The works of Mrs. Hemans :: :: University of Virginia Library

On a monument in a Venetian church is an epitaph, recording that the remains beneath are those of a noble lady, who expired suddenly while standing as a bride at the altar.

“We bear her home! we bear her home!
Over the murmuring salt sea's foam:
One who has fled from the war of life,
From sorrow, pain, and the fever strife.”
Barry Cornwall.

Bride! upon thy marriage-day
When thy gems in rich array
Made the glistening mirror seem
As a star-reflecting stream;
When the clustering pearls lay fair
'Midst thy braids of sunny hair,
And the white veil o'er thee streaming,
Like a silvery halo gleaming,
Mellow'd all that pomp and light
Into something meekly bright;
Did the fluttering of thy breath
Speak of joy or woe beneath?
And the hue that went and came
O'er thy cheek, like wavering flame,
Flow'd that crimson from the unrest,
Or the gladness of thy breast?

—Who shall tell us? from thy bower,
Brightly didst thou pass that hour;
With the many-glancing oar,
And the cheer along the shore,
And the wealth of summer flowers
On thy fair head cast in showers,
And the breath of song and flute,
And the clarion's glad salute,
Swiftly o'er the Adrian tide
Wert thou borne in pomp, young bride!
Mirth and music, sun and sky,
Welcomed thee triumphantly!
Yet, perchance, a chastening thought,
In some deeper spirit wrought,
Whispering, as untold it blent
With the sounds of merriment,
“From the home of childhood's glee,
From the days of laughter free,
From the love of many years,
Thou art gone to cares and fears;
To another path and guide,
To a bosom yet untried!
Bright one! oh! there well may be
Trembling 'midst our joy for thee.”

Bride! when through the stately fane,
Circled with thy nuptial train,
'Midst the banners hung on high
By thy warrior-ancestry,
'Midst those mighty fathers dead,
In soft beauty thou wast led;
When before the shrine thy form
Quiver'd to some bosom storm,

When, like harp-strings with a sigh
Breaking in mid-harmony,
On thy lip the murmurs low
Died with love's unfinish'd vow;
When like scatter'd rose-leaves, fled
From thy cheek each tint of red,
And the light forsook thine eye,
And thy head sank heavily;
Was that drooping but the excess
Of thy spirit's blessedness?
Or did some deep feeling's might,
Folded in thy heart from sight,
With a sudden tempest-shower,
Earthward bear thy life's young flower?
—Who shall tell us?—on thy tongue
Silence, and for ever, hung!
Never to thy lip and cheek
Rush'd again the crimson streak,
Never to thine eye return'd
That which there had beam'd and burn'd!
With the secret none might know,
With thy rapture or thy woe,
With thy marriage-robe and wreath,
Thou wert fled, young bride of death!
One, one lightning moment there
Struck down triumph to despair,
Beauty, splendour, hope, and trust,
Into darkness—terror—dust!

There were sounds of weeping o'er thee,
Bride! as forth thy kindred bore thee,

Shrouded in thy gleaming veil,
Deaf to that wild funeral wail,
Yet perchance a chastening thought,
In some deeper spirit wrought,
Whispering while the stern, sad knell
On the air's bright stillness fell;
—“From the power of chill and change
Souls to sever and estrange;
From love's wane—a death in life
But to watch—a mortal strife;
From the secret fevers known
To the burning heart alone,
Thou art fled—afar, away—
Where these blights no more have sway!
Bright one! oh! there well may be
Comfort 'midst our tears for thee!”

THE ANCESTRAL SONG.

“A long war disturb'd your mind—
Here your perfect peace is sign'd;
'Tis now full tide 'twixt night and day,
End your moan, and come away!”
Webster—Duchess of Malfy.

There were faint sounds of weeping;—fear and gloom
And midnight vigil in a stately room
Of Lusignan's old halls:—rich odours there
Fill'd the proud chamber as with Indian air,
And soft light fell, from lamps of silver, thrown
On jewels that with rainbow lustre shone

Over a gorgeous couch:—there emeralds gleam'd,
And deeper crimson from the ruby stream'd
Than in the heart-leaf of the rose is set,
Hiding from sunshine.—Many a carcanet
Starry with diamonds, many a burning chain
Of the red gold, sent forth a radiance vain,
And sad, and strange, the canopy beneath
Whose shadowy curtains, round a bed of death,
Hung drooping solemnly;—for there one lay,
Passing from all earth's glories fast away,
Amidst those queenly treasures: They had been
Gifts of her lord, from far-off Paynim lands,
And for his sake, upon their orient sheen
She had gazed fondly, and with faint, cold hands
Had press'd them to her languid heart once more,
Melting in childlike tears. But this was o'er—
Love's last vain clinging unto life; and now—
A mist of dreams was hovering o'er her brow,
Her eye was fix'd, her spirit seem'd removed,
Though not from earth, from all it knew or loved,
Far, far away! her handmaids watch'd around,
In awe, that lent to each low midnight sound
A might, a mystery; and the quivering light
Of wind-sway'd lamps, made spectral in their sight
The forms of buried beauty, sad, yet fair,
Gleaming along the walls with braided hair,
Long in the dust grown dim; and she, too, saw,
But with the spirit's eye of raptured awe,
Those pictured shapes!—a bright, yet solemn train
Beckoning, they floated o'er her dreamy brain,
Clothed in diviner hues; while on her ear
Strange voices fell, which none besides might hear,

Sweet, yet profoundly mournful, as the sigh
Of winds o'er harp-strings through a midnight sky;
And thus it seem'd, in that low thrilling tone,
Th' ancestral shadows call'd away their own.

Come, come, come!
Long thy fainting soul hath yearn'd
For the step that ne'er return'd;
Long thine anxious ear hath listen'd,
And thy watchful eye hath glisten'd
With the hope, whose parting strife
Shook the flower-leaves from thy life—
Now the heavy day is done,
Home awaits thee, wearied one!
Come, come, come!

From the quenchless thoughts that burn
In the seal'd heart's lonely urn;
From the coil of memory's chain
Wound about the throbbing brain;
From the veins of sorrow deep,
Winding through the world of sleep;
From the haunted halls and bowers,
Throng'd with ghosts of happier hours!
Come, come, come!

On our dim and distant shore
Aching love is felt no more!
We have loved with earth's excess—
Past is now that weariness!
We have wept, that weep not now—
Calm is each once-beating brow!

We have known the dreamer's woes—
All is now one bright repose!
Come, come, come!

Weary heart that long hast bled,
Languid spirit, drooping head,
Restless memory, vain regret,
Pining love whose light is set,
Come away!—'tis hush'd, 'tis well,
Where by shadowy founts we dwell,
All the fever thirst is still'd,
All the air with peace is fill'd,—
Come, come, come!

And with her spirit rapt in that wild lay,
She pass'd, as twilight melts to night, away!

THE MAGIC GLASS.

“How lived, how loved, how died they?
Byron.

“The dead! the glorious dead!—And shall they rise?
Shall they look on thee with their proud bright eyes?
Thou ask'st a fearful spell!
Yet say, from shrine or dim sepulchral hall,
What kingly vision shall obey my call?
The deep grave knows it well!

“Would'st thou behold earth's conquerors? shall they pass
Before thee, flushing all the Magic Glass
With triumph's long array?

Speak! and those dwellers of the marble urn,
Robed for the feast of victory, shall return,
As on their proudest day.

“Or would'st thou look upon the lords of song?—
O'er the dark mirror that immortal throng
Shall waft a solemn gleam!
Passing, with lighted eyes and radiant brows,
Under the foliage of green laurel-boughs,
But silent as a dream.”

“Not these, O mighty master!—Though their lays
Be unto man's free heart, and tears, and praise,
Hallow'd for evermore!
And not the buried conquerors! Let them sleep,
And let the flowery earth her Sabbaths keep
In joy, from shore to shore!

“But, if the narrow house may so be moved,
Call the bright shadows of the most beloved,
Back from their couch of rest!
That I may learn if their meek eyes be fill'd
With peace, if human love hath ever still'd
The yearning human breast.”

“Away, fond youth!—An idle quest is thine;
These have no trophy, no memorial shrine;
I know not of their place!
'Midst the dim valleys, with a secret flow,
Their lives, like shepherd reed-notes, faint and low,
Have pass'd, and left no trace.

“Haply, begirt with shadowy woods and hills,
And the wild sounds of melancholy rills,
Their covering turf may bloom;
But ne'er hath fame made relics of its flowers—
Never hath pilgrim sought their household bowers,
Or poet hail'd their tomb.”

“Adieu, then, master of the midnight spell!
Some voice, perchance, by those lone graves may tell
That which I pine to know!
I haste to seek, from woods and valleys deep,
Where the beloved are laid in lowly sleep,
Records of joy and woe.”

CORINNE AT THE CAPITOL.

“Les femmes doivent penser qu'il est dans cette carrière bien peu de sorte qui puissent valoir la plus obscure vie d'une femme aimée et d'une mère heureuse.” Madame de Staël.

Daughter of th' Italian heaven!
Thou, to whom its fires are given,
Joyously thy car hath roll'd
Where the conqueror's pass'd of old;
And the festal sun that shone,
O'er three hundred triumphs gone,
Makes thy day of glory bright,
With a shower of golden light.

Now thou tread'st th' ascending road,
Freedom's foot so proudly trode;
While, from tombs of heroes borne,
From the dust of empire shorn,
Flowers upon thy graceful head,
Chaplets of all hues, are shed,
In a soft and rosy rain,
Touch'd with many a gem-like stain.

Thou hast gain'd the summit now!
Music hails thee from below;
Music, whose rich notes might stir
Ashes of the sepulchre;
Shaking with victorious notes
All the bright air as it floats.
Well may woman's heart beat high
Unto that proud harmony!

Now afar it rolls—it dies—
And thy voice is heard to rise
With a low and lovely tone
In its thrilling power alone;
And thy lyre's deep silvery string,
Touch'd as by a breeze's wing,
Murmurs tremblingly at first,
Ere the tide of rapture burst.

All the spirit of thy sky
Now hath lit thy large dark eye,
And thy cheek a flush hath caught
From the joy of kindled thought;

And the burning words of song
From thy lip flow fast and strong,
With a rushing stream's delight
In the freedom of its might.

Radiant daughter of the sun!
Now thy living wreath is won.
Crown'd of Rome!—Oh! art thou not
Happy in that glorious lot?—
Happier, happier far than thou,
With the laurel on thy brow,
She that makes the humblest hearth
Lovely but to one on earth!

The trebly hundred triumphs.—Byron.

THE RUIN.

“Oh! tis the heart that magnifies this life,
Making a truth and beauty of its own.”
Wordsworth.

“Birth has gladden'd it: death has sanctified it.”
Guesses at Truth.

No dower of storied song is thine,
O desolate abode!
Forth from thy gates no glittering line
Of lance and spear hath flow'd.
Banners of knighthood have not flung
Proud drapery o'er thy walls,
Nor bugle-notes to battle rung
Through thy resounding halls.

Nor have rich bowers of pleasaunce here
By courtly hands been dress'd,

For princes, from the chase of deer,
Under green leaves to rest:
Only some rose, yet lingering bright
Beside thy casements lone,
Tells where the spirit of delight
Hath dwelt, and now is gone.

Yet minstrel tale of harp and sword,
And sovereign beauty's lot,
House of quench'd light and silent board!
For me thou needest not.
It is enough to know that here,
Where thoughtfully I stand,
Sorrow and love, and hope and fear,
Have link'd one kindred band.

Thou bindest me with mighty spells!
—A solemnizing breath,
A presence all around thee dwells,
Of human life and death.
I need but pluck yon garden flower
From where the wild weeds rise,
To wake, with strange and sudden power,
A thousand sympathies.

Thou hast heard many sounds, thou hearth!
Deserted now by all!
Voices at eve here met in mirth
Which eve may ne'er recall.
Youth's buoyant step, and woman's tone,
And childhood's laughing glee,
And song and prayer, have all been known,
Hearth of the dead! to thee.

Thou hast heard blessings fondly pour'd
Upon the infant head,
As if in every fervent word
The living soul were shed;
Thou hast seen partings, such as bear
The bloom from life away—
Alas! for love in changeful air,
Where nought beloved can stay!

Here, by the restless bed of pain,
The vigil hath been kept,
Till sunrise, bright with hope in vain,
Burst forth on eyes that wept:
Here hath been felt the hush, the gloom,
The breathless influence, shed
Through the dim dwelling, from the room
Wherein reposed the dead.

The seat left void, the missing face,
Have here been mark'd and mourn'd,
And time hath fill'd the vacant place,
And gladness hath return'd;
Till from the narrowing household chain
The links dropp'd one by one!
And homewards hither, o'er the main,
Came the spring-birds alone.

Is there not cause, then—cause for thought,
Fix'd eye and lingering tread,
Where, with their thousand mysteries fraught,
Even lowliest hearts have bled?

Where, in its ever-haunting thirst
For draughts of purer day,
Man's soul, with fitful strength, hath burst
The clouds that wrapt its way?

Holy to human nature seems
The long-forsaken spot;
To deep affections, tender dreams,
Hopes of a brighter lot!
Therefore in silent reverence here,
Hearth of the dead! I stand,
Where joy and sorrow, smile and tear,
Have link'd one household band.

THE MINSTER.

“A fit abode, wherein appear enshrined
Our hopes of immortality.”
Byron.

Speak low!—the place is holy to the breath
Of awful harmonies, of whisper'd prayer;
Tread lightly!—for the sanctity of death
Broods with a voiceless influence on the air:
Stern, yet serene!—a reconciling spell,
Each troubled billow of the soul to quell.

Leave me to linger silently awhile!
—Not for the light that pours its fervid streams
Of rainbow glory down through arch and aisle,
Kindling old banners into haughty gleams,
Flushing proud shrines, or by some warrior's tomb
Dying away in clouds of gorgeous gloom:

Not for rich music, though in triumph pealing,
Mighty as forest sounds when winds are high;
Nor yet for torch, and cross, and stole, revealing
Through incense-mists their sainted pageantry:—
Though o'er the spirit each hath charm and power,
Yet not for these I ask one lingering hour.

But by strong sympathies, whose silver cord
Links me to mortal weal, my soul is bound;
Thoughts of the human hearts, that here have pour'd
Their anguish forth, are with me and around;—
I look back on the pangs, the burning tears,
Known to these altars of a thousand years.

Send up a murmur from the dust, Remorse!
That here hast bow'd with ashes on thy head:
And thou, still battling with the tempest's force—
Thou, whose bright spirit through all time has bled—
Speak, wounded Love! if penance here, or prayer,
Hath laid one haunting shadow of despair?

No voice, no breath!—of conflicts past, no trace!
—Doth not this hush give answer to my quest?
Surely the dread religion of the place
By every grief hath made its might confest!
—Oh! that within my heart I could but keep
Holy to Heaven, a spot thus pure, and still, and deep!

THE SONG OF NIGHT.

“O night,
And storm, and darkness! ye are wondrous strong,
Yet lovely in your strength!”
Byron.

I come to thee, O Earth!
With all my gifts!—for every flower sweet dew
In bell, and urn, and chalice, to renew
The glory of its birth.

Not one which glimmering lies
Far amidst folding hills, or forest leaves,
But, through its veins of beauty, so receives
A spirit of fresh dyes.

I come with every star;
Making thy streams, that on their noon-day track,
Give but the moss, the reed, the lily back,
Mirrors of worlds afar.

I come with peace:—I shed
Sleep through thy wood-walks, o'er the honey-bee,
The lark's triumphant voice, the fawn's young glee,
The hyacinth's meek head.

On my own heart I lay
The weary babe; and sealing with a breath
Its eyes of love, send fairy dreams, beneath
The shadowing lids to play.

I come with mightier things!
Who calls me silent? I have many tones—
The dark skies thrill with low mysterious moans,
Borne on my sweeping wings.

I waft them not alone
From the deep organ of the forest shades,
Or buried streams, unheard amidst their glades,
Till the bright day is done;

But in the human breast
A thousand still small voices I awake,
Strong, in their sweetness, from the soul to shake
The mantle of its rest.

I bring them from the past:
From true hearts broken, gentle spirits torn,
From crush'd affections, which, though long o'erborne,
Make their tones heard at last.

I bring them from the tomb:
O'er the sad couch of late repentant love
They pass—though low as murmurs of a dove—
Like trumpets through the gloom.

I come with all my train;
Who calls me lonely?—Hosts around me tread,
The intensely bright, the beautiful, the dead—
Phantoms of heart and brain!

Looks from departed eyes—
These are my lightnings!—fill'd with anguish vain,
Or tenderness too piercing to sustain,
They smite with agonies.

I, that with soft control,
Shut the dim violet, hush the woodland song,
I am the avenging one!—the arm'd, the strong—
The searcher of the soul!

I, that shower dewy light
Through slumbering leaves, bring storms!—the tempest-birth
Of memory, thought, remorse:—Be holy, Earth!
I am the solemn Night!

Suggested by Thorwaldsen's bas-relief of Night, represented under the form of a winged female figure, with two infants asleep in her arms.

THE STORM-PAINTER IN HIS DUNGEON.

“Where of ye, O tempests, is the goal?
Are ye like those that shake the human breast?
Or do ye find at length, like eagles, some high nest?”
Childe Harold.

Midnight, and silence deep!
—The air is fill'd with sleep,

With the stream's whisper, and the citron's breath;
The fix'd and solemn stars
Gleam through my dungeon bars—
Wake, rushing winds! this breezeless calm is death!

Ye watch-fires of the skies!
The stillness of your eyes
Looks too intensely through my troubled soul;
I feel this weight of rest
An earth-load on my breast—
Wake, rushing winds, awake! and, dark clouds, roll!

I am your own, your child,
O ye, the fierce, and wild,
And kingly tempests!—will ye not arise?
Hear the bold spirit's voice,
That knows not to rejoice
But in the peal of your strong harmonies.

By sounding ocean-waves,
And dim Calabrian caves,
And flashing torrents, I have been your mate;
And with the rocking pines
Of the olden Apennines,
In your dark path stood fearless and elate:

Your lightnings were as rods,
That smote the deep abodes
Of thought and vision—and the stream gush'd free;
Come, that my soul again
May swell to burst its chain—
Bring me the music of the sweeping sea!

Within me dwells a flame,
An eagle caged and tame,
Till call'd forth by the harping of the blast;
Then is its triumph's hour,
It springs to sudden power,
As mounts the billow o'er the quivering mast.

Then, then, the canvass o'er,
With hurried hand I pour
The lava-waves and gusts of my own soul!
Kindling to fiery life
Dreams, worlds, of pictured strife—
Wake, rushing winds, awake! and, dark clouds, roll!

Wake, rise! the reed may bend,
The shivering leaf descend,
The forest branch give way before your might;
But I, your strong compeer,
Call, summon, wait you here—
Answer, my spirit!—answer, storm and night!

Pietro Mulier, called Il Tempesta, from his surprising pictures of storms. “His compositions,” says Lanzi, “inspire a real horror, presenting to our eyes death-devoted ships overtaken by tempests and darkness—fired by lightning—now rising on the mountain-wave, and again submerged in the abyss of ocean.” During an imprisonment of five years in Genoa, the pictures which he painted in his dungeon were marked by additional power and gloom.—See Lanzi's History of Painting, translated by Roscoe.

THE TWO VOICES.

Two solemn Voices, in a funeral strain,
Met as rich sunbeams and dark bursts of rain
Meet in the sky:
“Thou art gone hence!” one sang; “Our light is flown,
Our beautiful, that seem'd too much our own
Ever to die!

“Thou art gone hence!—our joyous hills among
Never again to pour thy soul in song,
When spring-flowers rise!
Never the friend's familiar step to meet
With loving laughter, and the welcome sweet
Of thy glad eyes.”

“Thou art gone home, gone home!” then, high and clear,
Warbled that other Voice: “Thou hast no tear
Again to shed.
Never to fold the robe o'er secret pain,
Never, weigh'd down by Memory's clouds, again
To bow thy head.

“Thou art gone home! oh! early crown'd and blest!
Where could the love of that deep heart find rest
With aught below?
Thou must have seen rich dream by dream decay,
All the bright rose-leaves drop from life away—
Thrice bless'd to go!”

Yet sigh'd again that breeze-like Voice of grief—
“Thou art gone hence! alas! that aught so brief,
So loved should be;
Thou tak'st our summer hence!—the flower, the tone
The music of our being, all in one,
Depart with thee!

“Fair form, young spirit, morning vision fled!
Canst thou be of the dead, the awful dead?
The dark unknown?

100

Yes! to the dwelling where no footsteps fall,
Never again to light up hearth or hall,
Thy smile is gone!”

“Home, home!” once more the exulting Voice arose:
“Thou art gone home!—from that divine repose
Never to roam!
Never to say farewell, to weep in vain,
To read of change, in eyes beloved, again—
Thou art gone home!

‘By the bright waters now thy lot is cast—
Joy for thee, happy friend! thy bark hath past
The rough sea's foam!
Now the long yearnings of thy soul are still'd,
Home! home!—thy peace is won, thy heart is fill'd.
Thou art gone home!”

THE PARTING SHIP.

“A glittering ship, that hath the plain
Of ocean for her own domain.”
Wordsworth.

Go, in thy glory, o'er the ancient sea,
Take with thee gentle winds thy sails to swell;
Sunshine and joy upon thy streamers be,
Fare-thee-well, bark! farewell!

Proudly the flashing billow thou hast cleft,
The breeze yet follows thee with cheer and song;

101

Who now of storms hath dream or memory left?
And yet the deep is strong!

But go thou triumphing, while still the smiles
Of summer tremble on the water's breast!
Thou shalt be greeted by a thousand isles,
In lone, wild beauty drest.

To thee a welcome breathing o'er the tide,
The genii groves of Araby shall pour;
Waves that enfold the pearl shall bathe thy side,
On the old Indian shore.

Oft shall the shadow of the palm-tree lie
O'er glassy bays wherein thy sails are furl'd,
And its leaves whisper, as the wind sweeps by,
Tales of the elder world.

Oft shall the burning stars of Southern skies,
On the mid-ocean see thee chain'd in sleep,
A lonely home for human thoughts and ties,
Between the heavens and deep.

Blue seas that roll on gorgeous coasts renown'd,
By night shall sparkle where thy prow makes way;
Strange creatures of the abyss that none may sound,
In thy broad wake shall play.

From hills unknown, in mingled joy and fear,
Free dusky tribes shall pour, thy flag to mark;—
Blessings go with thee on thy lone career!
Hail, and farewell, thou bark!

102

A long farewell!—Thou wilt not bring us back
All whom thou bearest far from home and hearth:
Many are thine, whose steps no more shall track
Their own sweet native earth!

Some wilt thou leave beneath the plantain's shade,
Where through the foliage Indian suns look bright;
Some in the snows of wintry regions laid,
By the cold northern light.

And some, far down below the sounding wave,
Still shall they lie, though tempests o'er them sweep;
Never may flower be strewn above their grave,
Never may sister weep!

And thou—the billow's queen—even thy proud form
On our glad sight no more perchance may swell;
Yet God alike is in the calm and storm—
Fare-thee-well, bark! farewell!

THE LAST TREE OF THE FOREST.

Whisper, thou Tree, thou lonely Tree,
One, where a thousand stood!
Well might proud tales be told by thee,
Last of the solemn wood!

Dwells there no voice amidst thy boughs,
With leaves yet darkly green?

103

Stillness is round, and noontide glows—
Tell us what thou hast seen.

“I have seen the forest shadows lie
Where men now reap the corn;
I have seen the kingly chase rush by,
Through the deep glades at morn.

“With the glance of many a gallant spear,
And the wave of many a plume,
And the bounding of a hundred deer,
It hath lit the woodland's gloom.

“I have seen the knight and his train ride past,
With his banner borne on high;
O'er all my leaves there was brightness cast
From his gleaming panoply.

“The pilgrim at my feet hath laid
His palm branch 'midst the flowers,
And told his beads, and meekly pray'd,
Kneeling, at vesper-hours.

“And the merry-men of wild and glen,
In the green array they wore,
Have feasted here, with the red wine's cheer,
And the hunter's song of yore.

“And the minstrel, resting in my shade,
Hath made the forest ring
With the lordly tales of the high Crusade,
Once loved by chief and king.

104

“But now the noble forms are gone
That walk'd the earth of old;
The soft wind hath a mournful tone,
The sunny light looks cold.

“There is no glory left us now,
Like the glory with the dead:—
I would that where they slumber low
My latest leaves were shed!”

Oh! thou dark Tree, thou lonely Tree,
That mournest for the past!
A peasant's home in thy shades I see,
Embower'd from every blast.

A lovely and a mirthful sound
Of laughter meets mine ear;
For the poor man's children sport around
On the turf, with nought to fear.

And roses lend that cabin's wall
A happy summer-glow:
And the open door stands free to all,
For it recks not of a foe.

And the village bells are on the breeze
That stirs thy leaf, dark Tree!
How can I mourn, 'midst things like these,
For the stormy past, with thee?

105

THE STREAMS.

“The power, the beauty, and the majesty,
That had their haunts in dale or piny mountain,
Or forest by slow stream, or pebbly spring,
Or chasms and watery depths; all those have vanish'd!
They live no longer in the faith of heaven,
But still the heart doth need a language!”
Coleridge's Wallenstein.

Ye have been holy, O founts and floods!
Ye of the ancient and solemn woods,
Ye that are born of the valleys deep,
With the water-flowers on your breast asleep,
And ye that gush from the sounding caves—
Hallow'd have been your waves.

Hallow'd by man, in his dreams of old,
Unto beings not of this mortal mould
Viewless, and deathless, and wondrous powers,
Whose voice he heard in his lonely hours,
And sought with its fancied sound to still
The heart earth could not fill.

Therefore the flowers of bright summers gone,
O'er your sweet waters, ye streams! were thrown;
Thousand of gifts to the sunny sea
Have ye swept along, in your wanderings free,
And thrill'd to the murmur of many a vow—
Where all is silent now!

Nor seems it strange that the heart hath been
So link'd in love to your margins green;
That still, though ruin'd, your early shrines
In beauty gleam through the southern vines,

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And the ivied chapels of colder skies,
On your wild banks arise.

For the loveliest scenes of the glowing earth,
Are those, bright streams! where your springs have birth;
Whether their cavern'd murmur fills,
With a tone of plaint, the hollow hills,
Or the glad sweet laugh of their healthful flow
Is heard 'midst the hamlets low.

Or whether, ye gladden the desert sands
With a joyous music to pilgrim bands,
And a flash from under some ancient rock,
Where a shepherd-king might have watch'd his flock,
Where a few lone palm-trees lift their heads,
And a green Acacia spreads.

Or whether, in bright old lands renown'd,
The laurels thrill to your first-born sound,
And the shadow, flung from the Grecian pine,
Sweeps with the breeze o'er your gleaming line,
And the tall reeds whisper to your waves,
Beside heroic graves.

Voices and lights of the lonely place!
By the freshest fern your path we trace;
By the brightest cups on the emerald moss,
Whose fairy goblets the turf emboss,
By the rainbow glancing of insect wings,
In a thousand mazy rings.

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There sucks the bee, for the richest flowers
Are all your own through the summer hours;
There the proud stag his fair image knows,
Traced on your glass beneath alder-boughs,
And the Halcyon's breast, like the skies arrray'd,
Gleams through the willow-shade.

But the wild sweet tales, that with elves and fays
Peopled your banks in the olden days,
And the memory left by departed love,
To your antique founts in glen and grove,
And the glory born of the poet's dreams—
These are your charms, bright streams!

Now is the time of your flowery rites,
Gone by with its dances and young delights:
From your marble urns ye have burst away,
From your chapel-cells to the laughing day;
Low lie your altars with moss o'ergrown,
And the woods again are lone.

Yet holy still be your living springs,
Haunts of all gentle and gladsome things!
Holy, to converse with nature's lore,
That gives the worn spirit its youth once more,
And to silent thoughts of the love divine,
Making the heart a shrine!

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THE VOICE OF THE WIND.

“There is nothing in the wide world so like the voice of a spirit.” Gray's Letters.

Oh! many a voice is thine, thou Wind! full many a voice is thine,
From every scene thy wing o'ersweeps thou bear'st a sound and sign;
A minstrel wild and strong thou art, with a mastery all thine own,
And the spirit is thy harp, O Wind! that gives the answering tone.

Thou hast been across red fields of war, where shiver'd helmets lie,
And thou bringest thence the thrilling note of a clarion in the sky;
A rustling of proud banner-folds, a peal of stormy drums,—
All these are in thy music met, as when a leader comes.

Thou hast been o'er solitary seas, and from their wastes brought back
Each noise of waters that awoke in the mystery of thy track—
The chime of low soft southern waves on some green palmy shore,
The hollow roll of distant surge, the gather'd billows' roar.

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Thou art come from forests dark and deep, thou mighty rushing Wind!
And thou bearest all their unisons in one full swell combined;
The restless pines, the moaning stream, all hidden things and free,
Of the dim old sounding wilderness, have lent their soul to thee.

Thou art come from cities lighted up for the conqueror passing by,
Thou art wafting from their streets a sound of haughty revelry;
The rolling of triumphant wheels, the harpings in the hall,
The far-off shout of multitudes, are in thy rise and fall.

Thou art come from kingly tombs and shrines, from ancient minsters vast,
Through the dark aisles of a thousand years thy lonely wing hath pass'd;
Thou hast caught the anthem's billowy swell, the stately dirge's tone,
For a chief, with sword, and shield, and helm, to his place of slumber gone.

Thou art come from long-forsaken homes, wherein our young days flew,
Thou hast found sweet voices lingering there, the loved, the kind, the true;

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Thou callest back those melodies, though now all changed and fled—
Be still, be still, and haunt us not with music from the dead!

Are all these notes in thee, wild wind? these many notes in thee?
Far in our own unfathom'd souls their fount must surely be;
Yes! buried, but unsleeping, there thought watches, memory lies,
From whose deep urn the tones are pour'd through all earth's harmonies.

THE VIGIL OF ARMS.

A sounding step was heard by night
In a church where the mighty slept,
As a mail-clad youth, till morning's light,
'Midst the tombs his vigil kept.
He walk'd in dreams of power and fame,
He lifted a proud, bright eye,
For the hours were few that withheld his name
From the roll of chivalry.

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Down the moonlit aisles he paced alone,
With a free and stately tread;
And the floor gave back a muffled tone
From the couches of the dead:
The silent many that round him lay,
The crown'd and helm'd that were,
The haughty chiefs of the war array—
Each in his sepulchre!

But no dim warning of time or fate
That youth's flush'd hopes could chill;
He moved through the trophies of buried state
With each proud pulse throbbing still.
He heard, as the wind through the chancel sung,
A swell of the trumpet's breath;
He look'd to the banners on high that hung,
And not to the dust beneath.

And a royal masque of splendour seem'd
Before him to unfold;
Through the solemn arches on it stream'd,
With many a gleam of gold:
There were crested knight, and gorgeous dame,
Glittering athwart the gloom,
And he follow'd, till his bold step came
To his warrior-father's tomb.

But there the still and shadowy might
Of the monumental stone,
And the holy sleep of the soft lamp's light
That over its quiet shone,

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And the image of that sire, who died
In his noonday of renown—
These had a power unto which the pride
Of fiery life bow'd down.

And a spirit from his early years
Came back o'er his thoughts to move,
Till his eye was fill'd with memory's tears,
And his heart with childhood's love!
And he look'd, with a change in his softening glance,
To the armour o'er the grave—
For there they hung, the shield and lance,
And the gauntlet of the brave.

And the sword of many a field was there,
With its cross for the hour of need,
When the knight's bold war-cry hath sunk in prayer,
And the spear is a broken reed!
—Hush! did a breeze through the armour sigh?
Did the folds of the banner shake?
Not so!—from the tomb's dark mystery
There seem'd a voice to break!

He had heard that voice bid clarions blow,
He had caught its last blessing's breath—
'Twas the same—but its awful sweetness now
Had an under-tone of death!
And it said—“The sword hath conquer'd kings,
And the spear through realms hath pass'd;
But the cross, alone, of all these things,
Might aid me at the last.”

The candidate for knighthood was under the necessity of keeping watch, the night before his inauguration, in a church, and completely armed. This was called “the Vigil of Arms.”

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THE HEART OF BRUCE IN MELROSE ABBEY.

Heart! that did'st press forward still,
Where the trumpet's note rang shrill,
Where the knightly swords were crossing,
And the plumes like sea-foam tossing,
Leader of the charging spear,
Fiery heart!—and liest thou here?
May this narrow spot inurn
Aught that so could beat and burn?
Heart! that lovedst the clarion's blast,
Silent is thy place at last;
Silent—save when early bird
Sings where once the mass was heard;
Silent—save when breeze's moan
Comes through flowers or fretted stone;
And the wild-rose waves around thee,
And the long dark grass hath bound thee,
—Sleep'st thou, as the swain might sleep,
In his nameless valley deep?

No! brave heart! though cold and lone,
Kingly power is yet thine own!
Feel I not thy spirit brood
O'er the whispering solitude?
Lo! at one high thought of thee,
Fast they rise, the bold, the free,

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Sweeping past thy lowly bed,
With a mute, yet stately tread.
Shedding their pale armour's light
Forth upon the breathless night,
Bending every warlike plume
In the prayer o'er saintly tomb.

Is the noble Douglas nigh,
Arm'd to follow thee, or die?
Now, true heart, as thou wert wont
Pass thou to the peril's front!
Where the banner-spear is gleaming,
And the battle's red wine streaming,
Till the Paynim quail before thee,
Till the cross wave proudly o'er thee—
Dreams! the falling of a leaf
Wins me from their splendours brief;
Dreams, yet bright ones! scorn them not,
Thou that seek'st the holy spot;
Nor, amidst its lone domain,
Call the faith in relics vain!

“Now pass thou forward, as thou wert wont, and Douglas will follow thee or die!” With these words Douglas threw from him the heart of Bruce into mid-battle against the Moors of Spain.

NATURE'S FAREWELL.

“The beautiful is vanish'd, and returns not.”
Coleridge's Wallenstein.

A youth rode forth from his childhood's home,
Through the crowded paths of the world to roam;
And the green leaves whisper'd, as he pass'd,
“Wherefore, thou dreamer, away so fast?

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“Knew'st thou with what thou art parting here,
Long would'st thou linger in doubt and fear;
Thy heart's light laughter, thy sunny hours,
Thou hast left in our shades with the spring's wild flowers.

“Under the arch by our mingling made,
Thou and thy brother have gaily play'd;
Ye may meet again where ye roved of yore,
But as ye have met there—oh! never more!”

On rode the youth—and the boughs among,
Thus the free birds o'er his pathway sung:
“Wherefore so fast unto life away?
Thou art leaving for ever thy joy in our lay!

“Thou may'st come to the summer woods again,
And thy heart have no echo to greet their strain;
Afar from the foliage its love will dwell—
A change must pass o'er thee-farewell, farewell!”

On rode the youth—and the founts and streams
Thus mingled a voice with his joyous dreams:
“We have been thy playmates through many a day,
Wherefore thus leave us?—oh! yet delay!

“Listen but once to the sound of our mirth!
For thee 'tis a melody passing from earth.
Never again wilt thou find in its flow,
The peace it could once on thy heart bestow.

“Thou wilt visit the scenes of thy childhood's glee,
With the breath of the world on thy spirit free;

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Passion and sorrow its depth will have stirr'd,
And the singing of waters be vainly heard.

“Thou wilt bear in our gladsome laugh no part—
What should it do for a burning heart?
Thou wilt bring to the banks of our freshest rill,
Thirst which no fountain on earth may still.

“Farewell!—when thou comest again to thine own,
Thou wilt miss from our music its loveliest tone;
Mournfully true is the tale we tell—
Yet on, fiery dreamer! farewell, farewell!”

And a something of gloom on his spirit weigh'd
As he caught the last sounds of his native shade;
But he knew not, till many a bright spell broke,
How deep were the oracles Nature spoke!

THE BEINGS OF THE MIND.

“The beings of the mind are not of clay;
Essentially immortal, they create
And multiply in us a brighter ray,
And more beloved existence; that which Fate
Prohibits to dull life, in this our state
Of mortal bondage.”
Byron.

Come to me with your triumphs and your woes,
Ye forms, to life by glorious poets brought!
I sit alone with flowers, and vernal boughs,
In the deep shadow of a voiceless thought;

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'Midst the glad music of the spring alone,
And sorrowful for visions that are gone!

Come to me! make your thrilling whispers heard,
Ye, by those masters of the soul endow'd
With life, and love, and many a burning word,
That bursts from grief, like lightning from a cloud,
And smites the heart, till all its chords reply,
As leaves make answer when the wind sweeps by.

Come to me! visit my dim haunt!—the sound
Of hidden springs is in the grass beneath;
The stock-dove's note above; and all around,
The poesy that with the violet's breath
Floats through the air, in rich and sudden streams,
Mingling, like music, with the soul's deep dreams.

Friends, friends!—for such to my lone heart ye are—
Unchanging ones! from whose immortal eyes
The glory melts not as a waning star,
And the sweet kindness never, never dies;
Bright children of the bard! o'er this green dell
Pass once again, and light it with your spell!

Imogen! fair Fidele! meekly blending
In patient grief, “a smiling with a sigh;”
And thou, Cordelia! faithful daughter, tending
That sire, an outcast to the bitter sky;

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Thou of the soft low voice!—thou art not gone!
Still breathes for me its faint and flute-like tone.

And come to me!—sing me thy willow-strain,
Sweet Desdemona! with the sad surprise
In thy beseeching glance, where still, though vain,
Undimm'd, unquenchable affection lies;
Come, bowing thy young head to wrong and scorn,
As a frail hyacinth, by showers o'erborne.

And thou, too, fair Ophelia! flowers are here,
That well might win thy footstep to the spot—
Pale cowslips, meet for maiden's early bier,
And pansies for sad thoughts, —but needed not!
Come with thy wreaths, and all the love and light
In that wild eye still tremulously bright.

And Juliet, vision of the south! enshrining
All gifts that unto its rich heaven belong;
The glow, the sweetness, in its rose combining,
The soul its nightingales pour forth in song,
Thou, making death deep joy!—but could'st thou die?
No!—thy young love hath immortality!

From earth's bright faces fades the light of morn,
From earth's glad voices drops the joyous tone;
But ye, the children of the soul, were born
Deathless, and for undying love alone;

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And, oh! ye beautiful! 'tis well, how well,
In the soul's world, with you, where change is not, to dwell!

A smiling with a sigh.”

Cymbeline.

“Here's pansies for you—that's for thoughts.”

Hamlet.

THE LYRE'S LAMENT.

“A large lyre hung in an opening of the rock, and gave forth its melancholy music to the wind—but no human being was to be seen.” Salathiel.

A deep-toned lyre hung murmuring
To the wild wind of the sea:
“O melancholy wind,” it sigh'd,
“What would thy breath with me?

“Thou can'st not wake the spirit
That in me slumbering lies,
Thou strikest not forth th' electric fire
Of buried melodies.

“Wind of the dark sea-waters!
Thou dost but sweep my strings
Into wild gusts of mournfulness,
With the rushing of thy wings.

“But the spell—the gift—the lightning—
Within my frame conceal'd,
Must I moulder on the rock away,
With their triumphs unreveal'd?

“I have power, high power, for freedom
To wake the burning soul!

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I have sounds that through the ancient hills
Like a torrent's voice might roll.

“I have pealing notes of victory
That might welcome kings from war;
I have rich deep tones to send the wail
For a hero's death afar.

“I have chords to lift the pæan
From the temple to the sky,
Full as the forest-unisons
When sweeping winds are high.

“And love—for love's lone sorrow
I have accents that might swell
Through the summer air with the rose's breath,
Or the violet's faint farewell:

“Soft—spiritual—mournful—
Sighs in each note enshrined—
But who shall call that sweetness forth?
Thou can'st not, ocean-wind!

“I pass without my glory,
Forgotten I decay—
Where is the touch to give me life?
—Wild, fitful wind, away!”

So sigh'd the broken music
That in gladness had no part—
How like art thou, neglected lyre,
To many a human heart!

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TASSO'S CORONATION.

A crown of victory! a triumphal song!
Oh! call some friend, upon whose pitying heart
The weary one may calmly sink to rest;
Let some kind voice, beside his lowly couch,
Pour the last prayer for mortal agony!

A trumpet's note is in the sky, in the glorious Roman sky,
Whose dome hath rung, so many an age, to the voice of victory;
There is crowding to the Capitol, the imperial streets along,
For again a conqueror must be crown'd—a kingly child of song:

Yet his chariot lingers,
Yet around his home
Broods a shadow silently,
'Midst the joy of Rome.

A thousand thousand laurel boughs are waving wide and far,
To shed out their triumphal gleams around his rolling car;
A thousand haunts of olden gods have given their wealth of flowers,
To scatter o'er his path of fame bright hues in gemlike showers.

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Peace! within his chamber
Low the mighty lies;
With a cloud of dreams on his noble brow,
And a wandering in his eyes.

Sing, sing for him, the lord of song, for him, whose rushing strain
In mastery o'er the spirit sweeps, like a strong wind o'er the main!
Whose voice lives deep in burning hearts, for ever there to dwell,
As full-toned oracles are shrined in a temple's holiest cell.

Yes! for him, the victor,
Sing—but low, sing low!
A soft sad miserere chant
For a soul about to go!

The sun, the sun of Italy is pouring o'er his way,
Where the old three hundred triumphs moved, a flood of golden day;
Streaming through every haughty arch of the Cæsars' past renown—
Bring forth, in that exulting light, the conqueror for his crown!

Shut the proud bright sunshine
From the fading sight!
There needs no ray by the bed of death,
Save the holy taper's light.

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The wreath is twined—the way is strewn—the lordly train are met—
The streets are hung with coronals—why stays the minstrel yet?
Shout! as an army shouts in joy around a royal chief—
Bring forth the bard of chivalry, the bard of love and grief!

Silence! forth we bring him,
In his last array;
From love and grief the freed, the flown—
Way for the bier—make way!

Tasso died at Rome on the day before that appointed for his coronation in the Capitol.

THE BETTER LAND.

“I hear thee speak of the better land,
Thou call'st its children a happy band;
Mother! oh, where is that radiant shore?
Shall we not seek it, and weep no more?
Is it where the flower of the orange blows,
And the fire-flies glance through the myrtle boughs?”
—“Not there, not there, my child!”

“Is it where the feathery palm-trees rise,
And the date grows ripe under sunny skies?
Or 'midst the green islands of glittering seas,
Where fragrant forests perfume the breeze,
And strange bright birds on their starry wings,
Bear the rich hues of all glorious things?”
—“Not there, not there, my child!”

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“Is it far away, in some region old,
Where the rivers wander o'er sands of gold?—
Where the burning rays of the ruby shine,
And the diamond lights up the secret mine,
And the pearl gleams forth from the coral strand?—
Is it there, sweet mother, that better land?”
—“Not there, not there, my child!”

“Eye hath not seen it, my gentle boy!
Ear hath not heard its deep songs of joy;
Dreams cannot picture a world so fair—
Sorrow and death may not enter there:
Time doth not breathe on its fadeless bloom,
For beyond the clouds, and beyond the tomb,
—It is there, it is there, my child!”

THE WOUNDED EAGLE.

Eagle! this is not thy sphere!
Warrior-bird! what seek'st thou here?
Wherefore by the fountain's brink
Doth thy royal pinion sink?
Wherefore on the violet's bed
Lay'st thou thus thy drooping head?
Thou, that hold'st the blast in scorn,
Thou, that wear'st the wings of morn!

Eagle! wilt thou not arise?
Look upon thine own bright skies!
Lift thy glance! the fiery sun
There his pride of place hath won!

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And the mountain lark is there,
And sweet sound hath fill'd the air;
Hast thou left that realm on high?
—Oh! it can be but to die!

Eagle, eagle! thou hast bow'd
From thine empire o'er the cloud!
Thou, that had'st ethereal birth,
Thou hast stoop'd too near the earth,
And the hunter's shaft hath found thee,
And the toils of death have bound thee!
—Wherefore didst thou leave thy place,
Creature of a kingly race?

Wert thou weary of thy throne?
Was thy sky's dominion lone?
Chill and lone it well might be,
Yet that mighty wing was free!
Now the chain is o'er it cast,
From thy heart the blood flows fast,
—Woe for gifted souls and high!
Is not such their destiny?

SADNESS AND MIRTH.

“Nay, these wild fits of uncurb'd laughter
Athwart the gloomy tenor of your mind,
As it has lower'd of late, so keenly cast,
Unsuited seem, and strange.
Oh! nothing strange,
Did'st thou ne'er see the swallow's veering breast,
Winging the air beneath some murky cloud,
In the sunn'd glimpses of a troubled day,

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Shiver in silvery brightness?
Or boatman's oar, as vivid lightning flash
In the faint gleam, that, like a spirit's path,
Tracks the still waters of some sullen lake?
O, gentle friend!
Chide not her mirth, who yesterday was sad,
And may be so to-morrow!”
Joanna Baillie.

Ye met at the stately feasts of old,
Where the bright wine foam'd over sculptured gold,
Sadness and mirth! ye were mingled there
With the sound of the lyre in the scented air;
As the cloud and the lightning are blent on high,
Ye mix'd in the gorgeous revelry.

For there hung o'er those banquets of yore a gloom,
A thought and a shadow of the tomb;
It gave to the flute-notes an under-tone,
To the rose a colouring not its own,
To the breath of the myrtle a mournful power—
Sadness and mirth! ye had each your dower!

Ye met when the triumph swept proudly by,
With the Roman eagles through the sky!
I know that even then, in his hour of pride,
The soul of the mighty within him died;
That a void in his bosom lay darkly still,
Which the music of victory might never fill!

Thou wert there, oh, mirth! swelling on the shout,
Till the temples, like echo-caves, rang out;
Thine were the garlands, the songs, the wine,
All the rich voices in air were thine,
The incense, the sunshine—but, sadness, thy part,
Deepest of all, was the victor's heart!

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Ye meet at the bridal with flower and tear;
Strangely and wildly ye meet by the bier!
As the gleam from a sea-bird's white wing shed,
Crosses the storm in its path of dread;
As a dirge meets the breeze of a summer sky—
Sadness and mirth! so ye come and fly!

Ye meet in the poet's haunted breast,
Darkness and rainbow, alike its guest!
When the breath of the violet is out in spring,
When the woods with the wakening of music ring,
O'er his dreamy spirit your currents pass,
Like shadow and sunlight o'er mountain grass.

When will your parting be, sadness and mirth?
Bright stream and dark one!—oh! never on earth!
Never while triumphs and tombs are so near,
While death and love walk the same dim sphere,
While flowers unfold where the storm may sweep,
While the heart of man is a soundless deep!

But there smiles a land, oh! ye troubled pair!
Where ye have no part in the summer air.
Far from the breathings of changeful skies,
Over the seas and the graves it lies;
Where the day of the lightning and cloud is done,
And joy reigns alone, as the lonely sun!

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THE NIGHTINGALE'S DEATH-SONG.

Willst du nach den Nachtigallen fragen,
Die mit seelenvollen Melodie
Dich entzückten in des Lenzes Tagen?
—Nur so lang sie liebten, waren sie.
Schiller.

Mournfully, sing mournfully,
And die away, my heart!
The rose, the glorious rose is gone,
And I, too, will depart.

The skies have lost their splendour,
The waters changed their tone,
And wherefore, in the faded world,
Should music linger on?

Where is the golden sunshine,
And where flower-cup's glow?
And where the joy of the dancing leaves,
And the fountain's laughing flow?

A voice, in every whisper
Of the wave, the bough, the air,
Comes asking for the beautiful,
And moaning, “Where, oh! where?”

Tell of the brightness parted,
Thou bee, thou lamb at play!
Thou lark, in thy victorious mirth!
—Are ye, too, pass'd away?

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Mournfully, sing mournfully!
The royal rose is gone.
Melt from the woods, my spirit, melt
In one deep farewell tone!

Not so, swell forth triumphantly,
The full, rich, fervent strain!
Hence with young love and life I go,
In the summer's joyous train.

With sunshine, with sweet odour,
With every precious thing,
Upon the last warm southern breeze
My soul its flight shall wing.

Alone I shall not linger,
When the days of hope are past,
To watch the fall of leaf by leaf,
To wait the rushing blast.

Triumphantly, triumphantly!
Sing to the woods, I go!
For me, perchance, in other lands,
The glorious rose may blow.

The sky's transparent azure,
And the greensward's violet breath,
And the dance of light leaves in the wind,
May there know nought of death,

No more, no more sing mournfully!
Swell high, then break, my heart

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With love, the spirit of the woods,
With summer I depart!

THE DIVER.

“They learn in suffering what they teach in song.”
Shelley.

Thou hast been where the rocks of coral grow,
Thou hast fought with eddying waves;—
Thy cheek is pale, and thy heart beats low,
Thou searcher of ocean's caves!

Thou hast look'd on the gleaming wealth of old,
And wrecks where the brave have striven:
The deep is a strong and a fearful hold,
But thou its bar hast riven!

A wild and weary life is thine;
A wasting task and lone,
Though treasure-grots for thee may shine,
To all besides unknown!

A weary life! but a swift decay
Soon, soon shall set thee free;
Thou'rt passing fast from thy toils away,
Thou wrestler with the sea!

In thy dim eye, on thy hollow cheek,
Well are the death-signs read—
Go! for the pearl in its cavern seek,
Ere hope and power be fled!

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And bright in beauty's coronal
That glistening gem shall be;
A star to all in the festive hall—
But who will think on thee?

None!—as it gleams from the queen-like head,
Not one 'midst throngs will say,
“A life hath been like a rain-drop shed,
For that pale quivering ray.”

Woe for the wealth thus dearly bought!
—And are not those like thee,
Who win for earth the gems of thought?
O wrestler with the sea!

Down to the gulfs of the soul they go,
Where the passion-fountains burn,
Gathering the jewels far below
From many a buried urn:

Wringing from lava-veins the fire,
That o'er bright words is pour'd;
Learning deep sounds, to make the lyre
A spirit in each chord.

But, oh! the price of bitter tears,
Paid for the lonely power
That throws at last o'er desert years,
A darkly glorious dower!

Like flower-seeds, by the wild wind spread,
So radiant thoughts are strew'd;

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—The soul whence those high gifts are shed,
May faint in solitude!

And who will think, when the strain is sung
Till a thousand hearts are stirr'd,
What life-drops, from the minstrel wrung,
Have gush'd with every word?

None, none!—his treasures live like thine,
He strives and dies like thee;
—Thou, that hast been to the pearl's dark shrine,
O wrestler with the sea!

THE REQUIEM OF GENIUS.

“Les poetes dont l'imagination tient à la puissance d'aimer et de souffrir, ne sont ils pas les bannis d'une autre region?” Madame de Staël—De L' Allemagne.

No tears for thee!—though light be from us gone
With thy soul's radiance, bright, yet restless one!
No tears for thee!
They that have loved an exile, must not mourn
To see him parting for his native bourne
O'er the dark sea.

All the high music of thy spirit here,
Breathed but the language of another sphere,
Unecho'd round;
And strange, though sweet, as 'midst our weeping skies
Some half-remember'd strain of paradise
Might sadly sound.

133

Hast thou been answer'd? thou, that from the night
And from the voices of the tempest's might,
And from the past,
Wert seeking still some oracle's reply,
To pour the secrets of man's destiny
Forth on the blast!

Hast thou been answer'd?—thou, that through the gloom,
And shadow, and stern silence of the tomb,
A cry did'st send,
So passionate and deep? to pierce, to move,
To win back token of unburied love
From buried friend!

And hast thou found where living waters burst?
Thou that did'st pine amidst us, in the thirst
Of fever-dreams!
Are the true fountains thine for evermore?
Oh! lured so long by shining mists, that wore
The light of streams!

Speak! it is well with thee?—We call, as thou,
With thy lit eye, deep voice, and kindled brow,
Wert wont to call
On the departed! Art thou bless'd and free?
—Alas! the lips earth covers, even to thee,
Were silent all!

Yet shall our hope rise fann'd by quenchless faith,
As a flame, foster'd by some warm wind's breath,
In light upsprings:

134

Freed soul of song! yes, thou hast found the sought;
Borne to thy home of beauty and of thought,
On morning's wings.

And we will dream it is thy joy we hear,
When life's young music, ringing far and clear,
O'erflows the sky:—
No tears for thee! the lingering gloom is ours—
Thou art for converse with all glorious powers,
Never to die!

TRIUMPHANT MUSIC.

“Tacete, tacete, O suoni trionfanti!
Risvegliate in vano'l cor che non può liberarsi.”

Wherefore and whither bear'st thou up my spirit,
On eagle wings, through every plume that thrill?
It hath no crown of victory to inherit—
Be still, triumphant harmony! be still!

Thine are no sounds for earth, thus proudly swelling
Into rich floods of joy:—it is but pain
To mount so high, yet find on high no dwelling,
To sink so fast, so heavily again!

No sounds for earth?—Yes, to young chieftain dying
On his own battle-field, at set of sun,
With his freed country's banner o'er him flying,
Well might'st thou speak of fame's high guerdon won.

135

No sounds for earth?—Yes, for the martyr leading
Unto victorious death serenely on,
For patriot by his rescued altars bleeding,
Thou hast a voice in each majestic tone.

But speak not thus to one whose heart is beating
Against life's narrow bound, in conflict vain!
For power, for joy, high hope, and rapturous greeting,
Thou wakest lone thirst—be hush'd, exulting strain!

Be hush'd, or breathe of grief!—of exile yearnings
Under the willows of the stranger-shore;
Breathe of the soul's untold and restless burnings,
For looks, tones, footsteps, that return no more.

Breathe of deep love—a lonely vigil keeping
Through the night-hours, o'er wasted wealth to pine;
Rich thoughts and sad, like faded rose-leaves heaping,
In the shut heart, at once a tomb and shrine.

Or pass as if thy spirit-notes came sighing
From worlds beneath some blue Elysian sky;
Breathe of repose, the pure, the bright, the undying—
Of joy no more—bewildering harmony!

136

SECOND SIGHT.

“Ne'er err'd the prophet heart that grief inspired,
Though joy's illusions mock their votarist.”
Maturin.

A mournful gift is mine, O friends!
A mournful gift is mine!
A murmur of the soul which blends
With the flow of song and wine.

An eye that through the triumph's hour
Beholds the coming woe,
And dwells upon the faded flower
'Midst the rich summer's glow.

Ye smile to view fair faces bloom
Where the father's board is spread;
I see the stillness and the gloom
Of a home whence all are fled.

I see the wither'd garlands lie
Forsaken on the earth,
While the lamps yet burn, and the dancers fly
Through the ringing hall of mirth.

I see the blood-red future stain
On the warrior's gorgeous crest;
And the bier amidst the bridal train
When they come with roses drest.

I hear the still small moan of time,
Through the ivy branches made,
Where the palace, in its glory's prime,
With the sunshine stands array'd.

137

The thunder of the seas I hear,
The shriek along the wave,
When the bark sweeps forth, and song and cheer
Salute the parting brave.

With every breeze a spirit sends
To me some warning sign:—
A mournful gift is mine, O friends!
A mournful gift is mine!

Oh! prophet heart! thy grief, thy power,
To all deep souls belong;
The shadow in the sunny hour,
The wail in the mirthful song.

Their sight is all too sadly clear—
For them a veil is riven:
Their piercing thoughts repose not here,
Their home is but in Heaven.

THE SEA-BIRD FLYING INLAND.

Thy path is not as mine;—where thou art blest,
My spirit would but wither; mine own grief
Is in mine eyes a richer, holier thing,
Than all thy happiness.

Hath the summer's breath on the south-wind borne,
Met the dark seas in their sweeping scorn?
Hath it lured thee, Bird! from their sounding caves,
To the river shores where the osier waves?

138

Or art thou come on the hills to dwell,
Where the sweet-voiced echoes have many a cell?
Where the moss bears print of the wild-deer's tread,
And the heath like a royal robe is spread?

Thou hast done well, O thou bright sea-bird!
There is joy where the song of the lark is heard,
With the dancing of waters through copse and dell,
And the bee's low tune in the fox-glove's bell.

Thou hast done well:—Oh! the seas are lone,
And the voice they send up hath a mournful tone;
A mingling of dirges and wild farewells,
Fitfully breathed through its anthem-swells.

—The proud bird rose as the words were said—
The rush of his pinion swept o'er my head,
And the glance of his eye, in its bright disdain,
Spoke him a child of the haughty main.

He hath flown from the woods to the ocean's breast,
To his throne of pride on the billow's crest
—Oh! who shall say, to a spirit free,
“There lies the pathway of bliss for thee?”

THE SLEEPER.

“For sleep is awful.”
Byron.

Oh! lightly, lightly tread!
A holy thing is sleep,

139

On the worn spirit shed,
And eyes that wake to weep.

A holy thing from Heaven,
A gracious dewy cloud,
A covering mantle given
The weary to enshroud.

Oh! lightly, lightly tread!
Revere the pale still brow,
The meekly-drooping head,
The long hair's willowy flow.

Ye know not what ye do,
That call the slumberer back,
From the world unseen by you
Unto life's dim faded track.

Her soul is far away,
In her childhood's land, perchance,
Where her young sisters play,
Where shines her mother's glance.

Some old sweet native sound
Her spirit haply weaves;
A harmony profound
Of woods with all their leaves;

A murmur of the sea,
A laughing tone of streams:—
Long may her sojourn be
In the music land of dreams!

140

Each voice of love is there,
Each gleam of beauty fled,
Each lost one still more fair—
Oh! lightly, lightly tread!

THE MIRROR IN THE DESERTED HALL.

O, dim, forsaken mirror!
How many a stately throng
Hath o'er thee gleam'd, in vanish'd hours
Of the wine-cup and the song!

The song hath left no echo;
The bright wine hath been quaff'd;
And hush'd is every silvery voice
That lightly here hath laugh'd.

Oh! mirror, lonely mirror,
Thou of the silent hall!
Thou hast been flush'd with beauty's bloom—
Is this, too, vanish'd all?

It is, with the scatter'd garlands
Of triumphs long ago;
With the melodies of buried lyres;
With the faded rainbow's glow.

And for all the gorgeous pageants,
For the glance of gem and plume,
For lamp, and harp, and rosy wreath,
And vase of rich perfume.

141

Now, dim, forsaken mirror,
Thou givest but faintly back
The quiet stars, and the sailing moon,
On her solitary track.

And thus with man's proud spirit
Thou tellest me 'twill be,
When the forms and hues of this world fade
From his memory, as from thee:

And his heart's long-troubled waters
At last in stillness lie,
Reflecting but the images
Of the solemn world on high.

TO THE DAUGHTER OF BERNARD BARTON,

THE QUAKER POET.

Happy thou art, the child of one
Who in each lowly flower,
Each leaf that glances to the sun,
Or trembles with the shower;

In each soft shadow of the sky,
Or sparkle of the stream,
Will guide thy kindling spirit's eye
To trace the Love Supreme.

So shall deep quiet fill thy breast,
A joy in wood and wild;—
And e'en for this I call thee blest,
The gentle poet's child!

142

THE STAR OF THE MINE.

From the deep chambers of a mine,
With heavy gloom o'erspread,
I saw a star at noontide shine,
Serenely o'er my head.

I had not seen it 'midst the glow
Of the rich upper day;
But in that shadowy world below,
How my heart bless'd its ray!

And still, the farther from my sight
Torches and lamps were borne,
The purer, lovelier, seem'd the light
That wore its beams unshorn.

Oh! what is like that heavenly spark?
—A friend's kind, steadfast eye;
Where, brightest when the world grows dark,
Hope, cheer, and comfort lie!

WASHINGTON'S STATUE.

SENT FROM ENGLAND TO AMERICA.

Yes! rear thy guardian hero's form
On thy proud soil, thou western world!
A watcher through each sign of storm,
O'er freedom's flag unfurl'd.

143

There, as before a shrine, to bow,
Bid thy true sons their children lead:
The language of that noble brow
For all things good shall plead.

The spirit rear'd in patriot fight,
The virtue born of home and hearth,
There calmly throned, a holy light
Shall pour o'er chainless earth.

And let that work of England's hand,
Sent through the blast and surge's roar,
So girt with tranquil glory stand,
For ages on thy shore!

Such, through all time, the greetings be,
That with the Atlantic billow sweep!
Telling the mighty and the free
Of brothers o'er the deep.

A THOUGHT OF HOME AT SEA.

WRITTEN FOR MUSIC.

Tis lone on the waters
When eve's mournful bell
Sends forth to the sunset
A note of farewell;

When, borne with the shadows
And winds as they sweep,
There comes a fond memory
Of home o'er the deep;

144

When the wing of the sea-bird
Is turn'd to her nest,
And the thought of the sailor
To all he loves best!

'Tis lone on the waters—
That hour hath a spell—
To bring back sweet voices,
With words of farewell!

TO THE MEMORY OF A SISTER-IN-LAW.

We miss thy voice while early flowers are blowing,
And the first flush of blossom clothes each bough,
And the Spring sunshine round our home is glowing
Soft as thy smile. Thou should'st be with us now.

With us? we wrong thee by the earthly thought.
Could our fond gaze but follow where thou art,
Well might the glories of this world seem nought
To the one promise given the pure in heart.

Yet wert thou blest e'en here—oh! ever blest
In thine own sunny thoughts and tranquil faith!
The silent joy that still o'erflow'd thy breast,
Needed but guarding from all change, by death.

So is it seal'd to peace!—on thy clear brow
Never was care one fleeting shade to cast;
And thy calm days in brightness were to flow,
A holy stream, untroubled to the last.

145

Farewell! thy life hath left surviving love
A wealth of records, and sweet “feelings given,”
From sorrow's heart the faintness to remove,
By whispers breathing “less of earth than heaven.”

Thus rests thy spirit still on those with whom
Thy step the paths of joyous duty trod,
Bidding them make an altar of thy tomb,
Where chasten'd thought may offer praise to God.

April 1826.

Alluding to the lines she herself quoted but an hour before her death:—

“Some feelings are to mortals given,
With less of earth in them than heaven.”

TO AN ORPHAN.

Thou hast been rear'd too tenderly,
Beloved too well and long,
Watch'd by too many a gentle eye—
Now look on life—be strong!

Too quiet seem'd thy joys for change,
Too holy and too deep;
Bright clouds, through summer skies that range,
Seem oft-times thus to sleep:—

To sleep in silvery stillness bound,
As things that ne'er may melt;
Yet gaze again—no trace is found
To show thee where they dwelt.

146

This world hath no more love to give
Like that which thou hast known;
Yet the heart breaks not—we survive
Our treasures—and bear on.

But oh! too beautiful and blest
Thy home of youth hath been!
Where shall thy wing, poor bird, find rest,
Shut out from that sweet scene?

Kind voices from departed years
Must haunt thee many a day;
Looks that will smite the source of tears.
Across thy soul must play.

Friends—now the altered or the dead,
And music that is gone—
A gladness o'er thy dreams will shed,
And thou shalt wake—alone.

Alone! it is in that deep word
That all thy sorrow lies;
How is the heart to courage stirr'd
By smiles from kindred eyes!

And are these lost?—and have I said
To aught like thee—be strong?
—So bid the willow lift its head
And brave the tempest's wrong!

Thou reed! o'er which the storm hath pass'd—
Thou shaken with the wind!

147

On one, one friend thy weakness cast—
There is but One to bind!

HYMN BY THE SICKBED OF A MOTHER.

Father! that in the olive shade
When the dark hour came on,
Didst, with a breath of heavenly aid,
Strengthen thy Son;

Oh! by the anguish of that night,
Send us down bless'd relief;
Or to the chasten'd, let thy might
Hallow this grief!

And Thou, that when the starry sky
Saw the dread strife begun,
Didst teach adoring faith to cry,
“Thy will be done;”

By thy meek spirit, Thou, of all
That e'er have mourn'd the chief—
Thou Saviour! if the stroke must fall,
Hallow this grief!

148

WHERE IS THE SEA?

SONG OF THE GREEK ISLANDER IN EXILE.

Where is the sea?—I languish here—
Where is my own blue sea?
With all its barks in fleet career,
And flags, and breezes free.

I miss that voice of waves which first
Awoke my childhood's glee;
The measured chime—the thundering burst—
Where is my own blue sea?

Oh! rich your myrtle's breath may rise,
Soft, soft your winds may be;
Yet my sick heart within me dies—
Where is my own blue sea?

I hear the shepherd's mountain flute—
I hear the whispering tree;—
The echoes of my soul are mute:
—Where is my own blue sea?

149

TO MY OWN PORTRAIT.

How is it that before mine eyes,
While gazing on thy mien,
All my past years of life arise,
As in a mirror seen?
What spell within thee hath been shrined,
To image back my own deep mind?

Even as a song of other times
Can trouble memory's springs;
Even as a sound of vesper-chimes
Can wake departed things;
Even as a scent of vernal flowers
Hath records fraught with vanish'd hours;—

Such power is thine!—they come, the dead,
From the grave's bondage free,
And smiling back the changed are led,
To look in love on thee;
And voices that are music flown
Speak to me in the heart's full tone:

Till crowding thoughts my soul oppress—
The thoughts of happier years,
And a vain gush of tenderness
O'erflows in child-like tears;
A passion which I may not stay,
A sudden fount that must have way,

150

But thou, the while—oh! almost strange,
Mine imaged self! it seems
That on thy brow of peace no change
Reflects my own swift dreams;
Almost I marvel not to trace
Those lights and shadows in thy face.

To see thee calm, while powers thus deep
Affection—Memory—Grief—
Pass o'er my soul as winds that sweep
O'er a frail aspen-leaf!
O that the quiet of thine eye
Might sink there when the storm goes by!

Yet look thou still serenely on,
And if sweet friends there be,
That when my song and soul are gone
Shall seek my form in thee,—
Tell them of one for whom 'twas best
To flee away and be at rest!

Painted by W. E. West, in 1827, and engraved in the first volume of this publication.

NO MORE.

No more! a harp-string's deep and breaking tone,
A last low summer breeze, a far-off swell,
A dying echo of rich music gone,
Breathe through those words—those murmurs of farewell—
No more!

To dwell in peace, with home affections bound,
To know the sweetness of a mother's voice,

151

To feel the spirit of her love around,
And in the blessing of her eye rejoice—
No more!

A dirge-like sound! to greet the early friend
Unto the hearth, his place of many days;
In the glad song with kindred lips to blend,
Or join the household laughter by the blaze—
No more!

Through woods that shadow'd our first years to rove,
With all our native music in the air;
To watch the sunset with the eyes we love,
And turn, and read our own heart's answer there—
No more!

Words of despair! yet earth's, all earth's—the woe
Their passion breathes—the desolately deep!
That sound in Heaven—oh! image then the flow
Of gladness in its tones—to part, to weep—
No more!

To watch, in dying hope, affection's wane,
To see the beautiful from life depart,
To wear impatiently a secret chain,
To waste the untold riches of the heart—
No more!

Through long, long years to seek, to strive, to yearn
For human love —and never quench that thirst,

152

To pour the soul out, winning no return,
O'er fragile idols, by delusion nursed—
No more!

On things that fail us, reed by reed, to lean,
To mourn the changed, the far away, the dead;
To send our troubled spirits through the unseen,
Intensely questioning for treasures fled—
No more!

Words of triumphant music—bear we on
The weight of life, the chain, the ungenial air;
Their deathless meaning, when our tasks are done,
To learn in joy;—to struggle, to despair—
No more!

“Jamais, jamais, je ne serai aimé comme j'aime,” was a mournful expression of Madame de Staël's.

THOUGHT FROM AN ITALIAN POET.

Where shall I find, in all this fleeting earth,
This world of changes and farewells, a friend
That will not fail me in his love and worth,
Tender and firm, and faithful to the end?

Far hath my spirit sought a place of rest—
Long on vain idols its devotion shed;
Some have forsaken whom I loved the best,
And some deceived, and some are with the dead.

But thou, my Saviour! thou, my hope and trust,
Faithful art thou when friends and joys depart;
Teach me to lift these yearnings from the dust,
And fix on thee, th' unchanging One, my heart!

153

PASSING AWAY.

“Passing away” is written on the world, and all the world contains.

It is written on the rose,
In its glory's full array—
Read what those buds disclose—
“Passing away.”

It is written on the skies
Of the soft blue summer day;
It is traced in sunset's dyes—
“Passing away.”

It is written on the trees,
As their young leaves glistening play,
And on brighter things than these—
“Passing away.”

It is written on the brow
Where the spirit's ardent ray
Lives, burns, and triumphs now—
“Passing away.”

It is written on the heart—
Alas! that there Decay
Should claim from Love a part—
“Passing away.”

Friends, friends!—oh! shall we meet
In a land of purer day,
Where lovely things and sweet
Pass not away?

154

Shall we know each other's eyes,
And the thoughts that in them lay,
When we mingled sympathies—
“Passing away?”

Oh! if this may be so,
Speed, speed thou closing day!
How blest, from earth's vain show
To pass away!

THE ANGLER.

“I in these flowery meads would be;
These crystal streams should solace me;
To whose harmonious bubbling noise
I with my angle would rejoice;
[OMITTED]
And angle on, and beg to have
A quiet passage to a welcome grave.”
Isaac Walton.

Thou that hast loved so long and well
The vale's deep quiet streams,
Where the pure water-lilies dwell,
Shedding forth tender gleams;
And o'er the pool the May-fly's wing
Glances in golden eves of spring.

Oh! lone and lovely haunts are thine,
Soft, soft the river flows,
Wearing the shadow of thy line,
The gloom of alder-boughs;

155

And in the midst, a richer hue,
One gliding vein of heaven's own blue.

And there but low sweet sounds are heard—
The whisper of the reed,
The plashing trout, the rustling bird,
The scythe upon the mead:
Yet, through the murmuring osiers near,
There steals a step which mortals fear.

'Tis not the stag, that comes to lave,
At noon, his panting breast;
'Tis not the bittern, by the wave
Seeking her sedgy nest;
The air is fill'd with summer's breath,
The young flowers laugh—yet look! 'tis death!

But if, where silvery currents rove,
Thy heart, grown still and sage,
Hath learn'd to read the words of love
That shine o'er nature's page;
If holy thoughts thy guests have been,
Under the shade of willows green;

Then, lover of the silent hour,
By deep lone waters past,
Thence hast thou drawn a faith, a power,
To cheer thee through the last;
And, wont on brighter worlds to dwell,
May'st calmly bid thy streams farewell.

This, and the following poem, were originally written for a work entitled Death's Doings, edited by Mr Alaric Watts.

156

DEATH AND THE WARRIOR.

“Ay, warrior, arm! and wear thy plume
On a proud and fearless brow!
I am the lord of the lonely tomb,
And a mightier one than thou!

“Bid thy soul's love farewell, young chief—
Bid her a long farewell!
Like the morning's dew shall pass that grief—
Thou comest with me to dwell!

“Thy bark may rush through the foaming deep
Thy steed o'er the breezy hill;
But they bear thee on to a place of sleep,
Narrow, and cold, and chill!”

“Was the voice I heard, thy voice, oh Death!
And is thy day so near?
Then on the field shall my life's last breath
Mingle with victory's cheer!

“Banners shall float, with the trumpet's note,
Above me as I die!
And the palm-tree wave o'er my noble grave,
Under the Syrian sky.

“High hearts shall burn in the royal hall,
When the minstrel names that spot;
And the eyes I love shall weep my fall,—
Death, Death, I fear thee not!”

157

“Warrior! thou bear'st a haughty heart,
But I can bend its pride!
How should'st thou know that thy soul will part
In the hour of victory's tide?

“It may be far from thy steel-clad bands,
That I shall make thee mine;
It may be lone on the desert sands,
Where men for fountains pine!

“It may be deep amidst heavy chains,
In some deep Paynim hold;—
I have slow dull steps and lingering pains,
Wherewith to tame the bold!”

“Death, Death! I go to a doom unblest,
If this indeed must be;
But the Cross is bound upon my breast,
And I may not shrink for thee!

“Sound, clarion, sound!—for my vows are given
To the cause of the holy shrine;
I bow my soul to the will of Heaven,
Oh Death!—and not to thine!”

SONG FOR AIR BY HUMMEL.

Oh! if thou wilt not give thine heart,
Give back my own to me;

158

For if in thine I have no part,
Why should mine dwell with thee?

Yet no! this mournful love of mine,
I will not from me cast;
Let me but dream 'twill win me thine,
By its deep truth at last!

Can aught so fond, so faithful, live
Through years without reply?
—Oh! if thy heart thou wilt not give,
Give me a thought, a sigh!

The first verse of this song is a literal translation from the German.

TO THE MEMORY OF LORD CHARLES MURRAY,

SON OF THE DUKE OF ATHOLL, WHO DIED IN THE CAUSE, AND LAMENTED BY THE PEOPLE OF GREECE.

“Time cannot teach forgetfulness,
When grief's full heart is fed by fame.”
Byron.

Thou should'st have slept beneath the stately pines,
And with the ancestral trophies of thy race;
Thou that hast found, where alien tombs and shrines
Speak of the past, a lonely dwelling-place!
Far from thy brethren hath thy couch been spread,
Thou bright young stranger 'midst the mighty dead!
Yet to thy name a noble rite was given,
Banner and dirge met proudly o'er thy grave,

159

Under that old and glorious Grecian heaven,
Which unto death so oft hath lit the brave:
And thy dust blends with mould heroic there,
With all that sanctifies the inspiring air.
Vain voice of fame! sad sound for those that weep,
For her, the mother, in whose bosom lone
Thy childhood dwells—whose thoughts a record keep
Of smiles departed and sweet accents gone;
Of all thine early grace and gentle worth—
A vernal promise, faded now from earth!
But a bright memory claims a proud regret—
A lofty sorrow finds its own deep springs
Of healing balm; and she hath treasures yet,
Whose soul can number with love's holy things,
A name like thine! Now, past all cloud or spot,
A gem is hers, laid up where change is not.

THE BROKEN CHAIN.

I am free!—I have burst through my galling chain,
The life of young eagles is mine again;
I may cleave with my bark the glad sounding sea,
I may rove where the wind roves—my path is free!

The streams dash in joy down the summer hill,
The birds pierce the depths of the sky at will,
The arrow goes forth with the singing breeze,—
And is not my spirit as one of these?

160

Oh! the green earth with its wealth of flowers,
And the voices that ring through its forest bowers,
And the laughing glance of the founts that shine,
Lighting the valleys—all, all are mine!

I may urge through the desert my foaming steed,
The wings of the morning shall lend him speed;
I may meet the storm in its rushing glee—
Its blasts and its lightnings are not more free!

Captive! and hast thou then rent thy chain?
Art thou free in the wilderness, free on the main?
Yes! there thy spirit may proudly soar,
But must thou not mingle with throngs the more?

The bird when he pineth, may hush his song,
Till the hour when his heart shall again be strong;
But thou—canst thou turn in thy woe aside,
And weep, 'midst thy brethren?—no, not for pride.

May the fiery word from thy lip find way,
When the thoughts burning in thee shall spring to day?
May the care that sits in thy weary breast
Look forth from thine aspect, the revel's guest?

No! with the shaft in thy bosom borne,
Thou must hide the wound in thy fear of scorn;
Thou must fold thy mantle that none may see,
And mask thee with laughter, and say thou art free!

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No! thou art chain'd till thy race is run,
By the power of all in the soul of one;
On thy heart, on thy lip, must the fetter be—
Dreamer, fond dreamer! oh! who is free?

THE SHADOW OF A FLOWER.

“La voilà telle que la mort nous l'a faite.”
Bossuet.

'Twas a dream of olden days,
That Art, by some strange power,
The visionary form could raise
From the ashes of a flower.

That a shadow of the rose,
By its own meek beauty bow'd,
Might slowly, leaf by leaf, unclose,
Like pictures in a cloud.

Or the hyacinth, to grace,
As a second rainbow, Spring;
Of Summer's path a dreary trace,
A fair, yet mournful thing!

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For the glory of the bloom
That a flush around it shed,
And the soul within, the rich perfume,
Where were they?—fled, all fled!

Nought but the dim faint line
To speak of vanish'd hours—
Memory! what are joys of thine?
—Shadows of buried flowers!

LINES TO A BUTTERFLY RESTING ON A SKULL

Creature of air and light!
Emblem of that which will not fade or die!
Wilt thou not speed thy flight,
To chase the south wind through the glowing sky?
What lures thee thus to stay
With silence and decay,
Fix'd on the wreck of cold mortality?

The thoughts once chamber'd there,
Have gather'd up their treasures and are gone;—
Will the dust tell thee where
That which hath burst the prison-house is flown?
Rise, nursling of the day!
If thou would'st trace its way—
Earth has no voice to make the secret known.

Who seeks the vanish'd bird
Near the deserted nest and broken shell?
Far thence, by us unheard,

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He sings, rejoicing in the woods to dwell:
Thou of the sunshine born,
Take the bright wings of morn!
Thy hope springs heavenward from yon ruin'd cell.

THE BELL AT SEA.

When the tide's billowy swell
Had reach'd its height,
Then toll'd the rock's lone bell,
Sternly by night.

Far over cliff and surge
Swept the deep sound,
Making each wild wind's dirge
Still more profound.

Yet that funereal tone
The sailor bless'd,
Steering through darkness on
With fearless breast.

E'en so may we, that float
On life's wide sea,
Welcome each warning note,
Stern though it be!

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THE SUBTERRANEAN STREAM.

“Thou stream,
Whose source is inaccessibly profound,
Whither do thy mysterious waters tend?
—Thou imagest my life.”

Darkly thou glidest onward,
Thou deep and hidden wave!
The laughing sunshine hath not look'd
Into thy secret cave.

Thy current makes no music—
A hollow sound we hear,
A muffled voice of mystery,
And know that thou art near.

No brighter line of verdure
Follows thy lonely way;
No fairy moss, or lily's cup,
Is freshen'd by thy play.

The halcyon doth not seek thee,
Her glorious wings to lave;
Thou know'st no tint of the summer sky,
Thou dark and hidden wave!

Yet once will day behold thee,
When to the mighty sea,
Fresh bursting from their cavern'd veins.
Leap thy lone waters free.

165

There wilt thou greet the sunshine
For a moment, and be lost,
With all thy melancholy sounds,
In the ocean's billowy host.

Oh! art thou not, dark river,
Like the fearful thoughts untold,
Which haply in the hush of night
O'er many a soul have roll'd?

Those earth-born strange misgivings—
Who hath not felt their power?
Yet who hath breathed them to his friend,
E'en in his fondest hour?

They hold no heart communion,
They find no voice in song,
They dimly follow far from earth
The grave's departed throng.

Wild is their course, and lonely,
And fruitless in man's breast;
They come and go, and leave no trace
Of their mysterious guest.

Yet surely must their wanderings
At length be like thy way;
Their shadows, as thy waters, lost
In one bright flood of day!

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THE SILENT MULTITUDE.

“For we are many in our solitudes.”
Lament of Tasso.

A mighty and a mingled throng
Were gather'd in one spot;
The dwellers of a thousand homes—
Yet 'midst them voice was not.

The soldier and his chief were there—
The mother and her child:
The friends, the sisters of one hearth—
None spoke—none moved—none smiled.

There lovers met, between whose lives
Years had swept darkly by;
After that heart-sick hope deferr'd—
They met—but silently.

You might have heard the rustling leaf,
The breeze's faintest sound,
The shiver of an insect's wing,
On that thick-peopled ground.

Your voice to whispers would have died
For the deep quiet's sake;
Your tread the softest moss have sought,
Such stillness not to break.

What held the countless multitude
Bound in that spell of peace?

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How could the ever-sounding life
Amid so many cease?

Was it some pageant of the air—
Some glory high above,
That link'd and hush'd those human souls
In reverential love?

Or did some burdening passion's weight
Hang on their indrawn breath?
Awe—the pale awe that freezes words?
Fear—the strong fear of death?

A mightier thing—Death, Death himself
Lay on each lonely heart!
Kindred were there—yet hermits all—
Thousands—but each apart.

THE ANTIQUE SEPULCHRE.

O ever joyous band
Of revellers amidst the southern vines!
On the pale marble, by some gifted hand,
Fixed in undying lines!

Thou, with the sculptured bowl,
And thou, that wearest the immortal wreath,

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And thou, from whose young lip and flute, the soul
Of music seems to breathe;

And ye, luxuriant flowers!
Linking the dancers with your graceful ties,
And cluster'd fruitage, born of sunny hours,
Under Italian skies:

Ye, that a thousand springs,
And leafy summers with their odorous breath,
May yet outlast,—what do ye there, bright things!
Mantling the place of death?

Of sunlight and soft air,
And Dorian reeds, and myrtles ever green,
Unto the heart a glowing thought ye bear;—
Why thus, where dust hath been?

Is it to show how slight
The bound that severs festivals and tombs,
Music and silence, roses and the blight,
Crowns and sepulchral glooms?

Or when the father laid
Haply his child's pale ashes here to sleep,
When the friend visited the cypress shade,
Flowers o'er the dead to heap;

Say if the mourners sought,
In these rich images of summer mirth,
These wine-cups and gay wreaths, to lose the thought
Of our last hour on earth?

169

Ye have no voice, no sound,
Ye flutes and lyres, to tell me what I seek;
Silent ye are, light forms with vine-leaves crown'd,
Yet to my soul ye speak.

Alas! for those that lay
Down in the dust without their hope of old!
Backward they look'd on life's rich banquet-day,
But all beyond was cold.

Every sweet wood-note then,
And through the plane-trees every sunbeam's glow,
And each glad murmur from the homes of men,
Made it more hard to go.

But we, when life grows dim,
When its last melodies float o'er our way,
Its changeful hues before us faintly swim,
Its flitting lights decay;—

E'en though we bid farewell
Unto the spring's blue skies and budding trees,
Yet may we lift our hearts, in hope to dwell
'Midst brighter things than these.

And think of deathless flowers,
And of bright streams to glorious valleys given,
And know the while, how little dream of ours
Can shadow forth of Heaven

“Les sarcophages même chez les anciens, ne rapellent que des idées guerrières ou riantes:—on voit des jeux, des danses, representés en bas-relief sur les tombeaux.” Corinne.

170

EVENING SONG OF THE TYROLESE PEASANTS.

Come to the sunset tree!
The day is past and gone;
The woodman's axe lies free,
And the reaper's work is done.

The twilight star to heaven,
And the summer dew to flowers,
And rest to us, is given
By the cool soft evening hours.

Sweet is the hour of rest!
Pleasant the wind's low sigh,
And the gleaming of the west,
And the turf whereon we lie;

When the burden and the heat
Of labour's task are o'er,
And kindly voices greet
The tired one at his door.

Come to the sunset tree!
The day is past and gone;
The woodman's axe lies free,
And the reaper's work is done

Yes; tuneful is the sound
That dwells in whispering boughs;

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Welcome the freshness round!
And the gale that fans our brows.

But rest more sweet and still
Than ever nightfall gave,
Our yearning hearts shall fill
In the world beyond the grave.

There shall no tempest blow,
No scorching noontide heat;
There shall be no more snow,
No weary wandering feet.

So we lift our trusting eyes
From the hills our fathers trode,
To the quiet of the skies,
To the Sabbath of our God.

Come to the sunset tree!
The day is past and gone
The woodman's axe lies free,
And the reaper's work is done

“The loved hour of repose is striking. Let us come to the sunset tree.” See Captain Sherer's interesting Notes and Reflections during a Ramble in Germany.

“Wohl ihm, er ist hingegangen
Wo kein schnoe mehr ist.”

Schiller's Nadowessiche Todtenklage.

THE MEMORY OF THE DEAD.

Forget them not:—though now their name
Be but a mournful sound,

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Though by the hearth its utterance claim
A stillness round.

Though for their sake this earth no more
As it hath been may be,
And shadows, never mark'd before,
Brood o'er each tree;

And though their image dim the sky,
Yet, yet forget them not!
Nor, where their love and life went by,
Forsake the spot!

They have a breathing influence there,
A charm, not elsewhere found;
Sad—yet it sanctifies the air,
The stream—the ground.

Then, though the wind an alter'd tone
Through the young foliage bear,
Though every flower, of something gone
A tinge may wear;

Oh! fly it not!—no fruitless grief
Thus in their presence felt,
A record links to every leaf
There, where they dwelt.

Still trace the path which knew their tread,
Still tend their garden-bower.
Still commune with the holy dead
In each lone hour!

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The holy dead!—oh! bless'd we are,
That we may call them so,
And to their image look afar,
Through all our woe!

Bless'd, that the things they loved on earth,
As relics we may hold,
That wake sweet thoughts of parted worth,
By springs untold!

Bless'd, that a deep and chastening power
Thus o'er our souls is given,
If but to bird, or song, or flower,
Yet all for Heaven!

HE WALK'D WITH GOD.

[_]

(Genesis v. 24.)

He walk'd with God, in holy joy,
While yet his days were few;
The deep glad spirit of the boy
To love and reverence grew.
Whether, each nightly star to count,
The ancient hills he trode,

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Or sought the flowers by stream and fount—
Alike he walk'd with God.

The graver noon of manhood came,
The full of cares and fears;
One voice was in his heart—the same
It heard through childhood's years.
Amidst fair tents, and flocks, and swains,
O'er his green pasture-sod,
A shepherd king on eastern plains—
The patriarch walk'd with God.

And calmly, brightly, that pure life
Melted from earth away;
No cloud it knew, no parting strife,
No sorrowful decay;
He bow'd him not, like all beside,
Unto the spoiler's rod,
But join'd at once the glorified,
Where angels walk with God!

So let us walk!—the night must come
To us that comes to all;
We through the darkness must go home,
Hearing the trumpet's call.
Closed is the path for evermore,
Which without death he trod;
Not so that way, wherein of yore
His footsteps walk'd with God!

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THE ROD OF AARON.

[_]

(Numbers xvii. 8.)

Was it the sigh of the southern gale
That flush'd the almond bough?
Brightest and first the young Spring to hail,
Still its red blossoms glow.

Was it the sunshine that woke its flowers
With a kindling look of love?
Oh, far and deep, and through hidden bowers,
That smile of heaven can rove!

No! from the breeze and the living light
Shut was the sapless rod;
But it felt in the stillness a secret might,
And thrill'd to the breath of God.

E'en so may that breath, like the vernal air,
O'er our glad spirits move;
And all such things as are good and fair,
Be the blossoms, its track that prove!

THE VOICE OF GOD.

“I heard thy voice in the garden, and I was afraid.”— Gen. iii. 10.

Amidst the thrilling leaves, thy voice
At evening's fall drew near;
Father! and did not man rejoice
That blessed sound to hear?

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Did not his heart within him burn,
Touch'd by the solemn tone?
Not so!—for, never to return,
Its purity was gone.

Therefore, 'midst holy stream and bower,
His spirit shook with dread,
And call'd the cedars, in that hour,
To veil his conscious head.

Oh! in each wind, each fountain flow,
Each whisper of the shade,
Grant me, my God, thy voice to know,
And not to be afraid!

THE FOUNTAIN OF MARAH.

“And when they came to Marah, they could not drink of the waters of Marah, for they were bitter.

“And the people murmured against Moses, saying, What shall we drink?

“And he eried unto the Lord, and the Lord showed him a tree, which when he had cast into the waters, the waters were made sweet.”

— Exodus, xv. 23—25.

Where is the tree the prophet threw
Into the bitter wave?
Left it no scion where it grew,
The thirsting soul to save?

Hath nature lost the hidden power
Its precious foliage shed?
Is there no distant eastern bower
With such sweet leaves o'erspread?

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Nay, wherefore ask?—since gifts are ours
Which yet may well imbue
Earth's many troubled founts with showers
Of heaven's own balmy dew.

Oh! mingled with the cup of grief
Let faith's deep spirit be!
And every prayer shall win a leaf
From that bless'd healing tree!

THE PENITENT'S OFFERING.

[_]

(St Luke, vii. 37, 38.)

Thou that with pallid cheek,
And eyes in sadness meek,
And faded locks that humbly swept the ground,
From thy long wanderings won,
Before the all-healing Son,
Did'st bow thee to the earth, oh, lost and found!

When thou would'st bathe his feet
With odours richly sweet,
And many a shower of woman's burning tear,
And dry them with that hair,
Brought low the dust to wear,
From the crown'd beauty of its festal year.

Did he reject thee then,
While the sharp scorn of men
On thy once bright and stately head was cast?
No, from the Saviour's mien,
A solemn light serene,
Bore to thy soul the peace of God at last.

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For thee, their smiles no more
Familiar faces wore;
Voices, once kind, had learn'd the stranger's tone:
Who raised thee up, and bound
Thy silent spirit's wound?—
He, from all guilt the stainless, He alone!

But which, oh, erring child!
From home so long beguiled,
Which of thine offerings won those words of Heaven,
That o'er the bruised reed,
Condemn'd of earth to bleed,
In music pass'd, “Thy sins are all forgiven?”

Was it that perfume fraught
With balm and incense brought,
From the sweet woods of Araby the bless'd?
Or that fast flowing rain,
Of tears, which, not in vain
To Him who scorn'd not tears, thy woes confess'd?

No, not by these restored
Unto thy Father's board,
Thy peace, that kindled joy in Heaven, was made;
But costlier in his eyes,
By that bless'd sacrifice,
Thy heart, thy full-deep heart, before Him laid.

179

THE SCULPTURED CHILDREN,

ON CHANTREY'S MONUMENT IN LICHFIELD CATHEDRAL.

180

Fair images of sleep,
Hallow'd, and soft, and deep,
On whose calm lids the dreamy quiet lies,
Like moonlight on shut bells
Of flowers, in mossy dells,
Fill'd with the hush of night and summer skies!

How many hearts have felt
Your silent beauty melt
Their strength to gushing tenderness away!
How many sudden tears,
From depths of buried years
All freshly bursting, have confess'd your sway!

How many eyes will shed
Still, o'er your marble bed,
Such drops from memory's troubled fountains wrung—
While hope hath blights to bear,
While love breathes mortal air,
While roses perish ere to glory sprung!

Yet from a voiceless home,
If some sad mother come,
Fondly to linger o'er your lovely rest,
As o'er the cheek's warm glow,
And the sweet breathings low,
Of babes that grew and faded on her breast;

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If then the dove-like tone
Of those faint murmurs gone,
O'er her sick sense too piercingly return;
If for the soft bright hair,
And brow and bosom fair,
And life, now dust, her soul too deeply yearn;

O gentle forms, entwined
Like tendrils, which the wind
May wave, so clasp'd, but never can unlink!
Send from your calm profound
A still small voice—a sound
Of hope, forbidding that lone heart to sink!

By all the pure meek mind
In your pale beauty shrined,
By childhood's love—too bright a bloom to die!
O'er her worn spirit shed,
O fairest, holiest dead!
The faith, trust, joy, of immortality!

WOMAN AND FAME.

Thou hast a charmed cup, O Fame!
A draught that mantles high,
And seems to lift this earthly frame
Above mortality.
Away! to me—a woman—bring
Sweet waters from affection's spring.

Thou hast green laurel leaves, that twine
Into so proud a wreath;

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For that resplendent gift of thine,
Heroes have smiled in death:
Give me from some kind hand a flower,
The record of one happy hour!

Thou hast a voice, whose thrilling tone
Can bid each life-pulse beat
As when a trumpet's note hath blown,
Calling the brave to meet:
But mine, let mine—a woman's breast,
By words of home-born love be bless'd.

A hollow sound is in thy song,
A mockery in thine eye,
To the sick heart that doth but long
For aid, for sympathy—
For kindly looks to cheer it on,
For tender accents that are gone.

Fame, Fame! thou canst not be the stay
Unto the drooping reed,
The cool fresh fountain in the day
Of the soul's feverish need:
Where must the lone one turn or flee?—
Not unto thee—oh! not to thee!

A THOUGHT OF THE FUTURE.

Dreamer! and would'st thou know
If love goes with us to the viewless bourne?

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Would'st thou bear hence th' unfathom'd source of woe
In thy heart's lonely urn?

What hath it been to thee,
That power, the dweller of thy secret breast?
A dove sent forth across a stormy sea,
Finding no place of rest:

A precious odour cast
On a wild stream, that recklessly swept by;
A voice of music utter'd to the blast,
And winning no reply.

Even were such answer thine—
Would'st thou be bless'd?—too sleepless, too profound,
Are the soul's hidden springs; there is no line
Their depth of love to sound.

Do not words faint and fail
When thou would'st fill them with that ocean's power?
As thine own cheek, before high thoughts grows pale
In some o'erwhelming hour.

Doth not thy frail form sink
Beneath the chain that binds thee to one spot,
When thy heart strives, held down by many a link,
Where thy beloved are not?

Is not thy very soul
Oft in the gush of powerless blessing shed,

184

Till a vain tenderness, beyond control,
Bows down thy weary head?

And would'st thou bear all this—
The burden and the shadow of thy life—
To trouble the blue skies of cloudless bliss
With earthly feelings' strife?

Not thus, not thus—oh, no!
Not veil'd and mantled with dim clouds of care,
That spirit of my soul should with me go
To breathe celestial air.

But as the skylark springs
To its own sphere, where night afar is driven,
As to its place the flower-seed findeth wings,
So must love mount to heaven!

Vainly it shall not strive
There on weak words to pour a stream of fire;
Thought unto thought shall kindling impulse give,
As light might wake a lyre.

And oh! its blessings there,
Shower'd like rich balsam forth on some dear head,
Powerless no more, a gift shall surely bear,
A joy of sunlight shed.

Let me, then—let me dream
That love goes with us to the shore unknown;
So o'er its burning tears a heavenly gleam
In mercy shall be thrown!

185

THE VOICE OF MUSIC.

“Striking the electric chain wherewith we are darkly bound.”
Childe Harold.

Whence is the might of thy master-spell?
Speak to me, voice of sweet sound, and tell!
How canst thou wake, by one gentle breath,
Passionate visions of love and death!

How call'st thou back, with a note, a sigh,
Words and low tones from the days gone by—
A sunny glance, or a fond farewell?—
Speak to me, voice of sweet sound, and tell!

What is thy power, from the soul's deep spring
In sudden gushes the tears to bring?
Even 'midst the swells of thy festal glee,
Fountains of sorrow are stirr'd by thee!

Vain are those tears!—vain and fruitless all—
Showers that refresh not, yet still must fall;
For a purer bliss while the full heart burns,
For a brighter home while the spirit yearns!

Something of mystery there surely dwells,
Waiting thy touch, in our bosom-cells;
Something that finds not its answer here—
A chain to be clasp'd in another sphere.

Therefore a current of sadness deep,
Through the stream of thy triumphs is heard to sweep,

186

Like a moan of the breeze through a summer sky—
Like a name of the dead when the wine foams high!

Yet speak to me still, though thy tones be fraught
With vain remembrance and troubled thought;
Speak! for thou tellest my soul that its birth
Links it with regions more bright than earth.

THE ANGEL'S GREETING.

“Hark!—they whisper!—Angels say,
Sister spirit, come away.”
Pope.

Come to the land of peace!
Come where the tempest hath no longer sway,
The shadow passes from the soul away—
The sounds of weeping cease.

Fear hath no dwelling there!
Come to the mingling of repose and love,
Breathed by the silent spirit of the dove
Through the celestial air.

Come to the bright, and blest,
And crown'd for ever! 'midst that shining band,
Gather'd to Heaven's own wreath from every land,
Thy spirit shall find rest!

Thou hast been long alone:
Come to thy mother!—on the Sabbath shore,
The heart that rock'd thy childhood, back once more
Shall take its wearied one.

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In silence wert thou left:
Come to thy sisters!—joyously again
All the home-voices, blent in one sweet strain,
Shall greet their long bereft.

Over thine orphan head
The storm hath swept, as o'er a willow's bough:
Come to thy Father!—it is finish'd now;
Thy tears have all been shed.

In thy divine abode,
Change finds no pathway, memory no dark trace,
And, oh! bright victory—death by love no place:
Come, spirit, to thy God!

A FAREWELL TO WALES.

FOR THE MELODY CALLED “THE ASH GROVE,” ON LEAVING THAT COUNTRY WITH MY CHILDREN.

The sound of thy streams in my spirit I bear—
Farewell! and a blessing be with thee, green land!
On thy hearths, on thy halls, on thy pure mountain-air,
On the chords of the harp, and the minstrel's free hand!
From the love of my soul with my tears it is shed,
As I leave thee, green land of my home and my dead!

I bless thee!—yet not for the beauty which dwells
In the heart of thy hills, on the rocks of thy shore;

188

And not for the memory set deep in thy dells,
Of the bard and the hero, the mighty of yore;
And not for thy songs of those proud ages fled,
—Green land, poet land of my home and my dead!

I bless thee for all the true bosoms that beat,
Where'er a low hamlet smiles up to thy skies;
For thy cottage hearths burning the stranger to greet,
For the soul that shines forth from thy children's kind eyes!
May the blessing, like sunshine, about thee be spread,
Green land of my childhood, my home, and my dead!

IMPROMPTU LINES,

ADDRESSED TO MISS F. A. L., ON RECEIVING FROM HER SOME FLOWERS WHEN CONFINED BY ILLNESS.

Ye tell me not of birds and bees,
Not of the Summer's murmuring trees,
Not of the streams and woodland bowers:—
A sweeter tale is yours, fair flowers!

Glad tidings to my couch ye bring,
Of one still bright, still flowing spring—
A fount of kindness ever new,
In a friend's heart, the good and true.

189

A PARTING SONG.

“Oh! mes Amis, rappellez vous quelquefois mes vers; mon ame y est empreinte.”— Corinne.

When will ye think of me, my friends?
When will ye think of me?—
When the last red light, the farewell of day,
From the rock and the river is passing away—
When the air with a deep'ning hush is fraught,
And the heart grows burden'd with tender thought—
Then let it be!

When will ye think of me, kind friends?
When will ye think of me?—
When the rose of the rich midsummer time
Is fill'd with the hues of its glorious prime—
When ye gather its bloom, as in bright hours fled,
From the walks where my footsteps no more may tread—
Then let it be!

When will ye think of me, sweet friends?
When will ye think of me?—
When the sudden tears o'erflow your eye
At the sound of some olden melody—
When ye hear the voice of a mountain stream,
When ye feel the charm of a poet's dream—
Then let it be!

Thus let my memory be with you, friends!
Thus ever think of me!

190

Kindly and gently, but as of one
For whom 'tis well to be fled and gone—
As of a bird from a chain unbound,
As of a wanderer whose home is found—
So let it be.

WE RETURN NO MORE!

“When I stood beneath the fresh green tree,
And saw around me the wide field revive
With fruits and fertile promise; and the Spring
Come forth, her work of gladness to contrive,
With all her reckless birds upon the wing
I turn'd from all she brought to all she could not bring.”
Childe Harold.

“We return!—we return!—we return no more!”
So comes the song to the mountain-shore,
From those that are leaving their Highland home,
For a world far over the blue sea's foam:
“We return no more!” and through cave and dell
Mournfully wanders that wild farewell.

“We return!—we return!—we return no more!”
So breathe sad voices our spirits o'er:
Murmuring up from the depths of the heart,
Where lovely things with their light depart:
And the inborn sound hath a prophet's tone,
And we feel that a joy is for ever gone.

“We return!—we return!—we return no more!”
Is it heard when the days of flowers are o'er?

191

When the passionate soul of the night-bird's lay
Hath died from the summer woods away?
When the glory from sunset's robe hath pass'd,
Or the leaves are borne on the rushing blast?

No!—it is not the rose that returns no more;
A breath of spring shall its bloom restore;
And it is not the voice that o'erflows the bowers,
With a stream of love through the starry hours;
Nor is it the crimson of sunset hues,
Nor the frail flush'd leaves which the wild wind strews.

“We return!—we return!—we return no more!”
Doth the bird sing thus from a brighter shore?
Those wings that follow the southern breeze,
Float they not homeward o'er vernal seas?
Yes! from the lands of the vine and palm
They come, with the sunshine, when waves grow calm.

“But we!—we return!—we return no more!”
The heart's young dreams, when their spring is o'er;
The love it hath pour'd so freely forth—
The boundless trust in ideal worth;
The faith in affection—deep, fond, yet vain—
These are the lost that return not again!

Ha til!—ha til!—ha til mi tulidle!—“we return!— we return!—we return no more!”—the burden of the Highland song of emigration.

TO A WANDERING FEMALE SINGER.

Thou hast loved and thou hast suffer'd!
Unto feeling deep and strong,
Thou hast trembled like a harp's frail string—
I know it by thy song!

192

Thou hast loved—it may be vainly—
But well—oh! but too well—
Thou hast suffer'd all that woman's breast
May bear—but must not tell.

Thou hast wept and thou hast parted,
Thou hast been forsaken long,
Thou hast watch'd for steps that came not back—
I know it by thy song!

By the low clear silvery gushing
Of its music from thy breast,
By the quivering of its flute-like swell—
A sound of the heart's unrest.

By its fond and plaintive lingering,
On each word of grief so long,
Oh! thou hast loved and suffer'd much—
I know it by thy song!

THE PALMER.

“The faded palm branch in his hand,
Show'd pilgrim from the Holy Land.”
Scott.

Art thou come from the far-off land at last?
Thou that hast wander'd long!
Thou art come to a home whence the smile hath pass'd
With the merry voice of song.

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For the sunny glance and the bounding heart
Thou wilt seek—but all are gone;
They are parted e'en as waters part,
To meet in the deep alone!

And thou—from thy lip is fled the glow,
From thine eye the light of morn;
And the shades of thought o'erhang thy brow,
And thy cheek with life is worn.

Say what hast thou brought from the distant shore
For thy wasted youth to pay?
Hast thou treasure to win thee joys once more?
Hast thou vassals to smooth thy way?

“I have brought but the palm-branch in my hand,
Yet I call not my bright youth lost!
I have won but high thought in the Holy Land,
Yet I count not too dear the cost!

“I look on the leaves of the deathless tree—
These records of my track;
And better than youth in its flush of glee,
Are the memories they give me back!

“They speak of toil, and of high emprise,
As in words of solemn cheer,
They speak of lonely victories
O'er pain, and doubt, and fear.

“They speak of scenes which have now become
Bright pictures in my breast;

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Where my spirit finds a glorious home,
And the love of my heart can rest.

“The colours pass not from these away,
Like tints of shower or sun;
Oh! beyond all treasures that know decay,
Is the wealth my soul hath won!

“A rich light thence o'er my life's decline,
An inborn light is cast;
For the sake of the palm from the holy shrine,
I bewail not my bright days past!

THE CHILD'S FIRST GRIEF.

“Oh! call my brother back to me!
I cannot play alone;
The Summer comes with flower and bee—
Where is my brother gone?

“The butterfly is glancing bright
Across the sunbeam's track;
I care not now to chase its flight—
Oh! call my brother back!

“The flowers run wild—the flowers we sow'd
Around our garden tree;
Our vine is drooping with its load—
Oh! call him back to me!”

195

“He would not hear thy voice, fair child,
He may not come to thee;
The face that once like Spring-time smiled,
On earth no more thou'lt see.

“A rose's brief bright life of joy,
Such unto him was given;
Go—thou must play alone, my boy!
Thy brother is in heaven.”

“And has he left his birds and flowers;
And must I call in vain?
And through the long, long summer hours,
Will he not come again?

“And by the brook and in the glade
Are all our wanderings o'er?
Oh! while my brother with me play'd,
Would I had loved him more!”

TO THE NEW-BORN.

A blessing on thy head, thou child of many hopes and fears!
A rainbow-welcome thine hath been, of mingled smiles and tears.
Thy father greets thee unto life, with a full and chasten'd heart,
For a solemn gift from God thou com'st, all precious as thou art!

196

I see thee not asleep, fair boy, upon thy mother's breast,
Yet well I know how guarded there shall be thy rosy rest;
And how her soul with love, and prayer, and gladness, will o'erflow,
While bending o'er thy soft-seal'd eyes, thou dear one, well I know!

A blessing on thy gentle head! and bless'd thou art in truth,
For a home where God is felt, awaits thy childhood and thy youth:
Around thee pure and holy thoughts shall dwell as light and air,
And steal unto thine heart, and wake the germs now folded there.

Smile on thy mother! while she feels that unto her is given,
In that young day-spring glance the pledge of a soul to rear for heaven!
Smile! and sweet peace be o'er thy sleep, joy o'er thy wakening shed!
Blessings and blessings evermore, fair boy! upon thy head!

Addressed to the child of her eldest brother.

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THE DEATH-SONG OF ALCESTIS.

She came forth in her bridal robes array'd,
And 'midst the graceful statues, round the hall
Shedding the calm of their celestial mein,
Stood pale yet proudly beautiful, as they:
Flowers in her bosom, and the star-like gleam
Of jewels trembling from her braided hair,
And death upon her brow!—but glorious death!
Her own heart's choice, the token and the seal
Of love, o'ermastering love; which, till that hour,
Almost an anguish in the brooding weight
Of its unutterable tenderness,
Had burden'd her full soul. But now, oh! now,
Its time was come—and from the spirit's depths,
The passion and the mighty melody
Of its immortal voice, in triumph broke,
Like a strong rushing wind!

The soft pure air
Came floating through that hall—the Grecian air,
Laden with music—flute-notes from the vales,
Echoes of song—the last sweet sounds of life
And the glad sunshine of the golden clime
Stream'd, as a royal mantle, round her form—
The glorified of love! But she—she look'd
Only on him for whom 'twas joy to die,
Deep—deepest, holiest joy!—or if a thought
Of the warm sunlight, and the scented breeze,
And the sweet Dorian songs, o'erswept the tide
Of her unswerving soul—'twas but a thought

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That own'd the summer loveliness of life
For him a worthy offering!—So she stood,
Wrapt in bright silence, as entranced awhile,
Till her eye kindled, and her quivering frame
With the swift breeze of inspiration shook,
As the pale priestess trembles to the breath
Of inborn oracles!—then flush'd her cheek,
And all the triumph, all the agony,
Borne on the battling waves of love and death,
All from her woman's heart, in sudden song,
Burst like a fount of fire.

“I go, I go!
Thou sun, thou golden sun, I go
Far from thy light to dwell:
Thou shalt not find my place below,
Dim is that world—bright sun of Greece, farewell!

“The laurel and the glorious rose
Thy glad beam yet may see,
But where no purple summer glows,
O'er the dark wave I haste from them and thee.

“Yet doth my spirit faint to part?
—I mourn thee not, O sun!
Joy, solemn joy, o'erflows my heart,
Sing me triumphal songs!—my crown is won!

“Let not a voice of weeping rise—
My heart is girt with power!
Let the green earth and festal skies
Laugh, as to grace a conqueror's closing hour!

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“For thee, for thee, my bosom's lord!
Thee, my soul's loved! I die;
Thine is the torch of life restored,
Mine, mine the rapture, mine the victory!

“Now may the boundless love, that lay
Unfathom'd still before,
In one consuming burst find way,
In one bright flood all, all its riches pour!

“Thou know'st, thou know'st what love is now!
Its glory and its might—
Are they not written on my brow?
And will that image ever quit thy sight?

“No! deathless in thy faithful breast,
There shall my memory keep
Its own bright altar-place of rest,
While o'er my grave the cypress branches weep.

“Oh, the glad light!—the light is fair,
The soft breeze warm and free;
And rich notes fill the scented air,
And all are gifts—my love's last gifts to thee!

“Take me to thy warm heart once more!
Night falls—my pulse beats low:
Seek not to quicken, to restore—
Joy is in every pang—I go, I go!

“I feel thy tears, I feel thy breath,
I meet thy fond look still;

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Keen is the strife of love and death;
Faint and yet fainter grows my bosom's thrill.

“Yet swells the tide of rapture strong,
Though mists o'ershade mine eye!
—Sing, Pæan! sing a conqueror's song!
For thee, for thee, my spirit's lord, I die!”

THE HOME OF LOVE.

Thou mov'st in visions, love!—Around thy way,
E'en through this world's rough path and changeful day,
For ever floats a gleam,
Not from the realms of moonlight or the morn,
But thine own soul's illumined chambers born—
The colouring of a dream!

Love, shall I read thy dream?—oh! is it not
All of some sheltering, wood-embosomed spot—
A bower for thee and thine?
Yes! lone and lowly is that home; yet there
Something of heaven in the transparent air
Makes every flower divine.

Something that mellows and that glorifies,
Breathes o'er it ever from the tender skies,
As o'er some blessed isle;
E'en like the soft and spiritual glow,
Kindling rich woods, whereon th' ethereal bow
Sleeps lovingly awhile.

201

The very whispers of the wind have there
A flute-like harmony, that seems to bear
Greeting from some bright shore,
Where none have said farewell!—where no decay
Lends the faint crimson to the dying day;
Where the storm's might is o'er.

And there thou dreamest of Elysian rest,
In the deep sanctuary of one true breast
Hidden from earthly ill:
There would'st thou watch the homeward step, whose sound
Wakening all nature to sweet echoes round,
Thine inmost soul can thrill.

There by the hearth should many a glorious page,
From mind to mind the immortal heritage,
For thee its treasures pour;
Or music's voice at vesper hours be heard,
Or dearer interchange of playful word,
Affection's household lore.

And the rich unison of mingled prayer,
The melody of hearts in heavenly air,
Thence duly should arise;
Lifting th' eternal hope, th' adoring breath,
Of spirits, not to be disjoin'd by death,
Up to the starry skies.

There, dost thou well believe, no storm should come
To mar the stillness of that angel-home;

202

There should thy slumbers be
Weigh'd down with honey-dew, serenely bless'd,
Like theirs who first in Eden's grove took rest
Under some balmy tree.

Love, Love! thou passionate in joy and woe!
And canst thou hope for cloudless peace below—
Here, where bright things must die?
O thou! that wildly worshipping, dost shed
On the frail altar of a mortal head
Gifts of infinity!

Thou must be still a trembler, fearful Love!
Danger seems gathering from beneath, above,
Still round thy precious things;
Thy stately pine-tree, or thy gracious rose,
In their sweet shade can yield thee no repose,
Here, where the blight hath wings.

And as a flower, with some fine sense imbued,
To shrink before the wind's vicissitude,
So in thy prescient breast
Are lyre-strings quivering with prophetic thrill
To the low footstep of each coming ill;
—Oh! canst thou dream of rest?

Bear up thy dream! thou mighty and thou weak!
Heart, strong as death, yet as a reed to break—
As a flame, tempest-sway'd!
He that sits calm on high is yet the source
Whence thy soul's current hath its troubled course,
He that great deep hath made!

203

Will he not pity?—He whose searching eye
Reads all the secrets of thine agony?—
Oh! pray to be forgiven
Thy fond idolatry, thy blind excess,
And seek with Him that bower of blessedness—
Love! thy sole home is heaven!

BOOKS AND FLOWERS.

“La vue d'une fleur caresse mon imagination, et flatte mes sens à un point inexprimable. Sous le tranquille abri du toit paternel j'etais nourrie des l'enfance avec des fleurs et des livres;—dans l'etroite enceinte d'une prison, au milieu des fers imposies par la tyrannie, j'oublie l'injustice des hommes. leurs sottises et mes maux avec des livres et des fleurs.” Madame Roland.

Come, let me make a sunny realm around thee,
Of thought and beauty! Here are books and flowers,
With spells to loose the fetter which hath bound thee—
The ravell'd coil of this world's feverish hours.

The soul of song is in these deathless pages,
Even as the odour in the flower enshrined;
Here the crown'd spirits of departed ages
Have left the silent melodies of mind.

Their thoughts, that strove with time, and change, and anguish,
For some high place where faith her wing might rest,

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Are burning here—a flame that may not languish—
Still pointing upward to that bright hill's crest!

Their grief, the veil'd infinity exploring
For treasures lost, is here;—their boundless love
Its mighty streams of gentleness outpouring
On all things round, and clasping all above.

And the bright beings, their own heart's creations,
Bright, yet all human, here are breathing still;
Conflicts, and agonies, and exultations
Are here, and victories of prevailing will!

Listen, oh, listen! let their high words cheer thee!
Their swan-like music ringing through all woes;
Let my voice bring their holy influence near thee—
The Elysian air of their divine repose!

Or would'st thou turn to earth? Not earth all furrow'd
By the old traces of man's toil and care,
But the green peaceful world that never sorrow'd,
The world of leaves, and dews, and summer air!

Look on these flowers! As o'er an altar shedding,
O'er Milton's page, soft light from colour'd urns!
They are the links, man's heart to nature wedding,
When to her breast the prodigal returns.

They are from lone wild places, forest dingles,
Fresh banks of many a low-voiced hidden stream,
Where the sweet star of eve looks down and mingles
Faint lustre with the water-lily's gleam.

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They are from where the soft winds play in gladness,
Covering the turf with flowery blossom-showers;
—Too richly dower'd, O friend! are we for sadness—
Look on an empire—mind and nature—ours!

FOR A PICTURE OF ST CECILIA ATTENDED BY ANGELS.

“How rich that forehead's calm expanse!
How bright that heaven-directed glance!
—Waft her to glory, winged powers,
Ere sorrow be renew'd,
And intercourse with mortal hours
Bring back a humbler mood!”
Wordsworth.

How can that eye, with inspiration beaming,
Wear yet so deep a calm?—Oh, child of song!
Is not the music-land a world of dreaming,
Where forms of sad, bewildering beauty throng?

Hath it not sounds from voices long departed?
Echoes of tones that rung in childhood's ear?
Low haunting whispers, which the weary-hearted,
Stealing 'midst crowds away, have wept to hear?

No, not to thee!—thy spirit, meek, yet queenly,
On its own starry height, beyond all this,
Floating triumphantly and yet serenely,
Breathes no faint under-tone through songs of bliss.

Say by what strain, through cloudless ether swelling,
Thou hast drawn down those wanderers from the skies?

206

Bright guests! even such as left of yore their dwelling,
For the deep cedar shades of Paradise!

What strain?—oh! not the nightingale's when showering
Her own heart's life drops on the burning lay,
She stirs the young woods in the days of flowering,
And pours her strength, but not her grief away:

And not the exile's—when, 'midst lonely billows,
He wakes the alpine notes his mother sung,
Or blends them with the sigh of alien willows,
Where, murmuring to the wind, his harp is hung:

And not the pilgrim's—though his thoughts be holy,
And sweet his ave song, when day grows dim;
Yet, as he journeys, pensively and slowly,
Something of sadness floats through that low hymn.

But thou!—the spirit which at eve is filling
All the hush'd air and reverential sky,
Founts, leaves, and flowers, with solemn rapture thrilling,
This is the soul of thy rich harmony.

This bears up high those breathings of devotion
Wherein the currents of thy heart gush free;
Therefore no world of sad and vain emotion
Is the dream-haunted music-land for thee.

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THE BRIGAND LEADER AND HIS WIFE.

SUGGESTED BY A PICTURE OF EASTLAKE'S.

Dark chieftain of the heath and height!
Wild feaster on the hills by night!
See'st thou the stormy sunset's glow
Flung back by glancing spears below?
Now for one strife of stern despair!
The foe hath track'd thee to thy lair.

Thou, against whom the voice of blood
Hath risen from rock and lonely wood;
And in whose dreams a moan should be,
Not of the water, nor the tree;
Haply thine own last hour is nigh,—
Yet shalt thou not forsaken die.

There's one that pale beside thee stands,
More true than all thy mountain bands!
She will not shrink in doubt and dread,
When the balls whistle round thy head:
Nor leave thee, though thy closing eye
No longer may to her's reply.

Oh! many a soft and quiet grace
Hath faded from her form and face;
And many a thought, the fitting guest
Of woman's meek religious breast,
Hath perish'd in her wanderings wide,
Through the deep forests by thy side.

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Yet, mournfully surviving all,
A flower upon a ruin's wall,
A friendless thing, whose lot is cast
Of lovely ones to be the last;
Sad, but unchanged through good and ill,
Thine is her lone devotion still.

And oh! not wholly lost the heart
Where that undying love hath part;
Not worthless all, though far and long
From home estranged, and guided wrong;
Yet may its depths by Heaven be stirr'd,
Its prayer for thee be pour'd and heard!

THE CHILD'S RETURN FROM THE WOODLANDS.

SUGGESTED BY A PICTURE OF SIR THOMAS LAWRENCE'S.

“All good and guiltless as thou art,
Some transient griefs will touch thy heart—
Griefs that along thy alter'd face
Will breathe a more subduing grace,
Than even those looks of joy that lie
On the soft cheek of infancy.”
Wilson.

Hast thou been in the woods with the honey-bee?
Hast thou been with the lamb in the pastures free?
With the hare through the copses and dingles wild?
With the butterfly over the heath, fair child?
Yes: the light fall of thy bounding feet
Hath not startled the wren from her mossy seat:
Yet hast thou ranged the green forest-dells
And brought back a treasure of buds and bells.

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Thou know'st not the sweetness, by antique song
Breathed o'er the names of that flowery throng;
The woodbine, the primrose, the violet dim,
The lily that gleams by the fountain's brim;
These are old words, that have made each grove
A dreaming haunt for romance and love—
Each sunny bank, where faint odours lie,
A place for the gushings of poesy.

Thou know'st not the light wherewith fairy lore
Sprinkles the turf and the daisies o'er;
Enough for thee are the dews that sleep,
Like hidden gems, in the flower-urns deep;
Enough the rich crimson spots that dwell
'Midst the gold of the cowslip's perfumed cell;
And the scent by the blossoming sweetbriers shed,
And the beauty that bows the wood-hyacinth's head.

Oh! happy child, in thy fawn-like glee,
What is remembrance or thought to thee?
Fill thy bright locks with those gifts of spring,
O'er thy green pathway their colours fling;
Bind them in chaplet and wild festoon—
What if to droop and to perish soon?
Nature hath mines of such wealth—and thou
Never wilt prize its delights as now!

For a day is coming to quell the tone
That rings in thy laughter, thou joyous one!
And to dim thy brow with a touch of care,
Under the gloss of its clustering hair;

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And to tame the flash of thy cloudless eyes
Into the stillness of autumn skies;
And to teach thee that grief hath her needful part,
'Midst the hidden things of each human heart.

Yet shall we mourn, gentle child! for this?
Life hath enough of yet holier bliss!
Such be thy portion!—the bliss to look,
With a reverent spirit, through nature's book;
By fount, by forest, by river's line,
To track the paths of a love divine;
To read its deep meanings—to see and hear
God in earth's garden—and not to fear!

THE FAITH OF LOVE.

Thou hast watch'd beside the bed of death,
Oh, fearless human Love!
Thy lip received the last faint breath,
Ere the spirit fled above.

Thy prayer was heard by the parting bier,
In a low and farewell tone,
Thou hast given the grave both flower and tear—
—Oh, Love! thy task is done.

Then turn thee from each pleasant spot
Where thou wert wont to rove,
For there the friend of thy soul is not,
Nor the joy of thy youth, oh, Love!

211

Thou wilt meet but mournful memory there,
Her dreams in the grove she weaves,
With echoes filling the summer air,
With sighs the trembling leaves.

Then turn thee to the world again,
From those dim haunted bowers,
And shut thine ear to the wild sweet strain
That tells of vanish'd hours.

And wear not on thine aching heart
The image of the dead,
For the tie is rent that gave thee part
In the gladness its beauty shed.

And gaze on the pictured smile no more
That thus can life outlast:
All between parted souls is o'er;—
—Love! Love! forget the past!

“Voice of vain boding! away, be still!
Strive not against the faith
That yet my bosom with light can fill,
Unquench'd, and undimm'd by death:

“From the pictured smile I will not turn,
Though sadly now it shine;
Nor quit the shades that in whispers mourn
For the step once link'd with mine:

“Nor shut mine ear to the song of old,
Though its notes the pang renew,

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—Such memories deep in my heart I hold,
To keep it pure and true.

“By the holy instinct of my heart,
By the hope that bears me on,
I have still my own undying part
In the deep affection gone.

“By the presence that about me seems
Through night and day to dwell,
Voice of vain bodings and fearful dreams!
—I have breathed no last farewell!”

THE SISTER'S DREAM.

She sleeps!—but not the free and sunny sleep
That lightly on the brow of childhood lies:
Though happy be her rest, and soft, and deep,
Yet, ere it sunk upon her shadow'd eyes,
Thoughts of past scenes and kindred graves o'erswept
Her soul's meek stillness—she had pray'd and wept.

And now in visions to her couch they come,
The early lost—the beautiful—the dead—
That unto her bequeath'd a mournful home,
Whence with their voices all sweet laughter fled;
They rise—the sisters of her youth arise,
As from the world where no frail blossom dies.

213

And well the sleeper knows them not of earth—
Not as they were when binding up the flowers,
Telling wild legends round the winter-hearth,
Braiding their long fair hair for festal hours;
These things are past—a spiritual gleam,
A solemn glory, robes them in that dream.

Yet, if the glee of life's fresh budding years
In those pure aspects may no more be read,
Thence, too, hath sorrow melted—and the tears
Which o'er their mother's holy dust they shed,
Are all effaced; there earth hath left no sign
Save its deep love, still touching every line.

But, oh! more soft, more tender, breathing more
A thought of pity, than in vanish'd days:
While, hovering silently and brightly o'er
The lone one's head, they meet her spirit's gaze
With their immortal eyes, that seem to say,
“Yet, sister, yet we love thee—come away!”

'Twill fade, the radiant dream! and will she not
Wake with more painful yearning at her heart?
Will not her home seem yet a lonelier spot,
Her task more sad, when those bright shadows part?
And the green summer after them look dim,
And sorrow's tone be in the bird's wild hymn?

But let her hope be strong, and let the dead
Visit her soul in heaven's calm beauty still,
Be their names utter'd, be their memory spread
Yet round the place they never more may fill!

214

All is not over with earth's broken tie—
Where, where should sisters love, if not on high?

A FAREWELL TO ABBOTSFORD.

Home of the gifted! fare thee well,
And a blessing on thee rest;
While the heather waves its purple bell
O'er moor and mountain crest;
While stream to stream around thee calls,
And braes with broom are drest,
Glad be the harping in thy halls—
A blessing on thee rest!

While the high voice from thee sent forth
Bids rock and cairn reply,
Wakening the spirits of the North,
Like a chieftain's gathering cry;
While its deep master-tones hold sway
As a king's o'er every breast,
Home of the Legend and the Lay!
A blessing on thee rest!

215

Joy to thy hearth, and board, and bower!
Long honours to thy line!
And hearts of proof, and hands of power,
And bright names worthy thine!
By the merry step of childhood, still
May thy free sward be prest!
—While one proud pulse in the land can thrill,
A blessing on thee rest!

O'CONNOR'S CHILD.

“I fled the home of grief
At Connocht Moran's tomb to fall,
I found the helmet of my chief,
His bow still hanging on our wall;
And took it down, and vow'd to rove
This desert place a huntress bold:
Nor would I change my buried love
For any heart of living mould.”
Campbell.

The sleep of storms is dark upon the skies,
The weight of omens heavy in the cloud:—
Bid the lorn huntress of the desert rise,
And gird the form whose beauty grief hath bow'd,

216

And leave the tomb, as tombs are left—alone,
To the star's vigil, and the wind's wild moan.

Tell her of revelries in bower and hall,
Where gems are glittering, and bright wine is pour'd;
Where to glad measures chiming footsteps fall,
And soul seems gushing from the harp's full chord;
And richer flowers amid fair tresses wave,
Than the sad “Love lies bleeding” of the grave.

Oh! little know'st thou of the o'ermastering spell,
Wherewith love binds the spirit strong in pain,
To the spot hallow'd by a wild farewell,
A parting agony,—intense, yet vain,
A look—and darkness when its gleam hath flown,
A voice—and silence when its words are gone!

She hears thee not; her full, deep, fervent heart
Is set in her dark eyes;—and they are bound
Unto that cross, that shrine, that world apart,
Where faithful blood hath sanctified the ground;
And love with death striven long by tear and prayer,
And anguish frozen into still despair.

Yet on her spirit hath arisen at last
A light, a joy, of its own wanderings born;
Around her path a vision's glow is cast,
Back, back her lost one comes in hues of morn!

217

For her the gulf is fill'd—the dark night fled,
Whose mystery parts the living and the dead.

And she can pour forth in such converse high,
All her soul's tide of love, the deep, the strong,
Oh! lonelier far, perchance, thy destiny,
And more forlorn, amidst the world's gay throng,
Than hers—the queen of that majestic gloom,
The tempest, and the desert, and the tomb!

He comes, and makes her glad.”

Campbell.

THE PRAYER FOR LIFE.

O sunshine and fair earth!
Sweet is your kindly mirth,
Angel of death! yet, yet awhile delay!
Too sad it is to part,
Thus in my spring of heart,
With all the light and laughter of the day.

For me the falling leaf
Touches no chord of grief,
No dark void in the rose's bosom lies:
Not one triumphal tone,
One hue of hope, is gone
From song or bloom beneath the summer skies.

Death, Death! ere yet decay,
Call me not hence away,
Over the golden hours no shade is thrown;
The poesy that dwells
Deep in green woods and dells,
Still to my spirit speaks of joy alone.

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Yet not for this, O Death!
Not for the vernal breath
Of winds that shake forth music from the trees;
Not for the splendour given
To night's dark regal heaven,
Spoiler! I ask thee not reprieve for these.

But for the happy love
Whose light, where'er I rove,
Kindles all nature to a sudden smile,
Shedding on branch and flower
A rainbow-tinted shower
Of richer life—spare, spare me yet awhile.

Too soon, too fast thou'rt come!
Too beautiful is home,
A home of gentle voices and kind eyes!
And I the loved of all,
On whom fond blessings fall
From every lip—oh! wilt thou rend such ties?

Sweet sisters! weave a chain
My spirit to detain;
Hold me to earth with strong affection back:
Bind me with mighty love
Unto the stream, the grove,
Our daily paths—our life's familiar track.

Stay with me! gird me round!
Your voices bear a sound
Of hope—a light comes with you and departs;

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Hush, my soul's boding swell,
That murmurs of sarewell;
How can I leave this ring of kindest hearts?

Death! grave!—and are there those
That woo your dark repose
'Midst the rich beauty of the glowing earth.
Surely about them lies
No world of loving eyes—
Leave me, oh! leave me unto home and hearth!

THE WELCOME TO DEATH.

Thou art welcome, O thou warning voice!
My soul hath pined for thee;
Thou art welcome as sweet sounds from shore
To wanderer on the sea.
I hear thee in the rustling woods,
In the sighing vernal airs;
Thou call'st me from the lonely earth,
With a deeper tone than theirs.

The lonely earth! Since kindred steps
From its green paths are fled,
A dimness and a hush have lain
O'er all its beauty spread.
The silence of the unanswering soul
Is on me and around;
My heart hath echoes but for thee,
Thou still, small, warning sound!

220

Voice after voice hath died away,
Once in my dwelling heard;
Sweet household-name by name hath changed
To grief's forbidden word!
From dreams of night on each I call,
Each of the far removed;
And waken to my own wild cry—
“Where are ye, my beloved?”

Ye left me! and earth's flowers were dim
With records of the past:
And stars pour'd down another light
Than o'er my youth they cast:
Birds will not sing as once they sung,
When ye were at my side,
And mournful tones are in the wind,
Which I heard not till ye died!

Thou art welcome, O thou summoner!
Why should the last remain?
What eye can reach my heart of hearts,
Bearing in light again?
E'en could this be, too much of fear
O'er love would now be thrown—
Away, away! from time, from change,
Once more to meet my own!

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THE VICTOR.

“De tout ce qui t'aimoit n'est-il plus rien qui t'aime?”
Lamartine.

Mighty ones, Love and Death!
Ye are the strong in this world of ours,
Ye meet at the banquets, ye dwell 'midst the flowers,
—Which hath the conqueror's wreath?

Thou art the victor, Love!
Thou art the fearless, the crown'd, the free,
The strength of the battle is given to thee,
The spirit from above!

Thou hast look'd on Death, and smiled!
Thou hast borne up the reed-like and fragile form,
Thro' the waves of the fight, thro' the rush of the storm,
On field, and flood, and wild!

No!—Thou art the victor, Death!
Thou comest, and where is that which spoke,
From the depths of the eye, when the spirit woke?
—Gone with the fleeting breath!

Thou comest—and what is left
Of all that loved us, to say if aught
Yet loves—yet answers the burning thought
Of the spirit lone and reft?

Silence is where thou art!
Silently there must kindred meet,

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No smile to cheer, and no voice to greet,
No bounding of heart to heart!

Boast not thy victory, Death!
It is but as the cloud's o'er the sunbeam's power,
It is but as the winter's o'er leaf and flower,
That slumber, the snow beneath.

It is but as a tyrant's reign
O'er the voice and the lip which he bids be still:
But the fiery thought and the lofty will,
Are not for him to chain!

They shall soar his might above!
And thus with the root whence affection springs,
Though buried, it is not of mortal things—
Thou art the victor, Love!

LINES WRITTEN FOR THE ALBUM AT ROSANNA.

Oh! lightly tread through these deep chestnut-bowers
Where a sweet spirit once in beauty moved!
And touch with reverent hand these leaves and flowers,
Fair things, which well a gentle heart hath loved!
A gentle heart, of love and grief th' abode,
Whence the bright stream of song in tear-drops flow'd.

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And bid its memory sanctify the scene!
And let th' ideal presence of the dead
Float round, and touch the woods with softer green,
And o'er the streams a charm, like moonlight, shed;
Through the soul's depths in holy silence felt—
A spell to raise, to chasten, and to melt!

A beautiful place in the county of Wicklow, formerly the abode of the authoress of “Psyche.”

THE VOICE OF THE WAVES.

WRITTEN NEAR THE SCENE OF A RECENT SHIPWRECK.

“How perfect was the calm! It seem'd no sleep,
No mood, which season takes away or brings;
I could have fancied that the mighty deep
Was even the gentlest of all gentle things. [OMITTED]
But welcome fortitude and patient cheer,
And frequent sights of what is to be borne.”
Wordsworth.

Answer, ye chiming waves!
That now in sunshine sweep;
Speak to me from thy hidden caves,
Voice of the solemn deep!

Hath man's lone spirit here
With storms in battle striven?
Where all is now so calmly clear,
Hath anguish cried to heaven?

—Then the sea's voice arose,
Like an earthquake's under-tone:
“Mortal, the strife of human woes
Where hath not nature known?

224

“Here to the quivering mast
Despair hath wildly clung,
The shriek upon the wind hath pass'd,
The midnight sky hath rung.

“And the youthful and the brave,
With their beauty and renown,
To the hollow chambers of the wave
In darkness have gone down.

“They are vanish'd from their place—
Let their homes and hearths make moan!
But the rolling waters keep no trace
Of pang or conflict gone.”

—Alas! thou haughty deep!
The strong, the sounding far!
My heart before thee dies,—I weep
To think on what we are!

To think that so we pass,
High hope, and thought, and mind,
Even as the breath-stain from the glass,
Leaving no sign behind!

Saw'st thou nought else, thou main?
Thou and the midnight sky?
Nought save the struggle, brief and vain,
The parting agony!

—And the sea's voice replied,
“Here nobler things have been!

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Power with the valiant when they died,
To sanctify the scene:

“Courage, in fragile form,
Faith trusting to the last,
Prayer, breathing heavenwards thro' the storm,
But all alike have pass'd.”

Sound on, thou haughty sea!
These have not pass'd in vain;
My soul awakes, my hope springs free
On victor wings again.

Thou, from thine empire driven,
May'st vanish with thy powers;
But, by the hearts that here have striven,
A loftier doom is ours!

THE HAUNTED HOUSE.

“I seem like one
Who treads alone
Some banquet hall deserted,
Whose lights are fled,
Whose garlands dead,
And all but me departed.”
Moore.

See'st thou yon grey gleaming hall,
Where the deep elm-shadows fall?
Voices that have left the earth
Long ago,
Still are murmuring round its hearth,
Soft and low:

226

Ever there;—yet one alone
Hath the gift to hear their tone.
Guests come thither, and depart,
Free of step, and light of heart;
Children, with sweet visions bless'd,
In the haunted chambers rest;
One alone unslumbering lies
When the night hath seal'd all eyes,
One quick heart and watchful ear,
Listening for those whispers clear.

See'st thou where the woodbine flowers
O'er yon low porch hang in showers?
Startling faces of the dead,
Pale, yet sweet,
One lone woman's entering tread
There still meet!
Some with young smooth foreheads fair,
Faintly shining through bright hair;
Some with reverend locks of snow—
All, all buried long ago!
All, from under deep sea-waves,
Or the flowers of foreign graves,
Or the old and banner'd aisle,
Where their high tombs gleam the while;
Rising, wandering, floating by,
Suddenly and silently,
Through their earthly home and place,
But amidst another race.

Wherefore, unto one alone,
Are those sounds and visions known?

227

Wherefore hath that spell of power
Dark and dread,
On her soul, a baleful dower,
Thus been shed?
Oh! in those deep-seeing eyes,
No strange gift of mystery lies!
She is lone where once she moved,
Fair, and happy, and beloved!
Sunny smiles were glancing round her,
Tendrils of kind hearts had bound her.
Now those silver chords are broken,
Those bright looks have left no token;
Not one trace on all the earth,
Save her memory of their mirth.
She is lone and lingering now,
Dreams have gather'd o'er her brow,
'Midst gay songs and children's play,
She is dwelling far away
Seeing what none else may see—
Haunted still her place must be!

THE SHEPHERD-POET OF THE ALPS.

“God gave him reverence of laws,
Yet stirring blood in freedom's cause—
A spirit to his rocks akin,
The eye of the hawk, and the fire therein!”
Coleridge.

Singing of the free blue sky,
And the wild-flower glens that lie
Far amidst the ancient hills,
Which the fountain music fills;

228

Singing of the snow-peaks bright,
And the royal eagle's flight,
And the courage and the grace
Foster'd by the chamois-chase;
In his fetters, day by day,
So the Shepherd-poet lay,
Wherefore, from a dungeon-cell
Did those notes of freedom swell,
Breathing sadness not their own,
Forth with every Alpine tone?
Wherefore!—can a tyrant's ear
Brook the mountain-winds to hear,
When each blast goes pealing by
With a song of liberty?

Darkly hung th' oppressor's hand
O'er the Shepherd-poet's land;
Sounding there the waters gush'd,
While the lip of man was hush'd;
There the falcon pierced the cloud,
While the fiery heart was bow'd:
But this might not long endure,
Where the mountain-homes were pure;
And a valiant voice arose,
Thrilling all the silent snows;
His—now singing far and lone,
Where the young breeze ne'er was known;
Singing of the glad blue sky,
Wildly—and how mournfully!

Are none but the Wind and the Lammer-Geyer
To be free where the hills unto heaven aspire?

229

Is the soul of song from the deep glens past,
Now that their poet is chain'd at last?—
Think of the mountains, and deem not so!
Soon shall each blast like a clarion blow!
Yes! though forbidden be every word
Wherewith that spirit the Alps hath stirr'd,
Yet even as a buried stream through earth
Rolls on to another and brighter birth,
So shall the voice that hath seem'd to die,
Burst forth with the anthem of liberty!

And another power is moving
In a bosom fondly loving:—
Oh; a sister's heart is deep,
And her spirit strong to keep
Each light link of early hours,
All sweet scents of childhood's flowers!
Thus each lay by Erni sung,
Rocks and crystal caves among,
Or beneath the linden-leaves,
Or the cabin's vine-hung eaves,
Rapid though as bird-notes gushing,
Transient as a wan-cheek's flushing,
Each in young Teresa's breast
Left its fiery words impress'd;
Treasured there lay every line,
As a rich book on a hidden shrine.
Fair was that lone girl, and meek,
With a pale transparent cheek,
And a deep-fringed violet eye
Seeking in sweet shade to lie,

230

Or, if raised to glance above,
Dim with its own dews of love;
And a pure, Madonna brow,
And a silvery voice, and low,
Like the echo of a flute,
Even the last, ere all be mute.
But a loftier soul was seen
In the orphan sister's mien,
From that hour when chains defiled
Him, the high Alps' noble child.
Tones in her quivering voice awoke,
As if a harp of battle spoke;
Light, that seem'd born of an eagle's nest,
Flash'd from her soft eyes unrepress'd;
And her form, like a spreading water-flower,
When its frail cup swells with a sudden shower,
Seem'd all dilated with love and pride,
And grief for that brother, her young heart's guide.
Well might they love!—those two had grown
Orphans together and alone:
The silence of the Alpine sky
Had hush'd their hearts to piety;
The turf, o'er their dead mother laid,
Had been their altar when they pray'd;
There, more in tenderness than woe,
The stars had seen their young tears flow;
The clouds, in spirit-like descent,
Their deep thoughts by one touch had blent,
And the wild storms link'd them to each other—
How dear can peril make a brother!

231

Now is their hearth a forsaken spot,
The vine waves unpruned o'er their mountain-cot
Away, in that holy affection's might,
The maiden is gone, like a breeze of the night;—
She is gone forth alone, but her lighted face,
Filling with soul every secret place,
Hath a dower from Heaven, and a gift of sway,
To arouse brave hearts in its hidden way,
Like the sudden flinging forth on high,
Of a banner that startleth silently!
She hath wander'd through many a hamlet-vale,
Telling its children her brother's tale;
And the strains, by his spirit pour'd away,
Freely as fountains might shower their spray,
From her fervent lip a new life have caught,
And a power to kindle yet bolder thought;
While sometimes a melody, all her own,
Like a gush of tears in its plaintive tone,
May be heard 'midst the lonely rocks to flow,
Clear through the water-chimes—clear, yet low.

“Thou'rt not where wild-flowers wave
O'er crag and sparry cave;
Thou'rt not where pines are sounding,
Or joyous torrents bounding—
Alas, my brother!

“Thou'rt not where green, on high,
The brighter pastures lie;
Ev'n those, thine own wild places,
Bear of our chain dark traces:
Alas, my brother!

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“Far hath the sunbeam spread,
Nor found thy lonely bed;
Long hath the fresh wind sought thee,
Nor one sweet whisper brought thee—
Alas, my brother!

“Thou, that for joy wert born,
Free as the wings of morn!
Will aught thy young life cherish,
Where the Alpine rose would perish?
Alas, my brother!

“Canst thou be singing still,
As once on every hill?
Is not thy soul forsaken,
And the bright gift from thee taken?—
Alas, alas, my brother!”

And was the bright gift from the captive fled?
Like the fire on his hearth, was his spirit dead?
Not so!—but as rooted in stillness deep,
The pure stream-lily its place will keep,
Though its tearful urns to the blast may quiver,
While the red waves rush down the foaming river
So freedom's faith in his bosom lay,
Trembling, yet not to be borne away!
He thought of the Alps and their breezy air,
And felt that his country no chains might bear;
He thought of the hunter's haughty life,
And knew there must yet be noble strife;
But, oh! when he thought of that orphan maid,
His high heart melted—he wept and pray'd!

233

For he saw her not as she moved e'en then,
A wakener of heroes in every glen,
With a glance inspired which no grief could tame,
Bearing on Hope like a torch's flame,
While the strengthening voice of mighty wrongs
Gave echoes back to her thrilling songs;
But his dreams were fill'd by a haunting tone,
Sad as a sleeping infant's moan;
And his soul was pierced by a mournful eye,
Which look'd on it—oh! how beseechingly!
And there floated past him a fragile form,
With a willowy droop, as beneath the storm;
Till wakening in anguish, his faint heart strove
In vain with its burden of helpless love!
—Thus woke the dreamer one weary night—
There flash'd thro' his dungeon a swift strong light;
He sprang up—he climb'd to the grating-bars,
—It was not the rising of moon or stars,
But a signal flame from a peak of snow,
Rock'd through the dark skies, to and fro!
There shot forth another—another still—
A hundred answers of hill to hill!
Tossing like pines in the tempest's way,
Joyously, wildly, the bright spires play,
And each is hail'd with a pealing shout,
For the high Alps waving their banners out!
Erni, young Erni! the land hath risen!
—Alas! to be lone in thy narrow prison!
Those free streamers glancing, and thou not there!
—Is the moment of rapture, or fierce despair?
—Hark! there's a tumult that shakes his cell,
At the gates of the mountain citadel!

234

Hark! a clear voice through the rude sounds ringing!
Doth he know the strain, and the wild, sweet singing?

“There may not long be fetters,
Where the cloud is earth's array,
And the bright floods leap from cave and steep,
Like a hunter on the prey!

“There may not long be fetters,
Where the white Alps have their towers;
Unto eagle-homes, if the arrow comes,
The chain is not for ours!”

It is she!—She is come like a dayspring beam,
She that so mournfully shadow'd his dream!
With her shining eyes and her buoyant form,
She is come! her tears on his cheek are warm;
And O! the thrill in that weeping voice!
“My brother, my brother! come forth, rejoice!”

—Poet! the land of thy love is free,
—Sister! thy brother is won by thee!

TO THE MOUNTAIN WINDS.

------“How divine
The liberty, for frail, for mortal man,
To roam at large among unpeopled glens,
And mountainous retirements, only trod
By devious footsteps!—Regions consecrate
To oldest time!—And reckless of the storm
That keeps the raven quiet in his nest,
Be as a presence or a motion—One
Among the many there.”
Wordsworth.

235

Mountain winds! oh! whither do ye call me?
Vainly, vainly would my steps pursue!
Chains of care to lower earth enthral me,
Wherefore thus my weary spirit woo?

Oh! the strife of this divided being!
Is there peace where ye are borne on high?
Could we soar to your proud eyries fleeing,
In our hearts would haunting memories die?

Those wild places are not as a dwelling
Whence the footsteps of the loved are gone!
Never from those rocky halls came swelling
Voice of kindness in familiar tone!

Surely music of oblivion sweepeth
In the pathway of your wanderings free;
And the torrent, wildly as it leapeth,
Sings of no lost home amidst its glee.

There the rushing of the falcon's pinion
Is not from some hidden pang to fly;
All things breathe of power and stern dominion—
Not of hearts that in vain yearnings die.

Mountain winds! oh! is it, is it only
Where man's trace hath been that so we pine?
Bear me up, to grow in thought less lonely,
Even at nature's deepest, loneliest shrine!

Wild, and mighty, and mysterious singers!
At whose tone my heart within me burns;

236

Bear me where the last red sunbeam lingers,
Where the waters have their secret urns!

There to commune with a loftier spirit
Than the troubling shadows of regret;
There the wings of freedom to inherit,
Where the enduring and the wing'd are met.

Hush, proud voices! gentle be your falling!
Woman's lot thus chainless may not be;
Hush! the heart your trumpet sounds are calling,
Darkly still may grow—but never free!

THE PROCESSION.

“‘The peace which passeth all understanding,’ disclosed itself in her looks and movements. It lay on her countenance like a steady unshadowed moonlight.” Coleridge.

There were trampling sounds of many feet,
And music rush'd through the crowded street;
Proud music, such as tells the sky
Of a chief return'd from victory.

There were banners to the winds unroll'd,
With haughty words on each blazon'd fold;
High battle-names, which had rung of yore,
When lances clash'd on the Syrian shore.

Borne from their dwellings, green and lone,
There were flowers of the woods on the pathway strown;

237

And wheels that crush'd as they swept along—
Oh! what doth the violet amidst the throng?

I saw where a bright procession pass'd
The gates of a minster old and vast;
And a king to his crowning place was led,
Through a sculptured line of the warrior dead.

I saw, far gleaming, the long array
Of trophies, on those high tombs that lay,
And the colour'd light, that wrapp'd them all,
Rich, deep, and sad, as a royal pall.

But a lowlier grave soon won mine eye
Away from th' ancestral pageantry:
A grave by the lordly minster's gate,
Unhonour'd, and yet not desolate.

It was but a dewy greensward bed,
Meet for the rest of a peasant head;
But Love—oh! lovelier than all beside!—
That lone place guarded and glorified.

For a gentle form stood watching there,
Young—but how sorrowfully fair!
Keeping the flowers of the holy spot,
That reckless feet might profane them not.

Clear, pale and clear, was the tender cheek,
And her eye, though tearful, serenely meek;
And I deem'd, by its lifted gaze of love,
That her sad heart's treasure was all above.

238

For alone she seem'd 'midst the throng to be,
Like a bird of the waves far away at sea;
Alone, in a mourner's vest array'd,
And with folded hands, e'en as if she pray'd.

It faded before me, that masque of pride,
The haughty swell of the music died;
Banner, and armour, and tossing plume,
All melted away in the twilight's gloom.

But that orphan form, with its willowy grace,
And the speaking prayer in that pale, calm face,
Still, still o'er my thoughts in the night-hour glide—
—Oh! Love is lovelier than all beside.

THE BROKEN LUTE.

“When the lamp is shatter'd,
The light in the dust lies dead;
When the cloud is scatter'd,
The rainbow's glory is shed.
When the lute is broken,
Sweet sounds are remember'd not;
When the words are spoken,
Loved accents are soon forgot.

As music and splendour
Survive not the lamp and lute,
The heart's echoes render
No song when the spirit is mute.”

Shelley.

She dwelt in proud Venetian halls,
'Midst forms that breathed from the pictured walls;
But a glow of beauty like her own,
There had no dream of the painter thrown.

239

Lit from within was her noble brow,
As an urn, whence rays from a lamp may flow;
Her young, clear cheek, had a changeful hue,
As if ye might see how the soul wrought through;
And every flash of her fervent eye
Seem'd the bright wakening of Poesy.

Even thus it was!—from her childhood's years—
A being of sudden smiles and tears—
Passionate visions, quick light and shade,
Such was that high-born Italian maid!
And the spirit of song in her bosom-cell,
Dwelt, as the odours in violets dwell,
Or as the sounds in Eolian strings—
Or in aspen-leaves the quiverings;
There, ever there, with the life enshrined,
Waiting the call of the faintest wind.

Oft, on the wave of the Adrian sea,
In the city's hour of moonlight glee,
Oft would that gift of the southern sky
O'erflow from her lips in melody;
Oft amid festal halls it came,
Like the springing forth of a sudden flame—
Till the dance was hush'd, and the silvery tone
Of her inspiration was heard alone.
And fame went with her, the bright, the crown'd,
And music floated her steps around;
And every lay of her soul was borne
Through the sunny land, as on wings of morn.

And was the daughter of Venice blest
With a power so deep in her youthful breast?

240

Could she be happy, o'er whose dark eye
So many changes and dreams went by?
And in whose cheek the swift crimson wrought
As if but born from the rush of thought?
Yes! in the brightness of joy awhile
She moved as a bark in the sunbeam's smile;
For her spirit, as over her lyre's full chord,
All, all on a happy love was pour'd!
How loves a heart, whence the stream of song
Flows, like the life-blood, quick, bright, and strong?
How loves a heart, which hath never proved
One breath of the world?—Even so she loved!
Bless'd, though the lord of her soul afar,
Was charging the foremost in Moslem war—
Bearing the flag of St Mark's on high,
As a ruling star in the Grecian sky.
Proud music breathed in her song, when fame
Gave a tone more thrilling to his name;
And her trust in his love was a woman's faith—
Perfect, and fearing no change but death.

But the fields are won from the Othman host,
In the land that quell'd the Persian's boast,
And a thousand hearts in Venice burn,
For the day of triumph and return!
—The day is come! the flashing deep
Foams where the galleys of victory sweep;
And the sceptred city of the wave,
With her festal splendour greets the brave;
Cymbal and clarion, and voice, around,
Make the air one stream of exulting sound,
While the beautiful, with their sunny smiles,
Look from each hall of the hundred isles.

241

But happiest and brightest that day of all,
Robed for her warrior's festival,
Moving a queen 'midst the radiant throng,
Was she, th' inspired one, the maid of song!
The lute he loved on her arm she bore,
As she rush'd in her joy to the crowded shore;
With a hue on her cheek like the damask glow
By the sunset given unto mountain snow,
And her eye all fill'd with the spirit's play,
Like the flash of a gem to the changeful day,
And her long hair waving in ringlets bright—
So came that being of hope and light!
—One moment, Erminia! one moment more,
And life, all the beauty of life, is o'er!
The bark of her lover hath touch'd the strand—
Whom leads he forth with a gentle hand?
—A young fair form, whose nymph-like grace
Accorded well with the Grecian face,
And the eye, in its clear soft darkness meek,
And the lashes that droop'd o'er a pale rose cheek;
And he look'd on that beauty with tender pride—
The warrior hath brought back an Eastern bride!

But how stood she, the forsaken, there,
Struck by the lightning of swift despair?
Still, as amazed with grief, she stood,
And her cheek to her heart sent back the blood,
And there came from her quivering lip no word,
Only the fall of her lute was heard,
As it dropp'd from her hand at her rival's feet,
Into fragments, whose dying thrill was sweet!

242

What more remaineth? her day was done;
Her fate and the Broken Lute's were one!
The light, the vision, the gift of power,
Pass'd from her soul in that mortal hour,
Like the rich sound from the shatter'd string,
Whence the gush of sweetness no more might spring!
As an eagle struck in his upward flight,
So was her hope from its radiant height,
And her song went with it for evermore,
A gladness taken from sea and shore!
She had moved to the echoing sound of fame—
Silently, silently, died her name!
Silently melted her life away,
As ye have seen a young flower decay,
Or a lamp that hath swiftly burn'd, expire,
Or a bright stream shrink from the summer's fire,
Leaving its channel all dry and mute—
Woe for the Broken Heart and Lute!

THE BURIAL IN THE DESERT.

“How weeps yon gallant band
O'er him their valour could not save!
For the bayonet is red with gore,
And he, the beautiful and brave,
Now sleeps in Egypt's sand.”
Wilson.

In the shadow of the pyramid
Our brother's grave we made,
When the battle-day was done,
And the desert's parting sun
A field of death survey'd.

243

The blood-red sky above us
Was darkening into night,
And the Arab watching silently
Our sad and hurried rite.

The voice of Egypt's river
Came hollow and profound,
And one lone palm-tree, where we stood,
Rock'd with a shivery sound:

While the shadow of the Pyramid
Hung o'er the grave we made,
When the battle-day was done,
And the desert's parting sun
A field of death survey'd.

The fathers of our brother
Were borne to knightly tombs,
With torch-light and with anthem-note,
And many waving plumes:

But he, the last and noblest
Of that high Norman race,
With a few brief words of soldier-love
Was gather'd to his place;

In the shadow of the Pyramid,
Where his youthful form we laid,
When the battle-day was done,
And the desert's parting sun
A field of death survey'd.

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But let him, let him slumber
By the old Egyptian wave!
It is well with those who bear their fame
Unsullied to the grave!

When brightest names are breathed on,
When loftiest fall so fast,
We would not call our brother back
On dark days to be cast,—

From the shadow of the Pyramid,
Where his noble heart we laid,
When the battle-day was done,
And the desert's parting sun
A field of death survey'd.

TO A PICTURE OF THE MADONNA.

“Ave Maria! May our spirits dare
Look up to thine, and to thy Son's above?”
Byron.

Fair vision! thou'rt from sunny skies,
Born where the rose hath richest dyes;
To thee a southern heart hath given
That glow of love, that calm of heaven,
And round thee cast th' ideal gleam,
The light that is but of a dream.

Far hence, where wandering music fills
The haunted air of Roman hills,

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Or where Venetian waves of yore
Heard melodies, they hear no more,
Some proud old minster's gorgeous aisle
Hath known the sweetness of thy smile.

Or haply, from a lone, dim shrine,
'Mid forests of the Apennine,
Whose breezy sounds of cave and dell
Pass like a floating anthem-swell,
Thy soft eyes o'er the pilgrim's way
Shed blessings with their gentle ray.

Or gleaming through a chestnut wood,
Perchance thine island-chapel stood,
Where from the blue Sicilian sea,
The sailor's hymn hath risen to thee,
And bless'd thy power to guide, to save,
Madonna! watcher of the wave!

Oh! might a voice, a whisper low,
Forth from those lips of beauty flow!
Could'st thou but speak of all the tears,
The conflicts, and the pangs of years,
Which, at thy secret shrine reveal'd,
Have gush'd from human hearts unseal'd!

Surely to thee hath woman come,
As a tired wanderer back to home!
Unveiling many a timid guest,
And treasured sorrow of her breast,
A buried love—a wasting care—
Oh! did those griefs win peace from prayer?

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And did the poet's fervid soul
To thee lay bare its inmost scroll?
Those thoughts, which pour'd their quenchless fire
And passion o'er th' Italian lyre,
Did they to still submission die,
Beneath thy calm, religious eye?

And hath the crested helmet bow'd
Before thee, 'midst the incense-cloud?
Hath the crown'd leader's bosom lone,
To thee its haughty griefs made known?
Did thy glance break their frozen sleep,
And win the unconquer'd one to weep?

Hush'd is the anthem—closed the vow—
The votive garland wither'd now;
Yet holy still to me thou art,
Thou that hast sooth'd so many a heart!
And still must blessed influence flow
From the meek glory of thy brow.

Still speak to suffering woman's love,
Of rest for gentle hearts above;
Of hope, that hath its treasure there,
Of home, that knows no changeful air!
Bright form, lit up with thoughts divine,
Ave! such power be ever thine!

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A THOUGHT OF THE ROSE.

How much of memory dwells amidst thy bloom,
Rose! ever wearing beauty for thy dower!
The bridal-day—the festival—the tomb—
Thou hast thy part in each, thou stateliest flower!

Therefore with thy soft breath come floating by
A thousand images of love or grief,
Dreams, fill'd with tokens of mortality,
Deep thoughts of all things beautiful and brief.

Not such thy spells o'er those that hail'd thee first,
In the clear light of Eden's golden day!
There thy rich leaves to crimson glory burst,
Link'd with no dim remembrance of decay.

Rose! for the banquet gather'd, and the bier;
Rose! colour'd now by human hope and pain;
Surely where death is not—nor change, nor fear,
Yet may we meet thee, joy's own flower again!

DREAMS OF HEAVEN.

“We colour Heaven with our own human thoughts,
Our vain aspirings, fond remembrances,
Our passionate love, that seems unto itself
An Immortality.”

Dream'st thou of Heaven?—what dreams are thine?
Fair child, fair gladsome child?

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With eyes that like the dewdrop shine,
And bounding footsteps wild!

Tell me what hues the immortal shore
Can wear, my bird! to thee?
Ere yet one shadow hath pass'd o'er
Thy glance and spirit free?

“Oh! beautiful is Heaven, and bright,
With long, long summer days;
I see its lilies gleam in light,
Where many a fountain plays.

“And there uncheck'd, methinks, I rove,
And seek where young flowers lie,
In vale and golden-fruited grove—
Flowers that are not to die!”

Thou poet of the lonely thought,
Sad heir of gifts divine!
Say with what solemn glory fraught,
Is heaven in dreams of thine?

“Oh! where the living waters flow
Along that radiant shore,
My soul, a wanderer here, shall know,
The exile thirst no more.

“The burden of the stranger's heart
Which here alone I bear,
Like the night-shadow shall depart,
With my first wakening there.

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“And borne on eagle wings afar,
Free thought shall claim its dower,
From every realm, from every star,
Of glory and of power.”

O woman! with the soft sad eye,
Of spiritual gleam,
Tell me of those bright worlds on high,
How doth thy fond heart dream?

By thy sweet mournful voice I know,
On thy pale brow I see,
That thou hast loved, in fear, and woe—
Say what is Heaven to thee?

“Oh! Heaven is where no secret dread
May haunt love's meeting hour,
Where from the past no gloom is shed
O'er the heart's chosen bower:

“Where every sever'd wreath is bound—
Where none have heard the knell
That smites the heart with that deep sound—
Farewell—beloved, farewell!”

THE WISH.

Come to me, when my soul
Hath but a few dim hours to linger here;
When earthly chains are as a shrivell'd scroll,
Oh! let me feel thy presence! be but near!

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That I may look once more
Into thine eyes, which never changed for me;
That I may speak to thee of that bright shore,
Where, with our treasure, we have longed to be.

Thou friend of many days!
Of sadness and of joy, of home and hearth!
Will not thy spirit aid me then to raise
The trembling pinions of my hope from earth?

By every solemn thought
Which on our hearts hath sunk in days gone by,
From the deep voices of the mountains caught,
Or all th' adoring silence of the sky;

By every lofty theme
Whereon, in low-toned reverence we have spoken,
By our communion in each fervent dream
That sought from realms beyond the grave a token;

And by our tears for those
Whose loss hath touch'd our world with hues of death;
And by the hopes that with their dust repose,
As flowers await the south-wind's vernal breath:

Come to me in that day—
The one—the sever'd from all days—O friend!
Even then, if human thought may then have sway,
My soul with thine shall yet rejoice to blend.

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Nor then, nor there alone:
I ask my heart if all indeed must die;
All that of holiest feelings it hath known?
And my heart's voice replies—Eternity!