University of Virginia Library

What gentle murmur hath disturbed the air?
Did I not feel upon my cheek a breath,
Silent, and soft, as of an angel's wing!—
They come—in midnight visitings they come—
Those forms, that hover o'er the poet's couch,
What time he gazes with most earnest eye,
And long-suspended breath, lest from his view
The imaged objects of idolatry
Should fade! I heard—even now I hear—a voice
Low, yet most clear; I felt—even now I feel—
Mysterious breathings, and the soul obeys
In unresisting motion, when the Power
Of Song makes felt her holy influence.
Hast thou beheld the obedient march of waves,
The appointed flow, the regulated fall,
The rise, and lapse alternate? even as soon
Shall they rebel against the silent maid,
Who walks in joy among the company
Of stars, and smiles enchantment on the deep,
As poet struggle with the awful Power
That wakes the slumbering spirit into song,
As Man forbid the soul to undulate
Through all its depths what time the breath of Heaven
Moves o'er the darkness:—

Spoke there not a voice—
And Chaos heard?—“Let there be light,” and light
Was over air and earth and on the deep.
And such a voice was heard on Chebar's banks,
Loud as the rushing of a thousand streams,
And, in stupendous visionry, were seen
Cloud piled on cloud, as when the hand of God
Makes calm the tempest—cloud on cloud uprolled,
And amber fire within, and, trembling through,
Uncertain flashes of a throne dim-seen,
Strange brightness of what seemed the countenance
Of Him who sate thereon: while, Spirit-like,
Lone emblem of the Glory Unrevealed,
Afar, in silent heaven, the rainbow woke.

Angelic Voice and Vision, oft of old
Vouchsafed to prophet, and prophetic bard!
Oh for one breath of that undying Spirit!
Oh for one ray of that empyreal light!

For me, and such as I am, humbler lay
Is more appropriate. Not to me was given
Empyreal impulse,—yet the ardent mind
Brooks not inglorious silence, yet my cares
Are often solaced by some lighter Muse.
When sorrow pressed me—when the heavy hand
Of sickness weighed on the dejected mind,
And saddened the exulting time of youth
With the dim eye and feeble foot of age;
When Hope's reviving glow with Health returned,
Some Spirit still was near to whisper song,
A form that, angel-like, hung o'er my bed
Of pain, to reconcile the soul to death,
And, angel-like, illumes my brighter hours.

What hour more fitting for such visitant,
Than when the silence of the night hath lulled
All care to rest,—the stir of intercourse,
The fretting bustle—all that jarring clashed
To drown the music of the mind, hath ceased?
What scene more suited to her agency
Can'st thou conceive?—Round my broad window's arch
The ivy's wreaths are wound, and through the frame
A few short shoots find unforbidden way;
The woodbine's pillared blossom in the breeze
Moves slowly, and upon the moonlight ground
The shadow casts an ever-varying stain;—
The sound of waters, too, is here,—that stream,
Whose windings long have led my truant feet,
Soothes with its ceaseless murmur,—opposite
My window is a poplar, all whose leaves
Flutter most musical;—the moonshine there
Plays strange vagaries,—now a flood of light
Spreads like a sheet of snow along the plain,—
Now all is darkness, save that through the boughs
On the green circle, like a summer shower
Slow falling from unagitated leaves,
Some glancing drops of light are checkering still;—
Now is the ivy coloured with the beams,—
Now on my floor they lie in quietness,—
Now float with mazy flow most restlessly,
—At rest, or quivering, still how beautiful!—
Like Fancy sporting with the poet's soul!

They come—in midnight visitings they come—
But not such forms as in the calm of night
Seek the soft twilight of the gentle moon!—
What form is yonder?—never hath the dream
Of night been bodied in a wilder shape!
Stern is his brow, and gloomy, and his height
Is as the shadow on the burial ground,
When the moon's light upon some sculptured form
In cold reflection lies!—A heavy cloud,
And red, as though from steaming vales of blood
Exhaled, o'ershades him with its canopy!
Whither, sad Spirit! whither would'st thou haste?
A wavering melancholy fire hath lit
Thine eye; thy voice is dreary as the fear,
That wakes the wounded warrior from his trance,
When the black vulture from her heavy wing
Flaps on his brow the drops of stiffening gore,
Or the steed dying falls, a weary weight,
On his bruised body. Whither would'st thou lead,
Dark Spirit, whither? To that fatal field,
Where moonlight gleams on many a broken helm,
On many a shieldless warrior, o'er whose limbs
The trembling hand of love had linked the mail,
Alas in vain?—the supple limbs of youth,
And manhood's sinewy strength, and rigid age,
Together lie:—the boy, whose hands with blood
Were never stained before, upon whose lip
The mother's kiss was ominously pressed;—
The man, alive to every tenderest thought,
Who cherished every fire-side charity;—
And he, who, bending with the weight of years,
Felt the sword heavy in his straining hand,
Who had outlived the social sympathies
That link us to our kind—here, side by side,
Sleep silent: he, who shrunk at every sound,
Who throbbed in terror for a worthless life,
Lies like a brother with the hopeless man,
Who desperately dared in scorn of death:—
The brave man in convulsing agony
Hath grasped, and holds in death the hireling's hand:—
—He, who was wont to calculate each chance,
To measure out each probability,
Behold him now extended on the earth,
Near that robuster frame, whose tenant soul
Flashed rapid in the energetic eye,
Whose thoughts were scarce imagined, ere they sprang
Forth-shaped in instant action:—here lies one,
Whose soul was vexed by Passion's every gust,
And like the light leaf trembled:—gaze again,
Look on the mutilated hand, that still
Clings to the sword unconscious;—milder man
Than he, whose mutilated hand lies there,
Breathes not;—each passion that rebelled was hushed;
So placid was his brow, so mild his eye,
It seemed no power could break the quiet there,
Till, in the agony of tenderness,
As his wife hung upon his bending neck,
And lengthened out in sobs that last embrace,
He could not look upon her countenance,
And the big tear he struggled to repress
Fell on the rosy infant's cheek, who smiled
At the unusual plume, and with stretched hand
Half drew the shining falchion from its sheath,
Then clung in mimic terror to his sire:—
—He parted:—soon the dewy breeze of morn,
The wild bird's carol and the wild-flower's breath,
And the blue hills, emerging from the sea
Of mists, that bathed all night their pinnacles,
Infused serenity:—and, as he past
The funeral-ground, and heard the Sabbath bell
Peal its long solemn sound, be-sure he thought
That with his fathers, in the family-grave,
His bones would moulder, and the thought was sweet:
Alas! ere long the soldier's hasty hand
Shall shape his burial-place, and the short prayer
Be muttered gracelessly above his grave!
—His was not what the great of earth would deem
A happy life; yet what is happiness,
If he who by his daily labour buys
His children's daily food, who feels no thought
Repine against his lot, if such a man
Thou deem'st not happy, what is happiness?—
His death was it not happy? though he came
The proud assertor of an evil cause,
He came self-justified: the patriot's glow
Illumed his cheek in life's last agony!
Fallen warrior, there are those that weep for thee!
Aye, there is one who, in her daily prayer,
Leaves not the absent soldier's name forgot—
There is an eye that, as each passing cloud
Obscures the air, will shape it to thy form;
And, when she thinks on thee, if the chill breeze
Roll the dry vine-leaf in its hurrying whirl,
Will start as tho' it were thy courser's hoofs:
Oh! she hath often from the cradle snatched
Her dreaming child, and hushed its little plaints,
Soothing him with the tale of thy return,
And rushed to show the infant to his sire,
Then laid it rudely by, and bitterly
Wept when she saw another face than thine.
[OMITTED]
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—Kings of Earth,
Whose is the crime, if Man should abdicate
His better nature?—Statesmen, whose the crime,
If, uninstructed, he should rise in wrath,
And rush with impulse irresistible,
Right onward to your ruin and his own?—
Have you not blotted from his memory
All sense of justice, when your shameless deeds
Confused each rule and ordinance of right?
Have you not drunk the cup of blasphemy?
Have you not sold, in impious merchandize,
Slaves, and the Souls of Men?—

Thou wert alone,
Thou, England, like some hill, whose lofty brows
Retain at eve, and joyously effuse
The light, that loves to lie and linger there:—
Only with thee Religion found a home,
Only with thee did Liberty repose! [OMITTED]