In glory and in grandeur, as a gorgeous sunset-light!
How softly, soul-subduing, fell your words upon mine ear,
Like low aerial music when some angel hovers near!
What tremulous, faint ecstacy to clasp your hand in mine,
Till the darkness fell upon me of a glory too divine!
The air around grew languid with our intermingled breath,
And in your beauty's shadow I sank motionless as death.
I saw you not, I heard not, for a mist was on my brain--
I only felt that life could give no joy like that again.
II.
And this was Love--I knew it not, but blindly floated on,
And now I'm on the ocean waste, dark, desolate, alone;
The waves are raging round me--I'm reckless where they guide;
No hope is left to light me, no strength to stem the tide.
As a leaf along the torrent, a cloud across the sky,
As dust upon the whirlwind, so my life is drifting by.
The dream that drank the meteor's light--the form from Heav'n has flown--
The vision and the glory, they are passing--they are gone.
Oh! love is frantic agony, and life one throb of pain;
Yet I would bear its darkest woes to dream that dream again.
THE DYING CHRISTIAN.
By the streams of living water,
Rest, my daughter.
Soul, I would not stay thy flight;
Jesus waiteth at the portal--
See, poor mortal,
Open stand the doors of light.
Let me go, life's tempest braven,
To the haven;
There, beside the Saviour's throne,
Where the choir of seraph voices
Now rejoices
In eternal jubal-tone.
By thy earthly Virgin Mother--
Saviour, Brother,
Thou hast known the gloom of death;
Through its shadows now I wander,
Angels yonder,
Keep me even as Jesus saith!
Now I see the distant glory--
Life's poor story
Ends, as it began, in pain.
Earthly form, doth it grieve me
Thus to leave thee?
No, for Christians die to reign.
What availeth life's brief sorrow?
Ere the morrow
Christ will change to smiles my sighs;
Dreaming, pass we through death's portal--
Then, immortal,
Waken up in Paradise.
Soul-Redeemer, by Thy power,
In this hour,
Keep faith's light from burning dim;
I am strong when Thou art near me--
Saviour, hear me!
Guard me with Thy Cherubim.
Thou the martyr's crown hath borne,
Shame and scorn,
All to save my soul from sin;
Thou the hosts of death assailest,
Sinner frailest
Through Thee rises conquering.
Prince of Life! my soul's endeavour,
Now and ever,
Be to sing Thy glorious love;
Death is conquered! Thou hast given
Peace from heaven--
Soon I'll chant Thy praise above!
SYMPATHIES WITH THE UNIVERSAL.
The Angel of the Universe, for ever stands he there
Within the planet circle, the grand Hierophant of prayer;
His altar is the eternal sun, his light its flames of gold,
And the stars are his rosary, through the hands of angels rolled.
Down, down, throughout the Infinite, they're falling, world on world;
Like coral beads from praying hands, the planet beads are hurled.
Thus, for unnumbered ages on their diamond string they run,
The circling planet rosary from Uranus to the Sun.
A rhythmic music rises from that stately choral band,
Like a vibrant-chorded lyre when struck by angel hand;
Pealing down the deep abysses, soaring up the infinite,
The grand hymn of the Universe is sounding day and night.
The grand cathedral chanting from the choir of the spheres,
Within the star-roofed temple, tho' unheard by mortal ears.
Never prayer from lip ascendeth, or from spirit never groan,
But the flooding planet music bears it up before God's throne.
Thus, ages after ages, will the cherub, earnest eyed,
Within the starry temple of the Universe abide,
Till hymns of spheral litanies, till solemn chants are done,
Then he'll rise up from the altar within the glowing sun.
By his mighty pinions shaken, star falleth after star,
And he flings the planet rosary down from him afar;
As by an earthquake riven, temple, altar, falleth crush'd,
And the wailing planet music of the choral band is hush'd.
But he leads the praying spirits up from each burning world,
Till before the Throne in Heaven his radiant wings are furled.
There he resteth calm in glory, his holy mission done,
For within the Golden City, Altar, Temple, needeth none.
LA VIA DOLOROSA.
I wander here, I wander there,
Through the desert of life, all wearily;
No joy on earth for the pilgrim soul--
On, on for ever drearily;
O'er the mountain height,
In the tempest night,
Through the mist and the gloom,
We press on to the tomb,
While the death-like pall of a midnight sky
Hangs over past and futurity.
And the echo of wandering feet I hear,
And human voices and hearts are near;
But lonely, lonely each one goeth
On his dark path, and little knoweth
Of love, kind words, or sympathy.
Oh! fain would I lay me down and die;
For the upward glance of a tearful eye,
Is all I have known of humanity.
Yet must I on, tho' darker and drearer
And lonelier ever the pathway seems,
And the spectral shadow of death draws nearer,
And rare and faint are the sun-light gleams;
An unseen power impelleth us on--
No pause, no rest for the weary one,
Till we reach the shores of that fathomless sea
Where Time poureth down to Eternity.
SHADOWS FROM LIFE.
"Che bella es el sognar aunque es mentira!"
I.
Vain the love that looketh upward; we may worship, may adore;
From the heart's o'erflowing chalice all the tide of feeling pour;
Dash our souls against the barriers that divide us from the shrine;
Fling the incense; pour libations--aye, of life's own ruddy wine;
But, the angel we gaze up to, calm as form of pictured saint,
From its golden mist of glory bendeth never to our plant;
Heedeth not if crushed the temple where the altar fires burned,
For the doom runs through the ages--Love was never yet returned.
II.
Thus it was he loved a lady: never priest in Ispahàn
So adored when mount and ocean morning's flashing glories span.
Never sun-god in its glory, marching stately from the east,
Crimson-robed and cloud-attended, heeded less the praying priest,
Than the lady that pale lover, while her lonely path she took
O'er the spirit's glittering summits, with her proud and queenly look;
Like that Roman Sybil bearing in her hands the mystic scroll,
And her large eyes looking onward where the future ages roll.
III.
So, in lone and lofty beauty, she stood high above the world,
Never heeding, dashing neathward, how life's stormy billows curled;
As a pine upon the mountain, warring tempests raging round,
As an island peak of ocean, with the starry midnight crowned.
How could she who trod the pathway of the spirit's starry zones
Stoop to listen, bending earthward, to a lover's murmuring tones?--
While her ear was gathering music from Creation's golden chords,
List the human tears low falling, with the pleading human words?
IV.
And could he, who tracked the eagle borne on through cloud and light,
With her glorious regnant beauty filling soul and sense and sight,
Stoop to gaze on me, half-blasted by fierce Passion's fiery skies,
Only Love, the love of woman, burning strangely in my eyes?
Oh! I've watched his glance dilating, as it rested where afar
Rose her lofty brow, as riseth the pale glory of a star;
Heard the world's praise hymning round her, saw his cheek of flushing pride,
Whilst I, writhing in heart-agony, all calmly sat beside.
V.
No rays of genius crowning, such as brows like hers enrol,
With no flashing thoughts, like North-lights, rushing up my darkened soul;
Waking but his earnest feelings with, perchance, my graver words,
While her spirit, like a tempest, swept the range of Passion's chords.
Oh, Woman! calmest sufferer! what deep agony oft lies
In thy low, false-hearted laughter, glancing bright through tearless eyes!
And how little deemed he truly that the calmest eyes he met
Were but Joy's funereal torches, on Life's ruined altar set.
VI.
How could I light up his nature, with no glory in my own?
Soul like his, that throbbed and glittered in the radiance of her throne.
Bitter came the words of plaining:--Why should fate to me deny
All the beauty of the mortal, all the soul to deify?
What had she done, then, for Heaven, so that Heaven should confer
Every gift, to make man prostrate at her feet as worshipper?
Raised her high enough to scorn him--aye, to trample in disdain
On the heart flung down before her--heart that I had died to gain!
VII.
Trod his love down calmly, queenly, like a mantle 'neath her feet,
While with lordly spirit-monarchs she moved proudly to her seat,
Grand as eagle in the zenith, with the noonday radiance crowned--
Lone and icy as an Alp-peak, with the circling glaciers round.
But an echo of all beauty through her fine-toned spirit rang,
As a golden harp re-echoes to each passing music clang,
Till in thrilling, clear vibrations rang her poet-words in air,
Summoning souls to lofty duties, as an _Angelus_ to prayer.
VIII.
Oh! she flung abroad her fancies, free as waves dash off the foam--
As the palm-tree flings its branches on the blue of Heaven's dome,
With a genius-shadow dark'ning in the stillness of her eyes--
With her rainbow-spirit arching half the circle of the skies,
Like a dark-browed Miriam chanting songs of triumph on the foe,
As the rushing waters bore them to the Hades halls below,
Till up through the startled ether, down the far horizon's rim,
Clashed the swords of men in music to her lofty prophet-hymn.
IX.
But no beauty thrill'd my nature, noon, or night or sunset skies;
For the only heaven I gazed on was the heaven of his eyes--
I'd have bartered Freedom, Justice, People's rights, or native Land,
All the island homes of Ocean, for one pressure of his hand;
Trembling, weak, a coward spirit, only wishing low to lie,
As a flower beneath his footstep, breathe my life out, and so die.
Yet he liked me--aye, he liked me--'twas the phrase--O saints above!
Cold and cruel sounds this liking from the lips of one we love.
X.
They said that he was dying; could I longer silence keeping,
Only pour forth my deep passion in my chamber lonely weeping?
I reck'd not if 'twere womanly, cold convention little heeding,
But in mine his hand enfolding, said, with tearful raised eyes pleading--
"She hath left you, left you lonely--sorrow's harvest death may reap;
I say not--love me; let me only watch here by you and weep!"
Then he said, his pale brow raising, with a faint, unquiet smile,
And with saddest eyes upgazing upon mine for all the while--
XI.
"Sweetest friend, this sorrow-blighted, faded form, and searéd heart,
To pale death, I fear, are plighted, yet 'twere bitter now to part;
For the chords of life are shaken by a sympathy so true,
And they tremble, in vibration, with a pleasure strange and new.
Still, no love-dream may be cherished--ah! the time of love is o'er--
Youthful heart, by passion blighted, can be kindled never more;
But if sympathy thou darest with a heart so wrecked as mine,
I will give thee back the rarest kindred souls can intertwine."
XII.
And so bending coldly, gently, on my brow he placed his lips;
While, I trembling in the shadow of that faint and brief eclipse,
Murmur'd:--"Tell me, tell me truly, do you love her then so well?"
And the hot tears, all unruly, through my twinèd fingers fell,
And I sank down there unheeding so of maidenhood or wrong,
While I told him, weeping, pleading, how I'd loved him, loved him long;
Seen my hopes all faded, perished, spread around in pale dismay,
Wept their pallid corses over--I alone, like Niobe!
XIII.
Thank God, that no cruel scorning dimm'd his starry eyes divine,
Softly, tender, earnest gazing down the tearful depths of mine--
But with warmest splendours resting on the paleness of his cheek,
As the roseate tinted sunset on a snowy Alpine peak,
Bent he down upon my shoulder, murmuring loverlike and low,
While his breathing softly trembled on my pale lips lying so:--
"Ah! such deep and tender loving hath recall'd me from the grave--
And this heart with soft approving bids you keep the life you gave;
XIV.
"Woman's soothing grief to lighten hath a mystic healing power,
And their sympathy can brighten man's most dark and destined hour.
Let the holy words be spoken that bind soul to soul for life;
Let me place the symbol token on this hand--my wedded wife!"
Oh! never yet did an angel breathe diviner words of bliss,
Never mortal heard evangel of a joy like unto this;
In my gladness, smiling, weeping, knelt I down before him there,
Blessing God with wild words leaping from my full heart's inward prayer;
XV.
And a glory, ruddy, golden-hued, streamed down on me from high,
As with lifted hands enfolden gazed I up into the sky--
Ever brighter, flashing downward, till my pained eyes ached with light,
And I turned from gazing sunward back to earth's more calm delight.
But--was it spell, or was it charm?--when I turned meto the room,
Fading seem'd the loved one's form, half in light and half in gloom--
Throbb'd my brain in wild confusion, slowly died his words in air,
All around me seemed illusion, save that streaming golden glare.
XVI.
On my fevered eyelids aching, madly press'd my hands I keep--
Then arose like one awaking from a strange and magic sleep;
Round I gazed in wild amazement for the glorious light that shone,
Was morn streaming through my casement, but it shone on me alone!
The last cold words he had written still lay there beside my bed;
The last flowers he had given lay beside them, faded, dead;
Life's lonely bitter desolation was true, for aye, I deem,
But, joy's blessed revelations, that--oh, that--was but a dream!
Wanderings through European Literature.
LE RÉVEILLE.
It was the lark--not the nightingale--
Poured forth her notes of warning;
Upwards she flew from the sun-lit vale,
Awoke by the light of the morning.
The day, the day is bright!
The night
Hath fled that in darkness bound ye;
Fling ye the myrtle of love aside,
And grasp the sword whate'er may betide--
For the Foemen are gathering round ye!
It was the lark--not the nightingale--
Arouse ye from apathy's slumber!
Few and dull do your watchfires pale,
But they soon shall the stars outnumber.
Awake, awake to life!
The strife
For God and your right advances;
Leave the white arms of weeping beauty,
The van of the battle's your post of duty,
Where glitter the Foeman's lances!
It was the lark--not the nightingale--
The gate of the morning uncloses;
She sings of the thundering cannon's hail--
She sings of the battle's roses;
On the warrior's breast
They rest--
The crimson roses that free the world!
Up, then, in Liberty's cause ye are sent--
Let the wide heavens be but one warrior's tent
When the banner of Freedom's unfurled.
It was the lark--not the nightingale--
Leave, then, O youth, thy dreaming!
As dashes the torrent adown the vale,
O'er all barriers wildly streaming,
So of thy young heart's blood,
The flood
Pour down on the thirsty land;
And Liberty's cause, that would else have died,
Will bloom afresh from that crimson tide;
So pledge ye your heart and hand.
It was the lark--not the nightingale--
Who chanted a Nation's rise;
Borne on the wings of the morning gale,
It peals through the azure skies.
Liberty's torch is bright!
The light
May mock our tyrant's scorning,
For millions of hearts will be kindled ere noon;
And the freedom we dream'd of in darkness, full soon
We'll achieve in the light of the morning!
OUR FATHERLAND.
I.
Why pour the ruby wine,
For glad carousal, brothers mine,
In the sparkling glass that flashes
In your hand,
When, mourning, sits in dust and ashes
Our Fatherland?
II.
What means the joyous song
Of the festive bridal throng?
Oh! let music no more waken
The echoes of our strand,
For the bridegroom hath forsaken
Our Fatherland!
III.
No more your masses falter,
Trembling priests, before the altar.
Can prayer avail the dead or dying?
Oh! vain demand!
Prostrate, trodden on the ground, is lying
Our Fatherland!
IV.
Ye princes, fling ye down
Your blood-bought jewelled crown--
Bear the circlet on your brow no more,
Nor signet on your hand;
For, shivering, stands before your door
Our Fatherland!
V.
Woe to ye rich; in gloom
Hath toll'd your hour of doom--
There, reck'ning up your gold, ye sit in state
In palace grand,
While Lazarus is dying at your gate,
Our Fatherland!
VI.
And woe to you, ye poor--
Want and scorn ye must endure;
Yet before ye many noble jewels shine
In the sand.
Ah! they are patriots' tears--even mine--
For Fatherland!
VII.
But the Poet's mission
Is but prophetic vision;
To him the daring heart is granted--
Not the hand.
He may cease--the death-song has been chanted
For Fatherland!
THE KNIGHT'S PLEDGE.
The tedious night at length hath pass'd;
To horse! to horse! we'll ride as fast
As ever bird did fly.
Ha! but the morning air is chill;
Frau Wirthin, one last goblet fill,
We'll drain it ere we die!
Thou youthful grass, why look'st so green?
Soon dyed in blood of mine I ween,
With damask rose thou'lt vie.
The goblet here! with sword in hand
I pledge thee first, my Fatherland,
Oh! blessed for thee to die!
Again our mailed hands raise the cup:
Freedom, to thee we drink it up.
Low may that coward lie
Who fails to pledge, with heart and hand,
The freedom of our glorious Land--
Her Freedom, ere we die!
Our wives--but, ah! the glass is clear,
The cannon thunders--grasp the spear,
We'll pledge them in a sigh.
Now, on the Foe like thunder crash!
We'll scathe them as a lightning flash,
And conquer, though we die!
OPPORTUNITY.[8]
FROM THE ITALIAN OF MACHIAVELLI.
"Chi sei tu, che non par Donna mortale?"
Who art thou, glorious Form, flashing by me,
So beautiful, so Godlike--wilt thou fly me?
Why o'er thy face and bosom fall thy tresses streaming?
And why the airy pinions on thy white feet gleaming?
My name is Opportunity. Pause or rest I never:
Mortals rarely know me till I'm gone for ever.
To seize me passing on to few is granted;
Therefore one foot upon a wheel is planted--
Therefore the light wings bound on them, to make me
So quick in flight that none shall overtake me.
Down fall my tresses, face and bosom veiling,
That none may know me 'till to know be unavailing;
Then, mockingly, I fling aside the veil, and please me
With their vain hope, and vainer haste to seize me.
And who is this dark form that follows thee with weeping,
Ever as a shadow on thy bright track keeping?
Her name's Repentance. When I fleet quickly by them,
She stoppeth weeping, vainly weeping nigh them.
But thou, poor mortal, precious moments wasting,
Idly thou dreamest while I'm onwards hasting.
Wilt thou not wake? Alas! weep now, I've passed for ever.
Weep, for Repentance henceforth leaves thee never.
KING ERICK'S FAITH.
I.
In Upsal's stately Minster, before the altar, stands
The Swedish King, brave Erick, with high uplifted hands--
His royal robes are round him, the crown upon his head,
And thus, before his people, right sovranly he said:--
II.
"God! whoso trusteth in Thee will never rue his trust;
If God the Lord be with us, our foes shall flee like dust."
He spake--from priests and people rose up the answering cry--
"If God the Lord be with us, all danger we defy!"
II.
Scarce through the aisles is dying their mingled voices' din,
A pallid slave, disordered, comes rushing wildly in.
"Now God us aid!--Skalater, the Dane, has come again,
Fast pouring down the mountains with seven hundred men!"
IV.
King Erick heard him calmly, then strong in faith replied--
"What man can fight against us, with God upon our side?"
A second slave comes rushing all breathless as the first--
"The gate is down--Skalater each bar and bolt hath burst!"
V.
King Erick's brow grew paler, but still he looked on high--
"If God the Lord be with us, no danger need we fly!"
In comes another, trembling, but ere he uttered sound
The Danish axes glisten--they cleave him to the ground.
VI.
Then rose a fearful tumult--then rose a wildered cry--
Skalater comes in fury--defenceless we must die--
Skalater comes in fury, with all his pagan hordes,
And Priest, and King, and Altar must fall beneath their swords.
VII.
King Erick's glance grew prouder; he grasp'd the golden rood--
He held it high to Heaven, as on Skalater strode:
Lo! from each wound, the seven, pours forth a thousand rays,
And down to earth Skalater sinks dazzled by the blaze.
VIII.
They're prostrate on their foreheads, the seven hundred Danes,
Praying the God to spare them who guards the Christian fanes;
But Erick and his people lift up the joyful cry--
Our God, the Lord, has conquered; all praise to Him on high!
"FOR NORGE!"
FROM THE DANISH.
I.
For Norway, Freedom's fatherland,
Fill up the wine-cup flowing,
And pledge it, brothers, hand in hand,
To keep the hot blood glowing.
By gyves and fetters rent we swear,
No tyrant's hand shall ever dare
To chain our souls, while swords we bear
To guard old Norway's Freedom!
II.
Again the wine-cup passes round;
We'll drain it to the glory
Of all the Chiefs and names renowned
In Norway's ancient story.
Across our gloomy northern night
Their clashing arms flashed the light,
And won for us, in hero fight,
The prize of Norway's Freedom.
III.
And now to all the brave ones here,
And to the maids that love us--
To men who never knew a fear,
Maids pure as saints above us.
The Norway maidens! fill on high--
The Norsemen, brave to do and die!
And shame to him who passes by
The pledge to Love and Freedom!
IV.
And yet one cup to Norway's land,
Her snow and icy fountains,
The rocks that guard her stormy strand,
The pines upon her mountains!
Aye--three times three fill up the wine,
Pledge mountain, torrent, rock, and pine--
Pledge all that marks the snowy line
Where Norsemen guard their Freedom!
THE FOUNTAIN IN THE FOREST.
FROM LAMARTINE.
I.
Lonely stream of rushing water,
From the rock that gave thee birth,
Hast thou fallen, O Naiad's daughter!
Mingling with the common earth?
Shall Carrara's snowy marble
Never more thy waves inurn;
That with wild and plaintive warble,
By their broken temple mourn?
II.
Nor thy dolphins lying shattered,
Fling their columns up again,
That in radiant glory scattered,
Fell to the earth a jewelled rain.
Must the bending beeches only,
Veil thy desolate decay,
Spreading solemnly and lonely
O'er thy waters, dark as they?
III.
Pallid Autumn-leaves are lying
On thy hollow marble tomb,
And the willows round it sighing,
Wave their bannerets of gloom.
Still thou flowest ever, ever--
Like a loving heart that gives
Smiles and blessings, though it never
Meeteth smile from one who lives.
IV.
Roughest rocks to polished beauty
Changing as thou flowest on;
Such the Poet's heaven-taught duty,
Mid the stony-hearted throng!
Thus thy voice to me hath spoken,
Falling, falling from on high,
As a chord in music, broken
By a gently-murmured sigh.
V.
Ah! what sad yet glorious vision
Of my youth thy scenes unroll,
When I felt the Poet's mission
Kindling first within my soul;
When the passion and the glory
Of the far-off future years,
Shone in radiant light before me,
Through the present dimm'd by tears.
VI.
Can thy stream recall the shadow
Of the spirit-haunted boy,
Who in sunlight, through the meadow,
Roamed in deep and woundrous joy?
Yet bright memory still reaches,
All athwart thy glistening beams,
Where, beneath the shading beeches,
Lay the sunny child of dreams;
VII.
Weaving fancies bright as morning,
With its purple and its gold;
Strong to trample down earth's scorning
With the faith of men of old.
Ready life itself to render
At the shrine to which he bowed,
Knowing not the transient splendour
Gilded but the tempest-cloud.
VIII.
On my heart was still'd the laughter,
Cold the clay around the dead,
When I came in years long after
Here to rest my weary head.
Waked the sad tears fast and warm,
Once again the ancient place,
Till, like droppings of the storm,
They fell heavy on thy face.
IX.
Human voice was none to hear me
In that silence of the tomb;
But thy waters, sobbing near me,
Seemed responsive to the gloom;
And I flung my thoughts all idly
On thy current in a dream,
Like the pale leaves scattered widely
On thy autumn-drifted stream.
X.
Yet 'twas in that mournful hour
Rose the spirit's mighty words;
Never soul could know its power
Until sorrow swept the chords--
Blended with each solemn feature
Of the lonely scenes I trod,
For the sacred love of Nature
Is the Poet's hymn to God.
XI.
Did He hear the words imploring
Of a strong heard tempest-riven?
Did the tears of sorrow pouring
Rise like incense up to Heaven?
Ah! the heart that mutely prayeth
From the ashes of the past,
Finds the strength that ever stayeth,
Of the Holy, round it cast!
XII.
But the leaf in winter fadeth,
And the cygnet drops her plumes:
Time in passing ever shadeth
Human life in deeper glooms;
So, perchance, with white hair streaming,
In my age to thee I'll turn--
Muse on life, with softened dreaming,
By thy broken marble urn.
XIII.