The Desolation of Eyam :: :: University of Virginia Library

Shrink not!—we have not learned
Those glowing terms to use
Which the weak love, unearned;
But noble minds refuse.
Proudly we woo the muse;
And proudly we despise
The craven soul which views
The Aonian mount, and cries
Humbly, on all who pass, for a little help to rise.

Shrink not!—for thou hast won
A name that will not fade:
And vainly were it done
Another wreath to braid,
Than thy simple one, arrayed
With the flowers of heart and mind;
Which, when gaudier sink in shade—
When the tinsel all is tined,
Will be honoured by the good, will be cherished by the kind.

Oh! little do we deem
Of the gifted spirit's light,
If it live but as the beam
Which flashes but to smite.
And if ever, from the height
Of the jealous bosom's pride,
We would stoop, it were to write
Our homage where abide
Genius and generous thoughts in one warm heart allied.

vii

As little should we reck
Of laud and favour given
When through all gloom and check
Unaided we had striven;
Which, when the cloud was riven,
And our feet were on the hill,
Would welcome us to heaven,
With beams which could not thrill,
When our sojourn was below, and our very souls were chill.

Such was not thy first greeting,
Thou friend unseen, yet dear!
'Twas when our light was fleeting
Before the critic's sneer,
That our names unto thine ear
Became a living sound;
And thy spirit, with a cheer
Which the cynic's whining drowned,
Shouted welcome to our feet upon fancy-haunted ground.

viii

Then, as we launch once more
Our shallop on the sea
Of fame, whose rocks and roar
Are safely passed by thee,
We will echo back with glee
Thy soul's unchanging tone;
And our light skiff,—let it be
Tossed, battered, rent, and blown,
So it win us from the world but one true heart like thine own.

THE DESOLATION OF EYAM

[_]

Eyam, the scene of the following poem, is popularly pronounced Eem; forming a legitimate rhyme with deem.

INTRODUCTION;—THE PEAK.

Land of green hills, and fairy dales,
Of fountains and of streams!
Again the sun thy region hails
With beauty in his beams.
The leaves, in light and crisped pride,
Are clustering on each mountain side.
Thy shrubby tors and spires of grey
Shine clear and solemn through the day.

The lily of the valley opes
Its pure bells on thy wooded slopes.
The trembling cistus waves its gold
On tufted bank, and cliff-top bold.
The orchis and the bee-flower blow
Sweet in the grassy glen below.
The light bird's-cherry hangs its flag,
In snowy splendour, from the crag.
Thy beautiful waters—how they fly!
Sparkling and pure, as beams the sky
Down on their fleet and wandering way,
Through banks rich with the wild-wood spray.
'Tis joy! 'tis joy! to wander here
In the green glory of the year!

So deep the flower-crop in thy vales;
So light and freshly flit the gales
O'er thy soft slopes and verdant hills;
The sky-lark's song so sweetly fills
The soothed ear, from morn till night,
Soaring in his entranced flight,

As if to heaven he fain would go
Telling of all the bliss below;
Within thy sun-lit, leafy dells
The soul of solitude so dwells;
Is shed so on the cliffs around;
So rises in the eternal sound
Of living waters, rushing o'er
Their rock-bed, with a sea-like roar;
Such brightness fills the arched sky;
So quietly the hill-tops lie
In sunshine, and the wild-bird's glee
Rings from the rock-nursed service tree;
Such a delicious air is thrown,
Such a reposing calm is known
On these delightful hills,
That, as the dreaming poet lies
Drinking the splendour of the skies,
The sweetness which distils
From herbs and flowers—a thrilling sense
Steals o'er his musing heart, intense,
Passive, yet deep; the joy which dwells
Where nature frames her loneliest spells.

And Fancy's whispers would persuade
That peace had here her sojourn made,
And love and gladness pitched their tent,
When from the world, in woe, they went.
That each grey hill had reared its brow
In peaceful majesty, as now.
That thus these streams had traced their way
Through scenes as bright and pure as they;
That here no sadder strain was heard
Than the free note of wandering bird;
And man had here, in nature's eye,
Known not a pain, except, to die.
The sun still shone, the gales flew bland
Over this pleasant fairy-land,
Hidden by a spell—a place of light
Through the world's long and barbarous night.

Poets may dream—alas! that they
Should dream so wildly, even by day—
Poets may dream of love and truth,
Islands of bliss, and founts of youth:

But, from creation's earliest birth,
The curse of blood has raged on earth.
Since the first arm was raised to smite
The sword has travelled like a blight,
From age to age, from realm to realm,
Guiding the seaman's ready helm.
Go! question well—search far and near,
Bring me of earth a portion here.
Look! is not that exuberant soil
Fraught with the battle's bloody spoil?
Turn where thou may'st, go where thou wilt,
Thy foot is on a spot of guilt.

The curse, the blight have not passed by
These dales now smiling in thine eye.
Of human ills an ample share,
Ravage, and dearth, domestic care,
They have not 'scaped. This region blest
Knew not of old its pleasant rest.
Grandeur there was, but all that cheers,
Is the fair work of recent years.

The Druid-stones are standing still
On the green top of many a hill;
The fruitful plough, with mining share,
At times, lays some old relic bare;
The Danish mell; the bolt of stone,
To a yet ruder people known;
And oft, as on some point which lies
In the deep hush of earth and skies,
In twilight, silence, and alone,
I've sate upon the Druid-stone,
The visions of those distant times,
Their barbarous manners, creeds and crimes,
Have come, joy's brightest thrill to raise,
For life's blest boon in happier days.
But not of them—rude race—I sing;
Nor yet of war, whose fiery wing,
From age to age, with waste and wail,
Drove from wide champaign, and low vale,
Warrior and woman: child and flock,
Here, to the fastness of the rock.
The husbandman has ceased to hear
Amidst his fields the cry of fear.

Waves the green corn—green pastures rise
Around,—the lark is in the skies.
The song a later time must trace
When faith here found a dwelling-place.
The tale is tinged with grief and scath,
But not in which man's cruel wrath,
Like fire of fiendish spirit shows,
But where, through terrors, tears, and woes,
He rises dauntless, pure, refined;
Not chill'd by self, nor fired by hate,
Love in his life,—and even his fate
A blessing on his kind.

Alma beata e bella
Che, da legami sciolta,
Nuda salisti ne' superni chiostri,
Ove, con la tua stella,
Ti godi insieme accolta.
Sanazzaro.

I

Joy to thy course, young traveller, as the speed
Of thy exulting spirit leads thee now,
Wherever brighter land, or braver deed
May call thee forth, a worshipper, to bow.
Joy to thy course, young traveller, for thou
Hast been a fairy dreamer from thy birth,
In thy glad home hast bent, with constant brow,
O'er charmed lore, and tale of high-souled worth,
Till all that brightens heaven thou fondly deem'st on earth.

II

Fair scenes are shining round thee, fair, young eyes
Are beaming on thee love's entrancing light;
Then, while youth's buoyant spirit still denies
To feel earth's chillness, to discern its blight;
While thy warm sighs no sharp regrets excite;
And, even thy tears, like the sweet dews of May,
Are scatterings from a fountain of delight,
Come lend thine ear a moment to my lay,
For 'tis of souls like thine,—the noblest of their day.

III

Among the verdant mountains of the Peak,
There lies a quiet hamlet, where the slope
Of pleasant uplands wards the north-winds bleak;
Below, wild dells romantic pathways ope;
Around, above it, spreads a shadowy cope
Of forest trees: flower, foliage, and clear rill
Wave from the cliffs, or down ravines elope;
It seems a place charmed from the power of ill
By sainted words of old:—so lovely, lone, and still.

IV

And many are the pilgrim feet which tread
Its rocky steeps; which thither yearly go;
Yet, less by love of Nature's wonders led,
Than by the memory of a mighty woe,
Which smote, like blasting thunder, long ago,
The peopled hills. There stands a sacred tomb,
Where tears have rained, nor yet shall cease to flow;
Recording days of death's sublimest gloom;
Mompesson's power and pain,—his beauteous Catherine's doom.

V

There dwelt they in the summer of their love.
He, the young pastor of that mountain fold,
For whom, not Fancy could foretell above,
Bliss more than earth had at his feet unrolled.
Yet, ceased he not on that high track to hold,
Upon whose bright, eternal steep is shewn
Faith's starry coronal. The sad, the cold
Caught from his fervent spirit its warm tone,
And woke to loftier aims, and feelings long unknown.

VI

And she,—his pride and passion—she, all sun,
All love, and mirth and beauty;—a rich form
Of finished grace, where Nature had outdone
Her wonted skill. Oh! well might Fancy's swarm
Of more than earthly hopes and visions, warm
His ardent mind; for, joyous was her mood;
There seemed a spirit of gladness to inform
Her happy frame, by no light shock subdued,
Which filled her home with light, and all she touched imbued.

VII

Her laugh was like the sun's forth-bursting shine
Upon the summits of her favourite hills;
Her playful tones thrilled with that spell divine
Which beauty, even into a sound, instils:
And yet, as when a passing shadow fills
Some fairy valley, darkening, yet the more
Augmenting its wild beauty—when life's ills,
Or solemn hopes upon her spirit bore,
With what pathetic thought her melting soul ran o'er.

VIII

So lived, so loved they. Their life lay enshrined
Within themselves and people. They reck'd not
How the world sped around them, nor divined;
Heaven, and their home endearments fill'd their lot.
Within the charmed boundary of their cot,
Was treasured high and multifarious lore
Of sage, divine, and minstrel ne'er forgot
In wintry hours; and, carolled on their floor,
Were childhood's happy lays. Could Heaven award them more?

IX

Abroad, they hailed around ten thousand friends—
Mountains and valleys; flitting light and shade,
Caves, waters, winds; whatever lives, or lends
Its being, or its beauty to the aid
Of that soul-kindling charm which has arrayed
Those Alpine haunts. With these they loved to dwell,
In sunny hours; in Dovedale's elfin glade;
Chatsworth's green bowers; Monsal's Arcadian dell;
Or sterner tracks, where thought's more awful influence fell.

X

So lived, so loved they. But, as in the calm
Of a hot noon, a sudden gust will wake;
Anon clouds throng; then fiercer squalls alarm;
Then thunder, flashing gleams, and the wild break
Of wind and deluge:—till the living quake,
Towers rock, woods crash amid the tempest,—so
In their reposing calm of gladness, spake
A word of fear; first whispering—dubious—low,
Then lost;—then firm and clear, a menacing of woe:

XI

'Till out it burst, a dreadful cry of death;
“The Plague! the Plague!” The withering language flew,
And faintness followed on its rapid breath;
And all hearts sunk, as pierced with lightning through.
“The Plague! the Plague!” No groundless panic grew;
But there, sublime in awful darkness, trod
The Pest; and lamentation, as he slew,
Proclaimed his ravage in each sad abode,
Mid frenzied shrieks for aid—and vain appeals to God.

XII

Then rose the lover—then the mother rose
In Catherine's heart—her children she embraced;
Her knee on earth, her forehead with the throes
Of terror pale, wildly herself she cast
Before her lord.—“Fly, ere the hope be past!
Fly! let us fly! 'Tis madness here to be.
The vast metropolis became a waste
Before this deadly pestilence:—and shall we
These blessed ones expose? Heaven! Nature bid us flee!”

XIII

Her cheek was blanched,—paleness, as mountain snow,
Was on her features; but her eloquent eye
Beamed with all woman's tenderness—the glow
Of loftiest mind; but, ere he spoke reply,
Faded the glow,—the passion had passed by.
She rose—and gazing on her children, where
In innocent fear and wonder they drew nigh,
Tears gushed amain, and her maternal air
Told that her soul's chief pain and sorrow centred there

XIV

“I know,” she said, “I know, my loved one, thou
Wilt not depart. Thy high resolve I read;
Nor longer seek thy generous heart to bow.
God be our shield! Oh God! behold our need!
But these?”—Then sprang, as from enchantment freed,
Mompesson to his noble Catherine's breast;
“Aye, they shall go—haste thou their flight to lead.
Nay, dost thou pause? Yield'st thou not this request?
Then God indeed shield thee! His will decide the rest.”

XV

They went—those lovely ones, to their retreat.
They went—those glorious ones, to their employ;
To check the ominous speed of flying feet;
To quell despair; to soothe the fierce annoy,
Which, as a stormy ocean without buoy
Tossing a ship distressed, twixt reef and rock,
Hurried the crowd, from years of quiet joy
Thus roused to fear by this terrific shock;
And wild, distracted, mazed, the pastor met his flock.

XVI

But ardent, strong, armed with that heavenly faith,
His glowing theme through length of happier days
He buried in his heart all sense of scath,
And framed his words their smitten thoughts to raise:
“Alas! beloved friends! Alas! where strays
Your wonted mind? What mean these signs of flight?
Is God unpitying, though he wrath displays?
Is the sun quenched when clouds obscure his light?
Oh! calm your trembling souls, be strong in christian might.

XVII

“And whither would you fly? Can the wide world
Afford a hope of safety here unfound?
Here mountain gales their pinions have unfurled;
Wide space extends; sweet waters pour around.
We breathe not here, as in the tainted bound
Of a huge city. Health will soon return;
But, like some wretch whom sudden flames confound,
You rush abroad uncertain aid to earn,
And what you might subdue, the winds give power to burn.

XVIII

“Here we may strive and conquer, and may save
Our country from this desolating curse;
Some few, perchance, may fill an earlier grave;
But, if ye fly, it follows, and ye nurse
Death in your flight; wide, wider ye disperse
Destruction through the land. Oh then! bow down
And vow to Him, to virtue ne'er averse,
To stand unshrinking 'neath Death's fiercest frown.
Then Heaven shall give us rest, and earth a fair renown.”

XIX

They heard, and they obeyed,—for, simple-hearted,
He was to them their wisdom and their tower;
To theirs, his brilliant spirit had imparted
All that they knew of virtue's loftier power;
Their friend, their guide, their idolized endower
With daily blessings, health of mind and frame;
They heard, and they obeyed;—but not the more
Obeyed the plague; no skill its wrath could tame;
It grew, it raged, it spread; like a devouring flame.

XX

Oh! piteous was it then that place to tread;
Where children played and mothers had looked on,
They lay, like flowers plucked to adorn the dead;
The bright-eyed maid no adoration won;
Youth in its greenness, trembling age was gone;
O'er each bright cottage hearth death's darkness stole;
Tears fell, pangs racked, where happiness had shone.
But turn we now from scenes of boundless dole,
And cull one simple tale from the funereal roll.

XXI

“There are my native mountains!” cried aloud
A gallant youth, as his exulting view
Caught, like a dim and distant range of cloud,
The Peak's blue ridges. There he stood, and drew
With a deep pause, his breath; the bright tears grew
In his fixed eyes; then, with a sudden bound,
Onward he towards that hilly region flew;
And now, he lightly trod the ascending ground;
And now, those fairy dales, and green hills hemmed him round.

XXII

Oh! if thy birth-place is not of the hills;
If thou, in thy sweet childhood, hast not known
What a wild joy the youthful bosom fills
Amidst the tempest's and the torrent's tone,
Warring in some stern solitude alone,
Or, leaping down the steep's rejoicing side,
When morning's splendour, and glad voices thrown
From cliff to cliff, send joy and beauty wide,
Thou know'st not with what heart along those dales he hied.

XXIII

His home was in those mountains, and a home
Filled with the history of his early years;
The sun of affluence lit its ample dome;
And there a father's pride, a mother's tears,
A sister's generous love; all that endears
And chains the heart to one enchanted spot,
Were hoarded there, and there a thousand fears
Had woke for him in one, whose humble lot
Was blessed to be borne, whilst by him unforgot.

XXIV

Yes; he had loved! 'Twas with a boyish love,
But not a boy's caprice, a mountain flower,
Lowly, but lovely. The sweet passion throve
Triumphantly thro' many a summer hour;
But fell, as love is wont, beneath the power
Of a proud father's glance, who hoped, with skill,
To pluck that blossom from its sheltering bower;
Strong was his love, but pride was stronger still,
And doomed his only boy the victim of his will.

XXV

And therefore in the greenness of his age,
Sent with a famous captain of the time
(For to a day long past refers my page,)
To quench in wonders love's delightful crime,
Tossed on the sea, from distant clime to clime,
He on a marvellous pilgrimage was cast!
The new-found world, with all its scenes sublime
Before his ardent spirit strangely passed,
And each succeeding realm seemed fairer than the last.

XXVI

But how had sped his father's chief intent?
Oh! lovers need not ask, for love will know.
As o'er the sea, mid summer isles he went;
Gazing on Chimborazo's heights of snow;
Breasting with gallant ship the mighty flow
Of Amazonian river, or La Plate,
Midst dusky tribes, he only seemed to know
One wish uncrowned,—to Ellen to relate
All these delicious scenes, and story of his fate.

XXVII

And here he was again—before his eyes,
Rose, like a bosky island, from the dell
A wood-crowned, rocky rampart; there Eyam lies;
And there his Ellen, and his parents dwell.
Oh! what quick feelings in his bosom swell;
An eager tremor hurries every limb;
Sweet Fancy holds him by her brightest spell;
Fear's hovering cloud, nor Sorrow's visage dim,
Haunted the happy dream, which came alone to him.

XXVIII

There is a dell, the merry school-boy's sling
Whirled in the village, might discharge a stone
Into its centre; yet, the shouts which ring
Forth from the hamlet travel, over blown,
Nor to its sheltered quietude are known.
So hushed, so shrouded its deep bosom lies,
It brooks no sound, but the congenial tone
Of stirring leaves, loud rill, the melodies
Of Summer's breezy breath, or Autumn's stormier skies.

XXIX

A nook more fair never disclosed its sweetness
To the glad gaze of heavenly shapes, which ran
Through the world's solitudes, with winged fleetness,
Ere evil deeds had left on earth their ban;—
To forest Dian,—jolly-hearted Pan;
Or wilder spirits, of that later race,
Who came in song from the bright East, till man,
Inquisitive and bold, in every place
Had dared their rites to view, their wood-walks to deface.

XXX

Northward, from shadowy rocks, a wild stream pours;
Then wider spreads the hollow—lofty trees
Cast summer shades; it is a place of flowers,
Of sun and fragrance, birds and chiming bees.
Then higher shoot the hills. Acclivities
Splintered and stern, each like a castle grey,
Where ivy climbs, and roses woo the breeze,
Narrow the pass; there, trees in close array
Shut, from this woodland cove, all distant, rude survey.

XXXI

But its chief ornament, a miracle
Of Nature's mirth, a wondrous temple stands,
Right in the centre of this charmed dell,
Which every height and bosky slope commands.
Arch meeting arch, unwrought of human hands,
Form dome and portals. On its roof the air
Waves leafy boughs; the Alpine flower expands;
It seems a spell-constructed bower, the care
Of Maugraby the stern, or of Banou the fair.

XXXII

This was the haunt of Raynal's boyish feet.
It was a spot all coloured with the flame
Of earliest love's communion, doubly sweet
From memory and long absence. Here he came,
Led by their power, his homeward path to frame;
When hark!—a sound!—it issued from the dell;
A solemn voice, as though one did declaim
On some high theme; it ceased—and then the swell
Of a slow, psalm-like chaunt on his amazement fell.

XXXIII

A moment, listening in profound surprise,
He stood,—then, bursting through that woody screen,
What vision of strange aspect met his eyes!
In that fantastic temple's porch was seen
The youthful pastor; lofty was his mien,
But stamped with thoughts of such appalling scope,
As rarely gather on a brow serene;
And who were they, on the opposing slope,
To whom his solemn tones told but one awful hope?

XXXIV

A pallid, ghost-like, melancholy crew,
Seated on scattered crags, and far-off knolls,
As fearing each the other. They were few.
As men whom one brief hour will from the rolls
Of life cut off, and toiling for their souls'
Welcome into eternity—they seemed
Lost in the heart's last conflict, which controls
All outward life—they sate as men who dreamed;
No motion in their frames—no eye perception beamed.

XXXV

But suddenly, a wild and piercing cry
Arose amongst them; and an ancient man,
Furious in mood—red frenzy in his eye,
Sprang forth, and shouting, towards the hollow ran.
His white locks floated round his features wan;
He rushed impatient to the valley rill;
To drink, to revel in the wave began,
As one on fire with thirst; then, with a shrill
Laugh, as of joy, he sank—he lay—and all was still.

XXXVI

Then from their places solemnly two more
Went forth, as if to lend the sufferer aid;
But in their hands, in readiness, they bore
The charnel tools, the mattock and the spade.
They broke the turf—they dug—they calmly laid
The old man in his grave; and o'er him threw
The earth, by prayer, nor requiem delayed;
Then turned, and with no lingering adieu,
Swifter than they approached, from the strange scene withdrew.

XXXVII

But where was Raynal? Smitten, as by thunder,
A dread, unearthly vision seemed to dance
Before his view—a statue of pale wonder
He stood—till starting forth, as from a trance,
He deemed again delusion in his glance—
Once more he listened for that thrilling scream—
The breeze alone sighed through the still expanse;
The spectral group, like figures of a dream,
Had fled—yet there the grave lay by the moaning stream.

XXXVIII

'Twas Sabbath eve, but yet no sabbath sound
Came from the village;—no rejoicing bells
Were heard; no groups of strolling youths were found,
Nor lovers loitering on the distant fells.
No laugh, no shout of infancy, which tells
Where radiant health and happiness repair;
But silence, such as with the lifeless dwells,
Fell on his shuddering heart, and fix'd him there,
Frozen with dreams of death, and bodings of despair.

XXXIX

His home!—his blessed home!—the quenchless light
Of his long wanderings;—why should I unveil
Its hollow silence, and disastrous night?—
His love!—Alas! it is a joyless tale!
And little boots it now, or may avail,
To mourn a broken heart—for centuries still.
Where the bee wanders with her merry hail,
High, midst the heath-bells of a southern hill,
Their green and dewy graves the unconscious sufferers fill.

XL

The Plague had triumphed—Death, Dismay and Gloom
Had made high carnival; the people fell;
Yet quailed not the survivors, till the tomb
Refused them even its refuge;—till the bell
Ceased, in despair, its long, continuous knell;
And with it, ceased the last of living sound.
Stripped of love's life, the few were left to dwell
In moody apathy; and Horror round
Waved her tremendous wings o'er the untrodden ground.

XLI

Yet, on thro' all, unfearing, and unharmed,
Mompesson and his Catherine had sped;
As God's peculiar grace their frames had charmed
From the Plague's might. The dying and the dead,
The fear-sick heart, the wretch from whom had fled
In his delirious fury all beside,
They sought, they soothed, and holy comfort shed;
Or the last boon to mortal need supplied,
Scattering through that thick gloom, a heavenly light as wide,

XLII

O patriots pure! O virtue-crowned pair!
Grey eld than yours can boast no nobler name.
Time has shewn glorious spirits which could dare
Death for their country, in the hour of fame.
Thus Codrus died: Thermopylæ became
Freedom's eternal watchword: Curtius sprung
Into the burning gulph: to death and shame
Attilius moved; and those proud deeds have rung
Through every age and land on wonder's blazoning tongue.

XLIII

And it was well—though nations watch'd their doom.
But not for you Fame spread her splendid lure;
Hid 'mongst your mountains in the secret bloom
Of life and love, amidst a race obscure,
Yet dared ye death; nay, nerved even to endure
Its ghastliest terrors, the plebeian throng;
Vowing your lives your country to secure;
Unseen, unsoothed, in holiest patience strong;
Nobler, for ye hoped less, than those high names of song.

XLIV

But now hope gleamed abroad. The Plague seemed staid;
And the loud winds of Autumn glad uproar
Made in the welkin.—Health their call obeyed,
And Confidence her throne resumed once more.
Nay, joy itself was in the Pastor's bower;
For him the Plague had sought, its final prey;
And Catherine pale, and shuddering at its power,
Had watched, had wept, had seen it pass away,—
And joy shone through their home like a bright summer's day.

XLV

The sudden fear woke memory in her cell;
And tracing back the brightness of their being;
Their love, their bliss, the fatal shafts which fell
Around them—smote them—yet, even now were fleeing;
Death unto numbers, but to them decreeing
Safety;—rich omens for succeeding years,
In that sweet gaiety of spirit seeing,
Theirs was that triumph which distress endears;
And gladness which breaks forth in mingling smiles and tears.

XLVI

So passed that evening:—but, still midnight falls
And why gleams thence that lamp's unwonted glare?
Oh! there is speechless woe within those walls:
Death's stern farewell is given in thunder there.
Mompesson wrapt in dreams and fancies fair,
Which took their fashion from that evening's tone,
At once sprang up in terror and despair,
Roused by that voice which never yet had known
To wake aught in his heart, but pure delight alone.

XLVII

“My William!” faint and plaintive was the cry,
And chill the hand which fell upon his breast—
“My dearest William, wake thee! Oh! that I
With such sad tidings should dispel thy rest.
But death is here!” With agony possessed,
He snatched a light—he saw—he reeled—he fell.
There, in its deadliest form prevailed the pest.
Too well he knew the fatal signs—too well;
A moment—and to life—to happiness farewell!

XLVIII

Frantic with grief he clasped her—and to heaven
A passionate prayer he threw;—he madly thought
The grasp of death asunder to have riven,
In that incredulous wonder which is wrought
When that which lives and loves, at once, is brought
To be as nothing;—and the rebel mind
Fights fiercely with its destiny; untaught
By all that time should teach: for feeling, blind,
Heeds not—though thought assents—alarms by Heaven designed.

XLIX

But Catherine's breast no fear, nor passion knew.
She thought not of herself. Her parting soul
Was bathed in tenderness. Her words, like dew
In twilight gloom, o'er his wild frenzy stole.
“Oh! calm thee, dearest one—Oh! yet control
Thy grief, while thus communion is allowed;—
Time speeds—Death calls—a moment, and the whole
Of Catherine, rescued from the oblivious shroud,
For thee, will live alone in hope death may not cloud.

L

“In that clear hope whose radiant wings now raise
My spirit;—in the faith which thou hast fed;
And in the precious memory of those days
Which here, where now we sever, we have led.
Yes! ours on earth has been a pathway spread
Surely with every joy which heaven can yield,
Save in its perpetuity;—now fled,
In memory be their redolence revealed.
It shall!—I know thy heart!—and it shall yet be healed.

LI

‘Hence springs my solace,—though I see thy grief,
I know that God on earth has need of thee;
And will sustain thee in time's sojourn brief.
And those dear, dear remembrancers of me,—
Oh! could I clasp them!—but, it cannot be—
Heaven on their lovely heads its goodness shower!—
It will!—it will!—and thou, in them, shalt see
The soothing balm, the Eternal One will pour
Into thy bruised heart—till meet our souls once more.”

LII

She ceased—and that tremendous silence flung
On love's last accents, with astounding close,
Startled the mourner, who still fondly clung
To the dear lips whence now no murmur flows.
Bowed to the dust by passion's wildest throes,
Through the long night he wrestled with despair;
But the day dawned upon him—he arose;
The christian grew victorious in his prayer,
Which, though it stanched not grief, had given him power to bear.

LIII

One word:—and thro' the unconscious household flew
The fleet alarm:—one lightning-winged cry
Shot through the hamlet; and a wailing grew,
Wilder than when the plague-fiend first drew nigh.
One troublous hour,—and from all quarters fly
The wretched remnant, who had ceased to weep;
But sorrow, which had drained their bosoms dry,
Found yet fresh fountains in the spirit deep,
Wringing out burning tears that loved one's couch to steep.

LIV

'Tis o'er—the shock most terrible of all—
The trembling, sinking sufferer has stood,
And heard the clods, which smite the heartstrings, fall;
And felt the sick'ning soul—the freezing blood;
Then, from the sobbing crowd—the bursting flood
Of sorrow, stealing, like a ghost away,
Through the dim, wintry hours the mourner's mood
He nursed in silence, till spring's jocund day,
Chased, from the hallowed spot, his mirthless soul for aye.

LV

Bright shines the sun upon the white walls wreathed
With flowers and leafy branches, in that lone
And sheltered quiet, where the mourner breathed
His future anguish; pleasant there the tone
Of bees; the shadows, o'er still waters thrown,
From the broad plane-tree; in the grey church nigh,
And near that altar where his faith was known,
Humble as his own spirit we descry
The record which denotes where sacred ashes lie.

LVI

And be it so for ever;—it is glory.
Tombs, mausoleums, scrolls, whose weak intent
Time laughs to scorn, as he blots out their story,
Are not the mighty spirit's monument.
He builds with the world's wonder—his cement
Is the world's love;—he lamps his beamy shrine,
With fires of the soul's essence, which, unspent,
Burn on for ever;—such bright tomb is thine,
Great patriot, and so rests thy peerless Catherine.

Eakring Rectory.

POEMS.

THE LEGENDARY HARP.

Hail Legendary Harp! how dear,
How sweet thy strains to old and young;
Such as, to gentle ladies' ear,
By old forgotten bards were sung.
Such, as to plumed lord and knight,
Were harped and sung in ancient hall;
Of love's emprise and border fight;
Malicious fay, and elfin thrall:
Such as, within his lone sea-cave,
Soothed the Norse warrior as he lay;
Calmed his tempestuous soul, yet gave
Nerve to his arm on battle-day.

Dark Runic tales of charging hosts;
The wizard cave; the blasted tree;
And mystic rites, and shadowy ghosts
Slow gliding o'er the misty sea.
Who joys him not to know the spell
That waked the mountain spirit stern;
That called the mermaid from her cell;
The fairy from her bower of fern?
The Legendary Harp can wake
The memory of the ages gone;
Tell o'er the tales of glen and lake;
Knows every cairn and druid stone.
'Twas grasped by Ossian as he stood
Mid the wild rocks of Inistore;
He thrilled it, Morven, in thy wood,
And, Clutha, by thy cataract roar.
'Twas hung aloft in elfin bower;
The druid's hands have waked its strings;
And bards have heard, at midnight hour,
Spirits arouse its murmurings.

There's not a castle's crumbling wall,
Nor tomb where warrior long has slept;

No mound, no court, no grass-grown hall,
Of which it has not memory kept.
And in the pleasant evening hour
When the low breeze has hardly stirred
The aspen leaf, or hare-bell flower,
Its wild-toned melody I've heard.
He lists the song in Selma's hall,
His foot o'er Thule's wilds has roved;
He bends by Lora's murmuring fall,
Who loves that harp as I have loved.
And known to him each ancient race;
The sea-king, and the druid seer;
The spirit of the haunted place;
And hermit with his rite austere.
Yet, Legendary Harp, who may,
With daring finger, touch thy wire?
'Twas hallowed in the olden day,
And now but few can catch its fire.
Yet once, as thou hung'st on the tree,
“The witch-elm o'er St. Fillan's spring,”
A northern bard was led to thee
By the wild gale that swept thy string.

Delight was in his glowing eye,
Thy inspiration in his hand,
He swept thy chords—the tones were high,
And spirits rose at his command.
He saw them—and he woke again
A louder tone—they spoke—and he
From that day dwelt by rock and glen,
The king-bard of thy minstrelsy.

Harp of the Runic father!—break
The silence of thy charmed cell!
Thou spirit of the grey eld, wake!
Of old thou answered'st to the spell.
Is there no hand but his may call
Back thy wild breathings to the blast?
Sleep'st thou within thy shadowy hall,
Among the spirits of the past?—
Teach me the spell to rouse thy tone,
The mysteries of a mightier day,
Nor yet an humbler bard disown,
Harp of the legendary lay!

“AWAY TO THE BOSKY GLENS!”

ADDRESSED TO P. B.

Away to the bosky glens!
Hie to the sedgy fens!
In the abele the spring-bird reneweth its lay;
The tree that was hoarest
Now blooms in the forest,
Away to the bosky dells! hie thee away!

Where waters are flowing,
Pure blossoms are blowing;
The laughing sun filleth the blue heavens with glee;
There are thousand buds springing,
A thousand notes ringing;
And all for the welcome of wanderers like thee.

O'er the herbs in the shady glen,
Over green bank and bough again,
Like the tears of blest meetings, lies sparkling the dew,
And the breeze of the heavens,
Which all nature enlivens,
With its own living gladness thy heart shall imbue.

Then away in the sunshine,
While spirit and health are thine,
These may not be calling thee onward to-morrow;
As the cloud from the mountain,
Overshadows the fountain,
So comes in a moment the glooming of sorrow.

Or, if life in sereneness,
And long summer greenness,
Should wear, like the oak of the forest, away,
Yet, dearer lives failing
Shall leave thee bewailing
That the flowers of thy spring-tide are gone to decay.

Oh! then in thought's wanderings,
The heart's lonely ponderings,
What dreams will there linger midst prospects divine?
The beauty and sweetness
Of youth in its fleetness,
These still in the depths of thy bosom will shine.

For the heart oft reposes
Though fancy's flower closes,
Nor again to our afternoon sun is unfurled;
But youth is all lightness,
And the soul in its brightness
Dips its wandering wing in the dews of the world.

From that season of passion
'Tis alone that we fashion
The vision of holier and happier things;
And Faith, to elate us
With joys that await us,
Must pluck the bright plumes from young Memory's wings.

Then away to the bosky glens!
Hie to the sedgy fens!
In the abele the spring-bird reneweth its lay;
The tree that was hoarest
Now blooms in the forest:
Away to the bosky dells!—hie thee away!

TYRE.

I

In thought, I saw the palace domes of Tyre;
The gorgeous treasures of her merchandise;
All her proud people, in their brave attire,
Thronging her streets for sports, or sacrifice.
I saw her precious stones and spiceries;
The singing girl with flower-wreathed instrument;
And slaves whose beauty asked a monarch's price.
Forth from all lands all nations to her went,
And kings to her on embassy were sent.
I saw, with gilded prow and silken sail,
Her ships, that of the sea had government.
Oh! gallant ships, 'gainst you what might prevail!
She stood upon her rock, and in her pride
Of strength and beauty, waste and woe defied.

II

I looked again—I saw a lonely shore;
A rock amid the waters, and a waste
Of trackless sand:—I heard the bleak sea's roar,
And winds that rose and fell with gusty haste.
There was one scathed tree, by storm defaced,
Round which the sea-birds wheeled, with screaming cry.
Erelong, came on a traveller slowly paced;
Now east, then west, he turned, with curious eye,
Like one perplexed with an uncertainty.
Awhile he looked upon the sea—and then
Upon a book—as if it might supply
The thing he lacked:—he read, and gazed again—
Yet, as if unbelief so on him wrought,
He might not deem this shore, the shore he sought.

III

Again, I saw him come:—'twas eventide;—
The sun shone on the rock amid the sea;
The winds were hushed; the quiet billows sighed
With a low swell;—the birds winged silently
Their evening flight around the scathed tree;
The fisher safely put into the bay,
And pushed his boat ashore; then gathered he
His nets, and hastening up the rocky way,
Spread them to catch the sun's warm evening ray.
I saw that stranger's eye gaze on the scene;
“And this was Tyre!” said he, “how has decay
Within her palaces a despot been.
Ruin and silence in her courts are met,
And on her city rock the fisher spreads his net.”

A HIGHLAND GROUP.

The glens of Aberfoyle were fair
Before the wizard wight,
Whose viewless hand seems everywhere,
Had strewn them with delight.
Now—they are full of life and joy,
Besides the glory of Rob Roy.

Its old kirkyard I wandered by,
And in it noted well,
The plane-tree, twixt whose branches high,
Is swung the single bell,
Whose lonely tongue has called, for years,
From their far homes, the mountaineers.

I passed the school—from moor and hill
The gathering children came;
The highland lads, with voices shrill,
Were eager at their game.
How sweet, in such secluded places,
Seem childhood's sports and happy faces!

But on the brink of Avon-dhu
A lovelier sight was seen;
Glad girls in kirtles of bright blue,
Their locks of golden sheen,
With clapping hands, and playful scream,
Dipped in the dark yet sun-lit stream.

And ever, as their soul of mirth,
Danced one so sweet and wild—
If e'er Titania visits earth,
She must be like that child.
I would that every hour and scene
Could show me such a fairy queen!

But soon, where I unmarked had stood,
That fairy's glance was cast,
And through the merry multitude
A sudden silence passed;—
A blush—a titter—and then one
Peal of loud laughter—they were gone.

Beautiful group!—your happy glee,
Your jocund roar and rout,
Never will be forgot by me.
Your spirit-gladdening shout,
With sweetness haunts my memory still,
Like music from some far-off hill.

'Twas on a bright and beaming day,
Within a glorious land,
I saw your faces, and for aye
That lovely scene shall stand.
On your own heath, by your own river,
There shall you laugh and play for ever.

Never more may I tread your soil,
Or, should I, may not bear
That spirit which, undimmed by toil,
Breathes over earth and air
A charm—a glory—a delight,
Making the very tempest bright.

Never more may I gaze on you,
Or, should I, must survey
Nothing like that enchanting view,
Which thence I bore away.
Alas! should I not find you then,
Bowed to the woes and thrall of men.

Time's silent scath, the spell of care
Will through our souls have gone;
From you the mirth, the merry air,
The magic have passed on
To some obstreperous little crew,
Blessed and beautiful as you.

I would not see—I would not know
One passage of your fate;
But fancy shall on you bestow
A never-changing state;
And there, in beauty and in glee,
Your joy shall live—a joy to me.

That lovely, round-faced, mimic lass
Shall chatter, leap, and dance,
And mirth, as sunshine from a glass,
Shall from her blue eyes glance;
Casting their loving glow on you,
Ye blessed, little Highland crew!

A SISTER'S RECOLLECTIONS.

TO A. H.

Come now a little while
Grant me a gossip's right, and I will fill
Thy spirit with the pleasures of the past.
We were playmates together; from one book
We drew the lore of childhood; on one couch
We slept; one joy, one spirit seemed to stir
And animate our being. Two buds that grew
Upon one stem, two birds within one nest,
Were not more like than we.

Oh! might I but recall
To thee the days gone by;
They have not perished all;
Their memory could not die.
Thou wilt retrace the past
With feeling like to mine;
And backward vision cast,
As on a sainted shrine,
Round which our youthful faith did lasting garlands twine.

See'st thou a grassy glade
Within a leafy wood,
Or bowery dwelling made
In forest solitude?
A river's sedgy side,
Or lone heath brown and still,
Or landscape stretching wide,
Seen from a breezy hill,
That does not all thy soul with former pleasures fill?

Does not the slight hare-bell
Recall the ruin hoar;
And Croxden's abbey cell
Rise to thine eye once more?
Does not the shrouding yew
Around the fallen tower,
Bring Chartley to thy view?
And scarce a tree or flower
But has a tale for thee of some delightful hour?

Live, for a little while,
In Needwood's mossy shade;
Its memory may beguile
Where children we have played.
We've wandered 'neath the grey
And gnarled oaks around,
And listened, through the day,
To catch the ticking sound
The grasshopper would send from out the leafy ground.

Our garden and our flowers
Thou wilt remember long;
How many summer hours
We spent their sweets among;
Our home so free from care,
How could we it resign?
With its pleasant windows, where
The moon-beams used to shine
Through the screening pear-tree leaves, and the wreathing jessamine.

Dost thou not call to mind
That southern porch, and feel,
As we have felt, the wind
Through the honied woodbine steal?
The fir-trees, do they rise
In vision, and recall
The violet's downcast eyes,
And the ivy on the wall,
The sun-flowers, and the Indian wheat with its plumed coronal?

We've rambled many a day
To many a pleasant place;
Time cannot steal away
Their memory. Thou wilt trace
The blessed hours we spent
In sunshine, and in shade;
How, pilgrim-like, we went,
How joyously we strayed
Where birds, and sun, and flowers, all paradise had made.

And, if now 'tis thine to be
In any lovelier spot,
Is it not dear to thee
As these are unforgot?
Thy rambles on the shore;
The lone and hidden bay;
The ocean's ceaseless roar;
The graceful billows' play;
And the mighty vessel bound on its joyous, homeward way.

All these have charm and might
To rouse the poet's dream;
But they stir not the delight
Of memory, like a stream
That, through a summer wood,
Keeps on its ceaseless play;
A soul in solitude,
That passeth not away,
But, beautified by flowers, reviveth them alway.

No more;—I need not shew
To thee the days gone by;
They have not perished,—no,
Their memory could not die!
It is not such as thou
With whom the past doth fade;
Thy spirit gathers now
From the treasury we made,
And the colouring of gone days on our passing hours is laid.

DEATH IN SPRING.

No! there needs no long abode in this our mortal stage
To prove how darkly true are the sad words of the sage.
To prove our pleasures vanity—that each must here inherit,
How bright soe'er his youth may be, vexation of the spirit.
There is agony in war, in famine, and in flight,
In the rending of love's bonds,—in the trusting bosom's blight.
There is poverty's dim life,—shame—scorn—guilt's lack of ease,
And a fate to wring the innocent with a pang as sharp as these.

There was gladness and bright triumph in a pleasant little dome
Shrouded amongst the village trees, like a rural poet's home;
The sun shone through the waving boughs, on its rose-girt walls of white,
But within!—oh yes—within, was the rushing tide of light.
For there came a hasty note from a stripling at the sea,
Telling of martial glory won, and of honours yet to be.
Then kindled the father's brow—then the mother's tears gushed out,
The children leapt up, wild with joy, and gave a deafening shout.

Oh! that the fearful war was o'er, that the gallant boy might come
To the proud hearts he has blessed, in his quiet native home.
So spake parental tongues, on that and many a day;
So echoed the young children, 'neath the garden trees at play.

And he came, ere it was long, to that blessed group he came;
But alas! 'twas not in transport, for he hardly seemed the same;
For his spirit had sunk down; dead to glory and to joy;
And his mother gazed in silence on her tall and dying boy.

Would'st thou learn of all earth's woes the most melancholy thing,
Thou should'st have seen that youth come home—to die in the sweet spring.
Thou should'st have heard his mother's wail,—have seen her wild arms thrown
Around him, and have listened to his father's bitter groan.
Have seen those merry children come crowding to the door,
And cry, in innocent delight, “dear Alfred go no more!”
And then have seen him folded in loving arms at eve,
Gazing on bright, despairing eyes, 'twere death itself to leave.

Thou should'st have felt with what a heart he wandered through each place,
Each haunt of happy boyhood—how he met each well-known face.
In the mossy-tufted woods, where the early primrose gleamed,
How remembered feelings came, and the secret sorrow streamed.
In the sunshine when he basked, and saw the field-flowers wave,
And felt how soon the one would gild, the others strew his grave.
No! none of all earth's woes ever touched me like this thing,
Like this gallant boy brought home to die in the sweet spring.

A HYMN OF THE NIGHT.

I

Again, fair moon, with thy pure orb thou shinest,
The beautiful spirit of the quiet night;
To me no unmeet type of the Divinest,
Who in his mercy veiled his glorious light,
And on Mount Sinai met the chosen one;—
The undecaying sun comes forth,
And, even on the icy north,
Gazes, with eye of unapproachable ray:—
Thou awest thy worshipper,—O mighty sun!
But when the moon glides on her blessed way,
And with her meek eye welcomes human gaze,
Might I not question her, and bid her say,
All she has seen, and all she now surveys;
And how the young earth looked in her primeval days?

II

Oh say, art thou the self-same moon that rose
O'er the blest Eden, and awhile didst see
Man, ere the earth was dimmed by crime and woes;
And heard the voice of new-born melody
In human speech; and saw the grace divine
Of woman, from the mighty hand
First formed beneath thy radiance bland,
A being beautiful; looked she not first
On thee, and took expression like to thine?—
Heard'st thou that holy man, in sorrow nursed,
Upon Mount Olivet with bended knee?
And saw the blood-drops from his forehead burst;
And the deep suffering of his agony,—
The yoke of sin who bore that man's soul might be free?

III

The Chaldean shepherd nightly, mid his fold,
Gazed on the star-lit heavens, till he became
Familiar with their marvels, and could hold
Converse with thee, and call each star by name.
How look'd'st thou when the Egyptian priestess hymned
Thy worship, by the sacred Nile,
Ere yet, the hieroglyphicked pile
Rose, or the pyramid's undecaying wall?
The same still changing, yet unchanged, undimmed!
Oh, call back from thy memory's treasury all
Thou hast beheld;—wake kingdoms past away;
Image forth deeds of wonder, and recall
The great ones of the earth from dark decay;
Give life unto the dust—breathe soul into the clay!

IV

All that in fable lives to wake our wonder;
All that old poets sung of older time;
Prophets and kings;—Oh! rend the veil asunder,
That time has drawn o'er knowledge so sublime.
Call from their sleep, names ages cannot hide;
Who in their spirit's brightness first,
Found the infant arts and nursed;
Pruned the wild olive tree, and tilled the plain;
Gave to the savage mind, and thence were deified.
Gleam thou on Homer's grave, and from its stillness,
Rouse the blind father of the lyre again!
Look on the Parian stone, and, in its chillness,
Let it the soul's warm energy retain;
Impart to us thy wealth—uncoil thy memory's chain.

V

Tell us of the Elysian lands that lie
In their unknown-of quiet, beautiful.
Thou see'st them with thy universal eye;
Their valleys of thy blessed light are full.
Shew us their birds of song and plumage rare,
Warbling at night-fall 'mong the trees;
Shew us the flowers that load the breeze
With odorous breath, and meet the mariner
Voyaging unknown seas—and lead us where,
In his sweet quiet, man is not astir
With passion's tumult;—where he barters not
Honour, and faith, and conscience at the spur
Of the day's cravings. But, 'tis vain—no spot
Of unknown lands thou seest where man has left no blot.

SUMMER AND THE POET.

POET.

Oh! golden, golden summer,
What is it thou hast done?
Thou hast chased each vernal roamer
With thy fiercely burning sun.

Glad was the Cuckoo's hail;
Where may we hear it now?
Thou hast driven the nightingale
From the waving hawthorn bough.

Thou hast shrunk the mighty river;
Thou hast made the small brook flee;
And the light gales faintly quiver
In the dark and shadowy tree.

Spring waked her tribes to bloom,
And on the green sward dance.
Thou hast smitten them to the tomb,
With thy consuming glance.

And now Autumn cometh on,
Singing 'midst shocks of corn,
Thou hastenest to be gone,
As if joy might not be borne.

SUMMER.

And dost thou of me complain,
Thou, who, with dreamy eyes,
In the forest's moss hast lain,
Praising my silvery skies?

Thou, who didst deem divine
The shrill cicada's tune,
When the odours of the pine
Gushed through the woods at noon?

I have run my fervid race;
I have wrought my task once more;
I have filled each fruitful place
With a plenty that runs o'er.

There is treasure for the garner;
There is honey with the bee;
And, oh! thou thankless scorner,
There's a parting boon for thee.

Soon as, in misty sadness,
Sere Autumn yields his reign,
Winter, with stormy madness,
Shall chase thee from the plain.

Then shall these scenes Elysian
Bright in thy spirit burn;
And each summer-thought and vision
Be thine till I return.

TO J. H. WIFFEN.

Nay, tell me not of tears and sighs,
I will, that grief mar not delight;
For once, thy lyre's glad tones shall rise,
And joy shall be our word to-night.
And taste, and wit, and song shall shower
A radiance o'er our parting hour.

I know that they, when last we met,
Who smiled amongst us, are not here;
I know that grief has been, but yet—
I ban the sigh, debar the tear;
To weave the parting hour a braid,
We'll choose the sunshine, not the shade.

Turn to the past, it will not seem
All desert, or delusive ray;
Though many a flower, and many a beam
Have passed to darkness and decay,
A splendour shines—an amaranth flower
Has bloomed through life's most wintry hour.

I know that what we love the most
Fades fleetest from before our eyes;
The richest gems are soonest lost;
And death takes first whom best we prize.
Yet, not for this shall sorrow gloom,
For flowers will flourish o'er a tomb.

Think of thy youth, the light that came
In vision for thy future day;
Thy dream of song; thy hope of fame;
And the bright charm of many a lay;
And how thy youthful fancy wove
An iris-woof of light and love.

Unfolding years may prove how vain
The hopes we nurture in our youth;
But, fleeting some—do none remain
To prove our soul's aspiring, truth?—
Think of thy sweet harp's dearest tone
As it made Tasso's lay thine own.

For song has been a sacred fire
Within thy soul, unquenched, undimmed.
So we, to-night, will pledge thy lyre,
And joy's cup shall be fully brimmed;
For come what may of good or ill,
Thy lyre is thine, unchanging still.

So tell me not of tears and sighs,
I will, that grief mar not delight;
Our hearts shall withering care despise,
And joy our watchword be to-night.
And song, and taste, and wit shall shower
A radiance o'er our parting hour.

30th of 12th month.—

HUMAN DESTINY.

I

Our prime stars sink—our crowned ones depart;
They who have shone before us from the days
Of youngest life;—and they who seemed to start
Suddenly forth in glory's proudest blaze,
Are falling!—falling!—as, if nought could save
Them, and the splendour of our age,—they go;
And in the darkness of the eternal grave
The laurelled heads lie low.

II

The old, accustomed faces which have met
Our out-goings ever, year succeeding year;
The old, familiar friend, whose form was set
Before us, like a tower against all fear;
The latest found, but—Oh! the noblest minds,
Warm hearts and brilliant spirits disappear;
And life's green tree, torn by tempestuous winds,
Stands leafless, though not sere.

III

But what is this? The language and the cry
Of sorrowing man, in every age and nation,
Which gave him birth, to wonder, weep, and die;
The pride, the sport, the mystery of creation.
Born to behold how death sweeps down all other
Beautiful beings, and then to have his doom;
Whilst Nature, like a most unnatural mother,
Smiles on her children's tomb.—

IV

Yes! smiles unpitying, and unshuddering keeps
Her way in peace and glory, whilst the blood
Of slaughtered hosts her flowery bosom steeps;
The flame-winged earthquake, and the greedy flood
Consume their thousands; and each strange disease
Walks forth in scorn to wither up the might
Of populous cities, and the joyful ease
Of homes embowered in light.

V

Calmly the sun shines on the crushing tread
Of a vast empire's armies, forth in all
Their dreadful will, o'er suffering kingdoms led;
As calmly shines upon that empire's fall.
Thousand on thousand of revolving years,
Has fled o'er human ignorance, human crime;
Yet lo!—the earth, how lovely she appears!
The cold heavens how sublime!

VI

Thus, in an hour of darkness, did the foe
Of my heart's quiet, and the hopes of man,
Breathe blackness o'er my musings; and a woe,
Like the last pang of Nature, through me ran.
When, suddenly, from the soul's deepest dwelling,
There rose a glow of comfort, and a voice
As of a mighty prophet, who, dispelling
The darkness, said—“Rejoice!”

VII

“And is it thus, thou feeble one?” he cried,
“That God hath given thee a discerning power
To see how love and beauty, side by side,
Wait on thee; and dost feel in every hour
A sympathy of joy with all that lives;
And deathless thoughts which are not sent in vain;
But thy soul's bark heaven's own sure impulse drives
Into the eternal main.

VIII

“Then well may earth be glad:—then well may sail
Nature sublimely on her course for ever;
Knowing that stars may sink, that worlds may fail,
But Time, or Death have not the power to sever
Man's radiant soul from life;—but still her eye
Beholds him, when the cold earth closes o'er him,
Come forth to all the brightness of the sky,
With not a cloud before him.”

SONNET, NEWSTEAD WOODS.

How pleasantly the sun, this summer day,
Shines through the covert of these leafy woods,
Where quiet, like a gentle spirit, broods
Unstartled, save by the continuous lay
Of birds, the stirring west-wind, and the play
Of a small pebbly stream. The columbine
Shines in its dark blue lustre, and the twine
Of rose and honeysuckle bowers the way.
Long of these arching trees, this softened sky,
My memory's tablet will a trace retain.
How 'mong the sylvan knolls a bard might lie,
And cast aside the world's corroding chain;
A monarch in the world of poetry,
Endenizened in fancy's free domain.

SONNET, ON SEEING A LARK SHOT IN THE MIDST OF ITS SONG.

Wretch! ages are extinct, but not the blood
Of the fierce Danish savage, from whom thou
Didst draw thy being. Ruthless as he stood;
Greedy of slaughter, so I see thee now.
Our barbarous hordes have perished; on the brow
Of the dread rock whence rose the thrilling cry
Of the war-victim, roams the quiet sheep.
Castle and convent, monk and savage lie
Buried together in eternal sleep.
Never, since rose on earth city or tower,
Was land like this for knowledge, or fair fame;
Yet, even with us the cruel heart of power
Lives, and can coolly do a deed, whose shame
Tells that the savage has outlived his name.

THE PILGRIMAGE OF FANCY.

Again amid the heartless throng
I mingle, yet my soul is still
The fields and quiet woods among,
Glad wandering as I will.
It is not where the many meet
My thoughts can travel free;
The path untrod by human feet
The pleasantest path may be.
The breath of heaven comes purest where
Man has not left his taint of care.

It is not here, it is not here,
My heart can ever feel at home;
Would that in Fancy's bright career
My foot had power to roam!
But for a little while I'll deem
The magic mantle brought;
I'll cheat me with the idle dream,
And wander free as thought.
It will be pleasant, even in mind,
To leave the chained throng behind.

It shall be spring—and I will take
My journey towards the “north countrie;”
There's many a mountain, many a lake,
And many a glen to see.
There's many a bonny brae where grows
The gowan's golden bloom;
There's many a strath where sweetly flows,
The burn among the broom;
There's many a valley, wood, and glade,
By old tradition lovely made.

And Fancy hath a bark can sail
With every tide, in every breeze;
And she shall breast the northern gale,
Upon the northern seas.
I'll go where the fierce sea-kings went,
In dark, old days gone by;
I'll see the meteor's merriment
Athwart a polar sky;
And patient rein-deer come and go,
'Mong rocks of ice, and wastes of snow.

Then Fancy shall my rein-deer be,
And bear me from that frozen clime;
And next in pleasant Italy,
I'll hear the ready rhyme
By Improvisatori made,
Among the lemon trees;
And partly sung and partly said,
So sweetly, that the breeze,
That o'er the harp doth swell and fall,
Hath not a tone more musical.

Then all of Greece immortal made,
The vales, the hills, the towns, the sea,
Thebes, Sparta, Marathon, Leucade,
Athens and old Thermopylæ.
Flowers still upon Parnassus grow
That shall be wreathed by me—
And yet the wonted waters flow
From sweetest Castaly.
And there are lovely forms that wear
The classic beauty's regal air.

Then, onward, through the Holy-land
My pilgrim path unwearying hold;
Where ancient prophets stood, to stand
'Mid ruin they foretold.
How pleasant, yet how strange, to see
The fisher cast his net
Within the lake of Galilee;—
Or, on Mount Olivet
To watch the setting sun-light gem,
The old towers of Jerusalem.

100

And far and wide, o'er sea and land,
All marvellous and fair, to trace;
The Arab 'mid his desert sand
Without abiding place.
Thus Fancy for awhile may cheat;
'Tis but a dream—and then
Gone, like a bird, the fair deceit,
The mountain and the glen:—
The crowd, the tainted air are real,
The quiet lake, and the fresh gale ideal.

101

CALLAO IN 1747.

The watchman stood upon the topmost tower
Of old Calláo, and he struck the flag,
As he was wont, at eventide; and then,
Had he been told 'twas to an enemy,
He would have laughed; for he enjoyed a joke,
And every thing was peace. The air, the earth,
The peopled town beneath him, and the sea
All slumbered in the beautiful repose
Of a clear, summer evening. But, in troth,
There was an enemy, though there seemed none.
And such an enemy—that, to it, the might
Of banded armies is but as a breath.
The watchman, gazing on the quiet sea,

102

Saw it at once recoil, as in affright—
Far off:—'twas in a moment—then, as soon—
Upward it reared its huge and mountainous bulk,
And with a horrid roar, it swept along
Towards the town. He saw the people run—
He heard one vast and agonizing cry
Of “Mercy!—Mercy!”—and then all was still:—
There were no people,—neither town nor tower;
But a wide ocean rolling its black waves
With nothing to resist them;—and a boat,—
A single boat, the only visible thing,
Tossing beside him. He sprang into it;—
And now no longer warder in Calláo,
Through the lone wilderness of waves he drives,
Seeking a home; for his, and all his race,
Are in the bottom of the eternal flood.

103

TO A NIGHTINGALE.

'Tis night! awake, awake!
And from thy leafy covert raise thy voice!
Pour out thy soul of melody, and make
The silent night rejoice!

Call to the echoes, call
To the far woods that steeped in moon-beams lie;
Call to the quiet sea, the desolate hall,
And each one shall reply.

104

From out thy leafy boughs,
Thy voice is as a trumpet's through the wild,
Stirring all hearts; which from deep rest doth rouse
Mother and sleeping child.

Yet not with sense of dread
Peasants are gathering in the midnight hours;
And high-born maiden goes, with stately tread,
Down paths of moonlit flowers.

The gentle poet speeds
Forth in the dewy hush of night, elate
With song and love, and his sweet fancy feeds,
Hailing thee his own mate.

Pour forth, pour forth thy strain,
Until the blue depths of the heaven are filled;
Until the memory of thy secret pain
With thine own song is stilled.

105

Oh! pour, as thou didst ever,
Thy tide of song forth from thy hidden tree,
Like unspent waters of a viewless river
Feeding the mighty sea.

When poesy divine
Made visible glory by the sacred spring,
Thou wast a voice unto the mystic nine,
At midnight warbling.

Then from his dreamy mood,
A marvel to himself, the poet sprung,
In spiritual might, like one with youth renewed,
And smote his lyre and sung.

Oh! as thou wast to him,
Touching his spirit with etherial fire,
Be priestess unto us, and our cold, dim,
And soul-less clay inspire!

106

Alas! it were unjust
To deem thou could'st transmute our iron age:
Man has bowed down his spirit to the dust—
Has sold his heritage.

We come forth in the night,
In the pure dews, and silvery light of heaven;
But in our bosom lies the deadening blight,—
The world's corrupting leaven.

Aye, sing, thou rapturous bird;
And though my spirit bear the impress of ill,
Yet, from the holy feeling thou hast stirred,
Thy power remaineth still.

107

LAMENT FOR THE MARINER.

IN MEMORY OF A BELOVED YOUTH WHO DIED AT QUEBEC, 4TH OF 11TH MONTH, 1825.

“He should have died in his own loved land,
With friends and kindred near him;
Not have withered thus on a foreign strand,
With no thought save of heaven to cheer him.”
Alaric A. Watts.

The ship toiled on her northern way
Through the tempestuous main;
From day to day, from day to day,
She sought the land in vain.

The ship toiled on her northern way
Amid the stormy din;
From day to day, failed with delay,
The weary heart within.

108

The weary heart!—and who might bear
That burden in his breast?
The young—and till grief found him there,
Most blessed of the blest.

The gallant boy! the generous boy!
His brief career had run,
One dream of youth's resistless joy,
A morning in the sun.

He grew, where spirits like his own
Clasped him in love and pride;
He sprang, where Nature from her throne
Flings sylvan glories wide.

As bounds the chamois on the hill,
As leaps the stream in light;
So, winged by pleasure's purest thrill,
His bosom feared no blight.

109

Alas! borne thence a dreary length;
Listening the ocean's roll,
The fever's fire consumed his strength—
The fever of the soul.

There were watchers round his restless bed,
But not of love's kindred band:
And his heart with the rushing memories bled
Of his home in his father's land.

From day to day—from wave to wave,
He lay in that trance of mind;
Before him a nameless, foreign grave,
And his blessed youth behind.

The ship toiled on her northern way,—
At length she touched the shore,
And the seamen, in their sad array,
To the town the sufferer bore.

110

They bore him, as the autumn gale
Bears up a leaflet sere,
As lately green—as sadly frail,—
As soon to disappear.

They bore him where his God bestowed,
Even in that stranger-land,
Hearts that with streaming love o'erflowed,
Like springs in the desert sand.

The ship put back—the breeze astir
Lent fleetness in its sport;
And anxious eyes were fixed on her
As she neared her native port.

She came like a winged thing of wealth,
Firm timbered—tackle trim;
And the crew leaped out in the joy of health,
But the strained eye saw not him.

111

Thou stem of hope—thou soul of mirth,
Oh God! and can it be!
And has the bright and breathing earth
Forever closed on thee!

Nothing! and art thou nothing now?
Seen—loved—caressed—yet fled!
That voice—that soul—that laughing brow—
We will not think thee dead.

It cannot be to die—with those
We loved elsewhere to live!
It cannot be to die—whilst glows
The life love's heart can give!

Sleep on then—thou art living still!
For whilst our hearts are led
By love's quick cords—by memory's thrill,
Thou canst not there be dead.

112

THE BLIGHT OF THE SPIRIT.

“We poets in our youth begin in gladness,
But thereof comes in the end despondency and madness.”
Wordsworth.

I

He stood supreme in lofty genius, proud
In his soul's majesty; young, ardent, fired
With energy that never swayed the crowd;
The warmest votary that the muse inspired.
Through glorious realms he roamed, with feet untired;
And in high temples, with meek head, he bowed;
Drinking in inspiration, till the tide,
Like genial waters' flow, his outward life supplied.

113

II

On the high mountain's topmost peak he lay,
Feasting his fancy with delicious food;
Amid the lightning's terrible array,
And many-tongued thunders; where had stood
The glorious of old times; till he imbued
His spirit with their greatness—day by day,
Revelling in dreams of poesy divine,
When gods communed with man, the poet with the nine.

III

Then sprang the hope of an immortal name,
Kindling his spirit like Promethean fire;
His soul sprang upwards with the glorious aim,
And his hand, trembling, smote the answering wire.
He dwelt upon the triumphs of the lyre;
Upon the beautiful, till it became,
Whether in art or nature, life and light,
Endowing him with skill, and song's sublimest might.

114

IV

And, day by day, he proudly pondered o'er
The bliss of his high destiny;—to raise
Man from his reptile mind, and bid him soar,
Like the young eagle, in the heaven's full blaze;
He listened for the cordial voice of praise
To cheer him on—he heard the sullen roar
Of critic malice, mocking that warm zeal,
That fervent strength of song its spirit could not feel.

V

He pined, and pined, and over his pale cheek
The insidious crimson of the hectic stole:
His agile frame was wasted, bowed, and weak,
Before the subtle fever of his soul.
And, like one who has drained an opiate bowl,
His eye grew leaden, save when it would seek
Some inward vision; then his glorious mind
Lit up etherial flame, pure, rapturous, and refined.

115

VI

Still dwelt he 'neath a bright and classic sky;
And nature's marvels were around him spread;
The mountain's cloudy pinnacle, which high
Rears, in the vault of heaven, its splintered head:
The ocean's everlasting voice;—the red,
Fierce lightnings, and the thunder's stormy cry.
He sojourned in the lands renowned of old,
But now his soul was dim, his drooping fancy cold.

VII

Alas! the curse was on him. The unkind,
Corroding censure of the critic few,
Blasting his vision, sunk his ardent mind,
And, like the pestilent sirocco, slew.
He pined—the young, the generous, ardent, true;
Amid his high, but withered hopes, he pined;
And died within the noble land that gave
The aspiring genius fire, the broken heart a grave.

116

COWSLIPS.

Oh! fragrant dwellers of the lea!
When first the wild-wood rings
With each sound of vernal minstrelsy;
When fresh the green grass springs;

What can the blessed spring restore
More gladdening than your charms?
Bringing the memory once more
Of lonely fields and farms;

Of thickets, breezes, birds and flowers;
Of life's unfolding prime;
Of thoughts as cloudless as the hours;
Of souls without a crime.

117

Oh blessed, blessed do ye seem!
For, even now, I turned,
With soul athirst for wood and stream,
From streets that glared and burned.

From the hot town, where mortal care
His crowded fold doth pen;
Where stagnates the polluted air,
In many a sultry den.

And ye are here! and ye are here!
Drinking the dew like wine,
'Midst living gales and waters clear,
And heaven's unstinted shine.

I care not that your little life
Will quickly have run through,
And the sward, with summer children rife,
Keep not one trace of you.

118

For again, again, on dewy plain
I trust to see you rise,
When spring shall wake the wild-wood strain,
And bluer gleam the skies.

Again, again, when many springs
Upon my grave shall shine,
Here shall you speak of vanished things
To living hearts of mine.

119

THE LAST EVE OF SAUL.

I

Uprose the frenzied monarch, pale and stern;
To the dark madness of his soul a prey;
Dim on Gilboa he saw the watch-fires burn,
Where in their tents the encamped warriors lay.
He gazed upon them—anguish and dismay
Tortured his spirit to its fiercest mood;
He spoke not, prayed not, hope had passed away;
The demon of his fate was unsubdued;
Anger, remorse, and dread his withered soul pursued.

120

II

Undrained the wine-cup, and untouched the feast,
He stood alone in his deserted tent;
Buckler and spear thrown by, as war had ceased;
The robe of state, and stringed instrument,
All in confusion cast, were idly blent.
But what of war, or state, or minstrelsy
Cared he whose anguished mood of frenzy sent,
Warrior, and ministrant, and hand of glee
At distance from the tent where gladness might not be?

III

He had striven in prayer—his prayer was answered not;
In dream his troubled soul was troubled more;
The priest's mysterious symbol, like a blot,
Dimmed and polluted, shone not as before;
Oracle and holocaust ill omen bore;
The glory from the anointed line was gone;
Rage, hate and shame rushed, like a tempest, o'er
His blasted soul, goading him fiercely on
To the dark deed even he, in calmer hour would shun.

121

IV

'Twas night, and issuing from his silent tent,
The moody monarch, forth in deep disguise,
Through the encamped tribes from Gilboa went,
Fearless that friend or foe might recognise.
Right in his track the mountainous desert lies,
Within whose fearful holds enchanted rite
Dread worshippers perform, with obsequies,
Held by his law accursed to Israelite,
That break the sacred rest of death's mysterious night.

V

By hope abandoned, left to sense of crime,
He rushed on desperate in his dark career;
Evil was on him at that awful time,
Madness and misery. Now in the drear
Confines of her polluted cave, his ear
Demands from one, skilled in enchanted spell,
Words that shall call from death the mighty seer,
Whose tried oracular voice his fate may tell;
And seal his blasted doom, or its dark woe dispel.

122

VI

Started the sorceress at the appalling might
Of her own fearful power:—“I know thee now,
Monarch!” she cried, “I know thee by the light
Of phantoms thou demandest—Saul, 'tis thou!”
Waked by the mighty spell, with clouded brow,
He rose—the terrible seer:—low bent the king,
Bowed to the earth, as rarely monarchs bow.—
“What seek'st thou?” cried the prophet, “wherefore bring
Me from my awful rest, by thy disquieting?”

VII

Replied the king—“I am forlorn, distressed;
On every hand comes up the Philistine;
God's spirit has deserted me—oppressed
And wretched, therefore I have sought from thine
Counsel and aid.”—“Saul, by this fearful sign
Ask not from me, God is thine enemy;
And hath removed his glory from thy line.
To-morrow,—and thy host shall vanquished be,—
And thou shalt, with thy sons, ere evening, be with me!”

123

VIII

Ere the next eve, and like the autumn leaf,
Israel all scattered, routed and dismayed,
Fled from the Philistine. Her desperate chief,
In the wild tumult by his fears betrayed,
With the fallen remnant of his house was laid;
And shield and banner, buckler, helm and spear,
Trophies, in Ashtaroth's temple were displayed.
—Saul's race was closed, as told the visioned seer,
A youth of strength and light, an age of crime and fear.

124

SONNET TO A. P. WITH A VOLUME OF POEMS.

Anne, while thy sojourn is upon the earth,
But thy pure thoughts are in the world eterne,
Cares of the present time with visage stern
Can scarcely visit thee; but quiet mirth,
And that sweet music of the soul, whose birth
Is holy friendship's guerdon—these must learn
To find thee out, and thy calm life to turn
To tranquil joy, high thoughts, and higher worth.
We,—midst the bustle, and the shock of men—
Of hollow intercourse, and duties dull,
Which steal away the spirit by degrees,
In home's blest fairy-land yet turn again
At times, to brighter scenes, and thence we cull
Such dewy flowers, and blossomed boughs as these.

127

THE EMIGRANT;

A TALE OF THE AMERICAN WOODS.

“The walled towns do work my greater woe;
The forest wide is fitter to resound
The hollow echo of my careful cries.”
Spenser's Shepheard's Calender.

A stranger sate by Huron lake;
His eye was on those dark, green isles,
Where Indian seers their sons have told
The Great, Good Spirit dwelt of old.
'Twas noon;—no motion was awake;
Not even to stir the leafy coils
Of the wild vine, whose green leaves fell
Around him, in that silent dell.

128

'Twas noon;—and its profoundest calm,
On the earth's breast lay, like a charm.
No feral yell, no bird's acclaim
From the dark forests round him came.
That ocean-lake was stretched before
In sun-bright rest from shore to shore;
Save where, beneath each red-rock steep,
Masses of darkness clothed the deep.
And where those riven and shadowy isles
Reared to the sun their awful piles;
Piles where the blasted pine-tree hung;
And peaks where verdure never clung;
But in the clear heavens seemed to keep
Fearful, sublime, eternal sleep;
And threw upon the water's breast,
Far, the stern image of their rest.
Wild was the forest, wave and hill,
And still—terrifically still.

Eve came—yet there the stranger lay;
As if the longest summer day
Was not enough his thirst to slake
Of the stern grandeur of that lake.

129

The passing hours their change had wrought;
The coolness with it life had brought.
The sun had gorgeously gone down
Behind the pine-wood's sable crown;
But left, diffused o'er all the sky,
Even to the east, a crimson dye,
Which tinged, but with more purple glow,
The mountain summits; while below,
In hollow and in savage dell,
The shrouding darkness doubly fell.
Yet o'er the waters of the lake,
The long and ruby sun-beams brake
'Twixt isle and isle. The night-breeze rose,
Calling up from their smooth repose
Ten thousand whispering waves. On high
The eagle's and the osprey's cry
Clanged loudly in their dizzy halls.
The woods returned responsive calls.
The reptile clamour, rude and harsh,
Resounded from the distant marsh;
The water-snake, whose angry breath
Sends forth the gale of lingering death,

130

Uncoiled amid the lily-flowers,
Where it slept out the sultry hours;
And glanced, at intervals, to view
The Indian hunter's light canoe,
As on, from isle to isle, it flew;
With solemn song, and splashing oar
Speeding, ere night-fall to the shore,
Where white, the hidden wigwam's smoke,
Wavering rose o'er the forest oak.

Still gazed the stranger; over him
The enlivening hour no freshness threw;
Nor seemed those sounds, nor shadows dim,
To warn him that the day withdrew.
Like some enthusiast, who can lie
Absorbed from morning until eve,
Gazing into the sunny sky,
And from the clouds and beams that fly
O'er him, his reveries will weave;
Or one, whose feet, from day to day,
Have laboured o'er a burning way;

131

O'er marsh, o'er mountain, cliff and wood,
Seeking some home, or hope of good
Still distant, till his heart had grown
Faint, and despairing and alone,
Body and spirit sank subdued.

So seemed he, for a gloom profound
Upon his drooping eyelids lay.
He saw not,—by a dark spell bound,—
One feature of the scene around;
His mind was far away!
He saw,—Oh! with a light of soul
Which scorned all sunset, all control—
He saw, far in his native land,
In England—in its valley lone,
Midst hills with proud woods overgrown,
The old hall of his father stand.
His ear was busy with the sound
Of rushing river, voice and bird,
Which, from his childhood's earliest bound,
He there, and there alone, had heard:—

132

Glad accents, which fell like the beam
Dancing upon a mountain stream;
And fuller, dearer tones, which stirred
His wild heart to its wildest mood,
Then left it faint, but unsubdued;
And through those visions dark yet glowing,
A sainted mother's tears were flowing.

On him life's ruddy morn had shone,
As one whom Nature had designed,
In form, in feature, and in mind,
For a most loved and happy one;
And fortune each most precious boon
Had cast upon the blessed boy.
The child of ancestors renowned,
Fame breathed upon him in each sound;
And often, as he wont to roam
The woods and brown heaths round his home,
Came to him like a dream of joy.
And then, as youth approached its noon,
Earth was to him a glorious thing;

133

For there was transport in the chase,
And there was joyance in the sport
Of field and forest, and each place
Where the wild game-broods made resort;
The sedgy stream and bowery spring.
And in those lone and lovely places,
He found, within his breast unfurled,
The secret spirit which embraces
The beauty of the natural world:
A spirit which haunts the holy shade
Of the dim wood-walk and the glade;
And gives to solitude the sense
Of the heart's deepest eloquence.
Oh! blessed is he to whom the dower
Is given of this ethereal power!
Where'er he treads,—'tis gone before,
And casts its dædal beauty o'er
All earth and air;—the sky, the sea,
The hills' blue summits, and the lea,
Are beaming, and for ever fraught
With hues of glory and of thought;
And roaring winds, in their career,
Hymn their glad tidings to his ear.

134

That charm was on him, and his mind
Grew strong, aspiring, and refined.
His eye shed gladness, like the stream,
Which clothes it in the summer beam,
Yet, in the revelry of its mirth,
Flings back the splendour to the earth.
He loved!—Oh! what eventful spell
In those two little words may dwell!
Life lies in embryo till the seed
Of love shoots up to flower, or weed.
Love fires, with its wild, meteor blaze,
The dark mine of our future days,
And leaves—its glare and thunder past—
Conquest, or ruin which must last.
He loved!—and from that hour, o'er him
Clouds gathered, and his path grew dim:
For she whose smile had fixed his fate,
Was all young love would estimate;
But dark had been her sire's disgrace,
And bitterest scorn pursued his race.
The knot which their two fortunes tied
Burst every link of love beside.

135

Years passed—but love's unwearied care,
Beauty, and tenderness in vain,
And a proud heart which vowed to bear—
Steeled not his bosom to disdain.
In vain young creatures, in his home
Their gladness on his soul were flinging;
In vain, their happy songs were singing;
They chased not wronged affection's gloom.
They could not call back from the tomb
Her, who unwavering, fond and true,
For him the mother's leal heart knew.
They could not quench the scorn of those,
Nearest in blood, yet—bitterest foes.

One month—and o'er the Atlantic wave,
Beneath the red-flowered Judas-tree,
He sate, beside a recent grave,
In unpartaken misery.
That land had been to him in youth
The bright Arcadia of his thought;
The realm of happiness and truth,
By thousands of the unhappy sought.

136

Of that, in wintry hours, he read;—
How there the weary pilgrim sped,
Leaving the pride, the pomp and sin,
Which the old world rejoices in.
Leaving its cares and its distresses
For all the simple heart that blesses:—
How there, by rivers broad and clear,
Amidst the solemn woods of ages,
They built their homes, and, year by year,
Shaped out their children's heritages:—
How there they dwelt, as dwelt of old
The patriarchs with their numerous fold,
And herds which roamed the abounding prairie.
For them sweets gushed from nectarous trees;
They lured from their wild haunts the bees,
In that true land of Faery.
Things of earth, flood, and forest spray,
Were given them for a bounteous prey;
And, amid herbs, and trees, and flowers
Of hues and odours unlike ours,
The wild-wood bough bent to their reach,
With mast and vine-bunch, plum and peach.

137

Nor eating cares, nor sullying crime,
Ruffled the sunny lapse of time.

He sought that land:—how sped he there?
He touched the strand—he breathed the air—
And felt, ere one dark week went round,
A grasp which wrenched him to the ground;—
The yellow fever's spectre hand;
Shaking the living from the land,
As a fierce wind of autumn calls
The sere leaves from their summer halls.
One moment, in the hot embrace
Of the grim pestilence he lay,
While love, which nought can force away,
Was wildly gazing in his face.
Then rushed dire visions on his brain;—
Changed was the scene, but not the pain.
In burning seas he seemed to swim:
The liquid fire round every limb
Curled, dashed, and heaved, with sudden shock,
His writhing frame upon the rock.

138

Swart Indians plucked him from the surge,
But plucked him only thence to urge
Into the desert:—on they flew—
Wildly behind the clamour grew.
His wife!—his babes!—he saw them chased
By those dire dwellers of the waste!—
There snapped that horrid dream—the power
Of fever had consumed its hour.
He woke, and feebly called for her,
His life's unchanging comforter;
For her, and for those beings blest,
Whose lives were sun-beams in his breast.
He called—and from his room was shewn
A mound with grass but newly grown.

Away!—away!—I cannot bear
The sight of him who trembles there.
I cannot bear the sobs which burst
In anguish, to delirium nurst.
Oh! what a heart is that now hurled
From every fond heart in the world!

139

Oh! what a heart for those to scorn,
Who to his earliest love were born!
There, where his crushed affections lie,
What a blest boon it were to die!
But on that sad, yet sacred spot,
The friendless sufferer lingered not.
Life's catering cares and hurrying cheer
Are hateful to the sorrower's ear.
A midnight pang unmarked—a sore
Whirlwind of spirit, and no more
The stranger was beheld. Away,
His feet were measuring, day by day,
The inland path, hope once ordained,
Duly as if that hope remained.
It was not hope—could earth disclose
A hope, but in her last repose?
It was not any thought that still
Earth had a balm, a healing rill,
Which, wandering with the sun and wind,
In some far spot he yet might find.
As flies the maimed deer through the wood;
The eagle through the ethereal flood;

140

So, by his arrowy anguish pressed,
All scenes were haunted by unrest.
His native land!—friends,—home—repose—
Oh! clung his spirit not to those?
It did—but outraged hearts sue not,
When want or misery is their lot.
In joy, in wealth they may—but no!
They die!—but stoop not in their woe!
His home—his friends—his solace grew
From one kind spirit ever true;
From Nature's solitudes and sounds,
Which soothed, but could not close his wounds.
She gave him glens and caverns still,
Where he might lie and weep at will.
She stretched her green tents o'er his head,
Where, through unnoted days, he fed
His fond, insatiate heart with all
That memory may from dust recall.

In Carolina's palmy bowers;
Amid Kentucky's wastes of flowers,

141

Where, even the way-side hedge displays,
Its jasmines and magnolias;
O'er the monarda's vast expanse
Of scarlet, where the bee-birds glance
Their flickering wings, and breasts that gleam
Like living fires;—that dart and scream—
A million little knights which run
Warring for wild-flowers in the sun;—
His eye might rove through earth and sky,
His soul was in the days gone by.
He saw them still—his mother's tears;
His children's shouts rang in his ears;
And tones more hallowed, tender, blest,
Breathed wilder anguish through his breast.

But not unsuccoured, unbefriended,
The wanderer's life-spark sank expended.
The sternest clime has flowers, though lowly;
The sternest bosom, feelings holy.
The wind blows o'er the world, and bears
Balm from the land which hath no heirs.

142

The eye which on the world ne'er closes,
Sees where the worn-out man reposes;
And there, as he was wont, renews
His pearly manna, and his dews.
So this spent heart found love alone
Where Nature reared her desert throne.
He found it in a shape of dread;
A being whom all beings fled.

Wild and unkempt, in sooth, was he
Who found him under the forest tree.
That dreadful hunter, whose thick hair
Was given to the tempest's tending care.
Whose giant frame, and whose flashing eye,
Seemed made but to bid a foeman die.
His step, his gestures fierce and bold,
Of dangers and foes he feared not, told.
His daily life had long been won
By his toils, his watchings, and his gun;
And his raiment, in grotesque array,
Was formed of the wild pelts of his prey.

143

By wintry fires—in drenching storms,—
His hand had wrought them to their forms.
His mantle waved—a panther's hide,
With thongs and tassels all quaintly tied:
The buck-skin belt which round him met,
Was his armoury and his cabinet.
For there his wealth was all arrayed;
His arms, and the rude tools of his trade.
His knives, and pouches, and powder borne
In flask of a crooked bison's horn.
His fire-case swung securely free,
With tinder made from the mouldering tree.

So traversed the woods this uncouth man;
And of him a dark fame far there ran.
The hunter who crossed him in the chase
Recoiled from the hater of his race;
And whispers, in shuddering ears, were told
Of deeds done in his mountain hold.

In early life it had been his lot
To trust—to suffer—and who has not?

144

He fled from his native land; and yet
His burning spirit could not forget.
His wrongs still roused his musing mind;
And he hated, but—'twas not his kind.

And now, so long his life had been
In the wintry wilderness, and the green,
He had learned with Nature to converse,
And his heart was moulded anew to hers.
And there, in her vast and awful wild
She fed with her wonders her noblest child.
The river rushed on in its might for him;
And in mountain hollows, and chambers dim
Of the hovering cloud, and the storm-wind drear,
She nurtured the fearless in her fear.
Till a life in each silent thing he found,
And his heart owned the language of each sound
Which in mossy and manless wilds are bred,
And strike on the pilgrim's ear with dread.
And oh! what a soul of delight was there,
As he ran in the strength of the desert air;

145

In the bounding limb, in the glorying flow
Of spirits in healthful hearts that grow.
The ravening wolf, and the surly bear,
He dragged from the dark swamp's reedy lair.
'Twas joy in the locust-tree to hide
Watching the wild deer in their pride.
He went, where the hurricane in its mirth
Had crashed the forest trees to the earth.
Away—away—for leagues he speeds
Where the giant oaks strew the earth, like reeds.
He went, where the beech woods burning bright,
'Neath the canopied reek and the pitchy night,
Mid dolorous sounds, and sighs, aspire,
Ten thousand spectral pillars of fire.
His summer-night's rest he was wont to take
On the beach of a lonely and whispering lake.
His bed from the hemlock bough was riven;
His canopy—Oh! 'twas the broad blue heaven;
Where the stars, as they solemnly traced the skies,
Seemed gazing upon him with thoughtful eyes;
And the moon, in her monthly flight, threw down
On the leafy forest a silvery crown.

146

And wildering and wild was the life of his dreams,
Mid the night-wood's moan and the echo of streams.

And this was he who stooped to know
The wanderer when his pulse was low.
And oh! when he found what a heart was there,—
How fashioned for love,—how worthy of care;
Yet through the world had thus been tossed;
In its youthful flush thus rent and lost;
How to his cheek, the red flame rushed!
How forth the indignant spirit gushed!
Cursing the cold in accents grim;
Worthy, and yet, unworthy of him;
While his drenched eye rained down the tears,
As from a fountain lost for years.

His sylvan shed was the wanderer's home,
And his words were of calmer days to come.
He smoothed his bed, and downed his pillow,
With the cotton-rush and the silken willow.
The spoils of the chase, the feast of the wild,
Before him, from day to day, he piled;

147

The melting berry, the fruit of the tree,
And the golden comb of the woodland bee.

And as they sate, in stormy days,
By the hiccory's pleasant blaze,
While the vast wilderness around
Was one stern roar of thunderous sound,
He strove to cheer him, and to change,
With tale of exploit wild and strange,
That drooping mood and clouded face,
To something of a lighter grace.
To novel scenes his feet he drew,
When breathed the gale through heavens of blue.
And many a curious fact would tell
Of tree, of flower, of things which range
Those wilds—which he had learned so well,
Yet, to his guest were new and strange.
The fire-fly's ever-glancing ray,
Lighted them on their evening way;
The tree-frog from his secret hall,
Sang freely forth his frequent call;

148

The shrill cicada's merry hail;
The sad note of the nightingale;
The quaint voice of the whip-poor-will
Wailed to them through the night-woods shrill.

But vain those generous wiles and cares!
The hunter again goes forth alone;
And other sorrows than his own
Are with him wheresoever he fares.
The hunter has raised a verdant mound;
He has planted the kalmia, and around
Taught the white-cedar bough to wave;
'Tis wet with his tears—'tis the wanderer's grave.
—The world will never his love regain!
He is doomed to the drear wood, and the plain!
And who shall close his eyes grown dim?
Who heap the sward of the valley on him?
Fear not! at need, shall heaven repay
The deed of a leal heart done to-day.

149

SURREY IN CAPTIVITY.

I

'Twas a May morning, and the joyous sun
Rose o'er the city, in its proud array,
As though he knew the month of flowers begun,
And came bright-vested for a holiday;
On the wide river barge and vessel lay,
Each with its pennon floating on the gale;
And garlands hung in honour of the May,
Wreathed round the masts, or o'er the furled sail,
Or scattered on the deck, as fancy might prevail.

150

II

And quick on every side were busy feet,
Eagerly thronging, passing to and fro;
Bands of young dancers gathering in the street;
And, ever and anon, apart and low,
Was heard of melody the quiet flow,
As some musician tuned his instrument,
And practised o'er his part for mask, or shew;
And dames, and maidens o'er their thresholds bent,
And scattered flowers about that a sweet perfume lent.

III

From every church, the merry bells rung out;
The gay parades were thronging every square;
With flaunting banner, revelry and shout;
And, like a tide, the gale did music bear;
Now loud, then softened; and in that low air,
Came on the listener's ear the regular tread
Of the gay multitude. The brave, the fair
Passed on; the high-born, and the lowly bred;
All, for one little day, a round of pleasure led.

151

IV

Who saw that city on that joyous morn,
Might deem its people held a truce with care;
What looked there then to mind of those forlorn,
Who in its pastimes might not have a share?
Of her best nobles many were not there;
The heart of valour, and the arm of might.
The sun shone on the tower, in prison where,
Wailing his hard hap, lay the worthiest knight,
The proudest and the best, at banquet or in fight.

V

There lay he, the young Surrey—that brave heart,
That knighthood might not peer;—he chid the day
That, with its sunny light, could not impart
To him the freedom of its pleasant ray.
Oh doom unmerited!—There as he lay,
Came to his ear the jocund sounds without;
He thought how once unnoted was the May,
Unless the merry people hailed with shout,
The gallant Surrey there, in revel, and in rout.

152

VI

He thought how he had been the one of all,
The knight in contest never yet unhorsed;
The courtliest gallant in the proudest hall;
His sword and name by no dishonour crossed;
Alone, and captive now, from joy divorced,
He thought of Geraldine; by true love sent,
How he in foreign courts made chivalrous boast;
Holding her beauty all pre-eminent;
And by his own good arm maintained where'er he went.

VII

He thought of her, and of the magic glass,
Wherein, by skill of secret science raised,
He saw her pale, and faithful as she was,
His own dear lady worthy to be praised.
He thought of times, in memory undefaced;
The pleasures of the woods, the royal sport;
The cry of hounds; the hart each morning chased;
The tennis-ground; the race; the tilting court;
And all the love-known glades where ladies made resort.

153

VIII

His looks were such as ladies love to see;
For, as his spirit, was his bearing bold.
His speech, “the mirror of all courtesy;”—
Of such as he romance hath often told.
And in his hand a tablet he did hold;
Whereon he noted down, from time to time,
The heavy thoughts that through his spirit rolled;
Grief seemed to prey on him, and blight his prime;
His name without a blot, his heart without a crime.

IX

From the dim window of his cell, his eye
Gazed on the revel scene that lay below;
Then glanced upon the beautiful blue sky;
The gale blew fresh—'twas free—he was not so:—
He wept awhile the captive's bitter woe;
He sang the captive's bitter fate. Erelong,
Through street and square moved a procession slow;
A coffined noble, and a mourning throng,
With murmuring lament for gallant Surrey's wrong.

154

THE PEN.

ADDRESSED TO L. B.

Arrow of my most secret will!
Thy little point can cleave
Earth's distance, and unerring still,
Its wonderous aim achieve.
Whether to far-off friend or foe
I bid thee speed my thought;
Who know me—or shall never know—
My genie, thou away wilt go—
'Tis done! my wish is wrought.
Howe'er concealed—however strange
Be they with whom I would exchange
Ideas—it matters not—by thee
As present, they commune with me.

155

Oh! could'st thou travel, travel on
To other worlds sublime,
How long ago should'st thou have gone
Beyond the sphere of time!
Right through its stern, impervious bound;
Through this mysterious veil
Which still is felt, and felt around,
But never can be seen, or found,
Except by those who sail
Into that gulf whose tide of fear
Bears no returning voyager here;
Suffers no syllable to tell
Whate'er on that dark flood befel.

Oh! could'st thou speed but o'er that sea,
What questions thou should'st bear!
What marvels might be told by thee,
Of what is passing there!
What yearnings of the anxious soul;—
What fears might be allayed.
Then should man know the awful whole
Of mystery, on the eternal scroll,
In instant light displayed.

156

But no!—it cannot—need not be!
A voice has risen from that sea;
A word of gladness high and sure,
Telling that bliss awaits the pure.

It is enough!—to bear—to wait—
Must be our lot awhile.
Yet, as we linger in this state,
Thy power can make it smile.
Turn then in gladness to thy task;—
Speed knowledge through the earth:
Shed beauty on life's frolic masque;
And, where domestic spirits bask,
Watch o'er affection's birth.
Be thou a talisman of life
Where woe is sure, and death is rife;
And fly thee now, and say to one
Through thee, we shall be friends anon.

157

SONNET.

[When I go musing, in this happy time]

When I go musing, in this happy time,
The opening of a late, but shining May,
Through winding lanes which over me display
High banks, with the wood-sorrel's flowers in prime;
And rich, luxuriant herbage, with the rime
Of night-dews slightly silvered; when the gay
Light young-leafed branches all around me sway,
And when I hear the old familiar chime
Of chaffinch, and wood-creeper, and that voice
Of summer-nights, the cowering corn-crake's call,—
I can no more keep down the sudden leap
Of my touched heart, thus bidden to rejoice,
Than I could charm back Nature into sleep,
And chill her bosom with a wintry pall.

158

WOULD I HAD WIST!

A DITTY.

“Beware of, Would I had wist!” Burton's Anatomie of Melancholy.

All ye that list to learned clerks, be warned by what I say,
And take a look before you leap, for 'tis the wisest way;
And for your better teaching, these stories I narrate,
To shew you when a deed is done, repentance comes too late.

I saw two youthful gallants go forth one may-day morn,
With hound in leash, and hawk on hand, and gold-tipped bugle-horn.

159

But, ere the setting of the sun, they met in mortal fray,
And one lay cold upon the ground, the other fled away.
He hastened to a foreign land, to shun the kinsmen's ire,
And sadly wandered up and down, a knight without a squire.
No hound had he beside him, and no hawk sate on his wrist,
But, ever and anon, he cried—“Alack! had I but wist!’

There was a merchant of the main, had thirty ships and three,
And all came sailing into port, well laden as could be;
And he had silks, perfumes and pearls, and wealth a golden store,
Beyond the wealth of merchantmen, and yet he wanted more.
He sent his vessels out again, his thirty ships and three—
But some were ta'en, and some were wrecked, and some sunk in the sea;
He lost his wealth, he lost his wits, and he sung evermore,
And aye his song was, night and day, “Would I had wist before!”

160

My father knew a gentleman, with lands and golden fee,
Who freely gave unto the poor, and kept brave company.
He gave to all, he lent to all, but ere long time was gone,
His lands were sold, his gold was spent, and friends he had not one;
He asked from those who asked from him, it was his only hope—
They jeered him, and a penny gave, and bade him buy a rope;—
He flung the penny back again, and turning from the door—
“I've learnt a lesson here,” he cried; “would I had wist before!”

There was a lovely lady, sate in a sweet bower's shade,
To catch the welcome tones of her young knight's serenade;
He came not to her father's hall with a hundred squires in train,
But all he brought was a true heart, and a name without a stain.

161

For though his was a noble line, its fortunes had decayed;
So he wooed her by his gallant deeds, and evening serenade.
But ill chance happed, one luckless eve, from idle words grew strife;
And hopes, that never failed before, were therefrom marred for life.
Just then an old lord riding by, looked on the angry pair,
And saw how bright the lady's eye, how rich her golden hair;—
And soon he wooed her for his bride, that old and churlish lord,
But not with evening lays of love, nor with an unmatched sword;
His lands, his wealth, his noble halls, and liveried serving train,
Had charm beyond a young heart's love that ne'er had known a wane.
But soon, and as she silent sate within her halls of pride,
Loathing the pomp and splendid train that thronged on every side,

162

There knelt to her a weeping page, and these few words he spoke,
“Lady, come visit my dying lord, for his heart is well nigh broke.”
She went to an old, decaying hall, and entering there she found
A dead knight on a sable bier, and mourners standing round;
She gazed on his pale cheek and wept, and his cold lips madly kissed—
Saying “How true this worthy knight! ah me! had I but wist!”

163

TO A DEAR LITTLE GIRL.

Go to the fair fields where thy mother grew;
Go hear that river's yet rejoicing roll;
And let those bright and blessed scenes imbue
Thy happy soul.

Go to that land deliciously that lies,—
Brown heaths, dark woods, green vallies, glades obscure,
Basking beneath the undisturbed skies,
Silent and pure.

Inviolate yet—the insufferable throng
Of lettered coxcombs have not broke its rest;
Still left to silence, solitude, and song,
A region blest.

164

Go dedicate thy heart to Nature's love,
For there she dwells in glory;—thou shalt there
Learn how her spells round the young soul are wove;
Her spirit share.

I would not have thee linked unto the gauds
Of city life, moulded to fancies vain;
Pining for follies which the fool applauds;
The wise disdain.

But be thy spirit wed unto the soul
Of Nature's greatness;—to the living flow
Of noblest thoughts, warm feelings—to the whole
She will bestow.

Then let the world her witcheries employ;
Thy love her poor enchantments will not win;
But brightest waters, from the fount of joy,
Shall well within.

165

Then shalt thou gather wisdom, day by day,
From stars and mountains;—wealth from wind and wave;
And the fond heart which framed this guiding lay
Bless in the grave.

166

HART'S WELL,

NEAR FARNSFIELD, NOTTINGHAMSHIRE, WITHIN THE ANCIENT BOUNDARY OF SHERWOOD FOREST.

Fount of this lonely nook!
Hardly may heaven look
Through the green covert of thy leafy trees.
And in thy lucent wave
Green ferns and mosses lave,
Dimpling thy stream, as sways the passing breeze.

Beneath a classic sky
Thy hidden purity
To nymph or goddess had been consecrate;
King, warrior, bard divine
Had mingled at thy shrine,
Each bearing gifts thee to propitiate.

167

Then, from thy twilight dim,
Pæan and votive hymn,
In the still midnight had come pealing out:
Then odours rich been shed,
From flower-gifts garlanded,
And here been sacred rite and festive shout.

And marvel 'tis thy spring,
So purely bubbling,
Never was sainted, ne'er had cross nor sign;
Strange that, beside thy well,
No holy hermit's cell,
Blessing thy waters, made this nook a shrine.

Fount of the forest!—no,
Thy crystal water's flow
Ne'er had a legend,—traveller never came,
Childhood nor crippled age,
On wearying pilgrimage,
From a far region, guided by thy name.

168

As now, 'mong mosses green,
Dim in thy leafy screen,
Ages ago thy sylvan fount was flowing;
The squirrel on the tree;
The bird's blithe melody;
And drooping ferns around thy margin growing.

Even then, thy cool retreat
Lured the tired peasant's feet;
Here gentle creatures shunned the noontide beam;
And from the hunter's dart,
Here fled the wounded hart,
And bathed his antlered forehead in the stream.

Pure fount, there need not be
Proud rites' solemnity,
Priest, altar, hymn, nor legend to recall
The soul to holy thought;
'Tis by thy silence brought,
Thy dimness, and thy water's tinkling fall.

169

There is a spell of grace
Around this quiet place
That lures the spirit to a better mood;
Whence? but that man's weak arm
Hath not dissolved the charm
Which Nature forms, in her calm solitude.

170

A REMEMBERED FACE.

Ah there!—and comest thou thus again—
Thou phantom of delight?
How oft, in hours of lonely pain,
Thou risest on my sight.
Since last we met, what suns have known
Their rising and decline!
But none of all those suns have shewn
A fairer face than thine.

171

'Tis many a year since I looked on
Those meek and loving eyes;
And thousands since have come and gone,
Like meteors through the skies.
But thine—they often come to me,
With lustre so benign,
Though memory of all others flee
'Twill make but dearer thine.

As not alone, the gorgeous arch
Reared in heaven's summer dome,
Gleams proudly on its silent march,
And heralds good to come,
But leaves, where'er its glory passed,
A fragrancy divine,
So freshly on my soul is cast
The odorous light of thine.

172

Then welcome to my lonely hours,
Thou visionary thing,
Come with thy coronal of flowers,
Flowers of a vanished spring.
For gleeful souls let others roam,
But, till life's cords untwine,
In my heart's depth shall find a home
That pensive face of thine.

“The ancients,” says Lord Bacon in his “Ten Centuries of Natural History,” “believed that where the rainbow rested it left a delicate and heavenly odour.”

173

THE RECORD OF POETRY.

“They of the lyre, whose unforgotten lays
On the morn's wing had sent their mighty sound,
And in all regions found,
Their echoes midst the mountains—and become
In man's deep heart as voices of his home.”
Mrs. Hemans.

Down Time's dim vista, from antiquity
Comes on mine ear a faint harp's distant swell.
Hark!—'tis old Jubal, seated by the sea,
Awakening music from his chorded shell.
Dim is the vision, as a twilight dream,
Yet the young world in unscathed beauty lies.—
But now, light bursts, as from the ascending beam
Of Indian day. Beneath the unclouded skies
I see how, on the unravaged earth, walks man
In his first might; unbowed by centuries.
Care silvers not his locks, his life's broad span
Rolls on, age after age, bright as it first began.

174

Huge creatures, in their majesty, have sway
O'er the earth's solitudes; whose bellowings shake,
Like thunder, the still world. Time speeds, and they
Are sepulchred in mountains. Yet did wake
Song, as a rosy vision, to illume
The darkness of those elder days, and cast
Beauty and light through the involving gloom
Of the primeval forest; o'er the vast
Plain, yet unbroken by the mountainous swell,
Her voice, like music at still midnight, passed;
And, 'mong the angel guests, she came to dwell,
A sojourner on earth, and primal woe dispel.

And now o'er Jubal, with a mother's love,
She bends; he is the first-born of her spirit;
Wrapped in her robe of iris-light enwove,
Her energy the dower he doth inherit;
She leads him through the freshness of the world,
And feeds him from the treasury of her lore.—

175

Now, in her spiritual light, I see unfurled
Her record, as a scroll!—Oh yet! for more
Of that celestial fire, so I may trace
Her history, graven on the ruins hoar
Of pyramids sublime, amid the grace
Of columned shrines august, left by some nobler race.

Brightens the beam!—In vision comes before
Mine eye a sinful race; and I behold
In wrath heaven opened; and the tempest pour
Deluging waters; ocean's flood uprolled,
Darkness and ruin; vengeance fallen on man;
Forest and plain o'erturned; and beast and bird,
Alike doomed by the desolating ban!
One general cry breaks forth—no more is heard
Amid the wreck, save the fierce water's roar.—
The waves have done their mission—now is reared
A sinless altar where the pure adore;
God's sign of promise shines; the floods shall rage no more.

176

Yonder the Hebrews stand upon the shore
Of the Red Sea, triumphing o'er their foes—
Years pass, and, pilgrims through the wilds no more,
In Zion's conquered city they repose.
Hark! from her courts glad sounds of harpings rise;
The prophet-monarch wakes the golden strings;
Visions of glory pass before his eyes,
And heaven seems opening as the poet sings.
Louder, and louder sings another voice;
'Tis Solomon; the cedar palace rings,
“How beautiful art thou, my love, my choice;
Wake from thy morning dream; Jerusalem rejoice!”

Woe is upon the city, wrath and chains;
The enslaved people by Euphrates stand,
And 'mid the willows wake their mournful strains,
Sorrowing, in exile, for their native land.
And woe, woe, woe, amid the dungeon gloom;
Prophetic ruin, darkness and despair;

177

The fallen city; scattered Israel's doom;
And shrieks of anguish on the midnight air,
Before Hilkiah's fettered son arise.—
Hush! for Isaiah's seraph-visions bear
His spirit onward; and, with glad surprise,
Herald the Immortal Prince, and man's high destinies.

'Tis midnight—and, from Chaldea's moonlit plains,
Comes hymned sound; and, as the morning's ray
Brightens the pyramids, sweet welcoming strains
Pealed from the Theban harp salute the day.—
I see Prometheus strong in soul, subdue
His fate on Caucasus; and hear again
The wail for lost Eurydice; the blue,
Island of Colchis rises from the main;
And Neptune yields to the invading prow.—
He comes whose arm the Lernean beast has slain;—
And there young Bacchus roams, with vine-wreathed brow;—
And list, that sylvan pipe! 'tis Pan that warbles now.—

178

Seven cities strive for the immortal birth
Of one blind poet; who, as life, doth stir
Lands in remotest boundaries of the earth;
And Troy is known, though nought remains of her.
He bends, that old man, o'er his lyre, and gives
Life to Achilles' wrath, and Helen's charms;
Again the godlike Hector vainly strives;
And banded Grecians, in confederate arms,
Voyage the Egean sea:—in nightly lays,
Over her loom, her grief a matron calms;
Her warrior-sage returns; and love repays
Long years of mutual ill, and lights their waning days.

Greece is not doomed to death. That beautiful land
Shall live, though wearing chains; wherefore must she
Crouch, as a slave, with fettered soul and hand,
Who fostered beauty, song and liberty?
A fallen, deserted queen! Was it for this
That Codrus was a sacrifice? Are none

179

Worthy to stand on wreck-strewn Salamis?
Died she upon her field of Marathon?
Was liberty a flame Harmodius fanned
To perish with his breath?—Had she but one
Leonidas to plant his foot, and stand
Firm as the girding rocks, a bulwark to the land?

I see her in her fall, the desolate,
The widowed, childless bride of former glory!
I see her when in crowned strength she sate,
Free 'mong her hundred isles. Delightful story
Beams, like a halo, round each sacred hill:
Groves rise, and mountains; each one is a shrine:
Celestial forms the radiant vallies fill:
Man communes with the gods; and dreams divine
Warm marble into life: grace springs to light,
And gives the acanthus scroll and curved line:
From columned fane, green isle, and breezy height
Comes forth a voice of song, wild breathings of delight.

180

Yet, in the youth of Time, ere o'er the earth
Passed, like a dimming cloud, decaying eld,
When ruin was not, beauty had her birth;
And man, in his immortal mind, beheld
Her first in Greece. Beside the sounding sea
She built her glorious temple, and did reign
Sublime in Athens. A divinity,
Heroic Valour, on the Spartan plain
Was worshipped when rose Tyrtæus in his power,
And, like the god of battles, raised a strain
Which gave birth unto heroes—from that hour
Firm stood the unwalled town, her sons her wall and tower.

Music is in the woods like song of birds;—
'Tis Alcæus wandering in the myrtle shade;
Blent with the murmuring sea come passionate words
From dark-browed Sappho bending o'er Leucade.
Æschylus ponders on the sullen hate
Of destiny. From the Achaian vales

181

Wakes a rich melody, and tones elate
Of choral triumph swell the Isthmian gales.
Now sings Anacreon o'er the bowl he drains;
And now in Syracuse a captive wails
In Grecian song. The tyrant hears the strains—
Euripides! those lays have freed thy race from chains.

Not beautiful as Greece; yet is she fair,
Seated on her seven hills, imperial Rome!
I look abroad on every land, and there
Her victor eagle waves his martial plume.
Mother of nations, ever in her hand
She bears the sheathless sword;—her sons go forth;
Arms subjugate, arts civilize each strand;
Barbarian hordes breathe mental life—the north
Sees, in her untilled, piny solitude
Green cultivation; cities gem the earth;
Broad ways are paved through the impervious wood;
And the magnificent arch defies the unforded flood.

182

Circus, and portico, and marble bath,
Theatre, temple, and triumphal arch,
Of her, memorial every nation hath.
Herself—I see returning legions march,
Cohort on cohort, through her city gate.
Great Cæsar triumphs o'er the subject world;
Myriads of captives in barbaric state,
Rich spoils and gorgeous, dazzling and empearled;
Yoked monarchs harnessed to the conqueror's car;
And, towering high, her ensigns are unfurled,
Borne by the hands that planted them afar,
They go, they see, they conquer,—such is Roman war.

The triumph halts—the crowned conqueror stays
His chariot-wheels to list the voice of song;
Rome, 'mid her crimson laurels, twines the bays,
And with sweet music smooths her Latin tongue.
Hush!—even the sleepless nightingale is mute!—
'Tis eve, and from a marble porch my ear

183

Catches, by fits, the cadence of a lute;
'Tis Virgil tunes the instrument. A clear
And mellowed mingling of sweet sound that swells
Like choral symphony, or Dorian flute,
In full-toned melody; as water wells
From an o'erflowing fount, his soul his verse impels.

As nightingale to nightingale replies,
Filling the woods with their ecstatic voices,
So, from the Tiber's shore sweet sounds arise,
And in the harmonious contest, Rome rejoices.
'Tis Horace singing 'neath his own pure skies,
Where native laurel round his brow entwines.
But from afar—what sorrowing sounds arise?
Ovid, in exile, for his country pines,
And wanders, with his lyre upon the shores
Of Pontus, murmuring to the sea. The vines
Hang clustering round the bower, where Lucan pours
His might of warlike song, and battle-fields restores.

184

Song wakes in Persia's fragrant cedar bowers.
Where shines the sun on opal-plumaged birds,
I hear the poet, couched on radiant flowers,
Tuning his citarr to luxurious words.
Love, like a spirit, rules that sunny clime,
'Mong beautiful forms, whose eyes of diamond ray
Dim not, and rose-lipped beauty has its prime.—
Lo! now a mighty river!—Rising day
Brightens the Ganges; on its heaven-sprung tide
Floats the immortal lotus. Why delay,
Sweet Hindoo girl, thy steps—this eve a bride?
For yon small leaf—his spell, propitious Love will guide.

Land of the desert! birth-place of romance!
Arabia slumbers now; she did not sleep
Ages ago, when, with a lightning glance,
Young science beamed on her, and she did steep,
Like her own bird, her breast in heaven-lit flame.
There is she, mid her trackless wastes of sand,

185

The unyoked spirit, ages may not tame;
She has a rod of magic in her hand.—
Towards icy Caf she turns; and from the north
Wings the gigantic roc: she points the wand
To Africa,—the swart magician forth
Comes from his hidden den, and wonders awe the earth.

She smiles, and faery regions are revealed,
Dazzling, and wrought with gems and flowers. 'Tis she
From whom earth, air, and flood have nought concealed—
The genii mild, the peri of the sea.
—Now is the vision changed; 'tis evening hour,
And the broad sun goes down upon the sand:
Fleet herds of the wild horse, like tempest, scour
Across the desert. There the wandering band
Of the Bedouins pitch their tents. Gleams bright
The red fire on their visages;—as stand
The eternal piles of Tadmor, so delight
Has fixed that listening band,—glad wonder and affright.

186

Amid the tent sits one, in low, wild tone
Telling the marvellous tale; and, as a chain,
He winds his mystery; how, upon a throne
Of awful magic, Maugraby did reign;
Of curse; of dire enchantment; and the might
Of that young arm which broke the wizard's spell.
Now, sings he of the blessed halls of light,
Where Ahmed and his fairy-love did dwell
In splendour, as in regions of the sun.
And now Aladdin's wondrous lamp burns bright:
Palace and city shines, the bride is won;—
And he, a mighty king, the desolate widow's son.

'Tis gone—'tis gone—the Arab and his tale;
The wild horse, and the desert tents are gone!—
I gaze upon a sky where meteors sail;
I hear a sea that hath a warring moan.
And snowy peak, and piny promontory
Stretch to the main, and pierce the cold, blue sky.

187

Grey mists hang o'er the valley, and from hoary
And riven crags, screams out the eagle's cry.
Odin is there, I hear his charmed lay
Chaunted amid the storm; and, as his eye
Gleams on the land or sea, spirits obey,
And throng from glen, isle, wood, drear cave, or haunted bay.

Night is upon the mountains.—O'er the wave
The fierce sea-king, red from the battle sails;
The ships are moored—and in the ocean-cave
The visioned-scald recites his runic tales.
Night is upon the mountains. Grey and bowed
Stands the lone tree that marks the grassy tomb;
Dim, shadowy forms ride on the hurrying cloud;
And Lodi's spirit murmurs in the gloom.
Hark! 'tis the ring of bossy shields I hear;
And o'er the plain, ere morning, warriors come;
Fingal is there; he shakes his mighty spear,
And, 'mid the echoing war, pours music on mine ear.

188

Oh lovely Selma! fallen are thy halls!
Thy bard lies low, in his forgotten grave;
The dry grass whispers o'er thy buried walls;
And sighs the low wind to the moaning wave!
Yet now he rises on my sight! I know
The aged Ossian!—list, his sounding shell;
Sad is the strain; a sweet, wild tale of woe;—
Malvina droops where valiant Oscar fell.
I see his grey locks streaming to the blast;
By Clutha's thundering falls I hear the swell
Of his wild mountain harp. The storm is past,
And, to the uprising sun, his sightless eyes are cast.

Years roll on years; and changes strange have been;
Gloom has gone o'er the world, and mental night:
But now my spirit views a radiant scene,
Clear skies, sweet flowers, and valleys bathed in light.
It is the land of beautiful Provence;
And yonder wends the chivalrous Troubadour;

189

Skilful alike to handle lute, or lance;
True to his lady, as his shield is pure.
In court, in camp, gay hall, and valley lone,
Swells the glad strain of his “chanson d'amour.”
Lo! to the fight the Troubadour is gone!
“Now to the charge, brave hearts!” he cries, and leads them on.

He sings no more, for as the summer bird
Makes glad the woods in the bright month of May
Yet, in the yellowing Autumn is not heard,
So from Provence the song has passed away.
But in the chestnut groves of Italy
Sweet song is carolled through the livelong year.
Behold the bard whose quick and frenzied eye
Has visions terrible; communings drear
He holds; and, knows the histories of the dead.
—'Tis morning—and the matin call I hear
From Santa Clara, whither, by love led,
Petrarca goes, whose peace is, thenceforth, banished.

190

Laura in prayer, bends to the blessed saint;
Her eyes upturned; her radiant face unveiled;—
What ails thee, Petrarch, that thy steps are faint,
Thy soul is saddened, and thy cheek so paled?—
He loves—youth deepens, darkens, dims to age,
Yet still he loves; and that enduring flame,
His life of life, inspires his glowing page,
And God and Laura like devotion claim.—
Now Ariosto sings—and lo! the expanse
Opens of fairy realms, where knight and dame,
Led on by sorcerers' wiles, or stern mischance,
Wander through all the maze and marvels of romance.

In proud Ferrara's halls a poet bends
O'er his impassioned lyre—The song is done.
And now a thunder of applause ascends,
And power and beauty bless the muses' son.
Oh! happy Italy that gave him birth,
Immortal Tasso—yet, behold him bowed;

191

A wretched maniac, fettered, crushed to earth;
And this is he of whom the world is proud!
Song is in other lands than Italy.
See yon pale mendicant who shuns the crowd.
That is Camoens! Wandering where the sea
Lashes the rocks, he sings for immortality.

Ungrateful land! unworthy of his song,
She hears not, heeds not, though his voice alone
Exalt her 'mong the nations. Grief and wrong
Have stilled the chords—her only bard is gone.
She spurned him living, yet she mourned him dead;
And grief, as mockery, from yon sainted pile
Came forth in solemn chaunts. Onward has sped
Time, and she hath forgotten him like the vile.
Away! the land of slaves I see no more!
Mine eye is on a green, delightful isle
Whence rise such tones of music, as before
Ne'er rose from sacred shrine, or fair enchanted shore.

192

Loftier than Greece, in her sublimest days;
Or Rome, the matron, o'er her Tuscan lyre;
Than phœnix Araby, amid the blaze,
The heaven-lit radiance of her spicy pyre,
Is she, the beautiful land of arts and arms,
Whom laws, and liberty, and song have made
The idol of the nations; myriad swarms,
Men of all tongues, in all attires arrayed,
Are thronging to her worship. Hark, again
Her carolling voice breaks forth from out the shade
Of her green, echoing wood, and mountain glen,
One anthem of delight, one general song as when

She holds a carnival.—Now music slow
Peals 'mid a royal pageant; and a queen
Listens to one who tells of joy and woe,
Love, hate, war, passion, or whate'er has been.
And now behold, with high, calm brow sublime,
Through the dim glooms of anarchy arise,

193

Like some pure patriarch of the elder time,
Unveiling heaven, and peopling paradise,
Milton, whose vision was celestial light.
Years rolled, and song's divinest energies
Nerved Byron's soul, who, grappling in his might,
Broke custom's coward chain, and dared an untried flight.

Hushed are those mighty voices.—I, who viewed
The shrined grandeur of gone time pass by,
In hallowed haunts, with mystic power imbued,
Who met the unshackled soul of poetry,
Yet shrunk I not, as now, before the tone
Of many an earthly voice. I hear a lay
Poured from the north, where, mid the mountains lone,
Grey Albyn's minstrel wends; and far away
Casts to the echoes of each ancient hill,
The songs they answered in an earlier day.
And round St. Mary's lake, in moonlight still,
The fairy people troop, at the blithe shepherd's will.

194

Long, from the Cumbrian hills, may Wordsworth teach
Man, what his wisdom is so slow to learn,
That simplest, purest joys that all may reach
Are such as yield the spirit best return.
And now he comes who strung his lyre to Hope,
And poured an angel's song. And now the seer
Of Human Life, who, in his spirit's scope,
Embraced the joys of Memory. Now the drear,
Wild tale of Thalaba becomes a spell;
Don Roderick's charge; Kehama's curse of fear:—
And, like the chime of “merry marriage bell,”
Our own Anacreon's song does even the Greek's excel.

Yet not alone her sons excel in song;—
For many a lady wakes, with mighty hand,
Chords whose heroic strains had done no wrong
To the sweet Lesbian's fame. Amid the band,
I hear one syren singing to her lute,
Whose melody doth hold my soul in thrall;

195

Lays of far lands; Elmina's frantic suit;
And the wild woe that filled Grenada's hall.
But cease—I may the theme no more pursue.
Dimness is on my vision;—on the wall
I hang my silent harp, o'er which I threw,
In grief, a feeble hand, and thence calm solace drew;

Even while my soul, in sorrowful lament,
Wailed for the brother who may hear no more
My voice, in tones of welcome gladly sent,
To hail his wanderings from a foreign shore.
Peace to his ashes! though he does not rest
Within the small, green, quiet burial-place,
Where, side by side, in their last slumbers blest,
Are laid the sons and fathers of our race!
Peace to his ashes! though no kindred gave
Soothing in death, or took his last embrace;
Though a strange land hath given his silent grave,
Round which the cold winds howl, where roars the mighty wave.

196

It matters not—it matters not where lies
Thy perishing dust—beloved, thou are not dead.
Thou dost survive in deathless memories;
And but to the soul's sanctuary art fled.
Thou, in thy bright and generous youth, art still
Dwelling amongst us—In the forest shade,
The low, green vale, and on the ancient hill,
Thou canst not be forgotten. Thou wast made
To be the one most cherished—a fair light
To gladden for a season, and to fade:
Then from the eternal day, more pure and bright,
Shine to dispel the shade that wraps life's gloomy night.

Oh be the beacon, dear and lovely one!
The dark sea of futurity illume.
Mid rocks and storms our barks drive swiftly on;
And we must win thy haven through the tomb.
Alas, alas! the desolate hearth has known
What has been suffered;—the deep, silent pain

197

Of hearts which only broke not; the low tone
Of Christian sorrow that dared not complain,
But bowed to the mysterious will of heaven.
The shock is past—the sunk heart raised again:
Who gave the wound, hath also healing given;
And in meek, holy faith it hath not vainly striven.

Thus while my soul, in secret sorrow, strove
To stem the tide, or resolutely bear
The shock that severed, yet cemented love,
These visions of past glory lit despair.
And I have felt wild anguish pass away
Before the imaged splendour which has cast
On every land, in every age a ray;
Which, like the undimmed, undying sun shall last.
Immortal song, with energy divine,
Kindling the spirit from the glorious past!—
So cease the lay, and be my soul a shrine
O'er which the unquenched lamp of deathless verse shall shine.

Dante.

Shakspeare.

198

THE MOUNTAIN TOMBS.

“A remnant from the flock of human kind
They lie cut off—a solitary tribe.”
D. M. Moir.

How strange that thronged tombs should lie
Amidst these lonely hills!
Beneath this solitary sky;
And where this river fills
The air with its perpetual coil,
And ever through the thirsty soil
Its desert-tide distils!
The river here alone is heard;
The river and its haunting bird.

199

The shepherd, as he goes his round,
May halt at times to trace
How years depress the circling mound,
And from each stone efface
The names of those who sleep below,
Memorials graven long ago,
When in this silent place,
Perhaps far other sounds were heard
Than the swift river's haunting bird.

Sounds of man's pleasures and distress;
The living, frequent tread:
But where are they? This wilderness
Shews scarce a single shed.
And, save the shepherd to the fold
Or mountain passing, few behold
This city of the dead.
Peace to their sleep! from year to year,
How quietly they slumber here.

200

And yet, above these desert graves,
A hurricane hath swept,
Worse than the summer storm that raves
When tempests long have slept;
Wrath, horror, storms of fire and steel;
Storms, such as warring spirits feel,
Long after to be wept;
Storms, which tradition, kindling tells,
Aroused these slumberers from their cells.

They came in dreams, they met by night
The shepherd on his roam;
They breathed abroad the soul of fight
For altar and for home.
Power sought their children to enthrall,
To cast o'er cot, and kirk and hall,
From its minacious dome,
Its subtle chains, contrived to awe
Proud nations, in the form of Law.

201

Power, on their chainless mountains trod,
And sought to interpose
Betwixt their spirits and their God,
And then, the tempest rose!
Then lovers, in the gloaming, here
Loitering, beheld a scene of fear;
They saw the tombs disclose
Their awful guests, stern forms that vowed
Death to the tyrant, and the proud.

Then from the hills, and wild moors came
The flashing of fierce blades;
Then cries which set the soul on flame
Were heard; and flitting shades,
In martial troops, and forms more bold
Than shades themselves are wont to mould,
Marched out from dens and glades.
And every hut and sheiling high
Thrilled to the spirit of that cry.

202

The war-shock came—the fury burst,
And, far and wide, the fire,
In secret to combustion nursed,
Smote thousands in its ire.
It raged—it spread—the assailant now
Lowered to the insulted earth his brow;
And now the oppressed retire,
Their baffled heads in wilds to hide
From maddening power's resurgent tide.

It came in vain.—'Tis thus the dead—
Still for their children strive;
Thus, from the darkness of their bed,
Keep liberty alive;
Thus, even as in the present hour,
They live in victory, and in power,
And from past years arrive
With deathless memories—like a flock,
Peopling the desert, and the rock.

The Pentland Hills are alluded to in this poem.

203

THE MAID OF SESTOS.

The fisher, as he steered his little bark
Along the shore of Helle, saw a torch,
On the high turret of a Thracian tower
Nightly shine forth, a beacon-light to guide
Some one across the waters. Oft he marked
The slender figure of a maiden pass
Anxiously to and fro; then wave the torch,
And bending o'er her turret's battlement,
Await, with love's own eagerness, the spring
That gave a manly swimmer to the shore.—

204

Long had he watched the flame, night after night,
Till it became a beacon; and he steered
More by it than by headland, or by bay;
And it was spoken of as the maiden's star,
And every night expected.

One dark eve
When on the shore came tempest, and the waves
Rolled riotously, and the white foam dashed
High on the ledgy crags—that torch was lit;
And, like a priestess by the sacred fire,
Hero stood screening it from every blast.
The winds were high, and, sweeping o'er the tower,
Lifted her long, bright tresses, like a sail
Given to the tempest: flickered then the flame,
And love's light was extinguished. Soon again
The gleam shone bright, the gusty wind once more
Rushed surging past, and the maid stood again
In ominous darkness. She, once more in dread
Planted the beacon, and, with out-stretched arm
Leaned o'er the turret, straining her bright eyes
To see if, mid the waves, Leander strove.
She prayed to Venus—vowed a sacrifice—

205

Conjured the winds to silence;—still the storm
Stayed not its fury. Silent then she stood,
With head leaned forward, eyes fixed on the sea,
And hands clasped as in agony. She saw
Wave after wave impel, then on the shore
Fling her own loved Leander.—
She rushed into the night—the cold sea-spray
Fell on her streaming hair, night, tempest, flash,
The salt-sea foam she heeded not:—she saw,
She only thought of him who, from Abydos,
Died, in his constancy, upon the waves.

209

PENN AND THE INDIANS.

“I will not compare our friendship to a chain; for the rain might sometimes rust it, or a tree might fall and break it; but I shall consider you as the same flesh and blood as the Christians; and the same as if one man's body were to be divided into two parts.” W. Penn's Speech to the Indians.

There was a stir in Pennsylvanian woods:
A gathering as the war-cry forth had gone;
And, like the sudden gush of Autumn floods,
Streamed from all points the warrior-tribes to one.
Even in the farthest forest solitudes,
The hunter stopped the battle-plume to don,
And turned with knife, with hatchet, and with bow,
Back, as to bear them on a sudden foe.

210

Swiftly, but silently, each dusky chief
Sped 'neath the shadow of continuous trees;
And files whose feet scarce stirred the trodden leaf;
And infant-laden mothers, scorning ease;
And childhood, whose small footsteps, light and brief,
Glanced through the forest, like a fluttering breeze,
Followed—a numerous, yet a silent band,—
As to some deed, high, fateful, and at hand.

But where the foe? By the broad Delaware,
Where flung a shadowy elm its branches wide,—
In peaceful garments, and with hands that bare
No sign of war,—a little band they spied.
Could these be whom they sought? And did they fare
Forth from their deserts, in their martial pride,
Thus at their call? They did. No trumpet's tongue
Had pierced their wild-woods with a voice so strong.

211

Who were they? Simple pilgrims:—it may be,
Scarce less than outcasts from their native isles,—
From Britain,—birth-place of the great and free,
Where heavenly lore threw round its brightest smiles.
Then why depart? Oh seeming mockery!
Were they not here, on this far shore, exiles,
Simply because, unawed by power or ban,
They worshipped God but would not bow to man?

Oh! Truth! Immortal Truth! on what wild ground
Still hast thou trod through this unspiritual sphere!
The strong, the brutish, and the vile surround
Thy presence, lest thy streaming glory cheer
The poor, the many, without price or bound.
Drowning thy voice, they fill the popular ear,
In thy high name, with canons, creeds, and laws,
Feigning to serve, that they may mar thy cause.

212

And the great multitude doth crouch, and bear
The burden of the selfish. That emprize,
That lofty spirit of virtue which can dare
To rend the bands of Error from all eyes;
And from the freed soul pluck each sensual care,
To them is but a fable. Therefore lies
Darkness upon the mental desert still;
And wolves devour, and robbers walk at will.

Yet, ever and anon, from thy bright quiver,
The flaming arrows of thy might are strown;
And, rushing forth, thy dauntless children shiver
The strength of foes who press too near thy throne.
Then, like the sun, or thy Almighty Giver,
Thy light is through the startled nations shown:
And generous indignation tramples down
The sophist's web, and the oppressor's crown.

213

Oh might it burn for ever! But in vain—
For vengeance rallies the alarmed host,
Who from men's souls draw their dishonest gain.
For thee they smite, audaciously they boast,
Even while thy sons are in thy bosom slain.
Yet this is thy sure solace,—that, not lost,
Each drop of blood, each tear,—Cadmean seed,
Shall send up armed champions in thy need.

And these were of that origin. Thy stamp
Was on their brows, calm, fearless, and sublime.
And they had held aloft thy heavenly lamp;
And borne its odium as a fearful crime.
And therefore, through their quiet homes the tramp
Of Ruin passed,—laying waste all that Time
Gives us of good; and, where Guilt fitly dwells,
Had made them homes in execrable cells.

214

We dwell in peace;—they purchased it with blood.
We dwell at large;—'twas they who wore the chain,
And broke it. Like the living rocks they stood,
Till their invincible patience did restrain
The billows of men's fury. Then the rude
Shock of the past diffused a mild disdain
Through their pure hearts, and an intense desire
For some calm land where freedom might respire.

Some land where they might render God his due,
Nor stir the gall of the blind zealot's hate.
Some land where came Thought's soul-refreshing dew,
And Faith's sublimer visions. Where elate,
Their simple-hearted children they might view,
Springing in joy,—heirs of a blest estate:
And where each worn and weary mind might come
From every realm, and find a tranquil home.

215

And they sought this. Yet, as they now descried
From the near forest, pouring, horde on horde,
Armed, painted, plumed in all their martial pride,
The dwellers of the woods—the men abhorred
As fierce, perfidious, and with blood bedyed,
Felt they no dread? No;—for their breasts were stored
With confidence which pure designs impart,
And faith in Him who framed the human heart.

And they—the children of the wild—why came
They at this summons? Swiftly it had flown
Far through their woods, like wind, or wind-sent flame,
Followed by rumours of a stirring tone,
Which told that, all unlike, except in name,
To those who yet had on their shores been known,
These white men—wearers of the peaceful vest,—
Craved, in their vales, a brother's home and rest.

216

On the red children of the desert, fell
The tidings, like spring's first delicious breath;
For they had loved the strangers all too well:
And still—though reaping ruin, scorn, and death
For a frank welcome, and broad room to dwell,
Given to the faithless boasters of pure faith,
Their wild, warm feelings kindled at the sight
Of Virtue armed but with her native might.

What term we savage? The untutored heart
Of Nature's child is but a slumbering fire;
Prompt at each breath, or passing touch, to start
Into quick flame, as quickly to retire:
Ready alike, its pleasance to impart,
Or scorch the hand which rudely wakes its ire:
Demon or child, as impulse may impel;
Warm in its love, but in its vengeance fell.

217

And these Columbian warriors to their strand
Had welcomed Europe's sons,—and rued it sore.
Men with smooth tongues, but rudely armed hand;
Fabling of peace when meditating gore;
Who, their foul deeds to veil, ceased not to brand
The Indian name on every Christian shore.
What wonder, on such heads, their fury's flame
Burst, till its terrors gloomed their fairer fame.

For they were not a brutish race, unknowing
Evil from good; their fervent souls embraced
With virtue's proudest homage to o'erflowing
The mind's inviolate majesty. The past
To them was not a darkness; but was glowing
With splendour which all time had not o'ercast;
Streaming unbroken from creation's birth,
When God communed and walked with men on earth.

218

Stupid idolatry had never dimmed
The Almighty image in their lucid thought.
To him alone their jealous praise was hymned;
And hoar Tradition, from her treasury, brought
Glimpses of far-off times, in which were limned
His awful glory: and their prophets taught
Precepts sublime,—a solemn ritual given,
In clouds and thunder, to their sires from heaven.

And, in the boundless solitude which fills,
Even as a mighty heart, their wild domains;
In caves, and glens of the unpeopled hills;
And the deep shadow that forever reigns
Spirit-like in their woods; where, roaring, spills
The giant cataract to the astounded plains,
Nature, in her sublimest moods, had given,
Not man's weak lore,—but a quick flash from heaven.

219

Roaming, in their free lives, by lake and stream;
Beneath the splendour of their gorgeous sky;
Encamping, while shot down night's starry gleam,
In piny glades, where their forefathers lie;
Voices would come, and breathing whispers seem
To rouse within the life which may not die;
Begetting valorous deeds, and thoughts intense,
And a wild gush of burning eloquence.

Such were the men who round the pilgrims came.
Oh! righteous heaven! and thou, heaven-dwelling sun!
How from my heart spring tears of grief and shame,
To think how runs—and quickly shall have run
O'er earth, for twice a thousand years, your flame,
Since, for man's weal, Christ's victories were won;
Since dying, to his sons, love's gift divine
He gave, the bond of brotherhood and the sign.—

220

Where shines the symbol? Europe's mighty states,
The brethren of the cross—from age to age,
Have striven to quench in blood their quenchless hates;
Or—cease their armed hosts awhile their rage,
'Tis but that Peace may half unclose her gates
In mockery; that each diplomatic sage
May treat and sign, while War recruits his power
And grinds the sword fresh millions to devour.

Yet thus could, in a savage-styled land,
A few,—reviled, scorned, hated of the whole,
Stretch forth for peace the unceremonious hand,
And stamp Truth, even upon a sealed scroll.
They called not God, or men, in proof to stand:
They prayed no vengeance on the perjured soul:
But heaven looked down, and moved with wonder saw
A compact framed, where Time might bring no flaw.

221

Yet through the land no clamorous triumph spread.
Some bursts of natural eloquence were there:
Somewhat of his past wrongs the Indian said;
Of deeds designed which now were given to air.
Some tears the mother o'er her infant shed,
As through her soul passed Hope's depictions fair;
And they were gone—the guileless scene was o'er;
And the wild woods absorbed their tribes once more.

Aye, years have rolled on years, and long has Penn
Passed, with his justice, from the soil he bought;
And the world's spirit, and the world's true men
Its native sons with different views have sought.
Crushing them down till they have risen again
With bloodiest retribution; yet have taught,
Even while their hot revenge spread fire and scath,
Their ancient, firm, inviolable faith.

222

When burst the war-whoop at the dead of night,
And the blood curdled at the dreadful sound;
And morning brought not its accustomed light
To thousands slumbering in their gore around;
Then, like oases in the desert's blight,
The homes of Penn's peculiar tribe were found:
And still the scroll he gave, in love and pride,
Their hands preserve,—earth has not such beside.

Yes; prize it, waning race, for never more
Shall your wild glades another Penn behold:
Pure, dauntless legislator, who did soar
Higher than dared sublimest thought of old.
That antique lie which bent the great of yore,
And ruleth still—Expedience stern and cold,
He plucked with scorn from its usurped car
And shewed Truth strong, and glorious as a star.

223

The vast, the ebbless, the engulphing tide
Of the white population still rolls on!
And quailed has your romantic heart of pride,—
The kingly spirit of the woods is gone.
Farther, and farther do ye wend to hide
Your wasting strength; to mourn your glory flown;
And sigh to think how soon shall crowds pursue
Down the lone stream where glides the still canoe.

And ye, a beautiful nonentity, ere long,
Shall live but with past marvels, to adorn
Some fabling theme, some unavailing song.
But ye have piled a monument of scorn
For trite oppression's sophistry of wrong.
Proving, by all your tameless hearts have borne,
What now ye might have been, had ye but met
With love like yours, and faith unwavering yet.

235

TO THE SPIRIT OF DEPARTED GREATNESS.

[_]

Suggested by a visit to the house and gardens at Owthorpe, formerly belonging to Col. John Hutchinson, Governor of Nottingham Castle.

Spirit of by-gone worth and high renown!
Thy spells are cast round many an ancient place.
Deeds of fair fame shine, as a deathless crown;
And from the grave spring with perpetual grace.
Spirit of parted worth! the pilgrim pays
To thee his worship—'tis to thee he bows
At shrine and altar—light of other days!
Laurel on dead men's brows!

236

'Tis thou that hoverest o'er the marble stone,
Inscribing it with honourable deed.
Mid fallen towers and courts all ruin-strewn
Thou stand'st in solemn beauty; and dost lead
The soul to noble daring. They who read
Of aught of greatness, and aspire to be
Great as the spirits who have won such meed,
Are fired and taught by thee.

Here art thou, guardian of renowned dust;
Here dost thou brood, and keep thy sanctitude:
Thou hast a treasury of sacred trust,
Memory of dauntless heart, of unsubdued
Honour and fervent zeal. The multitude
Swayed not, nor comprehended how thy son
Swerved not. He saw the right, and it pursued;
Pursued—and was undone.

237

He stood alone in most corrupted time:—
Untainted mid the turbulent mass impure;
One spotless hand mid thousands stained by crime;
Mid wavering hearts, one patriot bosom sure.
Why did he not all faithless men abjure?
He had a haven of domestic joy,—
Anchored by love his bark had rode secure,
Where storm could not annoy.

He strove—he fell—and left to thee, fair spirit,
His dust to keep—his honour to record;
To bid young souls his worthiness inherit,
And be in fair intent, unchecked, unawed,
Though unrequited—trusting to the award
Of their own conscience, and to after-years.
So shall true hearts be fixed—the wise applaud,
The fame his virtue rears.

238

And she who, in his days of good and ill,
Stood by his side, like his own virtue true,
Like his pure faith, which wavered not, but still
Cheered him when hope grew faint—that meek one who,
Linked to his heart, yet dear and dearer grew,
In the dark hour that closed his stormy day;
Here loved her widowed spirit to review
The brightness passed away.

Therefore, thou lofty essence, have I bowed,
And worshipped thee, within this ruined place.
In the bird's melody thou chauntest loud;
Tinted like bright flowers, dost the garden grace;
The sweet-lipped woodbine and the vine embrace
Above the desolate walls—their breath is thine:—
Spirit of worth laid low, thy voice upraise,
Where each fallen stone's a shrine!

239

THE POET'S DOOM.

Oh fatal gift of poesy!
In every clime, in every age,
Sorrow and blight are leagued with thee;
Grief is the poet's heritage.
For him, his love, hopes, passions wage
War on the cold world's sordid schemes;
Life is not, as he fondly dreams,
Warm, like his heart's ecstatic thrill;
But cruel as the vagrant blaze,
That lures the traveller and betrays
With lustre false and chill.

240

Quench—quench the spark of genius;—know,
The light but tempts to evil fate.
Why follow on to certain woe?
See thou, beyond that prison grate,
A cell, a captive desolate.
Year after year, wrong upon wrong,
He suffers. He had cherished song,
And lived in its bright world, 'till fame
Brought immortality; then rushed
Power's coward hate on him, and crushed
His mighty spirit's aim.

Over the Indian sea one went,—
A Lusian mariner,—away
From the green banks of Tagus, bent
By sorrow in his youth;—the prey
Of cheating hopes which, like decay
Of mortal sickness, had cast o'er
His heart a mildew,—still he bore,
Over the sea, his splendid curse;
And it was on him as he hung
O'er high Macao's steep, and sung
His rich, immortal verse.

241

Woe ever tracks the poet's path;
Storm on the land, and wreck by sea.
Hope blasts him, like the lightning's scath,
Neglect, and scorn, and poverty.
Oh fatal gift of poesy!—
Snap then the chord—and quench the light,
And strive, as the world strives;—raise bright
And lasting monuments of gold;
Toil in the mine—and land and sea
Compass, to build thy fame!—and be
On pyramids enrolled.

But will thy name survive thy clay?
Shalt thou thy age ennoble?—bring
Men of all other realms to lay,
On thy rich shrine, an offering?
Go to—what pilgrim wends to fling
A wild flower on Ferrara's tomb?
His victim lives—his laurels bloom;
And the world honours Tasso's grave.—
The Lusian mariner doth lie
More splendidly than royalty
That bowed him like a slave.

242

THE ADOPTED WARRIOR;

SUGGESTED BY AN INCIDENT IN “HUNTER'S CAPTIVITY AMONGST THE NORTH AMERICAN INDIANS.”

They sit beneath the locust-tree,
The warrior and his bride,
Where the summer breeze goes wandering free,
And the evening sun shines pleasantly
On the broad Missouri's tide.
She has been to the rock-o'erflowing rill
With joy, her calabash to fill;
She has placed before him warrior's fare,
Flesh of the hunted buffalo;
Bunches of wild-vine grapes which glow,
Like the hearts united there.

243

And now she sits with a soul that feeds
On the warrior's graceful form;
And his words her inmost spirit warm,
For they tell of glorious deeds.

The sun may gaze, from day to day,
O'er those vast, uncultured plains,
Where, distant from the white-man's sway,
The hunter race remains:
Where yet, unbent by power or gold,
They walk, as walked their sires of old;
God and their arms their native trust;
Free, lofty-hearted, sternly just;
Deemed by the white-man rude, forlorn;
The white—their pity and their scorn;—
The sun may shine on lands and seas,
But where on happier souls than these?
For their sires were bravest of the brave,
Though of hostile tribes they came;
And the youth a prouder name has won,
And repaid his bride for the favour done,

244

When she ventured all—the chief to save
From torture and from flame.

Oh! now to recall that dreadful day
Well does it all her pains repay.
She had gone forth, with dance and song,
To hail the homeward warrior throng,
For they came with victory's shout;
And when their solemn files were seen
Forth issuing from the forest's screen
The stunning joy broke out.
Then wives, then daughters, old grey sires,
Children—like wild and glancing fires,
Rushed on, with maddening speed, and cries
Which swept like a whirlwind up the skies,
To bring the conquerors proudly home,
As the victor Indian loves to come,
In the whirl of his nation's revelries.
There were sparkling eyes and welcomes warm
For the quellers of the hostile storm;
Garlands, inwrought with bead and shell,
For brows in the war-field witnessed well;

245

Fresh plumes by loving hands were lent
For those in the battle soiled and rent;
Alike young girl and matron vied
To cast the mantles wrought with pride,
With rich device and fadeless dyes,
On shoulders worthy of the prize:
And none more graceful homage paid
Than this light-hearted Indian maid.
But, suddenly a stop was sent
To her warbled song and merriment.
For, glancing where the captive troop
Came on amidst the taunting whoop,
The wild disdain and wrathful yell
Of those whose friends in conflict fell,
Something she saw whose instant pain
Fixed her a statue to the plain!
'Twas he! 'twas he! that stripling chief,
She saw him once before;
She saw him when he thither bore
Defiance proud and brief.
And never since that gallant mien
Had absent from her bosom been;

246

But day and night, in lodge and field,
His presence to her heart appealed
With the same dauntless eye and smile
As when he listening stood
To the war-challenge—for a while,
Then vanished in the wood;
And her soul spoke, “Would I might be,
Young chief, the loved of one like thee!”
And he must die! for his dread name
Was her tribe's sorrow and its shame.
Yes he! that youth—that stripling slim
Had been their fellest foe!
No name like his—no chief like him
Had ranged their ranks with carnage grim.
What eyes before his blows grew dim!
What plumed heads lay low!
Yes! he must die!—for widowhood,
Orphans and age cried for his blood.
No war-bereaven house would claim
Its scourge to bear their children's name.
But fire and torture must assuage,
In him, the fierceness of their rage.

247

And this he knew—he knew it well;
Yet not the more his courage fell;
But through the anguish-goaded crowd;
Through petty insult; vengeful blow,
He marched as in triumphal show,
As calmly and unbowed.

The maiden, from the rude array,
Had flitted shadow-like away,
With trembling heart, but winged feet,
Unto her own embowered retreat;
Where, as her tribe and sire had taught,
Even from her tender days,
The Great, Good Spirit she had sought
With daily prayer and praise.
It was a woodland hollow, still,
Save for one little gushing rill;
For the cicada's shrilly glee;
For bird, for squirrel and for bee.
The waters trickling, clear and cool,
Formed in the midst a crystal pool,

248

Where bloomy branch, and mossy bole,
And vines far gadding o'er the whole;
Green plants, and flowers of glorious cheer,
Of names and natures known not here;
And heaven's clear blue, and golden sheen
In the translucent depth were seen;
And seemed, unto the maiden's eyes,
That other happier land and skies
Where, soothed by love, their legends tell,
The hunter, and the warrior dwell.

But then!—not then, her eye could trace
The beauty of that hidden place.
Her heart was faint, her every thought
With sickening anguish was distraught,
As day by day, and hour by hour,
She called upon the Eternal Power
To save the captive, by her hand,
From the death-tortures and the brand.

The day—the hour itself was come.
Already spake the fearful drum.

249

The crowd looked on—the youth was bound—
And the wild war-dance whirled around.
But wilder came the damsel's cry,
“He must not die!—he shall not die!”
She broke the throng,—she clasped him fast,
With streaming hair and looks aghast.
In vain the wrathful chiefs arose.
In vain might numbers interpose
To force the enthusiast maid away,—
As coils the serpent round its prey;
As clings the ivy to the tree:
So clung she in her agony.
An aged chieftain waved his hand,
And bade the throng forbear.
Then forth he drew the deadly brand,
And stood before the pair.
It was her sire;—her courage quailed:—
The life-glow in her spirit failed.
He slit the many-wreathed twine;—
“Warrior, the maid and life are thine!”

Since then ten moons their silver light
Have scarcely yet outburned;

250

But thrice in victory from the fight
The warrior has returned.
His name is on the sacred wall;
No symbol there is higher;
Nor lightly heard, his accents fall
Beside the council fire.
The old man's vaunt, the young man's gaze,
Glory and joy have marked his days.

Then well may she be glad, whose truth
Won from the grave that noble youth.
Ay, glad and blest well may they be,
The warrior and his bride,
Where the summer breeze goes wandering free,
And the evening sun shines pleasantly
On the broad Missouri's tide.

251

VISIONS OF SONG.

I love to be where the great have been,
Although no trace remaineth;
There's spirit enough to hallow the scene
In the memory it retaineth;
And the meanest flower that blossoms there
Hath value above the proud tube-rose
That but in a monarch's garden grows;
And its withered leaf will bear
High thoughts to all who on it gaze,
Like a charmed thing of elder days.

252

I love to lie through the summer's day,
In the greenwood idly dreaming;
And call up the bards who have passed away:—
Was the vision no more than seeming?
As I gazed on the bright and frenzied eye,
Of the northern scald as he passed along,
Chaunting his burden of charmed song;
Or, the dim shade hurrying by,
Enwrapped in mists—a warrior form,
The northern spirit who ruled the storm?

And sweet the gleam of the ferny glen,
And the wild race that were keeping
Their fairy revel, unmarked by men,
Save one, the bard who, sleeping
Under the shade of the Eildon tree,
Had many a vision he might not sing,
Of the fairy court, and the charmed ring,
And the queen of the elf-countrie;
I love to gather that race around,
And make the greenwood enchanted ground.

253

But the fairy revel has vanished thence,
As the crimson eve was glowing;
And I've heard, in vallies of bright Provence,
Sweet song like waters flowing;
And seen the plumed knights advance,
Not armed as meet for a coming war,
But with ivory lute, and rich guitar;
The bravest hearts in France
Were wandering each through the myrtle shade,
To his lady-love with a serenade.

I've seen again on the battle day,
The silken banners flying;
And heralds stand in bright array,
The brave to the fight defying;—
And oh! to see 'twas a goodly sight,
The prancing steed and glittering lance,
And the pennon that bore the cognizance
Of each redoubted knight;
The white-plumed helm, and the blazoned shield;
The mime and sport like a festal field.

254

I love to vision the nations gone,
And muse on departed story;
To dwell in the courts of Babylon,
In the blaze of her regal glory:—
And then in the wide and desert waste
Where the wild horse never knew steel nor rein;
To stand in the mighty and columned fane
Of Tadmor when undefaced;
And listen the bright sun's stoled quire
Hymn worship to the undying fire.

And I love, in my spirit's light to see,
Ere the poet's soul was chained,
The bright dreams of young poetry,
When its visions were unfeigned;
And when the vale and grove were filled
With beautiful shapes that went and came;
'Till the poet's soul and hand were flame,
And then his lyre was thrilled;
And the tones he woke, and his warbled lays,
Have lived as lessons to dimmer days.

255

Oh! I love to be where the great have been,
Although no trace remaineth;
There's spirit enough to hallow the scene,
In the memory it retaineth:—
But all too short the summer's day,
For the sun of glory doth never set;
And its kindling glow, like an amulet
By my spirit borne away,
Has been in it Promethean fire,
When dim my soul, and cold the lyre.

256

ODE TO BOTANY.

Science of the green earth wide!
Science of the lone hill side!
Of the wood, and of the dell
Where the living waters well,
And the lonely creatures dwell;
Of the herb, and of the tree;
I do owe a debt to thee.
I have owed it long, and now,
When thy fairy children bow
Round me, flutter, breathe and blow,
It is time to cease to owe.

257

Take a minstrel's recompense,—
One warm song which may bear hence,
From a grateful heart, the thrill
Of the good remembered still,
Though it long ago were done—
Health from thy pleasant toils, and glorious rambles won.

Gentle Mistress—where are all
The rods and frowns, and daily thrall,
Which the gods of knowledge carry,
Lest their votaries tire and tarry?
Well may learned craniums doubt thee;
Thou hast none of these about thee!
But a pair of restless feet,
More than Atalanta's fleet;
Eyes that stray, like fires afar;
Hands with flowers that laden are;
And a tinge upon thy cheeks
That of moor and mountain speaks.
Sweet one! thou wilt not compel
Those who love thee to a cell;

258

Save, as they roam woods and hills,
They may find one which distils,
Through its lichen-hidden seams,
All the coolness of its streams,
While the summer's drowsy sound
And its hot airs haunt around.
Thou dost hate the closet's gloom—
Health's sworn foe, and fancy's tomb.
Let the student to his attic,
And his problems mathematic—
Let the bard twelve stories climb,
To the regions of his rhyme;
Let the surgeon in dissection,
Pore for skill, and find infection;
Let the chemist draw a fever
From his retort and receiver;
Let Divinity and Law
Teach men to find out a flaw
In our morals, and our deeds;
But do thou put on thy weeds,
And conduct thy scholars still,
Over meadow, heath and hill;

259

And, when these are dead and gone,
As eagles fleet and strong, they still shall travel on.

Happy Science! are there those
Who can call themselves thy foes?
Yes; the world's true drudge and schemer
Thinks thee but an arrant dreamer;
And the man of mood and tense
Construes his scorn of thee for sense.
But while he, from hour to hour,
Gleans a Greek and Latin dower,
And piles up in iron head
Old words of old men long since dead;
But leaves their deep thoughts and their lore,
As a mad sea casts pearls on shore;
Oh! lead thou thy youthful charge,
Where Wisdom opes her volume large.
Curiosity shall run
On before them in the sun.
Exercise shall give them wealth,
Souls of fire, and limbs of health;

260

And young Joy, and rosy Wonder,
Shall tear bud and bell asunder:
And when they, within a flower,
See how Skill and Beauty dwell
In the smallest floral cell,
Like two spirits in their bower,
They shall clap their hands and sing,
Till with the laughing sounds, the listening heavens do ring.

Over earth, over earth,
Thou dost travel in thy mirth:
In the fountain and the brook
Thou dost spread thy green-leaved book.
Thy sweet children have a place,
And look up into our face,
Like old friends, in every spot
Known, or where we hoped it not.
In some foreign and far land;
On the ocean's echoing strand;
On the mountain's silent crest;
In some lone isle, all unblest

261

With the corn-slope and the lea,
There we meet with them and thee,
Looking, as ye looked before,
Standing by our mother's door,
'Till our tears your locks bedew,
And our long exiled hearts turn home at sight of you.

Oh! sweet Science! heaven's roof,
With its stars and crystal woof—
With its life-o'erflowing sun,
And the night's aye-pensive nun,
Is a temple, and a shrine
Such as suits well thee and thine!
Then, while holy hymns shall swell
From each pinion-haunted dell;
From the nightingale at eve,
When all other sweet bills leave
Their own chaunting, and confer
All their music upon her;
While thy priests, earth's million flowers,
Stand with their censers at all hours;

262

Shedding odours, such as ran
Never round the domes of man;
While the smallest bud which springs
Symbols to us immortal things,
And to fainting hearts conveys
Hope, glad confidence, and praise;
As unto him, the dauntless man
Who pierced the deserts African ,
And left a dark fate, darkly told,
For his native land to hold;
A woeful mystery, half unweaved—
Vouched, feared, yet fondly disbelieved:—
As unto him, when sore distress
O'ertook him in the wilderness;
When courage failed, and dark Despair
Scowled on him in the withering air,
And home-thoughts in his heart sprung up—
The bitterest drops in his bitter cup;
As then—a little flower could reach
His spirit's core, and proudly preach

263

Of Him whose eye-lids never fall:—
Of Love, which watcheth over all;—
While all these shall be, sweet Science!
Thou may'st breathe a meek defiance
To thy scorners, and thy train,
Find out one flowery path, even through this world of pain.

Mungo Park.

264

TO A CHILD.

My little one! thou knowest not the mystery of life;
Thou knowest not thy mother's love, thy father's fond embrace,
Thou knowest not the fate with which passing time is rife;
And yet my heart is full of care, as I gaze upon thy face;
As I gaze upon thy thoughtless face, and think upon the strange,
The varied and uncertain fate that may attend thy days;
For though life's early day be fair, we often see it change,
And live to weep the things which first won undivided praise.

265

I often wonder in what realms thy little feet may tread;
And indulge for thee a pleasant dream of regions thou may'st see,
The marvellous and beautiful of which I have but read,
May perhaps, thou little one, be familiar unto thee.
Then I think on all the simple joys thou wilt be sure to know:
In thy sweet days of infancy, when every thing is new,
The world will seem a paradise wherever thou may'st go;
And let it promise e'er so fair thou wilt believe it true.

There is beauty for thine eye in fields, and woods, and flowers;
In clouds, and stars, in sunny skies, and in the wild-bird's song;
How green the mossy bank will be, and all thy passing hours
Will have life and freshness in them, that but to them belong.

266

The hills and fields around thy home will be a world to thee;
The trees which from thy youth thou know'st will seem the tallest trees,
And after life will picture them, and they will seem to be
The greenest and the loveliest that whisper to the breeze.

Then the brightness of the summer, and the purple-tinted west,
And the moonlight, and the sea, and the wonders of them all—
These are joys in store for thee—for early life is blest
With bliss beyond its sager years, that never knows to pall.
And then again I think of times, when sitting by my knee,
And thy meek eyes are upward turned, with an inquiring look;
The dawnings of thy intellect how sweet 'twill be to see:
And to read thy guileless bosom, even as an open book.

267

For of life the opening is, as the peerless morning hours;
So balmy is the innocence—the soul of youth so pure;
And their's the kind true-heartedness, as dew upon the flowers—
Would that beneath the touch of noon that freshness could endure!
But life has shade as well as shine, and who can tell thy day
May not by tempest, and by gloom, be hastened to its night?
And lest it should, within thyself shall shine a cheering ray,—
Pure heart, and cultured soul to make life's dreariest journey bright.

268

THE PRESAGE.

'Tis a true tale, though thou may'st deem it fable;
And it doth tell of that prophetic feeling,
Which some have felt sink down into their souls,
In their rejoicing warmth—like a chill touch;
Coming, at once, without a visible cause,
But not without an errand.

The sun went forth in glory; the expanse
Of ocean heaved and quivered, in his glance.
And there were hearts that morning on its shore,
Which felt its living freshness at their core:
Hearts which, prepared to make that summer day
Shine on for years—with all the bright array

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Of sky, woods, waves and mountain-wilds around,
Gave to their sympathies no stinted bound.
But who looks forth upon the breathing air
With love like him who may not wander there?
'Twas thus young Owen pensively withdrew
To the dull desk, whence many a glance he threw
Where the far-winding shore a sweet glimpse gave
Of grey rocks, smitten by the leaping wave.
How joyously the sun, from cloud and blue,
Shadow and light upon the ocean threw!
How pleasantly the ocean's softened roar
Fell on his heart—his heart could bear no more.
Hark! there are laughing voices! They advance—
And many a lovely and glad countenance
Surrounds him in a moment. Owen flew
And called his mother to this happy crew.
“Mother my father told me, ere he went,
My day must at the lazy desk be spent.
Look out, dear mother!—see that glorious sky!
See how the sun-beams on the waters lie.
See how the billows glitter as they flow,
And kiss the strand, like sudden wreaths of snow!

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Oh! see how all abroad looks bright and blest;
Speak thou! and Owen triumphs with the rest.
I am not—am not wanted! we will come
Long ere my father's steed can bear him home!”
Smiles on all lips, and cries of generous zeal,
Echoed the fervour of this strong appeal.
Strong to a mother—feeble was her “No,”
Another onset, and she cried—“Well, go.”
But added, with a mother's anxious tongue,
“Owen be cautious—Owen be not long!”

Away they bounded! Oh the soul of youth!
When joy is transport, and when hope is truth.
When young frames feel immortal—faces fair
Shine in heaven's glory, yet undimmed by care.
The poet's gorgeous dream, the saint's firm faith
Share the warm heart, and promise life no scath.
Away they bounded—distant grew the din
Of merry voices—all was still within.
Still was the mother, where she sate to see
The joyous group speed onward in their glee.

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The sight was beautiful:—girls light as air,
And youths as manly as the girls were fair.
The mother's heart rose proudly, as she eyed
Owen among them—she had cause of pride.
But scarcely did those glad ones disappear,
When in her heart sprang up a sudden fear.
Yet faint and lightly o'er her mind it passed,
Like a dim, flying cloud that could not last.
A feeble, fond regret which, whispering low,
Said, “wherefore didst thou let young Owen go?”
She raised her eye—how vain seemed that alarm;
For all abroad was beautiful and calm.
But not within—there lay a stillness dead;
A listening, deepening pause for something dread,
Which struck into her heart a gloomy chill;
A dark, vague sense of unimagined ill.
That inward stroke—that herald of sure woe
Which the proud mock, yet, sometimes undergo:
That superstitious fear,—that credulous awe—
Or what you will—which yet obeys no law
Of mind or matter, by the wise defined,
But comes and goes as traceless as the wind.

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Still to be felt, and still to be denied,
Whilst man is man—the slave of woe and pride.
'Twas this which touched her spirit—this which sent
Her eye so often to the firmament;
Seeking to gather from the gleaming day,
A certain solace for that strange dismay.
'Twas this which, hour by hour, she strove to quell,
But found more firm and vigorous to rebel;
Pouring into her heart a busy flow
Of queries, and dark hints of coming woe!
“Ah! wherefore, Owen, did I act so ill,
To send thee forth against thy father's will?
Why did thy father bid thee wait him here?
And wherefore follows this unwonted fear?
The ocean is no novel scene to thee,
But thou hast known it from thine infancy;
Dived in its waters—sailed upon its breast,
In all its varying moods of rage or rest;
Away then with this terror!—Lo! how shine
Yon sun-lit waves, and laugh at fears like mine!”

273

The day rolled on in beauty:—noon passed by;
Waves slept at sea; and thin clouds in the sky.
A sunny spirit of delight seemed breathed
Through the warm air; a slumbering beauty wreathed
Itself round flower and foliage, where the bee
Sang its low song of summer luxury.
The whispering leaves, the gush of waters, had
Joy's language in them;—every thing was glad.
All, but that anxious mother—she in vain,
Strove in her mind its wonted peace to gain.
She watched, and reasoned, and from hour to hour,
Felt her wild fears grow curbless in their power.
But when at length, she saw the shadows reach
Far into ocean from the western beach,
She could endure no longer, but away,
She rushed abroad, and hastened towards the bay.
She stood where onward vision had no bar
But the sky resting on the waves afar.
Dark was the shade from mountains stern and hoar,
Flung on the waters of one shelving shore;
The rest was light and glowing; the tide came
Landward, in billows of a sapphire flame.

274

Vessels of stately size, with stately air,
Rode slowly in; and small skiffs everywhere
Glanced to the sun their little, shining sails.
At times, above the ocean's, and the gale's,
The seaman's song, the boatswain's call was heard;
At times the wild scream of the wheeling bird.
Life, motion, splendour made the sea their own;
Beyond, the basking beach lay still and lone.
The fisher's boat, dragged homeward for the day;
The fisher's hut, in some far dell that lay;
Crags, sleeping hills, and solemn woods imbued
The gazer's spirit with their solitude.
She looked—she looked—not on that quiet scene,
But her eye questioned, with enquiries keen,
Each flying skiff;—at length it fell on one,
'Twas theirs—she knew it—and her fears were gone.—

Onward they came:—the wind was growing strong,
And through the whitening waves they sped along.
Fearless they seemed—in truth, no fears had they;
Nought gave them trouble but the soaking spray.

275

The wind still gathered force; a gloomy scowl
Passed o'er the sky: there was a sullen howl
And murmur over head; yet, wherefore fear?
The bark flew swiftly, and the port was near.
The mother wept for joy, but—whence that cry?
She looked—she shrieked in horror a reply.
Where was the bark?—'twas gone;—and through the surge
Rose dashing arms—and boats were seen to urge
Their prows amongst them—numbers rushed to save
The plunging sufferers from the whelming wave.

There was a gallant swimmer who had been
Sent down amongst them; and he now was seen—
Here, there he sprang, with wondrous power and speed,
Grasping the arm of every one in need.
Still as they rose, his active hand was there;
Still as they sank, he raised them by the hair.
“God's blessing on thee!” with a fearful joy,
Exclaimed the mother—“blessings on my boy!
Ah! my brave Owen! oh! I know thee well!—
Great God preserve them!—this is terrible!”—

276

Like some feigned native of that element,
Swiftly young Owen through the billows went,
Till every drenched and drooping form seemed laid
Safe in the boats, and not a life was paid;
When, distantly, two young, fair arms were seen
Stretched forth a moment through the billows green.
He bounded towards them,—and they saw them clasp
The swimmer's neck, with a convulsive grasp,
And down they went together!—shrill and high,
From shuddering hearts rung horror's sudden cry.
With one strong impulse towards the place they sprung—
With a wild anguish o'er their boats they hung.
They gazed—they gazed—oh what a pause of dread,
As Hope told o'er the moments ere she fled.
They gazed—they gazed—the whirling waters mocked
Their frenzied eyes—for those two young ones locked
Fast, fast together, through the rushing sea
Had reached the bright strand of eternity.—

Where was that wretched mother?—on the hill
Where she had stood, she lay outstretched and still.

277

But ah! far more unhappy than the pair
Whelmed in the deeps—she wakened to despair—
To years of sickening grief, and to the woe
Of that dark question—“Why did Owen go?”

278

TO A SCEPTIC.

Away!—I hate thy grovelling creed,
Thou caviller at a creed sublime,
Which gives us an immortal meed,
While thou would'st crush the joys of time.
Away! there is no need of thee,
Thy desperate venom to instil;
To rob us of the hopes that be;
And add thy darkness to our ill.

279

Talk not to me, in sophist's phrase,
Of emblems of our life and close;
Of fires, which perish as they blaze;
Of wind, which wasteth as it blows;
Of bursting bubbles, flitting shades;
Of flowers that fade, and leaves that fall;
I see but beauty which pervades;
A fitness to their end in all.

Talk not to me of myriad shapes
Of life, endowed with wondrous powers;
The sense of elephants and apes,
Which, mocking, thou would'st match with ours
When man's immortal yearnings fail;
When our proud hopes to these are given;
Then shall thy deadly doubts prevail,
And wake us from our dream of heaven.

280

Think'st thou, in truth, because our lot
Is lowly, fleeting, thronged with woes,
That God beholds, but heeds us not;
And our dark life has darker close?
Think'st thou, because the son of crime
Treads down the feeble at his will,
And vengeance cometh not in Time,
That God but laugheth at our ill?

Thy thoughts and mine are like two streams,
Both issuing from one mountain height;
But mine flows towards a land of beams,
Thine towards the frosty realms of night.
These, these are things which come with power,
With light and eloquence to me!
And shew, beyond life's closing hour,
The home of man's nativity.

281

Lift up those eyes which God has given!
Look on the sea—look on the earth;
Look on the sky, when clouds are driven
Athwart the sun's unquenched mirth.
What seest thou? Are not hope and love
There written, in letters bright and boon?
Comes there no spirit from above,—
From the clear stars, and wandering moon?

Is all this plenitude of power—
This vast magnificence of scene—
Wasted on creatures that an hour
Will make as they had never been?
Does love—does wisdom thus condemn
Our splendid pathway to be trod,
While fears torment, while miseries hem?
Thus are we taught the love of God?

282

No!—if our only life were here,
We surely then should feel at rest;
With nought beyond to hope or fear,
This world had been a world more blest.
Nature's omnipotent decree
Our spirit to our fate would bow;
And brighter, longer then would be
Our only life than life is now.

But 'tis not thus:—stern glooms involve
Our souls, as clouds the bright sky blot;
They darken—but, they soon dissolve—
The immortal sky hath altered not.
From its unruffled depths of blue
The stars their living splendours roll;
And thus, if Nature's voice be true,
Glows, even in death, the unscathed soul.

283

LINES FOR THE TOMB OF HOFER, THE TYROLESE PATRIOT, ON THE BRENNER MOUNTAINS.

Pilgrim, whose heart with quicker pulse doth beat
Where virtue and brave deeds make holy ground!
Thou, who hast journied with unwearying feet,
Where'er bright history of the past is found:—
Altar, nor dome, nor consecrated mound,
May kindle in thy breast diviner fire
Than this lone tomb:—the mountains wall it round;
Immortal memory guards it to inspire
From Hofer's ashes life—the Phœnix from its pyre.

284

Bard, who hast twined thy lyre with living bays,
Kindling young spirits to enthusiast glow!
The deeds of these, the tales of other days
Singing, of beauty, valour, worth and woe,
Yet for awhile all lighter themes forego;
Waste not the fervour of thy song on aught
Of meaner worth:—one thoughtful lay bestow
On him the mountain-chief whose spirit caught
Lightning from Freedom's eye, unbowed, unswayed, unbought.

Son of thy country, whosoe'er thou art
That groanest for her, and would'st fain pluck out
The tyrant's barbed iron from her heart!
Thou that dost hear the insulting conqueror shout,
Drowning the cry of freedom,—seest the rout,
The carnage and the ruin?—Wilt thou fear?—
Shake off thy coward fetters, and thy doubt;
Stand as he stood whose name is graven here;
Thy death, like his, may be to Freedom shield and spear.

285

THE RHODODENDRON ON THE ALPS.

And is it here, that sunny flower
That decks our garden so?
And can it brave the mountain storm
Where the oak cannot grow?
'Tis joy upon our frozen way,
Amid the Alpine gloom,
Amid the glaciers and the snows,
To see its crimson bloom.
We left the sunny vales below;
The happy flocks and kine;

286

The peasant in his blessed home;
The laurel and the vine.
We traversed then the mountain pass,
And up the rocky way,
More wearily, more painfully,
As neared the close of day.
We saw the moon look on the Alps,
That seemed to hem us round:
In the cold light the glacier shone;
Above, the avalanche frowned.
We saw the sun rise, and the east,
Barred with its crimson streaks,
Ruddied the glaciers, and Mont Blanc
Glowed with its splintered peaks.
'Twas not like earth; a fairy world
Such splendours might unfold:
Glimmered and shone like diamond walls,
The icy mountains cold.
The sun rose higher; the splendours died;
Dim clouds the mountains crowned;
And sounds of waters and of winds
Were rushing, eddying round

287

Blackness was in the mountain holds,
And loud the storm-winds roared;
Fiercely, from icy ledge to ledge,
The thundering torrents poured.
Anon, as by a mighty arm,
The tempest's rage was stayed—
A moment; and the darkness hung
At distance, like a shade.
The whirling clouds below our path
Like boiling waves did lie:
Again the snowy, splintered peaks
Seemed piercing the clear sky.
Onward, and upward still we went,
A desolate, dreary way;
Shepherd nor alpine goat we saw,
Nor chamois through that day.
We left the oak, the pine, and man,
Below us many a steep,—
And canst thou here, thou sunny flower,
Thy frozen station keep?
Little we deemed, when at our home
We cultured thee with care,

288

Thou blossomed in this mountain-land,
Amid this desert air.
I thank thee that I meet thee thus,
Like kind words mid neglect;
A treeless, Alpine solitude
With ruby blossoms decked.
I'll culture thee 'neath milder skies,
And in a kindlier soil,
For memories thou hast waked to day;
For rest amid our toil.
Bloom on—and be to pilgrims still
Joy's banner here unfurled;
A memory to refresh our hearts
Amid a frozen world.
In pain, heart-weariness and care,
To symbol brighter things;
To shew, in life's most desert path,
The flower of mercy springs.

289

A SKETCH.

‘'Tis done and he is happy. His bright soul
Has not a wish uncrowned!’

His life was a sweet springtide, brief, but bright;
A spirit's visit in its cloudless bliss.
He knew no crippled age, no sorrow's blight;
And, as he thus was wept, it was not his
To weep for others; but, in rich delight,
The golden hours could waft him nought amiss
Buoyant with blessedness, in every limb,
This was no Earth, but a true Heaven to him.

290

And thus he is all livingly enshrined,
In all the beauty of his boyhood; made,
For ever, and for ever, to each mind
Which loved him, a fair form which cannot fade;
Safe from each change to longer life assigned;
Still in his own peculiar mirth arrayed:
And they shall muse upon him till he be
A sweet thought in his immortality.

291

THE TWO VOYAGERS.

“Upon this coast was found a low cave in which were two graves. On the rock above them was rudely cut—“Here lieth the body of Captain Roger Lynden, of the Dolphin, May 1740;” and underneath it, “Here also was laid the body of his son Charles who died on this coast, October 1763.”

“My boat is on the shore, mother,
My ship waits but for me,
And all I lack of freightage now
Is a farewell word from thee.”
“Oh! stay at home, my only son,”
The mother wildly cried,
“For, on the very shore thou seekest,
In youth thy father died.

292

“His ship, like thine, was a gallant ship—
Like thine his trusty crew,
And all a perilous voyage might need
He had ready hands to do.
His helmsman loved him as his son,
A grey-haired man was he,—
Thy father was his foster-child,
And nursed upon his knee.

“I well remember how the ship
Lay yonder in the bay;
And what a sinful pride was mine
As I saw the streamers play;
There was music on the festive deck,
The wine like water poured;
And they drank success to the noble ship,
And to every man on board.

293

“A stirring gale swept through the shrouds,
Like the restless aspen's quiver,
And the gazers gave a rending shout,
As she went down the river.
Storm came at length—but wave, nor wind
Could yet her course impede;
She braved a fiercely surging sea,
As a strong man braves his steed.

“But, as they nearer came to land,
More dread the tempest's sway;
And soon, upon that savage coast,
A wreck the vessel lay.
There were sixty men, all stout of limb,
Lay lifeless on that shore:
Alas! for every lifeless one,
How many hearts grew sore!—

294

“But one of all survived—but one!—
And he the grey-haired man,
Whom years before, you would have said,
Through life had well nigh ran;
He saw his comrades fall a prey
To the ravening savage grim;
And lean and gaunt wild-beasts come down,
And rend them limb from limb.

“He scared each rabid thing away,
Thy father's corse to save;
And dug, a solitary man,
With patient love, his grave.
In a hidden cave he buried him,
And graved above his head
His name, and whence his vessel came,—
Then down the coast he fled.

295

“But home at length the old man came
To tell the fearful tale,
And died within his children's arms,
In his green native vale.
Then stay at home, my only son,
For the wailing of the surge,
And the low voice of the gathering winds
Are moaning like thy dirge.”

Again a ship went down the frith,
Again the people cheered;
And the mother watched, with tearful eyes,
Till the top-mast disappeared.
On went the ship, on went the ship,
Nor storm did overtake,—
She went, as sails a stately swan
Upon its placid lake.

296

Through wave and wind, o'er surf and swell,
With steady keel she bore;
And the seamen shouted joyfully
When they reached the palm-wood shore.
When they saw the gorgeous sky above,
And felt the land-breeze blow,
And saw the painted savage flit
In his light bark to and fro.

With furled sail and anchor cast,
That vessel lay to land;
And many a day the young and gay
Went forth upon the strand.
They roamed 'mid wilds of myriad flowers,
Through woods of giant trees,
To snare the rainbow-plumaged bird,
The savage beast to seize.

297

They stood round him who led them on,
A gallant, faithful train,
But the fervour of the torrid sun
Smote fiercely on his brain;
Misery, like madness, seized on him,
Remorse and feverish dread,
And the memory of his mother's prayer,
Like a curse upon his head.

The seamen knelt around him there,
And marked his swift decay;
For he, who saw the uprising sun,
Marked not his parting ray.
The moon came up the cloudless sky,
But, ere she reached the west,
They had borne him to a hidden cave,
And laid him down to rest.

298

Even there another had been laid
To take his dreamless sleep;
But when they read the graved name,
No man forbore to weep;
For it was beside his father's grave
They laid the fated son;—
“Oh, God!” they said, “how wondrously
Thine awful will is done!”

301

A POET'S THOUGHTS AT THE INTERMENT OF LORD BYRON.

“The morn is up again, the dewy morn,
With breath all incense, and with cheek all bloom,
Laughing the clouds away with playful scorn,
And living as if earth possessed no tomb.”
So to wild winds, and to the wilder boom
Of billows, sang the immortal, wayward Childe,
Self-exiled from his country. So from gloom
The morning rose, so breathed, and glowed, and smiled,
That saw his youthful corse on mouldering coffins piled.

302

Thousands were risen to see him borne away;
Thousands were thronging towers, and streets, and hills;
I too had vowed to spend that live-long day
In honouring him whose mighty spirit thrills
Yet through our bosoms; animates and chills
With peerless power; and ever will maintain
That proud dominion over human wills
Which, living he has founded; in his chain
Binding even hostile hearts, which wrenched it, but in vain.

I went not with the throng,—the rushing throng
Eager, and boisterous, and alive to mirth;
A different mood befits the sons of song
When sinks a chieftain of their house to earth.
Then nature's spell, then solitude gives birth
To solemn thoughts which may not swiftly die;
The mystery of soul; the undying worth,
The royalty of genius; glory high
Of those who in man's heart entombed for ever lie.

303

The plenitude of summer round me glowed;
The breath of summer balmed the living air;
Bright blushed the wild-rose, bright the streamlet flowed
In music o'er my path; and from the fair
Concave of heaven, the gushing splendour bare
Down to the earth a spirit in its tide,
Which thrilled the heart-strings, and subduing care,
Whispered high thoughts of him who, till he died,
Wooed through earth's proudest lands that spirit as a bride.

His birth, his death, dark fortunes, and brief life,
Wondrous and wild as his impetuous lay,
Passed through my mind; his wanderings, loves, and strife;
I saw him marching on from day to day;
The kilted boy, roaming o'er mountains grey;
The noble youth, whose life-blood was a flame,
In the bright land of demi-gods astray:
The monarch of the lyre, whose haughty name
Spread on, from shore to shore, the watch-word of all fame—

304

And now a lifeless form.—The spell is broke;
The wizard's wild enchantment is destroyed;
He who, at will, did dreadful forms invoke,
And called up beautiful spirits from the void,
Back to the scenes, in which he early joyed
He comes, but knows it not. In vain earth's bloom,
In vain the sky's clear beauty, which oft buoyed
His spirit to delight; an early doom
Brings him, in glory's arms, to the awaiting tomb.

He lies—how quietly that heart, which yet
Never could slumber, slumbers now for aye!
He lies—where first, love, fame, his young soul set,
With passionate power, on flame:—where gleam the grey
Turrets of Newstead, through the solemn sway
Of verdurous woods; and where that hoary crown
Of lofty “trees in circular array”
Shrouds Mary's hall, who thither may look down,
And think how he loved her, aye more than his renown.

305

I stood beside his tomb. 'Twas open thrown,
And in its dimness, shewed the coffined dead,
His long departed sires. I seemed alone;
For from my heart all present things had fled:
My thoughts were in their strong entrancement led
To mighty bards of old, who, living, found,
Like him, the gall of hate and envy shed
Sorely upon them, but in death were crowned
With homage, and deep love, and glory without bound.

And such shall be his lot. He joyed to stand
Battling with men's opinions: and to be
The dauntless Ismael of the age, whose hand
Rose against all, whilst all, in their degree,
Paid back his blows with wrathful rivalry.
He erred—he suffered;—he provoked the dread
And rancour of the many; and even he,
Who scorned to groan, yet sometimes inly bled:
But sacred rest he now! we war not with the dead.

306

Peace, pardon, pity, a relenting sense
Follows youth ever to the desolate tomb,
Even when most cold and cruel the offence;
But Byron's soul had a refreshing bloom;
There was a stirring grandeur in his gloom;
And he has left us, in his peerless lays,
A kindling solace for the drearest doom;
A fountain of deep joy, which, as it plays,
Shall gladden, and gleam on to earth's remotest days.

Still let us honour a magnanimous foe.
His sympathies went not with the living throng,
And therefore he found little. His heart's flow
Rushed towards the land of science and of song.
There, in creative dreams, he walked among
The wise, the great, the laurelled of that race
Whose deeds still rouse, whose burning words prolong
Their quenchless fire, and, spite of time and space,
Breathe upon earth high thoughts, and life's diviner grace.

307

“Pride,” as he sang, “which not a world could bow,”
Pride, linked to fiery feeling, with the meed
Of Genius given, and restless in its glow,
Urged him in sunny climes his life to lead;
And, like the desert's wild, untutored steed,
Which, whether stricken, or soothed, foams, curvets still,
From custom's thrall, by desperate vigour, freed,
He made himself sole monarch of his will,
And used, with Protean power, the poet's heavenly skill.

His note was as a trumpet, through and through
Thrilling, and kindling strange delight it came:
His wing was the young eagle's; forth he flew,
And boldly gazing on the sun of fame,
Earth sank beneath him, and the critic's aim
Served but to rouse and wing him to his height;
Where, sailing on, through sunshine, or the flame
Of stormy bolts, he found a stern delight,
And woe were to the head which dared him from his flight.

308

At times a giant, clad with might, he rose,
And in his sportive joyance, or his rage,
Would shake the temple of man's sole repose;
And all that soothes life's melancholy stage,
Hope's ardent song, the authority of age,
The works of wisdom trembled to their fall:
Then suddenly his wrath he would assuage,
And, with a laugh whose merriment had gall,
He left them, but as things he valued not at all.

Then was he a magician. Rocks and waves,
Dim, desolate wilds were visible at his nod;
Huge mountains with their torrents, crags, and caves,
In whose dark shade, yet darker beings trod;
Beings, in whose natures, demon, man, and god,
Mingled mysteriously; and he would bare
Their spirits to your vision with his rod,
And from their inmost heart to open air
Would draw their grief, guilt, greatness, and their stern despair.

309

And then this wild scene, and its wilder crew,
Would dissipate; and in their place would rise
Regions all basking in the radiant blue
Of eastern heavens, and lovely things whose eyes
Were full of the sweet aliment of sighs
And deathless passion: and himself would pour,
Out of his glowing bosom, such supplies
Of a pathetic song, as, evermore,
Melted the chillest hearts, probed soft ones to their core.

'Tis past! he sleeps for ever:—nor for me
Is it to tell what living he has been;
Self-traced with hand of power, and pencil free,
He, in his own creations, shall be seen;
Nor, while I trace his genius, do I mean
To hail his glory as exempt from shade.
Alas! no rose is here of thornless sheen;
Alas! too much in Byron's laurelled braid
Are shoots of deadly power, and bitter weeds inlaid.

310

But thou, with passions calm, and soul subdued—
Thou, who thy steed in pleasant paths hast driven,
Judgest thou him who, upon mountains rude,
With desperate coursers terribly has striven?—
When thy light bark to summer streams is given,
What deem'st thou of the vessel on the deep,
When mutiny within all law has riven,
And round it billows in dread thunder sweep?
Such course, and such command, have fervid souls to keep.

His lays are dashed with evil—yet they breathe
A loftier spirit into him who hears.
He hated hotly—yet he knew to wreathe
Affections round him. I beheld the tears
And agony of those who loved for years,
And followed to the last; and whilst the name
Of Greece, or love, or liberty endears,
His life's bright close young bosoms shall inflame
To grasp, with generous hands, the coronal of fame.

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I stood beside his tomb. The crowd had fled;
Silence and twilight gathered o'er the cell.
I laid my hand upon his dreamless bed,
And on my heart life's awful mystery fell.
And was it hence, I cried, were wont to well
Forth those bright gushings of eternal thought?
They are gone—we know not whither—and the spell
Which with fierce passion, fire, and feeling fraught
This agitated frame, is vanished—as 'twere nought.

Rest in thy tomb, young heir of glory, rest!
Rest in thy rustic tomb, which thou shalt make
A spot of light upon thy country's breast,
Known, honoured, haunted ever for thy sake.
Thither romantic pilgrims shall betake
Themselves from distant lands. When we are still
In centuries of sleep, thy fame shall wake,
And thy great memory with deep feelings fill
These scenes which thou hast trod, and hallow every hill.

312

THE ISLAND PATRIOTS.

Mid the profound repose
Of peace a call was heard;
And, like heaven's voice, arose
The thunder-winged word!
“Come forth each noble one;
Each brave man seize his brand;
And, patriot hearts, rush boldly on
For God and your own land!”

313

As comes the mighty tide,
Wave following fast on wave,
So marshalled, side by side,
Rushed on the island-brave.
And 'twas a glorious sight
That patriot host to see,
A firm, proud phalanx, in its might,
Go forth to victory.

One only banner spread
Above them to the breeze;
One banner, torn and red,
From former victories.
To the trumpet's thrilling clang
Those sons of freedom came;
And the grey and silent mountains rang
With the people's wild acclaim.

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They cried “Ye brave, go forth,
God conquers by your sword;
We loved you on the hearth;
You pledged us at the board.
For you glows redder wine,
And a nobler feast is spread,
Who make each holy home a shrine
Where freedom's flame is fed.

“Your names, like names of old,
Shall rouse, as words of fire,
The fearful and the cold—
The warrior-heart inspire.
We all, a Christian band,
At one altar bent the knee;
And God will bare his red right hand,
For you in victory.”

315

No soldier spoke a word;
Thus was his answer given:—
One hand upon his sword,
The other raised to heaven.
A moment's death-like pause—
Then the gallant men moved on,
Amid the thunder of applause
And the shrill trumpet's tone.

They went in patriot might,
A faithful, valiant band,
Sworn to defend the right
Of God and their own land.
Like brethren firm they stood,
No man essayed to flee;
In the eye of Heaven their cause was good,
And theirs was the victory.

316

THE APOSTATE.

Thou wert the offspring of a sainted line;
O'er thee a dying sire rejoiced in soul;
Through hope in thee, a mother dashed the brine
Of sorrow from her, and her heart grew whole.

Thou wert a stem of promise. On thy youth
The hoary fathers of the temple gazed,
And deemed, by thee the banner of God's truth
Would, when they slept, be o'er their children raised.

God's gifts were on thee. A most kindly mien;
A tone which, like a brother's, warmed and wound
Into the heart that heard it; and the green
Souls of the young, like tendrils, clasped thee round.

317

Yet simple, humble, staid and unassuming,
Thou dwelt amid thy brethren, as if thine
Were neither talents high, nor hopes presuming;
And shining fair, without attempt to shine.

But as the meteor of nocturnal skies,
Nursed into power within heaven's starry hall,
Slumbers awhile, unseen of mortal eyes,
Then kindles, burns, and blazes in its fall:

Seeming pure ether lit with sacred fire;
Or embryo comet doomed all space to cross;
But driven to earth, it rends it in its ire,
And sinks in darkness, a dead, ponderous dross:

Oh fallen!—abandoned!—lowest of the low!—
Such was thy radiance, such thy spirit's flame
In its swift ruin; dazzling friend and foe,
But wounding, blasting, scorching where it came:

318

As if that fiery vehemence was lit
With a demonian torch,—as if the whole
Might of thy wrestling energies was knit
Into one last, proud agony of soul.

'Tis past!—and now what art thou? To the earth
Crushed in thy vileness, thou art made to feel
The torturing memory of thy former worth,
And thy own scorn—sharp wounds which will not heal.

Who longs, in ease of his hot soul, to frame
A withering curse? Let him behold thy state;
And learn a terror which contemns a name:—
Beyond the infliction of the deadliest hate.

319

“THERE'S NO PLACE LIKE HOME.”

On the brow of the lofty Ben Lomond I've stood
And seen, from that eyrie, the land as it lay;
All peak above peak, like a tempested flood;
Highland hills to the north stretching boldly away.
And the lakes, and the isles, and the river, and sea,
And dark glens of the mountain, black, craggy, and stern;

320

The stream brawling on 'neath the scathed oaken tree;
And the heath's crimson bells, mid the furze and the fern.
I have seen the sun on Loch Catrine smile;
And anon a storm on Ben An to be,
And have felt my heart dance in the lone defile,
All feathered and fringed with the birken tree.
I've walked on a rocky shore by night;
Mid ruined piles in the dim twilight;
And heard tolled slowly through the cell,
To the dash of the waves, the midnight bell;

The breaking of the storm away
From off the peaks whereon it hung,
And then, the fairy scene that lay
Beneath, as never poet sung;
And waterfall, and castled height,
And river's marge and meadow fair;
The varying of the shade and light,
On sides of mountains clothed, or bare;

321

And the sylvan nook, so lone and still,
Where the only sound was the rippling rill;
And the only visitor seemed to be
The bird that sings there day and night,
Like the soul of the place rejoicingly,
Singing its own delight.
All these I've seen, yet they moved not me
Like the scenes I had loved in my infancy;
When, after absence, here I came,
And found every favourite spot the same.
The very trees, in their leafiness,
Seemed just as they were years ago;
And the flowers of each peculiar place
Were growing, just as they used to grow.
And the scenes, and sounds, and scents which there
Seemed only to be, were there as then;
And I fondly fancied the very air,
Brought the soul of my childhood back again.
Then I thought of the beautiful scenes that smiled
On the varied path of my wandering;
Of the mountain's height, of the glen so wild;
Of the lonely lake and the sylvan spring;

322

But I felt that the loveliest scenes I knew
Were those where the flowers of my childhood grew;
Where, after wanderings, grief, and pain,
The joys of my youth could delight again.

323

SONNET.

[Were I a dweller in the woodlands lone]

Were I a dweller in the woodlands lone,
Or at the feet of mountains huge and grey,
With not a care through the long summer's day,
But how to make it blessed—idly thrown
Into the forest's herby lap—the tone
Of every simple, long-remembered lay,
Which comes down from the green boughs, yet away
Startles no stillness—this should be my own
Peculiar music; or, where silence keeps
Her sabbath in the hollows of vast hills,
Oh gentle Poesy! I'd couch with thee,
And commune on each theme of thine which steeps
The heart in joyous tears: but ah! care fills
Sweet Poesy! my path—this life must never be.