Poems :: :: University of Virginia Library

Glide, spirit benign—for such our guest has been,
In presence with us for too brief a tide—
Back to thy sadden'd home that claims thee, glide!—
A lingering vision of that tranquil mien
Inform'd with virtue shrinking from display,
A dim reflection of that soul serene,
Although the visitant be far away
Will yet be ours amid this Eden scene.
The whitest cloud that ever light refined
Above us floating where the angels hide,
Sheds a dark shadow on the mountain-side:
So the bland image of thy stainless mind
From far will reach us, dear to memory's sight,
A pensive shadow of angelic light.

Rydal, October 12, 1849.

EMMA.

How like a soul on her chaste way to heaven
The moon is climbing up yon azure hill!
Clouds by rude gusts athwart her path are driven,
Then pass away, and leave her spotless still:
Thus o'er the good pass clouds of worldly ill!
Soft, serious Emma! like that moon wert Thou!
Lovely in youth and goodness as thou wert;
Religion's lambent light was on thy brow,
And on thy cheek, and in thy gentle heart,
Shedding mild lustre on thy heavenward way,
Spite of those earthly clouds that cross'd its ray.
Virtue in thee refined upon her part,
And seem'd to buoy thee upward, free from taint:
Serene Enthusiast! meekly soaring saint!

THE AMERICAN SHIP PAULINA.

The sinking moon, her herald to the west,
At midnight left her motionless in port:
Day is but two hours old, and round her sport
The Atlantic billows, welcoming their guest
Whose red-striped flag is by the breeze carest.
Home from the vine-land for her far-off mart,
She bears the bacchant juice that cheers the heart,
And sometimes maddens. For an exile's breast—
For him whom she is wafting far away
From Douro's banks, where all his fancies grew,
That now must wither in ungenial air—
Where is the flattering balm that can allay
The yearning of a heart in vain so true,
At sea upon a voyage of despair?

Foz, near Oporto, Sunday, July 13, 1845.

HERO-WORSHIP. I.

“Cromwell! our chief of men;” thy surest praise
Is this, that He, a greater far than thou,
Crown'd with immortal verse thine iron brow.
O “fallen on evil tongues and evil days,”
And blind already in the horrent blaze
Thy torch enkindled, he who could endow
Thy blood-red star with seraph light, and vow
Upon an idol shrine his sacred bays.—
Though none denies thee grandeur in thy crime,
That struck the realm as with a thunder shock,
Though Milton's organ peal'd applause sublime,
That trunkless visage haunts thee from the block,
Nor unrebuked will evil fame rejoice,
While honour in the island hath a voice.

HERO-WORSHIP. II.

Discrown'd misfortune trampled in the dust;
Admired disorder canting in the phrase
Of holiness; a Stuart (for after days
A lesson how a King benignly just,
Weak to resist though faithful to his trust,
Should perish) murder'd in the public gaze!
Creeds topsy-turvy, statutes in a blaze,
And all to deify a will robust!
Tongue-saintly Cromwell in his stalwart clutch
Seizes the sceptre, knocks the gilding off,
And makes it homely as a grandam's crutch:
But woe to the malignants if they scoff
At him who wields it; Oliver, the Man!
Save us from Lord-Protectors Puritan!

Louis XVI.

MEDUSA. I.

There is a pensive sweetness on her cheek,
And in her eye a melancholy lustre,
Complaining of the living snakes that cluster
Among her golden tresses. How, to wreak
Such vengeance on the lovely and the weak,
Could the Parthenian Goddess, for her shrine
Profaned, forget that mercy was divine?
Fair victim! I know one as fair as thou,
Whose foot, like thine, at Wisdom's altar stumbled,
And who, forsaken and forgotten now,
In spirit broken, as in beauty humbled,
Feels shame's keen vipers on her aching brow,
While they whose ears are shut to misery's groan,
View the poor wretch with eyes and hearts of stone!

MEDUSA. II.

Beautiful Maniac of the locks enchanted,
Whose golden net enslaved the Lord of Ocean!
Is this the end of all his false devotion?
Is this the crown upon thy temples planted
By him whose bosom for thy beauty panted?
Alas! frail Woman yields to soft emotion,
And love beguiles her with some airy notion:
And then the tempter's fatal suit is granted;
And then, away are wing'd the days of gladness
With him who sipp'd the nectar of her breath;
And then succeed the pains of guilt and sadness:
Love's flowery braid becomes a snaky wreath,
And then the serpents hiss her into madness:
Thus pleasure's garland turns a crown of death!

THE GAULS AT ROME. A.D. 1849. I.

License for Gaul, and Liberty for Rome!
The Frank Republic on its banner waves,
And marches forth to tell the Pontiff's slaves
That new-born Freedom shall not find a home
Within the precincts of St. Peter's dome,
Until in blood baptised, with Gallic knaves
For sponsors: such the rite their glory craves.
Egregious warning for all time to come—
The faith of Paris! Romans, ye have heard
The Chanticleer of France outcrow the bird
That smote on Peter's heart when he denied
His Master. Lo! the Gaul is at the gate;
Go forth, but weep not, duped Triumvirate,
Embrace your friend, philosopher, and guide!

THE GAULS AT ROME. A.D. 1849. II.

What! in the breach, amid the roar of guns,
Ye meet him hand to hand in deadly strife?
The heart of ancient Rome is come to life;
The Eternal City owns you for her sons,
And Tiber, flush'd with angry triumph, runs
Incarnadined with patriot gore, and rife
With airs of death; while “war unto the knife,”
As in Saguntum, maid nor matron shuns
To echo and re-echo from his banks.
Mazzini, Saffi, Garibaldi, now,
Stand ye or fall, enroll'd in valour's ranks
Ye live! Who love ye least will most avow
Your Curtian spirit, dreadless of the Gulf—
The Roman courage nurtured by the Wolf.

Written and published in the “Morning Post,” before the Surrender.

THE GAULS AT ROME. A.D. 1849. III.

The battle, though not always to the strong,
Was too unequal: Rome submits to Gaul;
The great republic hath disarm'd the small,
And, by that unimaginable wrong,
Confess'd itself a bubble, that ere long
Should burst by its own lightness. If the fall
Of men whose frantic minds the wise appal,
Be just, by Gallic hands, let choral song
Ring wide for Papal royalty restored.
That song, in France, should echo to recal
The long-descended heir of him whose sword
The pontiff-throne establish'd. From the thrall
Released of blind delirium, France again
Should hail the regal lily of the Seine.

THE GAULS AT ROME. A.D. 1849. IV.

Up with the Oriflamme, most Christian France!
That long-lost title wouldst thou yet regain,
Up with the golden wand of Charlemagne,
The banner of Saint Louis, and the lance
That, like the seraph's, glitter'd in advance
Of sacred armies on the Syrian plain,
When Paladins were champions of the Fane,
And Christian chivalry was true romance.
If this thy new crusade in Holy Land,
Be genuine zeal for desecrated law,
Look for its cause at home: for there is spawn'd
The speckled pest whose breath the nations draw;
That glozing cheat at dreaming Freedom's ear,
Would start a fiend, touch'd by Ithuriel's spear.

FIELD-FOOT CEDAR. I.

PLANTED BY WORDSWORTH, SEPTEMBER 18, 1849.

Muse-favoured Scion, flourish like thy peers
The solemn growth of orient peaks sublime,
And trust thy glorious destiny to Time:
For, though thy lot may lowlier seem than theirs,
The man who plants thee, one of Nature's seers,
Above their height has built enduring rhyme.
Among these rocks thou canst not choose but climb
And prosper, hallowed by his fourscore years.
Man's life, extended to its utmost length,
Is shorter than the crescent youth of trees;
Not so the life of genius, by the strength
Of virtue cherished in the sun and breeze.
When thou art old, his name will cling to thee,
And awe the spoiler,—thou art Wordsworth's Tree!

FIELD-FOOT CEDAR. II.

Not Menalus, with all his sylvan throng,
Waving applausive to the reed of Pan
While nymphal feet the dancing measure scan,—
Nor Val di Noto, though its forests rung
With Doric harmonies ere Maro sung, —
Not Monte Mario, though the Pine be there
That owes its menaced life to Beaumont's care,
Its glory to the Lute by Wordsworth strung,—
Outcharms these wild wood-rocks to Fancy's eye,
While she beholds this Himalayan plant
A stately cedar, potent to enchant
Beneath its umbrage, in a future age,
Some Poet destined to a mission high,
A Weird successor of the Rydal Sage.

Menalus, famous in classical lore for its pine-trees, and as the favourite haunt of Pan, and his company of Nymphs and Fauns.

The Greek Poet was born in Syracuse, which is in the Val di Noto.

See Wordsworth's Sonnet:—

“I saw far off the dark top of a Pine,”

and the note to it.

FIELD-FOOT CEDAR. III.

On Indus' banks and Ganges,' near the fane
Wherein sits Deva on his mystic throne,
The Brahmin sows the Deodarean cone;
And crouching myriads—for whose sires, in vain
A warning voice proclaim'd Messiah's reign,
Hereditary thralls to stock and stone—
Revere their God-tree in the seed thus sown.
Grow thou, secure from ministry insane.—
An English river near a purer shrine,
Flows by the rocks that will protect thy youth,
And thou art planted here but to record
A date that cleaves to sympathies benign
In hearts that trust the promise of the Word,
And rest their solace on Eternal Truth.

The Pinus Deodara, the Cedar of India, is held as “a sacred tree by the natives, deodara meaning the tree of Siva or Deva, who is one of the most important divinities in the Hindû Mythology. As the tree of the Gods, the deodara is planted near the Indian temples, and comes in for a share of the worship.”

Frances Xavier, Missionary of the East in 1547, was popularly styled “the Apostle of India.”

FIELD-FOOT. I.

The crags of Loughrigg to the rising sun
Oppose a jealous aspect: and his beam
(From Wansfell glancing o'er the charmèd stream
Of Rotha grateful for the glory won
From orient light) those sullen barriers shun,
Forbidding with a sylvan veil the gleam
That would awaken from their morning dream
The cavern'd Oreads, who disporting run
Among those cliffs till dawn, and weary then
Hide in their fern-screen'd coverts.—Footing there
To sprites of Fancy only, not to men,
Is free—So deems the pilgrim, unaware
How powers severe to strenuous art relent,
And passes, seeking a less coy ascent.

As laid out by the owner, William Crewdson, Esq.

FIELD-FOOT. II.

A human instinct, breathed into the soul
By Him who out of chaos Eden made,
Has work'd unseen behind yon leafy shade.—
The sense of beauty, stealthy as the mole
But like the lynx keen-vision'd, upward stole
Along the frowning walls, and there essay'd
The more than wizard power of axe and spade,
To lift the aspirant to a lofty goal.
The bird-like spirit of hope from bough to bough,
From rock to rock, incited labour on:
Reluctant nature smooth'd her angry brow,
For not a line of savage grace was gone,
From lowly Field-foot to the crowning Fell;
So shrewdly work'd the Master of the Spell!

Rydal, July 18, 1849.

CAVE OF MEDITATION, FIELD-FOOT.

A man, whose sorrows veil'd him from the crowd,
Wandering incautious of a tempest near,
At nightfall chanced to seek a shelter here,
And stood and listen'd from this stony shroud
To spectral voices hailing him aloud,
To woods and waters thundering in his ear,
While all was hidden but one eastern star
Serenely shining through a riven cloud.
Anon the placid star assumed the form
Of Her whom he had follow'd to the grave:
The momentary vision, poised in air,
Glanced with a pity that rebuked despair;
Then all the brightness vanish'd in the storm,
And Sibyl Night mused with him in the cave.

TO ANGUS FLETCHER.

Angus, this fond Memorial, that we raise
To One all worthy of the sculptor's art,
Is but a simple tribute of the heart;
No costly lure to take the stranger's gaze.
Yet, if some mourner, through the tender haze
Of tears, contemplating this modest stone,
By sympathetic grief shall soothe his own,
Be his the solace, and be thine the praise.
The frame of ivy, faithful to the dead,
The Cross, the Lamb that watches o'er her grave,
The words of life that to the dying gave
The peace of faith upon an anguish'd bed,
This love, this mystery, this hope, are there,
Evolved, yet guarded, by thy sentient care.

Grasmere Church-yard, September 22, 1849.

“Him that cometh to Me I will in no wise cast out.” St. John, vi. 37.

SUSPIRIA.

I. WORDSWORTH'S HOME.

The fairest bowers in this enchanted land,
To me are darken'd by a fate severe,
And most yon terraced bower of Rydal-mere,
That long-loved mount, where oft some pilgrim band,
Won by the genius of the place, will stand
Lingering, as now, in many a distant year.
Alas! the Delphic “laurels never sere,”
Undying trophies of their planter's hand,
To Him were blighted, though they yet be green,
For me were wither'd, when no more was seen
The light that fed her aged father's heart,
And shed the tenderest glory on his fame.
The living forms of his creative art
For us are shadowy,—Dora but a name.

August, 1849.

II. HER HOME.

Oh for a glance into the world above!
Enfranchised trembler, thou art surely there!
Not mine the gloom fanatic to despair
Of grace for thee: but, reft of thy pure love,
So dread a conflict in my soul I prove,
So lost I feel in solitary care,
So frail, forlorn, and worthless, that I dare
Aspire to no such height, unless the dove
Of peace, descending, teach my hope to soar.
Fond heart! thy wounds were heal'd, thy sins forgiven;
I saw thee die; I know that thou art blest.
Thou, dying sufferer, wert wing'd for heaven;
And when thy spirit mounted to its rest
My guardian angel fled, to come no more.

III. “JESUS WEPT.” (St. John xi. 35.)

Christ, Thou hast wept! Forgive the tears I shed;
I know Thou wilt upraise her. But I fear
This captious questioner within. The tear
That falls so oft upon her grave is bred
Of doubt and horror. When her Spirit fled
'Twas sanctified in Thee: but I am here,
On this bleak earth, a lorn probationer,
Struggling against myself—She is not dead,
But sleepeth:—shall I ever see her more,
Or see her as she was, the soul, the life,
Of my life's being? I shall sleep and wake,
But will the waking unto me restore,
Or find me doom'd for ever to forsake,
The glorified immortal, once my Wife?

Wednesday, August 22, 1849.

IV. A REQUEST.

Two graves, in Grasmere Vale, yew-shaded both,
My all of life, if life be love, comprise.
In one the mother of my children lies,
Fate's blameless victim in her bloom of youth:
The other holds the constancy and truth
That never fail'd me under darker skies,
When subtle wrongs perplex'd me. Her whose eyes
Saw light through every wildering maze uncouth.
Between those graves a space remains for me:
O lay me there, wherever I may be
When met by Death's pale angel; so in peace
My dust near theirs may slumber, till the day
Of final retribution or release
For mortal life's reanimated clay.