O gentle story of the Indian isle!
I loved thee in my lonely childhood well
On the sea-shore, when day’s last, purple smile
Slept on the waters, and their hollow swell
And dying cadence lent a deeper spell
Unto thine ocean-pictures. Midst thy palms
And strange bright birds, my fancy joy’d to dwell,
And watch the southern cross through midnight calms,
And track the spicy woods. Yet more I bless’d
Thy vision of sweet love--kind, trustful, true,
Lighting the citron groves, a heavenly guest,
With such pure smiles as Paradise once knew.
Even then my young heart wept o’er this world’s power
To reach with blight that holiest Eden-flower.
A THOUGHT AT SUNSET.
Still that last look is solemn! though thy rays,
O sun! to-morrow will give back, we know,
The joy to nature’s heart. Yet through the glow
Of clouds that mantle thy decline, our gaze
Tracks thee with love half-fearful: and in days
When earth too much adored thee, what a swell
Of mournful passion, deepening mighty lays,
Told how the dying bade thy light farewell,
O sun of Greece! O glorious, festal sun!
Lost, lost!--for them thy golden hours were done,
And darkness lay before them! Happier far
Are we, not thus to thy bright wheels enchain’d,
Not thus for thy last parting unsustain’d--
Heirs of a purer day, with its unsetting star.
IMAGES OF PATRIARCHAL LIFE.
Calm scenes of patriarch life! how long a power
Your unworn pastoral images retain
O’er the true heart, which in its childhood’s hour
Drank their pure freshness deep! The camels’ train
Winding in patience o’er the desert plain--
The tent, the palm-tree, the reposing flock,
The gleaming fount, the shadow of the rock--
Oh! by how subtle, yet how strong a chain,
And in the influence of its touch how bless’d,
Are these things link’d, in many a thoughtful breast,
To household-memories, thro’ all change endear’d!
--The matin bird, the ripple of a stream
Beside our native porch, the hearth-light’s gleam,
The voices, earliest by the soul revered!
ATTRACTION OF THE EAST.
What secret current of man’s nature turns
Unto the golden East with ceaseless flow?
Still, where the sunbeam at its fountain burns,
The pilgrim-spirit would adore and glow;
Rapt in high thoughts, though weary, faint, and slow,
Still doth the traveller through the deserts wind,
Led by those old Chaldean stars, which know
Where pass’d the shepherd-fathers of mankind.
Is it some quenchless instinct, which from far
Still points to where our alienated home
Lay in bright peace? O thou true Eastern star!
Saviour! atoning Lord! where’er we roam,
Draw still our hearts to thee, else, else how vain
Their hope, the fair lost birthright to regain!
TO AN AGED FRIEND.[435]
Not long thy voice amongst us may be heard,
Servant of God!--thy day is almost done;
The charm now lingering in thy look and word
Is that which hangs about thy setting sun--
That which the meekness of decay hath won
Still from revering love. Yet doth the sense
Of life immortal--progress but begun--
Pervade thy mien with such clear eloquence,
That hope, not sadness, breathes from thy decline;
And the loved flowers which round thee smile farewell
Of more than vernal glory seem to tell,
By thy pure spirit touch’d with light divine;
While we, to whom its parting gleams are given,
Forget the grave in trustful thoughts of heaven.
[435] The sonnet “To an aged Friend,” first published in Mrs Hemans’s
_Poetical Remains_, was addressed to Dr Perceval of Dublin. The sonnet
“To the Datura Arborea,” in the same volume, was written after seeing
a superb specimen of that striking plant in Dr Perceval’s beautiful
greenhouse at Annefield.
Dr Perceval died 3d March 1839, equally respected for his talents and
virtues.
A HAPPY HOUR.
[“The ‘Thoughts’ were published in the _New Monthly Magazine_ for
March 1835. They are intensely individual. One of them, on Retzsch’s
design of the Angel of Death, was suggested by an impressive
description in Mrs Jameson’s ‘Visits and Sketches.’ In another,
she speculates earnestly and reverently upon the direction of the
flight of the spirit when the soul and body shall part; in others
again, she recurs tenderly to the haunts and pleasures of childhood,
which had of late been present to her memory with more than usual
force and freshness. To these the following sonnet refers, dated
21st May 1834, which, as far as I am aware, has not hitherto been
published.”--Chorley’s _Memorials of Mrs Hemans_, p. 339-40.]
Oh! what a joy to feel that, in my breast,
The founts of childhood’s vernal fancies lay
Still pure, though heavily and long repress’d
By early-blighted leaves, which o’er their way
Dark summer-storms had heaped. But free, glad play
Once more was given them: to the sunshine’s glow,
And the sweet wood-song’s penetrating flow,
And to the wandering primrose-breath of May,
And the rich hawthorn-odours, forth they sprung.
Oh! not less freshly bright, that now a thought
Of spiritual presence o’er them hung,
And of immortal life! a germ, unwrought
In childhood’s soul to power--now strong, serene,
And full of love and light, colouring the whole blest scene.
FOLIAGE.
Come forth, and let us through our hearts receive
The joy of verdure! See! the honey’d lime
Showers cool green light o’er banks where wild-flowers weave
Thick tapestry, and woodbine-tendrils climb
Up the brown oak from buds of moss and thyme.
The rich deep masses of the sycamore
Hang heavy with the fulness of their prime;
And the white poplar, from its foliage hoar,
Scatters forth gleams like moonlight, with each gale
That sweeps the boughs: the chestnut-flowers are past,
The crowning glories of the hawthorn fail,
But arches of sweet eglantine are cast
From every hedge. Oh! never may we lose,
Dear friend! our fresh delight in simplest nature’s hues!
2d June.
A PRAYER.
Father in heaven! from whom the simplest flower,
On the high Alps or fiery desert thrown,
Draws not sweet odour or young life alone,
But the deep virtue of an inborn power,
To cheer the wanderer in his fainting hour
With thoughts of Thee--to strengthen, to infuse
Faith, love, and courage, by the tender hues
That speak thy presence! oh, with such a dower
Grace thou my song!--the precious gift bestow
From thy pure Spirit’s treasury divine,
To wake one tear of purifying flow,
To soften one wrung heart for thee and thine;
So shall the life breathed through the lowly strain
Be as the meek wild-flower’s--if transient, yet not vain.
PRAYER CONTINUED.
“What in me is dark,
Illumine; what is low, raise and support.”--Milton.
Far are the wings of intellect astray
That strive not, Father! to thy heavenly seat;
They rove, but mount not, and the tempests beat
Still on their plumes. O Source of mental day!
Chase from before my spirit’s track the array
Of mists and shadows, raised by earthly care,
In troubled hosts that cross the purer air,
And veil the opening of the starry way,
Which brightens on to thee! Oh, guide thou right
My thought’s weak pinion; clear my inward sight,
The eternal springs of beauty to discern,
Welling beside thy throne; unseal mine ear,
Nature’s true oracles in joy to hear;
Keep my soul wakeful still to listen and to learn.
MEMORIAL OF A CONVERSATION.
Yes! all things tell us of a birthright lost--
A brightness from our nature pass’d away!
Wanderers we seem that from an alien coast
Would turn to where their Father’s mansion lay;
And but by some lone flower, that midst decay
Smiles mournfully, or by some sculptured stone,
Revealing dimly, with gray moss o’ergrown,
The faint, worn impress of its glory’s day,
Can trace their once-free heritage, though dreams,
Fraught with its picture, oft in startling gleams
Flash o’er their souls. But One, oh! _One_ alone,
For us the ruin’d fabric may rebuild,
And bid the wilderness again be fill’d
With Eden-flowers--One mighty to atone!
27th June.[436]
[436] [For this corrected chronology of these sonnets, we are indebted
to the Rev. R. P. Graves, Bowness; as also for some improved readings,
and the MS. of “A Happy Hour.”]
RECORDS OF THE AUTUMN OF 1834.
THE RETURN TO POETRY.
Once more the eternal melodies from far
Woo me like songs of home: once more discerning,
Through fitful clouds, the pure majestic star
Above the poet’s world serenely burning,
Thither my soul, fresh-wing’d by love, is turning,
As o’er the waves the wood-bird seeks her nest,
For those green heights of dewy stillness yearning,
Whence glorious minds o’erlook this earth’s unrest.
Now be the Spirit of heaven’s truth my guide
Through the bright land!--that no brief gladness, found
In passing bloom, rich odour, or sweet sound,
May lure my footsteps from their aim aside:
Their true, high quest--to seek, if ne’er to gain,
The inmost, purest shrine of that august domain.
9th September.
TO SILVIO PELLICO, ON READING HIS “PRIGIONE.”
There are who climb the mountain’s heathery side,
Or, in life’s vernal strength triumphant, urge
The bark’s fleet rushing through the crested surge,
Or spur the courser’s fiery race of pride
Over the green savannahs, gleaming wide
By some vast lake; yet thus, on foaming sea,
Or chainless wild, reign far less nobly free
Than _thou_, in that lone dungeon, glorified
By thy brave suffering. Thou from its dark cell
Fierce thought and baleful passion didst exclude,
Filling the dedicated solitude
With God; and where _His_ Spirit deigns to dwell,
Though the worn frame in fetters withering lie,
There throned in _peace_ divine is liberty!
TO THE SAME, RELEASED.[437]
How flows thy being now?--like some glad hymn
One strain of solemn rapture?--doth thine eye
Wander through tears of voiceless feeling dim
O’er the crown’d Alps, that, midst the upper sky,
Sleep in the sunlight of thine Italy?
Or is thy gaze of reverent love profound
Unto these dear, parental faces bound,
Which, with their silvery hair, so oft glanced by,
Haunting thy prison-dreams? Where’er thou art,
Blessings be shed upon thine inmost heart!
Joy, from kind looks, blue skies, and flowery sod,
For that pure voice of thoughtful wisdom sent
Forth from thy cell, in sweetness eloquent
Of love to man, and quenchless trust in God!
[437] In reference to these two sonnets, Mrs Hemans thus remarks in
a letter to a friend;--“I wrote them only a few days ago (almost
the first awakening of my spirit, indeed, after a long silence and
darkness,) upon reading that delightful book of Pellico’s,[438] which I
borrowed in consequence of what you had told me of it. I know not when
I have read any thing which has so deeply impressed me: the gradual
brightening of heart and soul into ‘the perfect day’ of Christian
excellence through all those fiery trials, presents, I think, one of
the most touching, as well as instructing pictures ever contemplated.
How beautiful is the scene between him and Oroboni, in which they
mutually engage to shrink not from the avowal of their faith, should
they ever return into the world! But I could say so much on this
subject, which has quite taken hold of my thoughts, that it would lead
me to fill up my whole letter.”
In another letter she spoke further of this book, as a “work with which
I have been both impressed and delighted, and one which I strongly
recommend you to procure. It is the _Prigioni_ of Silvio Pellico, a
distinguished young Italian poet, who incurred the suspicions of the
Austrian government, and was condemned to the penalty of the _carcere
duro_ during ten years, of which this most interesting work contains
the narrative. It is deeply affecting, from the heart-springing
eloquence with which he details his varied sufferings. What forms,
however, the great charm of the work, is the gradual and almost
unconsciously-revealed exaltation of the sufferer’s character,
spiritualised through suffering, into the purest Christian excellence.
It is beautiful to see the lessons of trust in God, and love to
mankind, brought out more and more into shining light from the depth of
the dungeon-gloom; and all this crowned at last by the release of the
noble, all-forgiving captive, and his restoration to his aged father
and mother, whose venerable faces seem perpetually to have haunted the
solitude of his cell. The book is written in the most classic Italian,
and will, I am sure, be one to afford you lasting delight.”
[438] “Le mie Prigioni.”
ON A SCENE IN THE DARGLE.[439]
’Twas a bright moment of my life when first,
O thou pure stream through rocky portals flowing!
That temple-chamber of thy glory burst
On my glad sight! Thy pebbly couch lay glowing
With deep mosaic hues; and, richly throwing
O’er thy cliff-walls a tinge of autumn’s vest,
High bloom’d the heath-flowers, and the wild wood’s crest
Was touch’d with gold. Flow ever thus, bestowing
Gifts of delight, sweet stream! on all who move
Gently along thy shores; and oh! if love--
True love, in secret nursed, with sorrow fraught--
Should sometimes bear his treasured griefs to thee,
_Then_ full of kindness let thy music be,
Singing repose to every troubled thought!
[439] A beautiful valley in the county of Wicklow.
ON THE DATURA ARBOREA.
Majestic plant! such fairy dreams as lie,
Nursed, where the bee sucks in the cowslip’s bell,
Are not _thy_ train. Those flowers of vase-like swell,
Clear, large, with dewy moonlight fill’d from high,
And in their monumental purity
Serenely drooping, round thee seem to draw
Visions link’d strangely with that silent awe
Which broods o’er sculpture’s works. A meet ally
For those heroic forms, the simply grand
Art thou: and worthy, carved by plastic hand,
Above some kingly poet’s tomb to shine
In spotless marble; honouring one whose strain
Soar’d, upon wings of thought that knew no stain,
Free through the starry heavens of truth divine.
ON READING COLERIDGE’S EPITAPH,
WRITTEN BY HIMSELF.
“Stop, Christian passer-by! stop, child of God!
And read with gentle breast:--Beneath this sod
A Poet lies, or that which once seem’d he:
Oh! lift one thought in prayer for S. T. C.!
That he, who once in vain, with toil of breath,
Found death in life, may here find life in death:
Mercy, for praise--to be forgiven, for fame--
He ask’d and hoped through Christ. Do thou the same.”
Spirit! so oft in radiant freedom soaring
High through seraphic mysteries unconfined,
And oft, a diver through the deep of mind,
Its caverns, far below its waves, exploring;
And oft such strains of breezy music pouring,
As, with the floating sweetness of their sighs,
Could still all fevers of the heart, restoring
Awhile that freshness left in Paradise;
Say, of those glorious wanderings what the goal?
What the rich fruitage to man’s kindred soul
From wealth of thine bequeathed? O strong and high,
And sceptred intellect! thy goal confess’d
Was the Redeemer’s Cross--thy last bequest
_One_ lesson breathing thence profound humility!
DESIGN AND PERFORMANCE.
They float before my soul, the fair designs
Which I would body forth to life and power,
Like clouds, that with their wavering hues and lines
Portray majestic buildings:--dome and tower,
Bright spire, that through the rainbow and the shower
Points to th’ unchanging stars; and high arcade,
Far-sweeping to some glorious altar, made
For holiest rites. Meanwhile the waning hour
Melts from me, and by fervent dreams o’erwrought,
I sink. O friend! O link’d with each high thought!
Aid me, of those rich visions to detain
All I may grasp; until thou see’st fulfill’d,
While time and strength allow, my hope to build
For lowly hearts devout, but _one_ enduring fane!
18th October.
HOPE OF FUTURE COMMUNION WITH NATURE.
If e’er again my spirit be allow’d
Converse with Nature in her chambers deep,
Where lone, and mantled with the rolling cloud,
She broods o’er new-born waters, as they leap
In sword-like flashes down the heathery steep
From caves of mystery;--if I roam once more
Where dark pines quiver to the torrent’s roar,
And voiceful oaks respond;--may I not reap
A more ennobling joy, a loftier power,
Than e’er was shed on life’s more vernal hour
From such communion? Yes! I then shall know
That not in vain have sorrow, love, and thought
Their long, still work of preparation wrought,
For that more perfect sense of God reveal’d below.
DREAMS OF THE DEAD.
Oft in still night-dreams a departed face
Bends o’er me with sweet earnestness of eye,
Wearing no more of earthly pains a trace,
But all the tender pity that may lie
On the clear brow of Immortality,
Calm, yet profound. Soft rays illume that mien;
Th’ unshadow’d moonlight of some far-off sky
Around it floats transparently serene
As a pure veil of waters. O rich Sleep!
The spells are mighty in thy regions deep,
To glorify with reconciling breath,
Effacing, brightening, giving forth to shine
Beauty’s high truth; and how much more divine
Thy power when link’d, in this, with thy strong brother--Death!
THE POETRY OF THE PSALMS.
Nobly thy song, O minstrel! rush’d to meet
Th’ Eternal on the pathway of the blast,
With darkness round him as a mantle cast,
And cherubim to waft his flying seat.
Amidst the hills that smoked beneath his feet,
With trumpet-voice thy spirit call’d aloud,
And bade the trembling rocks his name repeat,
And the bent cedars, and the bursting cloud.
But far more gloriously to earth made known
By that high strain, than by the thunder’s tone,
The flashing torrents, or the ocean’s roll,
Jehovah spake, through thee imbreathing fire,
Nature’s vast realms for ever to inspire
With the deep worship of a living soul.
DESPONDENCY AND ASPIRATION.
“Par correr miglior acqua alza le vele,
Omai la navicella del mio Intelletto.”--Dante.
My soul was mantled with dark shadows, born
Of lonely Fear, disquieted in vain;
Its phantoms hung around the star of morn,
A cloud-like, weeping train:
Thro’ the long day they dimm’d the autumn gold
On all the glistening leaves, and wildly roll’d,
When the last farewell flush of light was glowing
Across the sunset sky,
O’er its rich isles of vaporous glory throwing
One melancholy dye.
And when the solemn night
Came rushing with her might
Of stormy oracles from caves unknown,
Then with each fitful blast
Prophetic murmurs pass’d,
Wakening or answering some deep Sybil-tone
Far buried in my breast, yet prompt to rise
With every gusty wail that o’er the wind-harp flies.
“Fold, fold thy wings,” they cried, “and strive no more--
Faint spirit! strive no more: for thee too strong
Are outward ill and wrong,
And inward wasting fires! Thou canst not soar
Free on a starry way,
Beyond their blighting sway,
At heaven’s high gate serenely to adore!
How shouldst _thou_ hope earth’s fetters to unbind!
O passionate, yet weak! O trembler to the wind!
“Never shall aught but broken music flow
From joy of thine, deep love, or tearful woe--
Such homeless notes as through the forest sigh,
From the reeds’ hollow shaken,
When sudden breezes waken
Their vague, wild symphony.
No power is theirs, and no abiding-place
In human hearts; their sweetness leaves no trace--
Born only so to die!
“Never shall aught but perfume, faint and vain,
On the fleet pinion of the changeful hour,
From thy bruised life again
A moment’s essence breathe;
Thy life, whose trampled flower
Into the blessed wreath
Of household-charities no longer bound,
Lies pale and withering on the barren ground.
“So fade, fade on! Thy gift of love shall cling
A coiling sadness round thy heart and brain--
A silent, fruitless, yet undying thing,
All sensitive to pain!
And still the shadow of vain dreams shall fall
O’er thy mind’s world, a daily darkening pall.
Fold, then, thy wounded wing, and sink subdued
In cold and unrepining quietude!”
Then my soul yielded: spells of numbing breath
Crept o’er it heavy with a dew of death--
Its powers, like leaves before the night-rain, closing;
And, as by conflict of wild sea-waves toss’d
On the chill bosom of some desert coast,
Mutely and hopelessly I lay reposing.
When silently it seem’d
As if a soft mist gleam’d
Before my passive sight, and, slowly curling,
To many a shape and hue
Of vision’d beauty grew,
Like a wrought banner, fold by fold unfurling.
Oh! the rich scenes that o’er mine inward eye
Unrolling then swept by
With dreamy motion! Silvery seas were there,
Lit by large dazzling stars, and arch’d by skies
Of southern midnight’s most transparent dyes;
And gemm’d with many an island, wildly fair,
Which floated past me into orient day,
Still gathering lustre on th’ illumin’d way,
Till its high groves of wondrous flowering-trees
Colour’d the silvery seas.
And then a glorious mountain-chain uprose,
Height above spiry height!
A soaring solitude of woods and snows,
All steep’d in golden light!
While as it pass’d, those regal peaks unveiling,
I heard, methought, a waving of dread wings,
And mighty sounds, as if the vision hailing,
From lyres that quiver’d through ten thousand strings--
Or as if waters, forth to music leaping
From many a cave, the Alpine Echo’s hall,
On their bold way victoriously were sweeping,
Link’d in majestic anthems!--while through all
That billowy swell and fall,
Voices, like ringing crystal, fill’d the air
With inarticulate melody, that stirr’d
My being’s core; then, moulding into word
Their piercing sweetness, bade me rise, and bear
In that great choral strain my trembling part,
Of tones by love and faith struck from a human heart.
Return no more, vain bodings of the night!
A happier oracle within my soul
Hath swell’d to power; a clear, unwavering light
Mounts through the battling clouds that round me roll;
And to a new control
Nature’s full harp gives forth rejoicing tones,
Wherein my glad sense owns
The accordant rush of elemental sound
To one consummate harmony profound--
One grand Creation-Hymn,
Whose notes the seraphim
Lift to the glorious height of music wing’d and crown’d.
Shall not those notes find echoes in my lyre,
Faithful though faint? Shall not my spirit’s fire,
If slowly, yet unswervingly, ascend
Now to its fount and end?
Shall not my earthly love, all purified,
Shine forth a heavenward guide,
An angel of bright power--and strongly bear
My being upward into holier air,
Where fiery passion-clouds have no abode,
And the sky’s temple-arch o’erflows with God?
The radiant hope new-born
Expands like rising morn
In my life’s life: and as a ripening rose
The crimson shadow of its glory throws
More vivid, hour by hour, on some pure stream;
So from that hope are spreading
Rich hues, o’er nature shedding
Each day a clearer, spiritual gleam.
Let not those rays fade from me!--once enjoy’d,
Father of Spirits! let them not depart--
Leaving the chill’d earth, without form and void,
Darken’d by mine own heart!
Lift, aid, sustain me! Thou, by whom alone
All lovely gifts and pure
In the soul’s grasp endure;
Thou, to the steps of whose eternal throne
All knowledge flows--a sea for evermore
Breaking its crested waves on that sole shore--
Oh, consecrate my life! that I may sing
Of thee with joy that hath a living spring,
In a full heart of music! Let my lays
Through the resounding mountains waft thy praise,
And with that theme the wood’s green cloisters fill.
And make their quivering, leafy dimness thrill
To the rich breeze of song! Oh! let me wake
The deep religion, which hath dwelt from yore
Silently brooding by lone cliff and lake,
And wildest river-shore!
And let me summon all the voices dwelling
Where eagles build, and cavern’d rills are welling,
And where the cataract’s organ-peal is swelling,
In that one spirit gather’d to adore!
Forgive, O Father! if presumptuous thought
Too daringly in aspiration rise!
Let not thy child all vainly have been taught
By weakness, and by wanderings, and by sighs
Of sad confession! Lowly be my heart,
And on its penitential altar spread
The offerings worthless, till thy grace impart
The fire from heaven, whose touch alone can shed
Life, radiance, virtue!--let that vital spark
Pierce my whole being, wilder’d else and dark!
Thine are all holy things--oh, make _me_ thine!
So shall I, too, be pure--a living shrine
Unto that Spirit which goes forth from thee,
Strong and divinely free,
Bearing thy gifts of wisdom on its flight,
And brooding o’er them with a dove-like wing,
Till thought, word, song, to thee in worship spring,
Immortally endow’d for liberty and light.
[This exquisite poem was composed during the Author’s last illness;
and the following account of her situation at the time, from the
pen of her sister, cannot fail to be read with a deep and painful
interest. It is another forcible, visible illustration of “the ruling
passion strong in death.” Happy, as in her case, when the direction of
the mind is towards all that is high, pure, and excellent!
“A shuddering thrill pervaded her whole frame, and she felt, as she
often afterwards declared, a presentiment that from that moment her
hours were numbered. The same evening she was attacked by a fit
of ague; and this insidious and harassing complaint continued its
visitations for several weeks, reducing her poor, wasted form to the
most lamentable state of debility, and at length retiring only to make
way for a train of symptoms still more fatal and distressing. Yet,
while the work of decay was going on thus surely and progressively
upon the earthly tabernacle, the bright flame within continued to
burn with a pure and holy light, and, at times, even to flash forth
with more than wonted brightness. The lyric of ‘Despondency and
Aspiration,’ which may be considered as her noblest and highest
effort, and in which, from a feeling that it might be her last work,
she felt anxious to concentrate all her powers, was written during the
few intervals accorded her from acute suffering or powerless languor.
And in the same circumstances she wrote, or rather dictated, the
series of sonnets called _Thoughts during Sickness_, which present
so interesting a picture of the calm, submissive tone of her mind,
whether engaged in tender remembrances of the past, or in solemn and
reverential speculations on the future. The one entitled ‘Sickness
like Night’ discloses a view, no less affecting than consolatory, of
the sweet and blessed peace which hovered round the couch where
‘Mutely and hopelessly she lay reposing.’
“The last sonnet of the series, entitled ‘Recovery,’ was written under
temporary appearances of convalescence, which proved as fugitive as
they were fallacious.”
THE HUGUENOT’S FAREWELL.
I stand upon the threshold stone
Of mine ancestral hall;
I hear my native river moan;
I see the night o’er my old forests fall.
I look round on the darkening vale
That saw my childhood’s plays;
The low wind in its rising wail
Hath a strange tone, a sound of other days.
But I must rule my swelling breast:
A sign is in the sky!
Bright o’er yon gray rock’s eagle-nest
Shines forth a warning star--it bids me fly.
My father’s sword is in my hand,
His deep voice haunts mine ear;
He tells me of the noble band
Whose lives have left a brooding glory here.
He bids their offspring guard from stain
Their pure and lofty faith;
And yield up all things, to maintain
The cause for which they girt themselves to death.
And I obey. I leave their towers
Unto the stranger’s tread,
Unto the creeping grass and flowers,
Unto the fading pictures of the dead.
I leave their shields to slow decay,
Their banners to the dust:
I go, and only bear away
Their old majestic name--a solemn trust!
I go up to the ancient hills.
Where chains may never be,
Where leap in joy the torrent-rills,
Where man may worship God, alone and free.
There shall an altar and a camp
Impregnably arise;
There shall be lit a quenchless lamp,
To shine, unwavering, through the open skies.
And song shall midst the rocks be heard,
And fearless prayer ascend;
While, thrilling to God’s holy word,
The mountain-pines in adoration bend.
And there the burning heart no more
Its deep thought shall suppress,
But the long-buried truth shall pour
Free currents thence, amidst the wilderness.
Then fare thee well, my mother’s bower!
Farewell, my father’s hearth!--
Perish my home! where lawless power
Hath rent the tie of love to native earth.
Perish! let deathlike silence fall
Upon the lone abode;
Spread fast, dark ivy! spread thy pall;--
I go up to the mountains with my God.
ANTIQUE GREEK LAMENT.[440]
By the blue waters--the restless ocean-waters,
Restless as they with their many-flashing surges,
Lonely I wander, weeping for my lost one!
I pine for thee through all the joyless day--
Through the long night I pine: the golden sun
Looks dim since thou hast left me, and the spring
Seems but to weep. Where art thou, my beloved?
Night after night, in fond hope vigilant,
By the old temple on the breezy cliff,
These hands have heap’d the watch-fire, till it stream’d
Red o’er the shining columns--darkly red
Along the crested billows!--but in vain:
Thy white sail comes not from the distant isles--
Yet thou wert faithful ever. Oh! the deep
Hath shut above thy head--that graceful head;
The sea-weed mingles with thy clustering locks;
The white sail never will bring back the loved!
By the blue waters--the restless ocean-waters,
Restless as they with their many-flashing surges,
Lonely I wander, weeping for my lost one!
Where art thou?--where? Had I but lingering press’d
On thy cold lips the last long kiss--but smooth’d
The parted ringlets of thy shining hair
With love’s fond touch, my heart’s cry had been still’d
Into a voiceless grief: I would have strew’d
With all the pale flowers of the vernal woods--
White violets, and the mournful hyacinth,
And frail anemone, thy marble brow,
In slumber beautiful! I would have heap’d
Sweet boughs and precious odours on thy pyre,
And with mine own shorn tresses hung thine urn,
And many a garland of the pallid rose:
But thou liest far away! No funeral chant,
Save the wild moaning of the wave, is thine:
No pyre--save, haply, some long-buried wreck;
Thou that wert fairest--thou that wert most loved!
By the blue waters--the restless ocean-waters,
Restless as they with their many-flashing surges,
Lonely I wander, weeping for my lost one!
Come, in the dreamy shadow of the night,
And speak to me! E’en though thy voice be changed,
My heart would know it still. Oh, speak to me!
And say if yet, in some dim, far-off world,
Which knows not how the festal sunshine burns,
If yet, in some pale mead of asphodel,
We two shall meet again! Oh, I would quit
The day rejoicingly--the rosy light--
All the rich flowers and fountains musical,
And sweet, familiar melodies of earth,
To dwell with thee below! Thou answerest not!
The powers whom I have call’d upon are mute:
The voices buried in old whispery caves,
And by lone river-sources, and amidst
The gloom and mystery of dark prophet-oaks,
The wood-gods’ haunt--they give me no reply!
All silent--heaven and earth! For evermore
From the deserted mountains thou art gone--
For ever from the melancholy groves,
Whose laurels wail thee with a shivering sound!
And I--I pine through all the joyous day,
Through the long night I pine--as fondly pines
The night’s own bird, dissolving her lorn life
To song in moonlight woods. Thou hear’st me not!
The heavens are pitiless of human tears:
The deep sea-darkness is about thy head;
The white sail never will bring back the loved!
By the blue waters--the restless ocean-waters,
Restless as they with their many-flashing surges,
Lonely I wander, weeping for my lost one!
[440] The original title given to this poem was The Lament of Alcyone,
which was altered to its present one, on the suggestion of a friend. It
was written in November 1834.
THOUGHTS DURING SICKNESS.
INTELLECTUAL POWERS.
O Thought! O Memory! gems for ever heaping
High in the illumined chambers of the mind--
And thou, divine Imagination! keeping
Thy lamp’s lone star mid shadowy hosts enshrined;
How in one moment rent and disentwined,
At Fever’s fiery touch, apart they fall,
Your glorious combinations! broken all,
As the sand-pillars by the desert’s wind
Scatter’d to whirling dust! Oh, soon uncrown’d!
Well may your parting swift, your strange return,
Subdue the soul to lowliness profound,
Guiding its chasten’d vision to discern
How by meek Faith heaven’s portals must be pass’d,
Ere it can hold your gifts inalienably fast.
SICKNESS LIKE NIGHT.
Thou art like Night, O Sickness! deeply stilling
Within my heart the world’s disturbing sound,
And the dim quiet of my chamber filling
With low, sweet voices by Life’s tumult drown’d.
Thou art like awful Night! thou gatherest round
The things that are unseen--though close they lie;
And with a truth, clear, startling, and profound,
Giv’st their dread presence to our mental eye.
Thou art like starry, spiritual Night!
High and immortal thoughts attend thy way,
And revelations, which the common light
Brings not, though wakening with its rosy ray
All outward life:--Be welcome, then, thy rod,
Before whose touch my soul unfolds itself to God.
ON RETZSCH’S DESIGN OF THE ANGEL OF DEATH.[441]
Well might thine awful image thus arise
With that high calm upon thy regal brow,
And the deep, solemn sweetness in those eyes,
Unto the glorious artist! Who but thou
The fleeting forms of beauty can endow
For him with permanence? who make those gleams
Of brighter life, that colour his lone dreams,
Immortal things? Let others _trembling_ bow,
Angel of Death! before thee;--not to those
Whose spirits with Eternal Truth repose,
Art thou a fearful shape! And oh! for me,
How full of welcome would thine aspect shine,
Did not the cords of strong affection twine
So fast around my soul, it _cannot_ spring to thee!
[441] This sonnet was suggested by the following passage out of
Mrs Jameson’s _Visits and Sketches at Home and Abroad_, in a
description she gives of a visit paid to the artist Retzsch, near
Dresden:--“Afterwards he placed upon his easel a wondrous face
which made me shrink back--not with terror, for it was perfectly
beautiful,--but with awe, for it was unspeakably fearful: the hair
streamed back from the pale brow--the orbs of sight appeared at first
two dark, hollow, unfathomable spaces, like those in a skull; but when
I drew nearer and looked attentively, two lovely living eyes looked at
me again out of the depth of the shadow, as if from the bottom of an
abyss. The mouth was divinely sweet, but sad, and the softest repose
rested on every feature. This, he told me, was the Angel of Death.”
REMEMBRANCE OF NATURE.
O Nature! thou didst rear me for thine own,
With thy free singing-birds and mountain-brooks;
Feeding my thoughts in primrose-haunted nooks,
With fairy fantasies and wood-dreams lone;
And thou didst teach me every wandering tone
Drawn from thy many-whispering trees and waves,
And guide my steps to founts and sparry caves,
And where bright mosses wove thee a rich throne
Midst the green hills: and now that, far estranged
From all sweet sounds and odours of thy breath,
Fading I lie, within my heart unchanged,
So glows the love of thee, that not for death
Seems that pure passion’s fervour--but ordain’d
To meet on brighter shores thy majesty unstain’d.
FLIGHT OF THE SPIRIT.
Whither, oh! whither wilt thou wing thy way?
What solemn region first upon thy sight
Shall break, unveil’d for terror or delight?
What hosts, magnificent in dread array,
My spirit! when thy prison-house of clay,
After long strife is rent? Fond, fruitless quest!
The unfledged bird, within his narrow nest,
Sees but a few green branches o’er him play,
And through their parting leaves, by fits reveal’d,
A glimpse of summer sky; nor knows the field
Wherein his dormant powers must yet be tried.
Thou art that bird!--of what beyond thee lies
Far in the untrack’d, immeasurable skies,
Knowing but this--that thou shalt find thy Guide?
FLOWERS.
Welcome, O pure and lovely forms! again
Unto the shadowy stillness of my room!
For not alone ye bring a joyous train
Of summer-thoughts attendant on your bloom--
Visions of freshness, of rich bowery gloom,
Of the low murmurs filling mossy dells,
Of stars that look down on your folded bells
Through dewy leaves, of many a wild perfume
Greeting the wanderer of the hill and grove
Like sudden music: more than this ye bring--
Far more; ye whisper of the all-fostering love
Which thus hath clothed you, and whose dove-like wing
Broods o’er the sufferer drawing fever’d breath,
Whether the couch be that of life or death.
RECOVERY.[442]
Back, then, once more to breast the waves of life,
To battle on against the unceasing spray,
To sink o’erwearied in the stormy strife,
And rise to strive again; yet on my way,
Oh! linger still, thou light of better day!
Born in the hours of loneliness: and you,
Ye childlike thoughts! the holy and the true--
Ye that came bearing, while subdued I lay,
The faith, the insight of life’s vernal morn
Back on my soul, a clear, bright sense, new-born,
Now leave me not! but as, profoundly pure,
A blue stream rushes through a darker lake
Unchanged, e’en thus with me your journey take,
Wafting sweet airs of heaven thro’ this low world obscure.
[442] Written under the false impression occasioned by a temporary
improvement in strength.
SABBATH SONNET.[443]
COMPOSED BY MRS HEMANS A FEW DAYS BEFORE HER DEATH, AND DICTATED TO HER
BROTHER.
How many blessed groups this hour are bending,
Thro’ England’s primrose meadow-paths, their way
Towards spire and tower, midst shadowy elms ascending,
Whence the sweet chimes proclaim the hallow’d day!
The halls from old heroic ages gray
Pour their fair children forth; and hamlets low,
With whose thick orchard-blooms the soft winds play,
Send out their inmates in a happy flow,
Like a freed vernal stream. I may not tread
With them those pathways--to the feverish bed
Of sickness bound; yet, O my God! I bless
Thy mercy, that with Sabbath-peace hath fill’d
My chasten’d heart, and all its throbbings still’d
To one deep calm of lowliest thankfulness!
26th April 1835.
[443] After the exhausting vicissitudes of days when it seemed that the
night of death was indeed at hand--of nights when it was thought that
she could never see the light of morning--wonderful even to those who
had witnessed, throughout her illness, the clearness and brightness
of the never-dying principle, amidst the desolation and decay of
its earthly companion, was the consecrated power and facility with
which, on Sunday, the 26th of April, she dictated to her brother the
“Sabbath Sonnet,” the last strain of the “sweet singer,” whose harp was
henceforth to be hung upon the willows.
Amongst the many tributes of interest and admiration elicited by a
poem, so remarkable to all readers--so precious to many hearts--the
following expressions, contained in a letter from the late venerable
Bishop of Salisbury to Mrs Joanna Baillie, and already published by the
latter, are too pleasingly applicable not to be inserted here. “There
is something peculiarly touching in the time, the subject, and the
occasion of this deathbed sonnet, and in the affecting contrast between
the ‘blessed groups’ she describes, and her own (humanly speaking)
helpless state of sickness; and that again contrasted with the hopeful
state of mind with which the sonnet concludes, expressive both of
the quiet comforts of a Christian Sabbath, and the blessed fruits of
profitable application. Her ‘Sweet Chimes’ on ‘Sabbath-peace,’ appear
to me very characteristic of the writer.”--_Memoir_, p. 311-12.
APPENDIX
CRITICISMS ON MISCELLANEOUS POEMS.
DELTA.
“We cannot allow these verses[444] to adorn, with a sad beauty, the
pages of this Magazine--more especially as they are the last composed
by their distinguished writer, and that only a few days before her
death--without at least a passing tribute of regret for an event
which has cast a shadow of gloom through the sunshiny fields of
contemporary literature. But two months ago, the beautiful lyric
entitled ‘Despondency and Aspiration,’ appeared in these pages, and now
the sweet fountain of music from which that prophetic strain gushed has
ceased to flow. The highly gifted and accomplished, the patient, the
meek, and long-suffering Felicia Hemans, is no more. She died on the
night of Saturday, the 16th of May 1835, at Dublin, and met her fate
with all the calm resignation of a Christian, conscious that her spirit
was winging its flight to another and a better world, where ‘the wicked
cease from troubling, and the weary are at rest.’
“Without disparagement of the living, we scarcely hesitate to say, that
in Mrs Hemans our female literature has lost perhaps its brightest
ornament. To Joanna Baillie she might be inferior, not only in
vigour of conception, but in the power of metaphysically analysing
those sentiments and feelings which constitute the basis of human
actions,--to Mrs Jameson in the critical perception which, from
detached fragments of spoken thought, can discriminate the links which
bind all into a distinctive character,--to Miss Landon in eloquent
facility,--to Caroline Bowles in simple pathos,--and to Mary Mitford in
power of thought; but as a female writer, influencing the female mind,
she has undoubtedly stood, for some bypast years, the very first in
the first rank; and this pre-eminence has been acknowledged, not only
in her own land, but wherever the English tongue is spoken, whether on
the banks of the eastern Ganges or the western Mississippi. Her path
was her own; and shoals of imitators have arisen, alike at home and on
the other side of the Atlantic, who, destitute of her animating genius,
have mimicked her themes, and parodied her sentiments and language,
without being able to reach its height. In her poetry, religious
truth and intellectual beauty meet together; and assuredly it is not
the less calculated to refine the taste and exalt the imagination,
because it addresses itself almost exclusively to the better feelings
of our nature alone. Over all her pictures of humanity are spread
the glory and the grace reflected from purity of morals, delicacy of
perception and conception, sublimity of religious faith, and warmth of
patriotism; and, turning from the dark and degraded, whether in subject
or sentiment, she seeks out those verdant oases in the desert of human
life on which the affections may most pleasantly rest. Her poetry is
intensely and entirely feminine--and, in our estimation, this is the
highest praise which could be awarded it,--it could have been written
by a woman only; for although, in the ‘Records’ of her sex, we have
the female character delineated in all the varied phases of baffled
passion and of ill-requited affection; of heroical self-denial, and
of withering hope deferred; of devotedness tried in the furnace of
affliction, and of
‘Gentle feelings long subdued,
Subdued and cherish’d long;’
yet its energy resembles that of the dove, ‘pecking the hand that
hovers o’er its mate,’ and its exaltation of thought is not of the
daring kind, which doubts and derides, or even questions, but which
clings to the anchor of hope, and looks forward with faith and
reverential fear.
“Mrs Hemans has written much, and, as with all authors in like
predicament, her strains are of various degrees of excellence.
Independently of this, her different works will be differently
estimated, as to their relative value, by different minds; but
among the lyrics of the English language which can scarcely die, we
hesitate not to assign places to ‘The Hebrew Mother’--‘The Treasures
of the Deep’--‘The Spirit’s Return’--‘The Homes of England’--‘The
Better Land’--‘The Hour of Death’--‘The Trumpet’--and ‘The Graves
of a Household.’ In these ‘gems of purest ray serene,’ the peculiar
genius of Mrs Hemans breathes, and burns, and shines pre-eminent;
for her forte lay in depicting whatever tends to beautify and
embellish domestic life--the gentle overflowings of love and
friendship--‘homebred delights and heartfelt happiness’--the
associations of local attachment--and the influences of religious
feelings over the soul, whether arising from the varied circumstances
and situations of man, or from the aspects of external nature. We
would only here add, by way of remark, that the writings of Mrs Hemans
seem to divide themselves into two pretty distinct portions--the first
comprehending her ‘Modern Greece,’ ‘Wallace,’ ‘Dartmoor,’ ‘Sceptic,’
‘Historic Scenes,’ and other productions, up to the publication of
‘The Forest Sanctuary;’ and the latter comprehending that volume,
‘The Records of Woman,’ ‘The Scenes and Hymns of Life,’ and all
her subsequent productions. In her earlier works, she follows the
classic model, as contradistinguished from the romantic, and they are
inferior in that polish of style, and almost gorgeous richness of
language, in which her maturer compositions are set. It is evident
that new stores of thought were latterly opened up to her, in a more
extended acquaintance with the literature of Spain and Germany, as
well as by a profounder study of the writings of our great poetical
regenerator--Wordsworth.”--_Blackwood’s Magazine, July 1835._
[444] “Sabbath Sonnet.”
MISS LANDON.
“Did we not know this world to be but a place of trial--our bitter
probation for another and for a better--how strange in its severity
would seem the lot of genius in a woman! The keen feeling--the generous
enthusiasm--the lofty aspiration and the delicate perception--are given
but to make the possessor unfitted for her actual position. It is
well!--such gifts, in their very contrast to the selfishness and the
evil with which they are surrounded, inform us of another world--they
breathe of their home, which is heaven; the spiritual and the inspired
in this life but fit us to believe in that which is to come. With what
a sublime faith is this divine reliance expressed in all Mrs Hemans’s
later writings! As the clouds towards nightfall melt away on a fine
summer evening into the clear amber of the west, leaving a soft and
unbroken azure whereon the stars may shine; so the troubles of life,
its vain regrets and vainer desires, vanished before the calm close of
existence--the hopes of heaven rose steadfast at last--the light shone
from the windows of her home, as she approached unto it.
‘No tears for thee!--though light be from us gone
With thy soul’s radiance, bright and restless one!
No tears for thee!
They that have loved an exile must not mourn
To see him parting for his native bourne,
O’er the dark sea.’
“We have noticed this yearning for affection--unsatisfied, but still
unsubdued--as one characteristic of Mrs Hemans’s poetry: the rich
picturesque was another. Highly accomplished, the varied stores that
she possessed were all subservient to one master science. Mistress both
of German and Spanish, the latter country appears to have peculiarly
captivated her imagination. At that period when the fancy is peculiarly
alive to impression--when girlhood is so new, that the eagerness of
childhood is still in its delights--Spain was, of all others, the
country on which public attention was fixed--victory after victory
carried the British flag from the ocean to the Pyrenees; but, with that
craving for the ideal which is so great a feature in her writings,
the present was insufficient, and she went back upon the past;--the
romantic history of the Moors was like a storehouse, with treasures
gorgeous like those of its own Alhambra.
“It is observable in her minor poems, that they turn upon an incident
rather than a feeling. Feelings, true and deep, are developed; but
one single emotion is never the original subject. Some graceful
or touching anecdote or situation catches her attention, and its
poetry is developed in a strain of mourning melody, and in a vein
of gentle moralising. I always wish, in reading my favourite poets,
to know what first suggested my favourite poems. Few things would
be more interesting than to know under what circumstances they were
composed--how much of individual sentiment there was in each, or how,
on some incident seemingly even opposed, they had contrived to ingraft
their own associations. What a history of the heart would such annals
reveal! Every poem is in itself an impulse.
“Besides the ideal and the picturesque, Mrs Hemans is distinguished by
her harmony. I use the word harmony advisedly, in contradistinction
to melody. Melody implies something more careless, more simple, than
belongs to her style; it is song by snatches; our English ballads are
remarkable for it. To quote an instance or two: there is a verse in
that of _Yarrow Water_--
‘O wind that wandereth from the south!
Seek where my love repaireth,
And blow a kiss to his dear mouth.
And tell me how he fareth.’
Nothing can exceed the tender sweetness of these lines; but there is
no skill. Again, in _Faire Rosamonde_, the verse that describes the
cruelty of Eleanor--
‘With that she struck her on the mouth,
So dyed double red;
Hard was the heart that gave the blow,
Soft were the lips that bled.’
How musical is the alliteration! but it is music which, like that
of the singing brook, has sprung up of itself. Now, Mrs Hemans has
the most perfect skill in her science; nothing can be more polished
than her versification. Every poem is like a piece of music, with its
eloquent pauses, its rich combinations, and its swelling chords. Who
that has ever heard, can forget the exquisite flow of ‘The Voice of
Spring?’--
‘I come! I come!--ye have call’d me long:
I come o’er the mountains with light and song!
Ye may trace my step o’er the wakening earth,
By the winds that tell of the violet’s birth,
By the primrose-stars in the shadowy grass,
By the green leaves opening as I pass.’
It is like the finest order of Italian singing--pure, high, and
scientific.
“I can never sufficiently regret that it was not my good fortune to
know Mrs Hemans personally: it was an honour I should have estimated
so highly--a happiness that I should have enjoyed so keenly. I never
even met with an acquaintance of hers but once; that once, however,
was much. I knew Miss Jewsbury, the late lamented Mrs Fletcher.
She delighted in speaking of Mrs Hemans; she spoke of her with
the appreciation of one fine mind comprehending another, and with
the earnest affection of a woman and a friend. She described her
conversation as singularly fascinating--full of poetry, very felicitous
in illustration by anecdote--happy, too, in quotation, and very rich in
imagery; ‘in short, her own poem on “The Treasures of the Deep” would
best describe it.’ She mentioned a very striking simile to which a
conversation on Mrs Hemans’s own poem of ‘The Sceptic’ had led;--‘Like
Sinbad the sailor, we are often shipwrecked on a strange shore. We
despair; but hope comes when least expected. We pass through the gloomy
caverns of doubt into the free air and blessed sunshine of conviction
and belief.’ I asked her if she thought Mrs Hemans a happy person, and
she said, ‘No; her enjoyment is feverish, and she desponds. She is like
a lamp whose oil is consumed by the very light which it yields.’ What
a cruel thing is the weakness of memory! How little can its utmost
efforts recall of conversation that was once an instruction and a
delight!
“To the three characteristics of Mrs Hemans’ poetry which have
already been mentioned--viz. the ideal, the picturesque, and the
harmonious--a fourth must be added,--the moral. Nothing can be more
pure, more feminine and exalted, than the spirit which pervades the
whole; it is the intuitive sense of right, elevated and strengthened
into a principle. It is a glorious and a beautiful memory to bequeath;
but she who left it is little to be envied. Open the volumes which
she has left, legacies from many various hours, and what a record
of wasted feelings and disappointed hopes may be traced in their
sad and sweet complainings! Yet Mrs Hemans was spared some of the
keenest mortifications of a literary career. She knew nothing of it
as a profession which has to make its way through poverty, neglect,
and obstacles: she lived apart in a small, affectionate circle of
friends. The high-road of life, with its crowds and contention--its
heat, its noise, and its dust that rests on all--was for her happily
at a distance; yet even in such green nest, the bird could not fold
its wings, and sleep to its own music. There came the aspiring, the
unrest, the aching sense of being misunderstood, the consciousness that
those a thousand times inferior were yet more beloved. Genius places
a woman in an unnatural position; notoriety frightens away affection;
and superiority has for its attendant fear, not love. Its pleasantest
emotions are too vivid to be lasting: hope may sometimes,
‘Raising its bright face,
With a free gush of sunny tears, erase
The characters of anguish:’
but, like the azure glimpses between thunder-showers, the clouds gather
more darkly around for the passing sunshine. The heart sinks back on
its solitary desolation. In every page of Mrs Hemans’ writings is this
sentiment impressed. What is the conclusion of ‘Corinne crowned at the
Capitol?’
‘Radiant daughter of the sun!
Now thy living wreath is won.
Crown’d of Rome!--oh, art thou not
Happy in that glorious lot?
Happier, happier far than thou
With the laurel on thy brow,
She that makes the humblest hearth
Lovely but to one on earth.’
“What is poetry, and what is a poetical career? The first is to
have an organisation of extreme sensibility, which the second
exposes bareheaded to the rudest weather. The original impulse is
irresistible--all professions are engrossing when once begun; and,
acting with perpetual stimulus, nothing takes more complete possession
of its follower than literature. But never can success repay its cost.
The work appears--it lives in the light of popular applause; but truly
might the writer exclaim,--
‘It is my youth--it is my bloom--it is my glad free heart
I cast away for thee--for thee--ill-fated as thou art.’
If this be true even of one sex, how much more true of the other!
Ah! Fame to a woman is indeed but a royal mourning in purple for
happiness.”--_New Monthly Magazine_ for August 1835.
H. F. CHORLEY.
“Though respect for the memory of the dead, and delicacy towards the
living, enjoin us to be brief in alluding to the events of her life,
we may speak freely, and at length, of the history of her mind, and
the circumstances of her literary career, in the course of which
she deserved and acquired a European reputation as the first of our
poetesses living, and still before the public. Few have written so
much, or written so well, as Mrs Hemans; few have entwined the genuine
fresh thoughts and impressions of their own minds so intimately,
with their poetical fancies, as she did; few have undergone more
arduous and reverential preparation for the service of song--for, from
childhood, her thirst for knowledge was extreme, and her reading great
and varied. Those who, while admitting the high-toned beauty of her
poetry, accused it of monotony of style and subject, (they could not
deny to it the praise of originality, seeing that it founded a school
of imitators in England, and a yet larger in America,) little knew to
what historical research she had applied herself--how far and wide
she had sought for food with which to fill her eager mind. It is true
that she used only a part of the mass of information which she had
collected--(for she never wrote on calculation, but from the strong
impulse of the moment; and it was her nature intimately to take home
to herself, and appropriate only what was high-hearted, imaginative,
and refined;)--but the writer of this notice has seen manuscript
collections of extracts made in the course of these youthful studies,
sufficient of themselves to justify his assertion, if her poems (like
those of every genuine poet) did not contain a still better record of
the progress of her mind. Her knowledge of classic literature may be
distinctly traced in her ‘Sceptic,’ her ‘Modern Greece,’ and a hundred
later lyrics based upon what Bulwer so happily calls ‘the Graceful
Superstition.’ Her study and admiration of the works of ancient Greek
and Roman art, strengthened into an abiding love of the beautiful,
which breathes both in the sentiment and in the structure of every line
she wrote, (for there are few of our poets more faultlessly musical in
their versification;) and when, subsequently, she opened for herself
the treasuries of Spanish and German legend and literature, how
thoroughly she had imbued herself with their spirit may be seen in her
‘Siege of Valencia,’ in her glorious and chivalresque ‘Songs of the
Cid,’ and in her ‘Lays of Many Lands,’ the idea of which was suggested
by Herder’s ‘Stimmen der Völker in Liedern.’
“But though her mind was enriched by her wide acquaintance with the
poetical and historical literature of other countries, it possessed a
strong and decidedly marked character of its own, which coloured all
her productions--a character which, though any thing but feeble or
sentimental, was essentially feminine. An eloquent modern critic (Mrs
Jameson) has rightly said, ‘that Mrs Hemans’ poems could not have been
written by a man;’ their love is without selfishness, their passion
without a stain of this world’s coarseness, their high heroism (and to
illustrate this assertion we would mention ‘Clotilda,’ ‘the Lady of
Provence,’ and the ‘Switzer’s Wife,’) unsullied by any grosser alloy
of mean ambition. Her religion, too, is essentially womanly--fervent,
clinging to belief, and ‘hoping on, hoping ever,’ in spite of the
peculiar trials appointed to her sex, so exquisitely described in the
‘Evening Prayer in a Girls’ School’--
‘Silent tears to weep,
And patient smiles to wear through suffering’s hour,
And sumless riches from affection’s deep!
To pour on broken reeds--a wasted shower!
And to make idols, and to find them clay,
And to bewail that worship.’
“If such was the _mind_ of her works, the manner in which she wrought
out her conceptions was equally individual and excellent. Her
imagination was rich, chaste, and glowing: those who saw only its
published fruits little guessed at the extent of its variety.
“It is difficult to enumerate the titles of her principal works. Her
first childish efforts were published when she was only thirteen, and
we can speak of her subsequent poems, ‘Wallace,’ ‘Dartmoor,’ ‘The
Restoration of the Works of Art to Italy,’ and her ‘Dramatic Scenes,’
only from memory. These were probably written in the happiest period
of her life, when her mind was rapidly developing itself, and its
progress was aided by judicious and intelligent counsellors, among
whom may be mentioned Bishop Heber. A favourable notice of one of
these poems will be found in Lord Byron’s letters; and the fame of
her opening talent had reached Shelley, who addressed a very singular
correspondence to her. With respect to the world in general, her name
began to be known by the publication of her ‘Welsh Melodies,’ her
‘Siege of Valencia,’ and the scattered lyrics which appeared in the
_New Monthly Magazine_, then under the direction of Campbell. She had
previously contributed a series of prose papers, on Foreign Literature,
to _Constable’s Edinburgh Magazine_, which, with little exception, are
the only specimens of that style of writing ever attempted by her. To
the ‘Siege of Valencia’ succeeded rapidly her ‘Forest Sanctuary,’ her
‘Records of Woman,’ (the most successful of her works,) her ‘Songs of
the Affections,’ (containing, perhaps, her finest poem, ‘The Spirit’s
Return,’) her ‘National Lyrics and Songs for Music,’ (most of which
have been set to music by her sister, and become popular,) and her
‘Scenes and Hymns of Life.’ A few words with respect to the direction
of her powers in later days may be worthily extracted from a letter
of hers which lies now before us. She had been urged by a friend to
undertake a prose work, and a series of ‘Artistic Novels,’ something
after the manner of Tieck, and Goethe’s Kunst-Romanen, as likely to
be congenial to her own tastes and habits of mind, and to prove most
acceptable to the public.
“‘I have now,’ she says, ‘passed through the feverish and somewhat
_visionary_ state of mind often connected with the passionate study
of art in early life; deep affections and deep sorrows seem to have
solemnised my whole being, and I now feel as if bound to higher and
holier tasks, which, though I may occasionally lay aside, I could
not long wander from without some sense of dereliction. I hope it is
no self-delusion, but I cannot help sometimes feeling as if it were
my true task to enlarge the sphere of sacred poetry, and extend its
influence. When you receive my volume of ‘Scenes and Hymns,’ you will
see what I mean by enlarging its sphere, though my plan as yet is very
imperfectly developed.’
“Besides the works here enumerated, we should mention her tragedy, ‘The
Vespers of Palermo,’ which, though containing many fine thoughts and
magnificent bursts of poetry, was hardly fitted for the stage, and the
songs which she contributed to Colonel Hodges’ ‘Peninsular Melodies;’
and we cannot but once more call the attention of our readers to her
last lyric, ‘Despondency and Aspiration,’ published in _Blackwood’s
Magazine_ for May 1835. It is the song of the swan--its sweetest and
its last!”[445]--_Athenæum_, No. 395.
* * * * *
“An elaborate summary of the principal features of Mrs Hemans’
character, or of the general and individual merits of her poems, can
hardly be necessary, if the foregoing memorials have fulfilled the
design of their editor. The woman and the poetess were in her too
inseparably united to admit of their being considered apart from
each other. In her private letters, as in her published works, she
shows herself high-minded, affectionate, grateful--wayward in her
self-neglect, delicate to fastidiousness in her tastes--in her religion
fervent without intolerance--eager to acquire knowledge, as eager to
impart it to others--earnestly devoted to her art, and in that art to
the service of all things beautiful, and noble, and holy. She may have
fallen short of some of her predecessors in vigour of mind--of some of
her contemporaries in variety of fancy; but she surpassed them all in
the use of language, in the employment of a rich, chaste, and glowing
imagery, and in the perfect music of her versification. It will be long
before the chasm left in our female literature by her death will be
worthily filled: she will be long remembered--long spoken of by those
who know her works--yet longer by those who knew herself,--
‘Kindly and gently, but as of one
For whom ’tis well to be fled and gone--
As of a bird from a chain unbound,
As of the wanderer whose home is found,
So let it be!’”
_Memorials of Mrs Hemans_, p. 354-6.
[445] It has already been shown that this was not the case.
ECLECTIC REVIEW.
“Mrs Hemans, if not in all respects the most gifted of the female
writers who form so bright a constellation in the sphere of our
contemporary literature, surpassed them all in those attributes of
genius which characterise the lyric poets. Without possessing the
dramatic conception of Joanna Baillie or Mary Mitford--the masculine
vigour and depth of thought displayed by the late Mrs Fletcher, (better
known as Miss Jewsbury,) or the fertile imagination of others of our
delightful female prose writers--she outshone them all in her peculiar
orbit; and though she wrote too much, and often too carelessly,
to sustain, in all her compositions, the high standard of poetic
excellence to which she often attained, her best productions, in her
own rich and peculiar vein, rival those of the mightiest masters of
English song; while their exquisitely feminine character justify the
remark, that ‘the poetry of Mrs Hemans could have been written only by
a woman.’”--_E. R._, 1836.
PROFESSOR NORTON.
“We have now received the last of the imperishable gifts of Mrs Hemans’
genius. The period of her spirit’s trials and sufferings, and its
glorious course on earth, has been completed. She has left an unclouded
fame; and we may say, in her own words:--
‘No tears for thee!--though light be from us gone
With thy soul’s radiance:...
No tears for thee!
They that have loved an exile must not mourn
To see him parting for his native bourne
O’er the dark sea.’
“As this, therefore, will be the last time that we shall review any
production of Mrs Hemans, we may be permitted to recall, with a
melancholy pleasure, the admiration and delight with which we have
followed the progress of her genius. The feelings with which her works
are now generally regarded have been expressed in no publication
earlier, more frequently, or more warmly, than in our own. Without
repeating what we have already said, we shall now endeavour to point
out some of their features, considered in relation to that moral
culture in which alone such writings can exist.
“Mrs Hemans may be considered as the representative of a new school
of poetry, or, to speak more precisely, her poetry discovers
characteristics of the highest kind, which belong almost exclusively
to that of later times, and have been the result of the gradual
advancement, and especially the moral progress, of mankind. It is only
when man, under the influence of true religion, feels himself connected
with whatever is infinite, that his affections and powers are fully
developed. The poetry of an immortal being must be of a different
character from that of an earthly being. But, in recurring to the
classic poets of antiquity, we find that, in their conceptions, the
element of religious faith was wanting. Their mythology was to them
no object of sober belief; and, had it been so, was adapted not to
produce but to annihilate devotion. They had no thought of regarding
the universe as created, animated, and ruled by God’s all-powerful and
omniscient goodness. To them it was a world of matter,--
‘The fair humanities of old religion,
The power, the beauty, and the majesty
That had their haunts in dale, or piny mountain,
Or forest by slow stream, or pebbly spring,
Or chasms and watery depths,’
never existed except in the imagination of modern poets. The beings
intended were the ‘fair humanities’ of Ovid’s _Metamorphoses_, whose
attributes, derived from the baser parts of our nature, were human
passions lawlessly indulged, accompanied with more than mortal
power. Gibbon, who was any thing rather than what he affected to
be--a philosopher--speaks of ‘the elegant mythology of the Greeks.’
The great fountains of their popular and poetical mythology were
Homer and Hesiod. Hesiod does not surpass Homer in the agreeable or
moral character of his fictions; and, as regards the elegance of the
mythology found in the great epic poet, a single passage, if we had
no other means of judging, might settle the question, the address
of Jupiter to Juno at the commencement of the Fifteenth Book of the
_Iliad_:--
‘Oh, versed in wiles,
Juno! thy mischief-teeming mind perverse
Hath plotted this; thou hast contrived the hurt
Of Hector, and hast driven his host to flight.
I know not but thyself mayst chance to reap
The first fruits of thy cunning, scourged by me.
Hast thou forgotten how I hung thee once
On high, with two huge anvils at thy feet,
And bound with force-defying cord of gold
Thy wrists together? In the heights of heaven
Did I suspend thee. With compassion moved,
The assembled gods thy painful sufferings saw,
But help could yield thee none; for whom I seized,
Hurl’d through the portal of the skies, he reach’d
The distant earth, and scarce survived the fall.’
* * * * *
I thus remind thee now, that thou may’st cease
Henceforth from artifice, and mayst be taught
How little all the dalliance and the love,
Which, stealing down from heaven, thou hast by fraud
Obtain’d from me shall favour thy designs.’
“It may be incidentally remarked, that these lines illustrate not
merely the features of the ancient mythology, but also the condition
of woman as treated by the heroes of Homer and by his contemporaries.
We happen just to have opened upon another striking example of the
_elegance_ of the ancient mythology during the Augustan age. It is a
passage of Ovid, almost too indecent and silly to be alluded to, though
Addison was not ashamed to translate it, beginning--
‘Forte Jovem memorant, diffusum nectare, curas
Seposuisse graves, vacuaque agitasse remissos
Cum Junone jocos.’[446]
“From the passage referred to, we may judge something of the convivial
manners of the Romans, and of the habits of intercourse between the
sexes.
“It is remarkable that, in all religious and moral conceptions, the
noblest materials of poetry, the philosophers were very far in advance
of the poets. ‘The Fables of Hesiod and Homer,’ says Plato, ‘are
especially to be censured. They have uttered the greatest falsehoods
concerning the greatest beings.’ Referring to the loathsome and
abominable fables about Cœlus, Saturn, and Jupiter, he says--‘We must
not tell our youth that he who commits the greatest iniquity does
nothing strange, nor he who inflicts the most cruel punishment upon his
father when injured by him; but that he is only doing what was done by
the first and greatest of the gods.’ A little after he subjoins:--‘The
chaining of Juno by her son, the throwing of Vulcan from heaven by his
father, because he attempted to defend his mother from being beaten,
and the battles of the gods described by Homer, are not fictions to be
allowed in our city, whether explained allegorically or not.’ ‘Though
we praise many things in Homer,’ he says, ‘we shall not praise him
when he represents Jupiter as sending a lying dream to Agamemnon, nor
Æschylus when he makes Thetis complain of having been deceived by
Apollo.’ ‘When any one thus speaks of the gods, we are indignant; we
grant no permission for such writings, nor shall we suffer teachers to
use them in the instruction of youth.’[447]
“The poets of this nation did not, in Plato’s opinion, represent their
heroes as more amiable or respectable than their gods. ‘We shall not,’
he says, ‘suffer those of whom we have the charge to believe that
Achilles, the son of a goddess, was so full of evil passions as to
unite in himself two opposite vices--avaricious meanness, and insolence
towards gods and men. Nor shall we allow it to be said that Theseus,
the son of Neptune, and Perithöus, the son of Jove, rushed forth to
the commission of such abominable robberies, or that any son of a god
or any hero committed those abominable and impious acts which are now
imputed to them in the fictions of the poets.’ ‘Such fictions are
pernicious to those who hear them; for every bad man finds a license
for himself, in the belief that those nearly related to the gods do
and have done such deeds. They are, then, to be suppressed, lest they
produce a strong tendency to wickedness in our youth.’[448]
“Such were the sentiments of the most poetical of Grecian philosophers
concerning the religious and moral character of the poets of his
nation; and he remarks in addition upon the gloomy fancies of Homer
concerning the state of departed souls, as neither true nor useful, but
adapted to produce unmanly fears, and therefore not to be listened to
by those who, as freemen, should dread slavery more than death. During
the period between Homer and Virgil, a misty brightness had spread over
the poetic ideas of the future abodes of the blessed; but the Elysium
and Tartarus of poetry were but fictions, awakening no serious hopes
nor fears, and having no power over the heart. These imaginations of
a future life were connected with no just and ennobling conceptions
of the purposes of our existence, of the spiritual nature of man, or
of that endless progress to which we may look forward. The heroes of
Elysium found their delight in the meaner pleasures of this life,--
‘Quæ gratia currum
Armorumque fuit vivis, quæ cura nitentes
Pascere equos, eadem sequitur tellure repostos.
Conspicit, ecce, alios dextra lævaque per herbam
Vescentes, lætumque chora pæana canentes.’[449]
“Thus the ancient poets were shut out from the whole sphere of
religious sentiment; and all those numberless conceptions and
feelings that spring from our knowledge of God and the sense of our
own immortality, are absent from their writings, while this whole
exhaustless domain has been laid open to the poets of later times.
A single example may illustrate what has been said. Let us take the
concluding verses of Mrs Hemans’s ‘Fountain of Oblivion:’--
‘Fill with forgetfulness!--there are, there are
Voices whose music I have loved too well;
Eyes of deep gentleness--but they are far--
Never! oh! never, in my home to dwell!
Take their soft looks from off my yearning soul--
Fill high th’ oblivious bowl!
‘Yet pause again!--with memory wilt thou cast
The undying hope away, of memory born?
Hope of reunion, heart to heart at last;
No restless doubt between, no rankling thorn?
Wouldst thou erase all records of delight
That make such visions bright?
Fill with forgetfulness, fill high!----yet stay--
’Tis from the past we shadow forth the land
Where smiles, long lost, again shall light our way,
And the soul’s friends be wreathed in one bright band.
Pour the sweet waters back on their own rill:
I must remember still.
‘For their sake, for the dead--whose image naught
May dim within the temple of my breast--
For their love’s sake, which now no earthly thought
May shake or trouble with its own unrest,
Though the past haunt me as a spirit--yet
I ask not to forget.’
“The whole train of emotion and thought in these verses is of a
character wholly unknown to the classic days of Greece and Rome. To
imagine any thing corresponding to it in the work of an ancient poet,
is to bring together conceptions the most incongruous.
“Here it may be worth while, in order to prevent ourselves from being
misunderstood, to observe, that we do not mean to depreciate the value
of the study of the ancient poets. After those inquiries by which the
truths of religion are established, there are none of more interest
or importance than such as relate to the mind and heart of man, and
open to us a knowledge of what he has been, and what he may be on
earth. But, to attain this knowledge, we must acquaint ourselves with
the moral and intellectual character of our race, as it has existed,
and exists, under influences and forms of society very unlike each
other. In this research, no period can be compared in interest with
a few centuries in the history of Athens and Rome, which have left
traces still so deeply impressed upon the civilised world. Thus, in
studying the history of human nature, the Grecian and Roman poets
furnish some of our most important materials. We may discover in them
a source of sentiments and opinions that still affect men’s minds.
Homer carries us back to remote Pagan antiquity, on which his writings
shed a light afforded by no other; and, at the same time, having been
regarded as the undisputed master-poet by his countrymen, (for this
Plato himself does not question,) he shows us what were the topics
by which their imaginations were most affected during the period of
their greatest civilisation. The dramatic poets of Athens reflect
the Athenian character; and in Virgil, Horace, and Ovid, we find the
lineaments of the Augustan age. But the value which thus attaches to
their works is not to be confounded with the absolute value of those
works as poems adapted through their intrinsic beauties to give delight
at the present day. In estimating their naked worth, we must likewise
separate from them the interest connected with their antiquity, and
all those accidental associations that have been gathering round them
for many centuries. We must even put out of view the native genius
of the writer, if this genius have been exerted under circumstances
so unfavourable as to render it ineffectual to produce what may give
pleasure to a pure and highly-cultivated mind. Not-withstanding the
traditionary enthusiasm that has existed on the subject, it may well
be doubted whether their power of giving vivid pleasure merely as
poetical compositions, forms a principal recommendation of the study of
the ancient poets. They were not acquainted with the richest realms of
mind. It is a mistake to address them as ‘bards illustrious, _born in
happier days_.’ But, to return to our immediate subject.
“After the revival of letters, the forms of what was called
Christianity, both among Catholics and Protestants, were in many
respects so abhorrent to reason, or feeling, or both, that they could
combine in no intimate union with our higher nature, however they might
operate on men’s passions or fears. Religious truth was, however,
sometimes contemplated in greater purity by minds of the better
class; and we early begin to find in poetry some expressions of true
religious sentiment. But what advance had been actually made even in
the seventeenth century, we may learn from the great work of Milton.
It is based on a system of mythology more sublime than the Pagan, and
less adapted to degrade the moral feelings, but scarcely less offensive
to reason, and spreading all but a Manichæan gloom and blight over
the creation of God. Putting forth his vast genius, he struggles with
it as he can, moulding it into colossal forms that repel our human
sympathies, and lavishing upon it gorgeous treasures of imagination;
but even his powers yield and sink at times before its intrinsic
incongruity and essential falsehood. Whoever rightly apprehends the
character of God, or contemplates as he ought the invisible world, will
turn to but few pages of the _Paradise Lost_, with the hope of finding
expressions correspondent to his thoughts and emotions. We feel with
pain the inappreciable contrast between the genius displayed in the
poetical execution of the work, and the absurdity of its prose story.
It is the opposition which this story presents to the most ennobling
truths, even more than ‘the want of human interest,’ on which Johnson
remarks, that gives to the poem the unattractive character of which he
speaks, and which we believe is felt by almost all its readers.
“Doubtless pure religious sentiment breaks out in this and in the other
poems of Milton. The concluding line of his Sonnet on his Blindness--
‘They also serve who only stand and wait,’
and numerous other passages of similar beauty, have, we may believe,
found an answering feeling in many hearts. But in speaking of those
causes which have given a new character to the poetry of later times,
it is not our purpose to trace their influence historically. Going back
to the days of Grecian and Roman civilisation, we shall take only a few
illustrations that may serve to show more clearly the contrast produced
by their absence on one hand, or their operation on the other.
“In proportion as we contemplate the world from the height to which
true religion conducts us, we perceive the circle of moral action
widening indefinitely. Our duties toward the inferior animals are few
and low, compared with those which we lie under to our fellow-men;
and our duties toward our fellow-men become far more extensive, and
assume a more solemn character, when we regard them not as born to
perish upon earth, but as commencing here an unending existence. Our
obligations to others correspond to our means of serving them; and we
are introduced to a higher class of virtues, as soon as we recognise
in those around us beings forming characters for a different mode of
existence, to whom the highest service that can be rendered is to
assist their progress in virtue, and to whom some influence, good or
evil, is continually flowing out from us, and diverging into channels
of which we cannot see the termination. All interest in the spiritual
and imperishable good of our fellow-men must depend upon our regarding
them as spiritual and imperishable. It is only under a sense of our
true nature, that man is capable of reaching the sublime thought of
assimilating himself to God, by devoting his powers to the moral
welfare of his fellow-men.
‘Yet, yet sustain me, Holiest!--I am vow’d
To solemn service high;
And shall the spirit, for thy tasks endow’d,
Sink on the threshold of the sanctuary,
Fainting beneath the burden of the day,
Because no human tone
Unto the altar-stone
Of that pure spousal fane inviolate,
Where it should make eternal truth its mate,
May cheer the sacred solitary way?
‘Oh! be the whisper of thy voice within
Enough to strengthen! Be the hope to win
A more deep-seeing homage for thy name
Far, far beyond the burning dream of fame!
Make me thine only! Let me add but one
To those refulgent steps all undefiled,
Which glorious minds have piled
Through bright self-offering, earnest, child-like, lone,
For mounting to thy throne;
And let my soul, upborne
On wings of inner morn,
Find, in illumined secresy, the sense
Of that blest work, its own high recompense.’
“But there is more to be considered. The conduct which would be wise
and right for man if immortal, would not be wise and right for him if
viewed as a perishing animal. It is true that moral good is always
good, and moral evil always evil; but with an essential change in our
nature and relations, there must likewise be an essential change in
what is morally good or evil. If all human hopes were limited to this
world, it would be folly for any one to act as if he and others were
to exist for ever. The whole plan of life and of its duties formed
by a wise man, would be quite different in the one case from what it
would be in the other; and the course of life actually pursued by the
generality, if destitute of all religious belief, would be still more
unlike that of men under its influence.
‘Sapias, vina liques, et spatio brevi
Spem longam reseces.’[450]
‘Quid brevi fortes jaculamur ævc
Multa?’[451]
‘Lætus in præsens, animus quod ultra est
Oderit curare, et amara lento
Temperet risu.’[452]
In the absence of religious faith, this is true philosophy. If this
life were the limit of our being, its pleasures and pains would be
the only objects of our concern. Nothing would be virtuous which
tended not to the attainment and communication of those limited and
perishing pleasures we might here partake; nothing morally evil, but
what lessened our own capacity for enjoying them, or tended to prevent
others from sharing them with us. There would be no sphere for the
exercise of those powers, no object for those capacities of happiness,
that belong to the imperishable part of our nature. There would be
nothing to prompt one to great sacrifices or acts of moral heroism;
for these have their source in the consciousness of immortality, in
a sense of our connexion with the infinite, our look forward to good
for ourselves and others beyond the limits of life. Earthly motives
afford no soil in which the nobler virtues can strike their roots.
It is true that the ancients, particularly the ancient philosophers,
were not without the influence of truly religious conceptions; and,
under almost any forms of opinion, the better nature of man will of
itself occasionally break out into exhibitions of excellence. But the
religious sentiment being so weak and perverted among the ancient
poets, we find little in their works that can be regarded as morally
noble, and scarcely an indistinct recognition of those deep feelings
and unearthly virtues which have their source in our spiritual nature.
The same remark is almost equally applicable to a large proportion of
the modern poets: for true religion has been little understood or felt
by them. Where, in any age preceding our own, may we hope to find such
expressions of sentiment as in the following verses from Mrs Hemans’
‘Vaudois Wife?’[453]
‘But calm thee! Let the thought of death
A solemn peace restore;
The voice that must be silent soon,
Would speak to thee once more:
That thou may’st bear its blessing on
Through years of after life,--
A token of consoling love,
Even from this hour of strife.
‘I bless thee for the noble heart,
The tender, and the true,
Where mine hath found the happiest rest
That e’er fond woman’s knew;
I bless thee, faithful friend and guide!
For my own, my treasured share
In the mournful secrets of thy soul,
In thy sorrow, in thy prayer.
* * * * *
‘I bless thee for the last rich boon
Won from affection tried--
The right to gaze on death with thee,
To perish by thy side!
And yet more for the glorious hope
Even to these moments given--
Did not thy spirit ever lift
The trust of mine to heaven?
‘Now be thou strong! Oh! knew we not
Our path must lead to this?
A shadow and a trembling still
Were mingled with our bliss!
We plighted our young hearts when storms
Were dark upon the sky,
In full, deep knowledge of their task--
To suffer and to die!
‘Be strong! I leave the living voice
Of this, my martyr’d blood,
With the thousand echoes of the hills,
With the torrent’s foaming flood,--
A spirit midst the caves to dwell,
A token on the air,
To route the valiant from repose,
The fainting from despair.
‘Hear it, and bear thou on, my love!
Ay, joyously endure!
Our mountains must be altars yet,
Inviolate and pure;
Where must our God be worshipp’d still
With the worship of the free;--
Farewell! there’s but one pang in death,
One only,--leaving thee!’
“With this, may be compared the speech of Alcestis in Euripides, when
dying in the presence of her husband, under circumstances adapted to
call forth all that power of expressing the tender emotions, for which
Euripides has been thought to be distinguished.
“Under the influence of religion, we are acted upon by new motives,
through the sense created within us, of the worth of our fellow-men.
Religion invests them with a new character, strips off the disguise
with which the accidents of mortality, imperfections, weaknesses,
follies, miseries, and crimes hide their essential nature from our
view, and presents them before us with all the interests and capacities
of immortal beings. They who are dear to us are worthy of all love and
self-devotion, worthy of affections unlimited by death or time. They
are members with us of the imperishable family of God, in whose company
we are to exist for ever, and with whom our union will become more
entire, as we grow purer and more disinterested.
“Thus in later days there has been a growth of sentiments and
affections, almost unknown before. Our better feelings toward our
fellow-men have acquired far more strength, and assumed new forms.
In other times, man has been comparatively an insulated being.
Domestic life--that life in which now almost all our joys or sorrows
are centred--was scarcely known to the ancients; and it has had but
a sickly and artificial existence even in modern ages, through the
operation of false notions of domestic government and discipline, and
of the mutual relations of husband and wife, parents and children.
Religion, by teaching us justly to estimate what is truly excellent in
our nature, what is intellectual, moral, and ever-enduring, has given
to woman the rank to which she is entitled. It has made her the friend
of man; and our feelings are in harmony with the poet when he speaks
of--
‘A perfect woman, nobly plann’d
To warn, to comfort, and command;
And yet a spirit still and bright,
With something of an angel light.’
But man has never regarded woman with respect and true love, except so
far as he has regarded her as a spiritual and immortal being. Without
this, no conception can exist of that inseparable union which blends
all the interests and affections of one being with those of another.
The poetry of the ancients that expresses any sentiments toward the
female sex is, with rare exceptions, of the grossest kind, sensual,
coarse, indecent, brutal. We can pick out only a few passages from
the mass, which shadow forth anything like real affection. The same
character has continued to cleave to much of our modern poetry,
rendering it at once pernicious and disgusting. But wherever the
power of true religion has been felt, there woman, more disinterested,
more pure, and more moral than man, has exerted a constant influence
to raise the character of society. Where it has not been felt, woman
has been treated as a mere creature of this earth, an object only of
sensual passion, courted, wronged, and insulted; her character has
sunk, and the infection of the evil has spread itself every where. It
would be difficult, in as few words, to suggest to a reflecting mind a
more melancholy picture of the state of society at Athens, than that
of which Aristotle affords us a glimpse in a short passage of his ‘Art
of Poetry,’ where he remarks, with his usual brevity and dryness, that
‘the manners (character) of a woman or slave may be good; though in
general, perhaps, women are rather bad than good, and slaves altogether
bad.’[454] Where women are thus estimated, the domestic charities, our
best school of virtue, cannot exist; those affections which are at
once the gentlest and the strongest have no place; nor will there be
any true refinement, nor quick and generous feeling in the intercourse
between man and man: the first and strongest link in the chain of human
sympathy is wanting.
“When Jesus Christ pronounced these words, ‘_What God has joined
together, let not man put asunder_,’ he laid down the fundamental law
of human civilisation. But it would have been impossible to render
marriage the most solemn and indissoluble of connexions if his religion
had not at the same time restored to woman the character designed for
her by nature, and raised her to that place she now holds, wherever the
truths he taught have had somewhat of their proper influence.
“When the feelings that give sanctity to marriage are wanting, the
parental affections operate but feebly. The new-born child, instead of
being regarded as a gift and a trust from God, a new creature with whom
we have become for ever connected, and a living bond of common interest
to strengthen the union of its parents, is either looked at, on the one
hand, as a present incumbrance, or, on the other, as a probable future
support. The whole history of the domestic relations of the ancients
establishes this truth. What must have been the state of parental
affection among those who practised and tolerated the destruction of
infants as a common custom? The absence of such affection is not to
be estimated by the number of victims to that custom, but by the fact
of its being generally viewed without horror or reprobation. It was a
shocking trait of barbarity in the character of the elder Cato, that
he recommended that worn-out and disabled slaves should be exposed
to perish; but an exposure more inhuman, which showed that man had
lost even the feelings of the lower animals, was constantly going
on, and was enjoined, under certain circumstances, both by Plato and
Aristotle, as a law of their imagined republics. There is a famous
saying in one of the comedies of Terence, which has been often quoted
as a fine expression of philanthropy: _Homo sum--humani nihil a me
alienum puto_.[455] It is put into the mouth of a man whose wife is
afterwards represented as in fear before him, because she had not
destroyed her female infant as he had commanded, but given it a chance
for preservation by causing it to be exposed alive. Maternal love
cannot be wholly extinguished; but it is the glow of modern feeling
only which pours its beauty over the following lines, to which nothing
parallel can be found in the poets of Greece or Rome, though Mrs Hemans
apostrophises the Elysium of their imagining:--
‘Calm, on its leaf-strewn bier,
Unlike a gift of nature to decay,
Too rose-like still, too beautiful, too dear,
The child at rest before the mother lay,
E’en so to pass away,
With its bright smile. Elysium! what wert thou
To her who wept o’er that young slumberer’s brow?
‘Thou hadst no home, green land!
For the fair creature from her bosom gone,
With life’s fresh flowers just opening in its hand,
And all the lovely thoughts and dreams unknown,
Which in its clear eye shone
Like spring’s first wakening! But that light was past;--
Where went the dew-drop swept before the blast?’
“The ancient popular faith was indeed destitute of consolation; but
in the absence of those associations which shed a holy light round an
infant, such consolation is less needed. Even the fountain of maternal
affection flows with but a scanty and interrupted stream.
“Thus religion, by making man of more worth to man, and by
strengthening our assurance in each other’s sympathy and virtue, has
called forth affections which lay folded up in our nature, or had put
forth only a stinted growth. The finer productions of modern poetry
are coloured throughout with expressions of their beauty and strength.
Moral qualities, good or bad, as they exist in men, unformed directly
or indirectly by religion, owe their strength principally to impulse
and passion, or depend, like the inconsistent hospitality of the
Arab, or the pride of the Roman, on what he thought the glory of his
country, upon prejudices which spring partly from generous feelings and
partly from selfish regards, and are made strong and binding upon the
individual by universal consent. It is only when quickened by religious
sentiment, that the human character displays all its complicated
variety of feelings. Then affections, which had before seemed almost
powerless, become essential elements of our being. Associations, till
then unknown, link together their invisible chains; and the feeling
with which they thrill us when touched, presents a new phenomenon in
our nature. The love of our youthful home may seem to us an universal
sentiment, likely to appear in the poetry of all times; yet how little
reference to it do we find in any poetry before our own age, and
especially how little reference, like the following, to its moral power!
‘“Hast thou come with the heart of thy childhood back,
The free, the pure, the kind?”
--So murmur’d the trees in my homeward track,
As they play’d to the mountain-wind.
“Hath thy soul been true to its early love?”
Whisper’d my native streams;
“Hath the spirit, nursed amidst hill and grove,
Still revered its first high dreams?”’ etc.
“It is under the continued influence of Christianity, however imperfect
that influence may have been, that the human character, which had
before manifested itself partially and irregularly in the rudeness and
inconsistency of its elementary passions, has begun to struggle toward
its full development. It has become alive to feelings, and is putting
forth powers, which belong to its immortal nature. We may perceive this
unfolding of man in the very structure of language, which, enlarged
as it has been with new terms, yet presents so imperfect a means for
expressing the different qualities and shades of character, and the
modes and combinations of feeling. The study of human nature has thus
become a science of far more interest and complexity. Many forms of
character now appear, that belong to no period in the progress of the
human race preceding that at which we have arrived. To the eye of the
poet, man presents himself in new aspects of strength and weakness in
multiform relations to the finite and the infinite, and with all the
variety of sentiments resulting from the change in his prospects and
hopes. He is now ‘a traveller between life and death;’ his highest
interests connect him with the boundless, the unearthly, and the
mysterious; with all that has most power to affect the imagination,
and excite the strongest and deepest feelings. It is only through his
relations to God and eternity that man becomes an exhaustless subject
of high poetry. When thus viewed, his ruined home may be repeopled with
thoughts and images such as these:--
‘Thou hast heard many sounds, thou hearth,
Deserted now by all!
Voices at eve here met in mirth,
Which eve may ne’er recall.
Youth’s buoyant step, and woman’s tone,
And childhood’s laughing glee,
And song and prayer have all been known,
Hearth of the dead! to thee.
‘Thou hast heard blessings fondly pour’d
Upon the infant head,
As if in every fervent word
The living soul were shed:
Thou hast seen partings,--such as bear
The bloom from life away,--
Alas! for love in changeful air,
Where naught beloved can stay!’ etc.
“The recognition of the higher relations of man has given a
characteristic to modern poetry, particularly English poetry,
through which it has peculiar power over the heart. Expressions
and descriptions of human suffering, instead of depressing us with
melancholy, become sublime or touching, when that suffering is brought
into direct or indirect contrast with man’s nature and hopes as an
immortal being, or is represented as calling into exercise those
virtues which can exist in such a being alone. There is no pathos in
the mere lamentations of an individual over his own particular lot, or
over the condition of a race to which he feels it an unhappiness to
belong. There is nothing that excites any tender or elevating feeling
in such verses as the following from an ancient poet:--
‘Is there a man just, honest, nobly born?
Malice shall hunt him down. Does wealth attend him?
Trouble is heard behind. Conscience direct?
Beggary is at his heels....
... Account that day
Which brings no new mischance, a day of rest.
For what is man? What matter is he made of?
How born? What is he, and what shall he be?
What an unnatural parent is this world,
To foster none but villains, and destroy
All who are benefactors to mankind!’
“The sufferings to which we are here exposed cease to be a subject that
leads to any grateful or ennobling state of mind, when man regards the
pleasures of this life as his only good. Among the ancient poets, the
contemplation of its evils, when viewed at a distance, is associated
with sentiments simply disheartening, or altogether superficial and
trifling. Let us take for example a famous ode of Horace. It begins:--
‘Eheu! fugaces, Postume, Postume,
Labuntur anni; nec pietas moram
Rugis et instanti senectæ
Afferet, indomitæque morti.’
“It ends:--
‘Absumet hæres Cæcuba dignior,
Servata centum clavibus; et mero
Tinget pavimentum superbo
Pontificum potiore cœnis.’
“No modern poet would, or rather could, construct verses after this
fashion.
“It is in representations of the triumph of our immortal nature
over the ills of mortality, of the patience with which they are
borne, of the power by which they are overcome--in one word, of the
moral qualities which suffering alone brings into action, and in
those touches that awaken our best and tenderest affections for the
sufferings of others, especially the innocent and helpless, that the
sources of the highest pathos are to be found. All that is morally
sublime springs upward from our severer trials; and then, only when
man feels the nobleness of his nature. Present the calamity nakedly
to our view, and its contemplation is merely distressing; picture it
in connexion with some effort of virtue, and a glory is spread over
the whole. In the Fall of D’Assas by Mrs Hemans, (not one of the most
remarkable of her productions,) a young officer, full of the thoughts
of his home and the scenes of his earlier years, is represented as
surprised and massacred by his enemies. The simple narrative of such a
death naturally excites painful emotion, but this emotion is so wholly
overborne, as but to give additional strength to the exaltation of
feeling produced by the concluding verses:--
‘“Silence!” in under-tones they cry,’ etc.
“We may compare the poem just quoted with a passage from Virgil, which
refers to circumstances somewhat similar, and has been praised as very
pathetic, in the episode of Nisus and Euryalus, where Nisus perceives
that Euryalus has fallen into the hands of his foes, and is just about
to be slain.
‘Tum vero, exterritus, amens,
Conclamat Nisus: nec se celare tenebris
Amplius, aut tantum potuit perferre dolorem:
“Me, me, adsum qui feci, in me convertite ferrum,
O Rutuli! mea fraus omnis; nihil iste nec ausus,
Nec potuit; cœlum hoc et conscia sidera testor.”
Tantum infelicem nimium dilexit amicum.
Talia dicta dabat; sed viribus ensis adactus
Transabiit costas.’
“However conspicuous such a passage may be in an ancient poet, it would
not, we believe, be regarded with great admiration in a modern.
“In one of Miss Edgeworth’s little stories for children, which are far
better worth reading than most books for grown people, she says of the
cottage of some poor woman that _it was as clean as misery could make
it_. There is a pathos in these few words, not unusual in her writings,
but such as we can find in but a scanty number of writers before our
own age. It has not been well understood, that the indirect expressions
of suffering are far more powerful than the direct, and that we are
much more affected by suppressed, than by unrestrained emotion. In but
little of the poetry of past times is there any trace of quickness
or delicacy of perception in regard to the modes or expressions of
human feeling and passion; for man himself had not become sufficiently
refined for the exercise of such observation. Plato objects to Homer,
and the tragic poets of Greece, that they degraded men’s minds by
representing their heroes, when suffering, as pouring forth long
lamentations, singing their sorrows, and beating their breasts. So far
as they did so, there was nothing pathetic in their writings. Who,
indeed, in modern times, was ever able to imagine himself affected by
the sorrows of Achilles for the death of Patroclus, or those of his
mother, Thetis, in consequence?
“From the want of sentiment and of moral associations, the descriptive
language of the ancient poets is, in general, scanty and poor. It is
for the most part drawn immediately from the perceptions of the senses,
and has little to do with the invisible feelings and images, of which
outward things become the symbols to a reflecting mind. It rarely gives
them a moral being; its epithets are seldom imaginative; it paints to
the eye; it calls up recollections of bodily rest and pleasure; but it
does not often address the heart.
“Horace begins one of his odes thus:--
‘Vides, ut ulta stet nive candidum
Soracte; nec jam sustineant onus
Sylvæ laborantes, geluque
Flumina constiterint acuto?’
“The epithets _white_ mountain, _deep_ snow, _sharp_ frost, are all
taken without addition immediately from the perception of the senses;
nor, considering the common prosaic use of _laboro_, in a similar
sense, is the epithet _labouring_ much more poetical; yet the passage
is as striking of its kind as most that may be found in Latin poetry.
The lines are thus rendered by Dryden,--
‘Behold yon mountain’s hoary height
Made higher with new mounts of snow;
Again behold the winter’s weight
Oppress the labouring woods below;
And streams, with icy fetters bound,
Benumb’d and cramp’d to solid ground.’
“Dryden was not eminent for his love of nature, or power of describing
its beauties; and a poet of livelier perceptions would hardly have
changed the name of Soracte for the faint generalisation, ‘yon
mountain;’ yet something of the difference which we wish to point out
between ancient and modern poetry is here perceptible. Let us take
from Mrs Hemans an example of the richly imaginative character of that
of later times. We will give the beginning of the verses in which she
describes herself as reading, in an arbour, ‘The Talisman’ of Scott.
A particular interest attaches to them from the circumstance that, in
the best portrait of her, she is represented in this real or imaginary
situation.
‘There were thick leaves above me and around,’ etc.
“Every subject becomes rich in proportion to the wealth of the mind
by which it is contemplated. The intellectual light that shines upon
it gives it its colours. Deficient as the ancient poets were in so
many sources of thought and feeling that exist in modern times, they
discover as imperfect a sensibility to most of the other pleasures
of a refined taste, as to those derived from the objects of nature.
There is to be found, for instance, in their works, scarcely a single
passage, perhaps not one, in which the power of music, as blending in
intimate union sensible and intellectual pleasures, is described with
strong expression; yet what a treasury of glowing images and solemn
thoughts this subject has opened to modern poets. We need not quote for
illustration Mrs Hemans’s ‘Triumphant Music.’
“Through our strong sympathy with our fellow-men, we are deeply
interested in the remains of antiquity, in the ruins that recall it
to our thoughts, and in the histories which have come down to us--or
rather in those histories as fashioned anew by our imagination,
effacing and softening, filling up the rude outline, and colouring
and embellishing at pleasure. In proportion as we have a more vivid
conception of the virtues and excellences of which man is capable, so
man, as such, becomes more an object of our regard. In looking back
through the obscurity of time, the depravity that would have shocked
us, if forced upon our observation, is partially lost in the darkness,
and the bright traits of character shine out more distinctly. The dead
of past ages are regarded with something of the same tenderness that we
feel toward the dead whom we have known: at least we consent for a time
to sacrifice our philosophy to an illusion, and, instead of the Richard
Cœur-de-Lion of history, whose only marked characteristics were bodily
strength and brutal hardihood, with those few gleams of goodness which
nothing but the grossest sensuality can utterly extinguish, we consent
for a time to take the Richard of Scott’s _Ivanhoe_; or, in fancying
the Augustan age, are willing to forget that it took its name from
‘him who murder’d Tully,
That cold villain, Octavius’
“Conformably to the laws of our better nature, our imagination is most
readily attracted by what is most excellent in man. While viewing a
beautiful tract of country with which we are not familiar, we can
hardly refrain from idealising its supposed inhabitants, and giving
them somewhat of a poetical character, or, in other words, a character
agreeable to our best feelings. So it is in casting our view over
past ages. Our sympathies are excited for the hopes, and fears, and
the virtues, such as they were, of those who have lost all power to
injure; and we may even fashion dim images of what they now are, as
existing somewhere in the creation of God, divested, perhaps, of the
evil that clung to them on earth. The idea of that moral purification
and development, which, we believe, is continually going on in the
universe, may thus mingle with the contemplation of the past. It is in
transferring us into a world in which grateful imaginations are blended
with truth, and the harshness of present reality is shut out, that the
poetic interest of antiquity principally consists.
“Of this, modern poetry and fiction have abundantly availed themselves.
But though a shadowy antiquity lay as a background to Greek and Roman
civilisation, yet it was rarely resorted to by the ancient poets as a
source of pleasing or solemn emotions. To them the remoter ages were
little more than a desert abounding with monstrous fictions, with
licentious and savage divinities, half-brutal demigods, and heroes,
and chiefs hardly human, whose fabulous deeds and sufferings present
nothing to recommend them to our sense of beauty. In the period
following, history assumed at least an air of truth, and men appeared
on the stage with human feelings, passions, and virtues. But, in
looking back upon their earlier history, the ancients seem to have felt
but slightly those peculiar sentiments and trains of feeling, which the
contemplation of antiquity now awakens in our breasts. In no ancient
poet is there a celebration of a hero of his country to be compared
with Mrs Hemans’ lines on the Scottish patriot, Wallace, beginning
‘Rest with the brave, whose names belong
To the high sanctity of song.’
There is no appeal to the deeds of their fathers equal to her Spanish
war-song--
‘Fling forth the proud banner of Leon again;
Let the high word “Castile” go resounding through Spain.’
No poetic conception of antiquity is to be found resembling the
introduction of her ‘Cathedral Hymn’--
‘A dim and mighty minster of old time,
A temple, shadowy with remembrances
Of the majestic past!’
And above all, there is nothing so morally ennobling, so adapted
to raise the character of a people, as the verses by which she has
conferred a great obligation on our country--her ‘Pilgrim Fathers.’
“But, beside the advantages afforded to a modern poet by the religious
and moral improvement of our race, which it has been principally our
object to point out, there are others at which we may glance. He may
look back over many ages, and around upon all countries, and acquaint
himself with man, as he has existed and exists under circumstances
the most dissimilar. He may possess himself of all that knowledge
of human nature, which has been gathered from long experience, and
wide observation, and multiplied opportunities of comparison. He may,
like Southey, construct poems, as wild and wondrous, and as morally
beautiful, as ‘Thalaba,’ or as rich with barbaric splendour as ‘The
Curse of Kehama,’ from the rude materials of Arabian fiction or Hindoo
mythology. The treasures of learning and science, so poor in ancient
times, have, through succeeding ages, been accumulating to furnish him
with thoughts, illustrations, and images. Our conceptions are enlarged,
our views raised, the physical as well as the moral universe has
been continually opening to the view of man, and knowledge unfolding
her ever-lengthening scroll, of which the ancients had scarcely read
the first lines. It was a dream, ridiculed by Plato,[456] of the
extravagant admirers of Homer, that all human and divine learning was
to be found in his writings.
“In the nature of things, art is progressive; its theory and practice
are gradually better understood, errors are discovered and corrected,
new objects of attainment proposed, and visions of higher excellence
revealed to the mind; and thus we may believe, that the character,
principles, purposes, and means of poetry are now comprehended more
justly than they were in former times.
“But it may be said that, in perfection of language at least, the
poets of Greece and Rome must remain unsurpassed. It may be doubted,
however, whether we are qualified to pronounce this judgment in their
favour. The harmonious flow of articulate sounds in the Greek and
Latin languages, particularly in the Latin, is not to be readily
attained in some of the principal languages of literary Europe. But if
we speak of poetical beauty of expression and harmony of thought, we
must recollect that it is necessary to be acquainted with the train
of shadowy associations which follow the direct meaning of a poetical
word, before we can determine that word to be well chosen. But such
acquaintance implies an intimate knowledge of the use of language
and of the state of mind in those addressed, which, as regards the
poetry of the ancients, it is very difficult to acquire, and, in many
particulars, impossible, yet without which we are liable to fall into
great mistakes, and may often be left in much uncertainty. Take, for
example, the line--
‘Quadrupedante putrem sonitu quatit ungula campum.’
It has been admired from the consonance of the sound with the sense.
We understand the epithet _putris_ to mean _dusty_, the dusty plain;
but this epithet is elsewhere applied to a rich, mellow soil, easily
broken up, or to a sandy plain. According to either of these uses, it
is apparently an epithet unsuitable, from its associations, to be given
to a field described as shaken and resounding with the trampling of
a body of horse. As respects, likewise, the epithet _quadrupedans_,
we may doubt whether any modern critic can explain why _quadrupedante
sonitu_ is more poetical in Virgil than its equivalent, ‘the sound of
quadrupeds,’ would be in a modern poet, if used to express the sound of
horses.
“Let us take another example:
‘Pastor cum traheret per freta navibus
Idæis Helenam perfidus hospitam.’
Why is the word _traheret_ used, which, as employed elsewhere, would
imply the taking away of Helen against her will? Does it refer to one
version of the story according to which Paris did bear her away by
force? Were this the case, one would naturally expect, considering the
reproachful and denunciatory character of the ode, to find that idea
brought out more distinctly. Is it intended to express the reluctance
with which, though yielding to her love for Paris, she left her husband
and her home? This conception is too refined for an ancient poet to
trust to its being made apparent by so light a touch, if indeed we may
suppose it to have entered his mind. Was _traheret_ then intended, by
its associations with an act of violence, to denote the rapidity and
fear of the flight of Paris? or was it merely employed _abusively_,
to use a technical term--only with reference to a part of its
signification, as words are not unfrequently used in poetry, though it
is always an imperfection?
“Such cases are very numerous, in which no modern reader can pronounce
with just confidence upon the character of the poetical language of the
ancients. Instances are frequently occurring in which, if we admire at
all, we must admire at second-hand, upon trust. The meaning and effect
of words have undergone changes which it is often not easy, and often
not possible, to ascertain with precision. Even in our own language
this is the case. Shakspeare says--
‘Nor Heaven peep through the blanket of the dark
To cry. Hold! Hold!’
“Here Johnson understands him as presenting the ludicrous conception of
‘the ministers of vengeance peeping through a blanket;’ and Coleridge,
as we see by his _Table-Talk_, conjectured that instead of ‘blanket,’
‘blank height’ was perhaps written by Shakspeare. But by ‘Heaven’ we
conceive to be meant not the ministers of vengeance, but the lights
of heaven; and it is not unpoetical to speak of the moon and stars as
peeping through clouds. With the word ‘blanket,’ our associations are
trivial and low; but understand it merely as denoting a thick covering
of darkness which closely enwraps the lights of heaven, and it suits
well to its place. But our associations with the word are accidental:
there is nothing intrinsically more mean in a blanket than a sheet, yet
none would object to the expression of ‘a sheet of light.’ The fortunes
of the words only have been different, and that, in all probability,
since the time of Shakspeare, considering his use of this word, and the
corresponding use of the word _rug_ by Drayton.[457]
“If such be the character of poetical language, it is clear that,
to judge with critical accuracy of that of a distant age or even a
foreign Land, requires uncommon knowledge and discrimination, as well
as an accurate taste; while unfortunately, profound scholarship and
cultivated and elegant habits of mind have very rarely been united in
the study of the ancient poets. The supposition of a peculiar felicity
of expression in their writings is to be judged of, in most cases,
rather by extrinsic probabilities, which do not favour it, than by
any direct and clear evidence of it that can be produced. We are very
liable in this particular to be biassed by prepossession and authority;
our imaginations often deceive us; we create the beauty which we fancy
that we find.
“There is perhaps no poet, in whose productions the characteristics of
which we have spoken as giving a superiority to the poetry of later
times over that which has preceded, appear more strikingly than in
those of Mrs Hemans. When, after reading such works as she has written,
we turn over the volumes of a collection of English poetry, like that
of Chalmers, we cannot but perceive that the greater part of it appears
more worthless and distasteful than before. Much is evidently the
work of barren and unformed, vulgar and vicious minds, of individuals
without any conception of poetry as the glowing expression of what
is most noble in our nature, and often with no title to the name of
poet, but from having put into metre thoughts too mean for prose. Such
writings as those of Mrs Hemans at once afford evidence of the advance
of our race, and are among the most important means of its further
purification and progress. The minds, which go forth from their privacy
to act with strong moral power upon thousands and ten thousands of
other minds, are the real agents in advancing the character of man,
and improving his condition. They are instruments of the invisible
operations of the Spirit of God.”--_Christian Examiner_, Jan. 1836.
[446] “It is related that Jove chanced, being exhilarated by nectar, to
lay aside his weighty cares, and interchange pleasant jokes with idle
Juno.”
[447] See “De Republica,” lib. ii., pp. 373-383.
[448] See “De Republica,” lib. iii. p. 391.
[449]
“The love of horses which they had alive,
And care of chariots, after death survive.
In bands reclining on the grassy plain,
They feasted and pour’d forth a joyful strain.”
See Dryden’s “Virgil.”
[450] Be wise, pour out your wine, and contract your hopes within
life’s narrow compass.
[451] Why, in so short a life, do we, in our bravery, aim at so much?
[452] Joyous during the present hour, the mind should reject all care
for what is beyond, and temper what is bitter with a gentle smile.
[453] ‘The wife of a Vaudois leader, in one of the attacks made on the
Protestant hamlets, received a mortal wound, and died in her husband’s
arms, exhorting him to courage and endurance.’
[454] “What Aristotle says,” observes his able translator, Mr Twining,
“is, I fear, but too conformable to the manner in which the ancients
usually speak of the sex in general. At least he is certainly
consistent with himself; witness the following very curious character
of women in his ‘History of Animals,’ which I give the reader by
no means for his assent, but for his wonder or his diversion.” Mr
Twining’s remarks sufficiently imply of what nature this character, and
we forbear to quote it.
[455] I am a man; whatever concerns other men, I think my concern.
[456] “De Republica,” lib. x. p. 598, seq.
[457] See examples, in the notes to Shakspeare.
INDEX
Aaron’s Rod, 495
Abbotsford, farewell to, 508
Abencerrage, the, 67
Aber church, sonnet on, 603
Address to the Deity, 1
Adopted child, the, 423
Affection, prayer of, 596
Aged friend, to an, 620
Aged Indian, the, 56
“Ah cease!” from Metastasio, 49
Alaric in Italy, 95
Album at Rosanna, lines written for the, 510
-- of Miss F. A. L., lines written in the, 295
Alcestis, death-song of, 502
-- of Alfieri, the, 121
Alfieri, the Alcestis of, 121
Alhambra, the, 79 notes
Alp-horn song, 294
Alpine horn, the, 545
Alps, league of the, 234
-- the shepherd-poet of the, 512
American forest girl, the, 406
“Amidst the bitter tears,” from Camoens, 46
Ancestral song, the, 467
Ancient battle-song, 539
-- Greek chant of victory, 536
-- -- song of exile, 349
And I too in Arcadia, 541
Anemone, the blue, to, 610
Angel visits, 354
Angel’s greeting, the, 499
Angler, the, 489
Annunciation, the, 598
Anthony and Cleopatra, last banquet of, 93
Antique Greek lament, 627
-- sepulchre, the, 493
Arabella Stuart, 385
Arnold de Brescia, 86 note
Ascending a hill leading to a convent, on, 49
Asdrubal, the wife of, 97
Assas, the fall of, 537
Attendant, to his, from Horace, 298
Autumn of 1834, records of the, 622
Baillie, Joanna, 187
Bandusia, to the fountain of, from Horace, 299
Barb, jeu-d’esprit on the word, 139
Bards, chant of the, 151
-- meeting of the, 246
Barton, Bernard, to the daughter of, 485
Basvigliana of Monti, the, 118
Battle, the call to, 547
Battle of Maclodio, the, an ode, 128
Battlefield, the, 605
Bed of heath, the, 562
Beings of the mind, the, 477
Bell at sea, the, 492
Belshazzar’s feast, 219
Bembo, translation from, 51
Bended bow, the, 345
Bentivoglio, sonnet from, 50
Bernardo del Carpio, 456
Bethany, the sisters of, 599
Better land, the, 479
“Bird that art singing,” 540
-- at sea, the, 556
Bird’s release, the, 338
Birds, the, 531
-- of passage, 434
-- of the air, the, 602
Blackwood’s Magazine, 42, 66
Blondel the Troubadour, 101
Blue Anemone, to the, 610
Books and flowers, 504
Boon of memory, the, 382
Bowl of liberty, the, 242
Brandenburg harvest-song, from La Motte Fouqué, 348
Breathings of spring, 432
Breeze from shore, the, 378
Bridal-day, the, 466
Bride of the Greek isle, the, 388
Brigand leader and his wife, the, 506
“Brightly hast thou fled,” 562
“Bring flowers,” 362
Broken chain, the, 491
-- flower, the, 505
-- lute, the, 515
Brother and sister in the country, to my, 2
Brother’s dirge, the, 545
Bruce at the source of the Nile, 368
Burial in the desert, the, 516
-- of an emigrant’s child in the forest, the, 579
-- of William the Conqueror, the, 537
Butler, William Archer, 293 note
Butterfly resting on a skull, lines to a, 491
“By a mountain-stream at rest,” 566
Caius Gracchus of Monti, translations from the, 133
Call to battle, the, 547
Cambrian in America, the, 148
Camoens, translations from, 43
Camoens’ Lusiad, translation from, 297
Captivity, songs of, 545
Caravan in the desert, the, 210
Carolan’s prophecy, 414
Caroline, to, 524
Carpio, Bernardo del, 456
Carthage, Marius among the ruins of, 212
Casabianca, 369
Castri, the view from, 251
Caswallon’s triumph, 150
Cathedral hymn, 574
Cavern of the three Tells, the, 341
Chamois hunter’s love, the, 450
Chant of the bards before their massacre, 151
Charlotte, the princess, stanzas on the death of, 59
Charmed picture, the, 458
Chatillon, de, a tragedy, 300
Chaulieu, translation from, 52
Chieftain’s son, the, 245
Child and dove, the, 357
-- dirge of a, 54
-- of the forests, the, 359
-- reading the Bible, the, 583
-- to a, on his birthday, 355
Child’s first grief, the, 502
-- last sleep, the, 431
-- morning and evening hymns, 532
-- return from the woodlands, the, 506
Children whom Jesus blessed, the, 601
Chorley, Mr, criticisms by, 292, 337, 445, 466, 517, 632
Christ, on a remembered picture of, 601
-- bearing his cross, on a picture of, 607
-- Infant, with flowers, picture of the, 601
-- stilling the tempest, 355
Christian Examiner, the, 336
Christmas carol, 14, 437
Church, old, in an English park, 603
-- in North Wales, a, 603
Cicero, death of, 89 note
Cid, songs of the, 238
Cid’s deathbed, the, 238
-- departure into exile, the, 238
-- funeral procession, the, 239
-- rising, the, 241
Clanronald, death of, 58
Cleopatra and Anthony, last banquet of, 93
Cliffs of Dover, the, 376
Clwyd river, the, 618
Cœur-de-Lion at the bier of his father, 346
Coleridge’s epitaph, on reading, 623
“Come away,” 560
“ -- home,” 465
“ -- to me, dreams of heaven,” 564
“ -- -- gentle sleep,” 567
“Common sense,” the satire of, 66
Communings with thought, 607
Conqueror’s sleep, the, 365
Conradin, the death of, 103
Constantine, the last, 221
Contadina, the, 361
Conversation, memorial of a, 622
Conway, residence at, 19
Corinne at the Capitol, 469
Coronation of Inez de Castro, the, 448
Costanza, 407
Cottage girl, the, 604
Covent Garden, the Vespers of Palermo at, 186
Crescentius, the widow of, 85
Cross in the wilderness, the, 371
-- of the South, the, 294
Crusader’s return, the, 363
-- war-song, the, 58
Curfew-song of England, the, 553
Daily paths, our, 370
Dalecarlian mine, scene in a, 357
Dargle, on a scene in the, 623
Darkness of the crucifixion, the, 602
Dartmoor, 141
Datura Arborea, on the, 623
Daughter of Bernard Barton, to the, 485
Day of flowers, the, 592
Death and the warrior, 490
-- the welcome to, 509
-- of Clanronald, the, 58
-- of Conradin, the, 103
-- of the Princess Charlotte, on the, 59
Death-day of Körner, the, 425
Death-song of Alcestis, the, 502
De Chatillon, or the Crusaders, 300
Deity, address to the, 1
Delius, to, from Horace, 299
Della Casa, sonnet from, 50
Delos, song of, 535
Delphi, the storm of, 241
Delta, criticisms by, 315, 630
Departed, the, 430
-- spirit, to a, 449
Desert, the burial in the, 516
-- flower, the, 524
Deserted house, the, 463
Design and performance, 623
Despondency and aspiration, 624
Dial of flowers, the, 369
Dirge, “Calm on the bosom,” 357
-- “Weep for the early lost,” 298
-- “Where shall we make,” 549
-- at sea, 559
-- of a child, 54
-- of the Highland chief in Waverley, 57
Distant scene, to a, 619
-- ship, the, 434
-- sound of the sea, on the, 618
Diver, the, 481
Domestic affections, the, 15
Dover cliffs, 376
Dramatic scene between Bronwylfa and Rhyllon, 383
Dreamer, the, 380
Dreaming child, the, 458
Dreams of heaven, 518
-- the dead, 624
Druid chorus, &c., 145
Dying bard’s prophecy, the, 152
-- girl and flowers, 556
-- Improvisatore, the, 379
East, attraction of the, 620
Easter-day in a mountain-churchyard, 581
Echo song, 551
Eclectic review, 633
Eclogue from Camoens, 44
Edinburgh Monthly Magazine, 106, 107, 253, 292
-- -- Review, 43, 66, 106, 113
-- Review, 440
Edith, 396
Edwards, Mr, lines to, 19
Effigies, the, 428
Eldest brother, to my, 12
Elgin marbles, the, 41
Ellis, Sir Henry, to the memory of, 56
Elysium, 249
Emigrant’s child, burial of a, 579
Emigration, song of, 451
England, the name of, 567
-- and Spain, 4
England’s dead, 246
English boy, the, 609
-- martyrs, the, 568
-- soldiers’ song of memory, 358
“Enjoy the sweets,” 52
Epitaph, “Farewell, beloved,” 520
-- on Mr W., 20
-- on his hammer, 20
-- over two brothers, 356
Eryri Wen, 151
Evening among the Alps, 57
-- prayer at a girls’ school, 374
Evening song of the Tyrolese peasants, 494
-- -- -- weary, 592
-- star, to the, 560
Exile’s dirge, the, 457
Eye, to the, 59
Fair Helen of Kirkconnel, 561
-- Isle, the, 152
Fairies’ recall, the, 565
Fairy favours, 439
-- song, 562
Faith of love, the, 507
Fall of d’Assas, the, 537
Fallen lime-tree, the, 555
Family Bible, to a, 600
Far away, 558
-- o’er the sea, 546
Farewell to Abbotsford, 508
-- the dead, 353
-- Wales, 499
Fata Morgana, the, 38
Father reading the Bible, a, 437
Fathers’ songs, our, 366
Faunus, to, from Horace, 299
Fawsley park, sonnet on a church in, 603
Festal hour, the, 252
Fever-dream, the, 139
Fidelity till death, 394
Fiesco, prologue to the tragedy of, 520
Filicaja, sonnets from, 49, 138
Flight of the spirit, the, 628
Flower, the shadow of a, 491
-- from the field of Grütli, on a, 244
-- of the desert, the, 524
Flowers, 628
-- and music in a room of sickness, 572
-- day of, 592
-- dial of, 369
Foliage, 621
Forest sanctuary, the, 316
Forsaken hearth, the, 380
“Fortune, why thus,” from Metastasio, 48
Fourteenth century, a tale of the, 213
Fountain of Bandusia, to the, 299
-- Marah, the, 496
-- Oblivion, the, 465
Fouqué, Brandenburg harvest-song, from, 348
Fragment, “Rest on your battle-fields,” 245
Freed bird, the, 521
Friend, to an aged, 620
Funeral-day of Sir Walter Scott, the, 585
-- genius, the, 250
-- hymn, 581
Future, a thought of the, 498
Gafran’s sea-song, 146
Garcilaso de la Vega, “Divine Eliza,” from, 296
Gargano, mount, 90
Genius singing to love, 554
Genoa, night-scene in, 99
George III., stanzas to the memory of, 187
German literature, 426
-- soldiers’ Rhine song, 534
-- song, 52
Gertrude, 394
Gesner, morning song from, 52
Gifford, Mr, 106
Giulio Regondi, to, 520
Goethe, Mignon’s song from, 547
Goethe’s Iphigenia, scenes from, 616
-- Tasso, -- -- 611
Good-night, 564
Granada, conquest of, 76, 77, notes
Grasmere, a remembrance of, 619
Grave of a poetess, the, 411
Graves of a household, the, 435
-- martyrs, 376
Greece, modern, 28
Greek chant of victory, 536
-- funeral chant, 349
Greek lament, 627
-- parting song, 351
-- song of exile, 349
-- songs, 241
Green isles of ocean, the, 146
Grufydd’s feast, 148
Grütli, on a flower from, 244
Guadalete, battle of, 77 note
Guardian spirit, songs of a, 538
Guerilla leader’s vow, the, 454
-- song, 56
Hall of Cynddylan, the, 147
Happy hour, a, 621
Harp of Wales, the, 145
Haunted ground, 358
-- house, the, 511
“He never smiled again,” 346
“He shall not dread,” 48
“He walk’d with God,” 495
Heart of Bruce in Melrose Abbey, the, 476
Hebe of Canova, on the, 53
Heber, bishop, 118, note
-- to the memory of, 423
Hebrew mother, the, 372
Helen of Kirkconnel, 561
Heliodorus in the temple, 98
Hermitage on the sea-shore, lines written in a, 54
Hero’s death, the, 59
Herrera, ode from, 254
Highland chief in Waverley, dirge of the, 57
Hirlas horn, the, 146
Hogg, James, 63 note
Holy Family, repose of a, 600
Home of love, the, 503
Homes of England, the, 412
Hope, the song of, 546
Horace, translations from, 298
Hour of death, the, 375
-- prayer, 377
-- romance, an, 427
“How can that love,” 565
“How strange a fate,” 45
Howel’s song, 150
Huguenot’s farewell, the, 626
Humboldt on the Southern cross, 332 note
Hymn by the sick-bed of a mother, 486
-- of the traveller’s household on his return, 594
-- of the Vaudois mountaineers, 588
Hymns for childhood, 528
“I dream of all things free,” 546
“I go, sweet friends,” 354
“I would we had not met again,” 565
“If thou hast crush’d a flower,” 562
“If thus thy fallen grandeur,” 49
“If to the sighing breeze,” 51
Il Conte di Carmagnola, the, 125
Illuminated city, the, 432
Image in lava, the, 436
-- in the heart, the, 461
Imelda, 394
Impromptu to Miss F. A. L., 499
“In tears the heart,” 47
Indian, the aged, 56
-- with his dead child, the, 450
-- city, the, 398
-- woman’s death-song, 402
Indian’s revenge, 590
Inez de Castro, coronation of, 448
Infant Christ with flowers, picture of the, 601
Intellectual powers, 627
Invocation, “And come ye faithful,” 597
-- “Answer me,” 424
-- “As the tired voyager,” 597
-- “Hush’d is the world,” 55
-- “Oh, art thou still,” 546
Iphigenia of Goethe, scenes from the, 616
“Is there some spirit,” 566
Isle of founts, the, 344
“Italia, O Italia,” 49
Italian girl’s hymn to the virgin, 449
-- literature, translations, &c. from, 118
-- poets, patriotic effusions from, 137
Italy, Alaric in, 95
-- restoration of the works of art to, 22
Ivan the Czar, 413
Ivy song, 354
-- 557
Jeffrey, Lord, 337, 440
Jeu-d’esprit on the word “barb,” 139
Jewsbury, Miss, 53, 422
Joan of Arc in Rheims, 403
Juan de Tarsis, sonnet from, 50
Juana, 405
Juvenile poems, 1
Kaiser’s feast, the, 419
Kamsin, the, 69 note
Keene, a, 558
Kindred hearts, 367
King of Arragon’s lament for his brother, the, 452
Körner and his sister, 424
-- the death-day of, 425
Lady of Provence, the, 446
-- of the castle, the, 416
Lament of an Irish mother, the, 558
-- of Llywarch Hen, the, 147
Land of dreams, the, 462
Landing of the pilgrim fathers in New England, the, 429
Landon, Miss, 631
Langhans, Madame, tomb of, 457
Last banquet of Anthony and Cleopatra, the, 93
-- Constantine, the, 221
-- rites, 372
-- song of Sappho, 549
-- tree of the forest, 473
-- wish, 438
-- words of the last wasp, 523
Lawrence, Mrs, 505 note
Lays of many lands, 338
Leaf from Virgil’s tomb, on a, 245
League of the Alps, the, 234
“Leave me not yet,” 543
“Let her depart,” 564
“Let the vain courtier,” 49
“Let us depart,” 606
Life, the prayer for, 509
Lights and shades, 501
Lilies of the field, the, 601
Lines on Elizabeth Smith, 12
Literary Magnet, the, 248, 373 notes
Lonely bird, the, 559
“Look on me thus no more,” 563
“Look on me with thy cloudless eyes,” 561
Lope de Vega, translations from, 49
Lorenzini, sonnet from, 51
Lorenzo de Medici, translation from, 53
Lost Pleiad, the, 375
Love, the faith of, 507
-- the home of, 503
Lyre and flower, the, 559
Lyre’s lament, the, 478
Lyrics and songs for music, 534
Maclodio, the battle of, 128
Madeline, 408
Madoc’s farewell, 149
Madonna, to a picture of the, 517
Maggi, sonnet from, 138
Magic glass, the, 468
Manuel, translation from, 49
Manzoni, Il Conte di Carmagnola from, 125
Marchetti, sonnet from, 138
Maremma, the, 191
Marguerite of France, 521
Maria di Conti, sonnet from, 138
Marius among the ruins of Carthage, 212
Martyrs, the English, 568
Mary at the feet of Christ, 599
-- the memorial of, 599
Mary Magdalene at the sepulchre, 600
-- -- bearing tidings of the resurrection, 600
Medici, Lorenzo de, sonnet from, 53
Meeting of the bards, the, 246
-- of the brothers, 437
-- of the ships, 560
Memorial of Mary, the, 599
-- pillar, the, 410
Memory of a sister-in-law, to the, 486
-- of Sir H. Ellis, to the, 56
-- of Lord Charles Murray, to the, 490
-- of Sir E. Pakenham, to the, 55
-- of the dead, 494
Message to the dead, the, 459
Messenger bird, the, 343
-- -- answer to, 343 note
Metastasio, translations from, 47
Mignon’s song, 547
Mina’s soldiers, song of, 541
Minster, the, 470
Miriam’s song, 598
Mirror in the deserted hall, the, 484
Miss F. A. L., to, on her birthday, 295
-- -- on her mother’s death, 296
Modern Greece, 28
Moir, D. M., 315, 630
Monarch’s death, a, 423
Montgomery, James, 362
Monthly Review, the, 3
Monti’s Basvigliana, translations from, 118
-- Caius Gracchus, 133
Monumental inscription, 356
Moorish bridal-song, 338
-- gathering-song, 540
More, Hannah, 107 note
Morehead, Dr, 253, 292 notes
Morgarten, song of the battle of, 253
Morning song, from Gesner, 52
“Mother! oh, sing me to rest,” 541
-- to my, 11