The Poetical Works of Ebenezer Elliott :: :: University of Virginia Library

World-lighting flambeau of that awful One
Whose greatness thought hath not conceived! thou bright
And ruby-hair'd similitude of might
Omniscient yet invisible and lone;
The stillness of all power upon his throne—
The life of life—whose fountain none can tell!
Thou flar'st o'er ocean's nation-girding streams
Fearless of change, as though, indeed, thy beams
Were of the eternal, uncreated light.
High, not secure! bright, not unchangeable!
What dost thou see above, around, below?
Unweeping pride and pleasure only? No!
Vicissitude and ruin are to thee
Familiar. Prosperer! thou look'st on me
And feel'st no pity. But thyself shalt fade,
Extinguish'd, as a taper. He who made
Can unmake all things. He who reigns alone,
The sole unrivall'd—He whose burning throne

Is wheel'd on suns—shall quench thee with a frown,
And cast thy dust beneath his axle down;
Crush'd, thou shalt roll no more. No wrinkle yet
Of age insults thy beauty. Thou art bright
As man's vain youth, with harlot joys beset,
Who says, while love, in ecstasy divine,
Seals his warm cheek with lips that glow like thine,
“My fortune shall be splendid as thy light.”
Thou laughing parent of the woful years!
Hence, with thy beams that mock the sorrowing heart!
In all thy pageantry of flame, depart!
And let me commune with sad night in tears.

II.

But day yet lingers in the gorgeous west,
O'er capes that smile like islands of the bless'd;
His red orb biggens as his beams retire,
And wide Potomac undulates in fire;
While giant clouds, that o'er his hills aspire,
Curtain the setting sun, whose broad brow glows
As if he wish'd, gazing in transport deep,
To look sweet evening into blushing sleep;
And, ere he slumber'd, kiss her in repose—
Then sink to golden rest. Above thy tide,
Wild river! on the headlands at thy side,
With straining eye, the Exile, Alfred, stands,
And thinks, with fever'd soul, of distant lands;

Thinks of loved England, whence, by terror led,
Escaped from Worcester's fatal fight, he fled,
And sought in desert woods, o'er ocean cross'd,
To cherish life, when all its joys were lost.
Dear to that Exile now are memory's tales,
For now they speak of Avon's dewy dales—
Sweet scenes, whose pleasures he no more may share,
And her, his love, who mourns deserted there.

III.

He saw eve's beamy purple fade away;
He watch'd the changeful clouds till all was grey;
He started—“'Twas the waving grass!” he said,
“I am not watch'd: or, fluttering overhead,
Did the owl start the oriole from rest?
The humming-bird reposes on the flower;
Fragrance drinks freshness in her richest bower;
High roosts the turkey; on Potomac's breast
The mallard sleeps; and here the rattlesnake,
Couch'd on his coils—the desert's deadly pest!
The bull-frog booms not yet; all accentless,
The listening wave doth not a pebble shake;
Nor doth a sound disturb the loneliness
Of Nature in her slumbers; nor a breeze
Skim o'er the boundless forest, to awake
The tempest-braving pine of centuries;
And, while the stars that guard the tranquil skies
Look down in silence on the silent trees,

High on the mountain's crest the lonely cloud
Reposes, like a giant in his shroud:
How silently! Haply, at this sweet hour,
In England, to the purple-blossom'd heath
The sun-tann'd peat-man plods; while every bower
Weeps in the eye of morn, the drover wakes
With dewy locks; and, while his plaid he shakes,
O'er crumpled grass unbathed by midnight shower,
Calls his tried dog that lurks the thorn beneath—
Roused by whose voice, the bird that loves the sky
Sheds bright pearls from his clover canopy,
And, soaring, sings! And, o'er her fragrant pail,
More sweetly sings the milk-maid in the vale;
And the mist lessens on the distant sea;
And o'er the rooky grove the smoke curls slow;
And fair the halcyon is on writhen tree,
Whose giant arms stretch where the rock is riven;
But fairer far, on quivering waves below,
Are rock, tree, halcyon, and serenest heaven.
Oh, bless'd is he, who, arm'd with dusky gun,
Sees on Britannian wastes the moor fowl run,
Or, flying, fall! Oh, bless'd who hears the bells
Sound o'er the dewy smile of Albion's dells,
While age, and youth, and blissful love repair
To sabbath service, country wake, or fair!
But is my injured Emma happy there?”

IV.

He spake in tears of sweetly mingled pain:
What though the heart that nurses love is fain
To build in darkness his unsocial seat?
What though he loves the desert-spirit's sigh?
The tear that visits seldom his sad eye,
Though life hath sweeter tears, may yet be sweet.
Pensive and pale, return'd he to his farm,
Where wealth was his, but not contentment's charm;
And as, with pausing footsteps, he came near,
Sad tones, that spake of wither'd joys once dear—
Tones that his heart acknowledged—met his ear,
And retrospection drank of aconite.
A moment blank he stood, then onward flew;
But, as with lightning blasted, back he drew;
And, trembling, gazed—on what appalling sight?
No dusky daughter of the burning day,
Shrank from the slave-herd's whip, uplifted high;
On no dark maid of fervid Africa
Gloated that scourger's Algerenian eye;
But, born where men are free and maids are fair,
From happy Albion wafted o'er the wave,
And late arrived, a convict and a slave,
Was she for whose wild shriek he hunger'd there;
And on her cheek of woe the rose had been.
To Alfred's tongue words came not; but there came
Strength to his arm, and to his spirit flame.

He rush'd the mourner and the pang between;
And, stunn'd beneath his blow, the slave-herd sank,
And rose, and fell, and rose again, and drank
Not with his eyes his victim's starting blood,
But, coughing, drank his own, and ghastly stood,
Then, faint, the convict totter'd to her shed;
Her sable sisters, weeping, stay'd her tread,
And laid on leaves of maize her languid head,
Where soon, by sad dreams visited, she slept,
And wildly, in her broken slumbers, wept.

V.

But Alfred slept not. On his spirit broke
A troubled light; and in his heart awoke
The power that smiles to see the gloom increase,
And, sleeping on the thunder, dreams of peace,
And holiest stillness—the storm's angel, Hope.
Oh, 'reft of her, could man, the insect, cope
With darkness, dread, and danger? He arose,
Leaving the mattrass of his pale unrest,
And walk'd into the cool and midnight air,
That whisper'd to the wildness of his breast,
Like spirit from the islands of repose,
And almost lull'd to sleep the demon, Care.

VI.

Darkness was spread o'er half the sky. The moon
Slept on her sea of blue. The stars appear'd
To dream around her, in night's awful noon!
Wild lightnings, fluttering distant, fringed with fire
The growing darkness of the wrathful west;
And, on sublime Potomac's troubled breast,
Convolved in seeming agony and ire,
The red reflection, like a dragon, burn'd.
And though the coming thunder was not heard,
Yet, on the breezeless sky perturb'd, in dread
The silent bear his gleaming eye-balls turn'd;
Hoarse croak'd the eagle on the mountain's head;
The buffalo, in ominous horror low'd;
The storm-fiend whisper'd from his desert cave;
The forest shudder'd; the tumultuous cloud
Wander'd in heav'n; black roll'd the moaning wave.

VII.

Lone stood the cabin of the pallid slave;
And, through the door unclosed, a pine-torch cast
Its wrinkling beam. With trembling knees, he pass'd
Before the wan light thrice, then stood to gaze.
She slumber'd still, and still she wept in sleep,
While o'er her sad face gleam'd the feeble blaze.
He enter'd, and he could not choose but weep;

For, as he bent above her faded frame,
In murmuring accents faint, she sigh'd his name.
“Emma!” he said; but falteringly he spoke,
And kiss'd her brow; again—and she awoke,
And shriek'd, and rose half up, convulsed with fear;
Then, trembling, turn'd, and hid her face in shame.
But he, with soothing words, and many a tear,
Spake to her woe, bidding her yet be glad,
And question'd of her destiny severe,
And how, and why, she met a doom so sad?
She did not lift her eye—she fear'd to look
On him who talk'd of comfort—but it came;
For, like a sweet remember'd vision, stole
His tones of pity on her drooping soul;
Or, like the liquid music of the brook
To thirst's charm'd ear, when the unseen waters creep
Beneath the blossoming umbrage of the vale,
Among flowers dear to woe, that love to weep,
And thus she told her melancholy tale,
While, o'er the hut, loud moan'd the increasing gale,
And nearer thunder chased the lightning pale.

VIII.

“Oh, thou art good! I did not hope to hear
The voice of kindness in this land of fear.
My love went to the war, and came not back;
Prince Charles, they said, was worsted in the strife:
Anxious, I watch'd on expectation's rack;

But Alfred fled beyond the sea for life.
Soon I became—a mother!—not a wife!
My wrathful parents spurn'd me from their door.
Oh, cherish'd like the choicest garden flower,
And nurtured on the breast of tenderness,
And all unusèd to the evil hour,
How should their silk-clad daughter face distress?
Where should the out-cast Emma lay her head?
I sought and found a little lowly shed,
Where long we lived, resign'd and calm, though poor:
My active needle earned our daily bread.
But, sickness, then, by famine follow'd came:
My hungry boy look'd up for food, and pined!
My wearying task was profitless; my frame
Enfeebled by disease, unnerved my mind.
I would not beg the alms of charity,
Nor ask the legal dole of paupery;
No, I did worse, far worse—Heaven pardon me!
Thou wouldst not think that Emma once was fair;
Yet fair she was, or Envy's self hath lied;
And she had still some sweet and drooping charms;
But she had still some virtue, and some pride.
I turn'd abhorrent from lust's venomous arms;
How could I clasp pollution to my heart?
I wept, and pray'd, but want would not depart;
And my boy's asking look, so pale and sad,
Drove me, in one unhappy moment, mad.

No pitying daughter of the rich and free,
With angel looks and bounty, came to me.
Oh, how I envied then the spotless maid,
Who pass'd me, blushing, and almost afraid!
Spurn'd by the base, scarce pitied by the good,
Affliction rush'd upon me, like a flood.
No aid without, and want and woe within;
Deserted—ah, no! left—by him I loved;
My life's life was that boy, the child of sin!
What mother's heart could see his tears unmoved?
I pawn'd the stolen silk!—detected—tried
In the throng'd court I stood, half petrified,
And there was doom'd beyond the billowy tide,
On wild Columbia's shore of tears to groan.

IX.

“As on the strand I stood—and not alone,
But chain'd to others, like in crime and fate,
And female, too, though lost to female fears—
A man approach'd, more old in grief than years,
And kiss'd the fetter'd hand he bathed with tears,
And, faltering, strove, but strove in vain, to speak.
Oh, he was changed! but Emma knew him well;
And with him came forgiveness, though too late.
But when he ask'd forgiveness of his child,
His guilty child, I thought my heart would break!
And when I bade him to my mother bear
A lock of hapless Emma's golden hair—,

A kiss from one so lost—and pray'd him tell
If she, too, had the sinful one forgiv'n—
O God! in more than agony, he smiled,
Then raved, amid his tears, in laughter wild!
‘Emma,’ he said, ‘thy mother is in Heav'n,
Brought to the grave with sorrow—not by thee—
It was God's will! and none from sin are free.’
Again he kiss'd me, and he turn'd to go;
But no—poor Emma would not have it so;
He saw the boy on whom my sad eye fell,
And kiss'd my little Alfred—then—farewell!
I saw him not, but sobb'd, in sorrow blind,
And heard his faint ‘God bless thee!’ in the wind.

X.

“Ah, surely in that hour I should have died,
But that my boy clung fondly to my side,
And, not in vain, to soothe his mother tried!
Then came a thought which nature could not bear:
‘What! take him from me?’ shriek'd my heart's despair.
But little Alfred left the land with me;
And, while the tall ship rush'd into the sea,
He sate, and smiled upon his mother's knee,
Pleased with the sails, the motion, and the deep.
The billows seem'd to rock my cares to sleep.

Oh, there was comfort in the dreadful thought
That far from happiest England I should go,
Where none who knew me could behold my woe,
To taunt the shame that want and sin had brought;
And that the poor companions of my way
Were wretches too, but I less vile than they!
I loved to sit upon the airy deck,
While swell'd the moonlight heav'ns, without a speck,
O'er ocean without wrinkle; and I loved,
While star-light only glimmer'd through the clouds,
And, arrow-like, and billow-borne, we moved,
To hear the fresh gale whistle in the shrouds,
And see the manèd waves each other chase,
Like flaming coursers in the endless race.
Then, with delighted terror, from the prow,
High on the mountain billow's summit curl'd,
Down look'd I on the wat'ry vales below,
That, like a tenantless and hopeless world,
Barren and black, and deepening chilly, frown'd.
And, on that far land, whither I was bound,
Enthusiast Hope beheld, nor whip, nor chains;
But hill and shadowy vale seem'd fairy ground,
And groves elysian deck'd the teeming plains;
And airy fingers form'd, with many a flower
Of dulcet breath, a visionary bower;
And there my fancy wander'd with my child,
And saw him strive, with lifted hand, to reach
The grape's dark luxury, or the glowing peach;

And Peace walk'd with us through the balmy wild,
Look'd on my tears, nor only look'd, but smiled.

XI.

“O Heaven! thou shouldst, according to the load,
Apportion strength to bear it on the road!
My boy refused his food, forgot to play,
And sicken'd on the waters, day by day.
He smiled more seldom on his mother's smile;
He prattled less, in accents void of guile,
Of that wild land, beyond the golden wave,
Where I, not he, was doom'd to be a slave!
Cold o'er his limbs a listless languor grew;
Paleness came o'er his eye of placid blue;
Pale mourn'd the lily, where the rose had died,
And timid, trembling, clung he to my side.
He was my all on earth. Oh, who can speak
The anxious mother's too prophetic woe,
Who sees death feeding on her dear child's cheek,
And strives in vain to think it is not so?
Ah! many a sad and sleepless night I pass'd,
O'er his couch listening, in the pausing blast,
While on his brow, more sad from hour to hour,
Droop'd wan dejection, like a fading flower!
At length, my boy seem'd better, and I slept—
Oh, soundly! but, methought, my mother wept

O'er her poor Emma, and, in accents low,
Said, ‘Ah! why do I weep? and weep in vain
For one so loved, so lost? Emma, thy pain
Draws to a close! e'en now is rent in twain
The loveliest link that binds thy breast to woe.
Soon, broken heart, we soon shall meet again!’
Then o'er my face her freezing hand she cross'd,
And, bending, kiss'd me, with her lip of frost.
I waked; and, at my side—Oh! still and cold!—
Oh! what a tale that dreadful chillness told!
Shrieking, I started up, in terror wild;
Alas! and had I lived to dread my child?
Eager, I snatch'd him from his swinging bed;
His limbs were stiff—he moved not—he was dead!

XII.

“O let me weep!—what mother would not weep
To see her child committed to the deep?—
All lifeless, o'er his marble forehead roll'd,
The third night saw his locks repose in gold.
Methinks 'twas moonlight, and a torch cast wide
Its lanthorn'd radiance o'er the umber'd tide,
As wan on deck he lay, serenely fair,
And, oh! so like his sire! that man of care,
(From home, and hope, and all he loved, impell'd,)
Who ne'er his child, in life, or death, beheld,
And could not come, my breaking heart to share!

No mournful flowers, by weeping fondness laid,
Nor pink, nor rose, droop'd on his breast display'd,
Nor half-blown daisy, in his little hand.
Wide was the field around, but 'twas not land.
His features wore a sweet and pensive grace,
And death was beauty on his silent face.
No more his sad eye look'd me into tears!
Closed was that eye beneath his pale cold brow;
And on his calm lips, which had lost their glow,
But which, though pale, seem'd half unclosed to speak,
Loiter'd a smile, like moonlight on the snow.
I gazed upon him still—not wild with fears—
Gone were my fears, and present was despair!
But, as I gazed, a little lock of hair,
Stirr'd by the breeze, play'd, trembling, on his cheek;
O God! my heart!—I thought life still was there!
But, to commit him to his watery grave,
O'er which the winds, unwearied mourners, rave—
One, who strove darkly sorrow's sob to sway,
Upraised the body; thrice I bade him stay;
For still my wordless heart had much to say,
And still I bent, and gazed, and, gazing, wept.
At last, my sisters, with humane constraint,
Held me, and I was calm as dying saint;
While the stern weeper lower'd into the sea
My ill-starr'd boy! deep—buried deep he slept.
And then I look'd to heav'n in agony,

And pray'd to end my pilgrimage of pain,
That I might meet my beauteous boy again!
Oh, had he lived to reach this wretched land,
And then expired—I would have bless'd the strand.
But, where my poor boy lies I may not lie;
I cannot come, with broken heart, to sigh
O'er his loved dust, and strew with flowers his turf:
His pillow hath no cover but the surf!
I may not pour the soul drop from mine eye
Near his cold bed; he slumbers in the wave!
Oh, I will love the sea, because it is his grave!”

XIII.

Weeping, she saw not him whose swimming eye
O'erflowed with bitterness and agony;
But, when he smote his breast with frenzied force,
And, stamping, cursed himself in dread remorse;
Then started she—as one who sleeps with pain
O'erwearied starts awake, but sleeps again;
And soon, more calm, with alter'd voice, she said—
“Perhaps my boy had lived, had Alfred stay'd!
Ah! wherefore fled he, hopeless and afraid?
And, ah! why fled not Emma at his side?
I on the scaffold would with him have died.
Without a look, a kiss, a tear, he went;
Unheard by Emma, every prayer he sent

To heav'n, (while grim Mischance stood by, and smiled,)
To bless the mother of his unborn child!
Nor after weeks, and months, and mournful years,
Did his dear letter, long, and stain'd with tears,
Bring to her bosom, o'er the waters wide,
Comfort and hope, which nought could bring beside!
Alas! he fled not, but at Worcester died!”

XIV.

“O blame him not!” exclaim'd the self-blamed youth,
“If he has err'd, forgive his fault, forgive!
And canst thou doubt thy Alfred's love and truth?
And deem him false, who lives to bid thee live?
We both live, Emma, happier days to see;
Behold, 'tis Alfred's self, preserved for thee!
Come to my heart! thou still art all to me.”

XV.

Ah, clasp'd he death? or did she lifeless seem?
Slackening his grasp, he stoop'd but heard no sigh!
Then paleness blush'd; and life's returning beam
Relumed the faded azure of her eye.
Faintly she strove to clasp him to her side.
“Was it, indeed, my angel's voice?” she cried;

“And wilt thou take the convict to thy breast?
And shall the vile, the outcast, the oppress'd,
The poor and trodden worm, again be bless'd?
Ah, no, no—heav'n ordaineth otherwise!
My love!—we meet too late!—thy Emma dies.”

XVI.

Then, with clasp'd hands, and fervent hearts dismay'd,
That she might live for him, both mutely pray'd.
But, o'er their silence burst the heavy blast;
And, wrapp'd in darkness, the sky-torrent pass'd;
And down the giants of the forest dash'd;
And, pale as day, the night with lightning flash'd;
And, through awed heav'n, a peal, that might have been
The funeral dirge of suns and systems, crash'd:
More dread, more near, the bright blue blaze was seen,
Peal following peal, with direr pause between.
On the wild light she turn'd her wilder eye,
And grasp'd his hands, in dying agony,
Fast, and still faster, as the flash rush'd by.
“Spare me!” she cried. “Oh, thou destroying rod!
Hark! 'tis the voice of unforgiving God!—
A mother murder'd, and a sire in woe!
Alfred, the deed was mine! for thee, for thee,
I broke her heart, and turn'd his locks to snow!
Hark! 'tis the roaring of the mighty sea!

Lo, how the mountain-billows fall and rise!
And while their rage, beneath the howling night,
Lifts my boy's tresses to the wild moonlight,
Yet doth the wretch, th' unwedded mother, live,
Who, for those poor unvalued locks would give
All, save her hope to kiss them in the skies!
But see! he rises from his wat'ry bed,
And at his guilty mother shakes his head!
There, dost thou see him, blue and shivering stand,
And lift at thee his little threatening hand?
Oh, dreadful!—Hold me!—Catch me!—Die with me!—
Alas! that must not, and it should not be!
No—pray that both our sins may be forgiv'n;
Then come! and heav'n will-will indeed be heav'n!”

XVII.

He felt her slackening grasp his hand forego,
And grasp'd more firmly hers, in speechless woe.
Quiver'd her cheek, with death's convulsions streak'd:
Still gazed he—all was fix'd! he started up, and shriek'd.

XVIII.

No sound is heard, save of the brook increased;
The weary cloud is still. The blast hath ceased
To rend the wildly fluctuating sky,
And tear the tall pine from his place on high.

Meek quiet on the freshen'd verdure sleeps;
Less frequent, from the beauteous cedar weeps
The heavy rain-drop on the flower beneath;
And, fainter round the hills, the dying gale
Murmurs the requiem of departed night;
While, like bless'd isles, the woods emerge in light,
In placid light, fair as the brow of death
O'er which that mourner bends, so lost and pale.
“Emma, how sweet the calm that follows storms!
How sweet to sleep in tears, and wake in heav'n!”
Morn soon will smile on Nature's drooping charms,
And smooth the tresses which the night hath riven;
But no sun shall arise that wretch to cheer;
Alas! his grief despairs, and hath no tear!
From heav'n's deep blue, the stars steal, one by one;
Pale fades the moon—still paler—she is gone.
As yet, no marshall'd clouds in splendour roll'd,
See, on Potomac's breast their mirror'd gold;
Yet, eastward, lo! th' horizon, forest-fringed,
Blushes—and dusky heights are ruby-tinged!
Lo! like a warrior in impatient ire,
On mailèd steed, fire-scarf'd, and helm'd with fire,
Forth rides the sun, in burning beauty strong,
Hurling his bright shafts, as he darts along!
Oh, not more splendidly emerged the morn
When light, and life, and blissful love were born,
And day and beauty, ere his woes began,
Smiled first elysium on the soul of man,

And—while no cloud in stillest heav'n was seen—
O'er ocean's waveless magnitude serene,
Rose, all on flame his vital race to run,
In dreadless youth, how proudly rose that sun!
And, see! o'er Emma's still and snowy cheek
There comes a glow, ethereal, heav'nly, meek,
As if a lily blush'd to meet the light!
But what, wan Exile! may be said to thee?
Look'st thou on death? then death is fair to see.
The sunbeams mingle with her lifeless hair;
From her closed eye a tear is stealing slow;
Life seems to linger on the silence there,
Like fragrance in a gather'd rose of snow;
But, oh! that kiss of ice!—despair!—despair!—
Ah! woods and waves, and heav'n and earth are bright;
But on the hopeless Exile's heart—'tis night!