The Poetical Works of John Critchley Prince :: :: University of Virginia Library

Hail, jubilant Spring! thou bringer of bright hours!
Thou poem, pictured to my grateful gaze,
With all thy wealth of constellated flowers,
Thy lessening shadows, and thy lengthening days!
Thy gleesome voices and thy genial smile
Have drawn the Dreamer from his sombre room,
To drink the spirit of thy breeze awhile—
Thy breeze imbued with healing and perfume—
Amid the quiet fields, that kindle into bloom.

Oh! I have dreamt of thy glad coming long,
Through many a weary day and wakeful night,
When the wild winds did shout their Winter song,
When the sad sun shed ineffectual light;
When the sharp scourge of pain was on my brow,
When the harsh hand of worldly care oppressed;
But thy blithe presence disenthrals me now,
And I am with thee, a rejoicing guest,
Pacing thy flowery floors, where I was ever blest.

I banquet on thy beauties, rich and rife,
Flung without measure from thy lavish hand,—
Shapes, hues, and motions, redolent of life,
And glorious promise to the glowing land;
Odours and harmonies on every side
Refresh the sense, regale the raptured ear;
My heart is soothed, my soul is satisfied,
My faith exalted, and my joy sincere,
Because all Nature breathes—“Beneficence is here.”

'Tis joy to feel this sunlight, soft and warm,
Touch with a golden flow my pallid face;
To see these trees, unconquered by the storm,
Greening, and growing into ampler grace;
To watch the lark careering up the sky,
Bathing his wings the billowy clouds among,
While the calm earth, uplooking, seems to lie
Listening, enamoured of that passionate song
Which birds of kindred voice symphoniously prolong.

Lo! the rich Rainbow, with prismatic beams,
Builds up the splendours of its braided bridge,
Strides o'er the valleys, glows upon the streams,
Leans on the shoulder of the mountain ridge;
While the quick coming of the twinkling rain
Takes the lone rambler with a sweet surprise,
And bough and blossom, now refreshed and fain,
With flowers that ope their many-coloured eyes,
Droop with a blessed boon—the largess of the skies.

The bow expires with weeping; woods resound,
Heaven's cloudy curtain fades and flits away;
Breaks into brighter smiles the landscape round,
Glad in the sun-god's renovating ray;

Each flowery cup, a living censer, flings
Spontaneous perfume in the grateful air;
Thanksgiving from a thousand voices springs,
(Hear, thankless Man! what Heaven and Earth declare!)
And what is silent seems to stir with inward prayer.

There the pale primrose, lone and lovely, peeps
From the green gloom of that thorn-shadowed nook;
Brightens the bank where fresher verdure creeps
Along the sinuous borders of the brook;
Here crowd the daisies with a silvery smile,
And gleam (Earth's “milky way”) o'er vale and lea,—
Daisies, like daughters of my native isle,
Like the true woman, wheresoe'er she be—
Serene, yet cheerful all, lovely, erect, and free.

Here the wild woodlands build umbrageous halls,
A sylvan realm of shifting lights and shades,
Where the lone streamlet leaps in tiny falls,
Striving with brakes, and singing through the glades.
On every bough—through which the kindly skies,
Flecked with loose clouds, look sweetly from above—
The light leaves quiver when the Zephyr sighs,
Glancing like changeful plumage of the dove,
As with the stir of youth, the ecstasy of love.

Hail, careless cuckoo! whose far call awakes
Some sad, sweet memories of Boyhood's hours;
Hail, merry thrush! whose cheerful music makes,
From dawn till dark, enchantment in the bowers;
Hail, joyous skylark! whose aspiring wing
Soars bravely heavenward from the dewy sod,
Eager to meet the morn, so thou mayst sing—
Even on the threshold by Aurora trod—
Thy greeting to the sun, thy anthem unto God!

Hail, happy Spring! whose resurrection-day,
To the prime law of steadfast Nature true,
Delights the loving, makes the gloomiest gay,—
Moves the low pulse of languid life anew;
Unlocks the heart, gives thought a brighter dream,
Opes a fresh fountain in the fainting soul,
Wakes us to worship of that one Supreme,
That sleepless Spirit of the wondrous whole,
By Whose august decree Suns—Systems—Seasons roll!

Oh! mother Earth! of Love and Wisdom born,
Nurse of all placid thoughts, all pure desires,
Consoler of the weary heart forlorn,
Creator of the Poet's chastest fires;—
How sweet to 'scape the thraldom of the town,
Whose feverish air with sin, strife, sorrow rings,
On thy maternal breast to lay me down,
Swathed in the joys thy unsoiled beauty brings—
And catch rare glimpses thence of God's diviner things!

A SONG FOR MARCH.

Burly March rushes in with a boisterous wing,—
Give him welcome, though brawler he be;
He is here to announce that the beautiful Spring
Re-appears on the forest and lea.
The blithe lark is aware, for his earliest song,
As he flutters the breeze-broken cloudlets among,
Cometh down like melodious rain;
The thrush startles Echo with jovial voice,
And a thousand glad throats, that were made to rejoice,
Will soon tremble with music again.

Already the pastures are greening anew,
Waking Life is astir in the woods;
The speedwell re-opens its sweet eyes of blue,
And the hawthorn is speckled with buds;
Already the daisy, wherever it dare—
The daisy, so English, so homely, yet fair—
Looketh up with frank face to the sky;
In warm woodland hollows the violets unfold,
And their sun-loving sister, with chalice of gold,
Hebe Kingcup, will come by and by.

There's a lull in the winds, let us out while we may,
To partake the first gifts of the prime;
How the lowliest thing that we pass by the way
Seems to feel the fresh touch of the time!

What a genial balm! what a spring-breathing smell
From the mosses that mantle the old wood and well!
What a scent from the sward, as we go!
What a silence! for Thought in this solitude sleeps,
Scarcely broken by bird-notes that drop from the steeps,
Or the song of the brooklet below!

There is health for the ailing, who dare to be glad
'Mid the broad fields of Nature awhile;
There is hope for the doubtfullest soul that is sad,—
For the heart-stricken mourner a smile;
There is beauty for poets, and pastime for clowns;
There is solace for workers that weary in towns,—
Let them snatch the rare joy as they can;
There are charms for the senses, in holiest guise,
There are teachers the spirit may hear, and grow wise,
There are spells for the moodiest man.

What a painful and perilous year was the past!
With dismay and disaster how rife!
While terror and slaughter swept fiercely and fast
Through the highways and byways of life!
Let us bow to the rod, though the loss we deplore,
Let us utter great vows to retrieve, to restore,
Under Heaven's magnificent arch;
If for deeds which may win their acceptance above,
If for peace and progression, for justice and love,
Let our word of endeavour be—“March!”

“THE WEARY OLD YEAR IS NO MORE.”

The weary, the wailing Old Year is no more!
He is swathed in the shadowy shroud of the Past;
I heard his last moans 'mid the rout and the roar
Of the woods and the waters, the rain and the blast;
He is gone! but his lusty heir, blithesome and bold,
With laughter begins his dark course to pursue:
We have had little jesting or joy with the Old,
Let us hope to be merry and wise with the New.

The weary Old Year! he was sadly beset
By a multiform agony, 'gendered of strife;
With blood and with tears his rough pathway was wet,
And a cloud and a curse seemed to hang o'er his life;
Scathed and scorned, in the dust hoary dynasties rolled,
Like the sere leaves of Autumn, thrones—diadems flew:
We have had little promise or peace with the Old,
Let us hope for more calm, and less care, with the New.

In France the dread soul-burst of fury began,
Red Anarchy baring his arm for the fray;
From people to people the turbulence ran,
While Liberty trembled with doubt and dismay;
King, Councillor, Concubine, struck from their hold
On state—honour—title, in panic withdrew:
Strange chances and changes have harassed the Old,
Let us hope for more firmness, more faith with the New.

Whilst Europe, with tumult and terror grown loud,
Heaved, shouted, destroyed, like a storm-ridden sea,
My Country, though menaced, stood placid and proud,—
The fugitive's refuge, the rock of the free;
At once, 'neath the banner of Order enrolled,
Her citizens mustered, to stay or subdue;—
Yet the wings of her Commerce were clipped in the Old,
Let us hope but to fly with more strength in the New.

From Erin, the Nightmare of England, there came
Sounds of treason and turmoil across the wild foam,
While the base breath of Demagogue fanned into flame
The sparks of sedition that smouldered at home;
They were quelled—they were quenched—but we mourn to behold
Deluded and fettered, the foolish and few:
We have fenced and made firmer some rights in the Old,
Let us heal, or expel, many wrongs in the New.

Oh! deem not thy errors are cancelled or missed!
There's a blot on thy 'scutcheon—a stain on thy hand;
Yet among the best nations on Liberty's list
Thou art mightiest—wisest, my own native land!
Good laws and great truths will thy glory uphold,
If justice and mercy thy spirit imbue:
Look back on the horrors that darkened the Old,
And thence gather light for thy guide in the New.

Since the first feeble dawn of the weary Old Year,
What bright links of love have been broken away!
Friendly forms and fair faces, to Memory dear,
Have passed from our eyes into holier day!

Our hearts have grown vacant—our hearths have grown cold,
From the absence of things that enamoured our view;
And the tears that we shed o'er each loss in the Old,
Leave their trace on our features—insulting the New.

Rouse! thinking does much, but the doing does more;
Succumb not, though Fortune or Friendship withdraw;
Despair not, though soul-cherished visions are o'er,—
Adversity proves a benevolent law;
There is good in things evil, as Wisdom hath told,
And Experience declares the great words to be true;
The discords of Evil that jarred in the Old
But prelude the music of good in the New.

January 1849.

THE HOUSEHOLD JEWELS.

A traveller, from journeying
In countries far away,
Repassed his threshold at the close
Of a blest Sabbath-day;
A comely face—a voice of love—
A kiss of chaste delight,
Were the first things to welcome him
On that sweet Sabbath-night.

He stretched his limbs upon the hearth,
Before its friendly blaze,
And conjured up mixed memories
Of gay and gloomy days;
Feeling that none of gentle soul,
However far he roam,
Can e'er forego, can e'er forget,
The quiet joys of Home!

“Bring me my children!” cried the Sire,
With eager, earnest tone;
I long to press them, and to mark
How lovely they have grown!
Twelve weary months have passed away
Since I went o'er the sea,
To feel how sad and lone I am
Without my babes and Thee!”

“Refresh thee, while 'tis needful,” said
The fair and faithful Wife,
The while her pensive features paled,
And stirred with inward strife;—
“Refresh thee, Husband of my heart,—
I ask it as a boon;
Our children are reposing, love,
Thou shalt behold them soon.”

She spread the meal, she filled the cup,
She pressed him to partake;
He sat down blithely at the board,
And all for her sweet sake;
But when the frugal feast was done,
The thankful prayer preferred,
Again Affection's fountain flowed,
Again its voice was heard:—

“Bring me my children, darling Wife,
I'm in an ardent mood;
My soul wants purer aliment,
I crave for other food!
Bring forth my children to my gaze,
Or ere I rage or weep;
I yearn to kiss their happy eyes
Before I turn to sleep.”

“I have a question yet to ask,—
Be patient, Husband dear;
A Stranger, one auspicious morn,
Did send some Jewels here;
Until, to take them from my care,
But yesterday he came,
And I restored them with a sigh;—
Dost thou approve, or blame?”

“I marvel much, sweet Wife, that thou
Shouldst breathe such words to me;—
Repay to Man—resign to God,
Whate'er is lent to thee;
Restore it with a willing heart,—
Be grateful for the trust;
Whate'er may tempt or try us, Wife,
Let us be ever just.”

She took him by the passive hand,
And up the moonlit stair
She led him, to their bridal bed,
With mute and mournful air;
She turned the cover down, and there,
In grave-like garments dressed,
Lay the Twin Children of their love,
In Death's serenest rest!

“These were the Jewels lent to me,
Which God has deigned to own;
The precious caskets still remain,
But, ah! the gems are gone;
But thou didst teach me to resign
What God alone can claim;
He giveth, and He takes away,—
Blest be His holy Name!”

The Father gazed upon his Babes,—
The Mother drooped apart,
While all the Woman's sorrow gushed
From her o'erburdened heart;
And with the striving of her grief,
Which wrung the tears she shed,
Were mingled low and loving words
To the unconscious dead.

When the sad Sire had looked his fill,
He veiled each breathless face,
And down in self-abasement bowed,
For comfort and for grace;
With the deep eloquence of woe,
Poured forth his secret soul,
Rose up, and stood erect and calm,
In spirit healed and whole.

“Restrain thy tears, poor Wife!” he said;
“I learn this lesson still,—
God gives, and God can take away,—
Blest be His holy will!
Blest are my Children, for they live,
From sin and sorrow free;
And I am not all joyless, Wife,
With faith—hope—love, and thee!”

THE ROSE OF CAYPHA.

In the sweet shades of Caypha there bloometh a flower,
By a fountain whose music pervadeth the bower;
'Tis the grace of the garden—the glory that gives
An aspect of Heaven to the spot where it lives.

Through palm-trees the sun sends his loveliest smile,
The winds, as they pass it, grow sweeter the while;
On its leaves are the love-drops of honey-dew shed,
And the nightingale sings his best song o'er its head.

Its eyes, which for tenderness shame the gazelle,
Have the soft, fitful light of the pearl-bearing shell;
Like a lotus that leans on the undulant tide,
The charms of its balmy breast heave and subside.

So rich is its fragrance that floats on the wind,
That the chieftain who flies from a foeman behind,
Checks his steed to inhale it—again to depart
With new strength in his sinews—new hope in his heart.

The blast of the Simoom may scatter away
Common odours, that cling to the garments of day,
But this, where it enters, remains to imbue
The spirit with sweetness, and holiness, too.

Dear Maiden, whose shadowy tresses down flow,
In wavelets of jet, from the arch of thy brow,
Let me breathe in thine ear, in this eloquent hour,
The musical name of this exquisite flower.

Thou blushest! thou droopest! thine eye-lids drop down,
Like the pinions of Even, when sunlight is flown!
The swell of thy bosom enraptures my sight,—
That sigh makes enamoured the breezes of night!

Forgive me, dear Zora! for thou art the Rose
Whose beauty hath broken my pride and repose;
Oh! let me transplant thee, that fondly I may
Watch over thy loveliness day after day!

I will cherish and cheer thee, my Peri—my dove,
With the dews of Affection, the sunshine of Love,
And the barrenest spot where thy presence may be
Will be blooming as Paradise, dearest, with Thee!

BUCKTON CASTLE.

[_]

[Buckton, or, as it is commonly called, Buckton Castle, is a bold, rounded hill at the entrance to the valley of Saddleworth from Ashton-under-Lyne. It is supposed to have been a Roman Station. On its summit may be distinctly traced trenches, and the remains of ancient walls. To the town-pent lover of Nature this romantic locality is well worth a visit.]

Has Spring returned to give a golden close
To old October's few, fast-fleeting hours?
A genial radiance through the calm air glows,
So lately stirred with fitful winds and showers.
It seemeth Spring, albeit too tame and still,—
Scentless the field, and verdureless the tree;
But the sweet Robin, at his cheerful will,
On the bare orchard-bough, or cottage sill,
Pours from his ruddy throat a song of tender glee.

My thoughts are dwarfed, for lack of light and room,—
Feeble the fluttering pulses in my breast;
My fancies dim, and voiceless as the tomb,—
My laggard limbs unstrung, my brain oppressed.
Come forth, my staff,—lie there, my peaceful books,—
Sleep at thy fountain, idle pen, awhile;
Nature invites me, with her kindliest looks,
To pleasant pathways, and to peaceful nooks,—
My very heart leaps up, and kindles at her smile.

Once more, once more, ere Winter lowers and storms,
And the last wreath of waning Autumn rends,
I go to commune with those awful forms;
The hoary hills, my old familiar friends;

Through devious tracks my eager footsteps stray,
Where well-springs shine, where restless runnels sound;
The dead leaves linger on my lonely way,—
Crowd into hollows—with the breezes play,—
Rush in a rustling race, and eddy round and round.

Where buxom mother, rosy babe in arms,
Smiles in the sunshine at her cottage door,
My feet press on, by grey and quiet farms,
Up the wild lane that seeks the swarthy moor;
Still on, while backward fades the distant town,—
Town of tumultuous toil, and churlish care;
On, o'er the springy heath-lands, waste and brown,
Till the dark shoulders and defiant crown
Of Buckton's barren steep loom in the smokeless air.

Halt, hurrying foot! pause, panting heart! for here
Bursts into ken the valley's glorious length;
Hill, hamlet, woodland, river, rock, appear
Blent in harmonious loveliness and strength;
There lofty Haridge lifts his dusky crest
Above his stalwart brethren of the vale;
There gloomy Warmoton heaves his fir-clad breast;
In yon sharp crags stands Olderman confessed,
Stern wooer of the sun, and scorner of the gale!

Before me, single in his solemn pride,
Majestic Buckton swelleth towards the sky,
His belt of dwarf-oak reddening on his side,
Flinging a flush of beauty on the eye.
Up, listless foot! up, languid heart! I came
To sit upon his forehead, bald and dun!
Down the rough slopes, o'er the meandering Tame,
Through dreamy wood-haunts, yet unknown to fame,
Bravely and briefly speed, until the goal be won.

'Tis done! and lo, far towering o'er my head,
The sullen giant stands! with strenuous bound,
Trampling the heather with determined tread,
I grasp his locks, and gaze triumphant round.
Oh! what a draught of gladness in the breeze!
Oh! what a feast of glory in the scene!
Moorlands, and mountain-tops, and clustering trees,—
Hamlets and fanes, homes of luxurious ease,—
Grandeur and gentle grace, with countless charms between!

Like seething cauldron fuming in the air,
Our city sits on the horizon's rim,
Staining with lurid gloom what else were fair,
Making the brightness of the sunset dim.
A place of wildering energy and din,
And dauntless effort, is yon wondrous town,
Of cares and curses, wretchedness and sin;
Yet hath she noble hearts, brave souls, within,
Pure and prolific minds, that make her world-renown.

No cloud, save heaven's, no strife, no clangour here;
No shallow friends; no deep and desperate foes;
The spot is Nature's, undefiled and clear,
Where all is sweetness, beauty, and repose;
No sound, save that of tuneful streams and rills,
Whose hum floats upward as they fall and fret,
Or plaintive bleat of sheep upon the hills,
Or solemn sigh of swooping wind, that fills
The chambers of the soul with music God hath set.

A change has come: some wandering clouds have kissed
The rugged features of my mountain friend,
And I am mantled in a silvery mist,
Rolling in waves that idly break and blend;

Yet all beneath lies tranquillised and bright,
Bathed in the tender glow of evening hours;
The windows twinkle in the level light,
The sombre woods grow golden to the sight,
And like a “burnished snake” the rambling river gleams.

Behold! the rainbow's many-clouded arch
Springs from the vale, and sweeps the skies above,
A splendid path, where angel-shapes might march
Sublimely earthward, messengers of Love!
Oh! glorious spectacle! oh! sacred sign,
By matchless Mercy unto mortals given!
How Noah must have loved thy hues divine,
When first o'er Ararat he saw thee shine,
Limned by the hand of God upon the front of heaven!

In beauteous fragments breaks the bow away,
Whilst envious shadows creep about the West;
The rain is spent, spent is the hurrying day,
And all things lean most lovingly to rest:
Leaving old Buckton to the winds and stars,
Downward with staggering steps I seek the plains;
And as I homeward muse, no discord jars
The music of my mind, no world-thought mars
The vision of delight which in my spirit reigns.

Ye who in crowded town, o'ertoiled, o'erspent,
For bread's sake cling to desk, forge, wheel, and loom,
Come, when the law allows, and let the bent
Of your imprisoned minds have health and room;
So ye may gaze upon the free and fair,
Receive fresh vigour from the mountain sod;
So ye may doff the chrysalis of care
In the pure element of mountain air,
And on the wings of thought draw nearer unto God!

KOSSUTH'S PRAYER.

God of my Country! and her dauntless Brave,
Battling and bleeding with great souls unworn!
To whom the names of Tyrant and of Slave
Are dread and discord—misery and scorn!
From the clam region of Thy starry sphere
Look down upon Thy lowly servant here,
Whilst from his lips a million prayers take flight,
Upward, to magnify Thy mystery and might!

My God! Thy sun in the unmeasured sky
Shines with beneficent and blessed light!
Beneath my feet in quiet glory lie
The bones of brethren who have fallen in fight!
Blue are the heavens; the earth whereon I tread
With the pure blood of martyrdom is red,
The life-blood of the faithful—sons of sires
Who worshipped only Thee, and Freedom's sacred fires!

Oh! let the sun send forth his kindliest ray,
That flowers may flourish on this holy sod!
Let not my brethren sink into decay—
Back into lifeless nothingness, O God!
God of my fathers! hear the people's prayer!
God of the nations! hold them in Thy care!
Nerve them with power, amid the glare and gloom,
To snap the Bondsman's chain, and seal the Oppressor's doom!

As a free man, upon the sacred mould
Which wraps my brethren in a last embrace,
I reverently kneel, yet firm and bold,
True to the truth, and scorner of disgrace!
Such sacrifices sanctify the earth,—
Purge it from sin, and urge a purer birth;
My God! a Serf must never tread these graves,
The very soil would spurn the unhallowed feet of Slaves!

Great Father of my fathers! Thou Most High!
Sole Sovereign of the universe, whose might
Flung into space the countless worlds that lie
Like diamond dust upon the breast of Night!
Behold! a cloud of living light ascends
From the dear ashes of my martyred friends,
Gleams on my warriors, till they seem to glow—
An emblem of their cause—in panoply of snow!

God! in Thy mercy guard this precious dust!
Let it repose in sanctity and peace!
Inspire the living brave with hope and trust,
That they may conquer, and their struggles cease!
Forsake them not, but teach them, and make strong
The arm that battles 'gainst a hideous wrong;
And let our triumph, blown from tongue and pen,
Invigorate the world! My people cry “Amen!”

FORGIVENESS.

Man hath two attendant angels
Ever waiting at his side,
With him wheresoe'er he wanders,
Wheresoe'er his feet abide;
One to warn him when he darkleth,
And rebuke him if he stray;—
One to leave him to his nature,
And so let him go his way:

Two recording spirits, reading
All his life's minutest part,
Looking in his soul, and listening
To the beatings of his heart;
Each, with pen of fire electric,
Writes the good or evil wrought;—
Writes with truth that adds not, errs not,
Purpose—action—word, and thought.

One, the Teacher and Reprover,
Marks each heaven-deserving deed;
Graves it with the lightning's vigour,—
Seals it with the lightning's speed;
For the good that Man achieveth—
Good beyond an angel's doubt—
Such remains for aye and ever,
And can not be blotted out.

One (severe and silent Watcher!)
Noteth every crime and guile,
Writes it with a holy duty,
Seals it not, but waits awhile;
If the Evil-Doer cry not—
“God, forgive me!” ere he sleeps,
Then the sad, stern Spirit seals it,
And the gentler Spirit weeps.

To the Sinner if Repentance
Cometh soon, with healing wings,
Then the dark account is cancelled,
And each joyful angel sings;
Whilst the Erring One perceiveth—
Now his troublous hour is o'er—
Music, fragrance, wafted to him
From a yet untrodden shore.

Mild and mighty is Forgiveness,
Meekly worn, if meekly won;
Let our hearts go forth to seek it,
Ere the setting of the sun!
Angels wait, and long to hear us
Ask it, ere the time be flown;
Let us give it, and receive it,
Ere the midnight cometh down!

December 1849.

THE DESERT AND THE CITY.

Pensive and sad, with weary steps I paced
The Nile's old realm of grandeur in decay:
The hoary sands of Egypt's wondrous waste,
Bare to the brazen splendours of the day.
Much did I marvel, in my toilsome course,
How Time had overcome, with noiseless force,
The mighty works of her meridian hour,
The vast material proofs of her stupendous power.

Methought I saw the Spoiler, proud and lone,
Unsling his fearful scythe, so strong and keen,
And sit him down upon that mystic stone,
The couchant Sphinx, of mild and solemn mien;
Methought he looked, with aspect stern and cold,
Towards voiceless Thebes, and mournful Memphis old,
Then turned away, as with a conqueror's frown,
From the Titanian walls which he had trampled down.

His silent sister, dark Oblivion, drest
In many-folded robes of gloomy pride,
Half sleeping and half waking, leaned at rest
On the great pyramid's gigantic side;
Lay making riddles of a thousand things
That wore the slumbrous shadow of her wings,
And, spite of human energies and schemes,
Changing all glories past to unsubstantial dreams.

To dubious History, shrinking in a cloud
Which dim Tradition flung athwart her face,
With earnest question I exclaimed aloud—
“Explain the marvels of this desert place!
Who willed that these colossal shapes should be?
Who builded up the sombre mystery?
Answer, grey Chronicler! give up thy trust;
Why are they desolate now, and crumbling into dust!”

Straightway a sound, as of a baffled wind
In mountain passes, smote my startled ear;
As if some wakened spirit wailed, and pined
For speech wherewith to make the secret clear;
Forgotten stories in forgotten tongues,
Old fitful legends, fragmentary songs,
Came mingling, moaning o'er the dreary land,—
I listened with mute awe, but nought could understand.

Once more I mused amid the whirl and roar
Of mighty London—'mid the human waves
Whose restless tide, from centre unto shore,
In countless currents rolls, and rolling, raves;
London, where some adventurous vessels sail
Safely, and tack with every veering gale;
While some, by adverse Fortune blown and tossed,
Fall into shattered wreck, and are for ever lost:

London, the world of gay and graceful life,
Of lavish Wealth, and silken-seated Ease;
The place of harsh deformity and strife,
Where Misery sits, “with children round her knees;”
London, where Loyalty upholds a throne,
And virtuous Penury starves and dies—unknown!
London, where friendless Genius toils and smarts,—
The paradise of thieves, the home of noblest hearts.

I looked upon her temples and her halls,
Her river foaming with a thousand keels;
Her dens, where hopeless Wickedness appals,
Where Passion revels, and where Reason reels;
Her myriad-branching streets; her spacious bowers,
Where flaunting Fashion spends its idle hours;
Her schools and jails; her pleasure-haunts and “hells,”
Where Guilt and Sorrow groan, where Folly shakes his bells.

I saw her merchant-palaces; her rooms
Where lettered lore invites the better will;
Her gorgeous theatres; her dangerous glooms,
Peopled with fallen women, reckless still;
Her Mint and Money-change, her crowded marts;
Her domes of Science, treasuries of Arts;
Her stores, where good or evil is supplied
To all who choose to come; and as I saw, I sighed.

Thus spake my soul:—“Far Future, I command
Thy truthful answer to my question now!—
Must this great city, and this greater land,
Flourish or fall,—be purified, or bow?
Must they, like Egypt, sink by slow decay,
And their transcendent glories pass away?
Down thy abyss I send my inquiring cry!”
Alas! the depth was dumb,—it deigned me no reply!

THE STREAM AND THE VINE.

“Joy! joy!” said the jolly-voiced mountain Vine—
“What a pleasant and care-killing nature is mine!
How glorious am I, in the glad vintage time,
When joyance rings loud in the soft sunny clime;
When my lithe, laden branches droop heavily down
O'er the damsel bedecked with my leaf-woven crown;
When my full purple fruitage is gathered and pressed,
To exalt the dull brain, and enrapture the breast;
Whilst my idol-god, Bacchus, with beaker in hand,
Reels, laughing and quaffing, all over the land,
And the dear eyes of Beauty with wilder light shine—
Joy! joy!” said the jolly-voiced mountain Vine.

“Joy! joy!” said the merry-toned mountain Stream,
As it babbled and blushed in the moon's early beam—
“With a silvery song, and a frolicsome flow,
I purify, strengthen, and cheer, as I go;
The grass groweth greener wherever I run,
And brighter the flowers, in shadow or sun;
The traveller loveth my crystalline wave,
The peasant knows well that I solace and save;
I carry no poison, engender no strife,
But offer the boon of a rational life;
My waters give blessings wherever they gleam—
Joy! joy!” said the merry-toned mountain Stream.

“Behold!” said the Vine, “friendly fellows are met,
A jovial crew, a convivial set,
Who sprinkle libations to Bacchus and me,
And quaff my red blood with a boisterous glee;

As up goes the goblet, and down goes the juice,
Frail Reason gets fettered, while Folly gets loose;
Groweth louder the laugh, groweth lewder the tongue,
And the bard breaketh out in delirious song.
On roars the rude revel, till, drunken and dim,
Lamp, bottle, and Bacchanal stagger and swim;
Why, the whole human herd are gone frantic with wine!
Joy! joy!” said the jolly-voiced mountain Vine!

“Behold!” said the Stream, “in yon temple of light
What a vision of peace, what a beauteous sight!
Strong thinkers and workers, in orderly guise,
Fair women, with grateful and joy-beaming eyes,
Hale Age, with the countenance radiant with truth,
Mild Manhood, self-governed, and reverent Youth;—
They assemble to listen, to learn, and to teach
High thought that o'erflows in clear current of speech:
They converse of reforms, and at once they essay
To hasten the dawn of a holier day;
And Heaven will help the benevolent scheme—
Joy! joy!” said the merry-toned mountain Stream.

“Thou art lovely to see,” said the Vine to the Stream,
“But thy draught is as dull as an idiot's dream;
Thou hast but a paltry and puny control,
Thou lendest no fire to the slumbering soul!”
“Thou art graceful to see,” said the Stream to the Vine,
“But a deadly and dangerous spirit is thine;
For madness is born of thy boisterous mirth,
And thy victims grow reckless of heaven or earth!”
Oh! ye who are striving to lift us and bless,
And ye, too, who grovel in savage excess,
Ye fettered and fallen, ye upright and free,
Say, which has your homage—the Wave or the Tree?

THE WINTER'S WALK.

Influence of Nature.

How beautiful is Nature! and how kind,
In every season, every mood and dress,
To him who woos her with an earnest mind,—
Quick to perceive and love her loveliness!
With what a delicate yet mighty stress
She stills the stormy passions of the soul,—
Subdues their tossings with a sweet control,
Till each spent wave grows gradually less,
And settles into calm! The worldling may
Disdain her, but to me, whate'er the grief,—
Whate'er the anger lingering in my breast,
Or pain of baffled hopes,—she brings relief;
Scares the wild harpy-brood of cares away,
And to my troubled heart sublimely whispers—“Rest!”

Forth on this white and dazzling winter noon,
Serene the earth, the heavens with beauty hung—
I come to her, that she may reättune
Discordant thoughts, and feelings all unstrung.
Sorrows the world believeth not have wrung
My heart until it bleeds, but bleeds unseen;
Distressful circumstance has come between
Endeavour and Fruition. I had flung

My hopes unto the winds, but Nature's smile
Cheers the lone chamber where my sorrows dwell;
Her gentle hand is on me, and the spell
My spirit doth of all its fears beguile;
My better being reäwakes and stirs,
And sings an inward song in unison with hers.

Ah, yes! the humblest of external things
Whereby she deigns to enchant us and to teach
(If loving heart the human learner brings),
Are signs of her grand harmonies and speech;—
The lapse of waters o'er a rugged stone,—
A pool of reeds,—a moorland weed or flower,—
A dimpling spring,—a thorn with moss o'ergrown,—
Are symbols of her universal power.
These speak a language to the favoured ear
Loud as the thunder, lofty as the lights
That crowd the cope of cloudless winter nights,
And fill the soul with worship, hope, and fear;—
Dull must he be, oppressed with earthly leaven,
Who looks on Nature's face, yet feels no nearer heaven!

The Solitude.

As farther, farther from the town I go,
And on the loneliest haunts my steps intrude,
The hills in new-donned surplices of snow—
Hills, the old Priesthood of the Solitude—
From their uplifted altars, rent and rude,
Seem preaching to this slumberous grove of pine
Some homily that's wordless, yet divine,
Whereby my listening spirit is subdued.
Whilst, 'mid the calm and congregated trees
(Hooded like friars in their cloisters chill),

Whispers with reverent “Hush!” the languid breeze,—
Wanders away, and all is doubly still;
And I perceive—so Fancy says apart—
The full, perpetual throb of Nature's sleepless heart.

Hushed is the broad and beautiful expanse
Of moorland, mountain, woodland, vale, and fell;
The Earth is slumbering in a holy trance,
The gentle thraldom of a mystic spell;
Whilst from her bosom—as a sea-born shell
Sings to the ear—mysterious murmurs creep
Upwards, as she were moaning in her sleep,
And muttering marvels which she cannot quell:
Vague sounds and dubious syllables they seem,
As though a pensive nun, serene and fair,
Sighed through her veil for joys she cannot share,
Recalling of the past some pleasant dream;
Or like a virgin in her secret bower,
Who whispers prayer to God before the bridal hour.

The Robin.

Behold our minstrel Robin! trustful, tame,
Bird with the stomacher of glowing hue!
How caught his little breast that badge of flame?
Thus, if old legends tell the story true:—
'Tis said—poetic faith believes the tale—
He drank some blood-drops of that precious Fount
Which gushed on awful Calvary's holy mount,
When Nature shuddered, and when men grew pale.
Then, says the legend—let none scorn to hear—
His sympathetic bosom took the stain,
That crimson evidence of Hallowed pain
Which unto Mercy drew the sinner near;
And from that dread yet Man-redeeming day,
Robin became the bird which children fear to slay.

Ah, gentle Robin! I delight to hear,
From hawthorn, apple-tree, or cottage sill,
Thy melting melody, so soft and clear,
Light as the tinklings of a tiny rill.
The wild notes issuing from thy eloquent bill
Are partly sorrowful and partly sad,
Like chastened Grief, endeavouring to be glad,
And wile with words the memory of ill.
But the consoling sounds, wherever heard,
Fall on my heart like drops of genial balm;
Soothe the sharp pangs of many a hope deferred,
And interfuse a sense of inward calm,—
A sense of resignation to the Will
That smites, some hidden goodness to fulfil.

Oh! patient Robin! may I learn from thee,
Thou little teacher on that naked tree,—
A due submission unto Heaven's behest,—
Cheerful humility, and conscious power
To meet and struggle with the roughest hour,
Whate'er the trial, and whate'er the test;
Thankful for smallest blessings, when they come,
Calm in my sorrows, in my triumphs dumb,
Unbowed by care, unawed by lawless wrong;
Firm to endure, but ready to enjoy,
Heedless of scorn, superior to annoy,
And prompt to sing an uncomplaining song,—
A song of praise, too, Robin, like thine own,
Haply to reach the everlasting Throne!

The Old Mill.

Here's the old Mill, shaken, but not outworn,
Which sends its busy “click-clack” down the vale,
Bringing to Fancy fields of waving corn,
Telling of Plenty many a pleasant tale.

'Tis silent now, for, lo! the waters fail;
Yet the blithe Miller, neither hurt nor crossed
By the fantastic doings of John Frost,
Inhales his pipe, and quaffs his horn of ale
At home; or haply to “The Plough” he wends,
Famous for cosy nooks and pots of power—
Where, with a trio of his ancient friends,
He wings the gay, sometimes the noisy hour;
Cracks jokes, laughs loudly, roars a lusty song,
Heedless of Winter's cold, or Woman's sharper tongue.

The Mill is silent only for a space;
When southern winds have set the waters free,
Again the ponderous stones shall run their race,
Whilst the blithe Miller carols in his glee.
Meanwhile, how grand the fettered wheel appears,
Stayed for a time in its industrious whirl—
Bristling with pendent icicles, like spears,
Its mantling mosses hung with glistering pearl!
The Stream, arrested in its wildest course,
How beautifully petrified, and tossed
Into the loveliest shapes, by noiseless force
And wondrous magic of mysterious Frost!
Is not the whole a picture to engage
The Painter's pencil or the Poet's page?

The Village.

Sweet Village, bosomed in “ancestral trees,”
Naked and silent now—I love to come
When, in the summer time, a dubious hum
Floats from the valley on the evening breeze.
But thou art ever pleasant;—with what ease
The Parsonage seems to nestle in its nook,
Wearing a calm and comfortable look,

With its bay-windows and quaint cornices!
How well the venerable Church agrees
With all the ancient features of the scene;—
The low, square tower, and through its ivy screen,
The dial, preaching quiet homilies!
But, hark! that bell proclaims some soul's release,
And calls my footsteps to the “Court of Peace!”

The Court of Peace! ay, verily, no strife
Of soul, heart, voice, comes this lone realm within;
All who were different in their mortal life,
Lofty or low, are equal here, and kin!
All passions quenched, the sources of their sin
Shut up and sealed for ever, here they lie,
Waiting—Oh! awful Mystery!—the din
Of the last trumpet-summons from on High!
Alas! with what dull thought and careless eye
We look upon these graves! as if the strain
Of glorious promise, uttered in the sky
By Angel-tongues, were fabulous and vain!
Brothers in Death! I leave you to your sleep,
So eloquently still, so solemn, and so deep!

Ho, ho! what rout is here? The Village Boys
In mimic warfare with their balls of snow,
Vociferating with triumphant noise,
As they o'ercome some temporary foe!
Poor, thoughtless imps! how soon ye must forego
This harmless conflict for a sterner strife
With Passion, Error, Circumstance, and Woe,
On the arena-ground of future life!
What tongue may tell, what prophecy foreshow
Your coming lot, the course of your career?
In intellect and virtue some may grow;

Some live in shame, and ignorance, and fear;
Sorrow may bow, danger encompass some;—
'Tis well for human peace we know not what's to come!

How shines this low-roofed shed beside the way,
Where the bluff Blacksmith holds his “pride of place!”
Roars the huge bellows, well-timed hammers play
On the responsive anvil's stubborn face;
Amid the shower of sparkles, idling stand
The Village Gossips, who delight to feel
The warmth that issues from the glowing steel,
And mark the cunning of the craftsman's hand.
He tells them tales of many a foreign scene,
Where battle raged, where blood was shed like rain,
Towns sacked and fields laid waste; for he had been
Soldier and farrier on the tented plain;
But now—far better than the work of wrong—
He fashions ploughshares, sings a peaceful song.

Sunset.

Homeward, before the pinions of the Night
Swoop on my path. Behold! yon westering Sun
Flushes the heavens with many-coloured light,
A gorgeous signal that the day is done.
Piled in stupendous masses, many a change,
Wondrous and beautiful, the clouds assume,—
Titanic structures, ever new and strange,
With splendours streaming through their cloven gloom.
Now they are moulded into mountains, rent
And burning to their centres; now they break,
And float apart, like silent ships that seek
Blest isles amid the ethereal element;
Whilst the broad Sun pours forth his latest beams,—
Gently withdraws, and leaves me to my dreams.

The orb is gone, yet on the earth and sky
Lingers some lovely shape, some vestige fair:
Light fleeces, faintly blushing, calmly lie
Like beds of roses in the middle air.
Meanwhile, my soul is softened, and subdued
Into a quiet tenderness of thought;
Feeling, imagination are imbued
With things that Nature to my gaze hath brought.
My Home receives me; at the chimney-side,
Consoled, invigorated, frame and mind
Better for action nerved and purified—
I sit me down, to worldly cares resigned;
Review, with something like a calm content,
The day which has not been unprofitably spent!

DEATH'S DOINGS.

Death on his steed of shadow
Went forth into the night,
For he had many a mission-deed
To do ere morning's light;
Many a soul to loosen
From Life's uneasy thrall,
And many a hopeful heart to lay
Beneath the shroud and pall.

Each star was blinking brightly,
As if no ill were near,—
As if all earthly things were calm
As its own silent sphere;
The drifted clouds were floating
High in the middle air,
And to the placid moonlight turned
Their shifting fringes fair.

Death on his awful mission
Kept his appointed way,
He bore with him the fiat-word
Which does not brook delay;
He stepped aside, and often,
To snatch some final sigh,
But left behind the breaking heart—
The sad surviving cry.

He reached the sickly city,
Dread with incessant din,
The maelstrom of the multitudes,
The crater-mouth of sin;
Strange tragedies were acting
Within that swarming town,
And Pestilence had beckoned him
To pull the curtain down.

He knocked at palace-portals,
He trod the marble floors,
And many a hasty summons breathed
At humbler dwelling doors;
He walked the weary workhouse,
He pierced the crowded jail,
And at his presence countless
Faces grew for ever pale.

He sought the crooked alleys,
The burrow-holes of men,
The haunt of vicious revelry,
The dim and sordid den;
He plunged into the cellar,
He clomb the garret stair,
And fearful were the ravages
His hand committed there.

To souls of doubt and darkness
A Demon's form he bore,
But unto eyes that looked beyond,
An Angel's likeness wore;
He came to punish and appal,
He came to cheer and save,—
So different did the world receive
The Monarch of the Grave!

Death stole into a mansion
Of princely shape and size,
And filled with splendid mockeries,
To dazzle worldly eyes;
On a couch of gorgeous seeming
Lay stretched a man of sin,
Who shrieked with agony to feel
The Shadow coming in.

This man had scorned the lowly,
Had sneered at holiest things,
Had pierced the heart of Innocence
With sorrow's keenest stings;
In warfare with all goodness,
Had grown untimely old,
Till all his passions merged in one,
The burning greed of gold.

Ah! what availed his treasure,
In this his hour of woe?
It melted from his eager hand
Like early flakes of snow;
Death on his cloudy courser
Bore him the sad night through,
To answer for the evil things
Which he had dared to do.

Into a meaner dwelling
The dread Deliverer passed,
Where one had waited for him long,
And welcomed him at last—
One who beheld no sternness
In Death's triumphant mien,
So truthful and so beautiful
His earthly life had been!

Imbued with gentlest virtues,
Endowed with mental powers,
He left a fair and fruitful name
To grace this world of ours;
But in his work of wisdom
He overtasked his frame,
And smiled with hope and thankfulness
When his Deliverance came.

Death took them on his courser,
Two souls, how different they!
But neither saw, and neither heard
The other on the way;
And as through mist and darkness
Death urged his steed apace,
To one he showed a scowling front,
To one a shining face.

To one low words he uttered,
As stern as they were sad,
But to the other songs of joy,
Which made the spirit glad:
Thus through a realm of shadows
The Inevitable passed—
The eternal gulf of Mystery,
Which all must leap at last!

EXTEMPORE LINES.

TO A YOUNG POET.

Take heed, my poor Friend, ere thou darest to climb
The height that o'erlooketh the far-coming time;
There's a penalty grievous to pay for thy fame,
A shadow to follow the light of thy name!
Beware, ere thou trustest too fondly and blindly
The Muse who, uncalled for, comes softly and kindly!
She is oftentimes fickle and faithless, though fair,
And is absent when most thou desirest her there.
When thy duties are done, she will breathe thee a spell,
And fill up an interval sweetly and well;
She'll console thee, refine thee, and rub off thy rust,
But, alas for her help when thou wantest a crust!

Now, labour is honest, nay, some call it holy,—
Let it gall as it will, 'tis the lot of the lowly:
Hold thee fast to thy handicraft, be't ne'er so mean,
Till Fortune and Fame fling a change o'er the scene;
Guide the wheel, tend the loom, drive the plough, ply the spade,
Dig the quarry, make bargains, and dabble in trade;—
Turn pedlar or tinker, crack stones, cobble shoes,
Do aught but depend for thy bread on the Muse!

Sing on, ne'ertheless, when the Spirit inspires,—
Disdain not her favours, restrain not her fires;
Pour forth all thy feelings, unmixed with alloy,
Let thy sadness be sadness,—thy joyfulness, joy.
And when thou art pleading 'gainst error and wrong,
Be thou fearless and earnest, but just in thy song;
And when wayward Fancy would take higher flight,
Let her freshen her wings in the fulness of light;
And when 'bove the clouds thou hast taken thy round,
Come thee back, like the lark, to thy home on the ground;
Thou shouldst not forego and forget the ideal,
But the earthly—the human—the tangible—real,
Have a claim on thy gifts, and thy mission should be
To arouse the Enslaved, and advance with the Free!

A WISH.

Oh! give me a cot in some wood-shaded glen,
Shut in from the clangour of conflict and pain,—
Far away from the turmoil of town-prisoned men,
Who strive for subsistence, and struggle for gain!
Aloof from all envy, secure from annoy,
My chiefest companions my wife and my child,—
I could think with some purpose, and labour with joy,
In that Home of Seclusion, far, far in the wild.

The lark should arouse me to action and thought,—
I would take my first draught at the health-giving rill;
I would gaze on the beauties that morning had brought,
As I strengthened my limbs up the slope of the hill.
The early prayer uttered, the early meal done,
The day should bring uses and joys undefiled;
Some good should be gathered, some knowledge be won,
In that Home of Seclusion, far, far in the wild.

When the clouds which were golden grew faint in the west,
The sun having left them to melt in the sky,—
When Nature seemed folding her mantle for rest,
And Hesperus hung his bright cresset on high,—
I would draw up my household about the fireside
(Unless the dear Muses my spirit beguiled),
To talk with and teach them, with pleasure and pride,
In that Home of Seclusion, far, far in the wild.

I would have—would kind Fortune her bounty impart,
Nor blind me to virtue, nor steel me to woe—
Some good thing and graceful in Genius and Art:—
Some Music, to make my best feelings o'erflow;
Some touch of the Painter, to solace my eyes,
Some books, to enchant my dark cares till they smiled;
Some shape of the Sculptor, to charm and surprise,
In that Home of Seclusion, far, far in the wild.

Surrounded by Nature, I could not but see
In each change of Season God's goodness unworn;
Young Spring would delight with bloom, beauty, and glee,
Bright Summer with hay-harvest,—Autumn with corn.
Even Winter would charm; I should love to behold
His frost-work fantastic, his snow-drifts up-piled,
His phalanx of storm-clouds arrayed and unrolled,
O'er that Home of Seclusion, far, far in the wild.

I would blend with benevolence nothing austere,—
To the wayward be calm, to the humble be kind;
To the heart of the mourner bring comfort and cheer,
And kindle new hopes in the cloudiest mind;
Thus earnest and helping, confiding and just,
I should get my reward from a source undefiled;
With assurance of mercy go down to the dust,
In that Home of Seclusion, far, far in the wild!

JUNE.

A SONNET.

Hail! fervid, flowery, leafy, lusty June!
First-born of Summer! heir of lavish light!
Month of the genial Morn,—the glowing Noon,—
The dreamy Evening,—the delicious Night!
Season of sunny Harvest, when the hand
Of jocund Toil, 'mid busy-wingèd bees,
Rifles the riches of the grassy leas,
And scatters rural fragrance o'er the land!
Fain would I hail thee, wheresoe'er and when
My feelings prompted, or my fancy led;—
In slumberous forests—on the mountain's head—
By lonely streams, on moorlands high and dun,
In ferny dingles shaded from the sun—
Apart, but not exiled, from cities and from men.

SPRING.

A SONNET.

How bountiful is Nature! how replete
With quiet good, magnificence, and power!
Again the welcome winds of Spring blow sweet,
Rich with the odorous life of bud and flower:
Blest sunshine clothes the land,—the genial shower
Gives lavish largess to the quickening ground;
There's music 'mid the clouds, and every bower
Is resonant again with joyous sound!
Man only is discordant: he with pride
Laughs at her laws, and learns to disobey,—
Flings Love—Peace—Order—Rectitude aside,
And fills the world with clangour and dismay;
Yet she rebukes him with a tranquil face,—
Sustains him with her gifts, and soothes him with her grace.

“MY FATHER'S FARM.”

(INSCRIBED TO J. L., ESQ.)

Methinks I see my father's farm,
In whose sweet fields I used to stray;
Then light of heart and lithe of arm,
I found in Nature every charm,—
In life one summer's day.

I see it, and unbidden tears
'Twere pain to quell, suffuse my eyes;
To that calm spot my earliest years—
Many my pleasures, few my fears—
Were bound by holiest ties.

A moody, meditative boy,
A young enthusiast, free to rove,
I found in everything a joy,
In everything some sweet employ,
Something to learn and love.

In summer's freedom, winter's thrall,
In calm or tempest, shade or shine,
In russet robe or snowy pall,
All Nature's garbs, I loved them all,
And deemed each change divine.

I knew each old and stalwart tree,—
Each savage glen, each sylvan nook,
Each wild wood, murmuring poësy,
Each bird about it flitting free,
Each music-making brook;—

Each rustic gate and rugged stile,
Each lonely cairn and crumbling wall,
Each fairy haunt, each storied pile,
Each silvery lake and slumbering isle,
Each wildering waterfall.

To me each peasant girl that came
Fresh from her cottage on the moor,
Seemed lovelier far than daintiest dame,
Though clothed with beauty, crowned with fame,
That stepped o'er palace floor.

To me each peasant man that trod
With sturdy foot the yielding soil,
Seemed worthy of his native sod,
A free, brave image of his God,
A lord of honest toil.

Alas! that dear departed time
Of irksome toil but pleasant play,
Of gladsome song, romantic rhyme,
Of dawning thought, of dream sublime—
Has softly slid away!

And now, amid the human waves
Heaving and clashing everywhere,—
I strive with Trade's untiring slaves,
Whose spirit ever gives and craves,
And ask and give my share.

Man must not lie on sunny leas,
Counting the daisies on the sward;
Duties well done must purchase ease!
Love—Labour—Virtue—Truth, 'tis these
Must bring life's best reward.

But still some intermittent hours
May come, apart from cares and schemes,
When I may thrid my native bowers,
Walk 'mong my native heather-flowers,
Drink at my native streams.

Sweet hours! when I may dare to seek
The old familiar dwelling-place,
Sit by my father's ingle-cheek,
Hear my fond mother gently speak,
And see my sister's face!

Blest hours! when I may break away
From sweat of brain, or toil of arm,
Roam sunny strath, and blooming brae,
And spend a joyous holiday
Around my Father's Farm!

ON THE DEATH OF EBENEZER ELLIOTT.

Another Poet dead! And who will care
That he hath gone from Life's tumultuous stage?
Ten thousand toiling, thinking men, who share
The encumbered meed of Labour's heritage;—
Men for whose minds he wrote inspiring thought,
Tinged with stern glory, as the storm appears—
For whom, with whom his fearless spirit fought;
These will not fail, 'mid sorrows, struggles, fears,
To guard his grave, and write his epitaph in tears.

No trifling, tinkling, moon-struck Bard was he,
Chanting a love-lay in his lady's bower;
His words, like mountain winds, were fresh and free,
And, like the lightnings, winged with withering power;
Like the sharp clang of tried and stubborn steel,—
Like furnace blast,—like hammers tramping strong;
Like deafening drum-roll, startling trumpet-peal,—
Like bruit of battle-cries—'gainst social wrong
His full and fervid soul leapt out in living song.

Yet do not deem, because he stood alone,
The proud, unpensioned Laureate of the Poor,
Recording, echoing every grief and moan
That hourly issued from the cottage door,—

Oh! do not deem that in his earnest rhymes
(Albeit their virtues he could not forsake)
He veiled their vices, or concealed their crimes;
No! with a champion's well-won right he spake,
And with reproving truth made rudest bosoms quake.

Haply, sometimes, his too indignant mind,
With an impetuous torrent's headlong force,
Rushed with too fierce an energy to find
Pleasure and peace along its troublous course;
But then, the hideous evils which he saw
Flung from the fingers of Oppression dire,
Opened his eyes to many a tyrant law,—
Disturbed his soul, and woke its wildest fire,
As falling stones uprouse the Geyser's slumbering ire!

But he had gentler moods—(and who has not?
Life, though discordant, is not all unrest)—
Moments of pensive calm, when he forgot
The outward world, and all that it possessed;
Then would his harp-strings, with serener strain—
A sad voice calling from his proud heart's core—
Thrill to the memory of some placid pain,
Stir the sweet springs of feeling, shut before,
And make the listener's eyes with tenderest tears run o'er.

No more shall haughty Stanege, bleak and bold,
Clasp him in cloud-robes, as the steep he scales;
No more Win Hill to his rapt gaze unfold
The quiet beauty of his subject-vales;
No more shall Don and Rother, as they flow,
Nor Rivilin, reflecting all that's fair,
Murmur responsive to his joy or woe;
Yet there he reigns! and many a Child of Care,
From Sheffield's crowded glooms, shall seek his spirit there!

AN ARTISAN'S SONG.

I'm a brave-hearted Artisan, honest and free,
And while I'm good-natured I strive to be just;
I've a wife for my bosom, a child for my knee,
And a friend or two, worthy of kindness and trust;
I've a home which, though humble, is tranquil and neat,
With a rood of trim garden that graces the door;
And across the low wicket, believe me, 'tis sweet
To hand coin or crust to the wayfaring poor.

In that home there are fair signs of beauty and taste,
Not costly and splendid, for fashion or show;
Some sweet spots of picture, instructive and chaste;
Some books, which are marshalled in orderly row;
Some vases, to keep my pet flowers undefiled,
And a sunny-faced clock that is constantly heard;
And music,—the pleasure-toned voice of my child,
The chirp of the cricket, the song of my bird.

I am skilled in my handicraft—that of my sire—
For my thoughts with my hands in my labour combine;
And it ministers well to each lawful desire,—
Doing this, I respect it, and never repine;
I am strong, for I dare not encumber my health,
'Tis my backstay, my breakwater, ballast and helm,
And whilst I thus cherish my blessing and wealth,
Common storms may annoy me, but cannot o'erwhelm.

The tavern may tempt, but I steadily pass,
While my co-mates drop in with a smile and a jeer;
Though the triumph is mine, they may laught, but alas!
Such laughter will generate sorrow, I fear.
I'm a silent self-thinker, yet love to enjoy
The good thoughts of others, from tongue or from pen;
Though my chief love is given to my wife and my boy,
I have feeling, I trust, for my own fellow-men.

I turn not aside, though inviting my view,
The partisan bluster, the demagogue bawl;
But when good men and true have a high task to do,
I lend earnest help, be it never so small.
There are errors and wrongs in my country, I know,—
Real tragedies, busy with sickening scenes;
But if wrongs must be riven, and errors laid low,
I would rather achieve it by peacefullest means.

Bad times may come o'er me, but good times repay,
Through my toil and my thrift, so I stoop not to care;
In my mirth, when I'm mirthful, I'm soberly gay,
And my sorrow, when sorrowful, is not despair;
No, Hope through the darkness looks down as my friend,
Sweet Hope, like the lark, seeking heaven as she sings;
But to lie and gaze after her, fails in the end,—
We must follow, and Effort will lend us the wings.

I am glad when the Sabbath steals quietly in,
Of all days the chief lustre, the “pearl” of the seven,
A season when man seems to pause in his sin,
A time, rightly used, giving glimpses of heaven;
Then I seek, with my household, the temples of men,
And to God offer up my own heart-uttered prayer;
But believe me not lost, if I go now and then
To the temple of Nature, and worship Him there.

I can dig me up gold from the desert of life,
For my joys, when I will it, are many and pure;
If I injure no neighbour, engender no strife,
Nor get fretful at trifles, my peace is secure;
Thus at eve, after labour, I take up my flute,
And breathe a sweet spell 'gainst vexation and pain;
While my wife, whose sweet sympathy cannot be mute,
Lends her voice to the words of some old ballad strain.

In the summer my garden,—in winter my room,
Give delights which are harmless, exalted, refined,
And I oftentimes fancy I hear, 'mid the gloom,
Many voices that utter great truths to my mind.
A sublime swell of music, a story well told,
Or a poem inspired, makes my rapture run o'er;
For I feel hidden faculties stir and unfold,
And I go to my toil more refreshed than before.

Thus I walk through the maze of existence, erect,
And erect in my soul may I be to the last;
I would have the sweet heart-flowers, Love and Respect,
Flourish on to my memory when I have passed;
When my friends lay me down 'neath the turf-covered clay,
Their eyes with the tears of true sorrow impearled,
I would have them be able sincerely to say—
“He was true to his order, himself, and the world!”

SPRING.

Some renovating spirit seems to near me,
Weaving a spell which every heart obeys,—
Some sweet and welcome influence seems to cheer me
With the fresh rapture of my early days;
My clouded soul seems kindling into brightness,
My thoughts, like wild birds, seem to flit and sing,
Bound all my pulses with unwonted lightness,—
Joy! 'tis another advent of the Spring!

The merry children, who are out a-playing,
With silvery voices thrill the genial air,
And tiny feet are in the woodlands straying,
Where eager fingers pluck the floweret fair;
Then back they come, of healthful Nature breathing,
And at our feet their fragrant offerings fling,
Garlands and crowns of Childhood's artless wreathing,—
Childhood, the type and favourite of Spring.

They tell me that the primrose tufts are blowing,
With moon-like colours, and with wine-like smells;
The hazel-bough and hawthorn-bush are growing
Greener beside the wood-paths and old wells;
And that the daisies, scattered without number,
O'er every field their starry lustre fling,
And that in loneliest nooks the violets slumber
In dewy sweetness, redolent of Spring.

They tell me that in cloudland larks are panting
With the deep ecstasy of prodigal song,
And that the thrush is never tired of chanting
The deepening shades of forest trees among;
That the sweet season's blithesome call is bringing
Back to our eaves the swallow's weary wing,
And the glad husbandman is proudly flinging
Promise of plenty o'er the breast of Spring.

Oh! let me share the festival of Nature,—
Share all her fragrance, all her sounds of joy!
Gaze on her varied harmony of feature,
With the delight and wonder of a boy;
Break out, my mind! in blossoms of sweet musing,—
Back to my heart its long lost music bring,
That I may feel the hand of Heaven transfusing
Peace in my soul, and know that all is Spring!

THE SHEPHERD'S DOG.

Brave dog was Steadfast, brave and strong,
Faithful as dog has ever been,—
Docile, and never prone to wrong,
With all his instincts quick and keen;
Sagacious, for he reasoned well,
Or seemed to reason, with right will,
And many a shepherd loves to tell
His countless deeds of canine skill.

Duly at morning's early prime
Up the old stair he softly crept—
True to the moment of his time—
To wake his master, if he slept;
With gentle touches of his paw
He stroked his master's drowsy head,
And thus—for custom was his law—
Quickly aroused him from his bed.

From fold to verdurous holm and height,
O'er rugged hill and rifted rock,
It was his duty and delight
To guide and guard the wayward flock:
If danger threatened by the way,
His wakeful instinct told him where,
Then half in earnest, half in play,
He kept aloof his fleecy care.

Sometimes the winter winds would rave
Abrupt among the scattered sheep,
And hurl them in the roaring wave,
Or tomb them in the snow-drift deep;
Then would the dog, with dauntless breast,
Plunge through the storm, blast, rain, or frost,
Nor would he quit his weary quest
Till he had found the treasure lost.

From field to field, from stream to stream,
By stony hollow, reedy fen,
Where chainless cataracts dash and gleam,
On mountain side, in cloven glen—
Bold Steadfast searches, close and well,
His nostrils neighbouring with the ground,
Till he stops short with bark and yell,—
Sign that the buried sheep are found.

Lithe as a mole, with busy strength
He digs a gallery towards the soil,
And human helpers come at length
To aid him in his eager toil!
The flock is saved; a simple feast
Relieves his hunger and his cold,
While all exclaim—“That faithful beast
Is worth his weight in sterling gold!”

Such was old Steadfast; but alas!
Death smote his master in the night;
They dared not let the creature pass,
When came the morning's golden light,
Lest, with his usual care, he sought
To touch the dumb and ghastly head,
And with a sad, instinctive thought,
Lifted his wail above the dead.

They sent him to a distant spot,
Till the funereal rites were o'er,
And when they deemed he had forgot,
They called poor Steadfast home once more;
But, no! he had a different choice,—
He would not tread that dwelling-place;
He did not hear his master's voice,
He did not see his kindly face.

He thought him lost among the hills,
And daily sought him everywhere,
By all the well-known streams and rills,
On all the moorlands brown and bare;
He marshalled each disordered flock
He met by chance upon his way,
But still roamed on from rock to rock,
From dawn until the dusk of day.

But duly at the twilight hour
He came for his allotted food,
And nightly he would whine and cower
Without, in woful solitude;
They spoke to him with stern command,—
They called with gentle words and fair,
They coaxed him with a friendly hand,
In vain, he could not enter there.

From day to day the creature grew
More steeped in gloom, more gaunt and thin;
To wean him home they strove anew,—
Alas! he would not enter in.
His food, his rambles, he forsook,
As if all efforts had been tried,—
Lay down with sad and piteous look,
And on his native threshold—died!

THE WORKMAN'S EVENING SONG.

I'm glad to see yon springtide sun
Go down, albeit I love his light;
My bread is won, my labour done,
My reason clear, my conscience right;
And as I take my homeward way,
I see, with not irreverent eyes,
The grandeur of departing day,
In the rich glory of the skies;
Whilst yet the shadowy coppice rings,
Where the brave throstle blithely sings.

To-morrow, when his earliest beams
Turn to loose gold the quivering rills,—
Rekindle the rejoicing streams,—
In purple vesture swathe the hills,—
With buoyant mind, and sinews strong,
I'll go, with willing heart, to bear
What burdens to my lot belong,
Of honest toil my needful share;
And on my way see beauteous things,
Whilst the glad skylark blithely sings.

But now I seek that quiet nest,
Shut from the outward world's annoy,
My home, where I am ever blest,
The sanctuary of my joy;
There will my gentle wife with me
Partake the cheerful evening meal,—
Talk with confiding speech and free,
Sweetly and calmly, till I feel
The peace, the bliss her presence brings,
Whilst the bright kettle blithely sings.

Then will I sit me at my ease,
Absorbed in some enchanting page,
Something to teach me or to please,—
Tale-teller, Annalist, or Sage;
But chief the Poet shall instil
Into my inmost depths of heart
The lofty spirit of his will;
The essence of his tuneful art;
And lift me high on Fancy's wings,
Whilst the shrill cricket blithely sings.

When Sabbath comes, God's holy boon,—
Blest day, so dear and fugitive!—
I'll ask yon sun, which leaves us soon,
For all the light that he can give;
I'll fly to Nature's tranquil breast,
With the same feelings as of old,
And lay me down for thought and rest
In fields of fluctuating gold;
Or murmur sweet imaginings
Where the fresh brooklet blithely sings.

I'll tread the upland's starry floors,
Climb the rough mountain's shadowy side,
Feel the deep silence of the moors—
Silence that awes all human pride;
The voice of birds 'mid forest glooms,
The lapse of waters in the shade,—
Shapes, colours, motions, sounds, perfumes,
Of Nature's making, shall pervade
My senses with delightful things,
Whilst my rapt soul serenely sings.

“AS WELCOME AS FLOWERS IN MAY.”

“As welcome as flowers in May!”
Kind words with a musical sound;
What can be more welcome than they,
When fair-footed Spring cometh round?
Glad Spring! ever welcome to each,
To Childhood, to Manhood, and Age,
For she comes to delight us and teach,
And she opens a beautiful page.

There are many things welcome as these,
As we thread the dim mazes of life;
A calm sense of pleasure and ease
After seasons of sorrow and strife—
A feeling of safety and glee
When a danger, long threatened, is past,
And even the knowledge to see
That the worst has befallen at last;—

Fresh health on the cheek of a child,
That we feared was escaping above;—
A smile from the maid undefiled,
Who hath kindled one's soul into love;—
The sound of the blithe marriage bell
To the bride who has given her heart,
And the words of her husband, that tell
His devotion will never depart;—

The birth of a child, when we feel
We can foster it, guard it, and guide,
While the smiles of its mother reveal
Her matchless affection and pride;—
Its first broken syllables, made
More closely our bosoms to bind,
And its upgrowing beauty, displayed
In the promising dawn of its mind;—

The first pleasant glimpse of our home,
After travel, with toil and annoy,
When we vow for the moment to roam
No more from its threshold of joy;—
Each form more expanded in grace,—
Each voice more melodious grown;—
The soul-beaming gladness of face
Of the whole household treasure, our own;—

Old Ocean's magnificent roar
To a voyager loving the sea,
And the sight of his dear native shore
When he cometh back scathless and free;—
The music of brooks and of birds
To a captive just loosened from thrall,
And the love-lighted looks and sweet words
Of his wife, who is dearer than all;—

The soul-touching penitent-tears
Of those who have strayed from the light,
When they come, with their hopes and their fears,
To ask us to lead them aright;—
The frank, cordial look of a foe
We have conquered by kindness and peace,
And the pure satisfaction to know
That a friendship begun will increase;—

And then, in our calm chimney nook,
Alone, with a fire burning bright,
How welcome a newly-brought book,
That has startled the world with delight!
How welcome one's own printed name
To our first happy efforts in song,
And the first grateful whisper of Fame,
That bids us speed bravely along!

There are many more subjects, no doubt,
If my Muse had but language and time;
But there's something I must not leave out,—
It will gracefully finish my rhyme:
From a friend how heart-warming to hear,
What his lips with sincerity say,
“Why, your presence brings comfort and cheer;—
“You're as welcome as flowers in May!”

CHRISTMAS.

One cannot choose but love the bells,
With their harmonious din,—
Those speaking bells, whose falls and swells
Ring merry Christmas in;
They sound like angel-voices sent
From some serener sphere,
Singing from out the firmament—
“The Prince of Peace is here!”

“Good will fulfil, fulfil good will!”
Their glad lips seem to say,—
“The best ye can for brother man!”
Goes on the cheerful lay.
And shall we scorn such fancy-songs—
If fancy-songs they be—
Which lift us up from woes and wrongs,
And bid our joys be free?

No; rouse to life the laughing blaze,—
Draw round it, every one;
Away, sad thoughts of former days!—
Cares of to-day, begone!
Ah, now ye wear a Christmas look,
A bright and earnest grace,
Even the old clock within the nook
Trims up its burnished face.

Now pledge we in the wassail bowl,
Warm wishes, long to last!—
'Tis done! we feel from soul to soul
The friendship-flame has passed;
And sternest hearts will now forgive,
And gentlest hearts forget;
Let's live to love, and love to live,
And we'll be happy yet.

Now for an anthem, such as rung
In halls and homes of old;
Let every thought to joy be strung,
Each voice flow free and bold.
Lo! as ye sing, each voiceless thing
Stirs at the tuneful call,
For the berries that blush 'mid the holly-bush
Tremble upon the wall!

Dear Christmas Days! how fair ye seem,
Glad, holy, and sublime!
Like prints of angel feet ye gleam
Along the path of Time!
Foot-prints whereon sweet heart-flowers blow,
By worldly storms unriven,
That we may mark them as we go,
And find our way to Heaven.

A LOVE MELODY.

In the morning of Life, when our feelings are new,
And our pathway is pleasant with sunshine and dew;
When many-toned music pervadeth the air,
And the commonest thing that we look on is fair,—
How sweet the first passion, that prompts us to stray
With one who adds beauty to beautiful May!
While a voice seems to steal through the shade of the bowers,
Singing—“Love is the odour of heavenly flowers!”

When wedded, and home groweth bright with the bride,
An angel to walk through the world by our side,—
When day after day we're enraptured to find
New graces of manner, new treasures of mind,—
Calm temper, clear foresight, disdain of all guile,—
For the mournful a tear, for the mirthful a smile,—
How deeply we feel, when such blessing is ours,
That “Love is the odour of heavenly flowers!”

And, ah! when the fond name of Father we hear,
From young lips and voices, all rosy and clear,—
When the multiplied charms of the Mother are seen
In the cherub-like feature, the infantile mien,
A fountain of joy, undiscovered before,
Opens up in the heart, and runs tenderly o'er,
While expand in the soul fresh affections and powers,—
Such “Love is the odour of heavenly flowers!”

Unto household and kindred, to friend and to man,
If we give all the love that we ought—that we can,
We lose not, we lack not;—such giving is gain,
As the earth gets her own exhalations in rain:
Kind words and good offices go to increase,—
Reverberate sweetly, and bless us with peace;
Let us foster the faith, in this rough world of ours,
That “Love is the odour of heavenly flowers!”

THE GOLDEN LAND OF POESY.

Forth on a venturous voyage I went,
When young, and full of ardent schemes,
To seek some isle or continent
Swathed in a purer element—
Foreshadowed in my daily dreams.
I knew a small and favoured band
Had crossed the intervening sea;
Gifted in soul, had reached the strand,
Had roamed and revelled in the land,
The golden land of Poesy.

They brought from that delicious clime
Rare things, and beautiful withal;
They told, in lofty, living rhyme,
Of many a spectacle sublime,—
Of pleasures that can never pall,—
Of odorous flowers, and fruits that twine
Together on one parent tree,—
Of magic sounds,—of shapes that shine
From light within, and make divine
That golden land of Poesy.

My bark was Hope, all gaily dight,
My crew were Passions, good and ill,—
Some ready with the waves to fight,
Obedient to the rule of right,
And some rebellious to my will;

I had no helm wherewith to steer,
No chart whereby my way to see,
No compass guiding my career
To that resplendent hemisphere,
The golden land of Poesy.

My task was sterner than I deemed,
For scornful voices filled the air;
Storms rose, and lightnings round me gleamed,—
Rude winds and angry waters seemed
To threaten danger and despair;
My crew, impatient of control,
Were mutinous for liberty;
But the best instincts of my soul
Still led me onwards towards the goal,—
The golden land of Poesy.

At length, oh, joy! the enchanted shore
Loomed up in far-off loveliness,
And I grew eager to explore
The wondrous realm; my tears ran o'er
With very gladness of success.
Odours of spices and of flowers
Came on the breezes, blowing free;
Rich branches reft from gorgeous bowers
Bestrewed the wave;—the land was ours,—
The golden land of Poesy!—

Not yet! a barrier crossed my way,—
My shrinking vessel back recoiled;
I could not reach the sheltering bay,
For rocks and shoals about me lay,
And winds opposed, and waters boiled.

Thus baffled by the Poet-god,
I only brought—alas for me!—
Some waifs and strays from that bright sod
Which I have seen, but have not trod,—
The golden land of Poesy!.

May I not now my hopes renew?—
Must failure teach me to be wise?
Meseems I was not of the few
Destined to “feed on honey-dew,
And drink the milk of Paradise.”
Must I content me with the gain
Which loftier spirits bring to me,—
They who are privileged to reign
Lords of that far and fair domain,
The golden land of Poesy?

Perchance 'twere best; albeit that fame
Is a rich guerdon to forego;
To win a Bard's exalted name,
Hailed by a nation's high acclaim,
Is an endowment few can know.
But let me, then, for solace' sake
Send my thoughts thither, fancy-free,—
Dream that I follow in the wake
Of those who hasten to partake
The golden land of Poesy!

THE RESCUE.

In a dim court, shut inward from a street,
Where lounging Vice and toiling Misery meet;
Where squalid forms and cunning faces stray
Idly about, the live-long summer day,
Creeping to crime as wanes the evening light,
Till brawl and revel rouse the middle night;—
A fair girl stands, amid a babbling crowd
Of shameless women, reckless, rude, and loud,
Whose tongues run riot on some evil theme,
Whose restless eyes with wanton passions gleam,—
Whose mien and manner shock the modest mind,—
Whose very words profane the passing wind,
And tell how fallen from virtue and from grace
Are they, poor outcasts of an erring race!
I watch the Maid, and in her pensive eyes
Read thoughts that thrill me with a sad surmise;
I see her quake with sorrow or regret,
I see her cheek with recent weeping wet;
The hues of health and innocence appear
Fresh on her youthful face—What doth she here?

In raiment seemly, and in aspect mild,
A Stranger comes, to cheer the drooping child;
Scatters the crowd, and, taught to teach and feel,
Questions the damsel with a kindly zeal;

To which she answers, with an artless truth
That adds a charm to her unguarded youth:—

“Believe me, Stranger, though my steps have strayed,
I am not lost, yet wildered and dismayed.
Three days ago I left our cottage door,
My once sweet home—a home for me no more!—
Because since Death's inevitable hand
Beckoned my mother to the better land,
My father, once our pattern and our pride,
Has turned from peaceful rectitude aside,
And a dread shadow sits upon his soul,—
The frantic spirit of the baneful bowl.
His lips, whereon hung moving words and mild,
Are now with curses and the cup defiled;
His eyes, once eloquent with gentlest fire,
Burn with the craving of a low desire;
His heart, erewhile with worthiest feelings glad,
Is warped and withered, turbulent or sad,
And that small homestead where my sisters grew,
Like flowers entwining,—where my brothers, too,
Gamboled together, 'neath a mother's gaze
Of sweet solicitude, of silent praise,—
That little spot has now become the lair
Of guilt and grief, disorder and despair,—
Of waste and want, of solitude or din,—
Remorse and tears, and still-recurrent sin.

“Pain-worn at length, grown weary of the strife,
The taint, the torment of this later life,
Forlorn I came to this tumultuous town,
Through its vast mazes wandered up and down,
In the vain quest of refuge, labour, bread,
Or meanest pillow for my aching head;

Till here I stumbled upon dangerous ground,
Verge of a gulf appalling and profound!
Last night, entoiled within that squalid den,
'Mong wanton women, and lascivious men,
I passed in fear the laggard hours away,
And looked with longing for the dawn of day.
With lavish care, and words in kindly guise,
With glowing lures, with rainbow-coloured lies,
They strove to make me that lost thing whose name
Is linked with sorrow, turpitude, and shame;
And hopeless, helpless, friendless, and alone,
My courage flying, and my quiet flown,
No warning voice, no shield or shelter near,
I might have fallen—but God has sent you here!”—

“His be the praise!” the pitying Stranger cried;—
Be He thy Stay, thy Counsellor, thy Guide1
I, a poor servant of His sovereign will,
Would help to snatch thee from impending ill,—
Would rescue from disaster and disgrace,
The fearful chances of this dangerous place.”

“Thanks, from my heart!” exclaimed the grateful Maid,
While the quick joy o'er all her features played;
“Those gentle precepts which my mother taught,
For the clear guidance of each dawning thought,
And the blest quiet of those Sabbath days
Which tuned my soul to peace, my tongue to praise,
Brood in my memory; and I would not scare—
Would Heaven permit—the bright things nestling there.
Give me a lowly home, apart from strife,
'Mid the sweet elements of blameless life,—
Bread for my labour, knowledge for my pains,
Cheerful religion—'bove all earthly gains,

A faith in all the wondrous Word reveals,
A power to soothe when misery appeals,
And I will go where good men's feet have trod,
Honour the giver, and adore my God!”

“Come,” said the Stranger, whose consoling eye
Beamed with the triumph of humanity;
“Come, I will lead thee unto hearts that glow
With pure compassion for all human woe;
Who strive with sin, and long to make it less,
Who yearn to teach, to succour, and to bless:
There, if thy better genius rule the while,
And God vouchsafe the favour of His smile,
Thou mayest expand in goodliness and grace,
Peace in thy heart, and pleasure in thy face;
And so look back to this remembered day
As a new portal to the better way.”

True to her nature, unto virtue true,
Begirt with guardian friends, the Maiden grew,—
Grew into glorious womanhood, a thing
That seemed o'ershadowed by an angel's wing.
Not for herself, her labours and her love,
Nor the deep prayer-thoughts hourly winged above,—
Not for herself alone, but human kind,
And the dear home-ties she had left behind.
Refined in speech, in mental vigour strong,
Tender and quiet, bashful in the throng,
In spirit pure, in moral purpose high,
With all her feelings mirrored in her eye,
Growing in goodness as she grew in grace,
Again she sought the old familiar place,—
Stepped o'er the threshold like a shape of light,
Her bosom bounding, and her aspect bright;

Flew to the parent-breast, so long estranged,
While her quick glance around the dwelling ranged;
With words bedipt in Truth's celestial fire
Appealed, nor vainly, to the man, the sire;
Bound him anew beneath Love's pure control,
Drove out the demon from his sinking soul;
Until, his eyes with free tears gushing o'er,
He kissed her cheek, and vowed to sin no more!

Thus, a kind word with a resistless charm
Drew a poor woman from impending harm;
Thus a good deed, so promptly, wisely done,
Back unto peace an erring mortal won.
The law of kindness hath a noble sway,
Which hardest hearts instinctively obey:
Let us enforce the gentle, genial power,
And so snatch pleasure from each passing hour!

THE FAIRY'S FUNERAL.

A FANTASY.

It was a summer's eventide,
Soft, sweet, and silent, warm and bright,
And all the glorious landscape wide,—
The lowly thorn, the tree of pride,
The grass-blades marshalled side by side,—
Wore, thicker than the cope of Night,
Innumerable drops of light,
Shed from a cloud's dissolving breast,
That journeyed towards the golden west,
And blushed, a fair transfigured thing,
In the bright presence of its king.

That brilliant baptism, cool and brief,
Flung from the font of summer skies,
Came with a fresh and full relief
To all the countless shapes and dyes
That spring from Earth's prolific veins,
And banquet on the genial rains;
For all the languid leaves and flowers,
In tangled brakes and cultured bowers,
In level fields and hollow dells,
By woodside walks and mossy wells;

The limber bine and blooming brier,
The wallflower's mass of cloudy fire,
The fair and many-folded rose,
Reclining in a proud repose,—
The clover filled with honey-dew,
Things of familiar form and hue,—
Sent such a gush of incense up,
From bell and boss, from crown and cup,
As seemed to burden all the air
With Nature's breath of silent prayer,
And give that joyous draught of rain,
Sublimed in fragrance, back again.

The twinkling rain-drops were exhaled,
The sun went down, the welkin paled,
Taking that tender twilight hue
Of silver mingling with the blue,
What time I took my pleasant way
To an old sylvan nook, that lay
A league apart from street and town,
In a deep dingle, hushed and brown,
Through which a streamlet, fed by rills
That babbled of the pleasant hills,
With a low music hurried on
Into far shadow, and was gone.
It was a spot for calmest thought,
All wildly, intricately wrought
Into a dim and fairy bower,
By Nature's unassisted power.
The plume-like fern grew thick and green,
The foxglove stood with stately mien
On grassy slopes, and in the breeze
Shook all its crimson chalices;
The playful leveret limped about
Its sandy burrow, in and out;

From shadowy brake and bough was heard
The “cheep” of some unsettled bird;
The honeysuckle seemed to sigh
To the white wild-rose lovingly,
And both sent through the verdant gloom
The mingled breath of their perfume.

I sat beneath an old oak tree,
Whose branches murmured harmony,
While hill and vale, and copse and glade,
Were gathering into deeper shade,
As night stole on; but sweetly soon
Clomb up the sky the quiet Moon,
Gently diffusing, as she rose,
A softer aspect of repose,—
A light that came to soothe and bless
With beauty and with holiness.
As the blest beams came streaming round,
And made upon the flowery ground
Mosaic spots of shade and sheen,
Worthy the foot of Fairy Queen—
I dropt into a reverie,
My loose thoughts roaming fancy-free,
In realms fantastic, evermore
Bequeathed to us in poet-lore.

Strange visions were they and not few,
That slid athwart my mental view:
Genii, of good and evil might,—
The hideous Ghoul and afreet Sprite;
Dwarf Gnomes, that dwell in mountain caves;
Kelpies, that lure to treacherous waves;
Brownies and Banshees, quaint and wild,
And Pixy, the unbaptized child;
The nine-pin players on Hudson's side,
And Peter Wilkins' wingèd Bride.

I then bethought me (dainty theme!)
Of the great Seer's Midsummer Dream,
And of that little Imp of power
Who pranked it with the purple flower;
Then I beheld the enchanted strand
Where Prospero wavèd wizard-wand,
And heard around the voiceful spell
Of dear and delicate Ariel.

Here, with a sudden thrill and quake,
I woke from dream,—or seemed to wake;
For a strange music, low and sweet,
Seemed to be winding round my feet,
Scarce louder than the hum of bee,
Or gnat's complaining minstrelsy;
But sweeter far, as if the flowers
Sang of the loss of sun and showers;—
A solemn, yet melodious strain,
A dirge of grief, a wail of pain.
Casting around a searching gaze,
With anxious feelings of amaze,
In a broad patch of open light,
A wondrous vision met my sight,—
A train of tiny beings, dressed
In snowy plume and sombre vest,
Moving along in order slow,
As if on business of woe.
Came in the van a little band,
With tuneful instruments in hand,
Playing a wild and mournful spell,
On trumpets of the sweet bluebell;
Then came a rush-made coffin small,
Covered with drooping plantain-pall,
Bedecked with many a violet,
With silvery night-dews freshly wet;

And then a crowd, in sad array,
Followed along the moonlit way.

Six paces from me, where the light
Shone full upon them, softly bright,
They stopped, and with a tender care
Parted the fern-plumes growing there,
Disclosing to my watchful eyes
A little grave of bird-like size,
Wherein they lowered the fairy dead,
And with a reverential tread
Clustered around, while all the throng
Joined in this simple parting song:—

FAIRY SONG.

Oh! loveliest of the Fairy race,
We mourn thy fading, elfin flower!
No more shall we behold thy face
Give beauty to the banquet-bower;
No more wilt thou, 'neath forest bough,
Share in the mystic sport and spell,
No more enhance our midnight dance,
Loveliest sister, Floribel!

And yet, 'tis well that thou art gone,
For we must find departing wings,
Since Man hath set his soul upon
The worth of more material things;
But Poets' songs, and Poets' tongues,
Shall praise and vindicate us well;—
Oh! blest be they whose living lay
Hath shrined us, sister Floribel!

Both Lights of Heaven shall gild thy grave,
And sweet flowers blow upon thy bed;
And many a wild-bird chant a stave
Above thy now unconscious head;

And while we may about thee stay,
On mountain side, in bosky dell,
We'll guard and grace thy resting-place,
Loved, lost sister, Floribel!

The descant done, they shook in showers
From a wild rose-bush all its flowers,
Which fell and veiled the grave below,
Like coverlet of fragrant snow;
But scarcely had they settled there,
Than all the crew in earth or air
Evanished, like the meteor-light
That flits across the face of Night;
Like breath on sunlit mirror's face,
Or vapour in the womb of space.
I listened—there was not a sound
Save a faint breeze that whispered round;
I looked—but nothing could I see
But quivering grass and quiet tree;
And as I did not dare to brave
The secret of that little grave,
I sauntered homeward, all intent
Upon my strange bewilderment;
Concluding that the Moon had shed
Lunatic influence on my head,—
Had set my thoughts too wildly free,
And filled my brain with Fantasy!

A SONG OF THE WOODLANDS.

“The fern and the foxglove for me, yes, for me!”
Was a saying of bold Robin Hood,
When he thought of his life in the forest so free,—
The charms of the merry greenwood.
To him 'twas a pleasure, which others might scorn,
To dwell 'mid their growth and their bloom;
The flower had the shape of his own bugle-horn,
And the fern had the wave of his plume.

“The fern and the foxglove for me!” echo I,—
There is poetry e'en in the sound,
When I think of the deer fleeting fearlessly by,
And the birds singing gladsomely round;
Of the twilight that hangs in the stalwart old trees,—
Of the sun-spots and shadows that fall,—
Of the low, mellow boom of the wandering bees,
And a blue, boundless heaven o'er all.

“The fern and the foxglove for us!” echo they
Whose souls have a summertide glow,
When they vow to make merry one “red-letter” day,
Where sweet winds and sweeter flowers blow;

Imagine the meal on the sward in the shade,
The laughter that startleth the noon,
The song that reëchoes through dingle and glade,
And the happy hearts throbbing in tune.

“The fern and the foxglove for us!” echo all
For Freedom and Nature who yearn;
How gladly would thousands escape from their thrall,
To look on the foxglove and fern!
Town-workers, who faint in the world's daily fight,
Oh! waste not the leisure that's given,
But away to the woodlands for health and delight,
For the beauty of earth and of heaven!

A MAY-DAY WALK.

Blest be this bright and breezy May,
Which smiles away my sorrow!
I'll snatch a harmless joy to-day,
Though troubles come to-morrow.
Who would not breathe this generous air,
Which meaner things delight in?—
Who would not Nature's banquet share,
Her own sweet self inviting?

Come forth, my Friend, of kindred mind,
My friend in every weather,—
Leave Mammon's ledger-lore behind,
And let us stray together;
Come forth in quest of liberty,
Nor think of looms and spindles;
There's Health, Peace, Beauty, Poesy,
'Mong mountain-streams and rindles.

“Man liveth not by bread alone!”
Truth from a Source transcendent;—
His soul asks something of its own,
Less gross, and less dependent;
It claims the privilege of Thought
Beyond the dusty Real,
Its hopeful visions, called and caught
From realms of the Ideal.

And genial Nature's humblest things,
In wintry garb or vernal,
Can lend Man's longing spirit wings
To reach some sphere supernal;—
A rose-bush shivering 'gainst the sky,—
A weed of beauteous seeming,—
A dew-drop in a cowslip's eye,
With trembling lustre beaming.

Many the motives and the means
Wherewith God deigns to gift us,
That unto higher, holier scenes,
In thoughtful hours uplift us;
And it is good to break away
From the cold world's harsh laughter,
And soar into a purer day,—
The shadow of Hereafter!

Joy! my dear friend! at length we're out,
Away from crowds and clamours,
From all the rumbling and the rout
Of engines, looms, and hammers;
The mountains rise upon our sight,
Breathing of pleasant places;
We'll feel, ere day drops into night,
Their grandeurs and their graces.

Here daisies greet us as we pass,
In constellated grouping;
And the sweet face of country lass
Flits by, with eyelids drooping;
And wild-wood odours come and go,
As the swart hills draw nearer;
And in a warmer current flow
Our fancies, quick and clearer.

And here's the pathway rent and rude,
The threshold of the mountains,—
And now we're in the solitude
Of mosses, rocks, and fountains;
There's Haridge, towering up to meet
The sunlit clouds above him;
And here's the streamlet at his feet,
Whose waters seem to love him.

How like a strong and sportive child
This hill-born runnel rushes,—
Now foaming, frolicsome, and wild,
With frantic leaps and gushes;
Now in a sort of murmuring dream
Through reed and grass it wimples,—
Anon in Day's unclouded beam
Laughs with a thousand dimples.

Stream, thou art nameless, or thy name
But ill becomes thy beauty;
I fain would make thee known to fame,
As is thy Poet's duty;
I'll christen thee with tongue and pen,
Henceforth let none defame thee;
The Brushes is thy native glen,
And Brushlin Brook I name thee.

And now, my Friend, we'll track the wave
Far upward to its fountain,
And when we've sung a greenwood stave,
We'll dare that haughty mountain;
The lark that thrills yon snowy cloud,—
The thrush that sings before us,—
The cuckoo calling sweet and loud,
Will join us in the chorus.

'Tis done! now upward with strong will,—
No yielding,—no surrender,—
Up to the top, that we may fill
Our souls with May-day splendour.
'Tis toilsome! Yes! but let us try
With sturdy stride together;—
The thing's achieved! albeit we lie
Panting among the heather.

Dear Heaven! what glory swathes the land!
What harmony of feature!
Scattered abroad from God's own hand,
O'er the great face of Nature!
What amplitude of cloudless space!
What mingled hues and gleamings!
What grandeur, softened down with grace,
And in one's soul what dreamings!

Oh! for a page of Wordsworth now,—
Him the great Master-Preacher!
Would we could look upon his face,
And hear the Poet-Teacher!
Hear him relate his wondrous lays,
Sprung from his heart's deep fountains,
Of wisdom, 'mid untrodden ways
Among the solemn mountains.

But since we may not see the Bard,
Let's think upon his glory,—
His high, calm genius, whose reward
Is life in future story;
Oh! when he joins a nobler quire,
To sing still more divinely,
Who shall assume his earthly lyre,
And make it speak so finely?

Alas! our chiefest Bards are old!
Hushed are their tuneful voices;
But at the tales which they have told
Each kindred heart rejoices.
When the five stars we love are gone,
How will their going grieve us!
Canst thou, large-gifted Tennyson,
Console us when they leave us?

Canst thou, soul-soaring “Festus,” sing,
To soothe our great bereavement?
Canst thou, quaint Browning, solace bring
By any new achievement?
Can ye, with power that knows no fear,
Re-wake one harp that slumbers?—
We hope, and wait, and long to hear
Your yet unuttered numbers.

A truce to this old theme, my Friend,
Our spirits grow regretful;
To talk of what we cannot mend
But makes us sad and fretful;
Though Song is something half divine,
With which 'tis sweet to dally,
'Tis bright May-Day, and we must dine,—
Descend we to the valley.

Ah! here's a table for our meal!
Its cover green and golden;
To Him who made it let us feel
How much we are beholden!
The shadows of these waving boughs
Across our faces flitter,
And there a tinkling fountain flows,
Falling with silvery glitter.

This lovely scene and mountain air
Are better, there's no question,
Than costly room and dainty fare,
With spleen and indigestion;
And we have music far more sweet
Than Jullien ever found us,—
The brook that babbles at our feet,
The birds that carol round us.

Commence the banquet, and partake
With gusto keen and hearty;
Now pass the beaker;—don't we make
A most congenial party?
Thanks to the Giver! We have done;
But ere we cross the meadows,
Let us escape the noontide sun,
Within these sylvan shadows.

Sing me some old and simple lay,
Such as I've heard ye humming,
Or chant me of that doubtful day,—
The very “good time coming;”
But since your pipe is out of tune,
I'll e'en for once take pity,
And break the drowsy hush of Noon
With my own foolish ditty:—

SONG.

When golden-haired Sol to the Seasons gave birth,
And saw that his plan was complete,
He told them to govern and gladden the Earth
With interchange needful and sweet;
He marshalled before him the Months and the Hours,
But ere he dismissed them away,
He called unto Flora, the Goddess of Flowers,
And beckoned his favourite May.

“Dear Flora, I pray thee, bestow on my child
Some beautiful gifts of thine own;
I have lent to her countenance light undefiled,
To her voice a most musical tone;
Besprinkle her garments with dews and perfumes,
That shall follow her footsteps alway,
And give her a girdle of exquisite blooms,
Becoming my favourite May.”

She alighted on Earth, and the valley and plain
Were flushed with her glorious hues;
The bees clung about her; the breezes were fain
Her magical sweets to diffuse;
When the Poet beheld her, at once she became
The theme of his loveliest lay;
Since then she is linked with his heart and his fame,
For the month of the Poet is May.

She awoke in the souls of susceptible Youth
New fires, which all others surpass;
Touched the lips of the Wooer with tenderest truth,
With blushes the cheek of the Lass;
In her presence their glances grew bashful, but bright,
Their faces unwontedly gay,
Or grave with a deep and unuttered delight,
For the month of the Lover is May.

Then hail to this Child of Apollo! her smile
Makes Nature laugh out and rejoice;
And the proud heart of Man, growing gentler the while,
Leaps up at the sound of her voice;
She comes like a breath from those gardens above,
Which know neither cloud nor decay,
She bringeth us Poësy, Beauty, and Love,—
What a season of joyance is May!

So ends my descant. Now we'll pass
Through yon romantic wild-wood,
And pull some flowers from out the grass,
To grace the brows of Childhood.

How silent is this bowery way!
The air how sweet and cooling!
Here Jaques might love to shun the day,
And Touchstone act his fooling.

Now we emerge upon the leas,
With floral splendour glowing;
The meadows swell like golden seas,
The breeze is richly blowing;
Alternate glooms, alternate gleams,
O'er hill and vale flit lightly,—
Now a full burst of sunny beams
Blends the whole landscape brightly.

Here's the old bridge, and here's the Tame,
Which seems to glide at leisure;
And here's the way this morn we came,
In search of health and pleasure.
Fresh from the hills, yon murky town
Seems to oppress and blind us,
While the dear woods and moorlands brown
Lie calm and fair behind us.

A puff of steam,—three minutes' space,—
Some clangour, and a scramble,
And we are in our dwelling-place,
Pleased with our Mountain Ramble;
The plant of “old Cathay” shall make
A draught both safe and cheery,
And we will talk as we partake,
Forgetting we are weary.

Rising on Thought's aspiring wing,
We'll talk of Bards and Sages,
Of every pure and precious thing
We've found among their pages;

Of past misdeeds, of present needs,
Of future generations,
And what the age we live in breeds
For the great good of nations.

Science, Philosophy, and Song,
We'll touch, without pretension;
Of what seems right, of what seems wrong,
Converse without dissension;
Thought should be wide and free as air,
Impatient of restriction,—
Free be the words, if they are fair,
And pregnant with conviction.

Thus will we wing the evening hours,
Knowledge with Pleasure blending,—
A May-Day passed 'mid fields and flowers
Should have no foolish ending.
Then to our pillows we will creep,
Mindful of morrow's duties,
And find the visions of our sleep
Clothed with a thousand beauties.

Brushes, the name of the locality.

Wordsworth, Moore, Montgomery, Rogers, and Leigh Hunt.

THE SILVER CHAMBER.

A DREAM.

I had a dream, one sad and restless night,
And the strange vision haunts my memory still:
'Twas of a Silver Chamber, wanly bright,
Shut from the world, and desolate, and chill;
Whilst on my face fell icy drops of light,
Like to the wintry waters of a rill.

Methought, upon a silver-covered bed,
Bowed down with sorrow and with pain, I lay,
And silver curtains, drooping o'er my head,
Smote my hot eye-balls with a sickly ray;
I waited thus, in vague and silent dread,
For the blest dawning of another day.

At length I saw, right through the silver door,
A little Human Form come gently in,
From whose mild eyes a lambent light did pour,
As from a lamp that calmly burned within;
But as the Shape approached me, more and more
I felt the weight and shadow of my sin.

It came, and, looking in the Spirit-face,
I knew its lineaments; She had been one
Of my heart's hopes, as full of love and grace
As e'er an earthly sunlight shone upon;
But Death had taken her to a holier place,
And my chief joy of home and hearth was gone.

“Father,”—thus spake her silver-sounding tongue—
“I saw thy state, I heard thy weary sigh,
And I have come to thee, but not for long,
Commissioned from my happy home on high,
To warn and soothe thee, ere the angel-throng
Recall me to my duties in the sky.

“Alas! I find thee feeble and forlorn,
Wasted and sick, and sore oppressed with woe!
Is it not time that thou shouldst learn to scorn
All worthless things that tempt thee here below,—
Seek inward peace, and hail Heaven's matchless morn,
When thou art called to gird thy loins and go?

“What are to thee, and to thy inner mind,
The low pursuits and pleasures of the earth;—
The Circean charms which strike thy reason blind,
The passionate frenzy, and the foolish mirth,
When thou hast other gifts, which God designed
To do good work, and win a higher birth?

“Strive upward, with an ever upward gaze,
As all good men—all patient men—have striven;
Strive to evangelise thy later days,
Outlive the past, and feel thyself forgiven;
That I may hear thy hopeful voice of praise
Resounding in the radiant halls of Heaven!”

Thus spake, in syllables that left perfume,
My lost Delight, my Angel-Child to me!
My soul at once cast off its pall of gloom;
Up from my heart my tears flowed fast and free:
Oh! may that vision of the Silver Room
Prove Mercy's beacon-light of love to me!

PLEURS; OR, THE TOWN OF TEARS.

Oh! sunny South! oh! bright Italian land!
Sweet shore of Story, Melody, and Song!
Ne'er has it been my privilege to stand
Amid the charms which to thy clime belong;
Ne'er to behold thy olive-shadowed plains,—
Thy mountain slopes, all redolent of wine,—
Thy matchless palaces,—thy ancient fanes,
And other things divine.

Yet once, whilst gazing from Alsatian hills,
I caught a sunset vision of the wall
(Bristling with countless snow-crowned pinnacles)
Which towers between thee and thy sister, Gaul;
The glimpse was grand and gorgeous; white and gold
Gleamed for a space on every mountain crest;
I longed to leap that Alpine barrier bold,
And light upon thy breast.

And still I yearn to sun me in the clime
Where Dante, Tasso, Ariosto sung;
Where graceful Raphael, Angelo sublime,
Divine creations on the canvas hung;
Where Petrarch loved, where Boccace told his tale,
Where great Canova made the marble fair;
Where Time, Tradition, Genius, clothe and veil
With glory all that's there.

Alas! that when our aspirations tend,
With pure desire, towards good and glorious things,
Some ruthless circumstance should come to bend
Sternly to earth even Hope's impatient wings!
No more! Let Fancy aid me to relate
An old, stray story of forgotten woe;—
Of Pleurs, her awful and o'erwhelming fate,
Two hundred years ago:—

There is a broad and beauteous vale
(So says the pilgrim, wandering),
O'er whose sweet face the temperate gale
Sweeps with a soft, salubrious wing;
And gentlest charms are there, I ween:
Meadows arrayed in loveliest sheen,—
Woods from the glare of noontide shut,—
Châlet, and farm, and herdsman's hut,
And many a herd-besprinkled lea;
And Maira, winding towards the sea
In shining curves, like silvery thread,
Through an embroidered garment led;
And glow of vines, and gleam of rills,
On the great insteps of the hills;
And the proud Conto looking o'er
The spot which he o'erwhelmed of yore,

Seeming as steadfast and serene
As though such havoc ne'er had been.
But round this valley's ample breast
A hundred hills sublimely rise,
Piercing with many a splintered crest
The tranquil azure of the skies.
And farther on, enclosing all,
As with a vast eternal wall,
Loom up, with foreheads grey and grand,
The frontier Alps of Switzerland;
Clothed, like the clouds, in shadowy white,
Beneath the full day's downward light;
But, when the sun declines to rest,
In gorgeous chambers of the west,
Wearing upon their scalps of snow
A soft, ethereal, rosy glow;
As if a troop of angels fair
Paused for a space, and rested there,
Diffusing from their wings sublime
The colours of a holier clime.

Once from that lovely vale looked up,
Like pearl-drop in an emerald cup,
The Town of Tears,—a name she bore
From some disaster long before;
Yet she belied that name of woe,
So gaily did she glance and glow
In her own pure Italian air,
With temples, theatres, and towers,
White dwellings gleaming through their bowers,
And other graceful things and fair.
She was a refuge of delight,
To those who from the world's rude fight
Could gladly steal themselves away;—

100

A place of calm and stirring joy,
Where many a pleasure's sweet employ
Beguiled the hours of every day.
The Merchant left his books and care,
To find some rest and solace there;
The Painter put his pencil down,
To seek that laughter-loving town;
The Sculptor came for newer themes,—
The Poet to refresh his dreams;
For song, and dance, and feast, and wine,
And forms of beauty, half divine,
And pleasant smiles, and loving eyes,
Made it a social Paradise.
From morn till noon, from noon till night,
A constant carnival was kept,
That one might say, and say aright,
That Pleurs had laughed until she wept;
For such the solemn truth appears,
Knowing thy doom, poor Town of Tears!

One eventide in vintage time,
When joyance rang throughout the clime,
Alone within the woodland shade
A Youth and Maiden talked and strayed;
Earnest they seemed, without disguise,
With looks that sought each other's eyes;
Save that the Maiden, now and then,
Would turn her glances towards the ground,
Only to bring them back again
To him, with pleasure more profound;
Till in a bower's umbrageous maze,
Which baffled the obtrusive gaze,
They paused to rest; and being there,
Let Fancy draw the loving pair:—

101

The Youth possessed a manly mien,
Yet pale was he, and slight of limb;
His eyes, far-seeing yet serene,
Pensive sometimes, were never dim;
And on his high and marble brow
The light of genius seemed to glow;
Nay, none could misconstrue the air
Of mental beauty reigning there;
And yet the whole seemed overwrought
With deep intensity of thought,
As if the soul had strained her wings
In flying towards ideal things.
The Maiden had a healthier charm,
Buoyant, luxuriant, soft, and warm;
Her whole bright being seeming rife
With keenest sense of love and life.
Her eyes, which changed with every feeling,
Had dew and depth beyond revealing;
Love, laughter, anger, and disdain,
Outward delight, or inward pain,
By turns o'erawed, or pleased, or blest,
Those who beheld and knew her best.
But, Oh! her soft and gracious smile
On the enchanted gazer fell
Like sunburst lingering awhile
On meads of golden asphodel;
And her sweet laughter gushed away
Like rain-drops on a summer's noon;
Or dimpling brook in sparkling play,
Or instrument in rapid tune;
And when her smile and laughter fled,
Beauty and music both seemed dead.
She was, in sooth, a loving child
Of Nature, warm and undefiled,—

102

A perfect woman, chaste as snow,
Formed to be blest and bless below,
Increase man's joy, and share his woe.

“Thou must not leave me, Florio,”
Said the young Maiden, tenderly;
“I cannot yet behold thee go,
My love must plead,—it cannot be!
Thou know'st that long and heavy rains
Have swept these mountain heights and plains,
And that the herdsmen from the hills,
With presage of a thousand ills,
Have brought us tales of gloom and dread;—
Of changes on old Conto's head,
Of rent, and chasm, and awful sound,
Tremblings and cleavings of the ground,
As if the holds of Nature shook,
And quivered loosely as a brook.
Didst thou not see, but t'other day,
A noble vineyard swept away
By avalanche of earth and stone,
Like reeds o'er which the fire has blown?
Oh! quit me not, if I am dear;
I have a sad foreboding here!
Stay to sustain me, I implore,
Lest I should ne'er behold thee more!”
“Francesca,” Florio said, and smiled—
“Be not by foolish fears beguiled;
Dost think the hills, old as the world,
Will from their steadfast seats be hurled,
Because some superstitious minds—
Some simple and unlettered hinds,—
Prognosticate the thing? Ah! no,
'Twere impious to believe it so.

103

Behold! there are no signs of rain,
The great, glad Sun shines out again;
And all is joyous, all is clear,—
Why should thy gentle bosom fear?
Did danger threaten thee, my Pride,
Nothing should take me from thy side;
I would not quit thy faithful breast,
And leave thee unto sad unrest,
For all the gold,—for all the lands
The world could pour into my hands;
But since no dreadful thing portends,
And thou art circled round by friends,—
And since I feel thou art to-day
By a quick fancy led astray,
I dare to go, secure that thou
Wilt be as safe next year as now.
Believe me, when I soon return
I shall behold thy blushes burn,—
Thy smile break out, thy tears o'erflow,
As I have seen them long ago.
No more. Thou know'st how I have yearned,
Tried, failed, and yet unconquered, burned,
To gather light around my name,
To carve my fearless way to fame,
And so by Toil or Genius stand
A Painter in my native land.
The thing's achieved;—Hope whispers so,—
May be in vain, but this I know,
My hand, heart, soul have done their best,—
I leave to Fortune all the rest.
My Picture, which has stolen my nights,
And weaned me from the world's delights,
Has made my forehead throb with pain,—
Made sick, and then has healed again,

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Which has o'erwhelmed me in despair,
And then uplifted me in air;—
My Picture stands in finished state,
And I with hopeful trembling wait
The judgment of experienced eyes,
To sink to earth, or seek the skies.
Ah! droop not, Dearest, I beseech,—
'Tis but the metaphor of speech.
No, never can I shrink; my Art
Is of myself another part;
She is my second Mistress,—Thou
The foremost, evermore as now;
Thou hast inspired my soul, and she
Must pay some tribute unto thee;
And shall, if in my hand remain
The skill to woo her charms again.
Oh, glorious Art! divinest dower
That ever came to human mind!
Grace, colour, sentiment, and power
Of witching Poësy combined!
Art that receives its chiefest grace
From Woman's dear, angelic face,
Draws its best spirit, soft and warm,
From the chaste contour of her form,—
I cannot leave, for your sweet sakes,
Nor that which gives, nor that which takes!
Beloved Francesca! let us part,
But first, come cling thee to my heart,
Which beats with faithful pulse for thee,
And will while life remains with me;
Ere morrow's sunlight cometh down
On giant Conto's hoary crown,
I must begone; but when the Spring
Calls back the swallow's vagrant wing,

105

I'll come, perchance all flushed with fame,—
Ask for thy hand, and urge my claim;
Then, fame or none, I'll stay to bless
My sight with thy dear loveliness;
Guard, cheer, and love, through every scene,
Till death shall step our joys between.
One kiss from these sweet lips of thine,
Adored and Worshipped! ever mine!”
Then spake the Maiden, trembling, meek,
Whilst the quick tears coursed down her cheek:—
“Thus thou beguil'st me, Florio,
And thou must leave me! Be it so;
For I would have thee to be free
To do whate'er may pleasure thee;
But I will shut thee in my heart,
And nurse that joy, where'er thou art.
Oh! should'st thou find the world's applause
Pall on thy ear, or should its laws
Reject thee, seek my faithful breast,
Where thou shalt find a welcome nest,
And lay thy weary forehead down
Where none shall harm thee, none shall frown.
To part with thee my heart is loth;
Our Holy Mother guard us both,
And ever bend benignant eyes
Upon us from the upper skies!
This kiss for thee, my Florio—
This for thy mother;—let her know
How much I long to clasp her hand,
And listen to her mild command.
Adieu!” A brief half hour had flown,
And both sad lovers were alone.
Morn came, and like a bridegroom shone
The sun on his ethereal throne;

106

Morn with her many voices, sent
From countless sources, sweetly blent;
Hill, vale, town, village, all were bright,
The Maira laughing in the light;
And kindled in the sunny ray
The snow-crowned summits far away.
Then came the hush of Noon, serene,
And, bathed in universal sheen,
The light clouds in the upper air,
Heavy with molten silver there.
Day sped, and as the Night drew nigh
One blaze of beauty lit the sky;
'Twas Sunset; and, O Heaven! the dower
Of glory shed upon that hour!
Just as the Sun-god paused to rest
On the bright borders of the West,
The Clouds came trooping towards their king,
As if they would about him cling,
And as they hung before his face,
They clustered, coloured, changed apace,
Assuming many a giant-shape
Of rocky cleft, and mountain cape,
Teeming, like Etna in his ire,
With floods and flames of gloomy fire.
Incessant change comes o'er them now—
They cleave, and with fierce grandeur glow,
Streaming like blazing banners out,—
Strewn like prismatic dust about,
Sailing like golden ships, and turning
Into a thousand cities burning;
But as the Sun withdraws to cheer
Souls of another hemisphere,
They float far off, all loose and free,
Like rose-beds on a silent sea.

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Who could behold with careless eyes
Such grand “morgana” of the skies,
Nor lift high homage unto Him
Whose breath inspires the Seraphim,—
Who gives such beauteous signs of power
For us, who ill deserve the dower!

Francesca sat beside her door,
Absorbed in some poetic lore;
It seemed some sad and passionate tale,—
By turns her cheek was flushed and pale;
Perchance 'twas Dante's woful story
Of her own namesake, sad and lorn,
Whom he hath shrined in gloomy glory,
But such as makes one inly mourn;
Perchance 'twas that—more woful still—
Of Cenci's daughter, crushed and lost
Beneath the weight of horrible ill,—
Revenged, but at a fearful cost.
Whate'er it was, it did engage
Her fixed attention; on the page
Fell her unbidden tears like rain,—
Proof that it moved, perchance with pain.
But now the world was all abroad;
The people, late so overawed
By sweeping showers and savage gales,
By dulness, doubts, and dreadful tales,
Threw off the chill of their affright,
To take full measure of delight.
Again the depths of joy were stirred,—
Again the laugh and song were heard,—
Dance, music, feast, and wine, once more
Governed the people as before;

108

The Puppet played in comic state,—
The Improvisatore was great;
Brave was the banquet, high the cheer,
Crowded the gorgeous theatre.
Woman dispensed her sweetest smiles;
Man tried his most seducing wiles;
Whilst children, in more harmless way,
Pleased their dear hearts with boisterous play.
Young, old, rich, poor, with common will
Combined to banish sense of ill;
It seemed to be their chief employ,
That Saturnalia of Joy.
Francesca, ill at ease, walked out
'Mid laughter, music, song, and shout,—
Not with the wish to feel and share
The general pleasure reigning there,
But in the hope she might beguile
Her dumb, deep sorrow for a while.
She paused where, under olive trees,
In proud and merry-hearted ease,
Sat many friends, a pleasant throng,
Who listened to the voice of Song,
And, urged by gentle lips to stay,
She heard this light and simple lay:—

CANZONET.

Oh! give to me Beauty, and Music, and Wine,
The only dear things that are ever divine;
The hour is propitious for pleasures like these,
While our hopes are awake, and our cares are at ease;
Let us seize and enjoy them to-day, friends, to-day,
To-morrow, believe me, is far, far away!

109

'Tis Beauty that kindles and gladdens the soul;
'Tis Music makes time more harmoniously roll;
'Tis Wine that uplifts us above the dull earth,
And to Wit, Love, and Rapture gives lustre and birth;
Let us seize and enjoy them to-day, friends, to-day,
For to-morrow, believe me, is far, far away!

This song's light-hearted levity
Did little please, did ill agree
With the young Maiden's weight of heart;
So she prepared her to depart
Homeward, to soothe her harassed mind,
And leave the noisy crowd behind.
From her quaint casement, vine-embowered,
She looked upon the tranquil night,
Towards where old Conto grandly towered,
Less stern beneath the moon's sweet light.
The stars were out, too, grouping round—
And yet apart—their placid queen;
And where they were not, Heaven profound
Seemed boundless, fathomless, serene.
And then she thought on Florio,
And he renewed that hidden woe
For which she seemed to have no cause,—
So deep, so dim are Nature's laws;
She mused, she mourned, complained, and wept,
And overcome by sorrow—slept.
On went the revels, loud and high,
Till midnight stole upon the sky,
And passed along her starry way,
To meet the not far distant day.
Then did the boisterous sounds subside,
Like murmur of receding tide,
And all the crowd prepared to creep
To home, and hearth, and needful sleep.

110

From shining casements, here and there,
Gleaming athwart the moonlit air,
Out went the lights, and all was still,
Save herdsman's dog upon the hill,
Or Maira's stream, that in its flow
Muttered a soft complaint and low;
Or nightingale, that charmed the hour
With sweetest descant from her bower;—
The sleep-world, late so loud and bright,
Was left to Nature and to Night.
Oh, Night, and Nature! fair ye are,
With meteor, cloud, and moon, and star;—
But ye are solemn, and oppress
The soul with your great loveliness;—
The soul that often strains her wing
To reach and roam your heights sublime,
But falls back, faint and wondering,
Too strong to rest, too weak to climb!
Well, all was still; but towards the morn,
An hour before the day was born,
An awful sound,—a mighty boom,
As if it were the “crack of doom,”—
Loud as the stormy ocean's roar,
When battling 'gainst a rocky shore,—
As the appalling thunder loud,
When raging through the realms of cloud—
Resounded far beyond the vale,
And made the boldest cheek turn pale.
At the first dubious dawn of day,
Filled with a vague and dread dismay,
With quivering nerves, and hearts all cold,
Men came;—and what did they behold?
One half of Conto fallen sheer down
On Pleurs, the death-devoted town,

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A ponderous avalanche of rock!
And Maira, startled by the shock,
Hurled from her course, to make a path
Away from ruin and from wrath.
Above the fated city hung
A canopy of dust, that flung
Horror upon the gazer's eye,
And blotted out the rosy sky.
The foxes, frightened from their lair,—
The birds all screaming in the air,—
The river riotous and strong,
Tumbling her turbid waves along,—
The lamentations long and loud
Of the still-increasing crowd,—
The strife,—the questioning,—the sound
Of countless voices mingling round;
Made up a scene so sad and dread,
That Reason shook, and Judgment fled,—
A scene that lay all undefined,
Like a great nightmare on the mind!
Oh, awful truth! stupendous fate!
Which even moves me to relate—
The mountain, like a giant lid,
Fell sudden down, and crushed and hid
Three thousand souls, which yesternight
Were full of life and high delight!
And not one soul remained to say
How glad they were but yesterday!
Not all man's energy and skill,—
Not thousands with one common will,—
Not Hate, that keeps his cunning course,—
Not Vengeance, with Herculean force,—
Not Avarice, with his heart of steel,—
Not Love, with his unselfish zeal,—

112

Not all combined by solemn vow,
Could ever see or save them now!
None could behold them,—none could save;
There they reposed in one great grave,
O'er which the cloven Conto looks
With constant warnings and rebukes;
A mighty headstone, left to show
Where died the multitude below,
Whose bones have mingled with the clod,
Whose better parts are with their God!
Quick as the prairie's rolling fire,—
Quick as the whirlwind in its ire,
The terrible tidings swept and spread
With awe, uncertainty, and dread.
Amid the Eternal City's towers,
Where he was straining all his powers,
It smote the ears of Florio,
With sense of overwhelming woe.
Fame, Wealth, and Honour,—What were they,
That he should linger and delay?
He went while yet his fears were new,—
On wings of love and terror flew,
And reached that horror-shadowed vale
Dishevelled, travel-soiled, and pale;
Heard, saw the appalling truth, and how
His joys were shattered at a blow.
He neither talked, nor wailed, nor wept,
But in a neighbouring cottage slept,—
Ay, slept as he would wake no more;
But when that blessed sleep was o'er,
He woke with wandering words and pain,—
Delirium seized upon his brain,
And long, long weeks he lay, like one
Who with the things of earth had done.

113

Kind hearts and gentle hands were there,
To tend him with unselfish care,
And tend they did, with constant zeal,
For they had learned to love and feel.
At length, when he had lain one day,
As if all pain had passed away,
He started from his couch, and smiled,—
An idiot! harmless as a child.
That noble mind, where genius burned,—
That heart, for gentlest love that yearned,
Were crushed and blinded, ne'er again
To know nor hope, nor love, nor pain,—
A holy shrine, a temple chaste,
By sorrow shattered and defaced.
And from that hour he would not go
From that dear spot, the Vale of Woe;
Albeit his mother came, and tried
By all maternal arts to guide
His footsteps homeward; bootless all,
His ears were deaf to Nature's call;
And so she came to sojourn there,
And watched him with unceasing care.
It was his custom, shade or shine—
(Thus far he seemed to have design)—
Among the scattered rocks to roam,
And then at nightfall saunter home;
But on the rocks he would portray
Her who was lost to him for aye;
Repeating, with sad words and low,
This constant burden of his woe;—
“Francesca, love! where dost thou stay?
Thou hast forgot our wedding day!”
And when the maidens of the vale
Heard him repeat this piteous wail,

114

With sympathising hearts and eyes,
Which watched him that he stumbled not,
They gave the tribute of their sighs,
And wept at his unhappy lot.
At length the elements combined
To give the Wanderer peace and rest:
The frost, the snow, the rain, the wind,
That beat against his gentle breast,
Shook his frail frame, and laid him down,
No more to roam, no more to rise;
He died beside the Buried Town,
And sought Francesca in the skies!

Where once was seen the Town of Tears
A strange and rugged scene appears;
But Nature, ever prone to fling
Some beauty round the rudest thing,
Has clothed the avalanche of stone
With moss and lichens, all her own;
And high above that giant grave
A thousand trees all proudly wave;
The chestnut lifts its goodly boughs,—
The calm herds ruminate and browse,—
The herdsman carols o'er the lea,
In concert with the bird and bee.
Sweet Maira tells her wonted tale,
Old Conto frowns upon the vale;
And all is lovely and serene,
As though such ruin ne'er had been.
Such is the tale of doom and woe,
Of Pleurs, two hundred years ago.

115

ZOANA.

Sir Gilbert was a brave and gentle knight,—
Gilbert the Saxon, of old London town;
And to the struggle of the first Crusade
He lent his prowess,—joyful to behold
The snowy standard of the Christian Powers
First float o'er ancient Salem; glad to see
The haughty Crescent quail before the Cross,
And pale its specious beams. But, sad mischance!
One luckless day, in foray or in fight,
He fell into the foeman's toils, and soon
Was hurried o'er the desert far away,
To where Damascus, with her hundred streams,
And bowery gardens, smiles upon the waste.
Here he was captive, manacled and watched;
But he was calm as brave, and he restrained,
In proof of patience, look, and word, and thought.

At length his mild demeanour won its way
With those who watched him, and his chains were loosed;
And he, the same when free as bound, was put
To easy toils within the garden grounds.
This lasted for a time, a year or more,
When in the presence of the Syrian Chief
One day they led him, silent and amazed.
The chief sat gravely on the low divan,

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And by his side a still and graceful form,
Close veiled, and jewelled like an Eastern bride.
The Chieftain gazed upon the noble Knight,
And yet he opened not his lips; meanwhile
Gilbert surveyed, with keen and hurried glance,
The rich, cool luxury of that inner place,
Wherein a fountain, dancing in the midst,
Fell down like shattered silver, with a sound
Like tinkling of a lute, making the air—
Pervaded, too, with daintiest perfumes—
Delicious to the sense. The Chieftain spake;—
“Christian, I have beheld thy noble mien,
Thy patience and reserve; thy valour, too,
I know from loud report; and I would fain
Do thee some favour. Couldst thou not forego
Thy country and religion, and embrace
The only Faith—our own? Consent to this
And honour waits thee: I will then bestow,
To be thy handmaid, this my only child,
And place thee 'mong the illustrious of the East.
Pause for a moment, so that thy reply
Accord with the indulgence I have shown.”

The Saxon raised his bold and ample front
Erect, while in his full and candid eye
Shone the clear beams of truth, and thus replied:—
“Chieftain, there needs no pause; can I renounce
The Faith for which my veins have often bled,—
The Faith whose holiness I learned to know
From my own mother's lips, and later still,
From that great Oracle Divine whose source
Is only God? 'Twere what thou wouldst not do,
Then how shall I? I can not—will not change,
Even if thraldom waste my life away.”

The fair veiled Being at her father's side

117

Moved with a restless gesture, as the Chief
Waved with a frown the Captive from his sight.
Gilbert withdrew, but still remained unchained,
To his old labour in the garden grounds:
Then thronging visions of his native land,
Her greenness and her beauty, made him pine
And pant for freedom, which seemed more remote
From his attainment than before.

Some months
Flew o'er his weary head, but with such wings
As seemed to make no speed, when one bright day
A slave, with gesture but with silent tongue,
Led him away into a little bower,
A very nest of beauty and delight,
And there he stood, with wonder and mistrust,
Before the Emeer's Daughter, who reclined
Luxuriantly along her cushioned couch,
Wove in the richest looms. But she was veiled,
And hid the loveliness he longed to see;
Save that a scarlet-slippered foot,
Which just betrayed the golden anklet there,
Peeped on his gaze. “Christian,” she softly said—
And at the murmur of that plaintive voice
He who had borne the deafening bruit of war
Shook like a reed—“Christian, wilt thou relate
Some of the wonders of thy native land,
And of that Faith which makes thee bold amid
Captivity and danger? I would hear.
My Sire is fighting 'gainst thy people, but
With me thou art in safety. Tell thy tale.”

Gilbert all reverently bowed
Before the princely Beauty, and began:
With warm and rapid eloquence—inspired
By his own feelings, and the pitying tone

118

Of his exalted Auditor—he drew
A glowing picture, redolent of truth:
Of his own land he told of the renown
In War and Commerce;—of its temperate air,
Its verdurous hills and fields, and constant streams;—
That there no sun o'erpowered, no desert scorched,
But all was mild and genial, as became
The sea-girt Monarch Island of the world.
Of his own Faith he gave the full account,
From its first sunrise: how the Nazarene,
The Man-God, Teacher, Saviour of mankind,
Was Virgin-born within her own bright clime;—
That there He taught, wept, agonised, and died,
And consummated what His love began.
And furthermore, he told her that good men,
Despite contumèly, scorn, hunger, death,
Threatening on every side, had gone abroad
To spread the light and warmth of Gospel Truth:
And not in vain, for that the Christian world
Was numerous as the leaves on Lebanon.

Much more he told her, which the Syrian Maid
Devoured with greedy ear; and when his tongue
At length grew silent, she exclaimed—“Thy tale,
O Christian! moves me! wonderful it is,
By Allah, wonderful! Come sit thee here,
And thou shalt talk again.” And then she smote
Her hands, and slaves obsequious came in
With many-coloured fruits, and cooling drinks,
And cakes of dainty taste; and they partook
Of the light banquet. But ere they began
The Maid unveiled, and to the Saxon's sight
Disclosed a glorious vision, such as ne'er
Haunted the Anchorite in secret cell,
Or the drugged Dreamer in his happiest hour.

119

It was a perfect countenance, as fair
As that of Rachael in the days of old,
Or Ruth's, when blushing 'mid the “alien corn,”
But haughtier, perchance, than either,—proof
Of princely blood. Her eyes were deeply dark,
But tender, too, and full of fire, that shot
Into the gazer's soul the shafts of love.
Gilbert was overpowered, and captive now
In other bonds, which he might never break.

And thus they sat and talked, or mutely looked
Into each other's face most tenderly.
The roses seemed to listen,—bubbling fount
To echo all they uttered; whilst pet doves
Of glorious plumage flitted to and fro,
And filled the bower with sounds of happy life.

“Christian,” Zoana said—for such her name—
“If thou canst love a stranger to thy land,
I will be Christian too. If thou canst love,
Give me some token that shall bind our souls,—
Some token that may cheer me in the hour
When, haply, freedom takes thee from my sight,
And with thee all my joy.” With glowing pride
The Saxon hung about her graceful neck
A jewelled Crucifix, and with a kiss
They sealed the holy compact. “Tell me now
Thy country's name and thine, that I may know
Their sounds, and so repeat them as a spell
To charm me when alone, and link my soul
In memory to thee.” “My country's name
Is England; London the transcendent town
Where I was born; and I am Gilbert named.”
With many a laugh and pleasant look the Maid
Repeated the dear sounds, as does a child
The sweet words of its mother: what is more,

120

She mastered them, and they were words whereby
She mastered greater things; as I shall tell.

At length they parted, but to meet again
When chance and opportunity allowed.
But the Emeer returned, and weary months
Kept them asunder, whilst their hidden love
Fed on their hearts, and turned their faces pale.
Again the Chieftain went, with all his tribe,
To venture open battle, or annoy
The skirts of the Crusaders. Then the pair
Met as before, and strengthened every hour
The spell that bound them; but they never fell
Into the meshes of a low desire,
Nor soiled the hallowed bloom of chastest thoughts.

One day Zoana, with sad looks and sighs,
Percursors of her tears, said—“Gilbert, hear!
I see thee pining for thy native land,—
Thy bones are wasted, and thy eyes' mild light
Darkened with inward sorrow; gold were vain
To ransom thee from thrall; 'tis love alone
Must pay the price of thy delivery,
And I will pay it. Ere to-morrow's sun
Leaps on his way rejoicing, thou art free,
And I alone am captive! Were it not
That age is falling on my father's head,
And were it not that I am chiefest Rose
In all his garden, Light of all his house,
In his paternal eyes,—I would partake
Of liberty and love with thee; but that
Is hopeless yet. Cast slumber from thy eyes
This night, and I will visit thee,—no more
Perchance to see thee upon earth.” The Maid
Wept, wept on Gilbert's sorrow-heaving breast,
Who also wept in concert,—soothed, and prayed,—

121

Implored that she would share with him the gift
She offered; all in vain,—she only felt
The joy of grief, and in the indulgence she
With him wore all the afternoon away.

That night—a glorious night!—when troops of stars
Burned in the depths of heaven, and when the moon,
Of bright and ample disk, o'ertopped the arch
Of solemn midnight, stood beside his couch
The Angel of Delivery. “Oh! haste,
Be silent, fly!” she said, with 'bated breath;
“My favourite barb is champing at the gate;—
Take her, and keep her tenderly for me!
Fleet and sure-footed, she will bear thee soon
Beyond the reach of danger; fly at once!”
“And wilt thou not go with me, Maiden?” “No!
It cannot be! but thou shalt have my love,—
None other ever!” With her gentle hand
She led him forth, by many a sinuous path,
To where the steed stood snorting by the wall,
Impatiently. Zoana on her neck
Shed bitter tears, and with endearing hands
Caressed her. Unto Gilbert then she turned
With loving eyes; one long and ardent gaze,—
One close embrace, one burning kiss, wherein
Two lives seemed centred, and the Saxon Knight
Leaped in the saddle, spurned the dangerous ground,
And sped for life along the rugged road,
Peril before, a breaking heart behind!

Poor Maid! She had a double trial now
To brave and bear, well as her nature might,—
Her Sire's displeasure, and her hopeless love!
Long days and weary weeks she mused and mourned,
Forsook all solace, left her doves to fret,
Her roses to decay, her heart to break,

122

“Yet brokenly live on.” Not dance, nor song,
Nor charm of tuneful instrument, nor word
Of loving slave, nor bulbul's voice among
The acacia boughs, nor free and genial air,
Nor shape of beauty anywhere beguiled
Her sorrow now. She nursed it as a mother
Nurses an ailing child, the more because
It pained and troubled her. She pored long hours
On the dear jewelled Crucifix; she breathed
His name incessantly; she conjured up
His noble image to her inward sight;
She felt his influence in her inmost heart,
And nought could bring her joy. At length her Sire,
By Western soldiers baffled and sent back,
Stepped o'er his threshold. Who can paint the rage
Which shook him like a whirlwind, when he saw
His Captive gone, and from his Daughter's tongue
Learned all her disobedience and her love!
But that she kept strong hold on his affections,
And with her mother's fair transmitted face
Confronted him with gentleness, his hand
Had slain her on the spot. He only dared
To chafe, and fret, and gloom, and grow morose,
Which to Zoana was a constant rack
On which her heart was laid. It might not last.

Twelve moons had travelled through the halls of heaven
Since Gilbert went, and with him, too, a part
Of her existence. Greatly daring, she,
Beneath the friendly shadow of the night,
Quitted her father's palace; taking nought
But every-day adornments, and the garb
Of Eastern beauty she was wont to wear.
Her path she knew not, nor the country round,
For in a gilded cage she had been kept,

123

Unwitting of the world; but Providence,
Or instinct, or some hidden power which love
Created for her guidance, led her right,
And Westward kept her face.

For many a day,
For many a weary day, o'er burning sands,
O'er scarcely trodden paths, through tangled brakes
Where danger lurked, she nobly kept her way;
Eating of fruits that on uncultured trees
By chance she found, and drinking at the rills,
Scanty and few, that tinkled as she passed.
The wild was dangerous, but the haunts of men
More dangerous still. She came at last upon
The tracks of Warfare and of Violence,—
'Mong restless Arabs roaming o'er the waste
For blood or plunder, as the chance might be;
But these she passed, albeit their greedy eyes
Fell on her golden anklets, and the shower
Of costly ornaments that crowned her head.
But she gave look for look, and daring too;
Or, when unnoticed, sped in sudden flight,
Not daring to look back.

At length she came
Among the Western hordes, Crusading bands,—
The blue-eyed Saxon, and the fiery Gaul,
The dark-eyed Norman, warlike brothers all.
Zoana here recalled the darling words
Which were to be her talisman, and now
She “England, England! London, London!” cried,
With earnest voice, appealing with fair face
To all she met. Some jeered her as she passed,
And others with rude hands assailed her charms;
But others—gentle Knights—with courteous care
(Interpreting her well-known words aright)

124

Gave her safe escort for a little way,
And pointed out her course.

On, on she went,
But listless, weary, hungry, and oppressed
For needful sleep,—a blessing she had caught
Only at intervals, beneath a tree,
A friendly rock, or thicket-covered dell,
Safe by God's Providence from savage claw
Or man's insulting hand. What is't she sees,
That with arrested step, dilated nostril,
And breast upheaving, she with wondering gaze
Looks on before her? Can it be the Sea?
It is, it is the Ocean! blue and bright,
A mighty desert greater than her own,
And fresher, lovelier far. She now beheld
Strange giant things, unknown to her before,—
Great ships with bellying sails, that strained to go
Out on the briny element of waves.
She was at Ptolemais, the ancient port,
Then famous and thick-peopled. Pilgrims there
In crowds were gathering to embark for home,
And she propitiated with her looks
Their pious natures, crying out alway—
“Oh! England, England!” plucking from her hair
Some gem wherewith to satisfy their claims,
And pay her voyage thither. All amazed,
Yet pitying the while, they took her in;
Gave food, and gentle words, and place of rest,
Where she lay down in happiness, and slept.
When sleep forsook her eyelids it was Eve,
Sweet Eve, with sunset on her brow, and far
They were at sea, no strip of land to break
The level grandeur of the great expanse.

Zoana stood upon the heaving deck,

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Musing on many things; her hope and love,
Her home and father, and her loneliness;
Which loneliness, meanwhile, expanded all
Her thoughts, and made her feel on equal terms
With any fate. But soon she felt a novel qualm,
The penalty which Neptune takes from all
New comers, lassitude of frame,
Sick fancies and sick feelings, and a scorn
Of life. But there were those at hand who knew
Her state, and came with ready help and kind.
When night had gathered deeply in, about
The middle watch, she was erect and well;
Walked on the deck, and stood upon the prow,
Big with her new emotions. Countless Stars—
Moon there was none on that her first sea night—
Clustered in constellations o'er her head:
Boötes and Arcturus,—Charles's Wain,—
Dazzling Orion, and the Golden Lyre,
Which looking down on that night-shadowed deep,
Seemed diamond points thick set in sombre steel.
And then the waves in tortuous play and wild,
Lifted their fringèd edges to the night,
And moved like blazing snakes, ahead—behind,
As if the sea were filled with lustrous life.
Bewildered, yet uplifted in her soul,
She stole to rest, and dreamed of him for whom
She perilled life and honour, all she had.

Morn rose upon that Mid-Terranean sea
In calm, clear glory, and the Syrian Maid
Was up as soon, filling her soul with grandeur.
Where'er she stepped, a silent homage glowed
In rudest hearts; the sailors were subdued
To gentle gestures and respectful looks,—
Proof of the power of Beauty, when 'tis linked

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With chaste demeanour, redolent of Heaven.

On sped the bark, past Cyprus, dedicate
To her the ocean-born, the Queen of Love;
Past Crete to old Melita, where St. Paul
Dropt manna from his lips; and on again
Towards Sicily, the Arcady of Song;
Touching, meanwhile, those many-clustered Isles,
Lipari, where the fires of Stromboli
Flame on incessant, a gigantic plume
Of gloom and glory, swaling towards the sky;
An old and constant beacon-fire to those
Who sail the surface of that lovely sea.
Still on the vessel made her gallant way,
The breeze propitious and the welkin clear,
Until she stayed her helm, and furled her sails,
At Honfleur, superannuated port
Of ancient Normandy.

The voyage o'er,
Zoana stepped upon the shore with joy
And gratitude, an utter stranger there;
And yet she thought 'twas England. Maid forlorn!
Thy trials were not ended! Flushed with hope
She trod the stranger streets, and unto all
Said with inquiring gesture—“England?” “No!”
And then they shook their heads, and with stretched hands
Pointed to distant shores. Zoana drooped,
And with despair unutterable fell
Prone on the ground. But generous hearts were there
Among the Poor—the Poor are ever kind
When Suffering to their feelings makes appeal—
Who took her in and tended her with care.
But on the morrow, restless as before,
The one great object of her hope and love
Unconsummated, she resolved to go.

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They led her forth, and on the great highway
Directed her towards England, but with mute
And kind farewells.

Then on she boldly sped
With resolute endeavour, while the birds
Sang in the wayside trees, and the mild light
Of the Autumnal Sun shone sweetly down,
And gilded all her path. Still on she went,
O'er wide and bare champaigns, through forest glooms
Of dreary length, small towns, and villages
Of rudest structure, rudely peopled; for
The children gathered round her, crying out—
“A Dancing Girl, a Dancing Girl!” and plucked
Her showy robe, and dashed with daring hand
At her bright ornaments, and boldly laughed
In her pale, pensive countenance; but she
Eluded them, and sped with quicker steps
Along her way. Seeing her ornaments
Awoke cupidity, she took them off,
And hid them in her bosom, lest they should
Work her yet greater harm. Within the towns
She met with better treatment, finding food,
And water for ablution, paying ever
With some small jewel from her store. As yet
She did not dare to lodge there, but preferred
To make her couch upon the grassy sward,
Beneath the shelter of a tree or thicket,
Albeit her delicate frame was numbed and chilled,—
Her garments and her tresses wet with dews,—
Her strength diminished and her health decayed.

Days had she travelled, weary and forlorn,
Hungry and faint, with lacerated feet,
And heart that fluttered and grew sick,—
Sick with its own emotions; worn and spent,

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Enfeebled and o'erpowered, and racked with pain,
Prone on a bank she lay despairing down,
What time the night was closing in, dark clouds
Heavy with rain o'erhanging in the sky,
And gusty winds whirling the faded leaves
Around her head. And there she lay and wept,
Calling on Gilbert with a passionate voice,
Till soul and sense in blank unconsciousness
Were blotted out, and moveless there she lay.

By happy chance a stalwart Monk drew nigh,
With hasty steps out-hurrying the storm
That gathered fast; with startled step he paused,
And marvelled much to see a female form,
Lovely and delicate, dressed in foreign garb,
Extended lifeless there. In his strong arms
He bore her gently as a little child,
And took her to his Monastery, where
They chafed her tender limbs, and used
Exciting cordials, haply to restore
The functions of her frame. As they unbound
Her snowy breast, they wondered to behold
The jewelled Crucifix, and pearls which she
Had lately worn. She woke to consciousness,
And found kind faces round her; then she fell
Into a deep and blessed sleep, for long,
Long hours. When slumber left her eyes
The noontide sun shone on the Gothic walls,
And she arose, and donned her robes, and tried
To go straightway, but they with gentle force
Withheld her, pointing to her tender feet.

Three days against her eager will she stayed,
Brooding upon her love. When these elapsed
She sought the Monk, and with inquiring eyes
Said—“England! London!” stretching forth her hand

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Towards where she knew not. He, with kindly looks
And fatherly solicitude, went out,
And put her on her track; but first he drew
Upon a tablet many a branching line
Whereby she might be governed, and not stray
Far from her proper path. And then he laid
His hand upon her head with reverent touch,
And blessed her, watching her receding form
Till it was gone from sight.

And she went on,
Refreshed in frame, renewed in hope, and came
Late in the afternoon upon a town
That looked upon the sea. The sea again!
And her heart sickened at the glorious sight,
Because it seemed interminable, and
A barrier which her courage must surmount.
Among the crowd she mingled, crying ever—
“Oh! England! London!” with most piteous voice.
She took a sparkling jewel from her breast,
And to a rough-faced Master of the Waves
Gave it beseechingly, and with a look
Of earnest pleading, “England!” on her lips.

And she embarked, and in some few brief hours
Saw the white cliffs of Albion looming up
On her enchanted gaze. “England!” they said,
And she set lightsome foot upon the soil,
Bowed down upon the ground, and kissed the stones,
Speeding along with foot as light and fleet,
With eyes as wildly bright, as the gazelle
In the wide plains of Araby the Blest.
Then “London! Gilbert!” she began to cry,
Deeming, poor Maid! that he was known to all.
The people, wondering, pointed out the way,
And gave her bread, and blessed her as she passed,

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Because of her strange beauty, which unlocked
All hearts, and riveted all eyes
In loving gaze.

On, on she went again,
Through Kent, delightful province! fair and green,
With gentle hills, and pastoral vales, and streams
For ever bright and musical. These charms
To young Zoana had a nameless spell
Which knit her to the land, or haply she
Loved it because of Gilbert, for whose love
She had left home and country. Soon she saw
The ancient towers of Canterbury, high
In the clear evening air. Couldst thou have seen
Into the womb of Time, Zoana, thou
Hadst felt a shudder through thy gentle frame,
A strange, dread shadow on thy gentle soul,
Passing this city; for thy haughty Son,
The Churchman Beckett, fell beneath the hands
Of violent assassins, who performed
The wish but not the word of kingly hate.
Within the walls of that Cathedral fane
Thy offspring died, staining with martyr-blood
The altar of the Lord;—so History tells.

The lovely Pilgrim,—Pilgrim of pure love,
Passed through the city, and for many miles
Pierced the unpeopled country, lying down
Beneath the boundless canopy of stars,
The moon her chamber-light, perchance to sleep.
Slumber was stealing o'er her purple lids,
And weariness relaxing all her limbs,
When sounds of heavy feet and boisterous laughter
Roused her to anxious consciousness. A form
Of ruffian aspect and gigantic build
Was drawing near her, with a noisy band

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Behind him. Those were rough, unsettled times,
And these marauders, living upon chance
And crime. “What, ho! what have we here?” exclaimed
The stalwart leader, as with rudest hands
He seized Zoana. “Dainty, by my soul!
A fitting mistress for an outlawed lord;—
Come thou with me!” Zoana, quick as light,
Drew from beneath her robe a trusty friend
She had not used—a short Damascus sword.
With this she pierced the ruffian's heart, and fled,—
Fled for her life a league along the way,
And breathless, hopeless, terrified, and faint,
Entered a village, and with all her weight
Fell 'gainst a cottage door. The inmates came,
Amazed,—beheld the lovely creature there,
And took her in, astonished at the sight.

The mother of that house—a gentle dame—
Was a pure Saxon, flaxen-haired and mild;
And she had daughters of her own, which were
Her household treasures; therefore did she feel
For this strayed Lamb, and in her motherly lap
Took her and nursed her like a petted child.
The sad, pale, patient Syrian Maid relapsed
Into a dangerous illness, which had been
Gathering within her in her pilgrimage.
Fever, delirium, and deep-seated ills
They wot not of, just held her o'er the grave,
But nothing more. For forty days she lay
In that poor cottage in the Wolds of Kent,
And then she rallied, for her very love
Sustained her, for her time was not yet come.

When partial strength returned, she would arise
And go upon her way; reproof was vain.
She poured into the lap of her who saved

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An ample recompense, and hurried out
To consummate her task. But now the ways
Were white with Winter's earliest snows; the trees
Naked and mournful, and the cheerless sun
Feeble in warmth and light; but ne'ertheless
She kept undaunted on, and in three days,
Quivering and aching all her fragile frame,
She trod the skirts of London. Maid forlorn!
A greater desert tasks thy efforts now
Than thine, or Ocean's; may the all-seeing God
Guide thee through all its labyrinths, and lead
Thy faltering footsteps safely to the goal!

Into the very thick and stir of that
Stupendous town she plunged; through countless streets
Reiterated with untiring lips
The darling music;—“Gilbert! Gilbert!” still
She rung in every ear and every place,
Until the sun went down, and she
Shivered through all the night despairingly;
Without a shelter, and without a roof
Save Heaven's. With the late dawning of the sun
She rose again, benumbed, and trembling 'tween
Two lives, of Earth or Heaven; and what were Earth's,
Without the precious link that bound her to't?
From dawn till noon, from noon till dusk of eve
She wandered on, the mocking-bird within
Her lonely heart exclaiming—“Gilbert!” Ne'er
For five brief minutes did the mournful word
Remain unuttered. Round about her came
A motley throng, which followed her about
And clogged her footsteps, which were getting faint
From inward agony.

At length, when night
Was stealing on with dim and dreary face,

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And snow was whirling in the leaden air,
She fell exhausted on the stony step
Of a great house that stood in ancient “Chepe;”
And though her limbs were motionless, her tongue
Cried “Gilbert! Gilbert!” with despairing strength,
The crowd about her roaring like the sea.
In that great mansion casements were unclosed,
And curious eyes looked out, as if to see
The cause of the commotion. Soon there came,
Rushing from out the door, a noble form,
Who gazed upon the wanderer. “God of Heaven!
Oh! can it be! It is!” and looking down,
He saw the jewelled Crucifix, that hung
Glittering upon her breast, and the dear name
Of “Gilbert!” coming faintly from her lips.
He spurned the crowd aside, and in his arms
Took the most precious Burden, and within
Bore her triumphantly, and closed the door.

“Oh! my Zoana! Treasure of my soul!
Bird that hath come from thy far Eastern nest,
For an unworthy mate, come to my heart,
And let me cherish thee unceasingly,—
Nurse thee, and love thee, and devote my life
To make and magnify thy happiness!”

And so he wed her, and for many years
They dwelt in Christian harmony and peace,
The Dove expiring in the nest it sought!