Farewell, beloved and mourn’d! We miss awhile

Thy tender gentleness of voice and smile,

And that bless’d gift of heaven, to cheer us lent--

That thrilling touch, divinely eloquent,

Which breathed the soul of prayer, deep, fervent, high,

Through thy rich strains of sacred harmony.

Yet from those very memories there is born

A soft light, pointing to celestial morn:

Oh! bid it guide us where _thy_ footsteps trode,

To meet at last “the pure in heart” with God!

PROLOGUE TO THE TRAGEDY OF FIESCO,

AS TRANSLATED FROM THE GERMAN OF SCHILLER, BY COLONEL D’AGUILAR, AND

PERFORMED AT THE THEATRE-ROYAL, DUBLIN, DECEMBER 1832.

Too long apart, a bright but sever’d band,

The mighty minstrels of the Rhine’s fair land

Majestic strains, but not for us, had sung--

Moulding to melody a stranger tongue.

Brave hearts leap’d proudly to their words of power,

As a true sword bounds forth in battle’s hour;

Fair eyes rain’d homage o’er th’ impassion’d lays,

In loving tears, more eloquent than praise;

While we, far distant, knew not, dream’d not aught

Of the high marvels by that magic wrought.

But let the barriers of the sea give way,

When mind sweeps onward with a conqueror’s sway!

And let the Rhine divide high souls no more

From mingling on its old heroic shore,

Which, e’en like ours, brave deeds through many an age

Have made the poet’s own free heritage!

To us, though faintly, may a wandering tone

Of the far minstrelsy at last be known;

Sounds which the thrilling pulse, the burning tear,

Have sprung to greet, must not be strangers here.

And if by one, more used on march and heath

To the shrill bugle than the muse’s breath,

With a warm heart the offering hath been brought,

And in a trusting loyalty of thought,

So let it be received!--a soldier’s hand

Bears to the breast of no ungenerous land

A seed of foreign shores. O’er this fair clime,

Since Tara heard the harp of ancient time,

Hath song held empire; then, if not with _fame_,

Let the green isle with kindness bless his aim,

The joy, the power, of kindred song to spread,

Where once that harp “the soul of music shed!”

TO GIULIO REGONDI,

THE BOY GUITARIST.

Blessing and love be round thee still, fair boy!

Never may suffering wake a deeper tone

Than genius now, in its first fearless joy,

Calls forth exulting from the chords which own

Thy fairy touch! Oh! may’st thou ne’er be taught

The power whose fountain is in troubled thought!

For in the light of those confiding eyes,

And on th’ ingenuous calm of that clear brow,

A dower, more precious e’en than genius lies,

A pure mind’s worth, a warm heart’s vernal glow!

God, who hath graced thee thus, O gentle child!

Keep midst the world thy brightness undefiled!

O YE HOURS!

O ye hours! ye sunny hours!

Floating lightly by,

Are ye come with birds and flowers,

Odours and blue sky?

“Yes! we come, again we come,

Through the wood-paths free:

Bringing many a wanderer home,

With the bird and bee.”

O ye hours! ye sunny hours!

Are ye wafting song?

Doth wild music stream in showers

All the groves among?

“Yes! the nightingale is there

While the starlight reigns,

Making young leaves and sweet air

Tremble with her strains.”

O ye hours! ye sunny hours!

In your silent flow,

Ye are mighty, mighty powers!

Bring ye bliss or woe?

“Ask not this--oh! seek not this!

Yield your hearts awhile

To the soft wind’s balmy kiss,

And the heavens’ bright smile.

“Throw not shades of anxious thought

O’er the glowing flowers!

We are come with sunshine fraught,

Question not the hours!”

THE FREED BIRD.

Return, return, my bird!

I have dress’d thy cage with flowers;

’Tis lovely as a violet bank

In the heart of forest bowers.

“I am free, I am free--I return no more!

The weary time of the cage is o’er;

Through the rolling clouds I can soar on high,

The sky is around me--the blue, bright sky!

The hills lie beneath me, spread far and clear,

With their glowing heath-flowers and bounding deer;

I see the waves flash on the sunny shore--

I am free, I am free--I return no more!”

Alas, alas! my bird!

Why seek’st thou to be free?

Wert thou not bless’d in thy little bower,

When thy song breathed naught but glee?

“Did my song of the summer breathe naught but glee?

Did the voice of the captive seem sweet to thee?

--Oh! hadst thou known its deep meaning well,

It had tales of a burning heart to tell!

From a dream of the forest that music sprang,

Through its notes the peal of a torrent rang;

And its dying fall, when it sooth’d thee best,

Sigh’d for wild-flowers and a leafy nest.”

Was it with thee thus, my bird?

Yet thine eye flash’d clear and bright;

I have seen the glance of sudden joy

In its quick and dewy light.

“It flash’d with the fire of a tameless race,

With the soul of the wild-wood, my native place!

With the spirit that panted through heaven to soar:

Woo me not back--I return no more!

My home is high, amidst rocking trees,

My kindred things are the star and the breeze,

And the fount uncheck’d in its lonely play,

And the odours that wander afar away!”

Farewell--farewell, then, bird!

I have call’d on spirits gone,

And it may be they joy’d, like _thee_, to part--

Like thee, that wert all my own!

“If they were captives, and pined like me,

Though love may guard them, they joy’d to be free;

They sprang from the earth with a burst of power,

To the strength of their wings, to their triumph’s hour!

Call them not back when the chain is riven,

When the way of the pinion is all through heaven!

Farewell!--with my song through the clouds I soar,

I pierce the blue skies--I am earth’s no more!”

MARGUERITE OF FRANCE.[401]

“Thou falcon-hearted dove!”--Coleridge.

The Moslem spears were gleaming

Round Damietta’s towers,

Though a Christian banner from her wall

Waved free its lily-flowers.

Ay, proudly did the banner wave,

As queen of earth and air;

But faint hearts throb’d beneath its folds

In anguish and despair.

Deep, deep in Paynim dungeon

Their kingly chieftain lay,

And low on many an Eastern field

Their knighthood’s best array.

’Twas mournful, when at feasts they met,

The wine-cup round to send;

For each that touch’d it silently

Then miss’d a gallant friend!

And mournful was their vigil

On the beleaguer’d wall,

And dark their slumber, dark with dreams

Of slow defeat and fall.

Yet a few hearts of chivalry

Rose high to breast the storm,

And one--of all the loftiest there--

Thrill’d in a woman’s form.

A woman, meekly bending

O’er the slumber of her child,

With her soft, sad eyes of weeping love,

As the Virgin Mother’s mild.

Oh! roughly cradled was thy babe,

Midst the clash of spear and lance,

And a strange, wild bower was thine, young queen!

Fair Marguerite of France!

A dark and vaulted chamber,

Like a scene for wizard-spell,

Deep in the Saracenic gloom

Of the warrior citadel;

And there midst arms the couch was spread,

And with banners curtain’d o’er,

For the daughter of the minstrel-land,

The gay Provençal shore!

For the bright queen of St Louis,

The star of court and hall!

But the deep strength of the gentle heart

Wakes to the tempest’s call!

Her lord was in the Paynim’s hold,

His soul with grief oppress’d,

Yet calmly lay the desolate,

With her young babe on her breast!

There were voices in the city,

Voices of wrath and fear--

“The walls grow weak, the strife is vain--

We will not perish here!

Yield! yield! and let the Crescent gleam

O’er tower and bastion high!

Our distant homes are beautiful--

We stay not here to die!”

They bore those fearful tidings

To the sad queen where she lay--

They told a tale of wavering hearts,

Of treason and dismay:

The blood rush’d through her pearly cheek,

The sparkle to her eye--

“Now call me hither those recreant knights

From the bands of Italy!”[402]

Then through the vaulted chambers

Stern iron footsteps rang;

And heavily the sounding floor

Gave back the sabre’s clang.

They stood around her--steel-clad men,

Moulded for storm and fight,

But they quail’d before the loftier soul

In that pale aspect bright.

Yes! as before the falcon shrinks

The bird of meaner wing,

So shrank they from th’ imperial glance

Of her--that fragile thing!

And her flute-like voice rose clear and high

Through the din of arms around--

Sweet, and yet stirring to the soul,

As a silver clarion’s sound.

“The honour of the Lily

Is in your hands to keep,

And the banner of the Cross, for Him

Who died on Calvary’s steep;

And the city which for Christian prayer

Hath heard the holy bell--

And is it _these_ your hearts would yield

To the godless infidel?

“Then bring me here a breastplate

And a helm, before ye fly,

And I will gird my woman’s form,

And on the ramparts die!

And the boy whom I have borne for woe,

But never for disgrace,

Shall go within mine arms to death

Meet for his royal race.

“Look on him as he slumbers

In the shadow of the lance!

_Then_ go, and with the Cross forsake

The princely babe of France!

But tell your homes ye left _one_ heart

To perish undefiled;

A woman, and a queen, to guard

Her honour and her child!”

Before her words they thrill’d, like leaves

When winds are in the wood;

And a deepening murmur told of men

Roused to a loftier mood.

And her babe awoke to flashing swords,

Unsheath’d in many a hand,

As they gather’d round the helpless One,

Again a noble band!

“We are thy warriors, lady!

True to the Cross and thee;

The spirit of thy kindling words

On every sword shall be!

Rest, with thy fair child on thy breast!

Rest--we will guard thee well!

St Denis for the Lily-flower

And the Christian citadel!”

[401] Queen of St Louis. Whilst besieged by the Turks in Damietta,

during the captivity of the king her husband, she there gave birth to

a son, whom she named Tristan, in commemoration of her misfortunes.

Information being conveyed to her, that the knights intrusted with

the defence of the city had resolved on capitulation, she had them

summoned to her apartment; and, by her heroic words, so wrought upon

their spirits, that they vowed to defend her and the Cross to the last

extremity.

[402] The proposal to capitulate is attributed by the French historian

to the Knights of Pisa.

THE WANDERER.

TRANSLATED FROM THE GERMAN OF SCHMIDT VON LUBECK.

I come down from the hills alone;

Mist wraps the vale, the billows moan!

I wander on in thoughtful care,

For ever asking, sighing--_where?_

The sunshine round seems dim and cold,

And flowers are pale, and life is old,

And words fall soulless on my ear--

Oh, I am still a stranger here!

Where art thou, land, sweet land, mine own!

Still sought for, long’d for, never known?

The land, the land of hope, of light,

Where glow my roses freshly bright,

And where my friends the green paths tread,

And where in beauty rise my dead;

The land that speaks my native speech,

The blessed land I may not reach!

I wander on in thoughtful care,

For ever asking, sighing--_where?_

And spirit-sounds come answering this--

“_There, where thou art not, there is bliss!_”

THE LAST WORDS OF THE LAST WASP OF SCOTLAND,

--A _jeu-d’esprit_ produced at this time, which owed its origin to

a simple remark on the unseasonableness of the weather, made by Mrs

Hemans to Mr Charles Kirkpatrick Sharpe, whom she was in the habit of

seeing at Sir David Wedderburn’s. “It is so little like summer,” she

said, “that I have not even seen a butterfly.” “A butterfly!” retorted

Mr Sharpe, “I have not even seen a wasp!” The next morning, as if

in confutation of this calumny, a wasp made its appearance at Lady

Wedderburn’s breakfast table. Mrs Hemans immediately proposed that it

should be made a prisoner, inclosed in a bottle, and sent to Mr Sharpe:

this was accordingly done, and the piquant missive was acknowledged by

him as follows:--

“SONNET TO A WASP, IN THE MANNER OF MILTON, &c., BUT MUCH SUPERIOR.

Poor insect! rash as rare!--Thy sovereign,[403] sure,

Hath driven thee to Siberia in disgrace--

Else what delusion could thy sense allure

To buzz and sting in this unwholesome place,

Where e’en the hornet’s hoarser, and the race

Of filmy wing are feeble? Honey here

(Scarce as its rhyme) thou find’st not. Ah, beware

Thy golden mail, to starved Arachne dear![404]

Though fingers famed, that thrill the immortal lyre,

Have pent thee up, a second Asmodeus,

I wail thy doom--I warm thee by the fire,

And blab our secrets--do not thou betray us!

I give thee liberty, I give thee breath,

To fly from Athens, Eurus, Doctors, Death!!”

To this Mrs Hemans returned the following rejoinder:--

Sooth’d by the strain, the Wasp thus made reply--

(The first, last time he spoke not waspishly)--

“Too late, kind Poet! comes thine aid, thy song,

To aught first starved, then bottled up so long.

Yet, for the warmth of this thy genial fire,

Take a Wasp’s blessing ere his race expire:--

Never may provost’s foot find entrance here!

Never may bailie’s voice invade thine ear!

Never may housemaid wipe the verd antique

From coin of thine--Assyrian, Celt, or Greek!

Never may Eurus cross thy path!--to thee

May winds and wynds[405] alike propitious be!

And when thou diest--(live a thousand years!)--

May friends fill classic bottles[406] with their tears!

I can no more--receive my parting gasp!--

Bid Scotland mourn the last, last lingering Wasp!”

[403] Beelzebub is the king of flies.

[404] A beautiful allusion to our starving weavers.

[405] Alluding to antiquarian visits to these renowned closes.

[406] Referring to certain precious lachrymatories in the possession of

Mr Sharpe.

TO CAROLINE.

When thy bounding step I hear,

And thy soft voice, low and clear;

When thy glancing eyes I meet,

In their sudden laughter sweet--

_Thou_, I dream, wert surely born

For a path by care unworn!

Thou must be a shelter’d flower,

With but sunshine for thy dower.

Ah, fair child! not e’en for thee

May this lot of brightness be;

Yet, if grief must add a tone

To thine accents now unknown;

If within that cloudless eye

Sadder thought must one day lie,

Still I trust the signs which tell

On thy life a light shall dwell,

Light--thy gentle spirit’s own,

From _within_ around thee thrown.

THE FLOWER OF THE DESERT.

“Who does not recollect the exultation of Valiant over a flower in

the torrid wastes of Africa? The affecting mention of the influence

of a flower upon the mind, by Mungo Park, in a time of suffering and

despondency, in the heart of the same savage country, is familiar to

every one.”--Howitt’s “Book of the Seasons.”

Why art thou thus in thy beauty cast,

O lonely, loneliest flower!

Where the sound of song hath never pass’d

From human hearth or bower?

I pity thee, for thy heart of love,

For that glowing heart, that fain

Would breathe out joy with each wind to rove--

In vain, lost thing! in vain!

I pity thee, for thy wasted bloom,

For thy glory’s fleeting hour,

For the desert place, thy living tomb--

O lonely, loneliest flower!

I said--but a low voice made reply,

“Lament not for the flower!

Though its blossoms all unmark’d must die,

They have had a glorious dower.

“Though it bloom afar from the minstrel’s way,

And the paths where lovers tread;

Yet strength and hope, like an inborn day,

By its odours have been shed.

“Yes! dews more sweet than ever fell

O’er island of the blest,

Were shaken forth, from its purple bell,

On a suffering human breast.

“A wanderer came, as a stricken deer,

O’er the waste of burning sand,

He bore the wound of an Arab spear,

He fled from a ruthless band.

“And dreams of home in a troubled tide

Swept o’er his darkening eye,

As he lay down by the fountain-side,

In his mute despair to die.

“But his glance was caught by the desert’s flower,

The precious boon of heaven;

And sudden hope, like a vernal shower,

To his fainting heart was given.

“For the bright flower spoke of One above--

Of the presence felt to brood,

With a spirit of pervading love,

O’er the wildest solitude.

“Oh! the seed was thrown those wastes among

In a bless’d and gracious hour,

For the lorn one rose in heart made strong

By the lonely, loneliest flower!”

CRITIQUE BY PROFESSOR NORTON.

“The [American] collection of Mrs Hemans’ Miscellaneous Poems opens

with verses in honour of the Pilgrim Fathers. She has celebrated

with solemnity and truth the circumstances which gave sublimity to

the glorious scene of their landing; and their descendants cannot be

but pleased to see the devotedness displayed by them introduced into

poetry, and incorporated among the bright examples held up by the

inventive as well as the historic muse for the admiration of mankind.

“Freedom, not licentiousness--religious freedom, not the absence of

religious rites--was the object for which the fathers came. An air

of earnestness was thus originally imparted to the character of the

country, and succeeding ages have not worn it away. Though it may suit

the humour of moralisers to declaim against the degeneracy of the

times, we believe that the country has of late years made advances

in moral worth. We infer this from the more general diffusion of

intelligence, and the higher standard of learning; from the spirit

of healthy action pervading all classes; from the diminished number

of crimes; from the general security of property; from the rapid

multiplication of Sabbath schools, than which no discovery of our age

has been more important for the moral education of the people; from

the philanthropy which seeks for the sources of vice, and restrains it

by removing its causes; from the active and compassionate benevolence,

which does not allow itself to consider any class so vicious or so

degraded as to have forfeited its claim to humane attention--which

seeks and relieves misery wherever it is concealed, and, embracing

every continent in its regard, has its messengers in the remotest

regions of the world. Religious freedom is the last right which,

even in our days, the inhabitants of this country would surrender.

It would be easier to drive them from their houses and their lands,

than to take from them the liberty of worshipping God according to the

dictates of conscience. There is no general assertion of this right,

and no energetic display of zeal in maintaining it, solely because it

is menaced by no alarming danger.

“In a state of society like ours, there may be little room for the

exercise of those arts of which it is the chief aim to amuse and

delight; and yet attention is by no means confined to those objects

which are directly connected with the advancement of personal or

public wealth. For the costly luxuries of life, and even for its

elegant pleasures, there may as yet be little room; and still the

morality of the nation be far from forming itself on the new system of

morals devised by our political economists. There has been no age--we

assert it with confidence--there has been no people, where the efforts

of mind, directly connected with the preservation of elevated feeling

and religious earnestness, are more valued than they are by the better

part of our own community. We can no support, or we hold it not best

to support, an expensive religious establishment; but every where the

voice of religious homage and instruction is heard: we cannot set

apart large estates to give splendour to literary distinction; but you

will hardly find a retired nook, where only a few families seek their

shelter near each other, so destitute, that the elements of knowledge

are not freely taught: we cannot establish galleries for the various

works of the arts of design; but the eye that can see the beauties

of nature is common with us, and the recital of deeds of high worth

meets with ready listeners. The luxuries, which are for display, are

exceedingly little known; but the highest value is set on every effort

of mind connected with the investigation of truth, or the nurture of

generous and elevated sentiments.

“Where the public mind had been thus formed, the poetry of Mrs Hemans

was sure to find admirers. The exercise of genius, if connected with

no respect for virtue, might have remained unnoticed; the theory,

which treats of beauty as of something independent of moral effect, is

still without advocates among us. It has thus far been an undisputed

axiom that, if a production is indecent or immoral, it for that very

reason cannot claim to be considered beautiful.

“We do not go so far as to assert, that there can be no merit in works

of which the general tendency is immoral; but the merit, if there is

any, does not lie in the immoral part, in the charm that is thrown

round vice, but rather in an occasional gleam of better principles,

in nature occasionally making her voice heard above the din of the

dissolute, in the pictures of loveliness and moral truth that shine

out through the darkness. Amidst all the horrors and depravity of

superstition, the strange and the abominable vagaries of the human

imagination, exercised on religion in heathenish ignorance, the

observing mind may yet recognise the spirit that connects man with

a better world. And so it is with poetry: amidst all the confusion

which is manifest where the heavenly gift is under the control of a

corrupted judgment, something of its native lustre will still appear.

When we see the poet of transcendent genius delineating any thing but

the higher part of our nature; when we observe how, after borrowing

fiendish colours, he describes states of mind with which devils only

should have sympathy, rails at human nature in a style which spiteful

misanthropy alone can approve, or gives descriptions of sensuality

fit only for the revels of Comus; when we see him ‘hurried down the

adulterate age, adding pollutions of his own,’ we can have little to

say to excuse or to justify an admiration of poetic talent, till we

are reconciled to human nature and the muse by the pure lustre of

better-guided minds.

“In what view of the subject can it be held a proper design of poetry

to render man hateful to himself? How can it delight or instruct us to

see our fellow-men ranged under the two classes of designing villains

and weak dupes? Or what sources of poetic inspiration are left, if

all the relations of social life are held up to derision, and every

generous impulse scorned as the result of deluded confidence?

“To demand that what is called _poetical justice_ should be found

in every performance may be unreasonable, since the events of life

do not warrant us in expecting it; but we may demand what is of

much more importance, _moral justice_--a consistency of character,

a conformity of the mind to its career of action. It may not be

inconsistent with reality, though it is with probability, that an

unprincipled miscreant, governing himself in his gratifications by

the narrowest selfishness, should be successful in his pursuits;

but it is unnatural and false to give to such a nature any of the

attributes of goodness. Vice is essentially mean and low; it has no

dignity, no courage, no beauty; and while the poet can never impart

to a production, tending to promote vice, the power and interest

which belong to the worthy delineation of honourable actions, he can

never invest a false heart with the noble qualities of a generous

one. Observe in this respect the manner of the dramatic poet, who

is acknowledged to have delineated the passions with the greatest

fidelity. Shakspeare describes the mind as gradually sinking under

the influence of the master-passion. It stamps itself on the whole

soul, and obliterates all the finer traces in which humanity had

written a witness of gentler qualities. Macbeth is a moral picture of

terrific sublimity, and an illustration of that _moral_ justice which

we contend should never be wanting. The one strong passion moulds the

character, and blasts every tender sentiment. When once Othello is

jealous, his judgment is gone; the selfishness of Richard leads to

wanton cruelty. In one of Shakspeare’s tragedies, not a crime, but

a fault is the foundation of the moral interest. Here, too, he is

consistent; and the irresolution of Hamlet leaves his mind without

energy, and his contending passions without terror. We might explain

our views by examples from the comedies of the great dramatist, but

Macbeth and Richard furnish the clearest illustration of them. And it

is in such exhibitions of the power of vice to degrade, that ‘gorgeous

tragedy’ performs her severest office; lifting up the pall which hides

the ghastliness of unprincipled depravity, and showing us, where vice

gains control, the features, that before may have been resplendent

with loveliness, marred and despoiled of all their sweet expression.

“There can, then, be no more hideous fault in a literary work than

profligacy. Levity is next in order. The disposition to trifle

with topics of the highest moment--to apply the levelling principle

to the emotions of the human mind, to hold up to ridicule the

exalted thoughts and kindling aspirations of which human nature

is capable--can at best charm those only who have failed to enter

the true avenues to happiness. Such works may be popular, because

the character of the public mind may for a season be corrupt. A

literature, consisting of such works, is the greatest evil with which

a nation can be cursed. National poverty is nothing in comparison, for

poverty is remedied by prudent enterprise; but such works poison the

life-blood of the people, the moral vigour, which alone can strive for

liberty and honour. The apologists for this class of compositions,

in which Voltaire and La Fontaine are the greatest masters, defend

it on the ground that it is well adapted to give pleasure to minds

which have been accustomed to it, and that foreigners need only a

different moral education to be able to enjoy it. Now, without wasting

a word on the enormity of defending what is intrinsically sensual,

we reply merely on the score of effect. He who adapts his inventions

to a particular state of society, can please no further; he depends

on circumstances for his popularity; he does not appeal to man, but

to accidental habits, a fleeting state of the public mind; he is

the poet, not of nature, but of a transient fashion. The attraction

which comes from the strangeness or novelty of the manner is of very

little value. On the most brilliant night a meteor would be followed

by all eyes for a while; and why? Because it is as evanescent as

bright; we must gaze at once, or it will be too late. Yet the mind

soon returns to the contemplation of the eternal stars which light

up the heavens with enduring lustre. Any popularity, obtained by

gratifying a perverse taste, is essentially transitory; while all that

is benevolent and social, all that favours truth and goodness, is of

universal and perpetual interest.

“These are but plain inferences from facts in the history of

literature. The plays of Dryden were written to please an audience

of a vicious taste; they may have been received with boisterous

applause, but nobody likes them now, though in their form not unsuited

to the stage; and as for the grossest scenes, any merit in the

invention is never spoken of as compensating for their abominable

coarseness. On the other hand, Milton’s Comus, though in its form

entirely antiquated, has the beautiful freshness of everlasting youth,

delights the ardent admirer of good poetry, and is always showing

new attractions to the careful critic. And where lies this immense

difference in the lasting effect of these two writers? Dryden, it is

true, fell far short of Milton in poetic genius; but the true cause

lies in this,--virtue, which is the soul of song, is wanting in the

plays of Dryden, while the poetry of Milton bears the impress of his

own magnanimity.

“We are contending for no sickly morality: we would shut out the

poet from the haunts of libertinism, not from the haunts of men; we

would have him associate with his fellows, hold intercourse with

the great minds that light up the gloom of ages, and share in the

best impulses of human nature, and not, under the influence of a too

delicate sensibility, treat only of the harmless flowers, and the

innocent birds, and the exhilarating charm of agreeable scenery;

and still less, in the spirit of a sullen misanthropy, delight in

obscure abstractions, find comfort only in solitude, and rejoice, or

pretend to rejoice, chiefly in the mountains, and the ocean, and the

low places of the earth. Their pursuit of moral beauty does not lead

to an affected admiration, or an improper idolatry of the visible

creation. The genius of the poet can impart a portion of its eloquence

to the external world, and elevate creation by connecting it with

moral associations. But descriptions, except of scenes where moral

beings are to move, possess little interest. If landscape-painting

is an inferior branch of that art, though the splendid works of

Claude demand praise without measure, landscape poetry is a kind of

affectation, an unnatural result of excessive refinement. Description

is important, but subordinate. The external world, with all its

gorgeousness and varied forms of beauty; the cataract, ‘with its glory

of reflected light;’ the forests, as they wave in the brilliancy of

early summer; the flowers, that are crowded in gardens, or waste their

sweetness on the desert air; ‘the noise of the hidden brook, that all

night long in the leafy months sings its quiet tune to the sleeping

woods;’ the ocean, whether reposing in tranquil majesty or tossed by

the tempest; night, when the heavens are glittering with the splendour

of the constellations; morning, when one perfect splendour beams in

the sky, and is reflected in a thousand colours from the guttering

earth--these are not the sublimest themes that awaken the energies of

the muse. It is mind, and mind only, which can exhibit the highest

beauty. The hymn of martyrdom, the strength by which the patriot girds

himself to die, ‘God’s breath in the soul of man,’ the unconquerable

power of generous passion, the hopes and sorrows of humanity--love,

devotion, and all the deep and bright springs of affection--these are

higher themes of permanent interest and exalted character.

“Here, too, we find an analogy between poetic and religious feeling.

The image of God is to be sought for, not so much in the outward world

as in the mind. No combination of inanimate matter can equal the

sublimity and wonderful power of life. To impart organic life, with

the power of reproduction, is a brighter display of Omnipotence than

any arrangement of the inanimate, material world. A swarm of flies,

as through their short existence they buzz and wheel in the summer’s

sun, offer as clear, and, to some minds, a clearer demonstration of

Omnipotence, than the everlasting, but silent, courses of the planets.

But moral life is the highest creation of divine power. We, at least,

know and can conceive of none higher. We are, therefore, not to look

for God among the rivers and the forests, nor yet among the planets

and the stars, but in the hearts of men; he is not the God of the

dead, but of the living.

“Those who accord with the general views which we have here

maintained, will be prepared to express unqualified approbation of the

literary career of Mrs Hemans. Had her writings been merely harmless,

we should not have entered into an analysis of them; but the moral

charm which is spread over them is so peculiar, so full of nature, and

truth, and deep feeling, that her productions claim at once the praise

of exquisite purity and poetic excellence. She adds the dignity of her

sex to a high sense of the duties of a poet; she writes with buoyancy,

yet with earnestness; her poems bear the impress of a character worthy

of admiration. In the pursuit of literary renown, she never forgets

what is due to feminine reserve. We perceive a mind endowed with

powers to aspire, and are still further pleased to find no unsatisfied

cravings, no passionate pursuit of remote objects, but high

endowments, graced by contentment. There is plainly the consciousness

of the various sorrow to which life is exposed, and with it the spirit

of resignation. She sets before herself a clear and exalted idea of

what a female writer should be, and is on the way to realise her own

idea of excellence. Living in domestic retirement, in a beautiful

part of Wales, it is her own feelings and her own experience which

she communicates to us. We cannot illustrate our meaning better, than

by introducing our readers at once to Mrs Hemans herself, as she

describes to us the occupations of a day.

AN HOUR OF ROMANCE.

‘There were thick leaves above me and around,

And low sweet sighs, like those of childhood’s sleep,

Amidst their dimness, and a fitful sound

As of soft showers on water,’ etc. etc.

“The poetry is here as beautiful as the scene described is quiet

and pleasing. It forms an amiable picture of the occupations of a

contemplative mind. The language, versification, and imagery, are of

great merit, the beauties of nature described by a careful observer;

the English scene is placed in happy contrast with the Eastern, and

the dream of romance pleasantly disturbed by the cheerfulness of life.

But we make but sorry work at commenting on what the reader must feel.

* * * * *

“It has been said that religion can never be made a subject of

interest in poetry. The position is a false one, refuted by the close

alliance between poetic inspiration and sacred enthusiasm. Irreligion

has certainly no place in poetry. There may have been Atheist

philosophers; an Atheist poet is an impossibility. The poet may doubt

and reason like Hamlet, but the moment he acquiesces in unbelief,

there is an end to the magic of poetry. Imagination can no longer

throw lively hues over the creation: the forests cease to be haunted;

the sea, and the air, and the heavens, to teem with life. The highest

interest, we think, attaches to Mrs Hemans’s writings, from the spirit

of Christianity which pervades them.

“The poetry of our author is tranquillising in its character, calm

and serene. We beg pardon of the lovers of excitement, but we are

seriously led to take notice of this quality as of a high merit. A

great deal has been said of the sublimity of directing the passions;

we hold it a much more difficult and a much more elevated task,

to restrain them. It may be sublime to ride on the whirlwind, and

direct the storm; but it seems to us still more sublime to appease

the storm, and still the whirlwind. Virgil, no mean authority, was

of this opinion. The French are reported to be particularly fond of

effect and display; but we remember to have read that, even in the

splendid days of Napoleon, the simplicity of vocal music surpassed

in effect the magnificence of a numerous band. It was when Napoleon

was crowned Emperor in the Cathedral of Notre Dame. The Parisians,

wishing to distinguish the occasion by some novel exhibition, and to

produce a great effect, filled the orchestra with eighty harps, which

were all struck together with unequalled skill. The fashionable world

was in raptures. Presently the Pope entered, and some thirty of his

singers, who came with him from Rome, received him with the powerful

_Tu es Petrus_ of the old-fashioned Scarlatti; and the simple majesty

of the air, assisted by no instruments, annihilated in a moment the

whole effect of the preceding fanfaronade. And in literature the

public taste seems to us already weary of those productions which

aim at astonishing and producing a great effect, and there is now an

opportunity of pleasing by the serenity of contemplative excellence.

“It is the high praise of Mrs Hemans’s poetry that it is feminine. The

sex may well be pleased with her productions, for they could hardly

have a better representative in the career of letters. All her works

seem to come from the heart, to be natural and true. The poet can

give us nothing but the form under which the objects he describes

present themselves to his own mind. That form must be noble, or it is

not worthy of our consideration; it must be consistent, or it will

fail to be true. Now, in the writings of Mrs Hemans, we are shown how

life and its concerns appear to woman, and hear a mother intrusting

to verse her experience and observation. So, in ‘The Hebrew Mother,’

‘the spring-tide of nature’ swells high as she parts from her son, on

devoting him to the service of the Temple:--

‘Alas, my boy! thy gentle grasp is on me,

The bright tears quiver in thy pleading eyes;

And now fond thoughts arise,

And silver cords again to earth have won me,

And like a vine thou claspest my full heart--

How shall I hence depart?

‘And oh! the home whence thy bright smile hath parted,

Will it not seem as if the sunny day

Turn’d from its door away?

While through its chambers wandering, weary-hearted,

I languish for thy voice, which past me still

Went like a singing rill?

‘I give thee to thy God--the God that gave thee,

A well-spring of deep gladness to my heart!

And, precious as thou art,

And pure as dew of Hermon, He shall have thee,

My own, my beautiful, my undefiled!

And thou shalt be His child.

‘Therefore, farewell! I go--my soul may fail me,

As the hart panteth for the water-brooks,

Yearning for thy sweet looks.

But thou, my first-born! droop not, nor bewail me;

Thou in the Shadow of the Rock shalt dwell,

The Rock of Strength.--Farewell!’

“The same high feeling of maternal duty and love inspires the little

poem, ‘The Wreck,’ which every one has read. ‘The Lady of the Castle,’

‘The Grave of Körner,’ ‘The Graves of a Household,’ are all on

domestic subjects. But why do we allude to poems which are in every

one’s hands? The mother’s voice breaks out again in the piece entitled

‘Elysium.’ Children, according to the heathen mythology, were banished

to the infernal regions, and religious faith had no consolation for a

mourning parent.

‘Calm, on its leaf-strewn bier,

Unlike a gift of Nature to Decay,

Too roselike still, too beautiful, too dear,

The child at rest before its mother lay;

E’en so to pass away,

With its bright smile! Elysium! what wert thou

To her who wept o’er that young slumberer’s brow?

‘Thou hadst no home, green land!

For the fair creature from her bosom gone,

With life’s fresh flowers just opening in its hand,

And all the lovely thoughts and dreams unknown,

Which in its clear eye shone

Like spring’s first wakening! But that light was past--

--Where went the dewdrop swept before the blast?

‘Not where thy soft winds play’d,

Not where thy waters lay in glassy sleep!--

Fade with thy bowers, thou land of visions! fade!

From thee no voice came o’er the gloomy deep,

And bade man cease to weep!

Fade, with the amaranth plain, the myrtle grove,

Which could not yield one hope to sorrowing love!

‘For the most loved are they

Of whom Fame speaks not with her clarion voice

In regal halls! The shades o’erhang their way;

The vale, with its deep fountains, is their choice,

And gentle hearts rejoice

Around their steps; till silently they die,

As a stream shrinks from summer’s burning eye.

‘And the world knows not then--

Not then, nor ever, what pure thoughts are fled!

Yet these are they, who on the souls of men

Come back, when night her folding veil hath spread,

The long-remember’d dead!

But not with thee might aught save glory dwell--

Fade, fade away, thou shore of asphodel!’

“And the same feelings of a woman and mother dictated ‘The Evening

Prayer at a Girls’ School,’--a poem which merits to be considered in

connexion with Gray’s ‘Ode on a Distant Prospect of Eton College.’

‘O joyous creatures! that will sink to rest,

Lightly, when those pure orisons are done,” etc.

“Of other spirited, and lively, and pathetic short poems of Mrs Hemans,

which form some of the brightest ornaments of the lyric poetry of the

language, we take no particular notice--for in what part of the United

States are they not known? So general has been the attention to those

of her pieces adapted to the purposes of a newspaper, we hardly fear

to assert that, throughout a great part of this country, there is not

a family of the middling class in which some of them have not been

read. The praise which was not sparingly bestowed upon her, when her

shorter first productions became generally known among us, has been

often repeated on a careful examination of her works; and could we

hope that our remarks might one day fall under her eye, we should hope

she would not be indifferent to the good wishes which are offered her

from America, but feel herself cheered and encouraged in her efforts,

by the prospect of an enlarged and almost unlimited field of useful

influence, opened to her among the descendants of her country in an

independent land. The ocean divides us from the fashions as well as the

commotions of Europe. The voice of America, deciding on the literature

of England, resembles the voice of posterity more nearly than any thing

else, that is contemporaneous, can do. We believe that the general

attention which has been given to Mrs Hemans’s works among us, may be

regarded as a pledge that they will not be received with indifference

by posterity.”--_North American Review._

* * * * *

[At the conclusion of “The Records” we gave the opinions of one of

our most celebrated Cisatlantic critics regarding the poetry of Mrs

Hemans, and we think it but right to show now (as has just been

done) the general estimate in which her genius is held in America,

as evidenced by the _North American Review_, the best-known and most

widely-circulated of the Transatlantic periodicals.

Judging from the state of feeling in America--from the ideas of

practical philosophy entertained there--and from the pervading

utilitarian bias of its prose literature, we must confess that, had

we been asked to name any votary of the British muse more likely than

another to be appreciated in that country, we should have had very

little hesitation in fixing upon Crabbe. And why? Because his poetry

is characterised by a stern adherence to the realities of life, as

contradistinguished from romance, and because his characters and

situations are taken from existing aspects of society, appreciable by

all. In this theory it appears we are wrong; and Professor Norton has

here done his best to account for it. We are most given to admire what

is least attainable; and therefore it is that the spiritual glow which

Mrs Hemans has blent with human sentiment--the imaginative beauty with

which she has clothed “the shows of earth and heaven,”--and the leaven

of romance which she has infused into the communications of daily

life, have, as _lucus a non lucendo_, been elements of, and not the

impediments to, her American popularity.]

HYMNS FOR CHILDHOOD.

[We are quite aware that the _Hymns for Childhood_ were written at

a much earlier period than that which we have here chronologically

assigned them. They had been sent to Professor Norton for the use

of his children, and were printed under his auspices at Boston, New

England, so early as 1827. Not, however, having had an opportunity of

seeing the original American edition, we are in the dark as to whether

the hymns in it were the same in number as those published in Dublin

under the eye of the author, or whether she afterwards revised and

altered them. It has been therefore judged best to place them here in

the order of publication, and as they appeared in this country under

the supervision of Mrs Hemans herself. The hymns (as they deserved to

be) were very favourably received by the public, and it is only to

be regretted that Mrs Hemans did not from time to time add to their

number. She thus wrote to Mrs Lawrence with a presentation copy of

her little book:--“I send you the fairy volume of hymns. You will

immediately see how unpretending a little book it is; but it will give

you pleasure to know that it has been received in the most gratifying

manner, having seemed (as a playful child might have done) to win

criticism into a benignant smile.”--_Vide_ Letter to Mrs Lawrence,

_Recollections_, p. 354.]

INTRODUCTORY VERSES.

Oh! blest art thou whose steps may rove

Through the green paths of vale and grove,

Or, leaving all their charms below,

Climb the wild mountain’s airy brow;

And gaze afar o’er cultured plains,

And cities with their stately fanes,

And forests, that beneath thee lie,

And ocean mingling with the sky.

For man can show thee naught so fair

As Nature’s varied marvels there;

And if thy pure and artless breast

Can feel their grandeur, thou art blest!

For thee the stream in beauty flows,

For thee the gale of summer blows;

And, in deep glen and wood-walk free,

Voices of joy still breathe for thee.

But happier far, if then thy soul

Can soar to Him who made the whole.

If to thine eye the simplest flower

Portray His bounty and His power!

If, in whate’er is bright or grand,

Thy mind can trace His viewless hand;

If Nature’s music bid thee raise

_Thy_ song of gratitude and praise;

If heaven and earth, with beauty fraught,

Lead to His throne thy raptured thought;

If there thou lovest _His_ love to read--

Then, wanderer! thou art blest indeed.

THE RAINBOW.

“I do set my bow in the cloud, and it shall be for a token of a

covenant between me and the earth.”--Genesis, ix. 13.

Soft falls the mild, reviving shower

From April’s changeful skies,

And rain-drops bend each trembling flower

They tinge with richer dyes.

Soon shall their genial influence call

A thousand buds to day,

Which, waiting but that balmy fall,

In hidden beauty lay.

E’en now full many a blossom’s bell

With fragrance fills the shade;

And verdure clothes each grassy dell,

In brighter tints array’d.

But mark! what arch of varied hue

From heaven to earth is bow’d?

Haste, ere it vanish!--haste to view

The rainbow in the cloud!

How bright its glory! there behold

The emerald’s verdant rays,

The topaz blends its hue of gold

With the deep ruby’s blaze.

Yet not alone to charm thy sight

Was given the vision fair--

Gaze on that arch of colour’d light,

And read God’s mercy there.

It tells us that the mighty deep,

Fast by the Eternal chain’d,

No more o’er earth’s domain shall sweep,

Awful and unrestrain’d.

It tells that seasons, heat and cold,

Fix’d by his sovereign will,

Shall, in their course, bid man behold

Seed-time and harvest still;

That still the flower shall deck the field,

When vernal zephyrs blow,

That still the vine its fruit shall yield,

When autumn sunbeams glow.

Then, child of that fair earth! which yet

Smiles with each charm endow’d,

Bless thou His name, whose mercy set

The rainbow in the cloud!

THE SUN.

The Sun comes forth: each mountain-height

Glows with a tinge of rosy light,

And flowers that slumber’d through the night

Their dewy leaves unfold;

A flood of splendour bursts on high,

And ocean’s breast gives back a sky

All steep’d in molten gold.

Oh! thou art glorious, orb of day!

Exulting nations hail thy ray,

Creation swells a choral lay

To welcome thy return;

From thee all nature draws her hues,

Thy beams the insect’s wing suffuse,

And in the diamond burn.

Yet must thou fade! When earth and heaven

By fire and tempest shall be riven,

Thou, from thy sphere of radiance driven,

O Sun! must fall at last;

Another heaven, another earth,

New power, new glory shall have birth,

When all we see is past.

But He who gave the word of might,

“Let there be light,”--and there was light,

Who bade thee chase the gloom of night,

And beam the world to bless;

For ever bright, for ever pure,

Alone unchanging shall endure,

The Sun of Righteousness!

THE RIVERS.

Go! trace th’ unnumber’d streams, o’er earth

That wind their devious course,

That draw from Alpine heights their birth,

Deep vale, or cavern-source.

Some by majestic cities glide,

Proud scenes of man’s renown;

Some lead their solitary tide

Where pathless forests frown.

Some calmly roll o’er golden sands,

Where Afric’s deserts lie;

Or spread, to clothe rejoicing lands

With rich fertility.

These bear the bark, whose stately sail

Exulting seems to swell;

While these, scarce rippled by a gale,

Sleep in the lonely dell.

Yet on, alike, though swift or slow

Their various waves may sweep,

Through cities or through shades, they flow

To the same boundless deep.

Oh! thus, whate’er our path of life,

Through sunshine or through gloom,

Through scenes of quiet or of strife,

Its end is still the tomb.

The chief whose mighty deeds we hail,

The monarch throned on high,

The peasant in his native vale--

All journey on to die!

But if _Thy_ guardian care, my God!

The pilgrim’s course attend,

I will not fear the dark abode

To which my footsteps bend.

For thence thine all-redeeming Son,

Who died the world to save,

In light, in triumph, rose, and won

The victory from the grave!

THE STARS.

“The heavens declare the glory of God, and the firmament showeth his

handy-work.”--Psalm xix. 1.

No cloud obscures the summer sky,

The moon in brightness walks on high;

And, set in azure, every star

Shines, a pure gem of heaven, afar!

Child of the earth! oh, lift thy glance

To yon bright firmament’s expanse;

The glories of its realm explore,

And gaze, and wonder, and adore!

Doth it not speak to every sense

The marvels of Omnipotence?

Seest thou not there the Almighty name

Inscribed in characters of flame?

Count o’er these lamps of quenchless light,

That sparkle through the shades of night:

Behold them! can a mortal boast

To number that celestial host?

Mark well each little star, whose rays

In distant splendour meet thy gaze:

Each is a world, by Him sustain’d

Who from eternity hath reign’d.

Each, kindled not for earth alone,

Hath circling planets of its own,

And beings, whose existence springs

From Him, the all-powerful King of kings.

Haply, those glorious beings know

No stain of guilt, or tear of woe;

But, raising still the adoring voice,

For ever in their God rejoice.

What then art _thou_, O child of clay!

Amid creation’s grandeur, say?

E’en as an insect on the breeze,

E’en as a dew-drop, lost in seas!

Yet fear thou not! The sovereign hand

Which spread the ocean and the land,

And hung the rolling spheres in air,

Hath, e’en for thee, a Father’s care!

Be thou at peace! The all-seeing Eye,

Pervading earth, and air, and sky--

The searching glance which none may flee,

Is still in mercy turn’d on thee.

THE OCEAN.

“They that go down to the sea in ships, that do business in great

waters; these see the works of the Lord, and his wonders in the

deep.”--Psalm cvii. 23, 24.

He that in venturous barks hath been

A wanderer on the deep,

Can tell of many an awful scene,

Where storms for ever sweep.

For many a fair, majestic sight

Hath met his wandering eye,

Beneath the streaming northern light,

Or blaze of Indian sky.

Go! ask him of the whirlpool’s roar,

Whose echoing thunder peals

Loud, as if rush’d along the shore

An army’s chariot-wheels;

Of icebergs, floating o’er the main,

Or fix’d upon the coast,

Like glittering citadel or fane,

Mid the bright realms of frost;

Of coral rocks from waves below

In steep ascent that tower,

And, fraught with peril, daily grow,

Form’d by an insect’s power;

Of sea-fires, which at dead of night

Shine o’er the tides afar,

And make the expanse of ocean bright,

As heaven with many a star.

O God! thy name _they_ well may praise

Who to the deep go down,

And trace the wonders of thy ways

Where rocks and billows frown!

If glorious be that awful deep

No human power can bind,

What then art _Thou_, who bid’st it keep

Within its bounds confined!

Let heaven and earth in praise unite!

Eternal praise to Thee,

Whose word can rouse the tempest’s might,

Or still the raging sea!

THE THUNDER-STORM.

Deep, fiery clouds o’ercast the sky,

Dead stillness reigns in air;

There is not e’en a breeze, on high

The gossamer to bear.

The woods are hush’d, the waves at rest,

The lake is dark and still,

Reflecting on its shadowy breast

Each form of rock and hill.

The lime-leaf waves not in the grove,

The rose-tree in the bower;

The birds have ceased their songs of love,

Awed by the threatening hour.

’Tis noon;--yet nature’s calm profound

Seems as at midnight deep:

But hark! what peal of awful sound

Breaks on creation’s sleep?

The thunder-burst!--its rolling might

Seems the firm hills to shake;

And in terrific splendour bright

The gather’d lightnings break.

Yet fear not, shrink not thou, my child!

Though by the bolt’s descent

Were the tall cliffs in ruins piled,

And the wide forests rent.

Doth not thy God behold thee still,

With all-surveying eye?

Doth not his power all nature fill,

Around, beneath, on high?

Know, hadst thou eagle-pinions free,

To track the realms of air,

Thou couldst not reach a spot, where He

Would not be with thee there!

In the wide city’s peopled towers,

On the vast ocean’s plains,

Midst the deep woodland’s loneliest bowers,

Alike the Almighty reigns!

Then fear not, though the angry sky

A thousand darts should cast;

Why should we tremble, e’en to die,

And be with _Him_ at last?

THE BIRDS.

“Are not five sparrows sold for two farthings; and not one of them is

forgotten before God?”--St Luke, xii. 6.

Tribes of the air! whose favour’d race

May wander through the realms of space,

Free guests of earth and sky;

In form, in plumage, and in song,

What gifts of nature mark your throng

With bright variety!

Nor differ less your forms, your flight,

Your dwellings hid from hostile sight,

And the wild haunts ye love;

Birds of the gentle beak![407] how dear

Your wood-note to the wanderer’s ear,

In shadowy vale or grove!

Far other scenes, remote, sublime,

Where swain or hunter may not climb

The mountain-eagle seeks;

Alone he reigns a monarch there,

Scarce will the chamois’ footstep dare

Ascend his Alpine peaks.

Others there are that make their home

Where the white billows roar and foam

Around the o’erhanging rock;

Fearless they skim the angry wave,

Or, shelter’d in their sea-beat cave,

The tempest’s fury mock.

Where Afric’s burning realm expands,

The ostrich haunts the desert-sands,

Parch’d by the blaze of day;

The swan, where northern rivers glide,

Through the tall reeds that fringe their tide

Floats graceful on her way.

The condor, where the Andes tower,

Spreads his broad wing of pride and power,

And many a storm defies;

Bright in the Orient realms of morn,

All beauty’s richest hues adorn

The bird of paradise.

Some, amidst India’s groves of palm,

And spicy forests breathing balm,

Weave soft their pendant nest;

Some, deep in Western wilds, display

Their fairy form and plumage gay,

In rainbow colours drest.

Others no varied song may pour,

May boast no eagle-plume to soar,

No tints of light may wear;

Yet know, our Heavenly Father guides

The least of these, and well provides

For each, with tenderest care.

Shall He not then _thy_ guardian be?

Will not His aid extend to _thee_?

Oh, safely may’st thou rest!--

Trust in His love; and e’en should pain,

Should sorrow, tempt thee to complain,

Know what He wills is best!

[407] The Italians call all singing-birds, _birds of the gentle beak_.

THE SKYLARK.

CHILD’S MORNING HYMN.

The skylark, when the dews of morn

Hang tremulous on flower and thorn,

And violets round his nest exhale

Their fragrance on the early gale,

To the first sunbeam spreads his wings,

Buoyant with joy, and soars and sings.

He rests not on the leafy spray

To warble his exulting lay;

But high above the morning cloud

Mounts in triumphant freedom proud,

And swells, when nearest to the sky,

His notes of sweetest ecstasy.

Thus, my Creator! thus the more

My spirit’s wing to Thee can soar,

The more she triumphs to behold

Thy love in all thy works unfold,

And bids her hymns of rapture be

Most glad, when rising most to Thee!

THE NIGHTINGALE.

CHILD’S EVENING HYMN.

When twilight’s gray and pensive hour

Brings the low breeze, and shuts the flower,

And bids the solitary star

Shine in pale beauty from afar;

When gathering shades the landscape veil,

And peasants seek their village-dale,

And mists from river-wave arise,

And dew in every blossom lies;

When evening’s primrose opes to shed

Soft fragrance round her grassy bed;

When glow-worms in the wood-walk light

Their lamp to cheer the traveller’s sight;--

At that calm hour, so still, so pale,

Awakes the lonely nightingale;

And from a hermitage of shade

Fills with her voice the forest glade.

And sweeter far that melting voice

Than all which through the day rejoice;

And still shall bard and wanderer love

The twilight music of the grove.

Father in heaven! oh, thus when day

With all its cares hath pass’d away,

And silent hours waft peace on earth,

And hush the louder strains of mirth;

Thus may sweet songs of praise and prayer

To Thee my spirit’s offering bear--

Yon star, my signal, set on high,

For vesper-hymns of piety.

So may Thy mercy and Thy power

Protect me through the midnight hour,

And balmy sleep and visions blest

Smile on Thy servant’s bed of rest.

THE NORTHERN SPRING.

When the soft breath of Spring goes forth

Far o’er the mountains of the North,

How soon those wastes of dazzling snow

With life, and bloom, and beauty glow!

Then bursts the verdure of the plains,

Then break the streams from icy chains;

And the glad reindeer seeks no more

Amidst deep snows his mossy store.

Then the dark pine-wood’s boughs are seen

Fringed tenderly with living green;

And roses, in their brightest dyes,

By Lapland’s founts and lakes arise.

Thus, in a moment, from the gloom

And the cold fetters of the tomb,

Thus shall the blest Redeemer’s voice

Call forth his servants to rejoice.

For He, whose word is truth, hath said,

His power to life shall wake the dead,

And summon those he loves on high,

To “put on immortality!”

Then, all its transient sufferings o’er,

On wings of light the soul shall soar,

Exulting, to that blest abode

Where tears of sorrow never flow’d.

Early in the year 1834, the little volume of _Hymns for Childhood_

(which, though written many years before, had never been published

in England) was brought out by Messrs Curry of Dublin, who were

also the publishers of the _National Lyrics_, which appeared in a

collected form about the same time. Of the latter, Mrs Hemans thus

wrote to her friend Mrs Lawrence, in the note which accompanied the

volume:--“I think you will love my little book, though it contains

but the broken music of a troubled heart--for all the hours it will

recall to you beam fresh and bright as ever in my memory, though I

have passed through but too many of sad and deep excitement since that

period.”--_Memoir_, p. 269.]

PARAPHRASE OF PSALM CXLVIII.

“Praise ye the Lord. Praise ye the Lord from the heavens: praise him

in the heights.”

Praise ye the Lord! on every height

Songs to his glory raise!

Ye angel-hosts, ye stars of night,

Join in immortal praise!

O heaven of heavens! let praise far-swelling

From all thine orbs be sent!

Join in the strain, ye waters, dwelling!

Above the firmament!

For His the word which gave you birth,

And majesty and might:

Praise to the Highest from the earth,

And let the deeps unite!

O fire and vapour, hail and snow!

Ye servants of His will;

O stormy winds! that only blow

His mandates to fulfil;

Mountains and rocks, to heaven that rise!

Fair cedars of the wood!

Creatures of life that wing the skies,

Or track the plains for food!

Judges of nations! kings, whose hand

Waves the proud sceptre high!

O youths and virgins of the land!

O age and infancy!

Praise ye His name, to whom alone

All homage should be given;

Whose glory from the eternal throne

Spreads wide o’er earth and heaven!

NATIONAL LYRICS, AND SONGS FOR MUSIC.

TO

MRS LAWRENCE

OF WAVERTREE HALL, HER FRIEND, AND THE SISTER OF HER FRIEND COLONEL

D’AGUILAR, THIS VOLUME IS AFFECTIONATELY INSCRIBED IN REMEMBRANCE OF

MANY BRIGHTLY ASSOCIATED HOURS, BY FELICIA HEMANS.

NATIONAL LYRICS.

THE THEMES OF SONG.

“Of truth, of grandeur, beauty, love, and hope,

And melancholy fear subdued by faith.” Wordsworth.

Where shall the minstrel find a theme?

--Where’er, for freedom shed,

Brave blood hath dyed some ancient stream,

Amidst the mountains, red.

Where’er a rock, a fount, a grove,

Bears record to the faith

Of love--deep, holy, fervent love,

Victor o’er fear and death.

Where’er a chieftain’s crested brow

Too soon hath been struck down,

Or a bright virgin head laid low,

Wearing its youth’s first crown.

Where’er a spire points up to heaven,

Through storm and summer air,

Telling, that all around have striven

Man’s heart, and hope, and prayer.

Where’er a blessed home hath been,

That now is home no more:

A place of ivy, darkly green,

Where laughter’s light is o’er.

Where’er by some forsaken grave,

Some nameless greensward heap,

A bird may sing, a wild-flower wave,

A star its vigil keep.

Or where a yearning heart of old,

A dream of shepherd men,

With forms of more than earthly mould

Hath peopled grot or glen.

_There_ may the bard’s high themes be found--

We die, we pass away;

But faith, love, pity--these are bound

To earth without decay.

The heart that burns, the cheek that glows,

The tear from hidden springs,

The thorn and glory of the rose--

_These_ are undying things.

Wave after wave of mighty stream

To the deep sea hath gone:

Yet not the less, like youth’s bright dream,

The exhaustless flood rolls on.

RHINE SONG OF THE GERMAN SOLDIERS AFTER VICTORY.

TO THE AIR OF “AM RHEIN, AM RHEIN.”

SINGLE VOICE.

It is the Rhine! our mountain vineyards laving,

I see the bright flood shine! (_bis._)

Sing on the march with every banner waving--

Sing, brothers! ’tis the Rhine! (_bis._)

CHORUS.

The Rhine! the Rhine! our own imperial river!

Be glory on thy track!

We left thy shores, to die or to deliver--

We bear thee freedom back!

SINGLE VOICE.

Hail! hail! my childhood knew thy rush of water,

Even as my mother’s song;

That sound went past me on the field of slaughter,

And heart and arm grew strong!

CHORUS.

Roll proudly on!--brave blood is with thee sweeping,

Pour’d out by sons of thine,

Where sword and spirit forth in joy were leaping,

Like thee, victorious Rhine!

SINGLE VOICE.

Home! Home! Thy glad wave hath a tone of greeting,

Thy path is by my home,

Even now my children count the hours till meeting:

O ransom’d ones! I come.

CHORUS.

Go tell the seas, that chain shall bind thee never!

Sound on by hearth and shrine!

Sing through the hills that thou art free for ever--

Lift up thy voice, O Rhine!

[“I wish you could have heard Sir Walter Scott describe a glorious

sight, which had been witnessed by a friend of his!--the crossing

of the Rhine, at Ehrenbreitstein, by the German army of Liberators

on their victorious return from France. ‘At the first gleam of the

river,’ he said, ‘they all burst forth into the national chant, _Am

Rhein! Am Rhein!_’ They were two days passing over; and the rocks and

the castle were ringing to the song the whole time--for each band

renewed it while crossing; and even the Cossacks, with the clash

and the clang, and the roll of their stormy war-music, catching the

enthusiasm of the scene, swelled forth the chorus, ‘_Am Rhein! Am

Rhein!_’”--_Manuscript letter._

This anecdote, (on which was founded Mrs Hemans’s own “Rhine Song,”)

and the look and tone with which it was related, made an impression on

her memory which nothing could efface. The very name of the “Father

Rhine,” the “exulting and abounding river,” (how often would she quote

that magnificent line of Lord Byron’s!) had always worked upon her

like a spell, conjuring up a thousand visions of romance and beauty;

and Haydn’s inspiring _Rheinweinlied_, with its fine, rich tide of

flowing harmony, was one of the airs she most delighted in. “You are

quite right,” she wrote to a friend who had echoed her enthusiasm, “it

was the description of that noble Rhine scene which interested me more

than any part of Sir Walter’s conversation; and I wished more that you

could have heard it than all the high legends and solemn scenes of

which we spoke that day.”]

A SONG OF DELOS.

[The Island of Delos was considered of such peculiar sanctity by the

ancients, that they did not allow it to be desecrated by the events

of birth or death. In the following poem, a young priestess of Apollo

is supposed to be conveyed from its shores during the last hours of

a mortal sickness, and to bid the scenes of her youth farewell in a

sudden flow of unpremeditated song.]

“Terre, soleil, vallons, belle et douce nature,

Je vous dois une larme aux bords de mon tombeau;

L’air est si parfume! la lumiere est si pure!

Aux regards d’un Mourant le soleil est si beau!” Lamartine.

A song was heard of old--a low, sweet song,

On the blue seas by Delos. From that isle,

The Sun-god’s own domain, a gentle girl--

Gentle, yet all inspired of soul, of mien,

Lit with a life too perilously bright--

Was borne away to die. How beautiful

Seems this world to the dying!--but for _her_,

The child of beauty and of poesy,

And of soft Grecian skies--oh! who may dream

Of all that from _her_ changeful eye flash’d forth,

Or glanced more quiveringly through starry tears,

As on her land’s rich vision, fane o’er fane

Colour’d with loving light, she gazed her last,

Her young life’s last, that hour! From her pale brow

And burning cheek she threw the ringlets back,

And bending forward, as the spirit sway’d

The reed-like form still to the shore beloved,

Breathed the swan-music of her wild farewell

O’er dancing waves:--“Oh, linger yet!” she cried,

“Oh, linger, linger on the oar!

Oh, pause upon the deep!

That I may gaze yet once, once more,

Where floats the golden day o’er fane and steep!

Never so brightly smiled mine own sweet shore--

Oh! linger, linger on the parting oar!

“I see the laurels fling back showers

Of soft light still on many a shrine;

I see the path to haunts of flowers

Through the dim olives lead its gleaming line;

I hear a sound of flutes--a swell of song--

_Mine_ is too low to reach that joyous throng!

“Oh! linger, linger on the oar

Beneath my native sky!

Let my life part from that bright shore

With day’s last crimson--gazing let me die!

Thou bark, glide slowly!--slowly should be borne

The voyager that never shall return.

“A fatal gift hath been thy dower,

Lord of the Lyre! to me;

With song and wreath from bower to bower,

Sisters went bounding like young Oreads free;

While I, through long, lone, voiceless hours apart,

Have lain and listen’d to my beating heart.

“Now, wasted by the inborn fire,

I sink to early rest;

The ray that lit the incense-pyre

Leaves unto death its temple in my breast.

--O sunshine, skies, rich flowers! too soon I go,

While round me thus triumphantly ye glow!

“Bright isle! might but thine echoes keep

A tone of my farewell,

One tender accent, low and deep,

Shrined midst thy founts and haunted rocks to dwell!

Might my last breath send music to thy shore!

--Oh, linger, seamen! linger on the oar!”

ANCIENT GREEK CHANT OF VICTORY.

“Fill high the bowl with Samian wine!

Our virgins dance beneath the shade.” Byron.

Io! they come, they come!

Garlands for every shrine!

Strike lyres to greet them home;

Bring roses, pour ye wine!

Swell, swell the Dorian flute

Through the blue triumphant sky!

Let the cittern’s tone salute

The sons of victory.

With the offering of bright blood

They have ransom’d hearth and tomb,

Vineyard, and field, and flood;--

Io! they come, they come!

Sing it where olives wave,

And by the glittering sea,

And o’er each hero’s grave--

Sing, sing, the land is free!

Mark ye the flashing oars,

And the spears that light the deep?

How the festal sunshine pours

Where the lords of battle sweep!

Each hath brought back his shield;--

Maid, greet thy lover home!

Mother, from that proud field,

Io! thy son is come!

Who murmur’d of the dead?

Hush, boding voice! We know

That many a shining head

Lies in its glory low.

Breathe not those names to-day!

They shall have their praise ere long,

And a power all hearts to sway,

In ever-burning song.

But now shed flowers, pour wine,

To hail the conquerors home!

Bring wreaths for every shrine--

Io! they come, they come!

NAPLES.

A SONG OF THE SYREN.

“Then gentle winds arose,

With many a mingled close

Of wild Æolian sound and mountain-odour keen,

Where the clear Baian ocean

Welters with air-like motion

Within, above, around its bowers of starry green.”

Shelley.

Still is the Syren warbling on thy shore,

Bright city of the waves! Her magic song

Still, with a dreamy sense of ecstasy,

Fills thy soft summer air:--and while my glance

Dwells on thy pictured loveliness, that lay

Floats thus o’er fancy’s ear; and thus to thee,

Daughter of sunshine! doth the Syren sing.

“Thine is the glad wave’s flashing play,

Thine is the laugh of the golden day--

The golden day, and the glorious night,

And the vine with its clusters all bathed in light!

--Forget, forget, that thou art not free!

Queen of the Summer sea.

“Favour’d and crown’d of the earth and sky!

Thine are all voices of melody,

Wandering in moonlight through fane and tower,

Floating o’er fountain and myrtle bower;

Hark! how they melt o’er thy glittering sea--

Forget that thou art not free!

“Let the wine flow in thy marble halls!

Let the lute answer thy fountain-falls!

And deck thy feasts with the myrtle bough,

And cover with roses thy glowing brow!

Queen of the day and the summer sea,

Forget that thou art not free!”

So doth the Syren sing, while sparkling waves

Dance to her chant. But sternly, mournfully,

O city of the deep! from Sybil grots

And Roman tombs, the echoes of thy shore

Take up the cadence of her strain alone,

Murmuring--“_Thou, art not free_!”

THE FALL OF D’ASSAS.

A BALLAD OF FRANCE.

[The Chevalier D’Assas, called the French Decius, fell nobly whilst

reconnoitring a wood, near Closterkamp, by night. He had left his

regiment, that of Auvergne, at a short distance, and was suddenly

surrounded by an ambuscade of the enemy, who threatened him with

instant death if he made the least sign of their vicinity. With their

bayonets at his breast, he raised his voice, and calling aloud “A moi,

Auvergne! ces sont les ennemis!” fell, pierced with mortal blows.]

Alone through gloomy forest-shades

A soldier went by night;

No moonbeam pierced the dusky glades,

No star shed guiding light.

Yet on his vigil’s midnight round

The youth all cheerly pass’d;

Uncheck’d by aught of boding sound

That mutter’d in the blast.

Where were his thoughts that lonely hour?

--In his far home, perchance;

His father’s hall, his mother’s bower,

Midst the gay vines of France:

Wandering from battles lost and won,

To hear and bless again

The rolling of the wide Garonne,

Or murmur of the Seine.

Hush! hark!--did stealing steps go by?

Came not faint whispers near?

No! the wild wind hath many a sigh,

Amidst the foliage sere.

Hark, yet again!--and from his hand,

What grasp hath wrench’d the blade?

--Oh, single midst a hostile band,

Young soldier! thou’rt betray’d!

“Silence!” in under-tones they cry--

“No whisper--not a breath!

The sound that warns thy comrades nigh

Shall sentence thee to death.”

Still, at the bayonet’s point he stood,

And strong to meet the blow;

And shouted, midst his rushing blood,

“Arm, arm, Auvergne! the foe!”

The stir, the tramp, the bugle-call--

He heard their tumults grow;

And sent his dying voice through all--

“_Auvergne, Auvergne! the foe!_”

THE BURIAL OF WILLIAM THE CONQUEROR,

AT CAEN IN NORMANDY--1087.

[“At the day appointed for the king’s interment, Prince Henry, his

third son, the Norman prelates, and a multitude of clergy and people,

assembled in the church of St Stephen, which the Conqueror had

founded. The mass had been performed, the corpse was placed on the

bier, and the Bishop of Evreux had pronounced the panegyric on the

deceased, when a voice from the crowd exclaimed,--‘He whom you have

praised was a robber. The very land on which you stand is mine. By

violence he took it from my father; and, in the name of God, I forbid

you to bury him in it.’ The speaker was Asceline Fitz-Arthur, who had

often, but fruitlessly, sought reparation from the justice of William.

After some debate, the prelates called him to them, paid him sixty

shillings for the grave, and promised that he should receive the full

value of his land. The ceremony was then continued, and the body of

the king deposited in a coffin of stone.”--Lingard, vol. ii. p. 98.]

Lowly upon his bier

The royal conqueror lay;

Baron and chief stood near,

Silent in war-array.

Down the long minster’s aisle

Crowds mutely gazing stream’d;

Altar and tomb the while

Through mists of incense gleam’d.

And, by the torches’ blaze,

The stately priest had said

High words of power and praise

To the glory of the dead.

They lower’d him, with the sound

Of requiems, to repose;

When from the throngs around

A solemn voice arose:--

“Forbear! forbear!” it cried;

“In the holiest name, forbear!

He hath conquer’d regions wide,

But he shall not slumber _there_!

“By the violated hearth

Which made way for yon proud shrine;

By the harvests which this earth

Hath borne for me and mine;

“By the house e’en here o’erthrown,

On my brethren’s native spot;

Hence! with his dark renown,

Cumber our birthplace not!

“Will my sire’s unransom’d field,

O’er which your censers wave,

To the buried spoiler yield

Soft slumbers in the grave!

“The tree before him fell

Which we cherish’d many a year;

But its deep root yet shall swell,

And heave against his bier.

“The land that I have till’d

Hath yet its brooding breast

With my home’s white ashes fill’d,

And it shall not give him rest!

“Each pillar’s massy bed

Hath been wet by weeping eyes--

Away! bestow your dead

Where no wrong against him cries.”

Shame glow’d on each dark face

Of those proud and steel-girt men,

And they bought with gold a place

For their leader’s dust e’en then.

A little earth for him

Whose banner flew so far!

And a peasant’s tale could dim

The name, a nation’s star!

_One_ deep voice thus arose

From a heart which wrongs had riven:

Oh! who shall number those

That were but heard in heaven?

SONGS OF A GUARDIAN SPIRIT.

NEAR THEE, STILL NEAR THEE![408]

Near thee, still near thee!--o’er thy pathway gliding,

Unseen I pass thee with the wind’s low sigh;

Life’s veil enfolds thee still, our eyes dividing,

Yet viewless love floats round thee silently!

Not midst the festal throng,

In halls of mirth and song;

But when thy thoughts are deepest,

When holy tears thou weepest,

Know then _that_ love is nigh!

When the night’s whisper o’er thy harp-strings creeping,

Or the sea-music on the sounding shore,

Or breezy anthems through the forest sweeping,

Shall move thy trembling spirit to adore;

When every thought and prayer

We loved to breathe and share,

On thy full heart returning,

Shall wake its voiceless yearning;

Then feel me near once more!

Near thee, still near thee!--trust thy soul’s deep dreaming!

Oh! love is not an earthly rose to die!

Even when I soar where fiery stars are beaming,

Thine image wanders with me through the sky.

The fields of air are free,

Yet lonely, wanting thee;

But when thy chains are falling,

When heaven its own is calling,

Know then, thy guide is nigh!

[408] This piece has been set to music of most impressive beauty by

John Lodge, Esq., for whose compositions several of the author’s songs

were written.

OH! DROOP THOU NOT.

“They sin who tell us love can die!

With life all other passions fly--

All others are but vanity.

In heaven ambition cannot dwell,

Nor avarice in the vaults of hell;

Earthly these passions, as of earth--

They perish where they drew their birth.

But love is indestructible!

Its holy flame for ever burneth--

From heaven it came, to heaven returneth.” Southey.

Oh! droop thou not, my gentle earthly love!

Mine still to be!

I bore through death, to brighter lands above,

My thoughts of thee.

Yes! the deep memory of our holy tears,

Our mingled prayer,

Our suffering love, through long devoted years,

Went with me there.

It was not vain, the hallow’d and the tried--

It was not vain!

Still, though unseen, still hovering at thy side,

I watch again!

From our own paths, our love’s attesting bowers,

I am not gone;

In the deep calm of midnight’s whispering hours,

Thou art not lone:

Not lone, when by the haunted stream thou weepest

--That stream whose tone

Murmurs of thoughts, the richest and the deepest,

We two have known:

Not lone, when mournfully some strain awaking

Of days long past,

From thy soft eyes the sudden tears are breaking,

Silent and fast:

Not lone, when upwards in fond visions turning

Thy dreamy glance,

Thou seek’st my home, where solemn stars are burning

O’er night’s expanse.

My home is near thee, loved one! and around thee,

Where’er thou art;

Though still mortality’s thick cloud hath bound thee,

Doubt not thy heart!

Hear its low voice, nor deem thyself forsaken:

Let faith be given

To the still tones which oft our being waken--

They are of heaven.

SONGS OF SPAIN.

[Written for a set of airs, entitled _Peninsular Melodies_, selected

by Colonel Hodges, and published by Messrs Goulding and D’Almaine, who

have permitted the reappearance of the words in this volume.]

ANCIENT BATTLE-SONG.

Fling forth the proud banner of Leon again!

Let the high word _Castile!_ go resounding through Spain!

And thou, free Asturias! encamp’d on the height,

Pour down thy dark sons to the vintage of fight!

Wake, wake! the old soil where thy children repose

Sounds hollow and deep to the trampling of foes!

The voices are mighty that swell from the past,

With Arragon’s cry on the shrill mountain-blast;

The ancient sierras give strength to our tread,

Their pines murmur song where bright blood hath been shed.

--Fling forth the proud banner of Leon again,

And shout ye “Castile! to the rescue for Spain!”

THE ZEGRI MAID.

[The Zegris were one of the most illustrious Moorish tribes. Their

exploits and feuds with their celebrated rivals, the Abencerrages,

form the subject of many ancient Spanish romances.]

The summer leaves were sighing

Around the Zegri maid,

To her low, sad song replying

As it fill’d the olive shade.

“Alas! for her that loveth

Her land’s, her kindred’s foe!

Where a Christian Spaniard roveth,

Should a Zegri’s spirit go?

“From thy glance, my gentle mother!

I sink, with shame oppress’d,

And the dark eye of my brother

Is an arrow to my breast.”--

Where summer leaves were sighing

Thus sang the Zegri maid,

While the crimson day was dying

In the whispery olive shade.

“And for all this heart’s wealth wasted,

This woe in secret borne,

This flower of young life blasted,

Should I win back aught but scorn?

By aught but daily dying

Would my lone truth be repaid?”--

Where the olive leaves were sighing,

Thus sang the Zegri maid.

THE RIO VERDE SONG.

[The Rio Verde, a small river of Spain, is celebrated in the old

ballad romances of that country for the frequent combats on its banks

between Moor and Christian. The ballad referring to this stream in

_Percy’s Reliques_ will be remembered by many readers.

“Gentle river, gentle river!

Lo! thy streams are stain’d with gore.”]

Flow, Rio Verde!

In melody flow;

Win her that weepeth

To slumber from woe;

Bid thy wave’s music

Roll through her dreams--

Grief ever loveth

The kind voice of streams.

Bear her lone spirit

Afar on the sound

Back to her childhood,

Her life’s fairy ground;

Pass like the whisper

Of love that is gone--

Flow, Rio Verde!

Softly flow on!

Dark glassy water

So crimson’d of yore!

Love, death, and sorrow

Know thy green shore.

Thou shouldst have echoes

For grief’s deepest tone--

Flow, Rio Verde!

Softly flow on!

SEEK BY THE SILVERY DARRO.

Seek by the silvery Darro,

Where jasmine flowers have blown:

There hath she left no footsteps?

--Weep, weep! the maid is gone!

Seek where Our Lady’s image

Smiles o’er the pine-hung steep:

Hear ye not there her vespers?

--Weep for the parted, weep!

Seek in the porch where vine-leaves

O’ershade her father’s head:

Are _his_ gray hairs left lonely?

--Weep! her bright soul is fled.

SPANISH EVENING HYMN.

Ave! now let prayer and music

Meet in love on earth and sea!

Now, sweet Mother! may the weary

Turn from this cold world to thee!

From the wide and restless waters

Hear the sailor’s hymn arise?

From his watch-fire midst the mountains,

Lo! to thee the shepherd cries!

Yet, when thus full hearts find voices,

If o’erburden’d souls there be,

Dark and silent in their anguish,

Aid those captives! set them free!

Touch them, every fount unsealing

Where the frozen tears lie deep;

Thou, the Mother of all sorrows,

Aid! oh, aid to pray and weep!

BIRD THAT ART SINGING ON EBRO’S SIDE!

Bird that art singing on Ebro’s side!

Where myrtle shadows make dim the tide,

Doth sorrow dwell midst the leaves with thee?

Doth song avail thy full heart to free?

--Bird of the midnight’s purple sky!

Teach me the spell of thy melody.

Bird! is it blighted affection’s pain

Whence the sad sweetness flows through thy strain?

And is the wound of that arrow still’d

When thy lone music the leaves hath fill’d?

--Bird of the midnight’s purple sky!

Teach me the spell of thy melody.

MOORISH GATHERING-SONG.

ZORZICO.[409]

Chains on the cities! gloom in the air!

Come to the hills! fresh breezes are there.

Silence and fear in the rich orange bowers!

Come to the rocks where freedom hath towers.

Come from the Darro!--changed is its tone;

Come where the streams no bondage have known;

Wildly and proudly foaming they leap,

Singing of freedom from steep to steep.

Come from Alhambra!--garden and grove

Now may not shelter beauty or love.

Blood on the waters! death midst the flowers!

--Only the spear and the rock are ours.

[409] The Zorzico is an extremely wild and singularly antique Moorish

melody.

THE SONG OF MINA’S SOLDIERS.

We heard thy name, O Mina!

Far through our hills it rang;

A sound more strong than tempests,

More keen than armour’s clang.

The peasant left his vintage,

The shepherd grasp’d the spear--

We heard thy name, O Mina!

--The mountain-bands are here.

As eagles to the dayspring,

As torrents to the sea,

From every dark sierra

So rush’d our hearts to thee.

Thy spirit is our banner,

Thine eye our beacon-sign,

Thy name our trumpet, Mina!

--The mountain-bands are thine.

MOTHER! OH, SING ME TO REST.

A CANCION.

Mother! oh, sing me to rest

As in my bright days departed:

Sing to thy child, the sick-hearted,

Songs for a spirit oppress’d.

Lay this tired head on thy breast!

Flowers from the night-dew are closing,

Pilgrims and mourners reposing:

Mother! oh, sing me to rest!

Take back thy bird to its nest!

Weary is young life when blighted,

Heavy this love unrequited;

--Mother, oh! sing me to rest!

THERE ARE SOUNDS IN THE DARK RONCESVALLES.

There are sounds in the dark Roncesvalles,

There are echoes on Biscay’s wild shore;

There are murmurs--but not of the torrent,

Nor the wind, nor the pine-forest’s roar.

’Tis a day of the spear and the banner,

Of armings and hurried farewells;

Rise, rise on your mountains, ye Spaniards!

Or start from your old battle-dells.

There are streams of unconquer’d Asturias

That have roll’d with your father’s free blood:

Oh! leave on the graves of the mighty

Proud marks where their children have stood!

SONGS FOR SUMMER HOURS.

AND I TOO IN ARCADIA.

[A celebrated picture of Poussin represents a band of shepherd-youths

and maidens suddenly checked in their wanderings, and affected

with various emotions, by the sight of a tomb which bears this

inscription--“_Et in Arcadia ego_.”]

They have wander’d in their glee

With the butterfly and bee;

They have climb’d o’er heathery swells,

They have wound through forest dells;

Mountain-moss hath felt their tread,

Woodland streams their way have led;

Flowers, in deepest shadowy nooks,

Nurslings of the loneliest brooks,

Unto them have yielded up

Fragrant bell and starry cup:

Chaplets are on every brow--

What hath staid the wanderers now?

Lo! a gray and rustic tomb,

Bower’d amidst the rich wood-gloom;

Whence these words their stricken spirits melt,

--“I too, Shepherds! in Arcadia dwelt.”

There is many a summer sound

That pale sepulchre around;

Through the shade young birds are glancing,

Insect-wings in sun-streaks dancing;

Glimpses of blue festal skies

Pouring in when soft winds rise;

Violets o’er the turf below

Shedding out their warmest glow;

Yet a spirit not its own

O’er the greenwood now is thrown!

Something of an under-note

Through its music seems to float,

Something of a stillness gray

Creeps across the laughing day:

Something dimly from those old words felt,

--“I too, Shepherds! in Arcadia dwelt.”

Was some gentle kindred maid

In that grave with dirges laid?

Some fair creature, with the tone

Of whose voice a joy is gone,

Leaving melody and mirth

Poorer on this alter’d earth?

Is it thus? that so they stand,

Dropping flowers from every hand--

Flowers, and lyres, and gather’d store

Of red wild-fruit prized no more?

--No! from that bright band of morn

Not one link hath yet been torn:

’Tis the shadow of the tomb

Falling o’er the summer-bloom--

O’er the flush of love and life

Passing with a sudden strife;

’Tis the low prophetic breath

Murmuring from that house of death,

Whose faint whisper thus their hearts can melt,

--“I too, Shepherds! in Arcadia dwelt.”

THE WANDERING WIND.

The Wind, the wandering Wind

Of the golden summer eves--

Whence is the thrilling magic

Of its tones among the leaves?

Oh! is it from the waters,

Or from the long tall grass?

Or is it from the hollow rocks

Through which its breathings pass?

Or is it from the voices

Of all in one combined,

That it wins the tone of mastery?

The Wind, the wandering Wind!

No, no! the strange, sweet accents

That with it come and go,

They are not from the osiers,

Nor the fir-trees whispering low;

They are not of the waters,

Nor of the cavern’d hill:

’Tis the human love within us

That gives them power to thrill.

They touch the links of memory

Around our spirits twined,

And we start, and weep, and tremble,

To the Wind, the wandering Wind!

YE ARE NOT MISS’D, FAIR FLOWERS!

Ye are not miss’d, fair flowers, that late were spreading

The summer’s glow by fount and breezy grot;

There falls the dew, its fairy favours shedding--

The leaves dance on, the young birds miss you not.

Still plays the sparkle o’er the rippling water,

O lily! whence thy cup of pearl is gone;

The bright wave mourns not for its loveliest daughter,

There is no sorrow in the wind’s low tone.

And thou, meek hyacinth! afar is roving

The bee that oft thy trembling bells hath kiss’d.

Cradled ye were, fair flowers! ’midst all things loving,

A joy to all--yet, yet, ye are not miss’d!

Ye, that were born to lend the sunbeam gladness,

And the winds fragrance, wandering where they list,

Oh! it were breathing words too deep in sadness,

To say earth’s _human_ flowers not more are miss’d.

THE WILLOW SONG.

Willow! in thy breezy moan,

I can hear a deeper tone;

Through thy leaves come whispering low,

Faint, sweet sounds of long ago.

Willow, sighing willow!

Many a mournful tale of old

Heart-sick love to thee hath told,

Gathering from thy golden bough

Leaves to cool his burning brow.

Willow! sighing willow!

Many a swan-like song to thee

Hath been sung, thou gentle tree!

Many a lute its last lament

Down thy moonlight stream hath sent.

Willow! sighing willow!

Therefore, wave and murmur on!

Sigh for sweet affections gone,

And for tuneful voices fled,

And for love, whose heart hath bled,

Ever, willow! willow!

LEAVE ME NOT YET.

Leave me not yet! through rosy skies from far,

But now the song-birds to their nests return;

The quivering image of the first pale star

On the dim lake scarce yet begins to burn:

Leave me not yet!

Not yet! oh, hark! low tones from hidden streams,

Piercing the shivery leaves, even now arise;

Their voices mingle not with daylight dreams,

They are of vesper’s hymns and harmonies:

Leave me not yet!

My thoughts are like those gentle sounds, dear love!

By day shut up in their own still recess;

They wait for dews on earth, for stars above,

_Then_ to breathe out their soul of tenderness:

Leave me not yet!

THE ORANGE BOUGH.

Oh! bring me one sweet orange-bough,

To fan my cheek, to cool my brow;

One bough, with pearly blossoms drest,

And bind it, mother! on my breast!

Go, seek the grove along the shore,

Whose odours I must breathe no more;

The grove where every scented tree

Thrills to the deep voice of the sea.

Oh! Love’s fond sighs, and fervent prayer,

And wild farewell, are lingering there:

Each leaf’s light whisper hath a tone

My faint heart, even in death, would own.

Then bear me thence one bough, to shed

Life’s parting sweetness round my head;

And bind it, mother! on my breast

When I am laid in lonely rest.

THE STREAM SET FREE.

Flow on, rejoice, make music,

Bright living stream set free!

The troubled haunts of care and strife

Were not for thee!

The woodland is thy country,

Thou art all its own again;

The wild birds are thy kindred race,

That fear no chain.

Flow on, rejoice, make music

Unto the glistening leaves!

Thou, the beloved of balmy winds

And golden eaves!

Once more the holy starlight

Sleeps calm upon thy breast,

Whose brightness bears no token more

Of man’s unrest.

Flow, and let freeborn music

Flow with thy wavy line,

While the stock-dove’s lingering, loving voice

Comes blent with thine.

And the green reeds quivering o’er thee,

Strings of the forest-lyre,

All fill’d with answering spirit-sounds,

In joy respire.

Yet, midst thy song’s glad changes,

Oh! keep one pitying tone

For gentle hearts, that bear to thee

Their sadness lone.

One sound, of all the deepest,

To bring, like healing dew,

A sense that nature ne’er forsakes

The meek and true.

Then, then, rejoice, make music,

Thou stream, thou glad and free!

The shadows of all glorious flowers

Be set in thee!

THE SUMMER’S CALL.[410]

Come away! The sunny hours

Woo thee far to founts and bowers!

O’er the very waters now,

In their play,

Flowers are shedding beauty’s glow--

Come away!

Where the lily’s tender gleam

Quivers on the glancing stream,

Come away!

All the air is fill’d with sound,

Soft, and sultry, and profound;

Murmurs through the shadowy grass

Lightly stray;

Faint winds whisper as they pass--

Come away!

Where the bee’s deep music swells

From the trembling foxglove bells,

Come away!

In the skies the sapphire blue

Now hath won its richest hue;

In the woods the breath of song

Night and day

Floats with leafy scents along--

Come away!

Where the boughs with dewy gloom

Darken each thick bed of bloom,

Come away!

In the deep heart of the rose

Now the crimson love-hue glows;

Now the glow-worm’s lamp by night

Sheds a ray,

Dreamy, starry, greenly bright--

Come away!

Where the fairy cup-moss lies,

With the wild-wood strawberries,

Come away!

Now each tree by summer crown’d,

Sheds its own rich twilight round;

Glancing there from sun to shade,

Bright wings play;

There the deer its couch hath made--

Come away!

Where the smooth leaves of the lime

Glisten in their honey-time,

Come away--away![411]

[410] “The Summer’s Call.”--This faculty for realising images of the

distant and the beautiful, amidst outward circumstances of apparently

the most adverse influence, is thus gracefully illustrated by

Washington Irving in the “Royal Poet” of his _Sketch-Book_:--“Some

minds corrode and grow inactive under the loss of personal liberty;

others grow morbid and irritable; but it is the nature of the poet to

become tender and imaginative in the loneliness of confinement. He

banquets upon the honey of his own thoughts, and, like the captive

bird, pours forth his soul in melody.

‘Have you not seen the nightingale,

A pilgrim cooped into a cage,

How doth she chant her wonted tale

In that her lonely hermitage?

Even there her charming melody doth prove,

That all her boughs are trees, her cage a grove.’”

Roger L’Estrange.

Indeed, it is the divine attribute of the imagination, that it is

irrepressible, unconfinable; and that, when the real world is shut out,

it can create a world for itself, and with a necromantic power can

conjure up glorious shapes and forms, and irradiate the gloom of the

dungeon. Such was the world of pomp and pageant that lived ’round Tasso

in his dismal cell at Ferrara, when he conceived the splendid scenes of

his _Jerusalem_; and we may consider _The King’s Quair_, composed by

James of Scotland during his captivity at Windsor, as another of those

beautiful breakings forth of the soul from the restraint and gloom of

the prison-house.”

[411] “In my literary pursuits,” wrote Mrs Hemans at this time to a

friend, “I fear I shall be obliged to look out for an amanuensis. I

sometimes retain a piece of poetry several weeks in my memory, from

actual dread of writing it down.... I was so glad you liked my little

summer breathing strain, (‘The Summer’s Call.’) I assure you it quite

consoled me for the want of natural objects of beauty around, to heap

up their remembered images in one wild strain.”

OH! SKYLARK, FOR THY WING.

Oh! Skylark, for thy wing!

Thou bird of joy and light,

That I might soar and sing

At heaven’s empyreal height!

With the heathery hills beneath me,

Whence the streams in glory spring,

And the pearly clouds to wreathe me,

O Skylark! on thy wing!

Free, free, from earth-born fear,

I would range the blessed skies,

Through the blue divinely clear,

Where the low mists cannot rise!

And a thousand joyous measures

From my chainless heart should spring,

Like the bright rain’s vernal treasures,

As I wander’d on thy wing.

But oh! the silver cords

That around the heart are spun,

From gentle tones and words,

And kind eyes that make our sun!

To some low, sweet nest returning,

How soon my love would bring

There, _there_ the dews of morning,

O Skylark! on thy wing!

SONGS OF CAPTIVITY.

[These songs (with the exception of the fifth) have all been set to

music by the author’s sister, and are in the possession of Mr Willis,

by whose permission they are here published.]

INTRODUCTION.

One hour for distant homes to weep

Midst Afric’s burnings sands,

One silent sunset hour was given

To the slaves of many lands.

They sat beneath a lonely palm,

In the gardens of their lord;

And, mingling with the fountain’s tune,

Their songs of exile pour’d.

And strangely, sadly did those lays

Of Alp and ocean sound,

With Afric’s wild, red skies above,

And solemn wastes around.

Broken with tears were oft their tones,

And most when most they tried

To breathe of hope and liberty,

From hearts that inly died.

So met the sons of many lands,

Parted by mount and main;

So did they sing in brotherhood,

Made kindred by the chain.

THE BROTHER’S DIRGE.

In the proud old fanes of England

My warrior-fathers lie,

Banners hang drooping o’er their dust

With gorgeous blazonry.

But thou, but _thou_, my brother!

O’er thee dark billows sweep--

The best and bravest heart of all

Is shrouded by the deep.

In the old high wars of England

My noble fathers bled;

For her lion-kings of lance and spear,

They went down to the dead.

But thou, but thou, my brother!

_Thy_ life-drops flow’d for me--

Would I were with thee in thy rest,

Young sleeper of the sea!

In a shelter’d home of England

Our sister dwells alone,

With quick heart listening for the sound

Of footsteps that are gone.

She little dreams, my brother!

Of the wild fate we have found;

I, midst the Afric sands a slave,

Thou, by the dark seas bound.

THE ALPINE HORN.

The Alpine horn! the Alpine horn!

Oh! through my native sky,

Might I but hear its deep notes borne

Once more--but once--and die!

Yet, no! Midst breezy hills thy breath,

So full of hope and morn,

Would win me from the bed of death--

O joyous Alpine horn!

But _here_ the echo of that blast,

To many a battle known,

Seems mournfully to wander past,

A wild, shrill, wailing tone!

Haunt me no more! for slavery’s air

Thy proud notes were not born;

The dream but deepens my despair--

Be hush’d, thou Alpine horn!

O YE VOICES!

O ye voices round my own hearth singing,

As the winds of May to memory sweet!

Might I yet return, a worn heart bringing,

Would those vernal tones the wanderer greet,

Once again?

Never, never! Spring hath smiled and parted

Oft since then your fond farewell was said;

O’er the green turf of the gentle-hearted

Summer’s hand the rose-leaves may have shed,

Oft again!

Or if still around my heart ye linger,

Yet, sweet voices! there must change have come:

Years have quell’d the free soul of the singer,

Vernal tones shall greet the wanderer home

Ne’er again!

I DREAM OF ALL THINGS FREE.

I dream of all things free!

Of a gallant, gallant bark

That sweeps through storm and sea,

Like an arrow to its mark!

Of a stag that o’er the hills

Goes bounding in his glee;

Of a thousand flashing rills--

Of all things glad and free.

I dream of some proud bird,

A bright-eyed mountain-king!

In my visions I have heard

The rushing of his wing.

I follow some wild river,

On whose breast no sail may be;

Dark woods around it shiver--

I dream of all things free!

Of a happy forest child,

With the fawns and flowers at play;

Of an Indian midst the wild,

With the stars to guide his way;

Of a chief his warriors leading,

Of an archer’s greenwood tree--

My heart in chains is bleeding,

And I dream of all things free!

FAR O’ER THE SEA.

Where are the vintage songs

Wandering in glee?

Where dance the peasant bands

Joyous and free?

Under a kind blue sky,

Where doth my birthplace lie?

--Far o’er the sea.

Where floats the myrtle-scent

O’er vale and lea,

When evening calls the dove

Homewards to flee!

Where doth the orange gleam

Soft on my native stream?

--Far o’er the sea!

Where are sweet eyes of love

Watching for me?

Where o’er the cabin roof

Waves the green tree?

Where speaks the vesper-chime

Still of a holy time?

--Far o’er the sea.

Dance on, ye vintage bands!

Fearless and free;

Still fresh and greenly wave,

My father’s tree!

Still smile, ye kind, blue skies!

Though your son pines and dies

Far o’er the sea!

THE INVOCATION.

Oh! art thou still on earth, my love?

My only love!

Or smiling in a brighter home,

Far, far above?

Oh! is thy sweet voice fled, my love?

Thy light step gone?

And art thou not, in earth or heaven,

Still, still my own?

I see thee with thy gleaming hair,

In midnight dreams!

But cold, and clear, and spirit-like,

Thy soft eye seems.

Peace in thy saddest hour, my love!

Dwelt on thy brow;

But something mournfully divine

There shineth now!

And silent ever is thy lip,

And pale thy cheek;--

Oh! art thou earth’s, or art thou heaven’s?

Speak to me, speak!

THE SONG OF HOPE.

Droop not, my brothers! I hear a glad strain--

We shall burst forth like streams from the winter night’s chain;

A flag is unfurl’d, a bright star of the sea,

A ransom approaches--we yet shall be free!

Where the pines wave, where the light chamois leaps,

Where the lone eagle hath built on the steeps;

Where the snows glisten, the mountain-rills foam,

Free as the falcon’s wing, yet shall we roam.

Where the hearth shines, where the kind looks are met,

Where the smiles mingle, our place shall be yet!

Crossing the desert, o’ersweeping the sea--

Droop not, my brothers! we yet shall be free!

MISCELLANEOUS LYRICS.

THE CALL TO BATTLE.

“Ah! then and there was hurrying to and fro,

And gathering tears, and tremblings of distress,

And there were sudden partings, such as press

The life from out young hearts, and choking signs,

Which ne’er might be repeated.” Byron.

The vesper-bell, from church and tower,

Had sent its dying sound;

And the household, in the hush of eve,

Were met their porch around.

A voice rang through the olive-wood, with a sudden trumpet’s power--

“We rise on all our hills! Come forth! ’tis thy country’s

gathering-hour:

There’s a gleam of spears by every stream in each old battle-dell.

Come forth, young Juan! Bid thy home a brief and proud farewell!”

Then the father gave his son the sword

Which a hundred fights had seen--

“Away! and bear it back, my boy!

All that it still hath been!

“Haste, haste! The hunters of the foe are up: and who shall stand

The lion-like awakening of the roused indignant land?

Our chase shall sound through each defile where swept the clarion’s

blast,

With the flying footsteps of the Moor, in stormy ages past.”

Then the mother kiss’d her son with tears

That o’er his dark locks fell:

“I bless, I bless thee o’er and o’er,

Yet I stay thee not--Farewell!”

“One moment! but one moment give to parting thought or word!

It is no time for woman’s tears when manhood’s heart is stirr’d.

Bear but the memory of my love about thee in the fight,

To breathe upon th’ avenging sword a spell of keener might.

And a maiden’s fond adieu was heard,

Though deep, yet brief and low:

“In the vigil, in the conflict, love!

My prayer shall with thee go!”

“Come forth! come as the torrent comes when the winter’s chain is

burst!

So rushes on the land’s revenge, in night and silence nursed.

The night is pass’d, the silence o’er--on all our hills we rise:

We wait thee, youth! sleep, dream no more! the voice of battle

cries.”

There were sad hearts in a darken’d home,

When the brave had left their bower;

But the strength of prayer and sacrifice

Was with them in that hour.

MIGNON’S SONG.

TRANSLATED FROM GOETHE.

[Mignon, a young and enthusiastic girl, (the character in one of

Goethe’s romances, from which Sir Walter Scott’s Fenella is partially

imitated,) has been stolen away, in early childhood, from Italy. Her

vague recollections of that land, and of her early home, with its

graceful sculptures and pictured saloons, are perpetually haunting

her, and at times break forth into the following song. The original

has been set to exquisite music, by Zelter, the friend of Goethe.]

“Kennst du das Land wo die Citronen bluhn?”

Know’st thou the land where bloom the citron bowers,

Where the gold-orange lights the dusky grove?

High waves the laurel there, the myrtle flowers,

And through a still blue heaven the sweet winds rove.

Know’st thou it well?

There, there, with thee,

O friend! O loved one! fain my steps would flee.

Know’st thou the dwelling? There the pillars rise,

Soft shines the hall, the painted chambers glow;

And forms of marble seem with pitying eyes

To say--“Poor child! what thus hath wrought thee woe?”

Know’st thou it well?

There, there with thee,

O my protector! homewards might I flee!

Know’st thou the mountain? High its bridge is hung,

Where the mule seeks through mist and cloud his way;

There lurk the dragon-race, deep caves among,

O’er beetling rocks there foams the torrent-spray.

Know’st thou it well?

With thee, with thee,

There lies my path, O father! let us flee!

THE SISTERS.[412]

A BALLAD.

“I go, sweet sister! yet, my heart would linger with thee fain,

And unto every parting gift some deep remembrance chain:

Take, then, the braid of Eastern pearls which once I loved to wear,

And with it bind for festal scenes the dark waves of thy hair!

Its pale, pure brightness will beseem those raven tresses well,

And I shall need such pomp no more in my lone convent-cell.”

“Oh, speak not thus, my Leonor! why part from kindred love?

Through festive scenes, when thou art gone, my steps no more shall

move!

How could I bear a lonely heart amid a reckless throng?

I should but miss earth’s dearest voice in every tone of song.

Keep, keep the braid of Eastern pearls, or let me proudly twine

Its wreath once more around that brow, that queenly brow of thine.”

“Oh, wouldst thou strive a wounded bird from shelter to detain?

Or wouldst thou call a spirit freed to weary life again?

Sweet sister! take the golden cross that I have worn so long,

And bathed with many a burning tear for secret woe and wrong.

It could not still _my_ beating heart! but may it be a sign

Of peace and hope, my gentle one! when meekly press’d to thine.”

“Take back, take back the cross of gold, our mother’s gift to thee--

It would but of this parting hour a bitter token be;

With funeral splendour to mine eye, it would but sadly shine,

And tell of early treasures lost, of joy no longer mine.

O sister! if thy heart be thus with buried grief oppress’d,

Where wouldst thou pour it forth so well as on my faithful breast?”

“Urge me no more! A blight hath fallen upon my summer years!

I should but darken _thy_ young life with fruitless pangs and fears.

But take at least the lute I loved, and guard it for my sake,

And sometimes from its silvery strings one tone of memory wake!

Sing to those chords by starlight’s gleam our own sweet vesper-hymn,

And think that I too chant it then, far in my cloister dim.”

“Yes! I _will_ take the silvery lute--and I will sing to thee

A song we heard in childhood’s days, even from our father’s knee.

O sister! sister! are these notes amid forgotten things?

Do they not linger as in love, on the familiar strings?

Seems not our sainted mother’s voice to murmur in the strain?

Kind sister! gentlest Leonor! say shall it plead in vain?”

[412] This ballad was composed for a kind of dramatic recitative,

relieved by music. It was thus performed by two graceful and highly

accomplished sisters.

SONG.

“Leave us not, leave us not!

Say not adieu!

Have we not been to thee

Tender and true?

“Take not thy sunny smile

Far from our hearth!

With that sweet light will fade

Summer and mirth.

“Leave us not, leave us not!

Can thy heart roam?

Wilt thou not pine to hear

Voices from home?

“Too sad our love would be

If thou wert gone!

Turn to us, leave us not!

Thou art our own!”

“O sister! hush that thrilling lute!--oh, cease that haunting lay!

Too deeply pierce those wild, sweet notes--yet, yet I cannot stay:

For weary, weary is my heart! I hear a whisper’d call

In every breeze that stirs the leaf and bids the blossom fall.

I cannot breathe in freedom here, my spirit pines to dwell

Where the world’s voice can reach no more! Oh, calm thee!--Fare thee

well!”

[“Mrs Hemans played very pleasingly, and was passionately fond of

music. She has described in--perhaps the finest of her lyrics--the

‘Requiem of Mozart’ the manner in which she herself felt its thrilling

influences.

“It was after having listened with great delight one evening to

some sweet and loved voices (that are now but very seldom heard

within these walls) singing those words of hers, composed from Sir

Walter Scott’s dictation, for one of the old _Rhine songs_, that

she brought with her, on the next, her lines on ‘Triumphant Music;’

and triumphant they really were, in the splendour of their effect,

as she repeated them. She wrote, for these same voices, the little

drama, or rather scena, ‘The Sisters,’ which formed, as it was

represented[413] with extraordinary research and elegance, and with

the advantage of Mr Lodge’s music, one of the most perfect private

exhibitions of the kind that can be imagined. One could not help

reverting to the times of Ludlow Castle, and the Bridgewater family,

when the youthful performers in Milton’s exquisite masque were as

pure, and as noble, and as beautiful, as the ideal personages they

represented.”--_Recollections of Mrs Hemans_, by Mrs Lawrence of

Wavertree Hall, p. 339-340.]

[413] At a beautiful residence in Needwood Forest.

THE LAST SONG OF SAPPHO.

[Suggested by a beautiful sketch, the design of the younger

Westmacott. It represents Sappho sitting on a rock above the sea, with

her lyre cast at her feet. There is a desolate grace about the whole

figure, which seems penetrated with the feeling of utter abandonment.]

Sound on, thou dark, unslumbering sea!

My dirge is in thy moan;

My spirit finds response in thee

To its own ceaseless cry--“Alone, alone!”

Yet send me back one other word,

Ye tones that never cease!

Oh! let your secret caves be stirr’d,

And say, dark waters! will ye give me _peace_?

Away! my weary soul hath sought

In vain one echoing sigh,

One answer to consuming thought

In human hearts--and will the _wave_ reply?

Sound on, thou dark unslumbering sea!

Sound in thy scorn and pride!

I ask not, alien world! from thee

What my own kindred earth hath still denied.

And yet I loved that earth so well,

With all its lovely things!

Was it for this the death-wind fell

On my rich lyre, and quench’d its living strings?

Let them lie silent at my feet!

Since, broken even as they,

The heart whose music made them sweet

Hath pour’d on desert sands its wealth away.

Yet glory’s light hath touch’d my name,

The laurel-wreath is mine--

With a lone heart, a weary frame--

O restless deep! I come to make them thine!

Give to that crown, that burning crown,

Place in thy darkest hold!

Bury my anguish, my renown,

With hidden wrecks, lost gems, and wasted gold.

Thou sea-bird on the billow’s crest!

_Thou_ hast thy love, thy home;

They wait thee in the quiet nest,

And I, th’ unsought, unwatch’d-for--I too come!

I, with this wingèd nature fraught,

These visions wildly free,

This boundless love, this fiery thought--

_Alone_ I come--oh! give me peace, dark sea!

DIRGE.

Where shall we make her grave?

Oh! where the wild-flowers wave

In the free air!

Where shower and singing-bird

Midst the young leaves are heard--

There--lay her there!

Harsh was the world to her--

Now may sleep minister

Balm for each ill:

Low on sweet nature’s breast

Let the meek heart find rest,

Deep, deep and still!

Murmur, glad waters! by;

Faint gales! with happy sigh,

Come wandering o’er

That green and mossy bed,

Where, on a gentle head,

Storms beat no more!

What though for her in vain

Falls now the bright spring-rain,

Plays the soft wind?

Yet still, from where she lies,

Should blessed breathings rise,

Gracious and kind.

Therefore let song and dew

Thence in the heart renew

Life’s vernal glow!

And o’er that holy earth

Scents of the violet’s birth

Still come and go!

Oh! then, where wild flowers wave

Make ye her mossy grave,

In the free air!

Where shower and singing-bird

Midst the young leaves are heard--

There--lay her there!

A SONG OF THE ROSE.

“Cosi fior diverrai che non soggiace

All ’acqua, al gelo, al vento ed allo scherno

D’ una stagion volubile e fugace;

E a piu fido Cultor posto in governo,

Unir potrai nella tranquilla pace,

Ad eterna Bellezza odore eterno.” Metastasio.

Rose! what dost thou here?

Bridal, royal rose!

How, midst grief and fear,

Canst thou thus disclose

That fervid hue of love, which to thy heart-leaf glows?

Rose! too much array’d

For triumphal hours,

Look’st thou through the shade

Of these mortal bowers,

Not to disturb my soul, thou crown’d one of all flowers!

As an eagle soaring

Through a sunny sky,

As a clarion pouring

Notes of victory,

So dost _thou_ kindle thoughts, for earthly life too high.

Thoughts of rapture, flushing

Youthful poet’s cheek;

Thoughts of glory, rushing

Forth in song to break,

But finding the spring-tide of rapid song too weak.

Yet, O festal rose!

I have seen thee lying

In thy bright repose

Pillow’d with the dying,

_Thy_ crimson by the lip whence life’s quick blood was flying.

Summer, hope, and love

O’er that bed of pain,

Met in thee, yet wove

Too, too frail a chain

In its embracing links the lovely to detain.

Smilest thou, gorgeous flower?

Oh! within the spells

Of thy beauty’s power,

Something dimly dwells,

At variance with a world of sorrows and farewells.

All the soul forth flowing

In that rich perfume,

All the proud life glowing

In that radiant bloom--

Have they no place but _here_, beneath th’ o’ershadowing tomb?

Crown’st thou but the daughters

Of our tearful race?

Heaven’s own purest waters

Well might wear the trace

Of thy consummate form, melting to softer grace.

Will that clime enfold thee

With immortal air?

Shall we not behold thee

Bright and deathless there?

In spirit-lustre clothed, transcendantly more fair!

Yes! my fancy sees thee

In that light disclose,

And its dream thus frees thee

From the mist of woes,

Darkening thine earthly bowers, O bridal royal rose!

NIGHT-BLOWING FLOWERS.

Children of night! unfolding meekly, slowly,

To the sweet breathings of the shadowy hours,

When dark-blue heavens look softest and most holy,

And glow-worm light is in the forest bowers;

To solemn things and deep,

To spirit-haunted sleep,

To thoughts, all purified

From earth, ye seem allied;

O dedicated flowers!

Ye, from the gaze of crowds your beauty veiling,

Keep in dim vestal urns the sweetness shrined;

Till the mild moon, on high serenely sailing,

Looks on you tenderly and sadly kind.

--So doth love’s dreaming heart

Dwell from the throng apart,

And but to shades disclose

The inmost thought, which glows

With its pure life entwined.

Shut from the sounds wherein the day rejoices,

To no triumphant song your petals thrill,

But send forth odours with the faint, soft voices

Rising from hidden streams, when all is still.

--So doth lone prayer arise,

Mingling with secret sighs,

When grief unfolds, like you,

Her breast, for heavenly dew

In silent hours to fill.

THE WANDERER AND THE NIGHT-FLOWERS.

“Call back your odours, lovely flowers!

From the night-winds call them back;

And fold your leaves till the laughing hours

Come forth in the sunbeam’s track!

“The lark lies couch’d in her grassy nest,

And the honey-bee is gone,

And all bright things are away to rest--

Why watch ye here alone?

“Is not your world a mournful one,

When your sisters close their eyes,

And your soft breath meets not a lingering tone

Of song in the starry skies?

“Take ye no joy in the dayspring’s birth

When it kindles the sparks of dew?

And the thousand strains of the forest’s mirth,

Shall they gladden all but you?

“Shut your sweet bells till the fawn comes out

On the sunny turf to play,

And the woodland child with a fairy shout

Goes dancing on its way!”

“Nay! let our shadowy beauty bloom

When the stars give quiet light,

And let us offer our faint perfume

On the silent shrine of night.

“Call it not wasted, the scent we lend

To the breeze, when no step is nigh:

Oh, thus for ever the earth should send

Her grateful breath on high!

“And love us as emblems, night’s dewy flowers,

Of hopes unto sorrow given,

That spring through the gloom of the darkest hours

Looking alone to heaven!”

ECHO-SONG.

In thy cavern-hall,

Echo! art thou sleeping?

By the fountain’s fall

Dreamy silence keeping?

Yet one soft note borne

From the shepherd’s horn,

Wakes thee, Echo! into music leaping!

--Strange, sweet Echo! into music leaping.

Then the woods rejoice,

Then glad sounds are swelling

From each sister-voice

Round thy rocky dwelling;

And their sweetness fills

All the hollow hills,

With a thousand notes, of _one_ life telling!

--Softly mingled notes, of one life telling.

Echo! in my heart

Thus deep thoughts are lying,

Silent and apart,

Buried, yet undying;

Till some gentle tone

Wakening haply _one_,

Calls a thousand forth, like thee replying!

--Strange, sweet Echo! even like thee replying.[414]

[414] This song is in the possession of Mr Power.

THE MUFFLED DRUM.[415]

The muffled drum was heard

In the Pyrenees by night,

With a dull, deep rolling sound,

Which told the hamlets round

Of a soldier’s burial-rite.

But it told them not how dear,

In a home beyond the main,

Was the warrior-youth laid low that hour

By a mountain-stream of Spain.

The oaks of England waved

O’er the slumbers of his race,

But a pine of the Ronceval made moan

Above _his_ last, lone place;

When the muffled drum was heard

In the Pyrenees by night,

With a dull, deep rolling sound,

Which call’d strange echoes round

To the soldier’s burial-rite.

Brief was the sorrowing _there_,

By the stream from battle red,

And tossing on its wave the plumes

Of many a stately head:

But a mother--soon to die,

And a sister--long to weep,

Even then were breathing prayers for him

In that home beyond the deep;

While the muffled drum was heard

In the Pyrenees by night,

With a dull, deep rolling sound,

And the dark pines mourn’d round,

O’er the soldier’s burial-rite.

[415] Set to beautiful music by John Lodge, Esq.

THE SWAN AND THE SKYLARK.

“Adieu, adieu! thy plaintive anthem fades

Past the near meadows, over the still stream,

Up the hill-side; and now ’tis buried deep

In the next valley-glades.” Keats.

“Higher still and higher

From the earth thou springest

Like a cloud of fire;

The blue deep thou wingest,

And singing still dost soar, and soaring ever singest.”

Shelley.

Midst the long reeds that o’er a Grecian stream

Unto the faint wind sigh’d melodiously,

And where the sculpture of a broken shrine

Sent out thro’ shadowy grass and thick wild-flowers

Dim alabaster gleams--a lonely swan

Warbled his death-chant; and a poet stood

Listening to that strange music, as it shook

The lilies on the wave; and made the pines

And all the laurels of the haunted shore

Thrill to its passion. Oh! the tones were sweet,

Even painfully--as with the sweetness wrung

From parting love; and to the poet’s thought

_This_ was their language.

“Summer! I depart--

O light and laughing summer! fare thee well:

No song the less through thy rich woods will swell,

For one, one broken heart.

“And fare ye well, young flowers!

Ye will not mourn! ye will shed odour still,

And wave in glory, colouring every rill,

Known to my youth’s fresh hours.

“And ye, bright founts! that lie

Far in the whispering forests, lone and deep,

My wing no more shall stir your shadowy sleep--

Sweet waters! I must die.

“Will ye not send one tone

Of sorrow through the pines?--one murmur low?

Shall not the green leaves from your voices know

That I, your child, am gone?

“No! ever glad and free

Ye have no sounds a tale of death to tell:

Waves, joyous waves! flow on, and fare ye well?

Ye will not mourn for me.

“But thou, sweet boon! too late

Pour’d on my parting breath, vain gift of song!

Why com’st thou thus, o’ermastering, rich and strong,

In the dark hour of fate?

“Only to wake the sighs

Of echo-voices from their sparry cell;

Only to say--O sunshine and blue skies!

O life and love! farewell.”

Thus flow’d the death-chant on; while mournfully

Low winds and waves made answer, and the tones

Buried in rocks along the Grecian stream--

Rocks and dim caverns of old Prophecy--

Woke to respond: and all the air was fill’d

With that one sighing sound--_Farewell! farewell!_

Fill’d with that sound? High in the calm blue heav’n

Even then a skylark hung; soft summer clouds

Were floating round him, all transpierced with light,

And midst that pearly radiance his dark wings

Quiver’d with song: such free, triumphant song,

As if tears were not,--as if breaking hearts

Had not a place below; and _thus_ that strain

Spoke to the poet’s ear exultingly:--

“The summer is come; she hath said _Rejoice!_

The wild-woods thrill to her merry voice;

Her sweet breath is wandering around, on high:

Sing, sing through the echoing sky!

“There is joy in the mountains! The bright waves leap

Like the bounding stag when he breaks from sleep;

Mirthfully, wildly, they flash along--

Let the heavens ring with song!

“There is joy in the forests! The bird of night

Hath made the leaves tremble with deep delight;

But _mine_ is the glory to sunshine given--

Sing, sing through the echoing heaven!

“Mine are the wings of the soaring morn,

Mine are the fresh gales with dayspring born:

Only young rapture can mount so high--

Sing, sing through the echoing sky!”