Thy children’s cry to thee,
Father divine!
A hymn of suppliant breath,
Owning that life and death
Alike are thine!
A spirit on its way,
Sceptred the earth to sway,
From thee was sent:
Now call’st thou back thine own--
Hence is that radiance flown--
To earth but lent.
Watching in breathless awe,
The bright head bow’d we saw,
Beneath thy hand!
Fill’d by one hope, one fear,
Now o’er a brother’s bier
Weeping we stand.
How hath he pass’d!--the lord
Of each deep bosom-chord,
To meet thy sight,
Unmantled and alone,
On thy bless’d mercy thrown,
O Infinite!
So, from his harvest-home,
Must the tired peasant come;
So, in one trust,
Leader and king must yield
The naked soul reveal’d
To thee, All Just!
The sword of many a fight--
What _then_ shall be its might?
The lofty lay
That rush’d on eagle wing--
What shall its memory bring?
What hope, what stay?
O Father! in that hour,
When earth all succouring power
Shall disavow;
When spear, and shield, and crown
In faintness are cast down--
Sustain us, Thou!
By Him who bow’d to take
The death-cup for our sake,
The thorn, the rod;
From whom the last dismay
Was not to pass away--
Aid us, O God!
Tremblers beside the grave,
We call on thee to save,
Father divine!
Hear, hear our suppliant breath!
Keep us, in life and death,
Thine, only thine!
THE PRAYER IN THE WILDERNESS.
SUGGESTED BY A PICTURE OF CORREGGIO’S.
In the deep wilderness unseen she pray’d,
The daughter of Jerusalem; alone
With all the still, small whispers of the night,
And with the searching glances of the stars,
And with her God, alone: she lifted up
Her sweet, sad voice, and, trembling o’er her head,
The dark leaves thrill’d with prayer--the tearful prayer
Of woman’s quenchless, yet repentant love.
Father of Spirits, hear!
Look on the inmost heart to thee reveal’d,
Look on the fountain of the burning tear,
Before thy sight in solitude unseal’d!
Hear, Father! hear, and aid!
If I have loved too well, if I have shed,
In my vain fondness, o’er a mortal head,
Gifts on thy shrine, my God! more fitly laid;
If I have sought to live
But in _one_ light, and made a human eye
The lonely star of mine idolatry,
Thou that art Love! oh, pity and forgive!
Chasten’d and school’d at last,
No more, no more my struggling spirit burns,
But, fix’d on thee, from that wild worship turns--
What have I said?--the deep dream is not past!
Yet hear!--if _still_ I love,
Oh! still too fondly--if, for ever seen,
An earthly image comes my heart between
And thy calm glory, Father! throned above;
If still a voice is near,
(E’en while I strive these wanderings to control,)
An earthly voice disquieting my soul
With its deep music, too intensely dear;
O Father! draw to thee
My lost affections back!--the dreaming eyes
Clear from their mist--sustain the heart that dies,
Give the worn soul once more its pinions free!
I must love on, O God!
This bosom must love on!--but let thy breath
Touch and make pure the flame that knows not death,
Bearing it up to heaven--love’s own abode!
Ages and ages past, the wilderness,
With its dark cedars, and the thrilling night,
With her clear stars, and the mysterious winds,
That waft all sound, were conscious of those prayers.
How many such hath woman’s bursting heart
_Since then_, in silence and in darkness breathed,
Like the dim night-flower’s odour, up to God!
PRISONERS’ EVENING SERVICE.
A SCENE OF THE FRENCH REVOLUTION.[424]
“From their spheres
The stars of human glory are cast down.
Perish the roses and the flowers of kings,
Princes and emperors, and the crown and palms
Of all the mighty, wither’d and consumed!
Nor is power given to lowliest innocence
Long to protect her own.” Wordsworth.
Scene--_Prison of the Luxembourg in Paris, during the Reign of Terror._
D’Aubigné, _an aged Royalist_--Blanche, _his daughter, a young girl._
_Blanche._ What was your doom, my father? In thine arms
I lay unconsciously through that dread hour.
Tell me the sentence! Could our judges look,
Without relenting, on thy silvery hair?
Was there not mercy, father? Will they not
Restore us to our home?
_D’Aubigné._ Yes, my poor child!
They send us home.
_Blanche._ Oh! shall we gaze again
On the bright Loire? Will the old hamlet spire,
And the gray turret of our own chateau,
Look forth to greet us through the dusky elms?
Will the kind voices of our villagers,
The loving laughter in their children’s eyes,
Welcome us back at last? But how is this?
Father! thy glance is clouded--on thy brow
There sits no joy!
_D’Aubigné._ Upon my brow, dear girl!
There sits, I trust, such deep and solemn peace
As may befit the Christian who receives,
And recognises in submissive awe,
The summons of his God.
_Blanche._ Thou dost not mean----
No, no! it cannot be! Didst thou not say
They sent us _home_?
_D’Aubigné._ Where is the spirit’s home?
Oh! most of all, in these dark, evil days,
Where should it be--but in that world serene,
Beyond the sword’s reach and the tempest’s power,
--Where, but in heaven?
_Blanche._ My father!
_D’Aubigné._ _We must die._
We must look up to God, and calmly die.
Come to my heart, and weep there! For awhile
Give nature’s passion way; then brightly rise
In the still courage of a woman’s heart.
Do I not know thee? Do I ask too much
From mine own noble Blanche?
_Blanche_, (_falling on his bosom._) Oh! clasp me fast!
Thy trembling child! Hide, hide me in thine arms--
Father!
_D’Aubigné._ Alas! my flower, thou’rt young to go--
Young, and so fair! Yet were it worse, methinks,
To leave thee where the gentle and the brave,
The loyal-hearted and the chivalrous,
And they that loved their God, have all been swept,
Like the sere leaves, away. For them no hearth
Through the wide land was left inviolate,
No altar holy; therefore did they fall,
Rejoicing to depart. The soil is steep’d
In noble blood; the temples are gone down;
The voice of prayer is hush’d, or fearfully
Mutter’d, like sounds of guilt. Why, who would live
Who hath not panted, as a dove, to flee,
To quit for ever the dishonour’d soil,
The burden’d air! Our God upon the cross--
Our king upon the scaffold[425]--let us think
Of _these_--and fold endurance to our hearts,
And bravely die!
_Blanche._ A dark and fearful way!
An evil doom for thy dear, honour’d head!
O thou, the kind, the gracious! whom all eyes
Bless’d as they look’d upon! Speak yet again--
Say, will they part us?
_D’Aubigné._ No, my Blanche; in death,
We shall not be divided.
_Blanche._ Thanks to God!
He, by thy glance, will aid me--I shall see
His light before me to the last. And when--
Oh, pardon these weak shrinkings of thy child!--
When shall the hour befall?
_D’Aubigné._ Oh! swiftly now,
And suddenly, with brief, dread interval,
Comes down the mortal stroke. But of that hour
As yet I know not. Each low throbbing pulse
Of the quick pendulum may usher in
Eternity!
_Blanche_, (_kneeling before him._) My father! lay thy hand
On thy poor Blanche’s head, and once again
Bless her with thy deep voice of tenderness--
Thus breathing saintly courage through her soul,
Ere we are call’d.
_D’Aubigné._ If I may speak through tears!--
Well may I bless thee, fondly, fervently,
Child of my heart!--thou who dost look on me
With thy lost mother’s angel eyes of love!
Thou, that hast been a brightness in my path,
A guest of heaven unto my lonely soul,
A stainless lily in my widow’d house,
There springing up, with soft light round thee shed,
For immortality! Meek child of God!
I bless thee--He will bless thee! In his love
He calls thee now from this rude stormy world
To thy Redeemer’s breast! And thou wilt die,
As thou hast lived--my duteous, holy Blanche!
In trusting and serene submissiveness,
Humble, yet full of heaven.
_Blanche_, (_rising._) Now is there strength
Infused through all my spirit. I can rise
And say, “Thy will be done!”
_D’Aubigné_, (_pointing upwards._) See’st thou, my child!
Yon faint light in the west? The signal star
Of our due vesper-service, gleaming in
Through the close dungeon-grating! Mournfully
It seems to quiver; yet shall this night pass,
_This_ night alone, without the lifted voice
Of adoration in our narrow cell,
As if unworthy fear or wavering faith
Silenced the strain? No! let it waft to heaven
The prayer, the hope, of poor mortality,
In its dark hour once more! And we will sleep,
Yes--calmly sleep, when our last rite is closed.
[_They sing together._
[424] The last days of two prisoners in the Luxembourg, Sillery and
La Source, so affectingly described by Helen Maria Williams, in her
_Letters from France_, gave rise to this little scene. These two
victims had composed a simple hymn, which they sang together in a low
and restrained voice every night.
[425] A French royalist officer, dying upon a field of battle, and
hearing some one near him uttering the most plaintive lamentations,
turned towards the sufferer, and thus addressed him:--“My friend,
whoever you may be, remember that your God expired upon the cross--your
king upon the scaffold--and he who now speaks to you has had his limbs
shot from under him. Meet your fate as becomes a man.”
PRISONER’S EVENING SONG.
We see no more in thy pure skies,
How soft, O God! the sunset dies;
How every colour’d hill and wood
Seems melting in the golden flood:
Yet, by the precious memories won
From bright hours now for ever gone,
Father! o’er all thy works, we know,
Thou still art shedding beauty’s glow;
Still touching every cloud and tree
With glory, eloquent of thee;
Still feeding all thy flowers with light,
Though man hath barr’d it from our sight.
We know thou reign’st, the Unchanging One, the All-just!
And bless thee still with free and boundless trust!
We read no more, O God! thy ways
On earth, in these wild, evil days.
The red sword in the oppressor’s hand
Is ruler of the weeping land;
Fallen are the faithful and the pure,
No shrine is spared, no hearth secure.
Yet, by the deep voice from the past,
Which tells us these things cannot last--
And by the hope which finds no ark
Save in thy breast, when storms grow dark--
We trust thee! As the sailor knows
That in its place of bright repose
His pole-star burns, though mist and cloud
May veil it with a midnight shroud,
We know thou reign’st, All-holy One, All-just!
And bless thee still with love’s own boundless trust.
We feel no more that aid is nigh,
When our faint hearts within us die.
We suffer--and we know our doom
Must be one suffering till the tomb.
Yet, by the anguish of thy Son
When his last hour came darkly on;
By his dread cry, the air which rent
In terror of abandonment;
And by his parting word, which rose
Through faith victorious o’er all woes--
We know that thou may’st wound, may’st break
The spirit, but wilt ne’er forsake!
Sad suppliants whom our brethren spurn,
In our deep need to thee we turn!
To whom but thee? All-merciful, All-just!
In life, in death, we yield thee boundless trust!
HYMN OF THE VAUDOIS MOUNTAINEERS IN TIMES OF PERSECUTION.
“Thanks be to God for the mountains!”
Howitt’s “Book of the Seasons.”
For the strength of the hills we bless thee,
Our God, our fathers’ God!
Thou hast made thy children mighty,
By the touch of the mountain-sod.
Thou hast fix’d our ark of refuge
Where the spoiler’s foot ne’er trod;
For the strength of the hills we bless thee,
Our God, our fathers’ God!
We are watchers of a beacon
Whose light must never die;
We are guardians of an altar
Midst the silence of the sky:
The rocks yield founts of courage,
Struck forth as by thy rod;
For the strength of the hills we bless thee,
Our God, our fathers’ God!
For the dark, resounding caverns,
Where thy still, small voice is heard;
For the strong pines of the forests,
That by thy breath are stirr’d;
For the storms, on whose free pinions
Thy spirit walks abroad;
For the strength of the hills we bless thee,
Our God, our fathers’ God!
The royal eagle darteth
On his quarry from the heights,
And the stag that knows no master,
Seeks there his wild delights;
But we, for _thy_ communion,
Have sought the mountain-sod;
For the strength of the hills we bless thee,
Our God, our fathers’ God!
The banner of the chieftain
Far, far below us waves;
The war-horse of the spearman
Cannot reach our lofty caves:
Thy dark clouds wrap the threshold
Of freedom’s last abode;
For the strength of the hills we bless thee,
Our God, our fathers’ God!
For the shadow of thy presence,
Round our camp of rock outspread;
For the stern defiles of battle,
Bearing record of our dead;
For the snows and for the torrents,
For the free heart’s burial-sod;
For the strength of the hills we bless thee,
Our God, our fathers’ God!
PRAYER AT SEA AFTER VICTORY.
“The land shall never rue,
So England to herself do prove but true.”--Shakspeare.
Through evening’s bright repose
A voice of prayer arose,
When the sea-fight was done:
The sons of England knelt,
With hearts that now could melt,
For on the wave her battle had been won.
Round their tall ship, the main
Heaved with a dark red stain,
Caught not from sunset’s cloud;
While with the tide swept past
Pennon and shiver’d mast,
Which to the Ocean-Queen that day had bow’d.
But free and fair on high,
A native of the sky,
_Her_ streamer met the breeze;
It flow’d o’er fearless men,
Though, hush’d and child-like then,
Before their God they gather’d on the seas.
Oh! did not thoughts of home
O’er each bold spirit come,
As from the land sweet gales?
In every word of prayer
Had not some hearth a share,
Some bower, inviolate midst England’s vales?
Yes! bright, green spots that lay
In beauty far away,
Hearing no billow’s roar,
Safer from touch of spoil,
For that day’s fiery toil,
Rose on high hearts, that now with love gush’d o’er.
A solemn scene and dread!
The victors and the dead,
The breathless burning sky!
And, passing with the race
Of waves that keep no trace,
The wild, brief signs of human victory!
A stern, yet holy scene!
Billows, where strife hath been,
Sinking to awful sleep;
And words, that breathe the sense
Of God’s omnipotence,
Making a minster of that silent deep.
Borne through such hours afar,
Thy flag hath been a star,
Where eagle’s wings ne’er flew:
England! the unprofaned,
Thou of the earth unstain’d,
Oh! to the banner and the shrine be true!
THE INDIAN’S REVENGE.
SCENE IN THE LIFE OF A MORAVIAN MISSIONARY.
[Circumstances similar to those on which this scene is founded are
recorded in Carne’s Narrative of the Moravian Missions in Greenland,
and gave rise to the dramatic sketch.]
“But by my wrongs and by my wrath,
To-morrow Areouski’s breath
That fires yon heaven with storms of death,
Shall light me to the foe!”
Indian Song in “Gertrude of Wyoming.”
Scene.--_The shore of a Lake surrounded by deep woods. A solitary
cabin on its banks, overshadowed by maple and sycamore trees._
Herrmann, _the missionary, seated alone before the cabin. The hour is
evening twilight._
_Herrmann._ Was that the light from some lone, swift canoe
Shooting across the waters?--No, a flash
From the night’s first, quick fire-fly, lost again
In the deep bay of cedars. Not a bark
Is on the wave; no rustle of a breeze
Comes through the forest. In this new, strange world,
Oh! how mysterious, how eternal, seems
The mighty melancholy of the woods!
The desert’s own great spirit, infinite!
Little they know, in mine own fatherland,
Along the castled Rhine, or e’en amidst
The wild Harz mountains, or the sylvan glades
Deep in the Odenwald--they little know
Of what is solitude! In hours like this,
There, from a thousand nooks, the cottage-hearths
Pour forth red light through vine-hung lattices,
To guide the peasant, singing cheerily,
On the home-path; while round his lowly porch,
With eager eyes awaiting his return,
The cluster’d faces of his children shine
To the clear harvest moon. Be still, fond thoughts!
Melting my spirit’s grasp from heavenly hope
By your vain, earthward yearnings. O my God!
Draw me still nearer, closer unto thee,
Till all the hollow of these deep desires
May with thyself be fill’d! Be it enough
At once to gladden and to solemnise
My lonely life, if for thine altar here
In this dread temple of the wilderness,
By prayer, and toil, and watching, I may win
The offering of one heart, one human heart,
Bleeding, repenting, loving!
Hark! a step,
An Indian tread! I know the stealthy sound--
’Tis on some quest of evil, through the grass
Gliding so serpent-like.
(_He comes forward, and meets an Indian warrior armed._)
Enonio, is it thou? I see thy form
Tower stately through the dusk, yet scarce mine eye
Discerns thy face.
_Enonio._ My father speaks my name.
_Herrmann._ Are not the hunters from the chase return’d?
The night-fires lit? Why is my son abroad?
_Enonio._ The warrior’s arrow knows of nobler prey
Than elk or deer. Now let my father leave
The lone path free.
_Herrmann._ The forest way is long
From the red chieftain’s home. Rest thee awhile
Beneath my sycamore, and we will speak
Of these things further.
_Enonio._ Tell me not of rest!
My heart is sleepless, and the dark night swift.
I must begone.
_Herrmann_, (_solemnly._) No, warrior! thou must stay!
The Mighty One hath given me power to search
Thy soul with piercing words--and thou must stay,
And hear me, and give answer! If thy heart
Be grown thus restless, is it not because
Within its dark folds thou hast mantled up
Some burning thought of ill?
_Enonio_, (_with sudden impetuosity._) How should I rest?--
Last night the spirit of my brother came,
An angry shadow in the moonlight streak,
And said, “_Avenge me!_” In the clouds this morn
I saw the frowning colour of his blood--
And that, too, had a voice. I lay at noon
Alone beside the sounding waterfall,
And through its thunder-music spake a tone--
A low tone piercing all the roll of waves--
And said “_Avenge me!_” Therefore have I raised
The tomahawk, and strung the bow again,
That I may send the shadow from my couch,
And take the strange sound from the cataract,
And sleep once more.
_Herrmann._ A better path, my son!
Unto the still and dewy land of sleep,
My hand in peace can guide thee--e’en the way
Thy dying brother trod. Say, didst thou love
That lost one well?
_Enonio._ Know’st thou not we grew up
Even as twin roes amidst the wilderness?
Unto the chase we journey’d in one path;
We stemm’d the lake in one canoe; we lay
Beneath one oak to rest. When fever hung
Upon my burning lips, my brother’s hand
Was still beneath my head; my brother’s robe
Cover’d my bosom from the chill night-air--
Our lives were girdled by one belt of love
Until he turn’d him from his father’s gods.
And then my soul fell from him--then the grass
Grew in the way between our parted homes;
And wheresoe’er I wander’d, then it seem’d
That all the woods were silent. I went forth--
I journey’d, with my lonely heart, afar,
And so return’d--and where was he? The earth
Own’d him no more.
_Herrmann._ But thou thyself, since then,
Hast turn’d thee from the idols of thy tribe,
And, like thy brother, bow’d the suppliant knee
To the one God.
_Enonio._ Yes! I have learn’d to pray
With my white father’s words, yet all the more
My heart, that shut against my brother’s love,
Hath been within me as an arrowy fire,
Burning my sleep away. In the night-hush,
Midst the strange whispers and dim shadowy things
Of the great forests, I have call’d aloud,
“Brother! forgive, forgive!” He answer’d not--
His deep voice, rising from the land of souls,
Cries but “_Avenge me!_”--and I go forth now
To slay his murderer, that when next his eyes
Gleam on me mournfully from that pale shore,
I may look up, and meet their glance, and say,
“I _have_ avenged thee!”
_Herrmann._ Oh! that human love
Should be the root of this dread bitterness,
Till heaven through all the fever’d being pours
Transmuting balsam! Stay, Enonio! stay!
Thy brother calls thee not! The spirit-world
Where the departed go, sends back to earth
No visitants for evil. ’Tis the might
Of the strong passion, the remorseful grief
At work in thine own breast, which lends the voice
Unto the forest and the cataract,
The angry colour to the clouds of morn,
The shadow to the moonlight. Stay, my son!
Thy brother is at peace. Beside his couch,
When of the murderer’s poison’d shaft he died,
I knelt and pray’d; he named his Saviour’s name,
Meekly, beseechingly; he spoke of thee
In pity and in love.
_Enonio_, (_hurriedly._) Did he not say
My arrow should avenge him?
_Herrmann._ His last words
Were all forgiveness.
_Enonio._ What! and shall the man
Who pierced him with the shaft of treachery,
Walk fearless forth in joy?
_Herrmann._ Was he not once
Thy brother’s friend? Oh! trust me, not in _joy_
He walks the frowning forest. Did keen love,
Too late repentant of its heart estranged,
Wake in _thy_ haunted bosom, with its train
Of sounds and shadows--and shall _he_ escape?
Enonio, dream it not! Our God, the All-just,
Unto himself reserves this royalty--
The secret chastening of the guilty heart,
The fiery touch, the scourge that purifies,
Leave it with him! Yet make it not thy _hope_:
For that strong heart of thine--oh! listen yet--
Must, in its depths, o’ercome the very wish
For death or torture to the guilty one,
Ere it can sleep again.
_Enonio._ My father speaks
Of change, for man too mighty.
_Herrmann._ I but speak
Of that which hath been, and again must be,
If thou wouldst join thy brother, in the life
Of the bright country where, I well believe,
His soul rejoices. _He_ had known such change:
He died in peace. He, whom his tribe once named
The Avenging Eagle, took to his meek heart,
In its last pangs, the spirit of those words
Which, from the Saviour’s cross, went up to heaven--
“_Forgive them, for they know not what they do!_
_Father, forgive!_”--And o’er the eternal bounds
Of that celestial kingdom, undefiled,
Where evil may not enter, he, I deem,
Hath to his Master pass’d. He waits thee there--
For love, we trust, springs heavenward from the grave,
Immortal in its holiness. He calls
His brother to the land of golden light
And ever-living fountains--couldst thou hear
His voice o’er those bright waters, it would say,
“My brother! oh! be pure, be merciful!
That we may meet again.”
_Enonio_, (_hesitating._) Can I return
Unto my tribe, and unavenged?
_Herrmann._ To Him,
To Him return, from whom thine erring steps
Have wander’d far and long! Return, my son,
To thy Redeemer! Died he not in love--
The sinless, the divine, the Son of God--
Breathing forgiveness midst all agonies?
And _we_, dare _we_ be ruthless? By his aid
Shalt thou be guided to thy brother’s place
Midst the pure spirits. Oh! retrace the way
Back to thy Saviour! he rejects no heart
E’en with the dark stains on it, if true tears
Be o’er them shower’d. Ay! weep, thou Indian chief!
For, by the kindling moonlight, I behold
Thy proud lips working--weep, relieve thy soul!
Tears will not shame thy manhood, in the hour
Of its great conflict.
_Enonio_, (_giving up his weapons to_ Herrmann.)
Father! take the bow,
Keep the sharp arrows till the hunters call
Forth to the chase once more. And let me dwell
A little while, my father! by thy side,
That I may hear the blessed words again--
Like water-brooks amidst the summer hills--
From thy true lips flow forth; for in my heart
The music and the memory of their sound
Too long have died away.
_Herrmann._ Oh, welcome back,
Friend, rescued one! Yes, thou shalt be my guest,
And we will pray beneath my sycamore
Together, morn and eve; and I will spread
Thy couch beside my fire, and sleep at last--
After the visiting of holy thoughts--
With dewy wings shall sink upon thine eyes!
Enter my home, and welcome, welcome back
To peace, to God, thou lost and found again!
(_They go into the cabin together._--Herrmann, _lingering for a
moment on the threshold, looks up to the starry skies_.)
Father! that from amidst yon glorious worlds
Now look’st on us, thy children! make this hour
Blessed for ever! May it see the birth
Of thine own image in the unfathom’d deep
Of an immortal soul,--a thing to name
With reverential thought, a solemn world!
To thee more precious than those thousand stars
Burning on high in thy majestic heaven!
EVENING SONG OF THE WEARY.
Father of heaven and earth!
I bless thee for the night,
The soft, still night!
The holy pause of care and mirth,
Of sound and light!
Now, far in glade and dell,
Flower-cup, and bud, and bell,
Have shut around the sleeping woodlark’s nest;
The bee’s long murmuring toils are done,
And I, the o’erwearied one,
O’erwearied and o’erwrought,
Bless thee, O God! O Father of the oppress’d!
With my last waking thought,
In the still night!
Yes! e’er I sink to rest,
By the fire’s dying light,
Thou Lord of earth and heaven!
I bless thee, who hast given,
Unto life’s fainting travellers, the night--
The soft, still, holy night.
THE DAY OF FLOWERS.
A MOTHER’S WALK WITH HER CHILD.
“One spirit--His
Who wore the platted thorn with bleeding brows.
Rules universal nature. Not a flower
But shows some touch, in freckle, freak, or stain,
Of his unrivall’d pencil. He inspires
Their balmy odours, and imparts their hues.
And bathes their eyes with nectar.
Happy who walks with him!” Cowper.
Come to the woods, my boy!
Come to the streams and bowery dingles forth,
My happy child! The spirit of bright hours
Woos us in every wind; fresh wild-leaf scents,
From thickets, where the lonely stock-dove broods,
Enter our lattice; fitful songs of joy
Float in with each soft current of the air;--
And we will hear their summons; we will give
One day to flowers, and sunshine, and glad thoughts,
And thou shalt revel midst free nature’s wealth,
And for thy mother twine wild wreaths; while she,
From thy delight, wins to her own fond heart
The vernal ecstasy of childhood back.
Come to the woods, my boy!
What! wouldst thou lead already to the path
Along the copsewood brook? Come, then! in truth
Meet playmate for a child, a blessed child,
Is a glad, singing stream, heard or unheard,
Singing its melody of happiness
Amidst the reeds, and bounding in free grace
To that sweet chime. With what a sparkling life
It fills the shadowy dingle!--now the wing
Of some low-skimming swallow shakes bright spray
Forth to the sunshine from its dimpled wave;
Now, from some pool of crystal darkness deep,
The trout springs upward, with a showery gleam
And plashing sound of waters. What swift rings
Of mazy insects o’er the shallow tide
Seem, as they glance, to scatter sparks of light
From burnish’d films! And mark yon silvery line
Of gossamer, so tremulously hung
Across the narrow current, from the tuft
Of hazels to the hoary poplar’s bough!
See, in the air’s transparence, how it waves,
Quivering and glistening with each faintest gale,
Yet breaking not--a bridge for fairy shapes,
How delicate, how wondrous!
Yes, my boy!
Well may we make the stream’s bright, winding vein
Our woodland guide, for He who made the stream
Made it a clue to haunts of loveliness,
For ever deepening. Oh, forget him not,
Dear child! That airy gladness which thou feel’st
Wafting thee after bird and butterfly,
As ’twere a breeze within thee, is not less
_His_ gift, his blessing on thy spring-time hours,
Than this rich, outward sunshine, mantling all
The leaves, and grass, and mossy-tinted stones
With summer glory. Stay thy bounding step,
My merry wanderer!--let us rest a while
By this clear pool, where, in the shadow flung
From alder boughs and osiers o’er its breast,
The soft red of the flowering willow-herb
So vividly is pictured. Seems it not
E’en melting to a more transparent glow
In that pure glass? Oh! beautiful are streams!
And, through all ages, human hearts have loved
Their music, still accordant with each mood
Of sadness or of joy. And love hath grown
Into vain worship, which hath left its trace
On sculptured urn and altar, gleaming still
Beneath dim olive-boughs, by many a fount
Of Italy and Greece. But we will take
Our lesson e’en from erring hearts, which bless’d
The river-deities or fountain-nymphs,
For the cool breeze, and for the freshening shade,
And the sweet water’s tune. The One supreme,
The all-sustaining, ever-present God,
Who dower’d the soul with immortality,
Gave also _these_ delights, to cheer on earth
Its fleeting passage; therefore let us greet
Each wandering flower-scent as a boon from Him,
Each bird-note, quivering midst light summer leaves,
And every rich celestial tint unnamed,
Wherewith transpierced, the clouds of morn and eve,
Kindle and melt away!
And now, in love,
In grateful thoughts rejoicing, let us bend
Our footsteps onward to the dell of flowers
Around the ruin’d mansion. Thou, my boy!
Not yet, I deem, hast visited that lorn
But lovely spot, whose loveliness for _thee_
Will wear no shadow of subduing thought--
No colouring from the past. This way our path
Winds through the hazels. Mark how brightly shoots
The dragon-fly along the sunbeam’s line,
Crossing the leafy gloom. How full of life,
The life of song, and breezes, and free wings,
Is all the murmuring shade! and thine, oh _thine_!
Of all the brightest and the happiest here,
My blessed child! _my_ gift of God! that makest
My heart o’erflow with summer!
Hast thou twined
Thy wreath so soon! yet will we loiter not,
Though here the blue-bell wave, and gorgeously
Round the brown, twisted roots of yon scathed oak
The heath-flower spread its purple. We must leave
The copse, and through yon broken avenue,
Shadow’d by drooping walnut-foliage, reach
The ruin’s glade.
And lo! before us, fair
Yet desolate, amidst the golden day,
It stands, that house of silence! wedded now
To verdant Nature by the o’ermantling growth
Of leaf and tendril, which fond woman’s hands
Once loved to train. How the rich wallflower-scent
From every niche and mossy cornice floats,
Embalming its decay! The bee alone
Is murmuring from its casement, whence no more
Shall the sweet eyes of laughing children shine,
Watching some homeward footstep. See! unbound
From the old fretted stone-work, what thick wreaths
Of jasmine, borne by waste exuberance down,
Trail through the grass their gleaming stars, and load
The air with mournful fragrance--for it speaks
Of life gone hence; and the faint, southern breath
Of myrtle-leaves, from yon forsaken porch,
Startles the soul with sweetness! Yet rich knots
Of garden flowers, far wandering, and self-sown
Through all the sunny hollow, spread around
A flush of youth and joy, free nature’s joy,
Undimm’d by human change. How kindly here,
With the low thyme and daisies, they have blent!
And, under arches of wild eglantine,
Drooping from this tall elm, how strangely seems
The frail gum-cistus o’er the turf to snow
Its pearly flower-leaves down! Go, happy boy!
Rove thou at will amidst these roving sweets;
Whilst I, beside this fallen dial-stone,
Under the tall moss-rose tree, long unpruned,
Rest where thick clustering pansies weave around
Their many-tinged mosaic, midst dark grass
Bedded like jewels.
He hath bounded on,
Wild with delight!--the crimson on his cheek
Purer and richer e’en than that which lies
In this deep-hearted rose-cup! Bright moss-rose!
Though now so lorn, yet surely, gracious tree!
Once thou wert cherish’d! and, by human love,
Through many a summer duly visited
For thy bloom-offerings, which o’er festal board,
And youthful brow, and e’en the shaded couch
Of long-secluded sickness, may have shed
A joy, now lost.
Yet shall there still be joy,
Where God hath pour’d forth beauty, and the voice
Of human love shall still be heard in praise
Over his glorious gifts! O Father! Lord!
The All-beneficent! I bless thy name,
That thou hast mantled the green earth with flow’rs,
Linking our hearts to nature! By the love
Of their wild blossoms, our young footsteps first
Into her deep recesses are beguiled--
Her minster-cells--dark glen and forest bower,
Where, thrilling with its earliest sense of thee,
Amidst the low, religious whisperings
And shivery leaf-sounds of the solitude,
The spirit wakes to worship, and is made
Thy living temple. By the breath of flowers,
Thou callest us, from city throngs and cares,
Back to the woods, the birds, the mountain-streams,
That sing of thee! back to free childhood’s heart,
Fresh with the dews of tenderness! Thou bidd’st
The lilies of the field with placid smile
Reprove man’s feverish strivings, and infuse
Through his worn soul a more unworldly life,
With their soft, holy breath. Thou hast not left
His purer nature, with its fine desires,
Uncared for in this universe of thine!
The glowing rose attests it, the beloved
Of poet-hearts, touch’d by their fervent dreams
With spiritual light, and made a source
Of heaven-ascending thoughts. E’en to faint age
Thou lend’st the vernal bliss: the old man’s eye
Falls on the kindling blossoms, and his soul
Remembers youth and love, and hopefully
Turns unto thee, who call’st earth’s buried germs
From dust to splendour; as the mortal seed
Shall, at thy summons, from the grave spring up
To put on glory, to be girt with power,
And fill’d with immortality. Receive
Thanks, blessings, love, for these, thy lavish boons,
And, most of all, their heavenward influences,
O Thou that gavest us flowers!
Return, my boy!--
With all thy chaplets and bright bands, return!
See, with how deep a crimson eve hath touch’d
And glorified the ruin!--glow-worm light
Will twinkle on the dewdrops, ere we reach
Our home again. Come! with thy last sweet prayer
At thy bless’d mother’s knee, to-night shall thanks
Unto our Father in his heaven arise,
For all the gladness, all the beauty shed
O’er one rich day of flowers.
HYMN OF THE TRAVELLER’S HOUSEHOLD ON HIS RETURN,
IN THE OLDEN TIME.
Joy! the lost one is restored!
Sunshine comes to hearth and board.
From the far-off countries old
Of the diamond and red gold;
From the dusky archer-bands,
Roamers of the fiery sands;
From the desert winds, whose breath
Smites with sudden, silent death;
He hath reach’d his home again,
Where we sing
In thy praise a fervent strain,
God our King!
Mightiest! unto thee he turn’d
When the noon-day fiercest burn’d:
When the fountain-springs were far,
And the sounds of Arab war
Swell’d upon the sultry blast,
And the sandy columns past,
Unto thee he cried; and thou,
Merciful! didst hear his vow!
Therefore unto thee again
Joy shall sing
Many a sweet and thankful strain,
God our King!
Thou wert with him on the main,
And the snowy mountain-chain,
And the rivers, dark and wide,
Which through Indian forests glide:
Thou didst guard him from the wrath
Of the lion in his path,
And the arrows on the breeze,
And the dropping poison-trees.
Therefore from our household train
Oft shall spring
Unto thee a blessing strain,
God our King!
Thou to his lone, watching wife
Hast brought back the light of life!
Thou hast spared his loving child
Home to greet him from the wild.
Though the suns of Eastern skies
On his cheek have set their dyes,
Though long toils and sleepless cares
On his brow have blanch’d the hairs,
Yet the night of fear is flown--
He is living, and our own!
Brethren! spread his festal board,
Hang his mantle and his sword,
With the armour, on the wall--
While this long, long silent hall
Joyfully doth hear again
Voice and string
Swell to thee the exulting strain,
God our King!
THE PAINTER’S LAST WORK.
[Suggested by the closing scene in the life of the painter Blake,
which is beautifully related by Allan Cunningham.]
“Clasp me a little longer on the brink
Of life, while I can feel thy dear caress;
And when this heart hath ceased to beat, oh! think,
And let it mitigate thy woe’s excess,
That thou hast been to me all tenderness,
And friend to more than human friendship just--
Oh! by that retrospect of happiness,
And by the hope of an immortal trust,
God shall assuage thy pangs when I am laid in dust!”--Campbell.
_The Scene is an English Cottage. The lattice opens upon a
Landscape at sunset._
Eugene, Teresa.
_Teresa._ The fever’s hue hath left thy cheek, beloved!
Thine eyes, that make the dayspring in my heart,
Are clear and still once more! Wilt thou look forth?
Now, while the sunset with low streaming light--
The light thou lovest--hath made the elm-wood stems
All burning bronze, the river molten gold!
Wilt thou be raised upon thy couch, to meet
The rich air fill’d with wandering scents and sounds?
Or shall I lay thy dear, dear head once more
On this true bosom, lulling thee to rest
With our own evening hymn?
_Eugene._ Not now, dear love!
My soul is wakeful--lingering to look forth,
Not on the sun, but thee! Doth the light sleep
On the stream tenderly? and are the stems
Of our own elm-trees, by its alchemy,
So richly changed? and is the sweetbrier-scent
Floating around? But I have said farewell,
Farewell to earth, Teresa!--not to thee;
Nor yet to our deep love--nor yet awhile
Unto the spirit of mine art, which flows
Back on my soul in mastery. One last work!
And I will shrine my wealth of glowing thoughts,
Clinging affections, and undying hopes,
All, all in that memorial!
_Teresa._ Oh, what dream
Is this, mine own Eugene? Waste thou not thus
Thy scarce-returning strength; keep thy rich thoughts
For happier days--they will not melt away
Like passing music from the lute. Dear friend!
Dearest of friends! thou canst win back at will
The glorious visions.
_Eugene._ Yes! the unseen land
Of glorious visions hath sent forth a voice
To call me hence. Oh, be thou not deceived!
Bind to thy heart no _earthly_ hope, Teresa!
I must, _must_ leave thee! Yet be strong, my love!
As thou hast still been gentle.
_Teresa._ O Eugene!
What will this dim world be to me, Eugene!
When wanting thy bright soul, the life of all--
My only sunshine? How can I bear on?
How can we part?--we that have loved so well,
With clasping spirits link’d so long by grief,
By tears, by prayer?
_Eugene._ E’en _therefore_ we can part,
With an immortal trust, that such high love
Is not of things to perish.
Let me leave
One record still of its ethereal flame
Brightening through death’s cold shadow. Once again,
Stand with thy meek hands folded on thy breast,
And eyes half veil’d, in thine own soul absorb’d,
As in thy watchings ere I sink to sleep;
And I will give the bending, flower-like grace
Of that soft form, and the still sweetness throned
On that pale brow, and in that quivering smile
Of voiceless love, a life that shall outlast
Their delicate earthly being. There! thy head
Bow’d down with beauty, and with tenderness,
And lowly thought--even thus--my own Teresa!
Oh! the quick-glancing radiance and bright bloom,
That once around thee hung, have melted now
Into more solemn light--but holier far,
And dearer, and yet lovelier in mine eyes,
Than all that summer-flush! For by my couch,
In patient and serene devotedness,
Thou hast made those rich hues and sunny smiles
Thine offering unto me. Oh! I may give
Those pensive lips, that clear Madonna brow,
And the sweet earnestness of that dark eye,
Unto the canvass; I may catch the flow
Of all those drooping locks, and glorify,
With a soft halo, what is imaged thus--
But how much rests unbreathed, my faithful one!
What thou hast been to me! This bitter world!
This cold, unanswering world, that hath no voice
To greet the gentle spirit, that drives back
All birds of Eden, which would sojourn here
A little while--how have I turn’d away
From its keen, soulless air, and in thy heart
Found ever the sweet fountain of response
To quench my thirst for home!
The dear work grows
Beneath my hand,--the last!
_Teresa_, (_falling on his neck in tears._)
Eugene! Eugene!
Break not my heart with thine excess of love!--
Oh! must I lose thee--thou that hast been still
The tenderest--best!
_Eugene._ Weep, weep not thus, beloved!
Let my true heart o’er thine retain its power
Of soothing to the last! Mine own Teresa!
Take strength from strong affection! Let our souls,
Ere this brief parting, mingle in one strain
Of deep, full thanksgiving, for God’s rich boon--
Our perfect love! Oh, blessed have we been
In that high gift! thousands o’er earth may pass,
With hearts unfreshen’d by the heavenly dew,
Which hath kept _ours_ from withering. Kneel, true wife!
And lay thy hands in mine.
_(She kneels beside the couch--he prays.)_
Oh, thus receive
Thy children’s thanks, Creator! for the love
Which thou hast granted, through all earthly woes,
To spread heaven’s peace around them--which hath bound
Their spirits to each other and to thee,
With links whereon unkindness ne’er hath breathed,
Nor wandering thought. We thank thee, gracious God!
For all its treasured memories, tender cares,
Fond words, bright, bright sustaining looks, unchanged
Through tears and joy! O Father! most of all,
We thank, we bless thee, for the priceless trust,
Through thy redeeming Son vouchsafed to those
That love in thee, of union, in thy sight
And in thy heavens, immortal! Hear our prayer!
Take home our fond affections, purified
To spirit-radiance from all earthly stain;
Exalted, solemnised, made fit to dwell,
Father! where all things that are lovely meet,
And all things that are pure--for evermore
With thee and thine!
A PRAYER OF AFFECTION.
Blessings, O Father! shower--
Father of Mercies! round his precious head!
On his lone walks and on his thoughtful hour,
And the pure visions of his midnight bed,
Blessings be shed!
Father! I pray thee not
For earthly treasure to that most beloved--
Fame, fortune, power: oh! be his spirit proved
By these, or by their absence, at thy will!
But let thy peace be wedded to his lot,
Guarding his inner life from touch of ill,
With its dove-pinion still!
Let such a sense of thee,
Thy watching presence, thy sustaining love,
His bosom-guest inalienably be,
That wheresoe’er he move,
A heavenly light serene
Upon his heart and mien
May sit undimm’d! a gladness rest his own,
Unspeakable, and to the world unknown!
Such as from childhood’s morning land of dreams,
Remember’d faintly, gleams--
Faintly remember’d, and too swiftly flown!
So let him walk with thee,
Made by thy Spirit free;
And when thou call’st him from his mortal place,
To his last hour be still that sweetness given,
That joyful trust! and brightly let him part,
With lamp clear burning, and unlingering heart,
Mature to meet in heaven
His Saviour’s face!
MOTHER’S LITANY BY THE SICKBED OF A CHILD.
Saviour, that of woman born,
Mother-sorrow didst not scorn--
Thou, with whose last anguish strove
One dear thought of earthly love--
Hear and aid!
Low he lies, my precious child,
With his spirit wandering wild
From its gladsome tasks and play,
And its bright thoughts far away--
Saviour, aid!
Pain sits heavy on his brow,
E’en though slumber seal it now;
Round his lip is quivering strife,
In his hand unquiet life--
Aid! oh, aid!
Saviour! loose the burning chain
From his fever’d heart and brain,
Give, oh! give his young soul back
Into its own cloudless track!
Hear and aid!
Thou that saidst, “Awake! arise!”
E’en when death had quench’d the eyes--
In this hour of grief’s deep sighing,
When o’erwearied hope is dying,
Hear and aid!
Yet, oh! make him thine, all thine,
Saviour! whether Death’s or mine!
Yet, oh! pour on human love,
Strength, trust, patience, from above!
Hear and aid!
NIGHT HYMN AT SEA.
THE WORDS WRITTEN FOR A MELODY BY FELTON.
Night sinks on the wave,
Hollow gusts are sighing,
Sea-birds to their cave
Through the gloom are flying.
Oh! should storms come sweeping,
Thou, in heaven unsleeping,
O’er thy children vigil keeping,
Hear, hear, and save!
Stars look o’er the sea,
Few, and sad, and shrouded;
Faith our light must be,
When all else is clouded.
Thou, whose voice came thrilling,
Wind and billow stilling,
Speak once more! our prayer fulfilling--
Power dwells with thee!
SONNETS.
FEMALE CHARACTERS OF SCRIPTURE.
“Your tents are desolate; your stately steps,
Of all their choral dances, have not left
One trace beside the fountains: your full cup
Of gladness and of trembling, each alike
Is broken. Yet, amidst undying things,
The mind still keeps your loveliness, and still
All the fresh glories of the early world
Hang round you in the spirit’s pictured halls,
Never to change!”
INVOCATION.
As the tired voyager on stormy seas
Invokes the coming of bright birds from shore,
To waft him tidings, with the gentler breeze,
Of dim, sweet woods that hear no billows roar;
So, from the depth of days, when earth yet wore
Her solemn beauty and primeval dew,
I call you, gracious Forms! Oh, come! restore
Awhile that holy freshness, and renew
Life’s morning dreams. Come with the voice, the lyre,
Daughters of Judah! with the timbrel rise!
Ye of the dark, prophetic, Eastern eyes,
Imperial in their visionary fire;
Oh! steep my soul in that old, glorious time,
When God’s own whisper shook the cedars of your clime!
INVOCATION CONTINUED.
And come, ye faithful! round Messiah seen,
With a soft harmony of tears and light
Streaming through all your spiritual mien--
As in calm clouds of pearly stillness bright,
Showers weave with sunshine, and transpierce their slight
Ethereal cradle. From your heart subdued
All haughty dreams of power had wing’d their flight,
And left high place for martyr fortitude,
True faith, long-suffering love. Come to me, come!
And as the seas, beneath your Master’s tread,
Fell into crystal smoothness, round him spread
Like the clear pavement of his heavenly home;
So, in your presence, let the soul’s great deep
Sink to the gentleness of infant sleep.
THE SONG OF MIRIAM.
A song for Israel’s God! Spear, crest, and helm
Lay by the billows of the old Red Sea,
When Miriam’s voice o’er that sepulchral realm
Sent on the blast a hymn of jubilee.
With her lit eye, and long hair floating free,
Queen-like she stood, and glorious was the strain,
E’en as instinct with the tempestuous glee
Of the dark waters, tossing o’er the slain.
A song for God’s own victory! Oh, thy lays,
Bright poesy! were holy in their birth:
How hath it died, thy seraph-note of praise,
In the bewildering melodies of earth!
Return from troubling, bitter founts--return,
Back to the life-springs of thy native urn!
RUTH.
The plume-like swaying of the auburn corn,
By soft winds to a dreamy motion fann’d,
Still brings me back thine image--O forlorn,
Yet not forsaken Ruth! I see thee stand
Lone, midst the gladness of the harvest-band--
Lone, as a wood-bird on the ocean’s foam
Fall’n in its weariness. Thy fatherland
Smiles far away! yet to the sense of home--
That finest, purest, which can recognise
Home in affection’s glance--for ever true
Beats thy calm heart; and if thy gentle eyes
Gleam tremulous through tears,’tis not to rue
Those words, immortal in their deep love’s tone,
“_Thy people and thy God shall be mine own!_”
THE VIGIL OF RIZPAH.
“And Rizpah, the daughter of Aiah, took sackcloth, and spread it for
her upon the rock, from the beginning of harvest until water dropped
upon them out of heaven; and suffered neither the birds of the air to
rest on them by day, nor the beasts of the field by night.”--2 Sam.
xxi. 10.
Who watches on the mountain with the dead,
Alone before the awfulness of night?--
A seer awaiting the deep spirit’s might?
A warrior guarding some dark pass of dread?
No--a lorn woman! On her drooping head,
Once proudly graceful, heavy beats the rain;
She recks not--living for the unburied slain,
Only to scare the vulture from their bed.
So, night by night, her vigil hath she kept
With the pale stars, and with the dews hath wept:
Oh! surely some bright Presence from above
On those wild rocks the lonely one must aid!
E’en so; a strengthener through all storm and shade,
Th’ unconquerable angel, mightiest Love!
THE REPLY OF THE SHUNAMITE WOMAN.
“And she answered, I dwell among mine own people.”
2 Kings, iv. 13.
“I dwell among mine own,”--oh, happy thou!
Not for the sunny clusters of the vine,
Not for the olives on the mountain’s brow,
Nor the flocks wandering by the flowery line
Of streams, that make the green land where they shine
Laugh to the light of waters--not for these,
Nor the soft shadow of ancestral trees,
Whose kindly whisper floats o’er thee and thine--
Oh! not for _these_ I call thee richly blest,
But for the meekness of thy woman’s breast,
Where that sweet depth of still contentment lies;
And for thy holy, household love, which clings
Unto all ancient and familiar things,
Weaving from each some link for home’s dear charities.
THE ANNUNCIATION.
Lowliest of women, and most glorified!
In thy still beauty sitting calm and lone,
A brightness round thee grew--and by thy side,
Kindling the air, a form ethereal shone,
Solemn, yet breathing gladness. From her throne
A queen had risen with more imperial eye,
A stately prophetess of victory
From her proud lyre had struck a tempest’s tone,
For such high tidings as to _thee_ were brought,
Chosen of heaven! that hour: but thou, oh! thou,
E’en as a flower with gracious rains o’erfraught,
Thy virgin head beneath its crown didst bow,
And take to thy meek breast th’ all-holy word,
And own thyself _the handmaid of the Lord_.
THE SONG OF THE VIRGIN.
Yet as a sunburst flushing mountain-snow,
Fell the celestial touch of fire ere long
On the pale stillness of thy thoughtful brow,
And thy calm spirit lighten’d into song.
Unconsciously, perchance, yet free and strong
Flow’d the majestic joy of tuneful words,
Which living harps the choirs of heaven among
Might well have link’d with their divinest chords.
Full many a strain, borne far on glory’s blast,
Shall leave, where once its haughty music pass’d,
No more to memory than a reed’s faint sigh;
While thine, O childlike Virgin! through all time
Shall send its fervent breath o’er every clime,
Being of God, and therefore not to die.
THE PENITENT ANOINTING CHRIST’S FEET.
There was a mournfulness in angel eyes,
That saw thee, woman! bright in this world’s train,
Moving to pleasure’s airy melodies,
Thyself the idol of the enchanted strain.
But from thy beauty’s garland, brief and vain,
When one by one the rose-leaves had been torn;
When thy heart’s core had quiver’d to the pain
Through every life-nerve sent by arrowy scorn;
When thou didst kneel to pour sweet odours forth
On the Redeemer’s feet, with many a sigh,
And showering tear-drop, of yet richer worth
Than all those costly balms of Araby;
_Then_ was there joy, a song of joy in heaven,
For thee, the child won back, the penitent forgiven!
MARY AT THE FEET OF CHRIST.
Oh! bless’d beyond all daughters of the earth!
What were the Orient’s thrones to that low seat
Where thy hush’d spirit drew celestial birth,
Mary! meek listener at the Saviour’s feet?
No feverish cares to that divine retreat
Thy woman’s heart of silent worship brought,
But a fresh childhood, heavenly truth to meet
With love, and wonder, and submissive thought.
Oh! for the holy quiet of thy breast,
Midst the world’s eager tones and footsteps flying,
Thou, whose calm soul was like a well-spring, lying
So deep and still in its transparent rest,
That e’en when noontide burns upon the hills,
Some one bright solemn star all its lone mirror fills.
THE SISTERS OF BETHANY AFTER THE DEATH OF LAZARUS.
One grief, one faith, O sisters of the dead!
Was in your bosoms--thou, whose steps, made fleet
By keen hope fluttering in the heart which bled,
Bore thee, as wings, the Lord of Life to greet;
And thou, that duteous in thy still retreat
Didst wait his summons, then with reverent love
Fall weeping at the bless’d Deliverer’s feet,
Whom e’en to heavenly tears thy woe could move.
And which to _Him_, the All-seeing and All-just,
Was loveliest--that quick zeal, or lowly trust?
Oh! question not, and let no law be given
To those unveilings of its deepest shrine,
By the wrung spirit made in outward sign:
Free service from the heart is all in all to heaven.
THE MEMORIAL OF MARY.
“Verily I say unto you, wheresoever this gospel shall be preached in
the whole world, there shall also this that this woman hath done, be
told for a memorial of her.”--Matthew, xxvi. 13.--See also John, xii.
3.
Thou hast thy record in the monarch’s hall,
And on the waters of the far mid sea;
And where the mighty mountain-shadows fall,
The Alpine hamlet keeps a thought of thee:
Where’er, beneath some Oriental tree,
The Christian traveller rests--where’er the child
Looks upward from the English mother’s knee,
With earnest eyes in wondering reverence mild,
There art thou known--where’er the Book of light
Bears hope and healing, there, beyond all blight,
Is borne thy memory, and all praise above.
Oh! say what deed so lifted thy sweet name,
Mary! to that pure, silent place of fame?
One lowly offering of exceeding love.
THE WOMEN OF JERUSALEM AT THE CROSS.
Like those pale stars of tempest-hours, whose gleam
Waves calm and constant on the rocking mast.
Such by the cross doth your bright lingering seem,
Daughters of Zion! faithful to the last!
Ye, through the darkness o’er the wide earth cast
By the death-cloud within the Saviour’s eye,
E’en till away the heavenly spirit pass’d,
Stood in the shadow of his agony.
O blessed faith! a guiding lamp, that hour
Was lit for woman’s heart! To her, whose dower
Is all of love and suffering from her birth,
Still hath your act a voice--through fear, through strife,
Bidding her bind each tendril of her life
To that which her deep soul hath proved of holiest worth.
MARY MAGDALENE AT THE SEPULCHRE.
Weeper! to thee how bright a morn was given
After thy long, long vigil of despair,
When that high voice which burial-rocks had riven
Thrill’d with immortal tones the silent air!
Never did clarion’s royal blast declare
Such tale of victory to a breathless crowd,
As the deep sweetness of _one_ word could bear
Into thy heart of hearts, O woman! bow’d
By strong affection’s anguish! one low word--
“_Mary!_” and all the triumph wrung from death
Was thus reveal’d; and thou, that so hadst err’d,
So wept, and been forgiven, in trembling faith
Didst cast thee down before the all-conquering Son,
Awed by the mighty gift thy tears and love had won!
MARY MAGDALENE BEARING TIDINGS OF THE RESURRECTION.
Then was a task of glory all thine own,
Nobler than e’er the still, small voice assign’d
To lips in awful music making known
The stormy splendours of some prophet’s mind.
“_Christ is arisen!_”--by thee, to wake mankind,
First from the sepulchre those words were brought!
Thou wert to send the mighty rushing wind
First on its way, with those high tidings fraught--
“_Christ is arisen!_” Thou, _thou_, the sin-enthrall’d!
Earth’s outcast, heaven’s own ransom’d one, wert call’d
In human hearts to give that rapture birth:
Oh raised from shame to brightness! _there_ doth lie
The tenderest meaning of _His_ ministry,
Whose undespairing love still own’d the spirit’s worth.
SONNETS, DEVOTIONAL AND MEMORIAL.
THE SACRED HARP.
How shall the harp of poesy regain
That old victorious tone of prophet-years--
A spell divine o’er guilt’s perturbing fears,
And all the hovering shadows of the brain?
Dark, evil wings took flight before the strain,
And showers of holy quiet, with its fall,
Sank on the soul. Oh! who may now recall
The mighty music’s consecrated reign?
Spirit of God! whose glory once o’erhung
A throne, the ark’s dread cherubim between,
So let thy presence brood, though now unseen,
O’er those two powers by whom the harp is strung,
Feeling and Thought! till the rekindled chords
Give the long-buried tone back to immortal words.
TO A FAMILY BIBLE.
What household thoughts around thee, as their shrine,
Cling reverently? Of anxious looks beguiled,
My mother’s eyes upon thy page divine
Each day were bent--her accents, gravely mild,
Breathed out thy lore: whilst I, a dreamy child,
Wander’d on breeze-like fancies oft away,
To some lone tuft of gleaming spring-flowers wild,
Some fresh-discover’d nook for woodland play,
Some secret nest. Yet would the solemn Word,
At times, with kindlings of young wonder heard,
Fall on thy waken’d spirit, there to be
A seed not lost,--for which, in darker years,
O Book of Heaven! I pour, with grateful tears,
Heart-blessings on the holy dead and thee!
REPOSE OF A HOLY FAMILY.
FROM AN OLD ITALIAN PICTURE.
Under a palm-tree, by the green, old Nile,
Lull’d on his mother’s breast, the fair child lies,
With dove-like breathings, and a tender smile
Brooding above the slumber of his eyes;
While, through the stillness of the burning skies,
Lo! the dread works of Egypt’s buried kings,
Temple and pyramid, beyond him rise,
Regal and still as everlasting things.
Vain pomps! from him, with that pure, flowery cheek,
Soft shadow’d by his mother’s drooping head,
A new-born spirit, mighty, and yet meek,
O’er the whole world like vernal air shall spread;
And bid all earthly grandeurs cast the crown,
Before the suffering and the lowly, down.
PICTURE OF THE INFANT CHRIST WITH FLOWERS.
All the bright hues from eastern garlands glowing,
Round the young child luxuriantly are spread;
Gifts, fairer far than Magian kings, bestowing
In adoration, o’er his cradle shed.
Roses, deep-fill’d with rich midsummer’s red,
Circle his hands: but, in his grave, sweet eye,
Thought seems e’en now to wake, and prophesy
Of ruder coronals for that meek head.
And thus it was! a diadem of thorn
Earth gave to Him who mantled her with flowers;
To Him who pour’d forth blessings in soft showers
O’er all her paths, a cup of bitter scorn!
And _we_ repine, for whom that cup He took,
O’er blooms that mock’d our hope, o’er idols that forsook!
ON A REMEMBERED PICTURE OF CHRIST.
AN ECCE HOMO, BY LEONARDO DA VINCI.
I met that image on a mirthful day
Of youth; and, sinking with a still’d surprise,
The pride of life, before those holy eyes,
In my quick heart died thoughtfully away,
Abash’d to mute confession of a sway
Awful, though meek. And now that, from the strings
Of my soul’s lyre, the tempest’s mighty wings
Have struck forth tones which then unwaken’d lay;
Now that, around the deep life of my mind,
Affections, deathless as itself, have twined,
Oft does the pale, bright vision still float by;
But more divinely sweet, and speaking _now_
Of One whose pity, throned on that sad brow,
Sounded all depths of love, grief, death, humanity!
THE CHILDREN WHOM JESUS BLESSED.
Happy were they, the mothers, in whose sight
Ye grew, fair children! hallow’d from that hour
By your Lord’s blessing. Surely thence a shower
Of heavenly beauty, a transmitted light
Hung on your brows and eyelids, meekly bright,
Through all the after years, which saw ye move
Lowly, yet still majestic, in the might,
The conscious glory of the Saviour’s love!
And honour’d be all childhood, for the sake
Of that high love! Let reverential care
Watch to behold the immortal spirit wake.
And shield its first bloom from unholy air;
Owning, in each young suppliant glance, the sign
Of claims upon a heritage divine.
MOUNTAIN SANCTUARIES.
“He went up to a mountain apart to pray.”
A child midst ancient mountains I have stood,
Where the wild falcons make their lordly nest
On high. The spirit of the solitude
Fell solemnly upon my infant breast,
Though then I pray’d not; but deep thoughts have press’d
Into my being since it breathed that air,
Nor could I _now_ one moment live the guest
Of such dread scenes, without the springs of prayer
O’erflowing all my soul. No minsters rise
Like them in pure communion with the skies,
Vast, silent, open unto night and day;
So might the o’erburden’d Son of Man have felt,
When, turning where inviolate stillness dwelt,
He sought high mountains, there apart to pray.
THE LILIES OF THE FIELD.
“Consider the lilies of the field.”
Flowers! when the Saviour’s calm, benignant eye
Fell on your gentle beauty--when from you
That heavenly lesson for all hearts he drew,
Eternal, universal, as the sky--
Then, in the bosom of your purity,
A voice He set, as in a temple-shrine,
That life’s quick travellers ne’er might pass you by
Unwarn’d of that sweet oracle divine.
And though, too oft its low, celestial sound
By the harsh notes of work-day Care is drown’d,
And the loud steps of vain, unlistening Haste,
Yet, the great ocean hath no tone of power
Mightier to reach the soul, in thought’s hush’d hour,
Than yours, ye Lilies! chosen thus and graced!
THE BIRDS OF THE AIR.
“And behold the birds of the air.”
Ye too, the free and fearless birds of air,
Were charged that hour, on missionary wing,
The same bright lesson o’er the seas to bear,
Heaven-guided wanderers, with the winds of spring.
Sing on, before the storm and after, sing!
And call us to your echoing woods away
From worldly cares; and bid our spirits bring
Faith to imbibe deep wisdom from your lay.
So may those blessed vernal strains renew
Childhood, a childhood yet more pure and true
E’en than the first, within th’ awaken’d mind;
While sweetly, joyously, they tell of life,
That knows no doubts, no questionings, no strife,
But hangs upon its God, unconsciously resign’d.
THE RAISING OF THE WIDOW’S SON.
“And he that was dead sat up and began to speak.”
_He that was dead rose up and spoke_--He spoke!
Was it of that majestic world unknown?
Those words, which first the bier’s dread silence broke,
Came they with revelation in each tone?
Were the far cities of the nations gone,
The solemn halls of consciousness or sleep,
For man uncurtain’d by that spirit lone,
Back from their portal summon’d o’er the deep?
Be hush’d, my soul! the veil of darkness lay
Still drawn: thy Lord call’d back the voice departed
To spread his truth, to comfort his weak-hearted,
Not to reveal the mysteries of its way.
Oh! take that lesson home in silent faith,
Put on submissive strength to _meet_, not _question_, death!
THE OLIVE TREE.
The palm--the vine--the cedar--each hath power
To bid fair Oriental shapes glance by;
And each quick glistening of the laurel bower
Wafts Grecian images o’er fancy’s eye.
But thou, pale Olive! in _thy_ branches lie
Far deeper spells than prophet-grove of old
Might e’er enshrine: I could not hear the sigh
To the wind’s faintest whisper, nor behold
One shiver of thy leaves’ dim, silvery green,
Without high thoughts and solemn, of that scene
When, in the garden, the Redeemer pray’d--
When pale stars look’d upon his fainting head,
And angels, ministering in silent dread,
Trembled, perchance, within _thy_ trembling shade.
THE DARKNESS OF THE CRUCIFIXION.
On Judah’s hills a weight of darkness hung,
Felt shudderingly at noon: the land had driven
A Guest divine back to the gates of heaven--
A life, whence all pure founts of healing sprung,
All grace, all truth. And when, to anguish wrung,
From the sharp cross th’ enlightening spirit fled,
O’er the forsaken earth a pall of dread
By the great shadow of that death was flung.
O Saviour! O Atoner!--thou that fain
Wouldst make thy temple in each human heart,
Leave not such darkness in my soul to reign;
Ne’er may thy presence from its depths depart,
Chased thence by guilt! Oh! turn not _thou_ away,
The bright and Morning Star, my guide to perfect day!
PLACES OF WORSHIP.
“God is a spirit.”
Spirit! whose life-sustaining presence fills
Air, ocean, central depths by man untried,
Thou for thy worshippers hast sanctified
All place, all time! The silence of the hills
Breathes veneration,--founts and choral rills
Of thee are murmuring,--to its inmost glade
The living forest with thy whisper thrills,
And there is holiness in every shade.
Yet must the thoughtful soul of man invest
With dearer consecration those pure fanes,
Which, sever’d from all sound of earth’s unrest,
Hear naught but suppliant or adoring strains
Rise heavenward. Ne’er may rock or cave possess
_Their_ claim on human hearts to solemn tenderness.
OLD CHURCH IN AN ENGLISH PARK.[426]
Crowning a flowery slope, it stood alone
In gracious sanctity. A bright rill wound,
Caressingly, about the holy ground;
And warbled, with a never-dying tone,
Amidst the tombs. A hue of ages gone
Seem’d, from that ivied porch, that solemn gleam
Of tower and cross, pale-quivering on the stream,
O’er all th’ ancestral woodlands to be thrown--
And something yet more deep. The air was fraught
With noble memories, whispering many a thought
Of England’s fathers: loftily serene,
They that had toil’d, watch’d, struggled, to secure,
Within such fabrics, worship free and pure,
Reign’d there, the o’ershadowing spirit of the scene.
[426] Fawsley Park, near Daventry.
A CHURCH IN NORTH WALES.[427]
Blessings be round it still! that gleaming fane,
Low in its mountain-glen! Old, mossy trees
Mellow the sunshine through the untinted pane;
And oft, borne in upon some fitful breeze,
The deep sound of the ever-pealing seas,
Filling the hollows with its anthem-tone,
There meets the voice of psalms! Yet not alone
For memories lulling to the heart as these,
I bless thee, midst thy rocks, gray house of prayer!
But for _their_ sakes who unto thee repair
From the hill-cabins and the ocean-shore.
Oh! may the fisher and the mountaineer
Words to sustain earth’s toiling children hear,
Within thy lowly walls, for evermore!
[427] That of Aber, near Bangor.
LOUISE SCHEPLER.
[Louise Schepler was the faithful servant and friend of the pastor
Oberlin. The last letter addressed by him to his children for their
perusal after his decease, affectingly commemorates her unwearied zeal
in visiting and instructing the children of the mountain hamlets,
through all seasons, and in all circumstances of difficulty and
danger.]
A fearless journeyer o’er the mountain-snow
Wert thou, Louise! The sun’s decaying light
Oft, with its latest, melancholy glow,
Redden’d thy steep, wild way: the starry night
Oft met thee, crossing some lone eagle’s height,
Piercing some dark ravine: and many a dell
Knew, through its ancient rock-recesses well,
Thy gentle presence, which hath made them bright
Oft in mid-storms--oh! not with beauty’s eye,
Nor the proud glance of genius keenly burning;
No! pilgrim of unwearying charity!
Thy spell was _love_--the mountain-deserts turning
To blessed realms, where stream and rock rejoice
When the glad human soul lifts a thanksgiving voice!
TO THE SAME.
For thou, a holy shepherdess and kind,
Through the pine forests, by the upland rills,
Didst roam to seek the children of the hills,
A wild, neglected flock! to seek, and find,
And meekly win! there feeding each young mind
With balms of heavenly eloquence: not _thine_,
Daughter of Christ! but His, whose love divine
Its own clear spirit in thy breast had shrined,
A burning light! Oh! beautiful, in truth,
Upon the mountains are the feet of those
Who bear His tidings! From thy morn of youth,
For this were all thy journeyings; and the close
Of that long path, heaven’s own bright sabbath-rest,
Must wait thee, wanderer! on thy Saviour’s breast
MISCELLANEOUS POEMS.
THE TWO MONUMENTS.[428]
“Oh! bless’d are they who live and die like ‘him,’
Loved with such love, and with such sorrow mourn’d!”
Wordsworth.
Banners hung drooping from on high
In a dim cathedral’s nave,
Making a gorgeous canopy
O’er a noble, noble grave!
And a marble warrior’s form beneath,
With helm and crest array’d,
As on his battle-bed of death,
Lay in their crimson shade.
Triumph yet linger’d in his eye,
Ere by the dark night seal’d;
And his head was pillow’d haughtily
On standard and on shield.
And shadowing that proud trophy-pile,
With the glory of his wing,
An eagle sat--yet seem’d the while
Panting through heaven to spring.
He sat upon a shiver’d lance,
There by the sculptor bound;
But in the light of his lifted glance
Was _that_ which scorn’d the ground.
And a burning flood of gem-like hues,
From a storied window pour’d,
There fell, there centred, to suffuse
The conqueror and his sword.
A flood of hues--but _one_ rich dye
O’er all supremely spread,
With a purple robe of royalty
Mantling the mighty dead.
Meet was that robe for _him_ whose name
Was a trumpet-note in war,
His pathway still the march of fame,
His eye the battle-star.
But faintly, tenderly was thrown,
From the colour’d light, one ray,
Where a low and pale memorial-stone
By the couch of glory lay.
Few were the fond words chisell’d _there_,
Mourning for parted worth;
But the very heart of love and prayer
Had given their sweetness forth.
They spoke of one whose life had been
As a hidden streamlet’s course,
Bearing on health and joy unseen
From its clear mountain-source:
Whose young, pure memory, lying deep
Midst rock, and wood, and hill,
Dwelt in the homes where poor men sleep,[429]
A soft light, meek and still:
Whose gentle voice, too early call’d
Unto Music’s land away,
Had won for God the earth’s, enthrall’d
By words of silvery sway.
These were _his_ victories--yet, enroll’d
In no high song of fame,
The pastor of the mountain-fold
Left but to heaven his name.
To heaven, and to the peasant’s hearth,
A blessed household-sound;
And finding lowly love on earth,
Enough, enough, he found!
Bright and more bright before me gleam’d
That sainted image still,
Till one sweet moonlight memory seem’d
The regal fane to fill.
Oh! how my silent spirit turn’d
From those proud trophies nigh!
How my full heart within me burn’d
Like _Him_ to live and die!
[428] Suggested by a passage in Captain Sherer’s “Notes and Reflections
during a Ramble in Germany.”
[429]
“Love had he seen in huts where poor men lie.”
Wordsworth.
THE COTTAGE GIRL.
A child beside a hamlet’s fount at play,
Her fair face laughing at the sunny day;
A gush of waters tremulously bright,
Kindling the air to gladness with their light;
And a soft gloom beyond of summer trees,
Darkening the turf; and, shadow’d o’er by these,
A low, dim, woodland cottage--this was all!
What had the scene for memory to recall
With a fond look of love? What secret spell
With the heart’s pictures made its image dwell?
What but the spirit of the joyous child,
That freshly forth o’er stream and verdure smiled,
Casting upon the common things of earth
A brightness, born and gone with infant mirth!
THE BATTLE-FIELD.
I look’d on the field where the battle was spread,
When thousands stood forth in their glancing array;
And the beam from the steel of the valiant was shed
Through the dun-rolling clouds that o’ershadow’d the fray.
I saw the dark forest of lances appear,
As the ears of the harvest unnumber’d they stood;
I heard the stern shout as the foemen drew near,
Like the storm that lays low the proud pines of the wood.
Afar the harsh notes of the war-drum were roll’d,
Uprousing the wolf from the depth of his lair;
On high to the gust stream’d the banner’s red fold,
O’er the death-close of hate, and the scowl of despair.
I look’d on the field of contention again,
When the sabre was sheath’d and the tempest had past;
The wild weed and thistle grew rank on the plain,
And the fem softly sigh’d in the low, wailing blast.
Unmoved lay the lake in its hour of repose,
And bright shone the stars through the sky’s deepen’d blue;
And sweetly the song of the night-bird arose,
Where the fox-glove lay gemm’d with its pearl-drops of dew.
But where swept the ranks of that dark, frowning host,
As the ocean in might, as the storm-cloud in speed?
Where now are the thunders of victory’s boast--
The slayer’s dread wrath, and the strength of the steed?
Not a time-wasted cross, not a mouldering stone,
To mark the lone scene of their shame or their pride;
One grass-cover’d mound told the traveller alone
Where thousands lay down in their anguish, and died!
O Glory! behold thy famed guerdon’s extent:
For this, toil thy slaves through their earth-wasting lot--
A name like the mist, when the night-beams are spent;
A grave with its tenants unwept and forgot!
A PENITENT’S RETURN.
“Can guilt or misery ever enter here?
Ah, no! the spirit of domestic peace,
Though calm and gentle as the brooding dove,
And ever murmuring forth a quiet song,
Guards, powerful as the sword of cherubim,
The hallow’d porch. She hath a heavenly smile,
That sinks into the sullen soul of Vice,
And wins him o’er to virtue.”--Wilson.
My father’s house once more,
In its own moonlight beauty! Yet around,
Something, amidst the dewy calm profound,
Broods, never mark’d before!
Is it the brooding night?
Is it the shivery creeping on the air,
That makes the home so tranquil and so fair,
O’erwhelming to my sight?
All solemnised it seems,
And still’d, and darken’d in each time-worn hue,
Since the rich, clustering roses met my view,
As now, by starry gleams.
And this high elm, where last
I stood and linger’d--where my sisters made
Our mother’s bower--I deem’d not that it cast
So far and dark a shade!
How spirit-like a tone
Sighs through yon tree! My father’s place was there
At evening hours, while soft winds waved his hair!
Now those gray locks are gone!
My soul grows faint with fear!
Even as if angel-steps had mark’d the sod.
I tremble where I move--the voice of God
Is in the foliage here!
Is it indeed the night
That makes my home so awful? Faithless-hearted!
’Tis that from thine own bosom hath departed
The inborn, gladdening light!
No outward thing is changed;
Only the joy of purity is fled,
And, long from nature’s melodies estranged,
Thou hear’st their tones with dread.
Therefore the calm abode,
By thy dark spirit, is o’erhung with shade;
And therefore, in the leaves, the voice of God
Makes thy sick heart afraid!
The night-flowers round that door
Still breathe pure fragrance on the untainted air;
Thou, thou alone art worthy now no more
To pass, and rest thee there.
And must I turn away?--
Hark, hark!--it is my mother’s voice I hear--
Sadder than once it seem’d--yet soft and clear;--
Doth she not seem to pray?
My name!--I caught the sound!
Oh! blessed tone of love--the deep, the mild!
Mother! my mother! now receive thy child:
Take back the lost and found!
A THOUGHT OF PARADISE.
“We receive but what we give,
And in our life alone does nature live;
Ours is her wedding-garment, ours her shroud;
And, would we aught behold of higher worth
Than that inanimate, cold world allow’d
To the poor, loveless, ever-anxious crowd,
Ah! from the soul itself must issue forth
A light, a glory, a fair luminous cloud,
Enveloping the earth;
And from the soul itself must there be sent
A sweet and potent voice of its own birth,
Of all sweet sounds the life and element.”--Coleridge.
Green spot of holy ground!
If thou couldst yet be found,
Far in deep woods, with all thy starry flowers;
If not one sullying breath
Of time, or change, or death,
Had touch’d the vernal glory of thy bowers;
Might our tired pilgrim-feet,
Worn by the desert’s heat,
On the bright freshness of thy turf repose?
Might our eyes wander there
Through heaven’s transparent air,
And rest on colours of the immortal rose?
Say, would thy balmy skies
And fountain-melodies
Our heritage of lost delight restore?
Could thy soft honey-dews
Through all our veins diffuse
The early, child-like, trustful sleep once more?
And might we, in the shade
By thy tall cedars made,
With angel-voices high communion hold?
Would their sweet, solemn tone
Give back the music gone,
Our Being’s harmony, so jarr’d of old?
Oh no!--thy sunny hours
Might come with blossom-showers,
All thy young leaves to spirit-lyres might thrill;
But _we_--should we not bring
Into thy realms of spring
The shadows of our souls to haunt us still?
What could _thy_ flowers and airs
Do for our earth-born cares?
Would the world’s chain melt off and leave us free?
No!--past each living stream,
Still would some fever-dream
Track the lorn wanderers, meet no more for thee!
Should we not shrink with fear
If angel-steps were near,
Feeling our burden’d souls within us die?
How might our passions brook
The still and searching look,
The star-like glance of seraph purity?
Thy golden-fruited grove
Was not for pining love;
Vain sadness would but dim thy crystal skies!
Oh! _thou_ wert but a part
Of what man’s exiled heart
Hath lost--the dower of _inborn_ Paradise!
LET US DEPART!
[It is mentioned by Josephus, that, a short time previous to the
destruction of Jerusalem by the Romans, the priests, going by
night into the inner court of the Temple to perform their sacred
ministrations at the feast of Pentecost, felt a quaking, and heard
a rushing noise, and, after that, a sound as of a great multitude
saying, “Let us depart hence!”]
Night hung on Salem’s towers,
And a brooding hush profound
Lay where the Roman eagle shone
High o’er the tents around--
The tents that rose by thousands,
In the moonlight glimmering pale;
Like white waves of a frozen sea
Filling an Alpine vale.
And the Temple’s massy shadow
Fell broad, and dark, and still,
In peace--as if the Holy One
Yet watch’d his chosen hill.
But a fearful sound was heard
In that old fane’s deepest heart,
As if mighty wings rush’d by,
And a dread voice raised the cry,
“_Let us depart!_”
Within the fated city
E’en then fierce discord raved,
Though o’er night’s heaven the comet-sword
Its vengeful token waved.
There were shouts of kindred warfare
Through the dark streets ringing high,
Though every sign was full which told
Of the bloody vintage nigh;
Though the wild red spears and arrows
Of many a meteor host
Went flashing o’er the holy stars,
In the sky now seen, now lost.
And that fearful sound was heard
In the Temple’s deepest heart,
As if mighty wings rush’d by,
And a voice cried mournfully,
“_Let us depart!_”
But within the fated city
There was revelry that night--
The wine-cup and the timbrel note,
And the blaze of banquet-light.
The footsteps of the dancer
Went bounding through the hall,
And the music of the dulcimer
Summon’d to festival:
While the clash of brother-weapons
Made lightning in the air,
And the dying at the palace gates
Lay down in their despair;
And that fearful sound was heard
At the Temple’s thrilling heart,
As if mighty wings rush’d by,
And a dread voice raised the cry,
“_Let us depart!_”
ON A PICTURE OF CHRIST BEARING THE CROSS.
PAINTED BY VELASQUEZ.[430]
By the dark stillness brooding in the sky,
Holiest of sufferers! round thy path of woe,
And by the weight of mortal agony
Laid on thy drooping form and pale meek brow,
My heart was awed: the burden of thy pain
Sank on me with a mystery and a chain.
I look’d once more--and, as the virtue shed
Forth from thy robe of old, so fell a ray
Of victory from thy mien; and round thy head,
The halo, melting spirit-like away,
Seem’d of the very soul’s bright rising born,
To glorify all sorrow, shame, and scorn.
And upwards, through transparent darkness gleaming,
Gazed in mute reverence woman’s earnest eye,
Lit, as a vase whence inward light is streaming,
With quenchless faith, and deep love’s fervency,
Gathering, like incense round some dim-veil’d shrine,
About the form, so mournfully divine!
Oh! let thine image, as e’en then it rose,
Live in my soul for ever, calm and clear,
Making itself a temple of repose,
Beyond the breath of human hope or fear!
A holy place, where through all storms may lie
One living beam of dayspring from on high.
[430] This picture is in the possession of the Viscount Harberton,
Merrion Square, Dublin.
COMMUNINGS WITH THOUGHT.
“Could we but keep our spirits to that height,
We might be happy; but this clay will sink
Its spark immortal.”--Byron.
Return, my thoughts--come home!
Ye wild and wing’d! what do ye o’er the deep?
And wherefore thus the abyss of time o’ersweep,
As birds the ocean-foam?
Swifter than shooting-star,
Swifter than lances of the northern-light,
Upspringing through the purple heaven of night,
Hath been your course afar!
Through the bright battle-clime,
Where laurel boughs make dim the Grecian streams,
And reeds are whispering of heroic themes,
By temples of old time:
Through the north’s ancient halls,
Where banners thrill’d of yore--where harp-strings rung;
But grass waves now o’er those that fought and sung,
Hearth-light hath left their walls!
Through forests old and dim,
Where o’er the leaves dread magic seems to brood;
And sometimes on the haunted solitude
Rises the pilgrim’s hymn:
Or where some fountain lies,
With lotus-cups through orient spice-woods gleaming!
There have ye been, ye wanderers! idly dreaming
Of man’s lost paradise!
Return, my thoughts--return!
Cares wait your presence in life’s daily track,
And voices, not of music, call you back--
Harsh voices, cold and stem!
Oh, no! return ye not!
Still farther, loftier, let your soarings be!
Go, bring me strength from journeyings bright and free,
O’er many a haunted spot.
Go! seek the martyr’s grave,
Midst the old mountains, and the deserts vast;
Or, through the ruin’d cities of the past,
Follow the wise and brave!
Go! visit cell and shrine,
Where woman hath endured!--thro’ wrong, thro’ scorn,
Uncheer’d by fame, yet silently upborne
By promptings more divine!
Go, shoot the gulf of death!
Track the pure spirit where no chain can bind,
Where the heart’s boundless love its rest may find,
Where the storm sends no breath!
Higher, and yet more high--!
Shake off the cumbering chain which earth would lay
On your victorious wings--mount, mount! Your way
Is through eternity!
THE WATER-LILY.
“The Water-Lilies, that are serene in the calm clear water, but no
less serene among the black and scowling waves.”--Lights and Shadows
of Scottish Life.
Oh! beautiful thou art,
Thou sculpture-like and stately river-queen!
Crowning the depths, as with the light serene
Of a pure heart.
Bright lily of the wave!
Rising in fearless grace with every swell,
Thou seem’st as if a spirit meekly brave
Dwelt in thy cell:
Lifting alike thy head
Of placid beauty, feminine yet free,
Whether with foam or pictured azure spread
The waters be.
What is like thee, fair flower,
The gentle and the firm! thus bearing up
To the blue sky that alabaster cup,
As to the shower?
Oh! love is most like thee,
The love of woman! quivering to the blast
Through every nerve, yet rooted deep and fast,
Midst life’s dark sea.
And faith--oh, is not faith
Like thee, too, lily! springing into light,
Still buoyantly, above the billows’ might,
Through the storm’s breath?
Yes! link’d with such high thought,
Flower! let thine image in my bosom lie;
Till something there of its own purity
And peace be wrought--
Something yet more divine
Than the clear, pearly, virgin lustre shed
Forth from thy breast upon the river’s bed.
As from a shrine.
THE SONG OF PENITENCE.[431]
UNFINISHED.
[We learn from the Rev. R. P. Graves, that “The Song of Penitence,”
if it had been finished in time, was intended for insertion among the
“Scenes and Hymns of Life.”]
He pass’d from earth
Without his fame,--the calm, pure, starry fame
He might have won, to guide on radiantly
Full many a noble soul,--he sought it not;
And e’en like brief and barren lightning pass’d
The wayward child of genius. And the songs
Which his wild spirit, in the pride of life,
Had shower’d forth recklessly, as ocean-waves
Fling up their treasures mingled with dark weed,
They died before him;--they were winged seed
Scatter’d afar, and, falling on the rock
Of the world’s heart, had perish’d. One alone,
One fervent, mournful, supplicating strain,
The deep beseeching of a stricken breast,
Survived the vainly-gifted. In the souls
Of the kind few that loved him, with a love
Faithful to even its disappointed hope,
That song of tears found root, and by their hearths
Full oft, in low and reverential tones,
Fill’d with the piety of tenderness,
Is murmur’d to their children, when his name
On some faint harp-string of remembrance falls,
Far from the world’s rude voices, far away.
Oh! hear, and judge him gently; ’twas his last.
I come alone, and faint I come--
To nature’s arms I flee;
The green woods take their wanderer home,
But Thou, O Father! may I turn to thee?
The earliest odour of the flower,
The bird’s first song is thine;
Father in heaven! my dayspring’s hour
Pour’d its vain incense on another shrine.
Therefore my childhood’s once-loved scene
Around me faded lies;
Therefore, remembering what hath been,
I ask, is this mine early paradise?
It is, it is--but Thou art gone;
Or if the trembling shade
Breathe yet of thee, with alter’d tone
Thy solemn whisper shakes a heart dismay’d.
[431] Suggested by the late Mrs Fletcher’s story of _The Lost Life_,
published in the _Amulet_ for 1830.
TROUBADOUR SONG.
They rear’d no trophy o’er his grave,
They hade no requiem flow;
What left they there to tell the brave
That a warrior sleeps below?
A shiver’d spear, a cloven shield,
A helm with its white plume torn,
And a blood-stain’d turf on the fatal field,
Where a chief to his rest was borne.
He lies not where his fathers sleep,
But who hath a tomb more proud?
For the Syrian wilds his record keep,
And a banner is his shroud.
THE ENGLISH BOY.
“Go, call thy sons; instruct them what a debt
They owe their ancestors; and make them swear
To pay it, by transmitting down entire
Those sacred rights to which themselves were born.”
Akenside.
Look from the ancient mountains down,
My noble English boy!
Thy country’s fields around thee gleam
In sunlight and in joy.
Ages have roll’d since foeman’s march
Pass’d o’er that old, firm sod;
For well the land hath fealty held
To freedom and to God!
Gaze proudly on, my English boy!
And let thy kindling mind
Drink in the spirit of high thought
From every chainless wind!
There, in the shadow of old Time,
The halls beneath thee lie
Which pour’d forth to the fields of yore
Our England’s chivalry.
How bravely and how solemnly
They stand, midst oak and yew!
Whence Cressy’s yeomen haply framed
The bow, in battle true.
And round their walls the good swords hang
Whose faith knew no alloy,
And shields of knighthood, pure from stain:
Gaze on, my English boy!
Gaze where the hamlet’s ivied church
Gleams by the antique elm,
Or where the minster lifts the cross
High through the air’s blue realm.
Martyrs have shower’d their free heart’s blood
That England’s prayer might rise,
From those gray fanes of thoughtful years,
Unfetter’d, to the skies.
Along their aisles, beneath their trees,
This earth’s most glorious dust,
Once fired with valour, wisdom, song,
Is laid in holy trust.
Gaze on--gaze farther, farther yet--
My gallant English boy!
Yon blue sea bears thy country’s flag,
The billows’ pride and joy!
Those waves in many a fight have closed
Above her faithful dead;
That red-cross flag victoriously
Hath floated o’er their bed.
They perish’d--this green turf to keep
By hostile tread unstain’d,
These knightly halls inviolate,
Those churches unprofaned.
And high and clear their memory’s light
Along our shore is set,
And many an answering beacon-fire
Shall there be kindled yet!
Lift up thy heart, my English boy!
And pray, like _them_ to stand,
Should God so summon _thee_, to guard
The altars of the land.
TO THE BLUE ANEMONE.
Flower of starry clearness bright!
Quivering urn of colour’d light!
Hast thou drawn thy cup’s rich dye
From the intenseness of the sky?
From a long, long fervent gaze
Through the year’s first golden days,
Up that blue and silent deep,
Where, like things of sculptured sleep,
Alabaster clouds repose,
With the sunshine on their snows?
Thither was thy heart’s love turning,
Like a censer ever burning,
Till the purple heavens in thee
Set their smile, Anemone?
Or can those warm tints be caught
Each from some quick glow of thought?
So much of bright _soul_ there seems
In thy bendings and thy gleams,
So much thy sweet life resembles
That which feels, and weeps, and trembles,
I could deem thee spirit-fill’d,
As a reed by music thrill’d,
When thy being I behold
To each loving breath unfold,
Or, like woman’s willowy form,
Shrink before the gathering storm!
I could ask a _voice_ from thee,
Delicate Anemone!
Flower! thou seem’st not born to die
With thy radiant purity,
But to melt in air away,
Mingling with the soft Spring-day,
When the crystal heavens are still,
And faint azure veils each hill,
And the lime-leaf doth not move,
Save to songs that stir the grove,
And earth all glorified is seen,
As imaged in some lake serene;
--Then thy vanishing should be,
Pure and meek Anemone!
Flower! the laurel still may shed
Brightness round the victor’s head;
And the rose in beauty’s hair
Still its festal glory wear;
And the willow-leaves drop o’er
Brows which love sustains no more:
But by living rays refined,
Thou, the trembler of the wind,
Thou the spiritual flower,
Sentient of each breeze and shower,
Thou, rejoicing in the skies,
And transpierced with all their dyes;
Breathing vase, with light o’erflowing,
Gem-like to thy centre glowing,
Thou the poet’s type shalt be,
Flower of soul, Anemone!
SCENES AND PASSAGES FROM GOETHE.
SCENES FROM “TASSO.”
[One of the many literary projects contemplated by Mrs Hemans at this
time, was a series of German studies, consisting of translations
of scenes and passages from some of the most celebrated German
authors, introduced and connected by illustrative remarks. The only
one of these papers which she ever completed, was that on Goethe’s
“Tasso,” published in the _New Monthly Magazine_ for January 1834; a
paper which well deserves attention, as it embodies so much of her
individual feeling with respect to the high and sacred mission of the
Poet; as well as regarding that mysterious analogy between the outer
world of nature and the inner world of the heart, which it was so
peculiarly the tendency of her writings to develop.--_Memoir_, pp.
272-3.]
The dramatic poem of “Tasso,” though presenting no changeful pageants
of many-coloured life--no combination of stirring incidents, nor
conflict of tempestuous passions--is yet rich in interest for those who
find--
“The still, sad music of humanity,
... of ample power
To chasten and subdue.”
It is a picture of the struggle between elements which never can
assimilate--powers whose dominion is over spheres essentially adverse;
between the spirit of poetry and the spirit of the world. Why is it
that this collision is almost invariably fatal to the gentler and
the holier nature? Some master-minds have, indeed, winged their way
through the tumults of crowded life, like the sea-bird cleaving the
storm from which its pinions come forth unstained; but there needs a
celestial panoply, with which few indeed are gifted, to bear the heirs
of genius not only unwounded, but unsoiled, through the battle; and
too frequently the result of the poet’s lingering afar from his better
home has been mental degradation and untimely death. Let us not be
understood as requiring for his wellbeing an absolute seclusion from
the world and its interests. _His_ nature, if the abiding-place of the
true light be indeed within him, is endowed above all others with the
tenderest and most widely-embracing sympathies. Not alone from “the
things of the everlasting hills,” from the storms or the silence of
midnight skies, will he seek the grandeur and the beauty which have
their central residence in a far more majestic temple. Mountains, and
rivers, and mighty woods, the cathedrals of nature--these will have
their part in his pictures; but their colouring and shadows will not
be wholly the gift of rising or departed suns, nor of the night with
all her stars; it will be a varying suffusion from the life within,
from the glowing clouds of thought and feeling, which mantle with their
changeful drapery all external creation.
----“We receive but what we give,
And in _our_ life alone does nature live.”
Let the poet bear into the recesses of woods and shadowy hills a
heart full-fraught with the sympathies which will have been fostered
by intercourse with his kind--a memory covered with the secret
inscriptions which joy and sorrow fail not indelibly to write: then
will the voice of every stream respond to him in tones of gladness or
melancholy, accordant with those of his own soul, and he himself, by
the might of feelings intensely human, may breathe the living spirit of
the oracle into the resounding cavern or the whispering oak. We thus
admit it essential to his high office, that the chambers of imagery in
the heart of the poet must be filled with materials moulded from the
sorrows, the affections, the fiery trials, and immortal longings of the
human soul. Where love, and faith, and anguish, meet and contend--where
the tones of prayer are wrung from the suffering spirit--_there_ lie
his veins of treasure; there are the sweet waters ready to flow from
the stricken rock. But he will not seek them through the gaudy and
hurrying masque of artificial life; he will not be the fettered Samson
to make sport for the sons and daughters of fashion. Whilst he shuns no
brotherly communion with his kind, he will ever reserve to his nature
the power of _self_-communion--silent hours for
“The harvest of the quiet eye
That broods and sleeps on his own heart,”
and inviolate retreats in the depths of his being--fountains lone and
still, upon which only the eye of Heaven shines down in its hallowed
serenity. So have those who make us “heirs of truth and freedom by
immortal lays,” ever preserved the calm, intellectual ether in which
they live and move from the taint of worldly infection; and it appears
the object of Goethe, in the work before us, to make the gifted spirit
sadder and wiser by the contemplation of one, which, having sold its
birthright, and stooped from its “privacy of glorious light,” is forced
into perpetual contact with things essentially of the earth earthy.
Dante has spoken of what the Italian poets must have learned but too
feelingly under their protecting princes--the bitter taste of another’s
bread, the weary steps by which the stairs of another’s house are
ascended; but it is suffering of a more spiritual nature which is here
portrayed. Would that the courtly patronage, at the shrine of which
the Italian muse has so often waved her censer, had imposed no severer
tasks upon its votaries than the fashioning of the snow statue which
it required from the genius of Michael Angelo! The story of Tasso is
fraught with yet deeper meaning, though it is not from the period of
his most agonising trials that the materials of Goethe’s work are
drawn. The poet is here introduced to us as a youth at the court of
Ferrara; visionary, enthusiastic, keenly alive to the splendour of
the gorgeous world around him, throwing himself passionately upon the
current of every newly-excited feeling; a creature of sudden lights and
shadows, of restless strivings after ideal perfection, of exultations
and of agonies. Why is it that the being thus exhibited as endowed with
all these trembling capacities for joy and pain, with noble aspirations
and fervid eloquence, fails to excite a more reverential interest, a
more tender admiration? He is wanting in dignity, in the sustaining
consciousness of his own high mission; he has no city of refuge within
himself, and thus--
“Every little living nerve,
That from bitter words doth swerve,”
has the power to shake his whole soul from its pride of place. He is
thus borne down by the cold, triumphant worldliness of the courtier
Antonio, from the collision with whom, and the mistaken endeavour
of Tasso’s friends to reconcile natures dissimilar as the sylph and
gnome of fanciful creations, the conflicting elements of the piece are
chiefly derived. There are impressive lessons to be drawn from the
contemplation of these scenes, though, perhaps, it is not quite thus
that we could have wished _him_ delineated who “poured his spirit over
Palestine;” and it is occasionally almost too painful to behold the
high-minded Tasso, recognised by his country as _superior with the
sword and the pen to all men_, struggling in so ignoble an arena, and
finally overpowered by so unworthy an antagonist. This world is indeed
“too much with us,” and but too powerful is often its withering breath
upon the ethereal natures of love, devotion, and enthusiasm, which, in
other regions,
“May bear bright, golden flowers, but not in this soil.”
Yet who has not known victorious moments, in which the lightly-armed
genii of ridicule have quailed!--the conventional forms of life have
shrunk as a shrivelled scroll before the Ithuriel touch of some
generous feeling, some high and overshadowing passion suddenly aroused
from the inmost recesses of the folded soul, and striking the electric
chain which mysteriously connects all humanity? We could have wished
that some such thrilling moment had been here introduced by the mighty
master of Germany--something to relieve the too continuous impression
of inherent weakness in the cause of the vanquished--something of a
transmuting power in the soul of Tasso, to glorify the clouds which
accumulate around it--to turn them into “contingencies of pomp” by
the interpenetration of its own celestial light. Yet we approach with
reverence the work of a noble hand; and, whilst entering upon our task
of translation, we acknowledge, in humility, the feebleness of all
endeavour to pour into the vase of another language the exquisitely
subtle spirit of Goethe’s poetry--to transplant and naturalise the
delicate felicities of thought and expression by which this piece is so
eminently distinguished.
The visionary rapture which takes possession of Tasso upon being
crowned with laurel by the Princess Leonora d’Este, the object of an
affection which the youthful poet has scarcely yet acknowledged to
himself, is thus portrayed in one of the earlier scenes:--
“Let me then bear the burden of my bliss
To some deep grove that oft hath veil’d my grief;
There let me roam in solitude: no eye
Shall then recall the triumph undeserved.
And if some shining fountain suddenly
On its clear mirror to my sight should give
The form of one who, strangely, brightly crown’d,
Seems musing in the blue reflected heaven,
As it streams down through rocks and parted trees,
Then will I dream that on the enchanted wave
I see Elysium pictured! I will ask
_Who_ is the bless’d departed one?--the youth
From long past ages with his glorious wreath?
Who shall reveal his name?--who speak his worth?
Oh! that another and another there
Might press, with him to hold bright communing!
Might I but see the minstrels and the chiefs
Of the old time on that pure fountain-side.
For evermore inseparably link’d
As they were link’d in life! Not steel to steel
Is bound more closely by the magnet’s power
Than the same striving after lofty things
Doth bind the bard and warrior. Homer’s life
Was self-forgetfulness--he pour’d it forth,
One rich libation to another’s fame:
And Alexander through th’ Elysian grove
To seek Achilles and his poet flies.
Might I behold their meeting!”
But he is a reed shaken with the wind. Antonio reaches the Court
of Ferrara at this crisis, in all the importance of a successful
negotiation with the Vatican. He strikes down the wing of the poet’s
delicate imagination with the arrows of a careless irony, and Tasso is
for a time completely dazzled and overpowered by the worldly science
of the skilful diplomatist. The deeper wisdom of his own simplicity is
yet veiled from his eyes. Life seems to pass before him, as portrayed
by the discourse of Antonio, like a mighty triumphal procession, in the
exulting movements and clarion-sounds of which he alone has no share;
and at last the forms of beauty, peopling his own spiritual world, seem
to dissolve into clouds, even into faint shadows of clouds, before
the strong glare of the external world, leaving his imagination as a
desolate house, whence light and music have departed. He thus pours
forth, when alone with the Princess Leonora, the impressions produced
upon him by Antonio’s descriptions:--
They still disturb my heart--
Still do they crowd my soul tumultuously--
The troubling images of that vast world,
Which--living, restless, fearful as it is--
Yet, at the bidding of one master-mind,
E’en as commanded by a demigod,
Seems to fulfil its course. With eagerness,
Yea, with a strange delight, my soul drank in
The strong words of the experienced; but, alas!
The more I listen’d, still the more I sank
In mine own eyes; I seem’d to die away
As into some faint echo of the rocks--
A shadowy sound--a nothing!
There is something of a very touching beauty in the character of
the Princess Leonora d’Este. She does not, indeed, resemble some of
the lovely beings delineated by Shakspeare--the females, “graceful
without design, and unforeseeing,” in whom, even under the pressure of
heaviest calamity, it is easy to discern the existence of the sunny
and gladsome nature which would spring up with fawn-like buoyancy
were but the crushing weight withdrawn. The spirit of Leonora has
been at once elevated and subdued by early trial: high thoughts, like
messengers from heaven, have been its visitants in the solitude of
the sick-chamber; and looking upon life and creation, as it were,
through the softening veil of remembered suffering, it has settled
into such majestic loveliness as the Italian painters delight to
shadow forth on the calm brow of their Madonna. Its very tenderness
is self-resignation; its inner existence serene, yet sad--“a being
breathing thoughtful breath.” She is worshipped by the poet as his
tutelary angel, and her secret affection for him might almost become
that character. It has all the deep devotedness of a woman’s heart,
with the still purity of a seraphic guardian, taking no part in the
passionate dreams of earthly happiness. She feels his genius with
a reverential appreciation; she watches over it with a religious
tenderness, for ever interposing to screen its unfolding powers from
every ruder breath. She rejoices in his presence as a flower filling
its cup with gladness from the morning light; yet, preferring _his_
wellbeing to all earthly things, she would meekly offer up, for the
knowledge of his distant happiness, even the fulness of that only and
unutterable joy. A deep feeling of woman’s lot on earth--the lot of
endurance and of sacrifice--seems ever present to her soul, and speaks
characteristically in these lines, with which she replies to a wish of
Tasso’s for the return of the golden age:--
When earth has men to reverence female _hearts_,
To know the treasure of rich truth and love,
Set deep within a high-soul’d woman’s breast;
When the remembrance of our summer prime
Keeps brightly in man’s heart a holy place;
When the keen glance that pierces through so much
Looks also tenderly through that dim veil
By time or sickness hung round drooping forms,
When the possession, stilling every wish,
Draws not desire away to other wealth--
A brighter dayspring then for _us_ may dawn,
Then may _we_ solemnise our golden age.
A character thus meditative, affectionate, and self-secluding, would
naturally be peculiarly sensitive to the secret intimations of coming
sorrow. Forebodings of evil arise in her mind from the antipathy so
apparent between Tasso and Antonio; and, after learning that the cold,
keen irony of the latter has irritated the poet almost to frenzy, she
thus, to her friend Leonora de Sanvitale, reproaches herself for not
having listened to the monitory whispers of her soul:--
Alas! that we so slowly learn to heed
The secret signs and omens of the breast!
An oracle speaks low within our hearts--
Low, still, yet clear, its prophet-voice forewarns
What to pursue, what shun.
...
Yes! my whole soul misgave me silently
When he and Tasso met.
She admits to her friend the necessity for his departure from Ferrara;
but thus reverts, with fondly-clinging remembrance, to the time when he
first became known to her:--
Oh! mark’d and singled was the hour when first
He met mine eye! Sickness and grief just then
Had pass’d away: from long, long suffering freed,
I lifted up my brow, and silently
Gazed upon life again. The sunny day,
The sweet looks of my kindred, made a light
Of gladness round me, and my freshen’d heart
Drank the rich, healing balm of hope once more.
Then onward, through the glowing world, I dared
To send my glance, and many a kind, bright shape
There beckon’d from afar. Then first the youth,
Led by a sister’s hand, before me stood,
And my soul clung to him e’en then, O friend!
To cling for evermore.
_Leo._ Lament it not,
My princess!--to have known heaven’s gifted ones
Is to have gather’d into the full soul
Inalienable wealth!
_Prin._ Oh, precious things!
The richly graced, the exquisite, are things
To fear, to love with trembling! Beautiful
Is the pure flame when on thy hearth it shines,
When in the friendly torch it gives thee light,
How gracious and how calm!--but, once unchain’d,
Lo! ruin sweeps along its fatal path!
She then announces her determination to make the sacrifice of his
society, in which alone her being seems to find its full completion.
Alas, dear friend! my soul indeed is fix’d--
Let him depart! Yet cannot I but feel
Even now the sadness of long days to come--
The cold void left me by a lost delight!
No more shall sunrise from my opening eye
Chase his bright image glorified in dreams;
Glad hope to see him shall no longer stir
With joyous flutterings my scarce-waken’d soul;
And vainly, vainly, through yon garden bowers,
Amidst the dewy shadows, my first look
Shall seek his form! How blissful was the thought
With him to share each golden evening’s peace!
How grew the longing, hour by hour, to read
His spirit yet more deeply! Day by day
How my own being, tuned to happiness,
Gave forth a voice of finer harmony!--
Now is the twilight-gloom around me fallen:
The festal day, the sun’s magnificence,
All riches of this many-colour’d world,
What are they now?--dim, soulless, desolate!
Veil’d in the cloud that sinks upon my heart.
Once was each day a life!--each care was mute,
Even the low boding hush’d within the soul;
And the smooth waters of a gliding stream,
Without the rudder’s aid, bore lightly on
Our fairy bark of joy!
Her companion endeavours, but in vain, to console her.
_Leon._ If the kind words of friendship cannot soothe,
The still, sweet influences of this fair world
Shall win thee back unconsciously to peace.
_Prin._ Yes! beautiful it is, the glowing world!
So many a joy keeps flitting to and fro
In all its paths, and ever, ever seems
One step, _but_ one, removed; till our fond thirst
For the still fading fountain, step by step,
Lures to the grave! So seldom do we find
What seem’d by Nature moulded for our love,
And for our bliss endow’d--or, _if_ we find,
So seldom to our yearning hearts can hold!
That which once freely made itself our own
Bursts from us!--that which eagerly we press’d
We coldly loose! A treasure may be ours,
Only we know it not, or know, perchance,
Unconscious of its worth!
But the dark clouds are gathering within the spirit of Tasso itself,
and the devotedness of affection would in vain avert their lightnings
by the sacrifice of all its own pure enjoyments. In the solitary
confinement to which the Duke has sentenced him, as a punishment
for his duel with Antonio, his jealous imagination, like that of
the self-torturing Rousseau, pictures the whole world as arrayed
in one conspiracy against him, and he doubts even of _her_ truth
and gentleness whose watching thoughts are all for his welfare.
The following passages affectingly mark the progress of the dark
despondency which finally overwhelms him, though the concluding lines
of the last are brightened by a ray of those immortal hopes, the light
of which we could have desired to recognise more frequently in this
deeply thoughtful work.
PRESENTIMENT OF HIS RUIN.
Alas! too well I feel, too true a voice
Within me whispers, that the Mighty Power
Which, on sustaining wings of strength and joy,
Bears up the healthful spirit, will but cast
Mine to the earth--will rend me utterly!----
I must away!
ON A FRIEND’S DECLARING HERSELF UNABLE TO RECOGNISE HIM.
Rightly thou speak’st--I am myself no more;
And yet in worth not less than I have been.
Seems this a dark, strange riddle? Yet,’tis none!
The gentle moon that gladdens thee by night--
Thine eye, thy spirit irresistibly
Winning with beams of love--mark! how it floats
Through the day’s glare, a pale and powerless cloud!
I am o’ercome by the full blaze of noon;
Ye know me, and I know myself no more!
ON BEING ADVISED TO REFRAIN FROM COMPOSITION.
Vainly, too vainly, ’gainst the power I strive,
Which, night and day, comes rushing through my soul!
Without that pouring forth of thought and song
My life is life no more!
Wilt thou forbid the silkworm to spin on,
When hourly, with the labour’d line, he draws
Nearer to death. In vain!--the costly web
Must from his inmost being still be wrought,
Till he lies wrapp’d in his consummate shroud.
Oh! that a gracious God to us may give
The lot of that bless’d worm!--to spread free wings,
And burst exultingly on brighter life,
In a new realm of sunshine!
He is at last released, and admitted into the presence of the Princess
Leonora, to take his leave of her before commencing a distant journey.
Notwithstanding his previous doubts of her interest in him, he is
overcome by the pitying tenderness of her manner, and breaks into a
strain of passionate gratitude and enthusiasm:--
Thou art the same pure angel, as when first
Thy radiance cross’d my path! Forgive, forgive,
If for a moment, in his blind despair,
The mortal’s troubled glance hath read thee wrong!
Once more he knows thee! His expanding soul
Flows forth to worship thee for evermore,
And his full heart dissolves in tenderness.
...
Is it false light which draws me on to thee?
Is it delirium?--Is it thought inspired,
And grasping first high truth divinely clear?
Yes! ’tis even so--the feeling which alone
Can make me bless’d on earth!
The wildness of his ecstasy at last terrifies his gentle protectress
from him; he is forsaken by all as a being lost in hopeless delusion,
and, being left alone tn the insulting pity of Antonio, his strength
of heart is utterly subdued: he passionately bewails his weakness,
and even casts down his spirit almost in wondering admiration before
the calm self-collectedness of his enemy, who himself seems at last
almost melted by the extremity of the poet’s desolation, as thus poured
forth:--
Can I then image no high-hearted man
Whose pangs and conflicts have surpass’d mine own,
That my vex’d soul might win sustaining power
From thoughts of _him_? I cannot!--all is lost!
One thing alone remains, one mournful boon:
Nature on us, her suffering children, showers
The gift of tears--the impassion’d cry of grief,
When man can bear no more;--and with _my_ woe,
With mine above all others, hath been link’d
Sad music, piercing eloquence, to pour
All, all its fulness forth! To me a God
Hath given strong utterance for mine agony,
When others, in their deep despair, are mute!
...
Thou standest calm and still, thou noble man!
I seem before thee as the troubled wave:
But oh! be thoughtful!--in thy lofty strength
Exult thou not! By nature’s might alike
That rock was fix’d, that quivering wave was made
The sensitive of storm! She sends her blasts--
The living water flies--it quakes and swells,
And bows down tremblingly with breaking foam;
Yet once that mirror gave the bright sun back
In calm transparence--once the gentle stars
Lay still upon its undulating breast!
Now the sweet peace is gone--the glory now
Departed from the wave! I know myself
No more in these dark perils, and no more
I blush to lose that knowledge. From the bark
Is wrench’d the rudder, and through all its frame
The quivering vessel groans. Beneath my feet
The rocking earth gives way--to thee I cling--
I grasp thee with mine arms. In wild despair
So doth the struggling sailor clasp the rock
Whereon he perishes!
And thus painfully ends this celebrated drama, the catastrophe being
that of the spiritual wreck within, unmingled with the terrors drawn
from outward circumstances and change. The majestic lines in which
Byron has embodied the thoughts of the captive Tasso, will form a fine
contrast and relief to the music of despair with which Goethe’s work is
closed:--
“All this hath somewhat worn me, and may wear,
But must be borne. I stoop not to despair;
For I have baffled with mine agony,
And made me wings wherewith to overfly
The narrow circus of my dungeon-wall;
And freed the Holy Sepulchre from thrall;
And revell’d among men and things divine,
And pour’d my spirit over Palestine,
In honour of the sacred war for Him,
The God who was on earth and is in heaven;
For He hath strengthen’d me in heart and limb.
That through this sufferance I might be forgiven,
I have employ’d my penance to record
How Salem’s shrine was won, and how adored.”
SCENES FROM “IPHIGENIA.”
A FRAGMENT.
There is a charm of antique grace, of the majestic repose resulting
from a faultless symmetry, about the whole of this composition, which
inclines us to rank it as among the most consummate works of art ever
achieved by the master-mind of its author. The perfection of its
design and finish is analogous to that of a Grecian temple, seen as
the crown of some old classic height, with all its pure outlines--all
the delicate proportions of its airy pillars--brought into bold relief
by the golden sunshine, and against the unclouded blue of its native
heavens. Complete within itself, the harmonious edifice is thus also
to the mind and eye of the beholder; they are filled, and desire no
more--they even feel that more would be but encumbrance upon the
fine adjustment of the well-ordered parts constituting the graceful
whole. It sends no vague dreams to wander through infinity, such as
are excited by a Gothic minster, where the slight pinnacles striving
upward, like the free but still baffled thought of the architect--the
clustering pillars and high arches imitating the bold combinations
of mysterious forests--the many-branching cells, and long visionary
aisles, of which waving torchlight or uncertain glimpses of the moon
seem the fittest illumination--ever suggest ideas of some conception in
the originally moulding mind, far more vast than the means allotted to
human accomplishment--of struggling endeavour, and painfully submitted
will. Akin to the spirit of such creations is that of the awful but
irregular Faust, and other works of Goethe, in which the restless
questionings, the lofty aspirations, and dark misgivings of the human
soul, are perpetually called up to “come like shadows, so depart,”
across the stormy splendours of the scene; and the mind is engaged
in ceaseless conflict with the interminable mysteries of life. It is
otherwise with the work before us: overshadowed, as it were, by the
dark wings of the inflexible Destiny which hovers above the children
of Tantalus, the spirit of the imaginary personages, as well as of
the reader, here moves acquiescently _within_ the prescribed circle
of events, and is seldom tempted beyond, to plunge into the abyss of
general speculations upon the lot of humanity.
* * * * *
I.
JOY OF PYLADES ON HEARING HIS NATIVE LANGUAGE.
O sweetest voice! O bless’d familiar sound
Of mother-words heard in the stranger’s land!
I see the blue hills of my native shore,
The far blue hills again! those cordial tones,
Before the captive bid them freshly rise
For ever welcome! Oh, by this deep joy,
Know the true son of Greece!
II.
EXCLAMATIONS OF IPHIGENIA ON SEEING HER BROTHER.
Oh, hear me! look upon me! How my heart,
After long desolation, now unfolds
Unto this new delight, to kiss thy head,
Thou dearest, dearest one of all on earth!
To clasp thee with my arms, which were but thrown
On the void winds before! Oh, give me way!
Give my soul’s rapture way! The eternal fount
Leaps not more brightly forth from cliff to cliff
Of high Parnassus, down the golden vale,
Than the strong joy bursts gushing from my heart,
And swells around me to a flood of bliss--
Orestes!--O my brother!
III.
LOT OF MAN AND WOMAN COMPARED BY IPHIGENIA.
Man by the battle’s hour immortalised
May fall, yet leave his name to living song;
But of forsaken woman’s countless tears,
What recks the after-world? The poet’s voice
Tells naught of all the slow, sad, weary days,
And long, long nights, through which the lonely soul
Pour’d itself forth, consumed itself away,
In passionate adjurings, vain desires,
And ceaseless weepings for the early lost,
The loved and vanish’d!
IV.
LONGING OF ORESTES FOR REPOSE.
One draught from Lethe’s flood!--reach me one draught,
One last cool goblet fill’d with dewy peace!
Soon will the spasm of life departing leave
My bosom free! Soon shall my spirit flow
Along the deep waves of forgetfulness,
Calmly and silently! away to you,
Ye dead! Ye dwellers of the eternal cloud!
Take home the son of earth, and let him steep
His o’erworn senses in your dim repose
For evermore.
V.
CONTINUATION OF ORESTES’ SOLILOQUY.
Hark! in the trembling leaves
Mysterious whispers: hark! a rushing sound
Sweeps through yon twilight depth!--e’en now they come,
They throng to greet their guest! And who are they
Rejoicing each with each in stately joy,
As a king’s children gather’d for the hour
Of some high festival! Exultingly,
And kindred-like, and godlike, on they pass--
The glorious, wandering shapes! aged and young,
Proud men and royal women! Lo! my race--
My sire’s ancestral race!
RECORDS OF THE SPRING OF 1834.
[These sonnets, written in the months of April, May, and June, were
intended, together with the Records of the Autumn of 1834, to form
a continuation of the series entitled “Sonnets, Devotional and
Memorial.”]
A VERNAL THOUGHT.
O festal Spring! midst thy victorious glow,
Far-spreading o’er the kindled woods and plains,
And streams, that bound to meet thee from their chains,
Well might there lurk the shadow of a woe
For human hearts, and in the exulting flow
Of thy rich songs a melancholy tone,
Were we of mould all earthly--_we_ alone,
Sever’d from thy great spell, and doom’d to go
Farther, still farther, from our sunny time,
Never to feel the breathings of our prime,
Never to flower again! But we, O Spring!
Cheer’d by deep spirit-whispers not of earth,
Press to the regions of thy heavenly birth,
As here thy flowers and birds press on to bloom and sing.
TO THE SKY.
Far from the rustlings of the poplar-bough,
Which o’er my opening life wild music made,
Far from the green hills with their heathery glow
And flashing streams whereby my childhood play’d;
In the dim city, midst the sounding flow
Of restless life, to thee in love I turn
O thou rich Sky! and from thy splendours learn
How song-birds come and part, flowers wane and blow.
With thee all shapes of glory find their home,
And thou hast taught me well, majestic dome!
By stars, by sunsets, by soft clouds which rove
Thy blue expanse, or sleep in silvery rest,
That Nature’s God hath left _no_ spot unbless’d
With founts of beauty for the eye of love.
ON RECORDS OF IMMATURE GENIUS.[432]
Oh! judge in thoughtful tenderness of those
Who, richly dower’d for life, are call’d to die
Ere the soul’s flame, through storms, hath won repose
In truth’s divinest ether, still and high!
Let their mind’s riches claim a trustful sigh!
Deem them but sad, sweet fragments of a strain,
First notes of some yet struggling harmony,
By the strong rush, the crowding joy and pain
Of many inspirations met, and held
From its true sphere,--oh! soon it might have swell’d
Majestically forth! Nor doubt that He,
Whose touch mysterious may on earth dissolve
Those links of music, elsewhere will evolve
Their grand consummate hymn, from passion-gusts made free!
[432] Written after reading some of the earlier poems of the late Mrs
Tighe, which had been lent her in manuscript.
ON WATCHING THE FLIGHT OF A SKYLARK.
Upward and upward still!--in pearly light
The clouds are steep’d! the vernal spirit sighs
With bliss in every wind, and crystal skies
Woo thee, O bird! to thy celestial height.
Bird, piercing heaven with music! thy free flight
Hath meaning for all bosoms; most of all
For those wherein the rapture and the might
Of poesy lie deep, and strive, and burn,
For their high place. O heirs of genius! learn
From the sky’s bird your way! No joy may fill
Your hearts, no gift of holy strength be won
To bless your songs, ye children of the sun!
Save by the unswerving flight, upward and upward still!
A THOUGHT OF THE SEA.
My earliest memories to thy shores are bound,
Thy solemn shores, thou ever-chanting main!
The first rich sunsets, kindling thought profound
In my lone being, made thy restless plain
As the vast, shining floor of some dread fane,
All paved with glass and fire. Yet, O blue deep!
Thou that no trace of human hearts dost keep,
Never to thee did love with silvery chain
Draw my soul’s dream, which through all nature
sought
What waves deny,--some bower of _steadfast_ bliss,
A _home_ to twine with fancy, feeling, thought,
As with sweet flowers. But chasten’d hope for this
Now turns from earth’s green valleys, as from thee,
To that sole changeless world, where “there is no more sea.”[433]
[433] [The sight and sound of the sea were always connected in her mind
with melancholy associations; with
“Doubt, and something dark.
Of the old sea some reverential fear;”
with images of storm and desolation, of shipwreck and sea-burial: the
last, indeed, was so often present to her imagination, and has so
frequently been introduced into her poetry, that any one inclined to
superstitious presentiments might almost have been disposed to fancy it
a foreshadowing of some such dark fate in store either for herself or
for some one dear to her. These associations, like those awakened by
the wind, were perfectly distinct from any thing of personal timidity,
and were the more indefinable, as she had never suffered any calamity
at all connected with the sea: none of those she loved had been
consigned to its reckless waters, nor had she ever seen it in all its
terrors, for the coast on which her early years were passed is by no
means a rugged or dangerous one, and is seldom visited by disaster.
“Are all these notes in thee, wild wind! these many notes
in thee? Far in our own unfathom’d souls their fount must
surely be; Yes! buried, but unsleeping there, thought
watches, memory lies, From whose deep urn the tones are
poured through all earth’s harmonies.”
In one of her later sonnets on this subject, a chord is struck which
may perhaps find an echo in other bosoms:--
----“Yet, O blue deep!” etc.
The same feeling is expressed in one of her letters:--“Did you ever
observe how strangely sounds and images of waters--rushing torrents,
and troubled ocean-waves, are mingled with the visionary distresses of
dreams and delirium? To me there is no more perfect emblem of peace
than that expressed by the Scriptural phrase, ‘There shall be no more
sea.’”
How forcible is the contrast between the essential womanliness of these
associations, so full of “the still, sad music of humanity,” and the
“stern delight” with which Lord Byron, in his magnificent apostrophe
to the Sea, exults in its ministry of wrath, and recounts, as with a
fierce joy, its dealings with its victim, man!
----“The vile strength he wields
For earth’s destruction, thou dost all despise,
Spurning him from thy bosom to the skies,
And send’st him, shivering in thy playful spray,
And howling, to his Gods, where haply lies
His petty hope in some near port or bay,
And dashest him again to earth--there let them lay.”
Childe Harold.]
DISTANT SOUND OF THE SEA AT EVENING.
Yet, rolling far up some green mountain-dale,
Oft let me hear, as ofttimes I have heard,
Thy swell, thou deep! when evening calls the bird
And bee to rest; when summer-tints grow pale,
Seen through the gathering of a dewy veil;
And peasant-steps are hastening to repose,
And gleaming flocks lie down, and flower-cups close
To the last whisper of the falling gale.
Then midst the dying of all other sound,
When the soul hears thy distant voice profound,
Lone worshipping, and knows that through the night
’Twill worship still, then most its anthem-tone
Speaks to our being of the Eternal One,
Who girds tired nature with unslumbering might.
THE RIVER CLWYD IN NORTH WALES.
O Cambrian river! with slow music gliding
By pastoral hills, old woods, and ruin’d towers;
Now midst thy reeds and golden willows hiding,
Now gleaming forth by some rich bank of flowers;
Long flow’d the current of my life’s clear hours
Onward with thine, whose voice yet haunts my dream,
Tho’ time and change, and other mightier powers,
Far from thy side have borne me. Thou, smooth stream!
Art winding still thy sunny meads along,
Murmuring to cottage and gray hall thy song,
Low, sweet, unchanged. _My_ being’s tide hath pass’d
Through rocks and storms; yet will I not complain,
If, thus wrought free and pure from earthly stain,
Brightly its waves may reach their parent-deep at last.
ORCHARD-BLOSSOMS.
Doth thy heart stir within thee at the sight
Of orchard-blooms upon the mossy bough?
Doth their sweet household-smile waft back the glow
Of childhood’s morn--the wondering, fresh delight
In earth’s new colouring, then all strangely bright,
A joy of fairyland? Doth some old nook,
Haunted by visions of thy first-loved book,
Rise on thy soul, with faint-streak’d blossoms white
Shower’d o’er the turf, and the lone primrose-knot,
And robin’s nest, still faithful to the spot,
And the bee’s dreary chime? O gentle friend!
The world’s cold breath, not _Time’s_, this life bereaves
Of vernal gifts: time hallows what he leaves,
And will for us endear spring-memories to the end.
8th May.
TO A DISTANT SCENE.
Still are the cowslips from thy bosom springing,
O far-off, grassy dell?--and dost thou see,
When southern winds first wake their vernal singing,
The star-gleam of the wood anemone?
Doth the shy ringdove haunt thee yet? the bee
Hang on thy flowers as when I breathed farewell
To their wild blooms? and, round my beechen tree,
Still, in green softness, doth the moss-bank swell?
Oh, strange illusion! by the fond heart wrought,
Whose own warm life suffuses nature’s face!
_My_ being’s tide of many-colour’d thought
Hath pass’d from thee; and now, rich, leafy place!
I paint thee oft, scarce consciously, a scene,
Silent, forsaken, dim, shadow’d by what hath been.
A REMEMBRANCE OF GRASMERE.[434]
O vale and lake, within your mountain-urn
Smiling so tranquilly, and set so deep!
Oft doth your dreamy loveliness return,
Colouring the tender shadows of my sleep
With light Elysian; for the hues that steep
Your shores in melting lustre, seem to float
On golden clouds from spirit-lands remote,
Isles of the blest; and in our memory keep
Their place with holiest harmonies. Fair scene,
Most loved by evening and her dewy star!
Oh! ne’er may man, with touch unhallow’d, jar
The perfect music of thy charm serene!
Still, still unchanged, may _one_ sweet region wear
Smiles that subdue the soul to love, and tears, and prayer.
[434] It would have been very dear to her, could she have foreseen the
delicate and appropriate commemoration awarded to her by Mr Wordsworth,
in the elegiac stanzas which record the high names of some of his most
distinguished contemporaries, (Scott, Coleridge, Lamb, Crabbe, and
Hogg,) summoned in quick succession “to the land whence none return:”--
“Mourn rather for that holy spirit,
Sweet as the spring, as ocean deep,
For her who, ere her summer faded,
Has sunk into a breathless sleep.”
THOUGHTS CONNECTED WITH TREES.
Trees, gracious trees!--how rich a gift ye are,
Crown of the earth! to human hearts and eyes!
How doth the thought of home, in lands afar,
Link’d with your forms and kindly whisperings rise!
How the whole picture of a childhood lies
Oft midst your boughs forgotten, buried deep!
Till, gazing through them up the summer skies,
As hush’d we stand, a breeze perchance may creep,
And old, sweet leaf-sounds reach the inner world
Where memory coils--and lo! at once unfurl’d,
The past, a glowing scroll, before our sight
Spreads clear; while, gushing from their long-seal’d urn,
Young thoughts, pure dreams, undoubting prayers return,
And a lost mother’s eye gives back its holy light.
THE SAME.
And ye are strong to shelter!--all meek things,
All that need home and covert, love your shade!
Birds of shy song, and low-voiced quiet springs,
And nun-like violets, by the winds betray’d.
Childhood beneath your fresh green tents hath play’d
With his first primrose-wreath: there love hath sought
A veiling gloom for his unutter’d thought;
And silent grief, of day’s keen glare afraid,
A refuge for her tears; and ofttimes there
Hath lone devotion found a place of prayer,
A native temple, solemn, hush’d, and dim;
For wheresoe’er your murmuring tremours thrill
The woody twilight, there man’s heart hath still
Confess’d a spirit’s breath, and heard a ceaseless hymn.