The bard, and minor poems :: :: University of Virginia Library

“She is not dead!—Oh, say she is not dead!
Have I not seen her floating o'er my head,
Chanting high, holy hymns; and o'er my brow
Breathed to my aching brain in murmurs low?
I have beheld her in the silver mist,
Clothed in celestial garments; and have kiss'd
Her heavenly eyelids bending o'er my face:
And, lo! in yonder solitary place,
Whither she wanders in the midnight hour,
With rarest flowers for her I've rear'd this bower.

“Oh, how had her dear eyes delighted been
To see the splendour of this goodly scene!
The poet's glowing fancy gathers here
Each various beauty that the soul can bear:—
The cataracts that wildly roll along;
The crystal brook; the forest's voiceless song;
The violet-beds in fragrance spread about;
The lambkin's bleat; the shepherd's joyous shout;
The eternal mountains where no foot hath trod,
All tell the might and majesty of God.

“And here I mournful wander each long night,
And madly kneel beneath the moon's pale light:
Pray, my beloved, that thou with gentle eye,
Wilt breathe forgiveness from the starry sky:
And, through the myriad glories o'er my head,
Oft do I view, methinks, the radiant dead!
The plaintive moon amid the foliage streams,
And wakes to memory all my ancient dreams:
Yon distant waterfal recalls again
The joyous hours we never shall regain:
The melody of ocean, loud and strong,
Awakens in my heart each ancient song:
Each bird, or little flower, brings back the day
That now lives only in this tongue of clay.

“Oft, oft, like streams of moonlight in the glow
Of the white mountain mists, her footsteps flow;
She gladdens the black gloom; her walk is high
Amid the fleecy clouds that round her fly;
Bright hosts of angel sisters, robed like her,
Chant o'er her hymns of harp and dulcimer;
And in the quiet of the brooding storm
I have beheld her heaven-bearing form,
And heard her voice in caves and among groves,
And where the pine-trees chant the requiem of our loves.

“And yet she must be dead!—Now, never more
Shines the celestial presence as of yore.
Changed, changed to me a madman. I became
Crazed miserably—heart and brain of burning flame.

Madness, the giant fiend, the spectral host
Of nightmare, fear and death; the tempest-tost
Shipwreck, upborne upon the perilous sea
Of blacken'd dream; the wilder'd phantasy;
The hideous thing; the unconnected throng
Of shapes and faces wild, unnamed in song;
The fancy drown'd in ashes, waking never;
Imagination wrapt in tortures ever.
What tongue can tell the pangs beyond control,
That sat like nightmare on my shrinking soul?
The fires that burn'd like hell—the clinging weight
That prest my spirit with a giant's might!
All beauty gone, all sights of earth and sky;
Still every sound of hope—no solace nigh;
No hope on summer breeze—joy in the sun;
No splendour of the moon, and the bright starlight gone.

“She whom I loved!—oh, wither'd every grace
And hue, and cloudless shape! No lingering trace
Of her young beauty, brightening when she came,
In scorpion locks, or eye of molten flame.
Now dwelt no more pure truth upon her brow,
But cruel treachery's war; and never now
Play'd the pure glow of virtue on her cheek;—
How changed the innocent, the wise, the meek!
Oh, it was horrible! the sickening blood
Revolved around my heart,—a bounding flood,
Sudden down-dropping to a pathless cave.
How then I yearn'd for the cold, silent grave,
To be my sure and everlasting home,
Where fancy's hideous shapings might not come!

Mary! I cried, and a wild shrieking fell—
Ten thousand thunders from the vault of hell.
Mary!—and Echo answering, yell'd him hoarse,
And I was worse than mad; and the vast curse
Of everlasting life seem'd to be mine!
Then round my limbs her mouldering arms would twine,
And to my lips her pallid cheek she prest,
And held me closely to her wither'd breast,
And hymn'd death-songs to me, and shut my eyes
With her thin fingers; and pestiferous sighs
Of hateful love breathed from her pallid throat:
And this she did whole days, repenting not.

“The dews of heaven that wet the orphan's hair,
That calm the conflagration of despair,
That sleep like tear-drops in the widow's eye,
That cool the summer flowerets ere they die,
Why fell they not on me? But I was wild
With grief and madness—heavily beguiled;
I was undone, and lost, and utterly gone,
Spurn'd, scorn'd, an outcast, and denounced as one
Whose curse was that of death, to suffer—and alone!

“At last, methought, within a frozen cell,
With chains and stripes, I was condemn'd to dwell:
Loud, hideous shriekings stunn'd my aching ear—
Yells of despair, and agony, and fear.
Was it some cavern of the rock? a hold
Of savage strength and feudal pomp of old?
And these the voices of the hollow wind?
But why corroding bonds these faint limbs bind?

And who this watcher? for what crime should I
Be driven from earth's sweet sounds, and sunshine of the sky?

“These were Despair's loud notes; these shrieks the sway
Of the rent soul shut out from memory's ray.
Each woeful shadow told a separate tale.
One was a weeping orphan, wan and pale,
Yet beautiful as is the moonlit night;
And she would dream of pictures fair and bright,
And sing melodious hymns her love had heard,
In voice as sweet as of a dying bird.
He was a gallant sailor; and the sea,
And England's glory, knew the brave and free;
He, 'mid the thunders of the Nile had stood,
The waters redden'd with his warrior-blood;
And when at Tafalgar brave Nelson died,
The brave, the beautiful, stood by his side!

“And there was one, who wept all night and day;
Her eyes were blind with grief; and thus she lay
In misery, like some monumental stone:
Her faithless lover from her side had gone;
And from her brow was fled the starry gem
Of chastity's celestial diadem!
What! can the heavens behold such cruel thing,
And not hurl vengeance down? Where the stars sing,
Where the calm moonbeams in sweet slumber shine,
And where the blue sky bends, vengeance divine,

Storm, lightning, and the thunder terrible,
Ready for heaven's command, all armour'd dwell!

“Another seem'd a warrior—great each word;
His the all-conquering spear, and shield, and sword!
He a proud hero was of ancient time—
A throned king, a warrior-god sublime!
His plumes danced in the sun; his helmet bright
Gleam'd 'mid the loudest thunders of the fight;
And to his ears applauding millions sent
Cloud-shattering plaudits wheresoe'er he went.

“One was a mother, and she never spake;
But, like a bird, all wounded in the brake,
She sigh'd her life away—a desert well,
Weeping in sleep—the flower that wont to dwell—
One single flower, its all, that now is dead;
So mourn'd she her sole blossom withered.

“Others there were, each with his own strange tale;
A dark-hair'd youth, feeble, and sick, and pale,
Who swiftly journey'd to his latter end—
She whom he loved had married to his friend.
A man of pomp and pride—ambitious, vain;
His darling hope undone had crazed his brain:
A tyrant who, in dungeons buried deep,
Had driven high minds their country's wrongs to weep:
A cruel robber of the poor man's purse,
Till stricken by a dying orphan's curse:

A murderer, whom one that he deem'd dead,
Madden'd at once, shaking his gory head!
Cowards by guns made mad; villains by looks
Of midnight ghosts; pale students by their books.
Such are the miseries that high heaven doth see:
The world beholds them not; its pleasures flee
Far in the paths of air; and millions die,
Seen only by the Omnipresent eye.

“But is she dead—Mary beloved? the light
Of the fair morn dark on her closed sight?
Do grave-dews winnow through the tainted clay?
Doth the breeze fan in vain the locks of day?
Is hers the eternal shroud? Say, is she part
Of grim, old death? pulseless her eloquent heart?
What head like hers, all golden—dim and dark—
Barken and clotted?—her voice silent?—Hark!
I hear it once again, solemn and sweet!
No; 'twas the breeze rating the moss-clad peak.
Dead?—dared they heap the dust, and I afar,
And shroud the glory of heaven's brightest star?
Blacken the splendour of the sweetest flower
That ever lit with beauty forest bower?

I never heard the church-bell tolling low,
The organ's burial-music rolling slow,
The moan of prayer over the sullen grave,
The hymn full-swelling as the ocean wave:
I saw no virgins in the summer day,
All robed in white, bearing her form away;

I never heard the rope, grating and dull,
That folded her, the bright, the beautiful:
I saw no breaking hearts—I heard no groan,
When she was laid beneath the cold grave-stone.
Mine own betrothed! mine own in dying prayer!
They could not lay her in the sepulchre—
They dared not bury her, and I afar.

“Yet, oh! I feel not her fair hands in mine;
I gaze not on her polish'd forehead's shine;
Strange words most unintelligibly flow
From her low-murmuring lips, that long ago,
In life, I heard not; and her gentle tread
That touch'd, like summer dews, the harebell-bed,
Falls lighter, like the spectre-footed dead.

“Where sleep the glories that, like heavenly light,
Smiled in her eyes, transcendent with delight?
Where the immortal eloquence that lay,
Like breath of angels, on her lips alway?
Where the celestial glow upon her face,
Each look of peace, each pure and heaven-born grace?
She comes not, when this burning heart heaves high
As pants the eagle for the summer sky:
She comes not, when I hail the evening cloud—
Abodes of joy—her home, and spirit-shroud!
In every haunt I seek her; where the storm
Revels in rocky caves, I trace her form;
Each heather-scented moor, each wilder'd way,
Where, in her happy days, she loved to stray.

And when the mellow moonlight from above
Showers down upon the brooks in rays of love,
I muse along, and through the abbey aisles
Seek for the sunshine of her early smiles,
And as the silver moonbeams glimmer past,
Fancy her robes are streaming on the blast.

“Oh, come beloved! in heavenly mercy come!
Here be thy rest—this weary heart thy home!
Doubt'st thou my love? Behold me moaning lay,—
Behold my misery, weeping night and day!
By these warm tears as thick as thunder-rain,—
By all this terror, agony, and pain,—
The torture and the madness I have borne
Through Hope's bright heaven a wanderer forlorn!
Oh, by the memory of that parting hour,
When all the moonbeams linger'd on thy bower;
And by the madness and the pangs of love,
Come from thy starry dwelling-place above!
Come, though a thousand blessed angels pray,
That thou in their celestial homes wilt stay;
Come, though the enduring stars for ever shine
On thee, on thy bright sisters! Mary, mine!
Come, though the suns are warm, the moonbeams clear,
No snows to chill, no storms to cloud the air,—
Though hymns perpetual of the lyre and voice,
Bid the high-vaulted domes of heaven rejoice;
Though sin, nor grief, nor sadness rear their head,
And crowns of glory deck the sainted dead;

“Though amaranths immortal glow around,
And brooks of Paradise in concert sound:
Come! once again, in all thy beauty come—
My love thy treasure, and this heart thy home!

“And thou shalt be a queen: and thy sweet smile
Shall glow like sunshine, and my cares beguile:
Those lustrous eyes that herald evening in,
Shall to thyself all wandering visions win—
Clear as the stars, or glow-worm's eye of fire;
And praising thee, the poet's tuneful lyre
Shall chant immortal hymns, till thou become
The theme of mountain swains,—the sacred home
Of love-lorn damsels straying by the moon,
And where true hearts shall beat, erect thy throne.

“No land remote, where'er the sunbeams fall,
But thy blest name shall sound in bower and hall;
The woods shall hear it, and each running brook
Rejoice to view thy glad and rapturous look;
Each dell, and mossy cave, and fäery place
Be glorified, by thy celestial face.
The mermaids, where the coral caverns lay,
That gaily wanton in the noontide ray—
As, gazing on the waves, they sing their song,
And mutter dirges of their ancient wrong,
Restrain their grief, and, listening to the sound,
Shall marvel where thy palace may be found:
And they will bring thee pearls, and weave a crown
Of gold and emeralds, to win thee down.

“The fairies singing, 'mid the dew-drops clear,
Sweet hymns that stay the storm in his career,
(In azure robes which mock the milky-way!)
Entreating loud, shall call on thee to stay.
The Naïad queen, amid her mossy bowers,
Shall weep for thee to tend her fragile flowers;
And, as her subjects float along the green,
And weave their mournful hymns,—the pomp serene
Of thy sweet presence shall enchant their eyes,
And shower new glory on their paradise;
And to thy praise their dulcet music rise
In strains celestial, through the enraptur'd skies.
She comes not!—she will never come! and I
Soon, 'mid this wilderness of ways, must die:
Without her smiles what is the world to me,
Its sun, its moon, its stars?—a shoreless sea,
Whereon no bark, except my own, may be—
A dreary desert where no floweret blooms,
Scattering along the winds its rich perfumes;
A realm deserted, where no dweller is,
But I alone, a monarch subjectless.

“All old delightful dreams have lost their dyes,
All lovely shapes have fled my weary eyes;
Sunset hath lost her towers of golden light
And hues of glory, on the waters bright;
Shadows of trees, and silence of the dead,
And cloud-lands' gorgeous visions overhead!
The moon can light no more this earth-worn brain,
And lift me up toward heaven—her own domain:

“I heedless view my old companions' ways,
Nor turn to Inspiration's stirring lays,
As when, by mountain side's embowering grove,
I read wild tales of knights and hapless love,
Whilst on the page the chequering light would rove.

“Arise! arise! mount upward to the sky!
Again, my spirit, bare thine eagle eye!—
Dare passion with her storms! make thee a home
On the sea-cliffs of thought!—again become
A mammoth among men!—and let thy might
Shroud all the lesser glories!—let thy light,
Like living fire, unfold her banners wide!
Stir to the splendour of thy faded pride,
And cast thy sorrows off, like garments worn.
Alas! alas! but I am too forlorn,
And faint, and feeble, and bow'd down to die,
Engulf'd in fires of fadeless agony!”