent, shadowy, awful,—none
Can paint the viewless fear that all must feel;
At Nature's hour of feebleness alone
Dim wavering forms upon the wrought soul steal,
And their fixed searching eyes, where'er we turn,
In fleshless sockets roll and o'er us burn.
Then fantasie o'erworn doth give to air
A visible consistence, shape and breath,
And the loved form doth those sweet graces wear
Which long since left the shrunken brow of death.
The breathing image of the dead is shrined
Deep in the living temple of the mind.
All else is veiled from hope and prayer, and fear
And doubt hang o'er the unrevealing tomb;
Bereavement calls, with many a wild vain tear,
The unconscious sleepers from the deep of gloom;
They wake no more, though Love stands weeping by,
They have no more to do beneath the sky!
Their task is ended and their toil is done,—
Hope not for them her roselight torch displays,
Nor Envy blasts the wreath of glory won,
Nor sorrow darkens Virtue's sunny days;
Their joys and griefs and honours,—all are past,
And others tread Affliction's boundless waste,

And trust, as they have trusted, to their wo,
And love, as they have loved, to be deceived:
For Earth hath shown and will forever show
How man hath warr'd and toil'd and wish'd and grieved,
The same sad scene of helpless hopes and fears,
Vain mirth and laughter,—vainer sighs and tears;
Change, disappointment, poverty and wrong,
Insult and calumny from foes in power;
The secret rapture of a lonely song,
The solemn joy of one forgetful hour,
Drowned in the torrent of the cold world's scorn,—
—“Would,” sighs the Bard, “I never had been born!”

Yet the dim vision of her long lost son
Came o'er the mother like a glimpse of heaven,
And she gazed wildly on the lovely one
As lovers gaze upon the star of even,
And caught quick rays of reason from the eye
Whose radiance lightened from eternity.
Ever, 'tis said, Death's cold pale light dispels
The gloom that shadows the distempered mind,
And solemn music through broad ether swells
As harping angels sailed upon the wind:
And thus the erring and bereft once more
Regain their gifts and praise and sing and soar.
The cock crows,—daylight tints the orient blue,—
Now fades the form, the face so young and dear;
The voiceless mother looks her brief adieu,
From eyes that gleam like planets from their sphere.
No sound is heard,—no last, long, wild farewell
Shrieks its loud echoes up the mountain dell.
In mercy taken from the ill to come,
With shrivelled hands outspread and upcast eyes,
She seeks the refuge of a holy home,
With all she loved and lost in yon far skies.
A deep low sound,—life fades from cheek and brow,—
Lovely and loved! ye dwell together now!

105

BUNKER HILL.—AN ODE.

When evening's purple radiance shone
O'er flowering vale and wildwood hill,
The song-bird trilled her lay alone
On Bunker's height, sublime and still;
The vesper breeze blew softly there
As it had fanned Love's rosy bower,
And spirits on the dewy air
Seemed smiling o'er the hallowed hour;
All nature slept in soft repose
Mid fresh-leaved groves and fragrant flowers,
And many a mirthful laugh arose
From the white tents of Britain's powers.—
In silence passed the starry night,
Earth, air and ocean—all were still,
And, breathing o'er each neighbouring height,
Lone midnight slept on Bunker Hill.
But when the first faint hues of morning dyed
Heaven's orient verge and tinged the pale-blue sky,
A sight of terror and a voice of pride
Appeared and thundered;—on the wondering eye
Of foemen, proud in battle's dread array,
Burst the wild vision of an armed band,
Who stood, expectant of the dawning day,
The fearless guardians of their native land,
A living rampart on the frowning height,
Their banners floating on the morning air,
Clad in their cause—a mail of matchless might—
Stern as relentless Fate and dauntless as Despair.

But pride quelled fear—the death-word passed,
And Britain's banded host moved on,

106

While trumpets blew the battle-blast
Of many a field of glory won.
Wide rolled the billowy sea of flame
Round Bunker's awful height,
But Freedom's sons unmoving stood
The stunning shock of Albion's monarch might
Amid their brothers' blood,
And echoed back the loud acclaim,
The deadly fire, the slaughtering stroke,
That through the darkly-wreathing smoke,
Like hurtling thunder broke;
And, proudly towering, o'er the trembling height
Careered the Patriot-Chief mid clouds of flame,
The predoomed victim of the earliest fight,
That gave his country an immortal name;
And with him bore the death he met
Far o'er the ensanguined field,
Till failed the shafts of Fate—but yet
The wronged, the oppressed disdained to yield
Till gallant Warren fell
On Bunker's awful side,
And few remained to tell
How Putnam dared the foe in conquering pride,
Or Prescott slowly trod through havoc's tide,
Save victors vanquished in the awful fray,
That gave a nation birth on Bunker's bloody day.

But ere the chilling hand of fate
Fast closed the dying hero's eyes,
A vision passed in pomp of solemn state—
He saw the Future rise!
Before him rolled events to come,
Scenes of suffering, wo and gloom—
The camp of Valley Forge, the fight of Brandy wine,
And Monmouth's bloody plain;
And scenes of triumph, pride and power,
The daring deeds men cannot act again

107

In Fortune's dark and desperate hour—
Dread Saratoga's strife and Yorktown's closing line.
The expiring warrior's eye
Gleamed through the filmy glaze of death
As thus he read the councils of the sky;—
But gasping came his breath
And pangs shot through his heart
To warn his spirit that he must depart.
Again the vision came
And thronging multitudes around him stood—
He heard them shout his name
While weltering in his blood;—
He saw the Templars in their bright array,
And plumed troops in gallant pomp move on,
And life's last pulses throbbed in maddening play
As the loud clarion breathed its battle tone!
Poised on his sable wings, Death paused awhile,
Until the vision passed,
To catch the soul-revealing smile,
The brightest and the last,
That played round the pale lips and in the eye
Of Warren flashed so vividly;
And nature waked her utmost powers
To stop the sands of life's departing hours,
While on the warrior burst
Accents that breathed the glories of the sky—
“To them who died for Liberty,
“The bravest and the first
“For ever sacred be this Monumental Fane!”
The dying hero looked on high
And on his spirit's eye
Shone the bright temple of the Brave and Free,
Who poured their spirits forth for Liberty,
On glory's field.—Again
Sky-rending shouts arose,
And trump and bugle blew the battle-strain
O'er Bunker's warriors' last repose

108

And with the shouts the soul of Warren fled;
And spirits wailed the dirge of Freedom's martyred dead

The sword, first drawn on Bunker Hill,
Was sheathed in blood for darkened years,
And many a blithesome hearth was still,
And many a pillow drenched in tears,
While Liberty, with sleepless eye,
Beheld the unequal war
From her dread throne, the battle-shroud on high,
And from each rolling star
Angels looked down, and pitied and implored
The outstretched arm of their avenging Lord!
The admiring world looked on
The long fierce strife, and heroes came
From climes where manhood sinks to shame,
And Slavery holds the footstool of the throne,
And millions bleed to crown a tyrant's name,
To gather glory in the cause of Heaven.
And long, Columbia! be their memory bright
In every heart—the temple thou hast given
To thy great Heros' name—enshrined in light!
Hail, Lafayette and Rochambeau!
De Kalb! Pulaski! injured Lee!
While Liberty is shrined below,
Your blended names shall live in fame's eternity.
But Victory came on wings of flame,
And Joy and Love flew o'er the Land,
And Peace lay down and wreathed her crown
On the green hillside mid a merry band;
While veteran warriors round the storied hearth
Drank rapture from the laughing eye of mirth,
Whene'er the shades of memory passed and threw
Shadows that showed the brightness of their sun;
And, as their spirits flashed o'er life's review,
Ten thousand Heroes blessed the sainted Washington!

115

THE REVOLUTIONIST.

They wandered forth by soft Fluvanna's stream
When o'er the twilight heaven smiled the rich eve
Of autumn, and the fleecy clouds of day
Hung on the pictured sky in fairy forms
Of beauty, changeful as the sunbow's tints
Upon the dark brown cliff; and o'er the verge
Of heaven the purple waves of light
Ebbed downward to the past eternity.
The balmy airs of that sweet season came
Like music from the harp of Memnon—faint,
Low and melancholy, then scarcely heard
Mid the dim groves, then quite inaudible,
Lulled into silence, like a syren charm;
When, swelling through all harmonies of sound,
Again they breathed through the thick woven boughs,
Shook the gray moss that hung in hoar festoons
From the high branches—o'er Fluvanna's stream
Spread curling crystal, tinged with evening's light,
And mid the wild flowers and the scented shrubs
Made melancholy music. 'Twas the hour
Of starlight intercourse, of whispered love,
And purified affection, which derives
Its beauty from its innocence, and throws
The light of Eden's rosy bowers o'er all
The passions of our earth-stained nature—'twas
The holy season of the untried heart,
When it dilates with those high feelings, born
In heaven and sent like seraphim below.
There is a holiness in daylight's close,
A pure enchantment in the twilight heaven,
Where beauty kisses glory, and bright forms

116

Fold their sun pinions in the ethereal air;
The bosom feels then, while it throbs for love,
And the eye gazes longingly on high,
How far from heaven its passions and its powers
Tend mid the cold realities of life.

By soft Fluvanna's stream they wandered on,
Down fair Ligonier's vale, where waters, woods,
And rich green verdure and bright golden harvests
Smiled glowingly, while over all the scene
The mighty Allegany from on high
Looked like a cloud-throned spirit o'er the world.
The last beams of the setting sun illumed
The dense pine forests and the cliffy dells,
And deep ravines, where torrents, all unseen,
Poured their wild music on the silent air,
And the fair floating clouds of evening hung
Upon the mountain's brow, as if to crown
Nature's proud monarch, while their outskirts fringed
His sides like a broad mantle wrought of Ind.
All earth seemed slumbering 'neath the smile of heaven
And the soft tendance of high spirits! peace
Waved her dove pinions in the cool night air,
As if the shout of war had never woke
The everlasting echoes of those hills.
And surely peace—the peace of kindling hearts,
Devoted to each other, smiled upon
Young Agnes and her lover; they had been
Companions from their childhood—wept and laughed
And played together from their earliest years;
They had gone hand in hand to the green fields,
And holy temple—side by side had knelt
And worshipped God more fondly that each saw
His image in the other! it was sweet
To mark their artlessness of love and hear
The converse of their hearts, while their bright eyes
Together read and their fair faces pressed

117

Unblushing; oh, if thou wouldst image out
Heaven in thy fancy, and its holy loves,
Bend o'er two infants, cradled in one couch,
Fed by one hand, in thought and word and deed
Blent from the dawn of being; then bright gleams
Of what pure spirits are spring forth and bloom!
Love had become their food of thought—the life
Of each, and it was holy, past all fear,
Or jealousy or passion; for each knew
The other faithful even unto death,
And trusted ever; ah! that such sweet love
Should lead but to the grave! that life's best hopes
Should be wild meteors, heralding despair!

Not in their wonted converse of light joy
They roamed along; not with accustomed smiles
Reached their vine arbour by Fluvanna side.
Each had been silent, save in few short words
Spoken unwittingly, as if to shun
The burden of their sorrows; till they came
Where trailing flowers, o'ergemm'd with pearly dew,
Hung blushing in perfume, like the past joys
Of loves more bright and fragrant than the scene.
Then tender words, and low wild sobs came forth,
And Agnes leaned upon De Grammont's breast,
And oft she raised her tearful eyes to heaven,
And called down blessings on the warrior; then
She clung around his neck, and wept again,
And prayed him not to go! The soldier's voice
Faltered, but his proud spirit blenched not now.
One wild, long kiss—a hurried, last farewell—
And Agnes is alone! far o'er the cliffs
Sound the proud charger's hoofs; upon a height,
O'erlooking all the vale, a horseman reins
His war-steed for a moment, and the eye
Of the fair girl has caught his high white plumes,
Waving aloft! the crash of parting boughs

118

O'er flinty bridle path is heard awhile,—
Then silence sinks on the deserted bower.

'Tis night again—a lovely summer night,
Lit by the full fair moon, whose pearly beams
Gleam o'er the engirdling forest, and illume
The cottage garden and the willow grove;
And Agnes has arisen to look forth
On the still night—but not to watch the charms
Of nature; she had heard her grandsire speak
De Grammont's plaudit for high gallant deeds,
Achieved in neighbouring battles, and her heart
Throbb'd a high welcome for her hero-love.
She watched the mountain path where he must come,
And saw his form in every shadow thrown
Over the moonlight rocks; she heard his voice
In every breeze that waved the midnight groves.
Beguiled for ever—still beguiling! sounds
Came on her ear from the far woods, and she
Shaped them into De Grammont's voice, and oft
The throbbings of her heart became to her
The distant tramp of steeds.

While thus she caught
The voice and image of her own fond heart
And wrought them into being, quick and bright
Beneath the willow grove a bayonet gleamed,
And, on the instant, pealed a warning cry—
“Dear lady, fly! the Hessians!” ere the words
Had ceased to echo, flashed the levelled gun,
And on the green turf lay a bleeding corse;
And the next moment Agnes backward fell,
Rolling in blood; all conscious sense extinct.
Strange sounds were in her spirit, sounds of wrath
And stifled agony, and roaring fires,
And low death-wailing and demoniac shouts;
But nought distinct—as in a fevered dream,

119

They floated by her, but she knew them not.
She woke at last—she listened! faint and wild
With fear, she dragged her feeble limbs along,
And reached the hall; there by the lurid light
Of the loud crackling cottage, in his blood
Her slaughtered grandsire, and by him she saw
His only child—her only parent! There
The haughty Hessian chief stood gazing on!

'Tis morn upon the Alleganean heights,
And bright its earliest rays flash o'er the arms
Of conquering troops descending; loud and high
The trumpet wakes the echoes of the cliffs,
And o'er their proud array the banner waves
Of freedom and of glory. In the front
Careers a noble horseman, and a joy,
Beyond e'en battle's rapture, from his eyes
Flashes exulting as he looks below.
“'Tis the gray mist that baffles me,” he said,
As turning from the view, a sad, sick smile
Mocked secret apprehension. Now they reach
The lowest hill, and there he turns to gaze.
“I cannot see the cottage!” how his heart
Beat in its strong convulsions, as the hopes,
Long cherished, of this hour turned to despair!
In weariness and pain, in midnight watch,
And midday battle, he had looked to this—
This hour of recompense—and fondly thought
That Agnes' smile would change all wo to bliss.
He gazed as if his soul were perishing,
But the dark woods frowned in their loneliness—
No blue smoke rose—no sound of life was heard;
All—all was still and lone. How his heart shrunk
And trembled! but De Grammont hurried on,
As if his spirit fled from its own fears.
And he has gained the cottage—or the place
Where it once stood; there black and bloody ashes,

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And cindered bones, and broken brands and prints
Of the assassins' footsteps gave dread note
Of the past horror. With a frenzied glare
Of agony unutterable he gazed,
And wild convulsions shook his heart; then wrath,
Deep, burning wrath, like lightning, from his eyes
Flashed balefully, and from his quivering lips
Thundered in awful accents—“Vengeance!” all
Lifted their voices in a blast of sound,
And uttered—“Vengeance!” Allegany heard
And through its wildest fastnesses and clefts
Pealed—“Vengeance! Vengeance!”

Long the close pursuit,
And patient, ere De Grammont's soul had rest.
Thrice in his heart's deep core his recking blade
De Grammont buried, and a fearful smile,
The last that ever lit his features, came,
Like midnight lightning o'er an open grave,
Over his face; then forth he went and fought
His country's battles with a desperate wrath,
That kept his soul from madness, and achieved
Immortal deeds, which on the hero brought
Praises and honours manifold; but he
Recked not of them; 'twas Agnes that inspired
The warrior's daring, and his heart knew not
A moment's rest, till 'neath the ruin's dust
And ashes, brave De Grammont slept in death!

121

THE CONQUEROR'S CHILD.

From Aroer's field of glory and the towers
Of Minnith smouldering mid blood and flame,
The conquering chieftain, girt with all his powers,
In pomp of terror unto Mizpeh came;
Loud blew his war-horn—spears flashed gory red,
And the earth trembled 'neath his courser's tread.

Proud Ammon had been humbled—far and wide
Dark Ruin hovered o'er the unburied dead;
The paynim foe had perished in his pride—
The oppressor slept on slaughter's crimson bed;
The sword of God in Jephthah's giant hand
Had left the record of its might o'er all the land.

Bright in the sun the burnished armour shone,
And blood-stained sabres glittered in the air,
Bearing true witness unto glory won
In stern affray—and every warrior there
Burned with that lofty spirit ever given
To them who do the sovereign hests of heaven.

The mighty chieftain gloried in that hour,
And felt how greatness grows within the heart
Of him who nourishes the germ of power;
No pride of birth can such high joy impart
As one good deed by inborn valour wrought—
Conceived unaided in the depths of thought.

There is no majesty but that of mind:
The purple robe, the sceptre and the crown

122

The rudest hands can fashion;—as the wind,
The body's pomp the guiltiest wretch may own;
But, like the sun that burns from pole to pole,
O'er all creation reigns the godlike soul.

So Jephthah proved; for born in low estate,
And driven forth by pride of place, he roved
Lone o'er the world, the sport of chance and fate,
Oppressed and wronged—unloving and unloved.
Behold him now in victory's brightest van!
His own great spirit formed that mighty man.

Let envy, hate, fraud, falsehood—all combine
To crush the spirit self-sustained—'tis vain—
No human power can blast a thing divine;
The shaft rebounds—the ambushed foe is slain,
E'en by his own envenomed weapon—wait,
O son of grief, the thunderbolt of Fate!

For it will come in wrath—though long delayed,
And pour its sea of lightnings o'er the heart
That swells in festering pride o'er hopes betrayed,
Exulting—for its doom! on thine own part
Keep virtue by thy side—thine eye above—
And envy's scorn will thy true greatness prove.

Be lord of thine own spirit, and look down
On the base scatterling herd with pity's smile;
So thou shalt keep the glory and the crown
Of goodness raised above the reach of guile,
And feel that heavenly peace which o'er the breast
Comes like sweet music from the realms of rest.

Just cause had Gilead's sons to wail the hour,
When, proud of their inheritance, they spurned
The bastard boy and mocked him in their power;
Behold him now, in glory's front, returned

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From exile—bearing in his mighty hand
The sceptre-sword that guards and rules the land!

Ye little know, proud reptiles of a day!
What 'tis ye sting in your impotent spite;
The giant's breath will blast you all for aye
Ere ye can crawl into eternal night;
Beware how ye would trample on the mind—
Vengeance and death and ruin are behind!

Onward careers great Ammon's victor—he
Who long in caves and forest wilds abode,
Weary and faint, the child of misery—
His only friend the omnipresent God!
Let earth admire the wisdom of his trust,
And choose that faithful Friend for ever just!

Oh, when the path of life is hard beset,
And thy sick heart grows faint and sighs alone,
And all that thou in the world's ways hast met
Have left thee in affliction's need and gone
To revel's halls or beauty's fairy bower—
Go, seek a faithful friend in that dark hour!

And kneel down in thy lowliness and ask
His guidance through the mazes of earth's wo
And hooded guilt; and set thee to the task
Of empire o'er thyself, and thou wilt know
How passing great and good thy God will be
In life's worst ills and last extremity.

And do it in thy youth, when the fresh spring
Of joy mid sunny thoughts runs brightly on,
And thy gay spirit soars on rainbow wing
Through the clear heaven of beauty; then alone
On thy heart's shrine kneel humbly down and make
Thy vow to God, for His and for thy sake.

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And thou wilt feel the happier, though the jeer
And scoff of the false world may goad thee sore;
Yet keep thy bosom void of care and fear—
Lose not that faith all earth could not restore!
The purest virtues neath the sky have been
The sport of jest profane and ribaldry obscene.

Then thou wilt find him true in all his ways,
As to the prophets and wise kings of yore;
His smile will brighten sorrow's darkest days,
And light with bloom death's vale and time's dark shore;
In all thy griefs thou wilt know where to go—
In all thy sickness and thy cares below.

The mighty victor, with his bright array
Of valiant warriors, in his glory goes
O'er hill and dale, like morning's earliest ray,
Now lost, now flashing through the clouds of rose,
Till Mizpeh brightens on the lengthening view—
Hanging far off on the horizon blue.

Then Jephthah's heart beat high with pride of fame,
Fame which his wife and only child would share—
Alas! how long that lovely daughter's name
Will be the watchword of his heart's despair!
How long rash vows and all unheedful words
Have broken human hearts and edged unsparing swords!

The great have fallen from their pride of place—
The good have perished in an evil hour—
The lovely lost their beauty's loveliest grace—
And love and pleasure felt the awful power
One moment wields o'er time; a word hath rent
Empires to atoms, and o'er nations sent

Long bitter strife and misery and death;
Through seas of blood, o'er hills of human bones,

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While awful voices shrieked and wailed beneath,
Armies have marched to death, and glorious thrones
Changed masters on the instant—how or why?
Go, ask the idle wind that murmurs by!

Men talk of glory and immortal fame,
And pant for honours and the world's applause,
As if the glitter of a spangled name
Would win reversion of great nature's laws;
Ah! who can trust what changes with a breath?
Rests glory's crown upon the brow of death?

Loud rose the shouts of triumph and of pride
O'er Mizpeh's plain and Gilead's glittering heights,
And loud again the conqueror's shouts replied
As o'er the hills, like storm clouds' fitful lights,
The victor-band rushed on in long array,
Loaded with spoils from Ammon's fearful fray.

Unbounded joy filled every bosom then,
And mirth's loud uproar through the city poured,
And Jephthah was the happiest of men—
The hero king, whose sceptre was his sword;
And his heart glowed in unrestrained delight
To be thus welcomed from the glorious fight.

But mid his jubilee of fame and pride—
Amid his honours and his pomp of state,
A soft, sweet voice rose by the hero's side—
A voice more awful than the shriek of Fate;
“Bless thee, my father! we've looked long for thee—
“O, welcome now!—thou dost not look on me!

“Wilt thou not kiss me, father? O! 'tis long
“Since thou didst fold me in thy dear embrace!
“Come, father, come! I'll sing thee a sweet song,
“And thou shalt hear and change that gloomy face;

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“Why, thou art very strange and cold to me
“Amid the glory of thy victory!”

“Bought with thy blood, my dear, lost, only child!”
No more the hero's quivering lips could speak;
His crimson brow grew pale—his fixed eye wild—
Tears drowned his voice—his mighty frame grew weak;
The warrior-chief of Ammon's awful day
Sunk in his daughter's arms and swooned away!

See Judges xi.—30–40.

SONNET IV.

TO F. G. H. ESQ.

Welcome as Shrovetide to the serf of old,
Or blith Thanksgiving to New England youth,
Or legends of hoar eld, oft sworn as truth,
Of peerless dames and knights and barons bold,
Is the glad music of thy high soul'd strain,
Too seldom heard, but ever heard with joy,
Like the Oread's song beneath the rosy sky,
On the lone outskirts of the bosky plain.
Or joy or grief, with thee it fills the heart,
And in it rests as its peculiar home;
And to or ancient Time or years to come
Thy Genius ever doth romance impart.
I can but wish me, “one more rich in hope,”
To catch the spirit of thy magic scope.

127

THE SURPRISAL.

From Gibeah's tower, at the dawn of day,
The warder looked afar,
And he saw through the mist strange disarray
In the foemen's ranks of war;
The deep earth shook and the twilight air
With a thousand voices rung,
And a death-wail rose of wild despair
Where the foe to battle sprung.

In the mountain-pass tall shadowy forms
Reeled madly to and fro,
Like the rage and shock of Alpine storms
From the Jungfrau's snowy brow;
And the shivering spear and clashing sword
Showed where the giants fell,
Before the wrath of Israel's lord,
Down the dark and gory dell.

From his fitful sleep, with a start of fear,
'Neath the great pomegranate tree,
King Saul leapt up, and he grasped his spear,
And listened breathlessly.—
“Whence come those war-cries?” Louder now
Peal mingled shouts and screams,
And the fire of death o'er Seneh's brow
In lurid grandeur gleams.

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“This morning broke on a mailed host,
In vast and haught array;
Like Egypt's throng on the Red Sea's coast,
They have melted all away!
With the speed of Fate count o'er my band”—
“My liege, your will is done.”
“The foeman flies from his proud command”—
“Before your gallant son.”

“Lo! Judah's prince on the beetling rock
O'erthrows his giant foe,
And he hurls him down, with a stunning shock,
O'er the gory ridge below!
God shield him now!” and the army stood
In fixed and wild amaze,
While the warrior prince through waves of blood
Went on in glory's blaze.

“The ark of God!” at that awful cry
The warriors knelt and prayed—
Then their onset shouts rolled o'er the sky,
And they rushed on undismayed;
In the arrowy van, with a wrathful brow,
King Saul, like a storm, passed by,
And his iron heel tramped o'er his foe,
Unheard his dying cry.

A thousand swords and a thousand spears
Are flashing far and wide,
And the heathen host aye disappears
Before high Judah's pride;
Through the livelong day the foemen fled,
And the victor prince pursued,
Till in Beth-aven, among the dead,
At eve the conqueror stood.

See I. Samuel, xiv.

129

THE BURIAL OF THE PATRIARCH.

I.

“Rest, reverend patriarch! in thy last repose,
“And soft and holy be thy blessed sleep!
“O'er thy loved form the vaulted tomb we close—
“O'er thee we bend and feel it bliss to weep.
“Rest, Father, rest beyond the woes of earth!
“Seraphic spirits hail thy heavenly birth!

II.

“Great honoured chief! from Egypt's throne we come
“To render reverence to thy mighty son,
“And bear with homage to the sacred tomb
“His sire who stands by Pharaoh's godlike throne;
“Rest in the fulness of thy years and fame,
“O ancient chief! and honoured be thy name!

III.

“Sleep mid the fragrance of thy virtuous deeds,
“And may thy spirit breathe thy heart's perfume!
“While thus I kiss thy brow, my bosom bleeds—
“O that I could sleep with thee in the tomb!
“Rest, Father, rest among thine honoured race!
“Thy lost son bears thee to thy dwelling-place!”

IV.

Such were the sounds from Atad's tented plain,
That warned the nations Israel was no more;
Low murmuring Jordan listened to the strain,
And sighed the notes along his palmy shore,

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And Hebron heard and echoed down her vale
The long, the deep, the lingering funeral wail.

V.

The voice of death went forth o'er Edom's land,
And Seir bewailed in solemn unison;
E'en misbelievers round Machpelah stand,
And mourn the patriarch and the prophet gone,
While on her pillar Israel's earliest love
Stands, welcoming his spirit's flight above.

VI.

Lo! where they move in lengthening march and slow,
The choicest pride and pomp of Egypt's throne;
Their golden chariots in the bright sun glow—
Their chargers move in mournful grandeur on;
Rich purple robes, with grief's insignia bound,
Throw rainbow colours on the fresh air round.

VII.

The long dependent line, that comes and comes,
Still lengthening, as it moves, on either side;
The princely state, that all the scene illumes—
The eloquent still grief—the solemn pride—
All—all proclaim a great good man hath gone,
And left no peer to do as he hath done.

VIII.

Mark him, the foremost of the long array,
The mightiest prince that roams the banks of Nile!
His heart is sad—his soul is dark to-day—
His fixed and thoughtful eye betrays no smile;
Amid his pomp and majesty he seems
Lost in the mazes of dark memory's dreams.

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IX.

And well he may be—'tis the dreaming boy,
The son of Israel's age—the lovely one!
And here he breathes again his native sky,
The lord of Egypt's lords;—and one alone
In the wide world bears loftier rule than he,
The shepherd-boy—the slave of treachery!

X.

Again he sees the vales of Shechem spread
Their bright rich verdure, and the lovely plains
Of Dothan, dotted with white flocks—and red
The vintage opes around its swollen veins,
As when in youth he took his lonely way
To seek his brethren—and now where are they?

XI.

Around him rise familiar scenes, and well
Remembrance keeps his ancient love for them;
E'en to the erring wanderer he could tell
Each spot from Hebron's vale to Bethlehem;
There his mad brethren mocked his misery—
Here bound and sold him—and now where is he?

XII.

Again he hears the cruel taunt and jest—
Again he sees the turban'd Arab band;
His spirit shudders e'en to dream the rest—
The toilsome journey and the foreign land;
Dark o'er his thought the gathering shadows come,
Like wild, gaunt spectres from the haunted tomb.

XIII.

But in a pure and lofty mind the fell
Revenge of grovelling spirits may not rest;
As well might passions, born and nursed in hell,
Riot and rage in Gabriel's holy breast;

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Lo! as the past rolls o'er his thoughtful mind,
He turns and smiles on Israel's sons behind.

XIV.

The pardoning spirit conquers every wrong,
And from worst ill draws everlasting good;
In wo he lives and dies in shame, who long
O'er dark revenge and penal fate doth brood;
The almighty arm, the Almighty One hath said,
Alone must vengeance on the oppressor shed.

XV.

As onward rolled the solemn burial train
Through Hebron's vale, his childhood's home, how sweet
Seemed to the prince those bowers of love again
Where erst a father's smile he used to meet,
Whene'er he came at evening from the field,
And sadly deeds of dark import revealed!

XVI.

How fondly through decay he traced the scene
Of many a happy hour in Youth's fresh spring,
When, his heart gay and as the sky serene,
He went and came like song-birds on the wing,
Blest as a beam of light! and, oh, how fair
The far blue hills hung on the misty air!

XVII.

Then, as he looked and sighed o'er happier hours,
His musings caught a darker hue, and turned
To Israel wandering through his silent bowers
In lonely grief—yes, here he wept and mourned
For his lost son—for Rachel's lovely child,
Year after year till agony grew wild.

133

XVIII.

None now were left the good old man could love
As virtuous fathers love their offspring—save
His youngest born, and he could never move
The heart that slumbered in his brother's grave,
Whene'er it ceased to bleed—except when heaven
Revealed a hope by earth no longer given.

XIX.

He put on sackcloth and denied the poor
And worn-out words of comfort all could give;
They could not to his heart his son restore,
And he in mourning for the lost would live,
Till, earth to earth and dust to dust, he laid
His hoary head to rest in Earth's cold shade.

XX.

How could the traitors to a father's heart
Meet the wild eye whose light dissolved in tears?
Or how their tale of tissued lies impart
To a soul darkened by the storms of years?
All but a father, who in love must dote,
Might have seen treachery on the bloody coat.

XXI.

But he, alas! too true to doubt the oath
Of them whose minds beneath his eye had grown,
Believed as virtue smooth vice ever doth,
And mourned in silence, friendless and alone;
While the twin-robbers led their brethren forth
To deeds that stained the young, the blooming earth.

XXII.

The prince wept bitterly as thus he drew
Affection's dusky picture of his wo,
And memory sketched in sorrow's sable hue
The blight of hope his sire was doomed to know,

134

While he, the Hebrew boy, through trials bore
True faith and worship to a heathen shore.

XXIII.

The mighty lord of Egypt's garden-land
Could bear no more; upon the solemn bier
He fixed his eye and leaned upon his hand,
Like one whose soul seeks heaven's high holy sphere,
Till paused his chariot at the house of death,
Machpelah's cave—the burial-field of Heth.

XXIV.

There the great father of the faithful slept,
His youth's first love reposing by his side;
And there the sire of countless nations kept
Eternal watches o'er his beauteous bride;
There Laban's daughter slumbered with the dead,
And there doth Israel lay his reverend head.

XXV.

With solemn rite and ceremonial due
They lay the patriarch on his last cold bed,
And o'er him myrrh and balm and spicery strew,
And flowers, bright as his deeds, sweet perfume shed;
There let him sleep for ever undecayed!
The prince kneeled down and to Jehovah prayed.

XXVI.

He rose and gazed on Israel's pallid brow,
And sigh'd and turn'd—and turned and looked once more.
Then from the cave, with mournful step and slow,
Went forth and sealed the sacred temple's door.—
—Far on their way to Egypt's land the bright
And solemn train shed lengthening lines of light.

See Genesis, ch. L.

145

NECROPOLIS.

Amid the noise and deep pursuit of gain,
And strife of interest, and show, and glare
Of cities, death becomes a spectacle
Of sombre pomp, to gaze on, not to feel;
A thing of stern necessity which all
Idly believe they must encounter, when
Time summons; but they think not that a chance,
A step, a word, a look, may seal their fate,
And bear them on to ruin; the mere form,
The mantle of the grave, so oft beheld,
Becomes familiar—but the thought, that burns
Into the bosom, purifying all
The taints and stains of years, and leading on
The spirit to deep penitence for sin,
Comes not within the heart.—Whene'er the soul
Contemplative, would with the sainted dead
Hold still communion, living forms obtrude,
And blend the grossness and the poor parade
Of earth, with the pure essence of our thought;
And sounds, unmeet for meditation's ear,
Break on the holy solitude, and tear
The spirit from its loftiness, and bring
All the vain forms and unwise usages
Of the cold world, between us and the skies.

But would'st thou feel the deep solemnity
And awe, unmixed, if thou revere heaven's law,
With dread fanatic, go thou to the grave
Of some poor villager, and contemplate
His silent burial! There thou wilt see

146

The coffin and the bier—the sable pall,
And dark-robed mourners, and thine ear will catch
The dreary stroke of mattock and of spade,
And thou wilt hear that hollow, deathlike sound
Of falling clay, most awful melancholy,
As in the city's mighty burying place.
But less of forms—less of the world around—
More of the spirit of the scene, the flight
Unknown of that most subtle thing called life,
The untravelled realm beyond thee and the Judge
Immaculate, who waits thy coming, then,
In solitude and silence, thou wilt muse,
And bow thy spirit 'neath the throne of heaven.
Tears shed when none can mark them must be pure,
Gushing from the full heart, and when the corse
Is laid within the narrow house, that holds
All man's ambition, love, and wealth, and hope,
And solitude doth shadow all the scene,
Lone on the hillside, thou, in passing near,
To contemplate the last abode of earth,
See'st some pale mourner seated by the grave,
Where the uprooted sods, new placed in earth,
Wither to yellowness in the hot sun,
Thou mayst be sure the grief thou seest is true;
And it will do thy bosom good to mark
That silent mourner; more than loud lament,
And prayers profane, and showers of ready tears,
Such deep yet humble wo avails with Him
Who gave the dead son living to the arms
Of her who had given worlds to see Him live,
Yet asked not back the dead.—The saddest scenes
Of our mortality to searching minds,
Become a pleasure when the human heart
Pours its untainted feelings forth, and gives
Like calm, deep waters, every image back
In nature unimpaired. There is in truth,
Howe'er uncultured, such an eloquence

147

Of joy or sorrow, as imparts its force
E'en to the hardest heart; and wouldst thou hope
To be remembered fondly after death,
Not with continual tears and sighs, but love
Growing with thought, until it quite absorbs
The heart, and gives its utterance by deeds,
Such as the mourner thinks thou would'st approve
Living—go, and resign thy breath to Him
Who gave it, 'mid calm nature's soft repose!
Then thou wilt sink into thy final rest,
The dreamless sleep whose morning has no end,
With many things to comfort thy departure;
Feeling, when o'er thee comes the last cold thrill
Of shuddering nature, and thy voice grows weak
And hollow, and the dew upon thy brow
Wets the warm lips of love, and many grasp
Convulsively thy bloodless hand, that they
Will kindly think of thee when thou art gone,
And never speak thy name except in praise.

148

CONSOLATION.

Why weep'st thou, son of earth?
Why writhes thy pallid brow in inward strife,
Or heaves thy bosom with convulsive sighs?
O, art thou weary of thy lonely life,
And panting for a being in the skies?
Speak—let thy grief come forth!

Hath some beloved friend
Left thee in loneliness to sigh and weep,
And evermore to feel thyself alone—
Thy lovely bride who on thy heart did sleep,
Or she who gave thee birth—her only one,
Beloved without end?

Perchance, thou mourn'st the loss
Of some long faithful friend—now proved untrue,
Baring thy bosom naked to the gaze
And mockery of the world—and through and through
Thy heart is pierced—and thou in evil days
Alone must bear the cross;

And find no comforter in all
Thy sorrows and thy sicknesses, while hate
And persecution follow thee and goad
And wound thee sore—and thou canst not relate
Thy griefs to any friend, but bear'st thy load
As 'twere thy funeral pall.

The sweet friends of thy youth,
Thy kindred loves, the truest and the best,
All may have left thee, or by death or worse,

149

Keen cutting treachery; and in thy breast
Their blessing's changed into a withering curse—
And memory's the grave of truth.

Yet weep not o'er thy doom
As those who hide their treasure in the dust;
Though thou art poor and scarce canst lay thy head
In peace to rest, yet fail not in thy trust
Of Him who watches o'er thy humble bed—
There's light amid the gloom.

The hand, that erst sent food
Ev'n in the beaks of ravens to the seer,
And manna o'er the desert wilderness,
Will serve thy wants ev'n in thy greatest fear,
And in the agony of thy distress
Reveal unlooked for good.

Then weep no more nor sigh!
The Supreme Good wields not His power in vain;
Forgive thy foes, and love them for His sake,
Who sees and will relieve thy wildest pain;
Trust Him and weep not—and thy heart will take
His image from the sky!

150

THE MIAMI MOUNDS.

“Rogas ubi post obitum jaceas? ubi non nata jaceant.”

Wrecks of lost nations! monuments of deeds,
Immortal once—but all forgotten now!
Mysterious ruins of a race unknown,
As proud of ancestry, and pomp, and fame—
Prouder, perchance, than those who ponder here
O'er what their wild conjectures cannot solve!
Who raised these mouldering battlements? who trod
In jealous glory on these ruined walls?—
Who reigned, who triumphed, or who perished here?
What scenes of revelry, and mirth, and crime,
And love, and hate, and bliss and bale have passed?
Ah! none can tell. Oblivion's dusky folds
Shroud all the Past, and none may lift the pall;
Or, if they could, what would await the eye
Of antique research, but the fleshless forms
Of olden time; dark giant bones that tell—
Nothing! dim mysteries of the earth and air!
Since human passions met in conflict here,
The woods of centuries have grown—and oft
And long, the timid deer hath bounded o'er
The sepulchre of warriors, and wild birds
Sung notes of love o'er slaughter's crimson field.
And the gaunt wolf and catamount and fox
Have made their couches in the embattled towers
Of dauntless chiefs, nor dreamt of danger there!
Princes and kings—the wise, the great, the good,
May slumber here, and blend their honoured dust
With Freedom's soil; and navies may have rode
On the same wave that bears our starry sails.

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Here heroes may have bled to win a name
On Glory's sunbright scroll, and prophets watched
Their holy shrines, whose fires no longer glow.
Sweet rose and woodbine bowers around these walls
May once have bloomed less fragrant and less fair
Than the fond hearts that blended, and the lips
That pressed in passion's rapture; and these airs,
That float unconscious by, may have been born
Of gales, that bore Love's soft enchanting words.
But all is silent now as Death's own halls!
Empires have perished where these forests tower
In desolate array—and nations sunk,
With all their glories, to the darkling gulf
Of cold forgetfulness!—But what avails
The uncertain quest, the dark and wildering search
For those whose spirits have but passed away
To the dark land of shadows and of dreams,
An hour before our own? Why in amaze
Behold these shattered walls, when other times
Shall hang in wondering marvel o'er our own
Proud cities, and inquire—“Who builded these?”

161

THE TRAITOR SON.

'Twas a mournful sound, that trumpet's strain,
When its wild notes rung o'er Hebron's plain,
For it told of wo and an ingrate son,
Of a desolate sire and a child undone.
'Twas a mournful sight by Kedron's flood,
That exile-monarch and father good,
Hurrying away from his palace home
To shun captivity's deathful doom,
With a stranger chief—the brave Ittai,
To guard him amid disloyal fray,
While his trembling tread was weak and slow,
And his aged head like the mountain snow,
And his sighs swelled deep, and his tears fell fast,
When the rebel clarion's echoed blast
O'er Salem's hills on the wings of wind
Came rapid and loud the king behind,
As, girt by his friends, in sore distress
He fled the way of the wilderness.

The traitor-chief in the flush and pride,
(Giloh's oracle sage by his side,)
Of usurped pomp and stolen power,
(A curse hung o'er that pageant hour,)
With his regal train who shout as they come
The state of the death doomed Absalom,
Careers to the monarch's empty halls,
And wakens the voices of frowning walls
With the cries of mirth and the wassail roar
Of revel unheard in that dome before,

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And mounts the throne of his monarch sire,
And poisons his bowers with fierce desire,
While the lonely cry of the sentinel
Like a malison on his slumbers fell.

Look ye to Olivet! Lord of Earth!
For apostate nature's monster birth,
A traitor prince and a murderous child,
A monarch roams the desert wild!
Those weary steps and those trickling tears,
And those hoary locks, the voice of years,
And those looks of wo which he downward threw,
(Perchance the son of his love was in view,)
Oh! Israel, weep! what can they declare
But a father's love and a king's despair?
The sun went down o'er Carmel's brow,
And nightshades dimm'd the world below,
And David fled fast his son before—
(Was the mother there, that the traitor bore?)
Bahurim around in dimness lay,
When the lord of Gera crossed his way,
And bann'd the king who had been a shield
To his home, his weal, his hill and field,
And called him lord of Belial race
Who had e'er blessed him with kingly grace,
Till Ithra's son in his wrath wax'd high,
And shook his lance with a fiery eye,
And loudly craved his monarch's nod
To strike the curser to the sod,
When David turned with a look like heaven,
And said to Shemei—“Thou art forgiven!
“If the son of my love doth seek to kill,
“Can Abishai think his curse is ill?
“Let the evil rage on—their words are vain,
“The curses they wish us they surely will gain.”

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The outcast king to Mahanaim,
Weary and sad by morning came,
And found loyal hearts 'mid traitor war
In the chiefs of Rogelim and Lodebar,
Who cherished his frame and pillowed his head,
And soothed his heart though it ever bled,
For the exile prince was in sore distress
As he fled the way of the wilderness.

The armies met in Ephraim's wood,
And the battle raged like an ocean flood;
For Ithra's sons and the proud Ittai
Led Israel's hosts in the gory fray,
And the warrior-chief of Salem's bands
Brooked not the sire's but the king's commands;
And the Traitor-Son that morning died
In his beauty, glory, hope and pride.

“Who comes from afar?” the monarch said,
As the watchman looked—saw—heard the tread
Of messenger come like hurricane.
“Is the young man safe?”—“I saw the plain
“A sea of tumult, but I know no more!”
“My son hath fled and I adore!”
The watchman cried to the warder—“There
“Cometh Cushi like a thing of air!”
“He's a good man—and his tidings good!”
“Peace to my lord!” he said and stood.
“Is the young man safe? how fares the fray?”
“May thy foes be as thy son to-day,
My lord the king!” That word was death,
And the father sunk the king beneath.
He went to his chamber and wept alone,
And he cried as he wept—“my son! my son!”

Vide the story of David and Absalom.

164

MORALITIES.

The youthful heart is heir to wealth
That years can never tell;
The youthful soul does deeds by stealth
That might in triumph swell—
The thought that thrills a generous mind
Oft dies upon the wing,
And bosoms feeling, fond and kind,
Writhe oft 'neath torture's sting.

Gay hope, the night-fire of the brain,
Allures the heart to wo
With beams, that pleasure lends to pain
This faithless world to show;
And we are sped on life's lone way
By gilded goading spears,
While flitting fancy's meteor ray
Emblazons misery's tears.

The deepest woes we feel below,
The wildest throes of pain,
From our own fond illusions flow,
When sanguine passions reign;
For guileful flattery sooths the heart
That malice turns to sting,
And love, full oft, o'er ruin's dart
Its vermil veil will fling.

Anticipations ever glow
In self-delusion's light,
While sorrow's tear and misery's throe
Sublime the heart's delight;

165

As silver clouds in fleecy wreaths
A summer sunbeam shade,
When breezy music softly breathes
Along the waving glade.

Darkness, disease and doubt will blight
The fairest dreams of bliss,
And rapture plunge, in sorrow's night,
To agony's abyss;
The fairy frost-work of an hour
Dissolves in misery's flame,
And false and vain are pomp and power,
And fleeting as a name.

166

MIDNIGHT.

I.

To sit beneath the moon's translucent beam,
And drink her light with melancholy eye;
To hear the music of the bubbling stream,
And read the starlight volumes of the sky,
To muse on blighted loves and hopes gone by,
E'en as the moonlight shadows flit away,
And wander o'er the realm of memory,
And count the pangs of each succeeding day—
Alas! the tale is sad—more sad the picturing lay:

II.

But 'tis the hour of retrospective thought,
When all the past before us lives again;
And purest pleasures with contentment bought
Return upon us like the shapes of pain;
And Hope's gay song and Fancy's syren strain
Come with a requiem echo on the soul;
And dead desires, a pale and shadowy train,
The pang-writ record of their fate unroll,
And agonize the heart that owned their wild control.

III.

The pale, pure moon looks innocently down
Upon this warring world, with such a smile
Of soft derision as her eye may own;
And, as she passes many a starry isle,
Pauses to weep at deeds that do defile
The lovely earth, and change its young delights
To agonies—and angels sigh the while
That man should stain with guilt those glorious nights,
When heaven's gem-studded arch refracts seraphic lights.

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IV.

The silver stream of Dian's pearly rays
Flows o'er this world of passion, crime and war,
As erst it did in young creation's days,
Ere dark ambition could the beauty mar
Of thought and feeling, and each lovely star
Gilds smiling scenes of love and loveliness
With the same diamond beams as when from far
It looked on Eden, and the soft caress
Of innocence beheld its holy joys express.

V.

The world is beautiful; the azure arch
Is paved with gems for angels' gliding tread,
And, when their starry plumes wave back in march,
Delicious music, through the concave spread,
Floats round the sleeper's softly pillowed head,
And dreams of glory o'er his spirit throws;
And lovely nature, by devotion led,
Like Iran's nightingale beside the rose,
On young, untainted spirits, holiness bestows.

VI.

Holy, delightful and unchanging, Heaven,
On sin and sorrow and vicissitude
Gazes with grief and pity that 'tis given
Man the strange will of his own studied good
To be the foe, and crush in sullen mood
The rosy hopes that cost him pain to rear;
And white-hair'd time, while wrath doth deeply brood
O'er wrong and its atonement, smiles to hear
The settled schemes of hate, whose fruit cannot appear.

VII.

But 'tis the nature of aspiring man
To mourn, to sigh, and word in maddened speech

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His wrongs and sorrows; what his pride began
His hate will finish; what his passions teach
His deeds will reverence; till beyond the reach
Of rivalry his spirit soars and bears
Its honours o'er his fellows; each from each
Of mortal kind his loves, desires and fears
Borrows—and 'tis not strange the debt is paid in tears.

VIII.

The changeful brilliance of the chequered beams
Falling on stream, grove, rock, and mountain dell,
Are like the spirit's momentary gleams
Of holy loveliness when upward swell
Feelings too raptured their delight to tell,
And loves too sweet their sweetness to unfold,
That dwell a moment—when the night of hell
Comes o'er their beauty, and the shuddering cold
Of anguish unrepressed chills hopes too soon unrolled.

IX.

The moonlight radiance of the sapphire sky
Deepens cold shadows o'er the dark-robed earth,
As the bright gleamings of hope's diamond eye
Throw shades o'er all the phantoms of her birth;
The undying light of undissembling worth
Derives its beauty from the darkness drear
It round illumines; and man wanders forth
Alone, the hermit of a desert sphere,
To read the flitting lights and shadows that appear.

X.

What is philosophy but abstract thought
On never-ending sin and wo and crime,
Meting by method all the sorrows bought
By years of anguish, and appointing time
Its portions of despair? Howe'er sublime
Its contemplations are, disease and want

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And grief in generation each and clime
The nutriment on which it banquets grant,
And lift the shuddering soul they wont with fear to daunt.

XI.

The world is full of wretchedness, and while
The thoughtful man doth ever weep and sigh
O'er sin's foul leprosy, a sneering smile
Curls the proud lip and flashes from the eye
Of him who cries that none can ever die
Save unto pleasure; that the spirit rose
From dust and thither will return; on high
Clouds only roll—we make and nurse our woes—
And death brings dreamless sleep, and deep, unwaked repose.

XII.

The mellow moonlight, darting through the dense
Cloud of green foliage into yon ravine
Of darkness, doth not to the view dispense
More sombre hues, than mortal mind, I ween,
Throws o'er of moral life each changeful scene;
Nor doth the struggling, fluctuating light
More darkly bright the dripping cliffs between
Appear, than dying hopes, once high and bright,
Glimmering amid the shades of sorrow's mornless night

XIII.

Alone beneath the starry eyes of Heaven
I sit upon the cold rock's moonlight brow,
For while soft slumbers to the world are given,
Unpitying grief will none to me allow.
The rushing rill's unceasing lapse and flow,
The twinkling forest where night zephyr sings,
Beseem the voiceless solitude of wo;
And thought that maddens, and despair that wrings,
Can find relief alone beside the woodland springs.

173

THE BANQUET HALL.

Midnight waned in the ebon sky,
And the deep blue vault of Heaven was still,
Save the warning voice of the angel's cry,
As he watched the fiends on Zion hill.
His warder notes in the depths of night
Are heard alone by the minstrel's ear,
(For each high star in its magic light
Hath a voice that fancy's soul may hear;)
And the sleeping earth in silence lay,
Dreaming of love or hate or wo,
While the lulling lapse of a streamlet's play
Rose faint and far in the moonlight glow.
And I wandered on in reverie lost,
'Till the brutal roar of a revel rout
The circling current of fancy crossed,
And made the waked sense gaze about;
When the flaring lights of the banquet hall,
And the noisy rush of revelry,
And the mummery mask, and sparkling ball,
Burst on my ear, and heart, and eye.
And I stood and mused of the forms that there
Displayed their charms to the losel's view,
The visored smile that masked despair,
And the scornful laugh that ne'er was true;
The silent pain of a dazzling breast,
The feverish throb of a jewelled brow,
The painful wish to seem most blest
When sighing with excess of wo;—
And the sight did chill my aching eye
As I mused on that gaudy misery.

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The glare waxed dim as I gazed alone,
And the fairy forms I saw were gone;
And the rushing sound of mirth and glee
Retired like the waves of a stormy sea.
What pillows of fear will the revellers press?
What dreams be theirs of happiness?
When those gorgeous robes are laid aside,
Where will their mirth be, pomp and pride?
The beds that ye press, I envy not,
Nor your heartless joys and painful lot.

I entered at morn—and it came full soon,
To the banquet hall and the proud saloon;
And many a vestige of revelry there
Told of past pleasure—but where, oh where,
Were the forms and the shadows, so bright and gay?
Hide it from earth, both love and lay!
The vacant chair, and the goblet broken,
And scattered viands, were many a token
Of what had been—and my lonely eye
Wandered o'er all as a saddened sigh
Stole from my heart, at the mournful view
Of the wreck of those joys that man thinks true.

175

THE CHICAPEE.

On a moss-cushioned cliff o'er the stream of Montzeil,
Far away from the haunts of my loveliest days,
When the soft shades of evening in mellowness steal
O'er lawn, grove and lea amid zephyr's sweet lays,
And dewy-lipp'd naiads are scudding the stream,
While music is waving in their long sunny hair,
And sylph forms in moonlight, as they glide away, seem
Like the shapes that we lov'd in the lost days that were;
O then, as the wave of Montzeil trickles on,
I muse of the hours that smil'd brightly o'er me,
And I seem once again, with the youth that have gone,
On the musical shores of the lone Chicapee.

Since the days of our childhood, when the heart was the heaven
Of affection and feeling by falsehood unstung,
And the soul soar'd in glory like a soft summer even,
As each young thought of beauty to paradise sprung,
I have wandered afar from the home of my love,
And read the false world with the eye of despair,
While the green earth below, and the blue sky above
The pall of my sorrows seem'd ever to wear;
And my pathway has teemed with the vipers of hate,
The insects of folly, and reptiles of scorn,
And the fierce voice of wo, and the wild shrieks of fate
Have echoed around me all lonely and lorn.

On the proud-rolling Hudson full oft I have sailed
With a father who sleeps in the dust by its shore,
By Savannah's dark stream I have wander'd and wailed
For the heart-enshrin'd friend who can guide me no more;

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Pawtuxet has lost all its charms and its hues,
For the youth, that once throng'd its wild woods with me,
Are scattered afar in their feelings and views,
Like the leaves of our bowering and revelling tree;
Pale-blue Housaton chimes the low dirge of love,
For Ellen no more tunes its music for me,
But through the yet blooming and musical grove
Still lovingly soft flows the lone Chicapee.

On the green-sloping banks of that beautiful stream,
Thou slumber'st, my sister, in the sleep of the dead,
While zephyrs sigh o'er thee, and bright planets beam,
And roses and violets pefume thy dark bed!
The birds of sweet voices are singing around,
And the willow I planted has grown far above
Thy grave, and the spot has become like the ground
That embraces no form of unspeakable love.
Yet I live in this world of deep sorrow alone,
And I hear those strange voices that tell me of thee,
While, mingling with crowds of bright beings, I moan
For a place by thy side on the lone Chicapee.

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DEATH.

Pale King of Terrors! awful in thy dark
Mysterious tyranny o'er human hearts!
Thou queller of the spirit, that dost crush
The proud aspiring and the hope sublime
Of the strong mind! O, thou hast often thrown
The shadows of thy awful power o'er me,
And passed before my swimming eye, that lost
Distinguishing perception in wild fear,
Like an outblazing comet hurled along
Illimitable expansion, mid the gloom
Shedding a lurid grandeur but to show
The ruin of its pathway! By the light
Of thy sepulchral eye, I have beheld
The boiling chaos of unbounded thought,
Where fruitless hopes and wishes toss till lost
In fears that herald madness; and the springs
Of the vast universe have been revealed,
And all the hidden glories of the world—
But what availed the knowledge?—'Twas in vain
My spirit soared on its ethereal way;
However wide the range or high the flight,
Or bright the beauty of my kindling soul,
Still came the thought that could not be dispell'd
One little hour of intellectual pride
And conscious greatness, and the spirit leaves
Its image in the dust. O I have hoped
That it might not be so—and I have prayed,
But doubted still, and doubt brought forth despair
And many woes;—through every shape of strife
And all degrees I've rang'd and mark'd them well,
In highest admiration of the One,

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Whose wisdom wrought and fashion'd to a form
The beautiful aspect of this lower world;
And I have bowed in humble faith and prayed
In utter agony to know the fate
Hereafter—but in vain! no voice was heard
Mid the unbreathing awe of yon dark heaven!

Let the storm come! thou art not left
Without a buckler and a shield;
Though weary, worn, of hope bereft,
Despair may tempt thee oft to yield!
Let the storm come! Heaven's arm will bear
Thy heart up through the billowy deep,
When rushing winds, through troubled air,
O'er the dark waves in terror sweep.

Rest on the Power, whose sleepless eye
Pierces through every maze of wrong,
And He will hear thy loneliest cry,
And save thee though He linger long.
Let the storm come! there's light afar
To guide the wandering spirit on;
And seraphs watch, from every star,
O'er him who roams earth's waste alone.

Wayworn, misguided and beguiled,
Trampled and torn by felon foes,
The pilgrim of a boundless wild,
The sepulchre of countless woes—
Reviled and hunted—shunn'd and scorn'd—
Doubt not that Time and Truth will come
To blast and crush false hearts suborn'd,
And lead thee yet to Glory's home.

179

THE BACKWOODSMAN.

I.

Morn broke upon his silent wake,
Amid the forest's vaulted shade,
And the deep wave of Spirit Lake
Gleam'd like a glory though the glade,
Where stood the hunter's cheerless hut,
His wildwood home when peril pressed,
Where now he lay, with eyelids shut,
In his last, deep, undreaming rest.

II.

Oh! awfully the hand of death
Lies on the hollow sunken eye!
The wan, cold lips, that have no breath!
The brow that tells what 'tis to die!
Mid the deep pillared wood, that sent
Ten thousand mighty voices up,
The worn and weary hunter bent,
And drain'd the dregs of death's dark cup.

III.

The heart of those vast solitudes
Beat deeply while his spirit passed;
His dirge was borne through pathless woods,
On the broad wings of autumn's blast;
And while—a thousand leagues from men,
The trapper sat beside the dead,
He sigh'd that none was left him then
To lay earth's dust upon his head.

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IV.

But he went forth upon the glade,
And digg'd his friend a narrow home,
And then, with high heart undismayed,
Return'd into the cabin's gloom,
And lifted up, and carried forth
The friend of many a lingering year,
And laid him in his mother earth
With a sick heart that shed no tear.

V.

He filled the grave—the turf he piled
On the cold bosom of the dead,
And then looked up;—the bright sun smiled,
And morn's light o'er the blue wave spread.
But the blest beam of human eyes,
The welcome voice, though harsh and rude,
No more beneath those lonely skies
Can cheer the trapper's solitude.

VI.

Sleep, lone man, where the giant trees,
Like a broad swelling ocean, sweep!
Where, like the sounds of stormy seas,
The forests bend and murmur, sleep!
Cities may tower where thou art laid,
Pilgrim! that ledst a nation on!
And pow'r guide empire through the shade
That on thee falls, thou forest-son.

181

WRITTEN IN AN ALBUM.

Ere thy allotted days are done, thy heart
Will shrink from many a trial, and thy life
Will seem to thee a burden; yet arraign
Not the good providence of heaven, but set
A guard upon thy spirit, that its thoughts
May wait on wisdom and be unto thee
A solace and reward through all the ills
Of Time, and at thy dying hour a bliss.
The subtle Tempter will not pass thee by,
But breathe into thy heart (frail as the flower
That perisheth beneath the mildew's blight)
Unhallowed purposes; and thou wilt grow
Familiar, as all do, with man's dark deeds,
And learn to think of them without a thrill,
A shudder and a quailing of the heart.
Look not around thee, on the ways of men,
Habitual deceit and black atrocity,
To seek the Truth Revealed, for all earth's sons,
Unchecked by human law, have ever been
Less merciful than fiends that have no hope.
But roam abroad the forest and the vale,
The sunny mountain side, the thymy brook,
And hold communion with the God within thee,
And bend before His altar, and hide not
A thought the whole wide world would dare to blame.
Take careful note, not of the overt act,
But of the concealed occasion of the fall
Of many from the summit of men's hopes.
Be faithful to thyself, howe'er untrue
Dissembling friends may prove; from evil thoughts
And unadvised suspicions turn away—

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Who evil speak of others will of thee.
But, most of all, take watchful heed of him
Whose eye may light thy bosom like a sun,
Revealing all its passions! Useth he
Irreverent speech of holy things or swerves
From godlike honour, or the chaste respect
From man to woman due?—Hear thou no more!
He ne'er can be a lord deserving thee
Who, when a lover, thus forgets himself.

Lady! go on thy way, unfearing aught,
So thou dost ne'er desert thyself! May Time
Behold thee blest as feeling hearts should be,
And leave thee in thy age far happier days
Than those few years, which, like a midnight cloud,
Have darkened the sweet sunlight of my heart!

O thou! the present and the Past,
The Future, the Eternal Lord!
Whose every breath can bless or blast,
Teach me the council of Thy Word!

While friends forsake, and foes oppress,
And Time is veil'd in storms of gloom,
Teach me that one great happiness
That lives beyond the mouldering tomb!

My errors, faults and sins forgive!
Lighten my path and cheer my heart!
In Thee, to Thee I only live—
Thou the supreme and Righteous art!

183

THE INDIAN MAID.

“I cannot wed the foreign chief, my heart can never bear
Another image than the one that like a star dwells there!
The flowers of love will never blow beside his cabin fire,
Nor olive grow around my path—oh, hear me, warrior sire!”

Then fell the chieftain's evil eye, and burned his serpent brow,
While thus his kneeling child besought in anguish deep and low,
“I would not scorn thy will to wed—but let me ever dwell,
Dear father! like a lone bird far from wedlock's holy cell!”

The dark chief turned, and on her cast his battle look of fear,
And whispered low a single word it shook her soul to hear;
Then, glancing at the eastern sun, and pointing to the wood,
The lion savage strode away to glut his feast of blood.

But little recked that warrior stern what woman's heart can dare,
When love is blasted in its bud, and life is long despair;
He never search'd those depths of light that in her bosom lie,
Like stars 'mid the mysterious blue of autumn's solemn sky.

The forest monarch strode away, and left the maid alone,
To drink at passion's poison cup—the dream of pleasure gone;

184

The sun lay low upon the pines—the appointed hour had come,
The maiden's voice was all unheard amid the gathering gloom.

The feast was spread, the rites prepared, but yet no bride drew near,
And eager hope, deferred, grew sick, and doubt was leagued with fear;
When suddenly, while thus they stood beneath a craggy height,
A shadow gleamed along the cliffs—a voice invoked the night:

“Light ye the fire of sacrilege! bring burden, bow and brand,
But where's the dove of sacrifice? behold me where I stand!
With wampum-belt and tomahawk the chief awaits his slave,
But I will wed with wildwood worms—my bridegroom is the grave!”

With hollow shrieks and savage wail, her sire besought her then,
To save his aged heart alive among the olive men;
And wildly up the rugged rock her shuddering mother ran,
While the dark foreign chief forgot the grandeur of the man.

But fixed is woman's purpose strong—and her revenge is deep,
Amid the silent sea of death her torrent passions sleep;
With upraised eyes and outstretched hands, she shrieked her song of death,
And from the dark rocks madly sprung!—still lay the corse beneath!

188

THE MISSION'D AVENGER.

[_]

(The VI. VII. and VIII. chapters of Judges contain the subject of this poem; the great exploits of the Jewish patriot Gideon.)

The quivering twilight of the autumnal morn
On slumbering Gilead's mountain solitudes
With a dim beauty fell, and shadowed forth
The giants of the forest; and the mist,
That canopied the waters, curled and wreathed
And blushed to meet the bridegroom sun in joy.
Each perpendicular peak and cedared height
Lifted its head above the wavering sea
Of vapour, bearing to the uncertain eye
Similitude to some far lonely isle.
Silence watched o'er the solemn hour; the leaves
Dropped not their treasure-dew; the dreaming flowers
Just raised their moist lids to the East, and sunk
To morning sleep; the herd upon the hills
Yet listened not for voice of summons home.
The fragrant breeze flew o'er the woods, and sung,
Like seraphim, amid the echoing nooks,
And haunted places of a storied Land.
Peace, and the holy thoughts it brings, o'er earth
And Heaven reposed. Men woke not yet to strife!

“But I must wake to strive and suffer still!”
Beside his threshingfloor thus Gideon mused.
“The stern oppressor's eye o'erwatches all—
“The mart of traffic and the holy hearth,
“The secret haunts of fellowship and love,
“And ev'n the field of unrewarded toil.
“And by the winepress I must gather corn

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“For bread of daily sustenance, ere day
“Streaks the cold Orient with pallid light,
“Dreading the Midian tyrant! Shall it be,
“While holy Jordan from Phiala's lake,
“And Arnon from the sea of Jazer flows?
“While Tabor smiles on earth's one paradise,
“And high hearts burn in castled Gilead?
“Shall Shame on noble brows forever brand
“The seal of ruin? and the gifted sons
“Of Israel to Zalmunna bow—and cast
“Their perfumes in the dust he proudly spurns
“From his wrought sandals?—God, our King, forefend!
“Why, what avail the beauty and the pride,
“Heaven's glory or the loveliness of earth?
“There is no hope—no refuge! in the caves,
“The dungeon depths of mountains famished dwell
“The birth and boast of Judah—all the land
“Lies bare and desolate—and all the tribes
“Quail at the echo of the hunter's tread!
—“O glorious sepulchre of rotting men!
“The soulfelt darkness of despairing hearts
“Without the death that recks not for the light!
“Fear, like an awful vision, haunts and tears
“Each humbled bosom—and the savage hosts
“Of Midian riot in our hopelessness!

“When Orphir peopled the Molucca Isles,
“And Sheba reigned in diamond realms of Inde,
“It was not thus! When o'er the Philistine
“Israel's great father like a seraph towered,
“And Joseph saw all Egypt at his feet,
“It was not thus!—When Othniel rose and slew
“Cushan, and Eglon fell beneath the stroke
“Of Ehud—'twas not thus!—Have heroes ceased?
“Will injured, trampled, hunted men lie down
“Beneath the conqueror's chariot wheels, and die
“Howling—“All hail, ye Children of the East!

190

““Lo! princes are your vassals! Monarchs, hail!”
“Let me not think! the burden must be borne.”
Sad self-communion skilled not—for the pride,
That can sustain, consoles not him who bears;
And pale and dim, his melancholy thoughts,
Like the far fading of ideal forms,
Floated away from sorrow's tomb—his heart!
And left him, gifted with capacities
Of boundless pleasure—energies to turn
His living sense of beauty into shapes
To charm the world—a lone, forsaken man,
Doomed to eternal toil without its meed—
Life's only tenure—breath and daily bread!
Like the high cliffs of Patmos, lighted up
By evening's purple radiance, Gideon stood—
In desolation proud, in bondage blest
With a deep knowledge of himself, yet cursed
With conscious greatness in an evil hour.

But trial teaches patience to the proud—
The path of darkness opens into day.
There's grandeur in calamity, and joy
In agony, when both are born of hate,
And multiply the miseries of those
Who merit not their censure nor their praise—
—For each doth ooze along the same foul sewer!
Beneath the scorn, the ruthlessness of foes
He quailed not; but, serene, bestowed on all
The largess of a great and godlike mind,
Unto itself most faithful—to the world
Calm as the rock that looks o'er raging seas.
Brave from an inward principle, and just
Beyond a slavish dread of men's regard;
Poor and of low condition, generous yet,
Gifted yet affable, and, though oppressed,
The first to shield the friendless—on through ill
And good he passed—not subject to the world—

191

Fearing alone his conscience and his God.
The morn advanced; he turned him to his toil.
But, by the winepress, stood a glorious Shape,
Who instant spake: “Lo! Israel shall be free!
“And thou shalt lead her armies—Gideon, thou!”
“Rabbi! misfortune may be borne—but jest
“Is ev'n more bitter than the gall. Few days
“Have vanished since I tamed my spirit down
“To the dull slavery of our fate—in sooth,
“I bear the ills but will not bear the scorn.”
—“He knows me not!—I meant not thus—but thou
“Shalt guide the forefront of redeeming strife.”
“The poorest son of Israel's poorest sire!
“I lead her squadrons! Rabbi! mock no more!”
“The Lord is with thee and the foe at ease—
“What wouldst thou more? doth necromancy charm?
“Have the moon's phases power o'er thee? Away!
“Some Hebrew doubtful less shall guide the van!”
“Why groan we, then, in bondage?—Yet I doubt!
“Angels and evil ministers are both
“Swift on their errands, winning in their speech,
“And not unlike to the dull eyes of men.
“Show me a sign thou com'st not for my hurt!
“Depart not till I bring thee sustenance!”

While Gideon went, the unknown angel mused:—
“Thus all are sceptic in an evil world!
“Sin brings distrust—suspicion poisons hearts—
“And rank hypocrisy infects the soul.
“Thus life is torture, else for transport meant,
“And all the bland affections of its youth
“Sink into apathy or settled hate,
“The leaven of a dark and obdurate heart.
“First man doubts man, and stratagem ensues,
“Then bold reprisal; hatred, then, and wrath,
“Dissension and despair. Next, man doubts heaven,
“Spurns bonds, and wills himself to be his god!

192

“Then comes the burning heart, the branded pride
“Of a seared mind—the knowledge ever strong,
“And yet the final ruin. Oh! that men
“Were wise to shun the martyrdom of life!
“He comes, and for immortal natures brings
“His mortal food!—I needed not thy care—
“But place the seath'd kid on yon blasted rock!
“And, now, behold!” Fire from the massy cliff
Leapt forth, and seized upon the flesh and high
Mounted the incense of the sacrifice.
“Believest thou? thy country groans in chains!”
And Gideon stood alone!—the morning broke.

Not prouder glory thrilled Alcides' heart
When home from Phleagra's field the hero came;
Not purer joy gushed from Latona's breast
When, in Ortygia, fair Diana breathed;
Than mastered, now, the mighty mind of him
Whose fame could never perish. Oracles,
(Twas said in other days when deeds made true
The sybil wisdom of the sorceress),
Had prophesied his greatness; prodigies
Held counsel with the moment of his birth;
And awful portents verified his fame.
But He was silent; words are vain as wind
To picture mind—and thought intense wraps up
Visions too bright for common eyes to bear.
They prize not men's repute who feel themselves
Above its soaring and beyond its reach;
For Genius, to itself supreme, beholds
The very thoughts of men; the darksome depth
Of passion; the excess of hate and love;
The hidden motive, secret principle
Of demon malice; and, beholding, scorns
Both earth and nether hell—men, imps and fiends.
His high emprise fell like a glorious dream
Around him—and he slacked not in the work.

193

Night fell on Ophrah's solitude, and deep
Floated the darkness of a starless heaven.
Sound slumbered on the loneliness of hills,
And all the passions and propensities
Of life were hushed; along the pictured banks
Of each lone, wild and melancholy stream
The faint air wandered, like the cherubim,
Without a sigh; amid the fir trees slept
The stork; the timid coney in the cave;
The bittern in the fen; the lion, fierce
As Envy, on the desert.—At that hour,
Beneath the arm of Gideon fell the groves
Of Baal-berith and his images,—
—The senseless idols of a changeful race,
On whom the mercy of most patient heaven
Fell like the dew on wild Sahara's waste;
Whom trial never tamed, nor punishment
Wrought to the penitence of one brief year;
A gifted people, yet like swandown driven
Before the faintest breeze; most eloquent,
Yet cruel and remorseless; quick to feel,
And certain to revenge; for all belief
Apt, and most subtle in their craftiness;
Majestic in their presence; vain of pomp
In household and in person; prodigal
And proud, yet vassals of the god of gain!
Alike of mercy, justice, love and wo
An everlasting monument! who, once,
A chosen, yet rebellious, blest though false,
And mighty nation, saw no prouder kings,
No purer judges,—and no prophets crowned
With such an awful vision. Glorious realm!
Roman and Saracen, Crusaders, gorged
With rapine and revenge, have trod thee down,
And thou art drenched in blood! and now the world
Accepts thy princes as the frozen earth
Doth the dead leaves of Autumn. Hebrew, weep!

194

And yet despair not! in the East awakes
The day of your Redeeming; Tabor glows,
And Lebanon puts on its glory! Time
Summons ye home to God's Jerusalem!—

—Quick fell the groves, the altars, and the stocks,
The apostates and the vassals had adored;
And not a voice from all that worshipped throng
Forbade the sacrilege. And thus began
The retribution, the redemption strong,
The hurtling tempest of a nation's wrongs.

That night, the son of Æson to the coast
Of Colchis voyaged; and the Argo ploughed
The faithless billows as with conscious pride
In the first glory of great enterprise.
Then Orpheus sought in Pluto's dismal realms
His lost Eurydice, and life's one charm,
Pure love, eternized in the deeds of men.
Then Hercules,—(the moral principle,
So named in ancient ages, when the mind
Clothed palpably its high moralities,)
O'ercoming the stern edicts of the world,
The dragon of the Hesperides, enjoyed
The golden banquet beauty spread for him.
Then Greece, that, after slumber, wakes again,
First in the skill of Cadmus crowned her fame;
And learned Egypt wailed the dying day
Of her young glory,—sinking to the depth
Of ruin and despair, yet bearing up
With a proud spirit and a stony heart.

The first deed of his enterprise achieved,
The brave child of Manasseh slept till morn.
He dreamed of the oppressor and his deeds,
Of Israel and her bondage,—and his thoughts
Became most stern realities; his breast

195

Heaved in the deep convulsions of his zeal,
As his proud spirit battled for the right.
The sounds of war commingled in his sleep,
The rush, the roar, the fury,—and he woke!
The rage of foiled idolaters,—the storm
Of human passions from the bigot creed
Of interest gathering worst atrocity,—
Burst round him as he started from his sleep.
Loud rose the cries of madness; “Who hath spoiled
“The groves of Baal? for he shall not live!
“And who cast down his shrines? for he shall die!
“Bring forth the traitor,—Joash! bring him forth!”
“He comes not,” said the hoary man, “to bear
“The scoff of slaves,—the mock of idol scorn;
“If Baal-berith be indeed your god,
“And fierce Zalmunna your anointed lord,
“Their power waits on their vengeance; let them wreak
“The penalty! but, yet, my son shall speak,—
“Gideon, come forth!—Lo! fresh from toil he comes!”

“What would ye, friends?—perchance, not so, but men
“Whose every shekel from the tyrant comes,
“And thus the servitors of Midian! say!”
“We reverence power and worship Israel's gods.
“He shall not live who follows not our path.”
“Why, what are ye, that thus ye speak to me?
“Groans not our holy and appointed Land
“Beneath the scoffings and rapacities,
“The iron reign of evil ministers,—
“The felon insults and remorseless deeds
“Of these our dark and infidel invaders?
“Thick stand our witnesses as forest trees,—
“A famished nation and a ruined realm,
“Gored hearts and broken spirits! and our foes,—
“Have they not dwelt at ease and quaffed our wines,—
“Yes, and refreshed them with the snows of Hermon.
“And in our dwellings wild carousals held?

196

“Hath not the oil of Sharon in their haunts,
“Their most unhallowed haunts, like mountain streams
“Regaled their very slaves, and pampered up
“Their courtesans to mock our matrons,—spurn
“Our virgins, and brand deep the seal of shame
“Upon their fathers? while the memory lives
“Of Jubal,—master of the glorious lyre,—
“And Tubal-Cain,—the warrior's minister,—
“Need we the wisdom of vain prodigies,
“The magic of fair Araby,—the skill
“Of Memnon,—or the voice of oracles
“From Egypt, our old prisonhouse, to teach
“The hordes of Midian that MEN can strike?”
“Treason,—foul treason to our king!”
“Our king!
“We have but One,—and He is King of Heaven,
“Our Judge and our Avenger! Fear ye not,
“Pale hearted vassals of a ruthless chief!
“The Power that wills our freedom?”
“Where is he
“That dares to lead rebellion? are we not
“The spoil of Midian? and Zalmunna's slaves?”
“His subjects for a time, yet not his slaves,
“As he shall own; and he is here who dares
“Defy the despot and despise his power.
“Shem's turban trembles on my quivering brow
“While thus I toil in speech to them who crouch
“Beneath their bondage, and consent to shame.
“Was it for this the deluge spared our sires?
“Was it for this we scaped Egyptian bonds?
“Was it for this that Moses died, and he,
“The son of Nun led on our chosen tribes?
“Lost and degraded!—yet not utterly,—
“Pause,—think ere ye are lost!—Have ye not borne
“The wrong that withers the devoted heart,
“Oppression's lash and spurn,—the pestilence
“Of want and houseless horror? wild leash'd hounds,

197

“To follow up the hunter's savage cry!
“And will ye tamely bear, ay, heap reproach
“On him who loves his country and his King?”
“Dares Gideon's sword espouse his martial speech?”
“I cast my life before my country's shrine,
“Insulted heaven's demolished shrine, and swear
“To live victorious or to perish free!
“Have ye forgot the ordinance of God,—
“The atoning sacrifice, long quenched, the priest
“With ephod, mitre, breastplate panoplied?
“The solemn glory of the one pure faith?
“The dread apocalypse of Heaven to Earth?
“And know ye not the nameless rites performed
“Where Levi's sons communed with cherubim?
“The ossifrage, the raven and the owl,
“The cormorant and pelican, and e'en
“The abhorred of all abhorrences,—the swine
“Have bled and burned upon our altars, men!—
“What, can ye feel? ye would not, then, become
“The slaves of Ahriman or Mythra's priests?
“And, like the dastard bonzes of Ceylon,
“Adore a creed your better knowledge scorns?
“Ye would not, as the brahmin of the East,
“Bathe in men's blood, yet sorrow o'er a fly!
“Great Baal-berith can avenge himself;
“We war with fierce Zalmunna and his host.
“Ho, for the trump and cymbal! on, friends, on!
“Israel is free or Ashteroth is God!”

Hevila's pearls nor Saba's virgin gold
Nor all the incense of far Hadramant
Could, then, have saved the hosts of Midian.
Sublime in his devotion, Gideon stood
On topmost Gilead, and blew the trump
That summoned all the tribes; and on they came,
A lion phalanx, glaring on the foe.
The cloudless sun in glory rode and on

198

Their shields and lances imaged out his smile.
The rush of mighty gathering and the voice
Of combat roused the foeman from his lair;
And Jezreel teemed with warriors numberless,
Exulting in destruction, brave and proud.
Around the well of Harod throng'd the tents
Of fearless Asher, gallant Zebulun,
And conquering Naphtali; and round the hill
Of Moreh gathered countless Midian.
“Let all return who fear the tyrant's host!”
Cried the proud patriot; and quickly rushed
A sea of turbans through the frowning woods.
For in the garb of office and of power
The worst inspire the best with causeless awe,
The bravest dread the coward; callous hearts
Grow terrible, and men, perforce, respect
The stolid brain whose ideot will is law.
So Israel feared the Midian multitude,
Distrusted Gideon and fled the field,
Crowning his glory and their own deep shame.

“Too many yet remain to prove the power
“Of God,—too few to fight alone!” Thus spake
The sightless angel; “whosoever laps
“The water,—he is chosen; for the rest,
“Bid them depart! the glory is the Lord's!”
And on his little troop the evening sun
Fell, and night's shadows gathered round their tents.

At midnight Gideon rose, and stealthily
Went forth on his espial; Phurah trod
Behind him like a roe, and either's voice
Slept like the parted spirit in its tomb.
The giant oaks of Gilead seemed alive
With a most high intelligence; the air
Whispered great oracles; and, as they stole
Along the forest path, vast shadows towered

199

On mountain pinnacles, and shapes walked down
The vast rock's dread declivities, and turned
Their glorious faces on the heroic chief.
With hearts resolved and spirits unappalled
By fiercest danger, yet with silent steps,
That fell upon the dewy sward like down,
Onward they journeyed swiftly; and the stars
With diamond glories guided them to spoil.
Not in the council wiser nor in war
Gifted with a more eagle spirit, quick
To see and seize advantage when events
Hang on a moment's lapse, was he, who fell
On Maserfield, or he, whose sainted soul
From Lutzen rose to Paradise,—than now
The Avenger of lost Israel! Suffering
Refines, exalts and magnifies the mind,
Till pride becomes a pleasure, and the sense
Of danger pure delight, and men's regard
Far less respected than our own desert.
Great in adversity, the happier mind
Exults in its despair, resolves when doubt
Pervades all vassal spirits, and o'er fear
And hope,—and all the tender ties of life
Triumphs, and shrines itself in Glory's fame.

“Behold, my lord! beneath yon jutting cliffs
“The Midian outposts! tread we here like ghosts.”
Hanging by shrubs and vines and pointed rocks,
They clambered up the precipice, and lo!
The countless tents of the oppressor spread
Along the silent plain; the camels slept
Beside the watercourse; and bow and spear
Hung idly o'er each slumbering warrior's head.
“Jehovah-Jireh!” said the Patriot,—“there
“The tyrant lies secure, and Judah's spoils

200

“Adorn his gorgeous dwelling, while the sons
“Of outcast Israel lack their daily bread.
“But retribution comes,—will ever come
“To all who wait and watch, however low
“Cast down and trampled!—hush! what voice is that?”
“Oh! 'twas a fiendish vision,—Oreb, wake!”
A Midian sleeper cried in agony.
“How wears the night?” “It is the middle watch.”
“Oh, what a direful darkness! on my brain
“It falls like madness,—let the fight come on
“And the trump summon, like a fearless man,
“I'll mingle with the wildest,—but no more,—
“No more such dreams!—Sleep, Oreb, I shall watch!”
“What didst thou dream, my brother?” said the Prince.
“Methought, a roll of barley-bread did fall
“Amid the host of Midian and o'erturn
“The countless tents of our great multitude;
“And there were shrieks and groans and blasphemies,
“And vain implorings and despairing prayers;
“But still the strange Destroyer hurried on.
“That I should dream of barley-bread was nought;
“Imagination panoplies the least
“And most unworthy things with boundless fear,
“And clothes its dark creations with a power
“To crush mind's proudest energies; to feel
“The worst of evil, in the open day,
“Kills not like evil's faintest dream by night.
“Realities I dread not; visions haunt
“And terrify the wrought and trembling heart.
“What means my dream?”—“Destruction to our cause!
“The common barley, that the peasant sows,
“May typify the peasant, and the bread
“Thereof the slave in his despair; gird on
“Thine armour, Zeeb! for this is Gideon!”

“So!” said the Avenger; “this reveals to all
“The certain victory of a glorious cause;

201

“The very heathen oracles assail
“The heathen's confidence, and gift our hearts
“With faith unwavering and hope sublime.
“Strange shadowy dreams to all believing men
“Become most holy prophecies, and truth
“Shows like a shade and verifies a lie.
“On to the camp! the Midian host is our's!”
And down the shaggy precipice—and o'er
The moss-grown rocks—as earliest morning burst—
They hurried voicelessly; on every side
The song-birds lifted up their sweetest hymns;
The chamois browsed upon the topmost cliffs;
And in the depth of every lovely vale,
The flocks rose up and gladly banquetted.

Oswald, the Bretwalder of Britain.

Gustavus Adolphus.

The strife hath passed—and silence slumbers now
On Midian's field of slaughter. There the prince
Fell by his brother's hand, and kingly crowns
Were crushed by loyal traitors! awful Fear,
Clothed in the darkness of the night, came down
Upon the tyrant, and the vast lone plain
Groaned 'neath its pyramids of gory clay.

But on in wild pursuit hath Gideon gone;
And o'er the fords of Jordan and the plains
Of fair Perea, like a spirit born
To vengeance, on he hurries to the east;
And in the wilds of Karkor cries aloud
In freedom's trumpet voice, as fall the kings
Beneath his giant stroke—“Lo! we are free!”

Thus wisdom wins its triumph; thus the mind
Achieves its lofty glories; and the right,
Howe'er cast down, accomplishes its cause.

202

THE SEGAMORE'S LAMENT.

Where Yaloo Busha blends with wild Yazoo,
Mid the dark woods alone the Chieftain stood;
Fixed to the desert shore his barque canoe
Eddied along the melancholy flood;
In the dark light the troubled waters rose,
Like wrath and hatred o'er the Red Man's woes.

His quivering brow and livid lip and cheek,
And dark eye burning in his spirit's gloom,
Gave awful note of woes too deep to speak,
And wrongs, would wake the warrior in his tomb;
Shame, outrage, exile, madness and despair,
The worst of doom, and more than man can bear.

Beside his fathers' sepulchres he stood,
Amid the ashes of their council-fires,
That now lay cold, quench'd by his brothers' blood—
And his proud Nation's honour'd battle-sires';
Oh! who may tell what awful thoughts had power
O'er that lone Chief at this o'erwhelming hour?

The sun went down—the harvest moon rode high,
The ancient oaks creak'd in the hollow wind,
And dark clouds hurried o'er the lowering sky,
Like spectres o'er the lonely warrior's mind!
In fitful gleams burst forth the troubled light,
And voices mutter'd through the gathering night.

The rosignol rais'd high her plaintive songs—
The red-bird like a sunbeam by him flew—

203

How faint the notes amid his wailing wrongs!
How dim the colours to that gory dew!
The wild deer pass'd—the bounding buffaloe—
Where slept the Chiefs that drew the unerring bow?

Dark as the forest's pathless maze their doom,
Their empire lost—their solemn glory dimm'd,
Their high-born virtues sepulchred in gloom;
Their native waters with their proud blood brimm'd!
Without a home—the monarchs of the wild!
Who erst around on subject nations smil'd.

“The blue smoke curls not o'er the ancient woods,”
Thus spake the Chieftain in his wrath and pride;
“Eternal silence o'er the forest broods;
“No fleet canoe swells on the rushing tide;
“The infant's voice salutes no warrior's ear,
“The voice of war hath ceas'd—the voice of fear.

“The hatchet's buried—buried in the breast
“Of all who heard and trusted Christian love;
“Unstartled now, the cougar hath his rest,
“War's weapons sleep in yonder blacken'd grove!
“There stood the white man—there the Indian stood,
“And words of peace were sealed with red men's blood.

“Lone desolation darkly smiles around
“Each spot once hallow'd by the young heart's bliss;
“The blacken'd glade returns a hollow sound,
“That echoed once with shouts of happiness;
“The wild alarm—the dying shriek hath pass'd—
“Love, hate, despair—in one consuming blast.

“Of all our empire 'neath the blue ey'd heaven,
“No spot is left to sepulchre our clay;
“No more amid the light of tender even,
“We commune with our fathers far away,

204

“Beyond the seas, where Areouski reigns,
“And thousand fawns glide o'er the blooming plains.

“The withering curse of utter want and wo
“And homeless banishment and wandering death
“For ever rest upon them! Look below,
“Thou King of Vengeance! with thy blasting breath,
“Strew their pale corses o'er the crimson sod,
“Where the false white man lied unto his God!

“Ye warrior-spirits, sleep in peace! the hour
“Already dawns when vengeance shall restore
“Meet guerdon for the waste of lawless power,
“And foemen gasp in anguish evermore.
“Chief of a glorious line, I may not weep,
“But tears of blood bewail your last, cold sleep.”

He turn'd—despair hung on his mighty brow,
And desolation linger'd on his tread;
What awful wo was his—ah! none can know—
Alone, the monarch of the slaughter'd dead!
His bow unbended—and his empire gone—
The heaven his canopy—the grave his throne.

He turn'd and sought the shore of wild Yazoo,
And o'er the forest threw his eagle eye,
And groan'd in spirit. In his barque canoe,
He stood, and threw his last look o'er the sky
And moaning wild; then down the rushing flood,
Vanish'd forever from his native wood.

And, as he hurried, mid the shuddering light,
Down the dark river, through the forest, rose
Ten thousand spectres, in their wizzard might,
And sung their deathsong o'er their baffled foes;
Then on the whirlwind's wings they hurried by,
And call'd their brother, from the viewless sky.

205

And never more was heard the warwhoop there—
The dance—the song—the feast of buffaloes;
The warriors perish'd in their proud despair—
Scath'd by the lightning of unending woes!
Dark fell the shadows of the silent wood—
And the earth shudder'd—stain'd with guiltless blood.

How little know we what we are, and less
What our companions are! We toil and strive
To be the creatures nature cries aloud
We are not; and we rack our souls in days
Of sunny loveliness to find a cloud
Where moody sorrow may complain and sigh.
Oh! if the grief, that rends the silent heart
In twain, could write in pangs its harrowing tale,
'Twould shame the sadden'd minstrel's morbid strain,
And burn the heart that listened to its notes.
Such wo is mine, and mine will ever be
Till death, for I have proved the world, and find
Sickness and sorrow universal here.
The wave of Arethusa cannot heal
The soaring soul that laves in its bright stream,
Nor can Pierian waters cool the heart
That burns in feverish anguish. To invest
Our woes in fancy's rainbow robes, and clothe
Pangs with the spirit's sunlight, is to deck
A corse in diamonds, and to lay the dead
Upon a bier of gold—vain pageantry!

206

THE ANCIENT PALMER.

Among the people of the caravan was a venerable man, distinguished by his plaited hair, to the only remaining lock of which he had woven tresses gathered from his friends, and thus formed a turban, which he wore in memory of the absent or the dead.

D'Israeli.

Oh! is this all? hath man no worthier hold
On the deep feelings of his kindred race,
That memory lingers in a turban's fold,
And Age reveres young pleasure's faintest trace?
Must the warm heart forget its early fires,
Save from the urn it catch awakening light?
—Alas! time blots what soaring Hope inspires,
And Sorrow veils Love's radiant heaven in night!

Not long the soul retains its holiest rays,
Caught from the shrine where seraph spirits breathe;
Transient and dark are all our mortal days,—
E'en at our birth we feel almighty death!
Yet, like a dream as human being is,
Oblivion shadows memory's fading eye,
And those, who were our nature's purest bliss,
Are all forgotten 'neath the unchanging sky.

The sun of genius sinks in endless gloom,
The bloom of beauty and the pomp of power;
E'en virtue sleeps forgotten in the tomb—
None can avert the unacquainted hour!
Howe'er thy spirit, lonely Son of Song!
Burn with ethereal fire and light the sky,
Thy thoughts will perish in the dust erelong,
Or glimmer but to show the blind worm's revelry.

207

Yet, oh! 'tis sweet, however done, to wake
Long buried feelings into life again,
And from the altar of the heart to take
The living fire that hallows human pain,
And, by its light, through being's midnight maze,
With solemn mind, to search out all the past,
And grieve o'er sin and error's guileful ways,
And dew with tears affliction's burning waste!

The poorest relic of the lost becomes
Holy unto the heart bereav'd of all;
It brings each image from the vale of tombs,
Or wakens life beneath the deep dark pall;
For whate'er love in sorrow hallows, time,
With all its glories, could not charm away;
Gifts from the dead excite to hopes sublime—
The noontide glory of Hope's long bright day!

E'en that cold shadowy tyrant of the tomb
With hollow eye beholds the heart of man,
And a voice utters through sepulchral gloom,
“Pause in thy peril! and beware the ban!
“Oh! think how soon all earthly things will close!
“How frail the strongest of all human ties!
“How full of care this world, and thousand woes!
“How short, how sure the passage to the skies!”

Well, Ancient Palmer! didst thou seek to save
The untimely buds that bloom in memory's bowers
From the dark mildew of the wintry grave,
And spread soft sunshine o'er the unfolding flowers!
Though lone and full of grief, thou didst not shun
The full revealment of man's erring mind,—
Thine eye look'd down like autumn's solemn sun—
Thy voice was heard, like harpings of the wind!

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Round thee, time honoured Ruin! many a vine
In all its freshness and its beauty clung,
And in the breeze full many a lengthening line
Of young plants wav'd, on thy green purlieus hung.
Thou stood'st in rugged grandeur there alone,
Midway between the present and the past,
And told of deeds and characters unknown
To all the world—thou Mansion of the Blast!

In all thy wanderings thou didst bear along,
O Ancient Palmer! folded round thy brow,
Names never nam'd in oral tale or song,
Save when from thee their varied histories flow!
Thou, hoary chronicler! canst tell a tale
Of each particular lock that crowns thy head,
Why one did prosper and another fail—
Who dwells on earth—who slumbers with the dead.

And oft, amid the long, long desert plain
Of solitary Barca thou hast stood,
When midnight frown'd in lone meridian reign
O'er nature's dim and awful solitude,
And figures wild, and shapes grotesque of Turk,
Arab, Greek, Persian flitted round the fire,
Like elves and fairies—wizzard's magic work,
Or thy creations—Genius of the Lyre!

There thou hast stood in that romantic light,
Like some old prophet in the Delphian wood,
And told thy magic tales, while eyes gleam'd bright
Around thee, like thick star-beams on the flood,
While from thy inmost heart in torrents gush'd
The deep pent stream of long collected thought.—
Electric silence on wan brows sat hush'd,
And rapture quiver'd o'er what terror wrought.

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The maniac lover, reverenc'd as a god,
The warrior, slain in battle's lightning shock,
The poet, raised to Indra's bright abode,
And the meek shepherd of the wandering flock—
—All from thy lips receiv'd appointed praise,
As thou unfoldest memory's scroll to view,
And spake the story of their mortal days
In words that glow'd like morning's rosy dew.

—Thou wentest on thy way, rever'd and lov'd,
O Ancient Palmer! and thy wealth was great,—
For thou hadst minds for gems, refin'd and prov'd,
And lore, worth worlds of gold, of time and fate.
—Like thee, may I within my spirit shrine
Whate'er of virtue I may meet below,
That I, in age, may feel my heart, like thine,
Rich with the treasures love and truth bestow!

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REQUIESCE.

It is the solemn dead of night, and not a sound of earth
Salutes the calm and dreamy heaven, o'er all our woes outspread,
And, while the still and holy hour to heavenly thoughts gives birth,
My swelling heart shall breathe its sighs and sorrows o'er the dead.

Up to the blue and starlight sky I lift my weary soul,
And heaven seems bending, with a smile, to hear my fond complaint;
And angel breathings, eloquent, along the concave roll—
The selfsame sounds we often hear—so lonely and so faint.

It is a fearful thing to feel the twinings of our love
Rent, broken, torn from every scene of human pleasure here,
It is an awful thing to launch upon the worlds above,
Guided by doubt, beset with wo, and followed by dark fear.

The vale of death! the desolate, the unaccompanied way,
That all have trod, and all must tread, in darkness and alone!
Where none can weep, on bosoms dear, their agonies away,
Nor smile in hope of joys to come, nor think of pleasures flown!

Between two dread eternities it is a narrow road,
That through a land of shadows, leads unto a world unknown;

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And not a track to point the way, where all earth's sons have trod,
Guides the dark wanderer of the tomb to heaven's eternal throne.

Rest on thy cold undreaming bed, thou dear beloved one!
Yet not unconscious of the love that thou hast left behind;
I would not that the tears I shed should now to thee be known,
But that thy heart should blend with mine, like odours with the wind.

I think not of thee as thou sleepst in darkness and in dust,
But as thou wert in other years, my lovely chosen bride,
And as thou art, in airy realms, among the blessed just,
Far, far beyond earth's many woes, its passions and its pride.

Oh! when I saw thee pale and cold and breathless in thy shroud,
Thine eyes for ever closed—thy heart without one throb for me,
I could not weep, I could not wail my utter wo aloud,
But stood and gaz'd upon thee there in awful agony.

I saw thee coffin'd, darken'd, (ah! but all was dark before!)
Borne from thy home, my heart, and laid beneath the mould'ring clay.
Then gentle hands did guide me thence—I thought and felt no more
For many a long and lingering night, and many a sunless day.

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My voice was like the desert wind, that, through a ruin'd tomb,
In hollow gusts, sighs mournfully above the moulder'd dead;
My heart lay silent in despair—a world of waving gloom,
And sun and stars, and life and love, all from my memory fled.

But, one by one, the images of other days returned;
I saw thee by my side again in all thy beauty's bloom;
I saw thee fading, dying, dead: I felt how I had mourn'd—
Then I went forth to weep and pray beside thine early tomb.

But ever thou hast been with me through every change in life,
In my heart's depth thine image dwells, and never can it fade;
Like many a fair and precious thing with perfect beauty rife,
That blossom'd for a time and then within an hour decay'd.

Ye far, bright stars! the poetry of the autumnal heaven,
That breathes mysterious influence o'er the upsoaring mind!
Ye oracles of destinies! in mercy to us given,
To lead us to the glorious skies when earth is left behind.

I oft have watch'd your courses through the beautiful expanse,
And joy in grief hath come to me in still and lonely hours,
For seraph spirits seem'd to meet my every upward glance,
And oft my heart hath heard their songs amid these holy bowers.

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When heaven thus meets me, all around, and all I love is there,
I will not murmur nor repine that I in dust am here;
But thou, lov'd one! shalt sooth the wo that fain would be despair,
Didst thou not blot my frailties, love! with thy forgiving tear.

SONNET VII.

Farewell, thou rainbow glory of a dream!
All beauteous phantom of the brain, farewell!
'Twere vain the anguish of this hour to tell,
Or paint despair which might like madness seem,
Oh, darst thou gaze upon the lightning's gleam?
Or brave the torrent in the cliffy dell?
Or break the sorcerer's necromantic spell?
Then of my heart's despair thou well mayst deem—
The last wild struggle and quick agony,
The final parting and the lingering power,
That binds my spirit to one fatal hour,
Whose conscious memory can never die;
Parting I gaze and sigh, yet linger still,
As earth's sire paused—on Eden's holy hill.

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TO GENEVIEVE.

'Twas on a glorious summer eve when first we met, my love!
And bloom was on the gladdened earth and light in heaven above;
And gaily rose our spirits then and blessedness was ours,
For o'er us came the rosy breath of Eden's holy bowers.

Bright rose the fair autumnal sun, that saw our fortunes blend,
And there was gladness in the look of each assembled friend;
Our vows were given—our fortunes sealed—and we together passed
Forth to the cold unfeeling world to love unto the last.

For many a day of joy we loved as few can love below,
Each other's trials gladly shared and soothed each other's wo,
For in thy arms I half forgot the woes that had been mine,
And on my bosom thou didst sleep as none had e'er been thine.

Though deadly foes aspersed our fame—yet we were ever blessed,
And found our home a lovely place of happiness and rest;
And none could sever—though they strove—our wedded hearts, that grew
Yet closer to each other—still—forever fond and true.

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But now thou art far away from him, whose sorrows thou dost share,
And evil men are round thee, love! to haunt thee to despair;
And demon tongues are busy now—the dastard and the base,
That would o'ercloud my honest fame and seal thy last disgrace.

But thou wilt come again to me—as in the days gone by,
And we shall read our blessedness in every foeman's eye;
And then the season shall be ours when holy love is heaven,
To few below—the chosen few of highborn feeling given.

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SUNSET SCENERY.

—Every spot,
To which the burning dreams of memory cling
Amid life's dim and shadowy solitudes,
Wears the deep glory of those blessed isles,
To which the bright-winged visions of the soul
Go off in slumber, when the quiet dreamer
Sinks to his rest in joyousness.—
Prentice.

The crimson waves of undulating light
Are blending with the azure sea of Heaven;
The softest, sweetest, balmiest breath of eve
Fans fleecy clouds with fragrance as along
The sky's blue arch they sail, like angel wings
O'er Lebanon and Olivet; and far
In the cerulean ether soar the birds
Of heaven in joyance such as if they felt
The all-pervading holiness, and knew
The Deity who rules the universe.
The whispering breeze amid the twinkling leaves,
That dance to zephyr's song, speaks gently sweet
In answer to the voice of waters far
Warbling along their pebbled path, beneath
The purpling light, which shadows out the trees,
And hills, and rocks, so mirror-like, that eye
Of solitary man could trace the form,
Being and nature of each object there.
The mountain's brow is crown'd with glory—wreaths
Of purest radiance circle every tree,
And shrub, and low bush there; while far below
In the rock-barr'd ravine, no lonely ray
Wanders amid the gloom. The scene is like
The sun-browed thought of rapture, soaring high
In intellectual majesty, and full

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Of holiest emotions, while it wings
Its flight through realms empyreal, and then
Drooping and falling lifeless on the earth.
Hills feathered with their shrubbery redolent,
And cliffs with moss and lichens robed, and boughs
Of loftiest trees adorned with blushing flowers,
Jasmines, lianas and all woodland vines,
High precipices, rough and bare as when
The rocking earthquake left them—all are shown
In mimic beauty, like reality,
Upon the mirror by which nature robes
Her lovely form—yon little sleeping lake,
The latest beam of evening slumbers now
Upon the crystal waters, and I see
A world within the azure depth, so pure,
So full of quiet happiness I long
To plunge and seek out pleasure there, and dwel
In that sweet home of waters, ever mid
The best of friends—woods, rocks and silver waves,
Whose speaking silence innocently tells
All I can feel of pure beatitude.
But wo loves loveliest things, and I might find
Sorrow there even, were it as it seems,
And not a mockery as 'tis!—The soft,
Love-breathing vesper breeze plays o'er the stream
And crinkles the blue waves, while autumn dew
Wets the green leaves that have o'ercanopied
The lake the livelong day, untouched by drop
Of its serenest waters. Oh, how sweet
Is nature's quietude! the lulling lapse
Of purling brook through vales of verdure rich,
And generous of their richness, and the sound
Most musical of soft-voiced winds, are songs
Of gladness she doth ever raise to Heaven,
In gratitude of still devotion; all
Her votaries are rife in gentle thoughts,
And pure desires, and high imaginings,

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And noblest aspirations, seeking out
A dwelling far from turbulence and strife,
And noise, and folly, and attainting sin.
Nature doth teach her lessons in a tongue
All can enjoy; and what she teaches none
Of saints and sages past could imitate.
There is a pure divinity, unwarped
By damning creed or dogma stern, in all
Her sacred teachings, and a holy voice
Of loftiest wisdom rises from the depth
Of her most silent solitude to teach
And council her infatuated sons,
In everlasting faithfulness—'twere well
Man deemed and recked of her advisings more.

Night's star-winged angels in the firmament
Are setting watch, and hastily they come
Forth in the blue concave, like the fond hopes
Of young desire o'er the unwounded heart.
Faintly the dying light of day illumes
The wide horizon, and pale shadows flit
O'er grove and dale and stream and hill alike,
For every object here is beautiful,
And worthy such fair robes of light and shade.
Oh, that each scene yon everlasting sun
Lightens, were worthy his celestial beams!
On feudal towers and castles, where the groans
Of death and bondage worse than death have rung
Through dungeon vaults, till every echoed tread,
For centuries, awoke desparing cries,
And voices of wild agony; on mosque,
Whose shrine's deep font is filled with blood for rite
Baptismal, and where imams tell of joys
Sensual and fiendish, as pure delights
Of after-being in man's paradise;
Of palaces of pomp and crime, and huts,
Whose inmates gnaw a crust, and bless the hand

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That gave it; on despair and hope, delight
And anguish, tumult, peace, and purposes
Of noblest pride and felon vice most vile,
On all things dreadful, sweet, detestable,
Beautiful and loathsome, thy beams alike
Shine, glorious lord of heaven! and king of earth!
The faintest blushing of departed day
Hath gone, and russet mantled night glides o'er
The eternal hills, as softly as the young
Mother trips round the cradle of her child.
Oh, that I could divest myself of life
Indigent, and leaving this poor load
Of clay to mingle with its kindred earth,
Imbibe an elemental being—live
In the blue ether and float joyously
Through realms of upper air and feast my soul
On sunbeams! It were godlike fate to dwell
Amid the unbounded universe and be
A star or moonbeam, on which angels light
In their ethereal wanderings, and chant
Empyreal songs. The infinite desire
Of such celestial fate doth swell my heart,
And amplify my spirit to the embrace
Of thoughts immaculate and feelings so
Sublime and glorious, I would not pause
For one farewell if I could rise and be
The merest part of those most holy beams
Whose radiance now gleams o'er another sphere.
Alas! the bitter, false, ungrateful world
Doth class me with her multitudes; and 'mid
The sinning and the sorrowing, the vile,
The mean, the wretched, and the grovelling, still
Must be my dwelling-place. I loathe and hate,
Avoid and dread the stinging viper brood,
That crawl around; and were I one like them,
I would seek out a midnight den to hide
My person from the sun. O mother Earth!

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Beautiful daughter of the Spirit-Sire!
Thou wert a paradise, till man, the fiend,
Changed thee to hell by his all-nameless deeds.

In her celestial altitude of light
And melancholy beauty, far away
From earth and all its influence malign,
Lovely and lonely, virgin queen of heaven,
Careers the empress of the hymning spheres.
Her robe of pearly beams illumes the air,
That roves around her, like the tender thoughts
That beauty steals from stoic manhood, pure
And holy in their simple reverence,
And with a look as mournful and as fond
As an unheeded mother throws upon
A loved but ruined son, she gazes down
On this fair world which man has changed to one
Vast charnel house, while through yon sapphire fields
Where angels hold communion, still she bears
Her course nocturnal, with her lovely star
Of counsel oft conversing. Lovely orb!
In childhood and in youth—in weal and wo,
I have delighted to behold thee! Thou
Through my dim eye at midnight oft hast shone
Upon my heart, and quelled its bursting throbs
With one such quiet look; and I have thought,
As I gazed on thee, that thou wast a world
Fairer and happier than this cold earth,
Where virtue is attainted, and all high
And glorious things scoffed into mockery;
Ay, I have thought thee the abode of those
Who were too pure to dwell amid the stain
And taint of sin and folly, and too much
Assimilated to the worthless things
They once abode withal to meet the eye
Of everlasting purity.

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THE EXILE.

Afar from all that once were dear,
In dawning manhood's hope and pride,
Without a friend to shed a tear,
Alone he suffered, groaned, and died;
By stranger forms his corse was borne,
Unwept, unto its last cold bed,
And left unhonoured and forlorn
Among the uncommuning dead.

O'er his lone grave no dear one mourned,
For none were there to weep for him;
No heart bereft in anguish burned,
No cheek grew pale, no bright eye dim;
But plaining stockdove sung his dirge,
And sighing sea-breeze moaned alone,
While conscious ocean's billowy surge
Round his last rest roar'd wildly on.

But far away sad spirits dreamed
Of coming hours of blissful love,
And hope's roselight in beauty gleamed,
Like stars revealing heaven above,
When the sunk heart again put on
The feeling of its earlier years,
And caught from scenes of pleasure gone
Sweet light to gild its present tears.

And round the winter hearth, whose light
Blent with the gloom, like hope with fear,
Loved ones watched out the lingering night,
Musing of hours, long lost, still dear—

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Far dearer now, for ever past—
When life was like an angel's lyre,
Each moment sweeter than the last,
And glowing with elysian fire.

Alone they sat where he had been,
The brave, the fair, in happier days,
The spirit of each joyous scene,
When all the world was love and praise;
And hope, deferred, grew sick, and vain
Expectance turned to doubt, and dread
Of ill fell on the heart, with pain
They only know, whose hearts have bled.

And long, long days and nights went by,
No tidings came—and weeks rolled on,
And months of sleepless agony
With the last hope had come and gone—
When from the ocean's bosom came
A voice that told of death, and o'er
Crushed hearts it dropped like molten flame,
Searing the chords that thrilled before.

Alas! when first his mother clasped
That long-loved, lovely, only child—
When, in his young delight, he grasped
Her guiding hand, and fondly smiled,
And caught from her each look he wore,
And turned to her from every foe,
While she saw charms, unknown before,
In his cheek's bloom and eye's rich glow:

And felt her heart's warm current flow
With love beyond man's thought, and rise
With each unfolding want and wo,
Like brightning stars o'er midnight skies—
This hour's last anguish, this despair,

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Would to her soul have been a dream
As wild, as false, as madmen's are—
Shadows of shades on life's bright stream!

How sad would be our lot below,
Were gathering woes to man revealed,
Or could we read time's scroll, and know
The secret sorrows for us sealed!
Each fearful hour still hurrying on
To consummate some awful deed,
Each thought bent on the moments gone,
To bring the day of doom decreed!

Fate's last, worst vial has been poured,—
Earth cannot bring a grief like this;
All that the world-sick heart adored,
All that it treasured for its bliss—
All the soul worshipped when it rose
Upon the world like morn's first star,
Hath faded, ere the daylight's close,
In desert lands and climes afar.

Wake—wake her not to conscious pain!
The fount is full—oh! let is rest!
Joy cannot smile on her again,
But dreams may tell her she is blest.
Break not the spell, whose soothing power
Throws pleasures past o'er present woes,
And bears from young love's vesper bower
Light to illume life's darkest close.

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THE MOUNTAIN OAK.

Beneath the banyan's grove of shade,
On a bright bed of living flowers,
In soft, voluptuous bliss I've laid,
While o'er me flew the laughing hours
On rosy wings that fann'd perfume,
And sweetly from the tambourine
Came music, breathing o'er the bloom,
That robed the rich, luxurious scene.

When summer sunset's purple glow
Hath o'er the proud magnolia hung,
Beneath its boughs, dissolved in wo,
I've sat, and to my lady sung,
As shadowy twilight dimm'd the scene,
And lovers thrilled the soft guitar,
And loving maids tripped o'er the green
Meadows and blessed the evening star.

When noon hath crimsoned summer's sky,
The lithe mimosa's leaves have spread
Their soothing shadows o'er my eye,
Their odours o'er my greensward bed;
And I have watched each quivering spray,
That whispered gentle notes of love,
Till, in the waking dreams of day,
I pictured spirit-shapes above.

Mid orange groves, I've slept and dreamed
Of pleasures earth can never know,
While back the golden fruitage gleamed
With the soft sunlight's mellow glow,

225

And heard celestial music pouring
O'er Heaven's eternal bright arcade,
As 'twere the seraph choirs adoring
Their Maker for the worlds He made.

In woodbine bowers, where sunbeams glow
'Mid shades, and shed a magic light,
In arbours where the vine-wreaths throw
Their blossomed tendrils round the height
Of palm-tree vistas, long and fair,
And gently wave in every breeze,
And wanton in each playful air,
That sings amid the towering trees—

I oft have sat and mused and sung
Of heavenly bliss and earthly bale,
Or, when my lyre slept all unstrung,
The mazes traced of sorrow's tale—
And many a lingering hour of pain
Beneath those sunny bowers have fled
Soft o'er my head—as o'er the plain
Of glory glides a cherub's tread.

But not for banyan's monarch shade,
Or high magnolia's tender gloom,
Or soft mimosa's frail arcade,
Or orange groves in roseate bloom,
Or arbours green or woodbine bowers,
Would I exchange the canopy,
That shadowed childhood's sunny hours,
The moss wreathed mountain oaken tree.

Beneath my native oak's broad boughs
I sleep, and dream of by-gone days,
And number o'er my youthful vows,
My lays of love, my prayers of praise;

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While every scene I see recals
The friends I've lost since I was young,
Who once were hailed in pleasure's halls,
Who lightly talked and gayly sung.

Yes, they have gone, and I am left
To say such things as they have been,
And feel their fate from me hath reft
The joys of many a pleasant scene;
For their young bosoms were imbued
With feelings pure and proud as mine,
And they with me the paths pursued
Of knowledge lofty and divine.

Few years, alas! suffice to mar
The sweetest hopes, the fondest loves;
The brightness of our natal star
Too oft its transient glory proves:
Oh! who that leaves his native place
In childhood and returns a man,
Would meet again each well known face
He met in smiles when life began?

Back to its fountain in the skies
The troubled stream of being flows,
Its music sad though at its rise,
Yet saddest when 'tis near its close;
On shallow sands and pebbly shore
Gay bubbles rise and burst amain,—
And, grieving as he grieved before,
Man follows ever shapes of pain.

Repenting wrong, yet acting ill,
Wo cannot quench that strange wild fire,
Which burns in stricken bosoms still
With the mad fever of desire;

227

Though hope hath perished and life wear
A robe of gloom as dark as fate,
Yet man lives on, in lost despair,
Prouder as yet more desolate.

So 'tis our only bliss to gaze
In lingering fondness on the hours,
When from each other's eyes the rays
Of gladness shone like Spring's first flowers,
And catch from early life the best
Revealments of that holy home,
That ever dawn to make us blest
In dark fulfilment of our doom.

There is no scene of earth so drear,
But memory's voice of love can sooth;
Like incense from a heavenly sphere,
Come the glad thoughts of sinless youth:
And yet 'tis mournful thus to leave
The high-souled few we loved behind,
And vainly while we wander, grieve
O'er the dark wreck of so much mind.

Proud mountain oak!—round thee are twin'd
The unfolding spirit's tenderest leaves,
And still the aching heart can find
Each scene, o'er which it joys or grieves,
Near thee, thou haunt of hallowed days!
For, oh! on each broad leaf of thine
The story of our years of praise
Is writ in many a sunlight line.

I would not lose—my native oak!—
One leaf of thine for India's groves,
Nor change thy site on yon bold rock,
For fairy Yemen's vale of loves;

228

The violet, that below thee breathes,
Is richer than the ottar-gul,
The wild-flower round thy trunk that wreathes
Than Cashmere's rose more beautiful.

For, oh! where'er the young heart throws
Its incense, nature hath her throne;
In Chili's clime, 'mid Zembla's snows,
In arctic or in torrid zone,
The child of love will prize his home,
And those endearments, pure and bright,
Which will not with the wanderer roam,
But o'er one scene shed changeless light.

Abide thou there, proud mountain oak!
Unscathed by aught but Heaven's own fires,
Where first the world upon me broke,
Where oft arose my young desires,
Where last I left thee, old and green,
Victor of years!—perchance, my grave
May be beneath thy leafy screen,—
Monarch of trees! wave, proudly wave!

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THE MAIDEN'S FAREWELL.

Oh, could'st thou feel as I have felt,
Or weep alone as I have wept,
Or kneel where I have often knelt,
Thou wouldst not scorn the love I've kept.

Couldst thou but see my alter'd brow
And tearful eye, when all alone
My heart bleeds o'er thy broken vow,
Thou wouldst not do as thou hast done.

Pale are the lips thou lov'dst to kiss,
The eyes are dim that once were bright,
And sorrow takes the place of bliss—
Oh, can this give thy heart delight?

The long lone night I watch and weep,
When dreams of joy are thine to prove;
And pray for thee when others sleep—
Where couldst thou find more faithful love?

To sigh o'er hopes for ever gone,
And feel my sorrows worse than vain,
To love, unlov'd, a faithless one,
Who taught me bliss to make it pain;

To think past hours of rapture o'er,
And turn to hours of secret wo—
This is the fate of Truth—and more—
How couldst thou wring my bosom so?

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I thought that love, like heaven, was kind,
And soft and sweet as spring's first flowers,
And that the ties which young hearts bind
Were bright hopes born of holy hours.

I thought that thou—'tis over now—
I may not think of what I thought;
My blighted love—thy broken vow
A fearful work in me hath wrought.

But fare thee well—the world is wide—
The paths of pleasure spread before thee—
The charm of power—the spell of pride,
If not the smile of heaven, is o'er thee.

Go, woo and wed some happier maid,
And I will weep and pray the while,
That she may not in sorrow fade,
But kindle virtue by her smile.

Yet couldst thou feel as I have felt,
And love as I have lov'd, but one;
Thy soul would bow, thy heart would melt—
Thou wouldst not do as thou hast done.

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HOUSATONIC BANKS.

O'er Gaul's blue skies and shadowy woods
The springtime sun is sinking now,
And 'mid these flowery solitudes
Soft evening sheds its purple glow;
But, oh, my heart is far away
By Housatonic's forest shore,
Where lingers yet love's fading day,
That dawned on bliss, in seasons now no more.

Trianon's groves, and Versailles' bowers
Shed light and bloom around me now,
But memories of life's happier hours
Rush o'er my brain and cloud my brow.
Why bloom these flowers this golden eve?
Why breathes such music in the grove?
My lonely heart cannot but grieve
O'er youth's electric, most unhappy love.

When frozen snows on Jungfrau's brow
Melt in the bright Italian sun;
When nature sleeps, in pictured glow,
In the wild vale of Lauterbrun;
When vengeance leaves the Mohawk's breast,
And beauty wins when virtue's lost—
Then shall my wasted heart find rest—
Oh! then forget the maid that loved me most.

Wearied with wo, I turn and gaze,
Like pilgrims on Loretto's shrine,
On the dim light of other days,
When hope, and love, and fame were mine;

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And as the shadows of the past
Hurry along my burning brain,
I see companions on the waste,
The long, the lone, the endless waste of pain.

'Reft of the hopes our hearts held dear,
Dead to the world and desolate,
Oh, what can charm the spirit here?
Ambition, triumph, love or hate?
The spell of love, once bound, for ever
Sways the proud heart to good or ill;
No power or passion can dissever
The strong-linked chain that manacles the will.

The last—last hue of sunset now
Gleams on the forests of St Cloud;
Bland is the breeze that fans my brow,
And evening in her realms of blue:
But sadness sinks upon my heart,
For all my spirit loved is lost,
And nought but Heaven can impart
Joy unto him that loved and found the cost.

233

THE LOVER TO THE LOST.

Mine hour of love hath passed and gone,
For thou art in thy grave;
Oh, why should I be left alone
Without the power to save?
My cold dim love was not like thine,
Else death had owned its might,
And bowed before a thing divine,
And worshipped at its light.

I saw thee fading day by day,
And I could only weep
When love's last beam, hope's parting ray
Closed o'er thy dark cold sleep;
The wan smile on thy sunken cheek,
And on thy pallid brow,
But showed the wo I could not speak,
And cannot think on now.

Oh, never more shall I behold
Thy lofty form and high;
Quenched is the radiant light that rolled
From thy cloud-piercing eye;
The music of thy voice is still,
Thy smile of sweetness gone,
And, like eye's rays o'er dark-brow'd hill,
Thy soul of beauty flown.

No, never more on earth can shine
The light of thy proud name;
The joys have fled that once were mine—
And all my pride of fame—

234

And like a willow in the beams
Of night's pale queen, my heart
Amid past joys for ever dreams,—
Whose smiles cannot depart.

No, never more shall I look up
And drink thy looks of love!
But, oh, the bane of sorrow's cup
Is all unknown above,
And 'tis some joy in all my wo
To know that thou art free
From all the ills of life below,
That sting and torture me.

Sleep, lovely youth! though cold thy bed
And dark thy slumbers are,
And love and hope and bliss have fled
And left thee lonely there,
Yet heaven's sweet smile is o'er thy sleep
And virtue watches by thee,
And she, thy love, will ever keep
Her mournful vigils nigh thee.

235

THE VOICE OF THE EYE.

When rosy lipp'd Spring, on the green hills of May,
Sits, smiling through tears, mid the stillness of night,
And the music of waters, rolling on far away,
Breathes soft o'er the soul that is wrapt to delight;
And bright stars are gemming the zone of the sky,
As they hold fond communion in glory above—
Oh, true lovers then hear the voice of the eye,
O'er the moon-lighted dale and the whispering grove.

The vista of poplars that bends to the breeze,
The cool, dewy vallies of verdure and flowers,
The zephyrs that harp mid the leaves of the trees,
And the starlight that shadows the magical bowers—
All blend with the music that comes from on high,
As passion grows brighter in ecstasy's tears,
And true lovers hear the soft voice of the eye,
While hope soars to heaven on the star-wings of years.

Like an infant's gay dream, as it sleeps on the breast,
Where the heart ever throbs with ineffable love,
In the springtime of beauty each vision is blest,
And the soul burns with rapture, like angels above;
Then young thoughts are pure as the breath of the sky,
And revealments of pleasure float over the soul,
While in silence, heaven hears the soft voice of the eye,
O'er love thrilling hearts its deep eloquence roll.

When the cold winds of winter, that howl in the wood,
Are companioned by feelings more deadly and chill,
And the hours, that have fled, like the wave of the flood,
Beneath icy sorrows, roll wildly but still;

236

And hope cheers no more, as it passes on high,
Mid the darkness of ruin—the midnight of wo—
Oh! then listen not to the voice of the eye,
For its glance tells a tale it were madness to know.

When the sunbeams that burn on the love-angel's wing
Are mirror'd by dews on the flower of young love,
And affection, perfume round the cold world can fling,
As it dances through air like a rainbow-wing'd dove;
When Aurora her lyre, in the soft tinted sky,
Touches softly while wreathing her sun-tinctured hair—
Oh, listen then, Love, to the voice of the eye,
For all but sad truth tells of happiness there.

243

EMMELINE.

Lone, dark and silent is the way,
That leads to bowers of bliss,
But brightly shine in other worlds
The days so sad in this;
There pure and holy love is blest,
There joys for ever bloom—
But, oh, the path, that leads to rest,
Lies through the dark, cold tomb.

And vainly may we wake and weep,
And vainly sigh and wail
O'er bosom friends that slumber low
In death's unechoing vale;
For never, till our souls assume
Their airy forms above,
Can thought pierce through the folds of gloom
That shroud all we did love.

But, lovely Shade! what fate denies,
The spirit can supply,
For, though with these dim mortal eyes
I see thee not on high,
Yet I can feel thy spirit near,
While I lone vigils keep,
And o'er past joys, too sadly dear,
In unseen sorrow weep.

Then hopes long lost again put on
Their radiant smiles and tears,
And raptured hours, long past and gone,
Come back and seem like years;

244

But when I muse alone on thee,
And think what joys were mine,
My heart sinks down in misery,
My love! my Emmeline!

When thou wert living, though my fate,
Like thine, was dark and drear,
Yet life was not all desolate,
For thou, sweet One! wert near,
Sometimes our eyes could meet and tell
Our deathless love and grief,
And then our hearts in sorrow's swell
Felt something like relief.

Then, oh, it was my sole delight
To watch thy form afar,
And hear thee sing at fall of night
To hail the evening star:
What thoughts were then within thy heart
I knew full well by mine—
Alas! 'twas very hard to part
From thee, my Emmeline!

But hearts that love the best must bleed,
For anguish is their lot,
Till from this world of sorrow freed,
Where pleasure dwelleth not;
And I went forth, by frenzy driven,
At that long, last farewell,
And felt like one accursed by heaven—
—But this I cannot tell!

My heart is like a dial now,
That points to other days—
A desert of perpetual snow,
Lit by no sunny rays;

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I roam abroad this world of pain
Without a hope or joy,
O'er sea and land, o'er hill and plain,—
Thou'rt not beneath the sky!

Strange forms flit by me in my way,
I see them not; they are
Like shadows of some happier day,
The shades of some cold star,
That once shone bright but now hath gone
Far through the upper air—
Like thee, thou dear departed One!
Thou glory of despair!

Thou com'st to me in the still night,
And wearst thy smile of love—
And thou—dim image of delight!
Dwell'st far—how far! above!
—My heart shall be the sacred shrine,
Where love unseen doth burn,
Till I, like thee, my Emmeline!
Part never to return.

246

THE PARTING.

The night was dark, the hour was still,
The sky was clouded like my heart,
When, seated on the midnight hill,
Unseen, I saw my love depart—
Depart forever from my eyes,
Mid joyous friends and jubilee,
A doomed yet smiling sacrifice—
Oh! didst thou, Love! then think of me?

I heard thee often say farewell—
Methought thy sweet voice spake in tears—
Thy heart's deep tears—I cannot tell,
For now the scene is dim with years;
But oft I heard thy fond adieu,
As thou wert passing then away—
I never after guessed or knew
Why thou didst linger by the bay.

Perchance, familiar scenes and dear,
Loved, lost, sweet scenes of blighted love,
Wrung from thy heart a last, quick tear,
A farewell to our old, dim grove;
And it might be that thou didst gaze
Upon those scenes and think of me
As one beloved in happier days—
Now doomed to life's worst destiny.

Yet outward gladness beamed around thee,
And cheerful was thy brow and eye,
Though the dark chain of fate, that bound thee
Weighed heavily when none were nigh;

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And fearfully, in many a throng,
Came hurrying thoughts of other hours,
As I beheld thee borne along—
Sweet victim to unpitying powers!

My heart throbbed madly when the sail
Swelled forward in the summer wind—
I cannot tell the harrowing tale—
But thou didst leave a wretch behind!
—Dark dreams came o'er me—visions flew
Mid flame and darkness o'er my brain,
And wilder still my spirit grew
Each moment in its penal pain.

Oh! hast thou lost the best and dearest,
The light, the heaven of heart and mind?
—Tell me what 'tis on earth thou fearest
When every hope is left behind!
—I woke at last; the dawn o'erspread
The rosy earth—the rich blue sky,
But brought no gladness to the dead,
The breathing dead—who could not die!

248

MARRIAGE SONG.

Farewell! ye lone visions of sorrow and wo
That have haunted my heart and bewildered my brain!
Once more as in childhood my bosom doth know
The joys my soul dreaded would ne'er come again.

Through the lingering years of my wandering o'er
The lone waste of life, I had ceased to beguile
The darkness that clouded my heart evermore
With the radiant light of Hope's sunny smile.

And I thought all the friends of my childhood had gone
And all the sweet feelings of life's bloomy spring,
And I sighed as I thought that my path must be lone
Thro' this dark world, uncheered by one beautiful thing.

Gloom fell on my heart and my spirit grew cold,
As the past fled away through the desert around,
And the prayer seemed a curse, “may I live to grow old!”
For solitude sighed at the desolate sound.

But my heart wakes again to the feelings that threw
Their beauty and bliss o'er my earlier years,
And Love, like the sunbeam embosomed in dew,
Sheds life o'er a heart whose throbs have been tears.

With thee, lovely One! I shall ever forget
The sorrow I long have in solitude borne,
And bless in thy arms the blest hour when we met,
When years make more welcome its joyful return.

252

THE SONG OF THE INDIANS.

The shadows of night are going up
The hoar and silent mountain;
But the glorious sun is lingering yet
On the glen's romantic fountain;
Lo! the shades of Death are heaving round
The warriors of old renown,
But the light of memory falleth still
On their dewy laurel crown.

The night bird, mid the shadowy wood,
With a joyous spirit sings,
And music comes, with a gurgling gush,
From a thousand moonlight springs;
Lo! the Fame of the greatly good survives
The change and the blight of Death,
And the Hero's name and deeds are heard
In the Forest's hourly breath.

We weep not that our kings have gone
To Xaragua's vale,
For the path of their glory's trodden yet
By feet that never fail;
And the Zemi's smile shall meet us there
When the sun to his cavern flies,
And the moon alone, with a melting light,
Looks on us from the skies.

There, if we follow our warrior chiefs—
We shall sleep on molten stars;
The anana and mamey shall wait us there,
And the trophies of glorious wars;

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And our spirits will float through the mellow gloom,
Like the down on the twilight breeze,
And our home shall be in a starry bower
Beneath the greenwood trees.

We grieve not over departed days,
For the voice of the Dead is heard;
“Be just and wise to thy fellow man,
“And gentle to beast and bird;
“And thy name shall live in the songs and hearts
“Of the ages that are to be,
“And thy choicest friend shall welcome thee
“To the bower of the greenwood tree.”

Mr. Maxwell has very politely allowed me to extract this song from “The Carib Cacique,” a prose Tale by the Author, which will soon appear in an attractive volume from his press.

THE END.

University of Virginia Library

THE ARGUMENT.

THE HEIR OF THE WORLD.

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