The Poetical Works of Robert Montgomery :: :: University of Virginia Library

“The empire of women is not theirs because men have willed it, but because it is the will of nature. Miserable must be the age in which this empire is lost, and in which the judgments of women are counted as nothing by man.”—Rousseau.

ANALYSIS OF CANTO I.

Commencing Apostrophe—Morning Scene at Elsinore —English Fleet passing the Sound—Cronburgh Castle—Queen Matilda a Captive there—Her dejection and dreams—Farewell Scene—Landscape changes—Moral analogy—Time—Ideal associations —Imaginary Sketches—City-portraiture—Human Life—Its trials ameliorated—Woman's Mission— Compared with Man's—Sexual characteristics— Degrading Theories—Moral Beauty—English Females are national glories—Prostituted Genius— Its unavailing Remorse—Design of the Poem— Grateful Retrospections.

Earth, air, and ocean, glorious three!
Inspired with living poesy,
More gladly than a bird regains
The freedom of unbounded plains,
And wanders on ecstatic wing
O'er meadow, lake, or laughing spring,
My spirit from the world retreats;
Again the bright Creation greets,
And learns how Nature's smile can bless
The hearts which love her loneliness.

How eloquent this silent hour!
Surrender'd to its lulling power,
The soul forgets that tears are shed,
That hopes are dim, and pleasures dead:
A hue of heaven on earth descends;
Th' immortal with the mortal blends;
And all we fancy, frame, or see,
Is found in faultless harmony.
Oh! ever thus, while bards can feel,
And celebrate with hymning zeal
The glories which for good combine,
The universe becomes divine:
Behind the veil of sense they dwell
Encinctured with a dazzling spell;
Where'er they tread, enchantment lives,
And Beauty all her magic gives
To hallow with poetic grace
Whatever dreaming eye would trace.
To them, the finished world is fraught
With fine appeals to glowing thought;
And meanings flow from all they view,
Of vast in form, or fair in hue;
And not a ray of sunshine gleams
But there the smile of Godhead seems
In token of paternal love
Reflected from His face above!

His torpid mind I envy not
Though crown and kingdom were his lot,
Who here, amid this morning balm
And conscious Nature's dream-like calm,
With tender sky and tranquil sea
Partook no inborn sympathy.
The canopy of heaven is hung
As blue as poet ever sung;
Though here and there serenely glide
Along the air's cerulean tide
Pale clouds, which seem too delicate
For breeze to touch their fairy state.
Beneath a window, far away
O Stranger, let thy fancy stray,
For seldom can thy dreams expand
Their wings o'er more delightful land:
The warble of yon distant waves,
As lightly oft the billow laves
The greenwood-bank and grassy shore
That bounds the sea of Elsinore;
The mountain's dim and dusky form,
Which, like a dying thunder-storm,
Glooms on the air with awful swell;
The chiming of the castle-bell,
From frowning turret faintly heard;
The fruited boughs by breezes stirred,
With every sound that summer brings
From bird, and bee, and happy things,

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How exquisitely all combine
To make exulting morn divine!

And look, adown yon dimpled sea
As bright as liquid sun could be,
The tiny skiffs of Norway sail
And glitter, cloud-like, in the gale;
While frequent oars with flashing stroke
Appear, as oft the tide is broke
By fleet-wing'd bark, which gaily flies
To where the sand-girt Sweden lies.
In green extent of wood and hill,
With bowery hamlets, bright and still.
To him who loves a haunted scene
Where grief or glory once hath been,
Grey Cronburgh lifts her storied pile
And darkens o'er the Danish Isle:
Whose vaulty depths and caves profound
Have echoed to the wizard sound
Of clanging shield, and shaken lance,
With each grim voice of old Romance.
And there on Fancy's spell-bound eyes
Behold! that royal spectre rise,
By Shakspeare summon'd, when the bell
Of midnight groan'd the hour's farewell.
But, ere thou leave the castled height,
Survey o'er all a patriot sight,
A scene that makes the life-blood start
And pictures England on his heart,
The banners Nelson thrill'd to see
Behold them wave!—how gallantly
They flout the wind with haughty threat,
And show the Deep her victor yet!
When bravely down yon beauteous tide
The monarchs of the ocean ride;
Or, tranced amid the drowsing air,
They whiten in the noontide glare
Those wings that wait the driving breeze
To waft them o'er a hundred seas!
Reflected on the wave is cast
The symmetry of sail and mast;
Or, booming o'er the startled deep,
Loud echoes of their cannon sweep,
Whose thunders in their dauntless tone
Can mock the Tempest on his throne!

Yet not on earth exists a scene
Where shades of sorrow have not been:
The softest verdure mead can spread
Is often paced by Misery's tread;
The magic of the clearest sky
Hath mock'd how many a clouded eye!
And, link'd with all that local grace
The wizard Fancy loves to trace
Wherever Nature weaves a spell
Round wood, or crag, or hoary dell,—
Live recollections sad as deep,
To bid Imagination weep.
And thus in this elysian hour
Oh! who can gaze on Cronburgh tower,
Nor dream of her, the young and gay,
Whose captive spirit pined away
The victim of a royal hate,
In the vile gloom of dungeon-state!
Dejected queen! I view thee now
With pleading eye, and pensive brow
As pale as moonlight and as mild;
Or, watching o'er thy cradled child
While visions of regretted youth
Around thee float in fairy truth,
Till the full past o'ercrowds thy brain,
And thou art in thy home again!
But when at night a thund'ring sound
Of wave on wave, in deep rebound
Rang echoed o'er the castle-wall,
How wildly did that night appal!
How many a terror shook thy form,
As Midnight roused the yelling storm,
And, like the rush of demons, past
The pinions of the northern blast,
And through a grated window broke
The flashes of each lightning-stroke!—
Yet oft arose a sunny mood,
When gladness e'en an exile wooed,
As, gazing from a rampart's height,
Her eye might gather free delight,
While slowly pealed the turret-bell,
And richly over Zealand fell
The flushes of retiring day,
Till earth one mass of glory lay!
Beneath her roam'd the Baltic wave,
Where oft an English banner gave
(While roll'd the gun's saluting roar,)
A dream of that remember'd shore
Her heart was doom'd to hail no more!
There, oft as gradual eve decayed
And glimmer'd o'er the beechen-shade,
How Denmark's bloom her smile would bless,
Laid forth in Eden loveliness,
Of bank and meadow, bush and stream
Like landscape in a painter's dream!
Or where the rocky Sweden lowers
She mark'd Landscrona's faded towers;
Or musing saw in verdant rest
The garden once by Hamlet prest,
When haunted by majestic grief
The princely mourner scorn'd relief,
And dared to nurse in dreaming pain
The might and madness of his brain.

With many a gleam of pensive joy
Her captive-gloom could not destroy,
O'er sad Matilda ling'ring past
The lonely years, by fate o'ercast
With shadows of imputed crime,
Which deadened hope, and darkened time,

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Till when, at Britain's high behest,
The exile found a foreign rest:
Entranced upon the deck she stood
And, while her straining vision could,
(As o'er the billows' bounding play
Her wafted vessel flew away)—
On Cronburgh's battlemented pile
Array'd by evening's rosy smile,
Matilda fixed her yearning eyes
While heaved her breast with broken sighs,
And on her cheek sat meek despair,
That mourn'd a child deserted there!—
There, in that tower where time had been
A sad, but still maternal scene;
How thrilling was that farewell-hour
Sublim'd by Pity's godlike power!
The mariner subdued his tone,
To make a mother's grief his own;
And souls who mock'd the lightning-flash,
Or dared the billows' wildest dash,
Felt more than milder bosoms fear
And soften'd down to woman's tear!

But, hark! the wind hath changed its tone;
The sun hath veil'd his burning throne;
And o'er the dazzling blue of heaven
Prophetic shades of storm are driven;
And fiercely shoots the slanting rain
On garden-bower, and window-pane,
While leaflets fall from branch and tree,
Like hopes from human vanity;
And like the moan of billows heard
From yon dim ocean, tempest-stirr'd,
With sounds that tell a dreary track
The waves of Life come rolling back,
That awful Life! whose endless roar
Breaks loud upon th' Eternal shore!

As one, when torture long hath tried
And rack'd his eye-lids, sleep-denied,
While bound in slumber's silken chain
And calm in heart and cool in brain,
Awakens on his midnight bed
To ghastly sense or gloomy dread,
And feels again each pang begin
To wrench the writhing soul within;
So wakes a heart that dreams awhile
All earth in sabbath-peace to smile
Around him like this lovely isle,
Till darkness on his dream descends
And in the world his vision ends.

A moment is a mighty Thing
Beyond the soul's imagining;
For in it, though we trace it not,
How much there crowds of varied lot!
How much of life, life cannot see,
Darts onward to eternity!
While vacant hours of beauty roll
Their magic o'er some yielded soul,
Ah! little can the happy guess
The sum of human wretchedness;
Or dream amid the soft farewell
That Time of them is taking,
How frequent moans the funeral knell,
What noble hearts are breaking,
While myriads to their tombs descend
Without a mourner, creed, or friend!

Could Fancy reach some throne of air
What vision would await Her there!
In tumult, agony, and strife,
Rolls the loud sea of human Life!
Before a despot's gilded throne
Hear Kingdoms weep, and Nations groan;
Yet tyrants in their slumber start
To feel the dagger at their heart;
And they can hear the murder'd call,
Can trace the hand upon the wall,
And not a slave who lays him down
Would change a dungeon for their crown!

Lo! yonder gleams a hoof-torn plain
Where moon-light shrouds th' unburied slain,
And bare against the naked sky
A thousand helmless foreheads lie!
On one is seen a parting trace
By torture graven on the face,
As dying Valour swoon'd away,
And blood congeal'd to breathless clay;
While others on their cheeks express
A smile from woman's tenderness,—
A ray of that remember'd scene
Where the bright heaven of home had been!
But, hark! from ocean heaves a cry
Deeper than when the tempests die,
As down men kneel upon the deck,
And listen to the crashing wreck!
A minute—and the murd'rous Storm
Hath mangled that colossal form,
Which floated o'er terrific seas,
Defied the blast, and faced the breeze,
But now, a fragment!—and the wave
Lies howling o'er the seaman's grave.

From these avert thy fear-struck view;
A vision, not so dark in hue,
But awful, with its deep array
Of all we suffer, do, or say,
The throne of Fancy may command,
While picturing with creative hand
The domes and temples, street and bath,
Whate'er a haughty City hath
Of sin and freedom, to decoy
The hearts whose pulse is tuned to joy.
And what a world of secret care
Lies wall'd within that compass there!

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Where, Thought and Deed for ever toil,
And life is one permitted spoil
As each from cradle to the grave
Is half a tyrant, half a slave;
And shuts his breast, and steels the heart,
While Vice and Virtue act their part
And rarely lets the spirit speak,
But plays the courtier with his cheek;
Whose ready smile, like moon-light, when
It flutters o'er some noisome den,
Can bid the soul's corruption shine
And make its meanness look divine!

Yes! there in yonder city now
O'er which young Morning bends her brow,
On tower and temple smiling bright,
How weeping angels watch'd the night!
A captive tore his chain-worn limb,
And deem'd that God deserted him;
A felon heard the life-blood stream,
And saw the gallows in his dream;
The maniac's eye renew'd its glare
While his lip writhed with mocking pray'r:
The miser mutter'd in his sleep
And counted o'er and o'er his heap,
Then seem'd with restless hand to hold
And taste the touches of his gold!
And while in rooms of Revelry
Pleasure beheld bright moments flee,
A pillow for some dying head
With aching hand and heart was spread;
And who but sleepless Heaven can say
When Earth confronts the Judgment-Day,
The darkness of a thousand deeds
Dread Midnight in her shadow breeds!
For ever in the world there lies
What meets alone immortal Eyes;
While all man dreads that man should see
He dares unveil to Deity,
As though where guilty feet have trod
No power should track them, but his God!
And, pale Ambition! Sad wert thou,
As wanly on thy wasted brow
The feeble watch-light flung its ray,
While ebb'd thy pulse with dying play:—
But when thy filmy eyes uprose
Their glance untomb'd thy buried woes,
And round the room a meaning cast
Which told of time and truth o'ercast,
While fever'd blood and martyr'd frame
Avenged the toils that won a name!

And is it thus dark Life appears
A fountain of unfailing tears,
While to each minute's flight is given
The gloom of hell, or glance of heaven?
Lo! Nature speaks to all who look
And read aright Her glorious book,
How much there dawns to mitigate
The bleakness of our barren state.
Oh! who can hail the breeze-wing'd morn
When beauty in the heavens is born,
Or wander forth in sun or storm,
Nor love Creation's living form!
And life, though oft a wilderness
By passion made and wild distress,
Where like a leaf by autumn blown
The wither'd heart must fade alone,
To spirits nerved by glad desire
And pure from each debasing fire,
How much it yields of great and good
To make existence gratitude!
The wielding of colossal pow'rs
By which all earth is render'd ours;
The Arts that link'd with lovely grace
Form paradise round scene and place;
The pleasures proud as undefined
From fellowship with man and mind—
If bliss like this a world display
How weak to frown that world away!
But, ah! there is a brighter Charm
No shade can dim, no cloud disarm;
A Star enthroned o'er change and time,
Though meek, unmoved; though soft, sublime;
A spell beyond the world to break,
Which when our eyes this orb forsake
Will cling around the parting soul,
And gird it with a fond control,
For man design'd by Heav'n above,
And wafted down in woman's love!

That power without whose added spell,
So vast yet so invisible,
The lustre of our spirit wanes,
And pleasures are but smiling pains
Is holy Love, by hearts enjoy'd,
Unchill'd, unchanged, and unalloy'd!
And will the Stoic deem me wrong,
A martyr of mistaken song?
Without it, what are crowns and kings,
But barren toys and blighted things?
Art, Wit, and Genius, all we glow
To think cold earth contains below,
By woman's voice or woman's name
Have gather'd fortune, might, and fame.
And ask him whom the world hath worn,
Whose brain is rack'd, whose bosom torn
Amid the dust, the heat and strife
Around each day concenter'd,
How exquisite that purer life
At eve, when he hath enter'd
The garden-path where Peace can wind,
And cast the demon Care behind!
The tottering pace of infant feet
That haste a homeward sire to greet;
Each budding thought and broken word
So faintly seen, and softly heard;

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The tones of air, the tender hues
Affection pours on all it views;
And, sweeter far, the eyes which live
Upon the rays his own can give,
Now kindled into fond excess
Of light that speaks, and looks that bless!—
To him who feels such blended power
They hallow Eve's domestic hour,
The Star of life, where'er he roam,
Is she whose ray attracts him home.

But, godlike is the creature, man!
The Past is glittering where he ran
Triumphantly his onward track,
With prints of glory!—trace them back;
Behold him stamp o'er land and sea
The might of immortality!
To him whom waves nor winds restrain
The Elements resign their reign;
While cowering Earth and Ocean meet
To lay their sceptres at his feet;
Whose hand the rock or mountain fells,
Or strews the globe with miracles
Of form and motion—wondrous Things!
Beyond a bard's imaginings;
And in his mind there dwells a sense
Of Adam's lost pre-eminence,
Which yearns for that ideal more
Than lip can speak, or thought explore.

Yet not because with bolder light
The traits of Manhood court the sight,
And Action with incessant claim
Can summon forth each high-born aim,
The softer tints of woman's soul
Pervade the world with less control.
The Thunder is the king of sound,
But ever may the breeze abound,
And quiver on melodious wing
Where beauty walks, or health can spring:
The forest wears inspiring gloom,
But yet we seek the flow'ret's bloom;
Stern Ocean hath terrific grace
Imprinted on his hoary face,
But oh! how dear some tranquil dream
Which haunts the bank of village stream!
And thus, methinks, doth woman's heart
A gentler, not less glorious part
In Life's dim tragedy fulfil,—
The feeblest, but the fairest still:
And as in nature charms may be
Which all enjoy, though none can see,
The light and love of female power
Have graced how many a graceless hour,
And round the spirit twined a zone
Too delicate for eyes to own!
Let Valour, Strength, and Wisdom, claim
Their summit on the throne of fame;
Yet shrinking heart and mind subdued
Become the charm of Womanhood;
And thoughts that might creation wield,
By man's dominion taught to yield,
Lie mute and dead in lonely rest
And leave the soul but half exprest!
For man, not nature, is the power
That darkens from its natal hour
The mind which decks the softer Race,
And dooms them to a second place.

But even thus, no formal chain
Can frighten, fetter, or restrain
That spirit-burst from time to time,
When, blazing forth with beam sublime,
The mind of Woman proves a spell
To make this truth shine visible—
That Genius of no sex can be,
When radiant with divinity!
And though in life her lovely sway
Fall dew-like o'er the parchèd day,
She rules that noiseless under-tide
Of happy thoughts by home supplied.
But, see! when peril claims her part,
The hero of a woman's heart!
Though weak in hand, and frail in form,
Her spirit strengthens with the storm;
In vain the warning thunders roll,—
They rally, not subdue, her soul!

Yet earth-born Passion soils her worth
With every shade of vulgar earth,
Nor dreams her highest glory can
Ascend beyond—a slave for man!
But vile that soul, however fraught,
If pride of sex be only taught:
The mind has lost its master-grace,
And thoughts demean their lofty race
When female love and virtue claim
No laurel in the wreath of Fame;
While all that Genius should adore
Is laugh'd away to live no more!
Not thus the bright and perfect One,
Whose Blood redeem'd a world undone,
Of woman spake, when Man had flown
And Mary watch'd and wept alone!

Another and a darker race
Whose doctrine might the brute disgrace,
So vilely from the dust of earth
It sprang, to prove its sullied birth!—
Oh, name it not, but let it be
Entomb'd in voiceless infamy!
If he who dares a Shrine deface
Where time has left a holy trace,
Is branded for his impious zeal
By all who ancient glory feel,
What damning tones can language find
For him who would profane the mind,

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And dare, with sacrilegious smile,
The temple of the soul defile!—
Affection, deep as hearts desire,
Yet fed by intellectual fire;
Those graces felt, but undefined,
In gleams and glances of the mind,
Developed in a myriad ways,
By mien or manner, look or gaze;
The tones in dewy cadence heard
From lips that harmonise each word,
All, all the bright attraction bred,
From each fond smile a soul hath shed,
Oh! these transcend what Passion's might
Can raise to charm her maniac sight.

And when Disease's poison'd breath
Hath tainted life with hues of death;
When time has dimm'd that starry gaze
Whose magic thrill'd our younger days,
There is a love whose light remains
To warm the heart though passion wanes:
For beauty born within the mind
Admits no mean decay;
The Earth may shrink, the Sun grow blind,
Ere that dissolve away!

Alas! how oft since time began
Hath woman been abased by man;
To wisdom's rank denied a claim
Beyond the worst or weakest aim;
Or, doom'd by others, living toys
For brutal dreams, or selfish joys!
But thou, my England! first to be
In heart refined, in spirit free,
For ever may the virgin smile
Of Woman consecrate thine isle!
To guard thee, should fond ocean fail,
Thy banners cease to awe the gale,
Thy throne become a crushing weight
Of tyranny on rank and state,
Thy genius and thy glory fled,
With each high pulse of freedom dead—
E'en then, with female worth to throw
Its heavenliness round want and wo,
Ruled by the heart's unsullied reign
A Kingdom might revive again.
But trample once upon that shrine
Where Love hath sainted as divine
That Beauty which our dreams adore,
Religion, virtue, truth, are o'er!
And sooner shall Gomorrah rise
From out her grave to greet the skies,
Than Empires where no morals bloom
Awaken from their living tomb!

Oh! what a curse for them who can
Etherialise the world of man,
Yet prostitute a poet's line,
To render Woman less divine.
A tyrant, when his wrath is o'er,
Can break the chain, and back restore
The dungeon'd captive into day;
And tears may suffer'd wrong allay;
And scarce a pang the good endure
But some atoning sigh may cure.
But what is written—that is writ!
No soul-wrung tear may cancel it;
Like demons on dark errand sent
From out their fiendish element,
Polluting Thoughts, by passion fired,
Career the world, untamed, untired;
From heart to heart their plague is spread,
From soul to soul corruption bred,
Till myriads by their baneful spell
Are tempted to the brink of hell!

I envy not the unconfess'd
Remorse that gnaws his lonely breast,
Who weeps o'er that perverted mind,
Whose genius should have graced mankind,
Yet bow'd to be the mental slave
Of crimes which curse beyond the grave!
For when at noon of life he sees
His children circled round his knees;
Or triumphs in each dimpling grace
That dawns within a daughter's face,
What pangs with that proud moment cope,
What terror blights each blooming hope!
Perchance within his dying brain
Shall ring some recollected strain,
And gloomily those visions throng,
Corruption loved to shape in song;
And while they darken round his head
Portray the crimes their poison bred,
Till Fancy hears the parting groan
Of souls that shudder'd like his own!

Then, not for that unloving race
Who scorn each intellectual grace;
Or them, whose coarseness would destroy
The vestal-bloom of human joy,—
Be mine the lay. Yet should there be
A heart which loves true heart to see;
A father, who has felt how dear
The woman whom his thoughts revere;
A mother, in whose watchful eye
Affections deep and endless lie;
A maiden, who hath known how sweet
The sister of her soul to greet;
Or lover, who in lofty youth
Hath pleaded with impassion'd truth
To shape of Beauty, by whose light
The universe became so bright,—
If such the poet's page beguile
His guerdon be their grateful smile.

Oh! might he wake the richest tones
The harp of his enchantment owns,

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For melody to waft along
The spirit of prevailing song,
And summon from the caves of Thought
Whatever shaping Dreams had wrought,—
A bard might think his visions rife
With rays of feelings, caught from life.
For, in such life what bliss he owed
To all that woman's reign bestowed!
The smoothest voice, the softest word
Delighted moments ever heard;
The dearest smile by pity shed
To quench the darkness sorrow bred;
The shadow of an Angel seen,
Where Goodness unobserved had been;
And, more than all, devoted truth
Whose years retain'd undying youth,—
If such a crowd of memory's charms
A poet's lyre too feebly warms,
It is because no words express
The light of Woman's loveliness;
And more than Poetry can speak
Is mirror'd on her brow and cheek;
While feelings oft the most sublime
Refuse to be portray'd in rhyme,
Though brightly round the heart they throng
And seem the archetypes of song:—
If doom like this attend my aim,
The song, but not the subject, blame!

CANTO II.

(In relation unto Sentiment).

“Yours was the nobler birth,
For you from man were made; man but of earth,
The son of dust!”
—Randolph.

ANALYSIS OF CANTO II.

Man in Paradise—His sense of Loneliness—Creation of Woman—Social Instincts—Injustice of History to Female worth—Woman's gradual degradation— Greece and Rome—Their domestic wants—Civilising effects of feminine influence—Chivalry and its sway—Christianity the Social restorer of Woman —Heroism and benevolence of her nature—Blessings of her Empire—Her dominion in Home—Single Misery!—Poets and Poetry—How Woman has inspired both—Dante and Beatrice—Petrarch and Laura—Shakespeare and his Love—Tasso and Leonora—Milton and his affections—His History— Klopstock and Meta—Burns and Highland Mary— His mournful Fate—Byron—Harrow—Retrospective glance.

When first the wings of Light unfurl'd
Their radiance o'er a new-born World,
And choral music, faint and far,
Awoke in each melodious star,
Until the glowing Earth began
To thrill beneath the gaze of man,
Ah, who can paint the primal bliss
That charm'd an hour divine as this!

How beauteous in his dawn of birth
Without a shade of sullied earth,
Without one touch of deadly sin
To mar the perfect soul within,
The lord of Eden must have stood,
When God beheld, and call'd him, good!
Oh! to have heard his lips reveal
The first delight that dust could feel;
Have listen'd to each wild address
He paid to Nature's loveliness;
Or, flashing from his heaven-turn'd eye,
Have mark'd the spirit's majesty,
While round his heart religion stole
And mirror'd Him who made the whole!

A melody from leaf and flower,
Responding to the breeze's power
That warbled with exulting tone;
A blooming light on all things thrown,
On fruit, and foliage, grass, and lake;
The song that in sweet gushes brake
From birds which flew on fearless wing
And taught the very air to sing!—
The mute delight, majestic trance
Of things that shunn'd no mortal glance,
But gazed on man with love or glee
And felt that life was amity;
While stainless as a pall of light
The cope of heaven hung crystal bright,
And pour'd upon each perfect limb
A lustre which apparell'd him;
While ever, as he raised his eye,
A seraph, floating through the sky,
With gleams of glory track'd his way
Or arch'd his wings in beaming play,—
Though all like this composed a scene
To testify where God had been,
A soft disease of soul began
To prey upon the bliss of man:
A yearning which no language spoke
Within his clouded bosom woke;
A loneliness with awful weight
Lay brooding o'er his desert fate,
And darken'd with ideal shade
The countenance which heaven display'd;
Till sadly was each primal word
Upon the placid breezes heard?—
“Some other Form, oh! let there be,
To live, and love, and roam with me
This lone but gorgeous wilderness
Of sights that woo, and sounds that bless!
A Spirit whom my own can meet,
Some hand to hold, some eye to meet;
Creator! if thy wisdom can
Oh, let there be a mate for man!”

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More lovely than a vision brought
From out the fairy realms of Thought;
Serene and silent, with a grace
Divinely breath'd o'er form and face,
In full array of love and light
Which dazzled his adoring sight,
By soul and sense to be revered
The Angel of the world appear'd.
Then, what a starry welcome rang!
Each orb an hymeneal sang;
While Shapes unutterably bright
From heaven gazed down with new delight,
When first the ground a woman trod
Just moulded by the hand of God!
Around her breast, in wreathy play
Her locks like braided sunbeams lay;
And limbs unveil'd a radiance cast
Of purity, as on she pass'd
Amid the bloom and balm of flowers
Which clustered round elysian bowers;
The bird and breeze together blent
Their lulling notes of languishment;
The Sun grew brighter as he shed
His glory round her living head,—
As if no conscious thing were free
From one fine spell of sympathy,
When woman rose upon the scene
Creation's fair and faultless Queen!

When Adam's trancèd eyelids woke,
Thus brightly on his vision broke
A living Shape for whom he pined,
To share his unpartaken mind.
Awhile they gazed in hush'd delight,
Each dazzled with the other's sight;
Then saw within their mutual eyes
Magnetic rays of soul arise,
And heard their lips fond tones repeat,
And heard their hearts in concert beat,
And felt within electric fire
Their spirit, blood, and brain, inspire:
Then Woman was espoused by Man!
The bridal dawn of Love began.
Oh! then was born of breathing truth
A feeling in ambrosial youth,
That soars above the vile decay
Of things which time and sense array,
And when the dying World departs
Still blooms within celestial hearts!

And thus, with all that forms a friend
The finer tints of love to blend;
To soothe the tempest, share the calm,
And pour on grief unfailing balm,
Did woman on the world appear.
And hath she fail'd in life's career?—
The Warrior wins a bright renown,
The Poet wears a peerless crown,
And History with heroic grace
Hath laurell'd their triumphant race;
But where, in what recording book
Can unforgetting Nature look,
To count, since first her ages ran,
What Woman hath endured for Man?
Alas! like dews which night hath felt
Within ungrateful earth to melt,
And freshen into living flowers
The grove that smiles at morning hours,
The virtues born of woman's soul,
(Though time has drunk their mild control
And had by them the heart supplied
With what the ruder sex denied)
In cold oblivion seem to fade,
Unknown, unsung, and undisplay'd!

But, might those Spirits who have been
Calm Watchers of our troubled scene,
Beholding with dejected eye
The throes of human agony,—
To earth repeat the tale of Life
Since first convulsed with gloom and strife,
How much, methinks, would Virtue prize
That never dazzled mortal eyes,
As Angels read the awful story
Of Empires dim, and ages hoary,
And, while they scorn'd a hero's crown
To Woman give the heart's renown!
For pangs endured with secret sway,
For tears by night, and toils by day;
For tortures by the world untraced
When love was wreck'd, and truth defaced:
For fondness in the fiercest hour
Of tyrant wrath, or ruin's power,
For every sad and silent wrong
That weakness suffer'd from the strong,—
For these, and all young Feeling bore
When misery made it love the more!
A chaplet of celestial light
Would Angels weave for Woman's right.
Oh! she is all that soul can be
In deep, undying sympathy!
When life is scarce a moving dream
'Tis like her spirit's native beam,
Which never from its fountain strays
But lives alone within her rays!
And round an infant how divine
The wreath a mother's arm can twine?
And when dark years of manhood bring
Their load of fated suffering,
As true as echo to the sound
Her blessings to his wants abound!
In sickness, ah! how smooth the bed
Her duteous hand alone can spread;
And, when the shades of Death advance,
What paradise within her glance,
Where all the yearning soul appears
Dissolved in sympathetic tears!

299

Yet scarce had Eden pass'd away
And sin begun its blighting sway,
Ere woman lost her mental rank
And in domestic thraldom sank
A Thing to be, whose witching power
Might serve to gild a wanton hour,
To feed a passion, soothe a frown,
Or magnify her lord's renown,
But ever, with unvalued heart,
In life to play the menial part!
And e'en in Greece, that land sublime
Whose glory lit the wings of time,
E'en there, where Beauty's faultless mould
Surpass'd what Sculpture's dreams behold,
In vain would truth a model see,—
Her love breathes no divinity!
From earth it sprung, on earth to live
On every charm mere Sense can give;
But all proud Sentiment could teach
Divine in thought, or pure in speech,
By Greece unfelt, or unadmired,
Hath scarce one classic page inspired.
And Rome, whose wizard banner waved
O'er half the isles far Ocean laved,
By conquest was not taught to school
The passions Heaven alone can rule;
But offer'd up each female Right
On altars of their stern delight,
Where rage might spend its haughty breath
And doom a guiltless heart to death.

But Rome and Greece, eternal two!
Have shown the world what mind can do;
And still from them the streams of mind
With living freshness charm mankind:
Their language in immortal notes
Around our list'ning spirit floats;
Their genius, throned in classic state,
Is haunted by the wise and great;
And high-born is the zeal that pays
True homage to heroic days
When valour woke the lyre of thought,
And poets sang the fields they fought!
Yet when prevail'd in Greece or Rome
The magic of a modern home?
There, lives the light our spirit hails!
There, beats the heart that never fails;
There, smiles beyond a realm to bring
Round calmest hours are clustering!
Where queens of mild affection reign;
The bloom of joy, the balm of pain;
And thus are more, when grey or young,
Than Homer dream'd, or Maro sung.

When first on Rome a tameless horde
From forest-depths their myriads pour'd,
And down to dust her empire broke,
Refinement's moral dawn awoke.
The gloomy brow, the glaring eye,
The breast which never heaved a sigh,
But nurtured in its wild domain
The glory of surmounted pain,—
Amid them all there lived a sense
Of woman's meek pre-eminence;
While Chastity within the heart
Was shrined beyond pollution's art.
Thus, Nature! in thy darkest mood
How much remains of bright and good!
What Learning in her proudest day,
What Genius in her fiery sway,
With blended power might never reach,
These warriors of the wild could teach!
'Tis pleasant in the storm to see
The battle of some glorious tree,
Whose branches with resentful play
Can awe the beaten winds away;
But, beautiful! in calmer hours
To view it wave o'er meadow-flowers,
And hearken to its whisper mild
Like blessing murmur'd o'er a child:—
And thus, methinks, the contrast seen
When beauty reign'd where war had been;
When lion port and eagle eye
Had laid their horrid menace by,
And, resting in some oaken shade,
While round him laughing infants play'd,
The savage of the desert grew
Refined beneath a woman's view!

Next, Chivalry, heroic child,
With brow erect, and features wild,
Placed Love upon his matchless throne,
For Gallantry to guard alone.
Then, Woman! in that reign of heart
How peerless was thy magic part!
A word was more than human breath;
A smile dissolved the gloom of death;
And Beauty, while it awed the brave,
But made the mind a noble slave
To Honour, in the chastest light
That ruled the soul, or charm'd the sight.
And shall we, in a venal age
When love hath grown more coldly sage,
With frigid laugh and frown decry
The bright return of Chivalry?
The trumpet-music of the Past,
In tales of glory doom'd to last,
No longer must one echo stir
The pulse of English character?
Alas! our life is worldly lore;
The reign of heart-romance is o'er;
And all which fired heroic toil
Hath now become a meaner spoil
For time and circumstance to win,
While Self is throned secure within.—
Yet, valour in its fine excess;
A scorn that wither'd littleness;

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Devotion in its grandest shape
And love that sought no mean escape,—
Oh! darkly sunk, and vilely sway'd
The Clime that wills their might decay'd:
But ever prompts each servile art
To flourish in th' unweeded heart,
Till day by day we learn to see
False self is true philosophy!

But far beyond all forming powers
Which made expressive Beauty ours,
In that pure shape by God design'd
To soften, soothe, and sway mankind,—
Religion, voiced from Heaven, began
To rouse the fallen soul of man:
Then spirit, by the sense unbound,
Arose with grace immortal crown'd:
Emotions deep, unstain'd desires,
Serener hopes, and chaster fires,
Came flowing from a Fount above
All freshen'd with ethereal love!
'Twas then that Woman like a star,
Whose beam had flutter'd dim and far
And shed upon the troubled soul
A ray of undiscern'd control,—
Advanced above life's daily sphere,
Disclosed her radiance, full and near;
And kindled for beclouded man
The light a Christian woman can.
Restored to reign, as fair and good
As once in Eden's bower she stood,
Companion of the Soul to be
In love's avowed fidelity,
Religion, when its healing smile
First trembled o'er Britannia's isle,
By her assuasive meekness won
A way to visit hearts undone.
And, did her martyr'd spirit quake
To front the vengeance of the stake?—
E'en there Apostles might have known
A faith whose firmness match'd their own:
Though limb by limb the fire devour'd,
She neither shook, nor shriek'd, nor cower'd,
But gloried in the murd'rous flame
To sing a martyr'd Saviour's name!

And view th' applauded domes which rise
In holy grandeur to the skies,
How much to female hands they owe
Their power to lessen human woe!
But ah! how exquisite must be
Those charities that none can see,
In lovely darkness hid awhile
Surrounded with Jehovah's smile!
Till, stealing into holy light,
They glitter on the pilgrim's sight
When haply in some village-dale
His soul has drunk the secret tale,
How Saintliness a beauty shed
Around the dying mourner's bed:—
Thus oft upon some travell'd plain,
Where Winter holds his bleakest reign,
In sudden bloom young flow'rets rise,
And blush beneath our gazing eyes.
For, leaving oft the splendid home,
Unheeded will Compassion roam,
And where the roofs of Sorrow lie
Give tear for tear, and sigh for sigh;
To Famine deal the daily bread,
For Sickness hold the drooping head,
Be mother to some orphan boy,
Make widow'd hearts to sing for joy,
And should the parting Soul despair,
Points to bright heaven, and Jesu there!

And what were life, if woman's heart
Attemper'd with no guiding art
The household-morals of mankind,
Whereby the world is kept refined,
And each soft hue opinion wears
Its lovely origin declares?
Go, find a Land where female grace
Is honour'd by no gallant race,
And man's dominion deems it vile
To bend beneath a woman's smile,
But tramples with a brute delight
On mental rank and moral right,
How darkly do her people sink!
How meanly act, how basely think!
No loftiness that Clime reveals;
No purity her spirit feels;
Corruption cankers law and throne,
The language breathes a dungeon-tone;
And seldom there hath Virtue smiled;
But, wither'd, weaken'd, and defiled,
It moulders on from age to age
The scorn of hero, bard, and sage,
And seems on glorious Earth to be
A plague-spot, and an infamy!

But vain would Truth reflect in song
What nameless fascinations throng
Around that quiet hearth alone,
Where Tenderness hath rear'd its throne.
Oh! there are feelings rich but faint,
The hues of language cannot paint;
And pleasures, delicate as deep,
Which like the palaces of sleep
Melt into dimness, when the Light
Would look upon their fairy sight;
And there are chords of happiness
Whose spirit-tones our fancy bless,
And make the music of our joy
Complete, without one harsh alloy;
Yet ill can words one note reveal
Of melody which mind can feel!

301

But who hath left some calm domain
Where Home was charm'd by woman's reign,
And trifles through some magic wore
An air they never breathed before,
And enter'd where a proud abode
To ruder man its splendour owed,
Nor felt the contrast sternly cold,
Like winter o'er his spirit roll'd?
Still, there may garden, grove, and bower,
Attend on each retiring hour;
There Painting with impassion'd glow
The poetry of colours show,
While volumes rank'd in rich array
The heroes of the mind display:
But like a face when death has chill'd
The light that once each feature fill'd,
Contrasted with its living power
Beheld in some excited hour,
Are homes where single man is seen
With those where woman's spell hath been.

Alas! for them whose toil-worn days
Uncheer'd by Love's adorning rays,
In crawling loneliness depart,
Yet fret the bloom from out the heart.
Though Life, as lord of each desire,
To intellectual thrones aspire;
May win the laurel, wear the crown,
And madden envy with renown,
How much beyond what dreams bestow
Their loveless hours can never know!
With nothing but cold Self to please,
The waters of the spirit freeze;
And years but harden while they chill
A Bosom left unsocial still:
And like a tree by autumn shorn
Of all that summer-boughs had borne,
A leafless, bare, and blighted Thing
Where scarce a breeze will deign to sing,—
Is Man bereft of that control
That emanates from female soul.
For heart with heart was born to beat,
And soul with soul was made to meet,
And sex for sex design'd to be
The dawn of endless sympathy.

But ye! the laurell'd Host who live
A life beyond mere earth to give;
The deities of dazzled Thought,
To whom her incense aye is brought;
Ye Alexanders of the mind
Who conquer, but to charm mankind!
Enchanters! for the spirit's eyes
Remoulding ruin'd paradise;
Interpreters! whose tones declare
The dialogues of Sea and Air;
The priests of Nature taught to praise
And worship her mysterious ways;
Ye intellectual Kings of time!
Triumphant, matchless, and sublime,
How fervently your pages own
In music of transcendant tone,
That Woman in her lovely might
Drew worship, wonder, and delight
From Souls whose inward glance could see
Visions that crowd eternity!

Impassioned Lords of deathless song
To them the lips of Time belong,
As fired with their majestic fame
From age to age they sound their name,
And bid the world enshrine that scene
Where once a worshipp'd Bard hath been;—
For hallow'd seems his natal spot
Where thrones are crush'd, and kings forgot!
And they have earn'd that gorgeous debt
Of praise, that Time is paying yet,
Who taught us, though it bear the curse,
To love the heaven-born universe,
And trace wherever goodness trod
The lustre of a living God!

And glorious is it, when the base
Would frown upon Heaven's fairest race,
To echo into life again
The music of some master-strain;
And prove amid the ranks of fame
How each who won undying name,
In love's applauding eye could see
The ruling star of Poetry.

Then let me from the poet-throng
Who hymned on Earth unearthly song,
Select some all-surpassing few,
And as they rise in proud review
Let him whose spirit ever bow'd
Before the passion it avow'd,
Whose bosom hath been thrill'd or shaken
With dream fulfill'd or hope forsaken,—
Exult to find his soul hath felt
A charm which could the sternest melt;
That lent to genius half its glow,
Or taught eternal song to flow;
For fancy plumed the wing of fire,
And warm'd the soul of every lyre,
Whose language was the light of thought
From Love by consecration wrought!

With paleness on his awful brow
Who riseth like a spectre now
From darkness, where his fancy dared
To wander with an eye unscared,
And gaze on Visions such as roll
Around that blighted Angel's soul,
Who baffles in his dread domain
An immortality of pain
'Tis Dante!—whose terrific flight
Through caverns of Cimmerian night

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Imagination vainly tries
To track with unappallèd eyes!
Severe, august, and sternly great,
The gloom of his remorseless fate
Around him hung a dismal air
Which broodeth o'er intense despair;
Till frenzy half began to raise
A wildness in his fearful gaze,
As, roaming over crag and wood
He battled with bleak solitude!
For sooner might the maniac roar
Of ocean cease to awe the shore
When Starlight comes with fairy gleam,
Than Pity lull his tortured dream!—
Oh! 'tis not in poetic art
To paint the earthquake of his heart,
The storm of feeling's ghastly strife
When she, who form'd his life of life,
Had vanish'd like a twilight-ray
Too delicate on earth to stay.
For Love had heated blood and brain,
A fire in each electric vein,
A passion whose exceeding power
Was heaven or hell to each wild hour!

But from the wreck of ruin'd days
What gorgeous visions did he raise!
Since ne'er was Beauty so divine
Embodied in a breathing shrine,
As thronèd Beatrice on high
In the dark haze of Deity!
Her forehead wreath'd with starry light,
And she herself,—oh! what a sight
On Dante glitter'd, when afar
He listen'd to her mystic car,
As wafted in a cloud of flowers
And guarded by angelic powers
In veil of fire her spirit came,
And warbled his remember'd name!
He bow'd beneath her awful look;
Then gazed until his being shook
Like water, when the winds convulse
And stir it with a quivering pulse.
But when the wing'd enchantress soar'd
To where the Godhead was adored,
Without a shadow, speck, or bound,
Eternity lay imaged round!
There on some mysterious throne
Again he saw her, bright and lone.
Ineffably one look she cast
Angelic features ne'er surpass'd,
On him who knelt entranced awhile
Within the glory of her smile;
Till lo! in deep excess of light
She faded from his yearning sight!

As one who leaves a savage dell
Where day hath bid the sun farewell,
Comes forth to view autumnal beams
On bank, and wood, and dimpled streams,
Is he who turns from Dante's gloom
To see Parnassian flow'rets bloom,
As dreams of beauty dawn and glow
Along the page of Petrarch's wo.
How touching are those mental tears,
Delighted throbs and dazzled fears,—
The penance by his genius paid
Whenever recreant fancy stray'd
Beyond the path of pure desire!
'Twas Laura tuned his pensive lyre:
Madonna-like, and sweetly mild,
And pure as an untempted child,
Amid her white-robed virgin-throng
He saw her beauty glide along,
When lilies deck'd her sun-bright hair
Amid the walls of lone St. Claire.
That hour became a second birth!
Her lustre overveil'd the earth;
And never did a Ghebir kneel
Before his orb with truer zeal
Than Petrarch at that living shrine
Where dwelt the soul he knew divine!
To him she was a spotless Thing
Too bright for earthly lyre to sing;
A miracle of life and love,
A dream embodied from above,
A seraph whose unclouded eyes
Reflected back their native skies!

From her his inspiration came;
Each song enshrined her hidden name;
And not a shadow, tint, or sound
Creation could produce around,
But he beguiled with beauteous art
To typify her taintless heart.
How fervently his homage glows!
Pure from the mind it springs and flows,
Exhausting as his numbers roll
The life-blood of a feeling soul.
For Laura seem'd his spirit's breath,
And ruled it when she sunk in death;
Then, day and darkness, scene and hour
Were haunted with her holy power;
And when her smile illumed it not
The faded world was soon forgot;
Since only to embalm her name
He panted for eternal fame!

Adorner of the human race!
Great Nature's rival, who could trace
Her features with such perfect skill
That Time can but remould them still,
So matchless is that mighty One
Whom Fancy now would gaze upon.
Go, lend the skies a lovelier blue,
Or sunbeams o'er the sunshine strew;

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Bid Horror to the tempest bring
A louder shriek and blacker wing:
Or dare suggest a deeper tone
To Thunder on his midnight-throne;
So powerless seems a poet's line
To sing what Shakspeare's works combine!
All tears and smiles to him belong;
All clouds that round the spirit throng;
All passions, principles, and powers
Which wring the heart, or rule its hours,
In language Nature's lip had taught
By him were into action wrought!
So truly with creative art
He paints the drama of the heart,
That long as tears haunt human eyes,
Or Pleasure laughs, or Sorrow sighs,
Whatever path his genius trod,
We hail him earth's poetic god.

And round him is a dimness thrown?
The colour of his life unknown?
While meaner names are chronicled,
And baseness in false light beheld,
That Masterpiece of mortal clay
Unhonour'd did he pass away?
Yes, like an orb whose affluent rays
Demand of earth no greeting praise,
He scatter'd intellectual light
Immortal in unconscious might;
Sublimely careless of renown
Then lay his awful spirit down,
Nor dreamt that Glory's arm would wave
Her brightest banner o'er his grave!

But yet there come faint shadows cast
From pining years which he had past,
That tell us how the soul could brook
Such pangs as once his bosom shook,
When dark-eyed Beauty rack'd and wrung
A heart round which the world had clung!
Her hair was like the sheen of night
When blackness seems to make it bright;
And melody her touch obey'd
When o'er the chords her fingers stray'd;
But sorrow dash'd her April years
With cold and melancholy tears;
And thus there grew a wild unrest
Within the gloom of Shakspere's breast,
Till he who sung what Romeo felt
Beneath like pangs was doom'd to melt,
And hide within his dreaming brain
The visions of a lover's pain.

And well may Woman proudly think
That he whose spirit thus could drink
Absorbing rays from beauty's eyes,
Hath sphered her sex amid the skies!
And none like him love's essence knew,
From hidden soul the lightning drew,
That subtile, secret, silent flame
For which the heart hath found no name.
There's not a throb that woman feels,
There's not a ray her mind reveals,
And scarce a blush on brow and cheek
When blood would rise and almost speak,—
But Shakspere hath the whole divined,
And held a mirror to the mind
That nature o'er his magic glass
Might view each play of feature pass.
And what a life-breath'd air there seems
To freshen those embodied dreams
Where character and grace arise,
To feast our unforgetting eyes
With all Affection can display,
When most we bow beneath her sway!
Bright, beautiful, and young, and warm,
With tears that melt and tongues that charm,
The creatures whom he call'd to birth
We pine to meet on mortal earth,
And trace by his revealing art
The windings of a woman's heart.

As moonlight weaves a varied spell
O'er rock and mountain, grove and dell,
So Love with his transforming beam
Hath colour'd each romantic dream,
As stern or mild the spirit lay
Beneath the spell-work of his ray.
A sense of beauty,—it was thine,
As deep, as burning, and divine
As ever fed with living fire
The passion of a poet's lyre,
Pale martyr! whom Alphonso's hate
Imprison'd for a madman's fate,
Because ere yet the lips could speak
Emotion had betray'd thy cheek,
To tell him how a bard could dare
To love a princess—and despair!
That love was like a blasting sun,
It sear'd the heart it shined upon!
But oh, how much of Tasso's strain
Was born of his devoted pain,
When feelings in their hopeless strife
Contended with those clouds of life
That 'tween him and his idol grew,
Till Death alone could break them through.

His youth was lonesome; and the light
Of half that won or woo'd the sight,
Enchantment from his spirit shed
Till earth was heaven beneath his tread!
And Nature like a mother smiled
On him her musing foster-child;
To whom her voice from wave or wind
Came with a magic more refined
Than echoes from the human soul:
And where a quiet stream did roll

304

While shade and sunshine blent their power,
He charm'd his own creative hour;
Till voiceless aspirations rose,
His bosom lost its young repose,
And round his heart a Syren came
Who murmur'd his immortal name!
Thus fancy set the soul on fire,
Till life itself he found aspire
To beauty, like that spirit bright;
When, tender as the touch of light,
Fair Leonora's vision stood
Before him, fresh in womanhood!
And all the heart's creation drew
At length his living eyes could view.
What heavenliness arrayed her form!
How exquisite the blushing storm
Of love's betray'd emotion rose!
When Tasso read his lyric woes,
And saw her eye's transparent blue
Bedimm'd with soul dissolving through!
Morn after morn, in youth's ripe age,
He read his own melodious page,
While Leonora's lips of love
The garland of his glory wove
In words whose magic seem'd to be
The tones of immortality!

And could they side by side remain
Nor feel the heart's delicious pain?
The might of that magnetic gaze
That each to each would softly raise?
Could Tasso in such perill'd hour
Be dead to passion's dawning power?
Alas for him!—Alphonso came
And bade a dungeon hide his flame!
They tore him to a hideous cell,
(Ferrara hath revered it well)
And left him, for a maniac's doom,
To rot in suffocating gloom!
Yet misery could not then decay
The dream that wore his mind away:
Though frenzy might its faith destroy
Till life became a wretched toy,
Yet Passion round his wreck would smile,
Like Evening o'er a faded pile:
But when his Leonora died
And every bard a wreath supplied
To grace the glory of her bier,
Could Tasso's Muse deny a tear?
Yes! silence was the tomb of pain,
And grief was voiceless, when 'twas vain.
Let fancied wo prepare a sigh
To deck the fate of those who die;
And hypocrites their cheeks array
With gloom to serve a venal day,
The pangs which load a loftier breast
Lie deep, and dark, and unexprest;
Yet sternness in that blank despair
Hath buried more than anguish there!

Another of the wondous see!
Whose spirit talk'd with Deity,
And, blind on earth, beheld in heaven
The glory to archangels given,
When robed in light their garments blaze
And whiten in eternal Rays!
No cavern'd prophet while he felt
A trance almighty round him melt;
Or by some Babylonian stream
From darkness shaped his awful dream
Wherein there glided, vast and dim,
The cloud-apparell'd cherubim,
Hath scarce outsoar'd his epic flight
Who sang of Chaos, Death, and Night!
Had none, methinks, but Milton's song
Pour'd its grand tide the world along;
Had never page but his reveal'd
The miracles in mind conceal'd,
The hope immortal still would rest
Unblighted in our human breast;
For never could some narrow grave
Th' immeasurable soul enslave,
Which compass'd air, and heaven, and hell,
As lord of his creative spell!

With what a melody divine
The river of each noble line
Flows onward!—faint, or loud, or deep,
Accordant to the numbers' sweep.
Go, enter some majestic fane
And listen to the organ-strain,
When melting clouds of music float
Down the dim aisles with blending note;
Now with wild melodious thunder
The vaulted pavement echoes under,
Then, aloft in flights of sound
The winged harmonies abound,
Evanishing like birds that stray
And skyward sing their boundless way!—
E'en thus can Milton's numbers roll
Their cadence o'er a trancèd soul.

And can we deem that he who drew
In lines of love so brightly true
The Mother of our mortal race,
And made the lustre of her face
To dazzle back a Demon's guile,
When Eden laugh'd beneath her smile,
Reflected not through poet's art
The paradise of his pure heart?
The Lady-pilgrim of the wood
In star-like beauty, lone and good,
Was copied from a shape, perchance,
That kindled youth's adoring glance.

There is a tale—and let it live
Such life as fond romance can give,—
That once as slumb'ring Milton lay
In umbrage from the noon-warm day,

305

Beneath the twilight of a tree,
That arch'd its waving canopy,
A maiden saw his sleeping face
And, spell-bound with its beauteous grace,
Her wonder in sweet song express'd
And placed it on the poet's breast;—
“If eyes when shut the heart can take,
How bright their vict'ry when awake!”
Oh! who can tell what beauty flow'd
From feelings by such words bestow'd?
The Eve of his enchanted thought
From hues of nature's heaven was wrought,
And she of paradise the queen
Embodied what his soul had seen.

And could that Bard, whose mind was free
And boundless as eternity;
Who seem'd on earth to have the skies
Aye floating o'er his mental eyes;
To the low dust of life descend
And with the base its glory blend?
How nobly hath awarding Time
For Genius shaped the crown sublime,
And silenced in oblivion's shade
The war Opinion's fury made!
Till all the wounds and stabs of strife
Which agonised his bleeding life
Appear but like a mould'ring stain
That lingers on some marble fane,
But ere it rots one tint away
Hath vanish'd in some heavenly ray!

Oh! many are the pangs that wear
A spirit into proud despair;
And many are the tears which flow,
To swell the tide of human wo:
But seldom doth the sicken'd heart
From dreams of false perfection start
With pangs of such convulsive power
As when the great have ceased to tower,
Desert the sky, and fold their wings
To strive with earth's degraded things,
Like eagles when their flight is o'er
That wrangle on some weedy shore!

But one amid the poet-throng
To whom the wreaths of heaven belong,
From pride and coarser impulse free
Stands out, in solemn purity!—
His heart, by woman's power array'd,
The summons of high love obey'd,
And beautiful, beyond the light
Of language to reveal aright,
The passion of a deathless pair,
Who breathed on earth celestial air!
Before the dawn of being came
They dreamt their lot was doom'd the same,
And human love in heaven would be
A wedded immortality!
And when his Meta dying lay
And felt her spirit faint away,
Like music from a falt'ring wave
When sinking to its ocean grave,
Beside her Klopstock meekly stood,
And watch'd the pale and speaking blood
In awful changes come and go!
But never was such loving wo,
When Meta, to his fond request
That round him her bright wings should rest
While o'er the world his fate must rove,—
Responded with a burst of love,
“Who would not share that lot divine,
To be thine angel! thou art mine!”

A gentle stream which glides along
And tones the breeze with lovely song;
And that same stream, when torn at length
And arm'd with desolating strength
As down some rocky steep it pours,
And like a rival ocean roars,
May typify the tranquil soul
When calm'd by virtue's wise control,
And one by passion's whirlwind force
Compell'd to each disastrous course.
'Tis thus, when sad-eyed memory turns
From Klopstock to impassion'd Burns,
Two streams of life at once appear
In mild repose and mad career.

The Shakspeare of the woods and fields,
How wizard-like the sway he wields!
The heart-blood owns his lyric might
And ripples with confess'd delight
When Scottish valour fires the song,
Like clarion-music, stern and strong!
Excitement, that immortal pain,
The demon of a poet's brain,
On him it wreak'd its wildest rage!
And all that poverty could wage
Against a high and haughty mind
His trampled heart was doom'd to find.
Yet, cradled in dark misery's bed,
How nobly was his genius led!
What Man denied, great Nature gave:
His soul, no educated slave,
The Elements and Seasons taught,
Creation magnified his thought;
And when amid the foliage dim
The blackbird piped his vesper-hymn,
Or round him, like a lustrous pall
He felt the Day's bright curtain fall,
As tides th' attractive moon obey,
So throbb'd his pulse to Nature's play.
And Woman by her smile could throw
A sunbeam o'er his blackest wo,—
A ray whose beauty reach'd the soul
And bade his burning numbers roll!

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Yet who can read the bitter fate
So darkly chill and desolate,
That brooded o'er the closing day
Of him who sang as proud a lay
As ever rose from Scottish lyre
On inspiration's breath of fire,
Nor weep to think that starless night
Should blacken round a soul of light!
Or, who can mark his mind's undress,
The agony of lone distress,
The curse of want that crush'd his brain
To frenzy, with a fiercer pain!—
Can hear the groan of anguish'd hours
When Misery rallied all her powers,
And thoughts like hidden scorpions tore
The mind that could no longer soar,
But prostrate in its ruin lay
A blasted wreck and bleeding prey,—
Nor ask for Pity's brightest tear
To tremble on his early bier!
Yet warmly while around him shone
The worship that his genius won,
Prophetic truth beheld afar
The cloud that would conceal his star,
And leave him, long ere life should close,
To wither in degrading woes!
Yes, he whose lines are mottoes now,
Whose genius veils his Country's brow
With glory, when his stirring lays
Are greeted with exalting praise,
Was fated like an outcast thing
To moulder in dark suffering
Down to the grave, with scarce a bed
To pillow his immortal head!

Alas! how little can the great
Feel the dread curse of blighted fate;
Or think that they, whose spirits throw
Around the world a heavenly glow,
Whose bright imaginations seem
The fragments of a Seraph's dream,
Whose words imparadise the hours
And freshen earth with Eden-flowers,—
The martyrs of the mind have been
Or suffer'd more than eye hath seen!
For, while the theme of Glory's tongue,
Their homes were wreck'd, their hearts were wrung;
And songs which flow'd so gaily free
Gush'd from a fount of misery!

A noble Mind in sad decay
When baffled hope hath died away,
And life becomes one long distress
In bleak and barren loneliness,
Methinks 'tis like a ship on shore,
That once defied th' Atlantic roar,
And gallantly through gale and storm
Hath ventured her majestic form;
But now in stranded ruin laid
By winds and dashing seas decay'd,
Forgetful of her ocean-reign,
Must crumble into earth again!

To crown the lyric throng appears
Another, whose poetic tears,
While a bruised spirit toils below
Shall consecrate Affection's wo;
And ever by their passion tell
The power of love's unfading spell,
Which beautified with lone despair
The visions that his lines declare.

The anguish of his riven heart
Hath ceased on earth to play its part,
And o'er his laurel-shaded brow
The damp of death lies coldly now!
The storm, the shadow, and the strife
That made and magnified his life,
Have sunk like winds along the deep
And left him to untroubled sleep:
But few, when Harold died, forget
The fulness of our fond regret,
As England echoed back the knell
Which toll'd from Greece his last farewell!
Oh! nought but some ignoble breast
Where feelings, iced in stony rest,
Can baffle with a stern disdain
The lightnings of each lofty strain,
That did not unto tears admire
The dirges of his gloomy lyre,
And speculate, if years had brought
A blessed store of brighter thought,
How much of all which mars his fame
Had vanish'd in some purer aim.—

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The earthquake that so rock'd his soul
With dread and undefined control,
Beneath some intellectual balm
Had soften'd to melodious calm:
Those feelings which were prompt to stray
Where all the weeds of vileness lay,
And linger with sarcastic stress
Round Nature's erring littleness,
As though in man no trait was true
But that which wore the meanest hue
And Goodness were a dream that dies
When dazzled by a poet's eyes,—
Yes, feelings dark as these, perchance
Had glorified by pure advance
The regions of exalted mind,
And loved the links of human-kind.
The spots upon Creation seen
For sorrow, not for scorn, had been,
And genius, from its darkness free,
Flash'd out in full divinity!

But, 'twas not so; and man must wait
The brightness of a better fate,
To tell him all which Grief would learn,
When back to dust the great return,
E'en in that hour when most they seem
To realise our noblest dream,
And purify the hopes of Earth
With promise of a second birth.

The sanctity of Virtue stands
Above the soil of human hands,
And Genius, though the world it awe,
Must bow to her corrective law:
Yet who, unless his mind can be
Transform'd to perfect Deity,
Can judge how terrible the sway
When Impulse leads the soul astray?
The meanest tongue can brand a sin,
But who can probe the heart within,—
The gloom of agonising strife
When Principle resigns its life,
Till Passion in her fiery reign
Pours madness over blood and brain!
A soul, that like Æolian lyre
Which faintest tones of air inspire,
Was thrill'd by sound, and hue, and scene,
As though its slumber ne'er had been;
A spirit, pining for the good
Till dreams became its daily food;
Or revelling in satiric gloom
Which mock'd at all above the tomb,—
Oh! these unite to arm a spell
That few below have wielded well!
And, blended with a slakeless thirst
To find the spot by crime uncursed,
In Byron lived a haunting dread
From moods of dark inquiry bred,
Of that Unknown beyond the grave
Where fancy's wings delight to wave:
Hence, doubt and scorn, with anguish rife,
Threw blackness on the stream of Life;
Till o'er each maze of erring man
The reckless eye of Satire ran,
Which finding nought but error free,
Call'd vice the sole reality!

But where the grave of Harold lies
May Virtue bend forgiving eyes!
The meek, whose time-worn spirits know
How much that Heart must brave below
When battling with the mystic gloom
Which haunts it from the spectral tomb,
No vengeance on his glory wreak
But softly of each error speak.
For who are they, if life had been,
Like Byron's, one uncurtain'd scene
Where every eye could point a gaze
And level all its envious rays,
Whose splendour would reveal no blot
Which now lies faded and forgot?
While some regard with bitter eyes
The tomb where buried Genius lies,
And bid the gates of Mercy close
On them whom Earth denied repose,—
The hearts that wisdom's humbling power
Has taught to fear the firmest hour,
In tender awe will bend and weep
Where Byron's noble ashes sleep,
Nor love o'er sorrow's wildering track
To trace the foot of Error back;
But thank him with a proud excess
For all the poet's mightiness!
Oh, there he lies! becalm'd in death,
Whose being was a tortured breath;
Whose years in whirlwind bore him on
To the dread gulf where time is gone!
And stirless as the travell'd lake
Whose waters down the mountain break
O'er wood and wild, and ridge and rock,
Convulsed and crash'd with many a shock,
The turbulence of trial now!—
The rest can God alone avow.

And was it nought to melt away
The frost that bound the spirit's play?
To summon into startling view
The deep, the daring, and the true,
Or light the chaos of the soul
And see its hidden waters roll!
Instead of polish'd rhyme, to raise
The stormy breath of wilder lays;
Or make us, in his milder hour,
Dissolve in dreams of beauty's power—
Such beauty as our thoughts create,
But never clad a mortal state!

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There are who call the Poet's bliss
Too airy for a world like this:
Alas, for Wisdom! if her voice
Can teach the heart no glorious choice;
If downward to the dust she try
For aye to fix our slavish eye,
And seldom bid one glance be given
Aloft to mind's unclouded heaven!
The freshness of poetic thought
From out the groves of Fancy brought,
And wafted o'er the soul's domain,
What is it, but a breezy strain
From winds of vanish'd Eden lent
To purify earth's element,
And summon forth those dream-born flowers
That grew in Milton's epic bowers!
'Mid all the waste of worldly arts
Oh! leave him yet some few fine hearts,
That still the Poet's wand may raise
A vision of unfallen days,
And rescue from the fangs of time
Some feelings that are yet sublime!

On Harrow, when the heaven of June
Was garmented with glowing noon
And not a cloud's minutest braid
Along its liquid sapphire stray'd,
I stood beneath that haunted tree,
And heard the leaf-toned melody
Which oft in Boyhood's dreaming years
Had warbled on the pensive ears
Of Byron,—when he loved to muse
Beneath the quiet churchyard-yews.
Oh! who in such an hour could stand
And look adown the sloping land
Where meadow, vale, and roving stream
So often charm'd his chequer'd dream;
And round him feel the fresh-wing'd air
That lifted oft his waving hair,
And press the same sepulchral stone
His pressure loved to make its own,
Nor feel a sense of fame and might
That shook the heart with strange delight?

'Twas here he mused in Fancy's bower;
And in the mind's prophetic hour
Would try with telescopic gaze
To read the brow of unborn Days,
Hail the bright orb of future fame
And glory in a minstrel's name!
Or dared with dreadless eye to see
A map of vision'd misery
In lines of awful length outspread,
Till darkness veil'd him with the dead!

And who with backward gaze can scan
The burning course his genius ran,
Nor feel how Woman's reigning star
With fervid eye he view'd afar,
And felt her beam of beauty cast
A light which heaven alone surpass'd!
His primal love—it never died,
But still within the soul supplied
The waters of affection pure
From fate and freezing time secure.
'Twas thence ideal sorrow drew
The pangs which pierce our nature through,
Till love became the breath of song,
And bore his inward life along.
But had his heart with hers entwined
Whose beauty struck his boyhood blind,
The starlight of whose cloudless eyes
Attracted his immortal sighs,
If happiness could reach the great
How bright had been his alter'd fate!
Instead of darkness, light would be
Around the soul's divinity!
Medora, Kaled, and Gulnare,
Each ruin'd maid and reckless fair,
Were vision'd from the shades of mind
Despair and passion leave behind.
But, once in home's attractive fane
Oh! had he worshipp'd woman's reign,
And seen her, not in mock romance,
Through daily paths of life advance
As angel of domestic hours,
How nobly might those lofty powers
He lavish'd on a Corsair's bride
Have been to purer love supplied!
While, feeling all which fancy drew,
His genius would have brighten'd too,
And Woman in his picture hail'd
A model that had never fail'd,
While love, by genius made divine,
Could sanctify a poet's line.

And such hath been fond Woman's sway
Since angels hymn'd her natal day,
By law of that instinctive love
Whose archetype is God above!
And while yon heaven is o'er us hung
For ever shall the brave and young,
The free, the fervid, fond and true,
Declare what female hearts can do!

And many a name as yet unknown,
Embalm'd in some immortal tone
Of genius, by a thrilling bard,
Shall Time exult to read and guard:
And Beauty, in domestic bowers
Now fameless as secluded flowers,
When buried queens forgotten lie
And royal tombs can raise no sigh,
In melody of deathless might
Shall live to be the World's delight,
While Love and Poetry can claim
To twine a wreath round Woman's name!

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CANTO III.

(In connection with Domestic Life.)

------“The mild majesty of private life.”
Akenside.

------“Show us how divine a thing
A Woman may be made.”
Wordsworth.

ANALYSIS OF CANTO III.

Introduction—Female Charms in all Climes—England paramount—Home-Scenery—Ideal Picture—Rural Landscape at Morning-Hour—Scenes, and Sights, and Sounds—Village-Cottages—Parsonage—The Hamlet-Queen—Her beauty and worth—An Angel of Social Mercy—Her little Sister—How trained and watched—The Brother—How remembered at Home —Village-reverence for the Pastor's Daughter— Dawning Emotions—Virgin Love—Its Depth and Delicacy—Transforming Power of the Affections— Courtship and its Charms—Progressive Love— Hopes and Anticipations—Tremors and Joys— Marriage Bells—Social Preparations—Bridal Room —Wedding-Scene—Departure—Moral Effects—A Domestic Future—Farewell!

Angel of life! whose love hath been
The master-charm of time and scene,
Romance in her Elysian mood
Creating forms of fair and good,
Hath not outsoar'd thy virtue's height,
Nor imaged forth more purely bright
Those lineaments of perfect grace
Which yet adorn thy breathing race;
For Fiction, when her mould was cast,
On truth might gaze, and feel surpass'd.

But where is woman most array'd
With all that mind would see display'd?
O England! round thy chainless isle
How lavishly all blessings smile,
And crowd within thy little spot
A universe of glorious lot!
But never till the wind-rock'd sea
Have borne us far from home and thee,
Thy purer charms we learn to prize
And feel the patriot's glow arise.—
Though Nature with sublimer stress
Hath stamp'd her seal of loveliness
On climes of more colossal mould,
How much that travell'd eyes behold
Would sated wonder throw away
To take one look where England lay!—
To wander down some hawthorn-lane
And drink the lark's delightful strain;
Or floating from a pastured dell
To hear the sheep's romantic bell,
While valeward as the hills retire
Peeps greyly forth the hamlet-spire,
And all around it breathes a sense
Of weal, and worth, and competence.
But, far beyond all other dowers,
Thy daughters seem Earth's human flowers.—
The charm of young Castilian eyes
When lovingly their lashes rise,
And blended into one rich glance
The lightnings of the soul advance,—
Wild hearts may into wonder melt
And make expression's magic felt.
Or, girded by the dreams of old,
In Sappho's Lesbian isle behold
A shadow of primeval grace
Yet floating o'er some classic face:
But where, in what imperial land
Hath Nature with more faultless hand
Embodied all which Beauty shows
Than round us daily lives and glows?
Here, mingled with the featured might
Of charms that coldest gaze invite,
Th' enamel of the mind appears
Undimm'd by wo, unsoil'd by years!
To wedded hearts devoid of strife
Here Home becomes the heaven of life;
And household-virtues spring to birth
Beside the love-frequented hearth,
While feelings soft as angels know
Around them freshly twine and grow.

A landscape of domestic love
Which God's paternal eyes approve,
Reflected from a homely dream,
Shall form my lay's concluding theme:
If there one heart its home can see,
'Twill render more than fame to me!

A vale of beauty!—lo, the Morn
In clouds of crimson radiance born,
Hath risen from the couch of night
And fills the air with fresh delight;
While hues, like harmonies that range
The world of sound with lovely change,
In varied lustre o'er the sky
Awaken, mingle, melt, and die;
Till full-orb'd on his flaming throne
The sun-King is beheld alone!
And blue as Baltic waves asleep
Before him lies a dazzling sweep
Of azure,—in its deep excess
Of morn-created loveliness.

How exquisite this breathing hour!
As though awhile some choral bower
Where Cherubim partake repose,
Its crystal gates did half unclose,
Till fragments of delicious sound
Came wafted on the winds around,
And bloom and balm to nature given
Made earth a momentary heaven!
Hark! to the choir of yonder wood

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Where life exults in solitude;
On each unrifled bough is heard
The lay of some melodious bird,
And young-wing'd breezes as they float
From brook and meadow learn a note;
And streams like tides of gladness, flow
And in the earth there dwells a glow
Of elemental youth and joy
Unchill'd by one corrupt alloy.
How dazzlingly with rosy dyes
The fairies of the field arise!
And flutter on their insect-wings,
As each a song of matin sings;
And where around the glitt'ring blade
A liquid web of dew is laid,
As early peasants' footsteps pass,
How greenly shines the shaken grass!
While many a lark from out the ground
Is startled, like a magic sound
Which ere the sense be half aware
Comes trembling through the lyric air!

And list, from out yon village-dell,
Upon the breeze in broken swell,
The goings-on of life begin
To charm the ear with social din.
The creak of hill-ascending wain,
The shout of some exulting swain,
The watch-dog baying far behind,
The mill-sounds hoarse upon the wind,
With voices from the child or crone,
Are all in gay confusion thrown;
And murmur on the morning-breeze;
With notes whose human echoes please.
From the thatch'd chimney now have broke
The tinted wreaths of cottage smoke,
Ascending delicately bright,
And braided by a golden light,
Like air-wing'd hopes that glide away
Commingling with the boundless day.
And see! amid the straw-roof'd throng
Of homes that to yon dale belong,
As dwelt the patriarch on the plain
Surrounded by his pastoral train,
A mansion smiles; whose neater state
Though unallied to proud or great,
A central grace around it throws
And o'er each cot a charm bestows.
Embower'd in laurels, green and calm,
To view it yields the eye a balm:
But when at eve its garden hath
A lustre on each lilied path;
When bough, and branch, and grape-hung vine
In rays of pensive beauty shine,
While gladsome bee and quiring bird
And leafy song are faintly heard,
There often hath the worldling cast
A longing eye, ere on he past,
And while it wander'd o'er the scene,
Mused, Oh! that such my own had been!

But is it like gay hearts that hide
With sunny brow a bitter tide
Of anguish in their gloom below,
Which they who suffer only know?
Have venom'd passions, fierce or wild,
The pureness of its peace defiled,
While outwardly its walls declare
Life's inner-world most tranquil there?
No: war and famine, blood and crime
Have stain'd the ghastly scroll of time;
And tears, the rain of torture, flow'd,
And conscience borne its burning load
While twenty years o'er earth have roll'd,
The aged die, and youth grown old;
Yet still, in unalloy'd content
Remains yon blissful tenement!
And, save the shadows which o'ersteal
The brightest fate the good can feel,
Around its heaven-protected scene
A summer of the soul hath been!
And like a fount whose waters fling
A freshness with faint murmuring,
Perceived alone by desert-flowers
That bud beneath its nursing powers,
From thence hath Charity's sweet store
Been scatter'd for the sick and poor.
So noiseless were the feet that trod
Those lovely paths which led to God,
That Angels only heard their tread,
And track'd them to some dying bed.

But where the ivied gate expands,
Within it what a vision stands!
More exquisite in brow and limb
Than those aërial cherubim,
Which painting in some starry dress
Reveals on clouds of loveliness!
Around her like a viewless zone
A fascinating might is thrown:
Her brow is pure as thought can be
And whiter than the foam-clad sea,
Expanded with an arch of grace
Like heaven's above a heavenly face;
And on that polish'd cheek, behold
Her ringlets, by the breeze unroll'd,
In gleaming motion dance and shake
Like ripples on a restless lake.
Her years are on the verge of heaven,—
That period when to life is given
The freshness of elastic youth
Yet touch'd with woman's deeper truth,
Again, behold that virgin face!
'Tis beauty in the mould of grace;
Incarnate soul lies sculptured there;
A feeling so divinely fair

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Is dwelling in those dark-fringed eyes,
That when they front congenial skies
Pure spirits well might deem that Earth
Had copied some celestial birth,
Or beauty in the world had grown
All spirit-like, to match their own!

Yet innocence with homely seal
Hath stamp'd the power her looks reveal;
And should her form the rustic meet
Amid some pent and crowded street,
So artlessly each lovely hue
Would dawn on his delighted view,
At once his mental eye would roam
To scenery round a village-home,
Till breeze and brook were heard again
Exulting o'er his native plain.

Companion of the morning hours
To tend her own infantine flowers,
Which grow beneath her guardian eyes,
And let their lids of bloom arise,
The garden-haunt she loves to pace:
And oft is seen, with bending grace,
And hand that scarcely wounds the air,
To nurse each bud unfolding there;
Till Fancy where her touch presides
Might dream the soul of flowers abides,
And wafts abroad their sweetest sigh
To greet her, as she glideth by.
Before her nought is forced to flee:
All undisturb'd, the rifling bee
When hived in bloom, may hum and sip
A banquet off the rose's lip:
The butterflies, bright gems of air!—
Can hover round her silken hair;
And not a bird that quells its song,
Or flutters when she moves along,
But sings as though a sunbeam came
Athwart the boughs with brighter aim.

'Twas here amid this haunt of dreams
Her childhood roved, and still it seems
Alive with voices heard of yore,
And breathes of them who breathe no more!
From out her casement's vine-clad height
She views it, when the veil of night
Lies dimly woven over all,
Or glitters like a dewy pall:
And here, when starry magic reigns
Amid the sky's nocturnal plains,
And moonlight with mysterious power
Hath mantled yonder grey church-tower;
The pensive maiden loves to stand
And let her night-born dreams expand.—
Nor is the scene bereft of charm:
The dusky roof of distant farm,
The meadows in their dim array,
The frowning coppice far away,
And cot that shows its twinkling pane
Adown the lone and green-bough'd lane,
While yonder where the cloven hill
Seems parted by a Tempest's will,
The billows wreathed with moonshine play
And warble forth an occan-lay,—
To hearts that feel the hush of night
Enchanting is their mingled sight!

A daughter, beautiful and good,
On the fair brink of womanhood,
When all the debt of love-watch'd years,
Of buried pangs and bosom'd fears,
By filial worth can be repaid,
Is more than words have yet portray'd.
What links, which time nor death can part,
Have bound her to a parent's heart!
Oh, deep beyond description lies,
Pure as the ray of seraph-eyes,
The love within parental souls!
Whatever tide of anguish rolls,
Whatever wreck the world can make,
Till God himself the good forsake
Affection is the life of life,
A power with more than feeling rife
Above all base dominion free,
A passion for eternity!

O, blest! unutterably blest,
The visions to their fancy prest,
When sire and mother blend a prayer
For thee, young spirit! fond as fair.
Thy being sways their mortal breath,
And shouldst thou die,—'twere more than death:
For in thy tomb their thoughts would dwell,
And darkness be their brightest spell.
To think on all thine artless ways
Since childhood reap'd its golden days;
From year to year delighted trace
The magic dawn of mind and face;
To watch thee in Life's daily round
With every trait of heaven abound;
And when some friend, whom time endears,
Hath warbled in their trancèd ears
Of noble acts in secret done,
And wreaths by silent virtue won,
Oh, then around their hearts to feel
A glow of admiration steal!—
Or haply, with prophetic truth
To picture for thy wedded youth
A Soul that shall be worthy thine,
With feelings from as pure a mine;
And when the church-yard yews shall wave
And darken o'er their cherish'd grave,
To feel, whatever time decree,
One Heaven their final home will be,
A bliss so pure no words unfold,
A joy so deep no eyes behold;

312

That language must be taught Above
Whose power reveals a parent's love!

And thou art worthy, on whose brow
The stainless mind lies mirror'd now,
Around their guardian hearts to twine
Those feelings that are so divine!
No wish, or want, or hope, or joy,
No dreams of time thy youth employ,
But blended with their meaning lies
Approval shed from parent eyes.
And as a ray from out the sun
Reveals its birth where'er it run,
Thy virgin thoughts, howe'er they stroll,
Retain the brightness of the soul.
And often in thy sleep is heard
The fragment of some duteous word,
When lips of imaged parents seem
To bless thee in thy girlish dream.
How winning are those myriad ways
By which a child fond homage pays,
Those ministries of heart and hand
Which none but parents understand!
When Morning reigns in dewy power,
To hie and cull the choicest flower;
Or pluck the fruit whose bloom appears
Bedeck'd with Night's refreshing tears;
Or else with magic pencil take
The likeness of some hill or lake,
Some haunted spot, whose beauty hung
Rich praises on her feeling tongue,
And these to place in proud surprise
Before a mother's greeting eyes!—
Affection, let thy voice declare
How tender-sweet such trifles are!
For what is kindness, but the heart
In action, without guile or art,
Imparting by some nameless power
A bloom to each attractive hour?

But when bleak winter bares the earth
And Comfort hails the wonted hearth,
Then, child of beauty! thou art found
The central star of bliss around.
Some book divine, or antique tale,
Or shipwreck, where the savage gale
Swells howling o'er the black-waved sea,
Perchance, the chosen page may be:
Or Bard eterne with visions bright
Shall charm the soul of taste to-night;
Or haply, Music's heaven-born spell
Whose spirit thou canst wake so well,
Shall melt fond memory into tears
Or votive sighs, for vanish'd years:
And then, adown the tides of song
While thou enrapt art borne along,
The throbbing chamber seems to glow
With Melody's rich overflow!
And full before his bick'ring fire,
Delighted sits a dreaming sire;
Nor blame the mother, if her gaze
Be fill'd with more than fondest praise,
And Nature whisper through the heart,
“My child, how exquisite thou art!”

But, 'tis not in the noon of joy
When Life endures no stern alloy,
A daughter from her mind can pour
The fulness of affection's store:
For let but once a pang prevail,
A limb be rack'd, or cheek grow pale;
Let the wild torture of disease
Deny to heart and hand their ease;
Let sorrow once her frown impress
On Earth's uncertain happiness,—
Then, scorner of the sex! advance,
And learn the power of Pity's glance,
The tender might of woman's gaze
Unweaken'd by tormented days.
Through hours of blackness, when the mind
Seems prostrate, wreck'd, and unresign'd,
What pathos in her pleading eye!
How gentle her devoted sigh!
One look speaks more than man could say,
And each word wafts a pang away.

And there are ties whose thrilling truth
Pervade her uncorrupted youth
With energies that breathe and move
In daily acts of duteous love.
Behold yon sister!—fairy thing
Whose forehead, like the brow of spring,
Is ever-bright and ever-young,
And with the glow of gladness hung;
So light in form, a breeze of life
Secure from earth's contagious strife,
Round her own orb of home and glee
On wing'd delight she seems to flee!
Each pulse within her fine-wrought frame
Is tuned to joy's unsleeping claim;
Whether a cloud-isle richly drest
Her wonder-beaming eye arrest,
Or magic from some household-word
Young laughter into life hath stirr'd.
And dear as Nature's dearest tie
She grows beneath a sister-eye,
Who watches with a star-like gaze
Around her pure but perill'd days.
And rather than the air might press
Too bleakly on her loveliness,
Or pain one fleeting pang awake,
Would let the blood her heart forsake,
And drop by drop dissolve away
To win her life one pangless day!

And what, though years now intervene
To veil her own from childhood's scene,

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To robe an infant's face with smiles
And summon forth its mimic wiles,
As playmate she can stoop to be
Transform'd to frolic infancy!
Will echo back the bird-like sound
Of tiny laughs in merry round,
Nor coldly shun the meanest toy
That wings a moment's flight with joy.
And well those cherub-features play
In answer to her sister's sway,
Delighted, calm, or grief-array'd,
According as her words display'd
The tones which govern smiles and tears!
And often when some cloud appears,
By pain, or temper's gloom begot,
To shadow her infantine lot,
That sister can alone restore
The sunshine as it play'd before!
And duly as the car of Night
Returns, she bends with soft delight
Enamour'd o'er the precious sleep
Of lids too beautiful to weep!
No, never is the pillow prest
Before a parting gaze hath blest
That winning face!—so brightly warm,
So tinted with the rosy charm
Of slumber, that its beauty seems
The bloom of amaranthine dreams.

But ah! there is a dearer task
Whose toils a patient wisdom ask;
And who beyond a sister knows
Where best the germ of knowledge grows,
When Infancy begins to look
Abroad o'er Earth's unwritten book,
To read the world with curious eye,
And question truths beyond the Sky!
Fondly to aid the budding mind
When thought springs faint and undefined;
To teach her lips a word to frame
And prattle with some homely name;
Then day by day, as reason wakes
And mental twilight dimly breaks,
A delicate enchantment throw
Round each young truth the heart would know,
Thus nursing with a sweet control
The childhood of a cherish'd soul,—
O none but she can paint the joy
Of such divine and dear employ!
In wing'd delight thus years will speed,
And still in language, look, and deed,
Will sisterly affection be
A power of guardian purity,
And gently thus its magic wind
Around an infant's growing mind.

A brother!—oh, that thrilling name,
It vibrates through thy very frame
Thou queen of Boyhood's cloudless day!
In studious bower though far away,
Thy heart is haunted with a sense
Of all a brother's charms dispense.
His picture on thy bedroom-wall,
How frequently its lines recal
Th' imperial face, the manly brow,
The eyes which dared the soul avow
And smile that knew no mean eclipse
But ever round those graceful lips
In brightest welcome play'd for thee
In moods of unaffected glee!—
What tales of prowess, feats of mind
Around thy memory intertwined,
'Tis pure delight to oft unroll
In tones that touch parental soul!
Beside thee like a felt unseen
The shadow of his shape hath been,
Whene'er along some favour'd walk
Thy spirit dreams him smile and talk;
His voice is woven in the breeze
That carols round the garden-trees;
And fancy, when the moon gleams bright,
Can often on its mirror write
Emotions 'twas divine to share,
When both had fix'd their glances there!
Through weal and wo, through cloud and change,
Whatever clime or shore he range,
Till nature can itself deny
Undimm'd will shine affection's eye,
And stainless those deep waters prove
That well from out a sister's love!

And think'st thou, though thy smile afar
Hath vanish'd like a fairy star,
Companion of her girlish lot!
That thou art in thy home forgot,
Where memories like pulses play
Within the heart of each new day?
So long our early feelings last,
Affection owns no faded past!
For aye the glow of what was dear
Surrounds it like an atmosphere;
Eternal is the youth of thought,
Whatever outward change hath wrought,
And distance, though like death it seems,
Is conquer'd by creative dreams
Of fondness, acting o'er again
The brother in his spirit-reign!
For, all he fancied, felt, or did,
Her memory in fond silence hid,
And nought is trivial, wreck'd, or gone,
He cherish'd, loved, or gazed upon!
Like gems of earth his flowers abide,
With dew and tender rain supplied;
The birds are fed with fostering care,
His dog beneath the wonted chair

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In unalarm'd repose may lie
And fawn to win her playful eye;
The glossy steed, whose bounding limb
O'er hill and mead had toil'd for him,
Beside it she will often stand
With greeting voice and gentle hand;
The page he read grows doubly sweet,
For there communing thoughts can meet:
Each melody whose magic sway
Could best dissolve his soul away,—
Delightful 'tis again to pour
Around the room its richest store
Of melting sounds, which ere they die
Seem blended with a brother's sigh!—
But holier far is memory made,
And deeper is its might display'd
Whene'er the poor he loved to feed,
The hearts he caused no more to bleed,
She welcomes in some rustic cot,
And finds his goodness unforgot!
And ye, whose locks with hoary truth
Betray the flight of faded youth;
Whose hands have rock'd the cradled boy,
Or ere he lisp'd his little joy,
Full proudly may your tongues prevail!
For dear is each domestic tale
The homely past untreasures now
To brighten on a sister's brow!
But when arrives his well-known seal,
What ecstacy young eyes reveal!
Warm on the page her lips impress
A kiss of perfect happiness;
And well in that entrancing hour
When feelings claim prophetic power,
Since all unworn his heart appears,
A sister may outwing the years,
And vision round a brother's head
The rays of future glory spread!

And wouldst thou trace her secret tide
Of goodness to the poor supplied,
Winding unknown its village-course
From charity's divinest source?
Angelic woman! if to be
On earth a child of Deity,
Surpasseth all we deem renown,
How peerless thine immortal crown!
For shipwreck'd hearts, sole haven thou;
With pity on thy pensive brow,
And mercy in thy healing hand,
And voice beyond all music bland,
From cot to cell, oh! thou hast been
Life's angel in its blackest scene,
And often with the dying good
On the bright verge of Heaven hast stood!

And such thou art; and many a dame
Delights to hear thy darling name;
And many a tatter'd widow glows
To bless the hand that heal'd her woes:
While orphan babes in lane and street
With bright'ning face thy welcome meet:
And many a tale of mercy lives
The life which grateful Memory gives,
When Feeling round a cottage-fire
Can pay the debt thy deeds inspire!
And they are such as cannot die
Though honour'd by no human eye;
Unchronicled in rolls of worth,
Ungreeted by applauding earth,
Silent and secret though they be,
Their tablet is eternity!
Where graven by the Hand Divine
The glories of the good will shine.

And thus in virgin solitude,
Unbroken by the waters rude
Of that rough world, whose waves afar
Billow with life's tempestuous war,
Queen of the hamlet! years have flown,
And still thou art unwoo'd and lone:
Yet time with magic unconfess'd
Has moulded feelings in thy breast,
Which now like buried music float
With soft and secret under-note;
So delicate, they scarce appear
To haunt thy spirit's maiden sphere,
But waken'd once,—and they shall be
A soul within a soul to thee!
Emotions, of themselves afraid,
A temple in thy heart have made,
Wherein they flutter, like a bird
That trembles when a voice is heard!
And fancy loves a Being now
Whom shaping words cannot avow;
A Form of fine imaginings
To which attracted nature clings.
At length he comes! that nameless one
The eye of Dreams had gazed upon;
The magic and the mystery
Of life have now begun for thee,
And thou the type of heaven wilt prove
In primal, deep, and deathless love!

Emotion that is most sublime
Of all which hallows earth and time;
That Principle from whence we draw
The light of each celestial law;
Pervading Sense, victorious Power
Whom death nor darkness can devour;
An omnipresent might and spell
Wherein all mind and matter dwell,
Is Love!—by that bright word alone
We vision forth The vast Unknown,
The Ruler of the seraphim,
Whose glory makes the glorious dim!

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And not an element that glows
But breathes the life which love bestows.
So magical its wide command,
The sternest rock, the bleakest strand
Around an exiled wretch hath thrown
A charm that paradise might own!
And who, when form and face depart
Which seldom touch'd his deeper heart,
Or e'en in hours of marring strife
Disturb'd the pure serene of life,
That feels not, while he says, “Farewell!”
A love-born sense within him dwell?
A touch of heart, whose tenderness
Provokes him with a thrilling stress?
And hence the captive, when the light
Of freedom daunts his reeling sight,
With something of a mute regret
His gaze on dungeon-walls hath set,
Though Misery's hand had graven there
The words and weakness of despair!
There is but One who cannot love,
The Anarch of the thrones above;
Apostate, in whose sleepless eyes
A hell of burning hatred lies;
Whose torture is th' undying sense
Of unadored Omnipotence;
A wither'd, dark, defeated Mind,
That curses Heaven, and scorns mankind!

And will the loveless, stern, or grave,
Think human fancies wildly rave,
When young affection's meteors play
In dazzling falsehood round their way?
Oh! take him to some towering mind
Whose Orphic words entrance mankind,
And, when the mask is laid aside,
And backward rolls the blood-warm tide
Of feelings, rich with early truth,
And vital with the flush of youth,
How wither'd, wan, and leafless, grows
The laurel which Renown bestows,
To that bright wreath affection wove
Round the fair brow of youthful love!
That love, whose faintest impulse wrings
The bosom's agonised strings,
And even in its mildest reign
O'erpowers him with a yearning pain,
A feeling that is unforgot,
Which seems the core of life to rot
And deaden it with slow decay,
As water frets the rock away!—
Thus passion forms the bane or bliss
Of being, in a world like this;
The day or night of inward joy,
Which years may dim, but not destroy;
Love reigns but once, yet that will be
Affection's true eternity!
All future love mere echo seems
Of vanish'd hope's melodious dreams;
A dying tone of lost delight,
A fragment of those feelings bright
That once when youth and heart were whole
Excited, charm'd—and crush'd the soul!

But, maiden! in thy vernal bloom,
On thee attends a calmer doom;
No clouds along thy placid heaven
With heraldry of gloom are driven;
No! all is open, bright, and blest:
And hopes may wander unreprest,
Like birds of beauty when they fly
And wanton in their genial sky.
And not for thee are voiceless fears,
The rack of unrelieving tears,
The agonies which coil and wind
In secret round a wasted mind
Like vipers with envenom'd tooth,
To canker all the spirit's youth;
Nor Circumstance, with eye averse,
For thee hath framed a fearful curse!
That long as life's dull waters roll,
With broken heart and blighted soul
Thy feelings, on the rack of fate,
Shall live to mourn thy wedded state!
Serene as thy soft brow appears
The countenance of coming Years;
Consenting parents' blended voice
Hath sanction'd Love's ingenuous choice;
And nought descends from dreams above
More exquisite than woman's love,
When passion in its virgin morn
Within a soul like thine is born!
Thy love by self is undefiled
And foster'd like a spirit-child,
Revered and watch'd with heart and eyes;
To whom each thought would sacrifice,
Each hour devote its deepest care,
Each feeling give its fondest share;
And earth, and time, and joy, and youth
From hence derive their only truth.
Let one deceive, and dead would lie
The living world before thine eye!
And thus, when withered years depart,
They leave no wreck like woman's heart!
The ruin of her mind remains
Haunted by dim and dreary pains;
And pining thoughts each chamber throng
Where once arose the breath of song,
Till Sadness, link'd with cold Despair,
Unites to fix its dwelling there.

With man's compare her feelings fine,
How delicate, how half divine!
Torn by the slightest breeze of life
And shatter'd by each varied strife,
When wrong, or wo, or accident
Perturbs the spirit's element,

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In fragile bloom they seem to be
Like leaves on some majestic tree,
That often when the boughs are still
Regardless of the breeze's will,
Are shaken by a touch or tone,
And perish, ere the blast hath blown!

But thou art loved, and unbetray'd;
And who can paint, enamour'd maid!
The paradise where dream and rove
Those moments dedicate to love?
For One there is, whose eye repays
The fervour of thy fondest gaze,
Whose language with its melting tone
Of tenderness can match thy own;
Whose visions of the beautiful
When most his yielded heart they rule,
Are woven out of thoughts of thee
Like rainbows from a lovely sea!

Has the world changed, more heavenly grown,
And every taint of darkness flown?
That brightness is the sudden birth
Of feelings which ennoble earth,
Of passion in its stainless prime
Just risen on the brink of time!
By these transform'd, creation glows
With each warm tint the mind bestows;
A deeper verdure decks the grass;
The clouds with richer glory pass,
The winds a sweeter welcome chant,
And wheresoe'er her footsteps plant
Their printless beauty, smile and sound
Of new enchantment hover round!
To her 'tis mystery;—but the mind
Grown exquisite and o'er-refined,
Can veil the universe with light
Till all is heaven that meets the sight,
And outward nature wears the dress
Of mind's internal loveliness.

Commingled souls! 'twere vain to tell,
Around them as rich evening fell
And clouds of calmest beauty lay
Like dreams of air along the way
Where wan and far th' horizon wound,
While nought but ocean breathed a sound,
How often on the placid shore
They rambled, till the light was o'er,
What rapture on each radiant cheek,
While softer than the billows speak
Responsive to the pleading wind,
The murmurs of each happy mind!
The waves beneath, the skies above,
All sights and sounds were born of love!
So all unstain'd by earth's alloy
Their very blood grew liquid joy;
So full their hearts, they fain would reel,
And make delight too deep to feel!
Th' aroma of all mortal bliss
Enrich'd an hour so charm'd as this;
Till soul-enrapt, they seem'd to be
Attracted nearer Deity;
While each to each immortal grew,
And saw the spirit beaming through
A glowing face, where Love had given
The features that were form'd for Heaven!

All hours are sweet, when love is there
A loveliness to make and share;
All scenes delight, when eyes adored
The magic of their gaze afford;
No rock is bleak, no desert rude,
When Beauty walks the solitude:
But moonlight charms the outward eye
Like music heard by memory;
And temptingly the moonbeams play
Around young lovers' lonely way,
As though fond Nature glow'd to meet
The pressure of their timing feet.
Belated, like a starry train
When loth to quit the azure plain,
Yon vision'd pair, behold them now
While Dian bares her crested brow,
And clouds of alabaster white
Float on the soundless breath of night.
How beautiful Creation's sleep!
So innocent, so calm, and deep:
The air is rock'd to voiceless rest;
The bird within his woven nest;
The dew upon unshaken leaves
A web of filmy lustre weaves;
And onward as the lovers steal,
You'd deem the fairy ground could feel
Their shadows o'er its silence fall,
So rapt a stillness veileth all!

But they have reach'd a woodland-shore,
Where billows, now the breeze is o'er,
Are blended into one broad mass
Of heaving glory,—like a glass
Reflecting forth with twinkling change
The heaven-lights, in their lofty range.
Magnificent, and mute, and bright,
To feel it, is to worship night!
And there they stand, absorb'd and blest,
In adoration unexprest;
Yet drinking in with eye and soul
Earth's beautiful and boundless whole.
And when that tranced delight is o'er,
They glide along yon glittering shore;
Where tones of whisper'd feeling take
The heart from each! as lips awake
In words which Love design'd to be
The heart's revealing masonry.

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A past, in its undying truth
Still vocal with the vows of youth:
A future, with each promise rife
Of tranquil home and wedded life,
Of these they talk, and plan, and scheme,
Indulging hope's oracular dream:
So soft the hour, the future rolls
Obedient to prophetic souls
By banks of bliss, and meads of flowers,
As though from wishes came the hours!
But night hath deepen'd: now they roam
Enchanted to expecting home;
And see! where downward hills retire,
In dim repose the village-spire!
Around it smiles a yellow moon
Gilding the leafy flush of June.
But home is reach'd, the room is gain'd,
With many a blush the walk explain'd,
Whose length 'twas not for time to meet,
For what can weary lovers' feet!
And smiles on each parental face
Have risen with forgiving grace;
And on the mother's brow is read
A tale which truth might thus have said,
“How often when my age was thine,
Were walks as long and lonely mine!”

And say, can aught but death unbind
Affections round her soul entwined?
Though distance may bereave the eye
And o'er him hang a stranger sky,
The sun that brings her spirit's day
Is born of his illuming sway.
The ground he trod a glory wears;
The twilight-walk his step declares;
No melody so sweetly heard
As fancy's love-repeated word;
His picture on her heart portray'd,
(Soft mem'ry asks no other aid)
Bright o'er her face she oft can feel
His vision'd gaze of fondness steal!
The breathings of his soul begin
To thrill her echoing soul within;
And then, ere mind is half aware,
Her lips address the tongueless air
In words of unregarded tone,
As sunlight on a rock is thrown
Where flower nor herbage, fruit nor stream,
Exult to drink the offer'd beam.
Against him raise a slanderous breath,—
And blooming looks the cheek of Death,
Compared with that appall'd distress
That blights her features' loveliness!
Applaud him, and the heart will rise
Dissolved within her dewy eyes!
Lustrous, and fill'd with tearful light
Like rain-beads when the moon is bright.
Voiceless her tongue, but what a glow
Of spirit's grateful overflow,
In eloquent excess appears
To glitter through those dawning tears!
And ah! forgive, if fondly weak
Too soft of one her soul will speak;
And faintly interweave his name
With hours when love should hide its claim.
For thus chance-words will oft betray
How secret thoughts roam far away;
And hence by soft and sudden tone
The dreamings of the mind are shown,
Like rays of beauty when they dart
From out a cloud's divided heart,
And dazzle into gay surprise
The lids of unexpecting eyes.

Too much of pomp and aim is seen
Where'er the pen of man hath been;
But, lovely one! how sweet for thee
Within thy trellis'd room to be,
And there to language yield thy mind
As bends a flower before the wind!
And, aimless save the soul to show,
What magic will thy words bestow,
As bright they rush with fondest speed
To visit eyes which yearn to read
Each syllable that love can frame,
When hallow'd by so dear a name!
Between its banks as roams the stream
And murmurs like a liquid dream,
Surrender'd to the guiding force
Of nature in its beauteous course,—
So artlessly is woman's mind
To tones of untaught grace resign'd,
And wanders down the fairy tide
Of words whose sweetness love supplied!

Bells on the wind! hark! peal on peal
Comes wafted with melodious zeal,
Making the morn so bright and clear
To thrill like joy's own atmosphere!
A bird-song from each holly flows;
The bee hums loudly in the rose;
And like a soaring dew-drop seems
The butterfly to shed its gleams
Of hue and lustre, in wild play
Of rapture round its wingèd way.—
Creation, like a human soul,
Feels gladness through each fibre roll!

And mark ye, where yon churchyard shows
The tombs' and turfs' sepulchral rows,
And sunbeams o'er the graves advance
To touch them with as bright a glance
As once around each living head
The beauty of their joyance spread,—
A crowd of village forms attends;
Their lip with lip loud welcome blends;

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And homeward by a rose-strewn track
The gay-eyed young are wending back,
To drink around a festive board
Such health as loving hearts afford.

But whence the joy?—behold yon room,
And there in hymeneal bloom
Array'd like clouds of fleecy mould
When round the moon their grace is roll'd,
And bending like a human flower,
With beauty for her matchless dower,—
The bride, the daughter, and the queen
Whose virtues crown our vision'd scene!

Poet and painter, each may bring,
Fresh from the spirit's fountain-spring
Full many a truth and many a tone
Which Nature shall confess her own.
But there, in yon bright room are met
Feelings which ne'er were mirror'd yet,
Save by the features when they start
To life from out the living heart!—
The old, the tried, whose years retain
The light of early friendship's reign,
From childhood holding firm and deep
The faith unworldly bosoms keep;
A sire, upon whose honour'd head
A silvery grace of time is spread,
Beholding like a priest of joy
The smiles which every face employ,
(Though mellow'd is the meeker smile
That slumbers on his own the while)
Again unite:—and she is there,
Whose heart becomes one voiceless prayer,
That life may round a daughter pour
Exhaustless mercy's heavenly store!

And thou! 'mid all the bridal star,
Thy bosom is one tender war
'Tween fond regret for faded hours,
And love whose fulness overpowers!
Deep tears within thy heart arise
Though scarcely yet they dim thine eyes,
Lest shades of grief should haply fall
Upon thy wedding-carnival,
And eyes parental catch from thee
A tear thy soul would shake to see!
But when the sad adieus are sigh'd
Thy spirit to its core is tried,
As garden, ground, and village-mead
From the wing'd chariot fast recede:
One look! so long it seems to cling
Around the spot of Life's dead spring!
One rapid glance at paths of yore,
Where roam'd the Days which breathe no more!
And nature, wrung beyond control,
In tears will then express thy soul!
And let them fall! for tears like thine
Might hang on eyelids half divine;
And love in their excess can see
How soft a woman's soul can be.

And she is gone! the wedded maid
Whose loveliness a home array'd
With lustre caught from every gaze,
Her look, her laugh, her winning ways,
How are they felt as unforgot
In each young scene and household-spot!
Dismal the once glad room appears;
And eyes are charged with coming tears,
When haply to their pensive sight
Some little gift is brought to light,
Some token of departed hours
For memory left, like waning flowers!
The fairy harp her fingers loved
In tomb-like calm stands unremoved;
And o'er her pictured face is sigh'd
A deeper thought than words supplied,
When silent, sad, unwatch'd, and lone,
A mother lets her grief be shown!
Yon garden, too, now reft and lorn,
Methinks its alter'd features mourn,
So droopingly the flowerets bend,
So dyingly their leaves depend,
To what they were, when dew-bright Dawn
Beheld her on the breathing lawn
The goddess of the matin hour,
Arraying each expectant flower
With life and beauty; while the bird
Sang in the laurel-boughs unstirr'd,
And each coy breeze which caught her hair
Enamour'd hung, and nestled there!
Her sister, she whose tiny feet
Were wing'd when one was there to meet,
Now prattles in her dream and walk,
As though the lisping mind could talk
Of nothing, save that dearest one
Her bosom yearns to rest upon!
And many a Home her hand relieved
For one so pure hath pined and grieved;
Whose presence to the cottage grew
Like heaven before a martyr's view,—
So bright the change her blessing made
When sorrow had the soul betray'd.

But what remains for Minstrel-art?
Aught further can his page impart
Of feelings whose domestic sway
Conducts the hours of life away?
Then picture for thy pensive mood
A tranquil home in solitude;
And there, behold! the maid we drew
In Nature's soft but sterling hue.
Those budding traits, when girlhood smiled,
Of heart and mind, which all beguiled,

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Expanded now to full-blown grace,
Have alter'd not with time and place:
Each added year has hail'd the birth
Of some new charm and noble worth;
And, save that on her brow appears
A mellow tinge of matron years,
And in her eye serenely glows
The magic of the mind's repose,
A girl in spirit still is left
Without one ray of youth bereft.

She is a mother! what a bliss
Celestial fills a name like this
With meaning, whose concentred might
Is mock'd by that mean word—delight!
For sooner may cold earth describe
The glories of th' angelic tribe,
Than any save a mother tell
What mysteries in her being dwell.
How spirit-fill'd her loving face!
How beautiful! thereon to trace
The imagery of rising thought
By feeling's hidden sculpture wrought!
When infant-voices round her roll
Like echoes of maternal soul;
And words like shatter'd music rise
Faint on her ear, in fond replies
From lips that quiver lisp and play
Like blossoms on a breezy day.
But, ah! should malady destroy
Each fairy bud of infant joy,
And broken cries but half reveal
The buried pangs dark moments feel,
What wrung Despair in tragic stone,
What Misery in marble shown,
In eloquence of grief can vie
With all that speaks her loving eye!—
When bending o'er a tortured child
By fits 'tis fervent, sad, or wild,
And prompt, if pain might thus be quell'd,
To drink the anguish she beheld
Into her soul, with one deep gaze,
And bear it with immortal praise!

Home of my fancy, fare thee well!
Unbroken be thy guardian spell;
Though not unmarr'd may be thy fate,
Since darkness girds our brightest state,
And Life along each path of hours
With thorns hath intertwined the flowers:
Yet hearts where home and love unite
Share more than bleakest years can blight;
The sky may frown, the tempest fall,
But Woman can o'ercome them all,
While calm within affection's eyes
Endures that beaming paradise,
Where sorrow seeks a bright repose
And basks beyond the reach of woes.

Land of my soul! maternal Isle
Array'd by Freedom's holy smile;
Whose throne is founded on the cause
Of native worth and noble laws;
Oh, long may Private Life be found
The glory of our British ground,
And Woman on her stainless brow
Wear the bright soul we honour now!
For though thy fleets o'erawed the main
Till every billow felt thy reign;
And captive Empires drew the car
Of victory from triumphant war,
Thy strength is canker'd, if the core
Of private life be sound no more.
Consumption on the cheek can bloom,
When Beauty but declares a tomb;
And eyes their brightest meaning shed
While every ray foretells the dead;
And thus may fatal glory be
An Empire's garb of infamy,
If once that spring of manly pride,
True gallantry, be stain'd or dried:
Or Woman from her high domain
Must dwindle into meaner reign.

The touching grace, the tender glow
Of what our fondest moods bestow;
The hopes which keep the heart awake
And self from out the selfish take;
The softness and the spell of all
That bridal dreams elysium call,
Born of her magic, blend their sway
To charm the clouds of time away:
And if there be a home on earth
Where nature most unveils its worth
And earth and heaven can intertwine,
Angel of Life! that home is thine.