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

A tale of tears I dedicate
To him—the wise, the good, the great—
Who wrote, while raged the factious storm,
Our Bill of long-delay'd Reform.
Oh, if my song, when I am dust,
May hope to please the meek and just,
Whoe'er thou art that lov'st true fame,
From this page tear not Lambton's name.

Where is the youth, for deeds immortal born,
Who loved to whisper to th' embattled corn,
And cluster'd woodbines, breathing o'er the stream,
Endymion's beauteous passion for a dream?
Why did he drop the harp from fingers cold,
And sleep so soon with demigods of old?
Oh, who so well could sing Love's joys and pains?
He lived in melody, as if his veins
Pour'd music: from his lips came words of fire,
The voice of Greece, the tones of Homer's lyre.
But me no guide, through academic shade,
Led to the cell where glory's spoils are laid;
And shall my hand, for joyous task unmeet,
Presume, O Love! to scatter at thy feet,

Instead of roses, nightshade; and instead
Of fragrance, chaplets gather'd from the dead?
Self-taught and ill, my notes uncouth I try,
And chant my rugged English ruggedly,
To gloomy themes. Yet, sick with hope deferr'd,
I hear a voice, though mournful, proudly heard;
And I have planted on my destined tomb
A pensive tree, that bends in storm and gloom,
Unseen, unknown. Oh, when shall it repair,
In lonely moonlight, beautiful and sweet,
The weeping bough? and flourish green and fair,
Where slighted maidens mourn, and ghosts of lovers meet?

Wild as the chainless air, or bird that wings
The blue above the clouds, and soaring sings
Blythe welcome to the dewy, fragrant morn,
Young Anna dwelt with health, the mountain-born,
Where, murmuring with the moorland bee, the Dearn
Leaps from his well, through heath and plumy fern,
Till, pleased with richer blossoms in the vale,
He checks his wave, and hears the milkmaid's tale.
There, light of heart, nor lonely, nor unseen,
She walk'd and sung, and talk'd and laugh'd between,
Paying, in raptures from her guileless breast,
The soul-felt tribute which pleased Heav'n likes best;
Or paused, on broomy banks to sit or kneel,
While hedge-side bluebells died beneath her heel.

Her brow, where gentlest beauty held high state,
Was vein-inlaid with azure, delicate
As tenderest leaf of shaded columbine
That bends beneath the love-sick eglantine;
And, oh, she was the meekest maid of all
That ever stoop'd o'er alpine waterfall,
Or look'd up to the hills from valleys sweet,
Like Nature's primrose, dropp'd at Bretland's feet.
She loved, with virgin-love, a stately swain:
Unhappy passion! though Charles loved again.
Fresh was his cheek, as evening's flowers, that furl'd
Their banners in the sun; his locks outcurl'd
The finger'd hyacinth, outshone the down
On youngest morning's cheek, when, newly blown,
The maiden violet meekly views the south,
While the rich wallflower, in its early growth,
Prepares deep amber, for th' expecting eye
That sees in fading flowers eternity.
She wedded, high in hope and passion strong;
Unhappy marriage! for Charles loved not long;
And, at the altar, dark she stood in light;
Heav'n's swift fire there bereft her eyes of sight.
E'en as she turn'd preparing to withdraw,
Burst flash and crash, in overwhelming awe;
And pale she stood, with sightless eyes upraised;
And pale the bridegroom wax'd, as mute he gazed;
And from the holy temple, sadly led,
A mourning bride she moved, with languish'd head,

To weep, benighted. The moon's gentle ray
Shone not to her, and, unperceived, the day
Died into darkness. But, with Love's soft speech,
And tones that knew the answering heart to reach,
Charles fondly strove her sorrow to beguile,
And drooping blindness slowly learn'd to smile.
Time eased her bosom of its hopeless sighs,
Till joy, at length, revisited her eyes;
But they, doom'd ever “objectless to roll,”
Could bring no more the blue hills to the soul,
Or, with night's shadows, bid all gloom depart,
And paint life's morning faces on the heart.

Sad, then, it was, to see a form so fair,
In tears resign'd, though dark, not in despair.
Still on his bosom she could lean and weep,
And feign a dream of eyelids closed in sleep;
Still, when with him she walked, at eve or morn,
She could inhale the odours of the thorn;
And while she hung so helpless on his arm,
Dependence gave his words a double charm:
They fell like dew o'er violets on her ear,
Or like offended Love's forgiving tear
On man's warm breast. Yet, by the plaining rill,
The thought would rise, that flowers on every hill
Were beautiful to every eye but hers;
That broom and hawthorn, and the armèd furze,
Bloom'd, vainly fair, beneath the sapphire sky.
Still waved the birch in memory's happy eye;

Yet, made by vain regret more sadly sweet,
The hours return'd, when oft, with naked feet
And bare plunged arm, the trout or loach she took,
Where stones upturn'd perturb'd the shallow brook;
Or, 'mid her sister Naiades of the dale,
Held forth the lizard by his golden tail
In childish wonder; and an envious pang
Assail'd her weakness, if the echoes rang
With “Holiday!” proclaim'd in joyous cries;
And little boys and girls, with upturn'd eyes,
Came whispering round her. But that selfish pain
Humbled its victim: soon she sought again
For joy in sorrow. True, she could not see
The wingless squirrel frisk from tree to tree,
The wren from twig to twig; but she could hear
The Tartar cuckoo chase his vernal year,
The pewet wail, the starting redbreast sing,
And e'en the flutter of the warbler's wing,
When the bough bent beneath his sudden flight—
Though blind, not lonely in her changeless night;
Then would she chide sad thoughts; and o'er her cheek
A smile would steal, so gentle and so meek,
And her blue orbs, though rolling sightless, gleam'd
With such mild splendour, that, almost, she seem'd
In love with darkness, like the insect things
That hide the gorgeous ruby of their wings
In emerald gloom, beneath the greenwood tree,
And sleep, shade-loving hyacinth, with thee!

Yet would she tremble in her fearful joy,
As wan flowers droop when April frosts annoy.
She felt a sad foreboding in her heart,
A dread that, oft dismiss'd, would not depart.
Blind and beloved, she smiled through tears, resign'd;
But, ah! she fear'd to be despised and blind,
Yet scarce knew why! Alas, her fears were true!
Soon, scorn'd, she droop'd—O say not hated too!
How oft doth Baseness to his victim say,
“Why should the wretch receive, who cannot pay?”
Ne'er had Ingratitude his plea to seek,
And cowards love to trample on the weak;
And still the helpless, when most aid they need,
Die of neglect, (sad ill!) and slowly bleed,
By drop and drop, in silent, lone distress,
Till the heart swoons into forgetfulness!

More seldom, day by day, Charles sooth'd her woe;
He came, she dared not own, in haste to go;
But she would sigh, and, with suspended breath,
Hear tones that were to her a dirge of death;
Then, while they struck her heart and soul with blight,
Try to believe she had not heard aright.
Few were his questions, harsh were his replies,
And deeply in his heart he cursed her sighs,
And called his guilt misfortune. She became
A thing unmark'd—though seen, o'erlook'd: her name
Ceased to be heard—she vanish'd. Who inquired
If she were dead or living? Undesired

Came such inquiries; and one answer brief
Met them, half-utter'd. Hopeless, in her grief,
She sate in some dark corner, lone; and there,
With restless lips, she mutter'd ceaseless pray'r,
Or sigh'd, unheard, “What will become of me?”
But menial wrath, with vile indignity,
And vulgar curses on her helpless head,
Soon drove her to her unpartaken bed,
Through the long night of nights and days to weep,
Or start from slumb'rous dreams, but not to sleep.
Yet was her trust in God unshaken still,
And she endured, with meek-submitted will,
Her heavy sorrows; nor of that worst pain,
Love unrequited, did she once complain.
Poor, sightless, trampled worm! for him she pray'd
Who bade her droop, with none to soothe or aid;
Her broken heart, already, quite forgave
Him whose stern coldness had prepared her grave;
And Charles, by dying Anna unreproved,
When most unworthy, seem'd the most beloved!
He, heartless wretch, and weak as base, made haste
Her bridal portion and his wealth to waste;
And suddenly, when all was gone, assumed
Th' equestrian sword, and helmet sable-plumed.
Strong blew the gale that o'er the heaving main
Bore him to glory and embattled Spain;
Where seldom thought he, 'mid conflicting arms,
Of hapless Anna's sad, deserted charms.

She to that house where want is fed by scorn,
Too weak to walk, by hireling hands was borne;
And there she found, with pain her couch to tend,
A home, like that she left, without a friend.
There, hourly dying, she forgot her woe,
And smiled, with cheek of fire and lip of snow,
On visions of the past. They, sad no more,
Soothed her lone heart. Seem'd lovelier than of yore
Her buried joys; and memory loved to gaze
On their pale sleep. She thought of other days,
When, with her Charles, (for still she called him hers,)
By Broad-Oak's ice-cold rill, or Gunthwaite's firs,
Through Cawthorne's bowers, or High-bridge wood she stray'd,
Lost in her love, a happy, trusting maid,
Where—while the jay, with freedom's pinion, shook
The bind-weed's blush-tinged bells into the brook—
Thrush answering thrush, piped sweet in fountain'd dell,
And she could see the birds that sung so well.

Meantime, dire fields were fought, and tidings came
That the scathed eagle fled on wings of shame:
Fight followed fight; she listened fearfully
To every tale of death and victory;
And oft and oft, all wan, she ask'd who fell,
Dreading to hear a name beloved too well.
Murmurs at length, then voices reach'd her bed;
There was a letter from her Charles, they said.

For the last time, like one risen from the tomb,
She raised her feeble form: a transient bloom
Flush'd her fall'n cheek: with intermitting breath
She bent toward the messengers of death,
As shipwreck'd seamen listen t'wards the land.
She held, stretch'd forth, her agitated hand,
Expecting, not believing, propp'd in bed
On one lean arm, but less in hope than dread;
With feeble shriek, she fell and tried to rise:
And strain'd the letter to her sightless eyes,
And kiss'd it o'er and o'er. But when she heard
The written words, she lay like death, nor stirr'd,
Grey tress, or wasted limb. “He told of flocks
With fleeces fine, and goatherds of the rocks,
And Spain's fandango, and the soft guitar,
That sounds o'er treeless wastes to love's bright star,
Calling the hind when day's warm task is done,
To meet the dark-eyed daughters of the sun.
He told of bayonets blood-incarnadined,
Of distant battles booming on the wind,
Of foodless marches, and the all-day fight,
And horrid rest among the dead at night.
Last named he servile servants of base ends,
But call'd by him his dear and absent friends;”
For they had pamper'd oft his mind diseased,
Fed on his riot, and with poison pleased.

And was this all? was there no postscript?—No:
Named he not that dark flower inscribed with woe?

Stern manhood, break thy sword, and blush for shame;
He did not even write his Anna's name!

With harrow'd heart that could be still and bleed,
She listen'd when the reader ceased to read.
In silent strength grief tore her soul's deep chords:
Oh, what had wrongs like hers to do with words?
And all who saw her wept at what they saw.
Serenely pale, while all around her wept,
She slept—she sleeps; but light shall yet arise,
Th' eternal day-spring, on her sightless eyes;
And Mercy yet may purify with pain
That wretch beloved, and bid them meet again!

He, when the trump of war had blown its last,
Sigh'd and look'd back, repentant, on the past.
In pale inaction, languid, he declined,
And with the body sympathized the mind.
Long-slumbering feeling waked, and waked to woe,
Stung by remorse, the never-flattering foe,
That triumph'd o'er his maim'd and toil-worn frame,
As o'er the storm-struck ash the conquering flame.
He thought of Anna, and his tears ran o'er—
He thought of home, resolved to sin no more.
So the poor Hebrew, long content to roam,
The homeless wanderer, seeks at last a home;
Quits the tall bark, and treads the hallow'd strand,
His agèd consort leaning on his hand,
Sedately glad, though tears bedim his eye,
To lay his bones where Abraham's ashes lie.

He climb'd the homeward ship, and blamed the wind,
And blamed the waves, that seem'd to lag behind
The bounding stern; till England, like a cloud,
Dawn'd on the sight, where Heaven to ocean bow'd.
He leap'd to land; and, wing'd o'er Snowgate's fern,
Beheld again the valley of the Dearn,
Cragg'd Hartley's broom, and Breton's shades below,
And Clayton's cottage-smoke ascending slow.
Down, down he hasten'd, pleased almost to pain,
And felt as if become a boy again.
Then fled the dream. Beside her cottage-door,
Remember'd well for pranks play'd there of yore,
He met a woman, lame and bent, whose breast
Had pillow'd Anna's infant cares to rest—
One who had taught him many a childish game.
But when he paused, and ask'd that agèd dame,
In tones that told the sudden dread he felt,
Not if his Anna lived, but where she dwelt,
Back shrank the crone, as from a thing abhorr'd;
Then slowly forth she drew, without a word,
The brooch which, erst, his ill-starr'd Anna wore;
And, with a look that pierced him to the core,
Placed in his hand (and turn'd abrupt away)
A lock of faded hair, too early grey!