Chapter IX: Part III: Vicissitude and Rest (3)

Bear the sunshine and the shadow,
Bear the rain-drop and the snow,
Bear the night-dew to the meadow,
And to hope the promised bow,
Bear the moon, a moving mirror
For her angel face and form,
Bear to guilt the flashing terror
Of the lightning and the storm.

When thou thus hast done thy duty
On the earth and o'er the sea,
Bearing many a beam of beauty,
Ever bettering what must be,
Thus reflecting heaven's pure splendour
And concealing ruined clay,
Up to God thy spirit render,
And dissolving pass away.

And with fond solicitation,
Speaks another to the streams--
Leave your airy isolation,
Quit the cloudy land of dreams,
Break the lonely peak's attraction,
Burst the solemn, silent glen,
Seek the living world of action
And the busy haunts of men.

Turn the mill-wheel with thy fingers,
Turn the steam-wheel with thy breath,
With thy tide that never lingers
Save the dying fields from death;
Let the swiftness of thy currents
Bear to man the freight-fill'd ship,
And the crystal of thy torrents
Bring refreshment to his lip.

And when thou, O rapid river,
Thy eternal home dost seek,
When no more the willows quiver
But to touch thy passing cheek,
When the groves no longer greet thee
And the shore no longer kiss,
Let infinitude come meet thee
On the verge of the abyss.

Other voices seek to win us--
Low, suggestive, like the rest--
But the sweetest is within us
In the stillness of the breast;
Be it ours, with fond desiring,
The same harvest to produce,
As the cloud in its aspiring
And the river in its use.

Centenary Odes.

O'CONNELL. AUGUST 6TH, 1875.

Harp of my native land That lived anew 'neath Carolan's master hand; Harp on whose electric chords, The minstrel Moore's melodious words, Each word a bird that sings, Borne as if on Ariel's wings, Touched every tender soul From listening pole to pole. Sweet harp, awake once more: What, though a ruder hand disturbs thy rest, A theme so high Will its own worth supply. As finest gold is ever moulded best: Or as a cannon on some festive day, When sea and sky, when winds and waves rejoice, Out-booms with thunderous voice, Bids echo speak, and all the hills obey--

So let the verse in echoing accents ring, So proudly sing, With intermittent wail, The nation's dead, but sceptred King, The glory of the Gael.

1775.

Six hundred stormy years have flown, Since Erin fought to hold her own, To hold her homes, her altars free, Within her wall of circling sea. No year of all those years had fled, No day had dawned that was not red, (Oft shed by fratricidal hand), With the best blood of all the land. And now, at last, the fight seemed o'er, The sound of battle pealed no more; Abject the prostrate people lay, Nor dared to hope a better day; An icy chill, a fatal frost, Left them with all but honour lost, Left them with only trust in God, The lands were gone their fathers owned; Poor pariahs on their native sod. Their faith was banned, their prophets stoned; Their temples crowning every height, Now echoed with an alien rite, Or silent lay each mouldering pile, With shattered cross and ruined aisle. Letters denied, forbade to pray, And white-winged commerce scared away: Ah, what can rouse the dormant life That still survives the stormier strife? What potent charm can once again Relift the cross, rebuild the fane? Free learning from felonious chains, And give to youth immortal gains? What signal mercy from on high?-- Hush! hark! I hear an infant's cry, The answer of a new-born child, From Iveragh's far mountain wild.

Yes, 'tis the cry of a child, feeble and faint in the night,
But soon to thunder in tones that will rouse both tyrants and slaves.
Yes, 'tis the sob of a stream just awake in its source on the height,
But soon to spread as a sea, and rush with the roaring of waves.

Yes, 'tis the cry of a child affection hastens to still,
But what shall silence ere long the victor voice of the man?
Easy it is for a branch to bar the flow of the rill,
But all the forest would fail where raging the torrent once ran.

And soon the torrent will run, and the pent-up waters o'erflow,
For the child has risen to a man, and a shout replaces the cry;
And a voice rings out through the world, so wing`ed with Erin's woe,
That charmed are the nations to listen, and the Destinies to reply.

Boyhood had passed away from that child, predestined by fate
To dry the eyes of his mother, to end the worst of her ills,
And the terrible record of wrong, and the annals of hell and hate,
Had gathered into his breast like a lake in the heart of the hills.

Brooding over the past, he found himself but a slave,
With manacles forged on his mind, and fetters on every limb;
The land that was life to others, to him was only a grave,
And however the race he ran no victor wreath was for him.

The fane of learning was closed, shut out was the light of day,
No ray from the sun of science, no brightness from Greece or Rome,
And those who hungered for knowledge, like him, had to fly away,
Where bountiful France threw wide the gates that were shut at home.

And there he happily learned a lore far better than books,
A lesson he taught for ever, and thundered over the land,
That Liberty's self is a terror, how lovely may be her looks,
If religion is not in her heart, and reverence guide not her hand.

The steps of honour were barred: it was not for him to climb,
No glorious goal in the future, no prize for the labour of life,
And the fate of him and his people seemed fixed for all coming time
To hew the wood of the helot and draw the waters of strife.

But the glorious youth returning Back from France the fair and free, Rage within his bosom burning, Such a servile sight to see, Vowed to heaven it should not be. "No!" the youthful champion cried, "Mother Ireland, widowed bride, If thy freedom can be won By the service of a son, Then, behold that son in me. I will give thee every hour, Every day shall be thy dower, In the splendour of the light, In the watches of the night, In the shine and in the shower, I shall work but for thy right."

1782-1800.

A dazzling gleam of evanescent glory,
Had passed away, and all was dark once more,
One golden page had lit the mournful story,
Which ruthless hands with envious rage out-tore.

One glorious sun-burst, radiant and far-reaching,
Had pierced the cloudy veil dark ages wove,
When full-armed Freedom rose from Grattan's teaching,
As sprang Minerva from the brain of Jove.

Oh! in the transient light that had outbroken,
How all the land with quickening fire was lit!
What golden words of deathless speech were spoken,
What lightning flashes of immortal wit!

Letters and arts revived beneath its beaming,
Commerce and Hope outspread their swelling sails,
And with "Free Trade" upon their standard gleaming,
Now feared no foes and dared adventurous gales.

Across the stream the graceful arch extended,
Above the pile the rounded dome arose,
The soaring spire to heaven's high vault ascended,
The loom hummed loud as bees at evening's close.

And yet 'mid all this hope and animation,
The people still lay bound in bigot chains,
Freedom that gave some slight alleviation,
Could dare no panacea for their pains.

Yet faithful to their country's quick uprising,
Like some fair island from volcanic waves,
They shared the triumph though their claims despising,
And hailed the freedom though themselves were slaves.

But soon had come the final compensation,
Soon would the land one brotherhood have known,
Had not some spell of hellish incantation
The new-formed fane of Freedom overthrown.

In one brief hour the fair mirage had faded,
No isle of flowers lay glad on ocean's green,
But in its stead, deserted and degraded,
The barren strand of Slavery's shore was seen.

1800-1829.

Yet! 'twas on that barren strand
Sing his praise throughout the world!
Yet, 'twas on that barren strand,
O'er a cowed and broken band,
That his solitary hand
Freedom's flag unfurled.
Yet! 'twas there in Freedom's cause,
Freedom from unequal laws,
Freedom for each creed and class,
For humanity's whole mass,
That his voice outrang;--
And the nation at a bound,
Stirred by the inspiring sound,
To his side up-sprang.

Then the mighty work began, Then the war of thirty years-- Peaceful war, when words were spears, And religion led the van. When O'Connell's voice of power, Day by day and hour by hour, Raining down its iron shower, Laid oppression low, Till at length the war was o'er, And Napoleon's conqueror, Yielded to a mightier foe.

1829.

Into the senate swept the mighty chief,
Like some great ocean wave across the bar
Of intercepting rock, whose jagged reef
But frets the victor whom it cannot mar.
Into the senate his triumphal car
Rushed like a conqueror's through the broken gates
Of some fallen city, whose defenders are
Powerful no longer to resist the fates,
But yield at last to him whom wondering Fame awaits.

And as "sweet foreign Spenser" might have sung,
Yoked to the car two wing`ed steeds were seen,
With eyes of fire and flashing hoofs outflung,
As if Apollo's coursers they had been.
These were quick Thought and Eloquence, I ween,
Bounding together with impetuous speed,
While overhead there waved a flag of green,
Which seemed to urge still more each flying steed,
Until they reached the goal the hero had decreed.

There at his feet a captive wretch lay bound,
Hideous, deformed, of baleful countenance,
Whom as his blood-shot eye-balls glared around,
As if to kill with their malignant glance,
I knew to be the fiend Intolerance.
But now no longer had he power to slay,
For Freedom touched him with Ithuriel's lance,
His horrid form revealing by its ray,
And showed how foul a fiend the world could once obey.

Then followed after him a numerous train,
Each bearing trophies of the field he won:
Some the white wand, and some the civic chain,
Its golden letters glistening in the sun;
Some--for the reign of justice had begun--
The ermine robes that soon would be the prize
Of spotless lives that all pollution shun,
And some in mitred pomp, with upturned eyes,
And grateful hearts invoked a blessing from the skies.

1843-1847.

A glorious triumph! a deathless deed!--
Shall the hero rest and his work half done?
Is it enough to enfranchise a creed,
When a nation's freedom may yet be won?
Is it enough to hang on the wall
The broken links of the Catholic chain,
When now one mighty struggle for ALL
May quicken the life in the land again?--

May quicken the life, for the land lay dead;
No central fire was a heart in its breast,--
No throbbing veins, with the life-blood red,
Ran out like rivers to east or west:
Its soul was gone, and had left it clay--
Dull clay to grow but the grass and the root;
But harvests for Men, ah! where were they?--
And where was the tree for Liberty's fruit?

Never till then, in victory's hour,
Had a conqueror felt a joy so sweet,
As when the wand of his well-won power
O'Connell laid at his country's feet.
"No! not for me, nor for mine alone,"
The generous victor cried, "Have I fought,
But to see my Eire again on her throne;
Ah, that was my dream and my guiding thought.

To see my Eire again on her throne,
Her tresses with lilies and shamrocks twined,
Her severed sons to a nation grown,
Her hostile hues in one flag combined;
Her wisest gathered in grave debate,
Her bravest armed to resist the foe:
To see my country 'glorious and great,'--
To see her 'free,'--to fight I go!"

And forth he went to the peaceful fight,
And the millions rose at his words of fire,
As the lightning's leap from the depth of the night,
And circle some mighty minster's spire:
Ah, ill had it fared with the hapless land,
If the power that had roused could not restrain?
If the bolts were not grasped in a glowing hand
To be hurled in peals of thunder again?

And thus the people followed his path,
As if drawn on by a magic spell,--
By the royal hill and the haunted rath,
By the hallowed spring and the holy well,
By all the shrines that to Erin are dear,
Round which her love like the ivy clings,--
Still folding in leaves that never grow sere
The cell of the saint and the home of kings.

And a soul of sweetness came into the land:
Once more was the harp of Erin strung;
Once more on the notes from some master hand
The listening land in its rapture hung.
Once more with the golden glory of words
Were the youthful orator's lips inspired,
Till he touched the heart to its tenderest chords,
And quickened the pulse which his voice had fired.

And others divinely dowered to teach--
High souls of honour, pure hearts of fire,
So startled the world with their rhythmic speech,
That it seemed attuned to some unseen lyre.
But the kingliest voice God ever gave man
Words sweeter still spoke than poet hath sung,--
For a nation's wail through the numbers ran,
And the soul of the Celt exhaled on his tongue.

And again the foe had been forced to yield;
But the hero at last waxed feeble and old,
Yet he scattered the seed in a fruitful field,
To wave in good time as a harvest of gold.
Then seeking the feet of God's High Priest,
He slept by the soft Ligurian Sea,
Leaving a light, like the Star in the East,
To lead the land that will yet be free.

1875.

A hundred years their various course have run, Since Erin's arms received her noblest son, And years unnumbered must in turn depart Ere Erin fails to fold him to her heart. He is our boast, our glory, and our pride, For us he lived, fought, suffered, dared, and died; Struck off the shackles from each fettered limb, And all we have of best we owe to him. If some cathedral, exquisitely fair, Lifts its tall turrets through the wondering air, Though art or skill its separate offering brings, 'Tis from O'Connell's heart the structure springs. If through this city on these festive days, Halls, streets, and squares are bright with civic blaze Of glittering chains, white wands, and flowing gowns, The red-robed senates of a hundred towns, Whatever rank each special spot may claim, 'Tis from O'Connell's hand their charters came. If in the rising hopes of recent years A mighty sound reverberates on our ears, And myriad voices in one cry unite For restoration of a ravished right, 'Tis the great echo of that thunder blast, On Tara pealed or mightier Mullaghmast, If arts and letters are more widely spread, A Nile o'erflowing from its fertile bed, Spreading the rich alluvium whence are given Harvests for earth and amaranth flowers for heaven; If Science still, in not unholy walls, Sets its high chair, and dares unchartered halls, And still ascending, ever heavenward soars, While capped Exclusion slowly opes it doors, It is his breath that speeds the spreading tide, It is his hand the long-locked door throws wide. Where'er we turn the same effect we find-- O'Connell's voice still speaks his country's mind. Therefore we gather to his birthday feast Prelate and peer, the people and the priest; Therefore we come, in one united band, To hail in him the hero of the land, To bless his memory, and with loud acclaim To all the winds, on all the wings of fame Waft to the listening world the great O'Connell's name.

MOORE. MAY 28TH, 1879.

Joy to Ierne, joy,
This day a deathless crown is won,
Her child of song, her glorious son,
Her minstrel boy
Attains his century of fame,
Completes his time-allotted zone,
And proudly with the world's acclaim
Ascends the lyric throne.

Yes, joy to her whose path so long, Slow journeying to her realm of rest O'er many a rugged mountain's crest, He charmed with his enchanting song: Like his own princess in the tale, When he who had her way beguiled Through many a bleak and desert wild Until she reached Cashmere's bright vale Had ceased those notes to play and sing To which her heart responsive swelled, She looking up, in him beheld Her minstrel lover and her king;-- So Erin now, her journey well-nigh o'er, Enraptured sees her minstrel king in Moore.

And round that throne whose light to-day O'er all the world is cast, In words though weak, in hues though faint, Congenial fancy rise and paint The spirits of the past Who here their homage pay-- Those who his youthful muse inspired, Those who his early genius fired To emulate their lay: And as in some phantasmal glass Let the immortal spirits pass, Let each renew the inspiring strain, And fire the poet's soul again.

First there comes from classic Greece, Beaming love and breathing peace, With her pure, sweet smiling face, The glory of the Aeolian race, Beauteous Sappho, violet-crowned, Shedding joy and rapture round: In her hand a harp she bears, Parent of celestial airs, Love leaps trembling from each wire, Every chord a string of fire:-- How the poet's heart doth beat, How his lips the notes repeat, Till in rapture borne along, The Sapphic lute, the lyrist's song, Blend in one delicious strain, Never to divide again.

And beside the Aeolian queen Great Alcaeus' form is seen: He takes up in voice more strong The dying cadence of the song, And on loud resounding strings Hurls his wrath on tyrant kings:-- Like to incandescent coal On the poet's kindred soul Fall these words of living flame, Till their songs become the same,-- The same hate of slavery's night, The same love of freedom's light, Scorning aught that stops its way, Come the black cloud whence it may, Lift alike the inspir`ed song, And the liquid notes prolong.

Carolling a livelier measure Comes the Teian bard of pleasure, Round his brow where joy reposes Radiant love enwreaths his roses, Rapture in his verse is ringing, Soft persuasion in his singing:-- 'Twas the same melodious ditty Moved Polycrates to pity, Made that tyrant heart surrender Captive to a tone so tender: To the younger bard inclining, Round his brow the roses twining, First the wreath in red wine steeping, He his cithern to his keeping Yields, its glorious fate foreseeing, From her chains a nation freeing, Fetters new around it flinging In the flowers of his own singing.

But who is this that from the misty cloud Of immemorial years, Wrapped in the vesture of his vaporous shroud With solemn steps appears? His head with oak-leaves and with ivy crowned Lets fall its silken snow, While the white billows of his beard unbound Athwart his bosom flow: Who is this venerable form Whose hands, prelusive of the storm Across his harp-strings play-- That harp which, trembling in his hand, Impatient waits its lord's command To pour the impassioned lay? Who is it comes with reverential hail To greet the bard who sang his country best 'Tis Ossian--primal poet of the Gael-- The Homer of the West.

He sings the heroic tales of old
When Ireland yet was free,
Of many a fight and foray bold,
And raid beyond the sea.

Of all the famous deeds of Fin,
And all the wiles of Mave,
Now thunders 'mid the battle's din,
Now sobs beside the wave.

That wave empurpled by the sword
The hero used too well,
When great Cuchullin held the ford,
And fair Ferdiah fell.

And now his prophet eye is cast
As o'er a boundless plain;
He sees the future as the past,
And blends them in his strain.

The Red-Branch Knights their flags unfold
When danger's front appears,
The sunburst breaks through clouds of gold
To glorify their spears.

But, ah! a darker hour drew nigh,
The hour of Erin's woe,
When she, though destined not to die,
Lay prostrate 'neath the foe.

When broke were all the arms she bore,
And bravely bore in vain,
Till even her harp could sound no more
Beneath the victor's chain.

Ah! dire constraint, ah! cruel wrong,
To fetter thus its chord,
But well they knew that Ireland's song
Was keener than her sword.

That song would pierce where swords would fail,
And o'er the battle's din,
The sweet, sad music of the Gael
A peaceful victory win.

Long was the trance, but sweet and low
The harp breathed out again
Its speechless wail, its wordless woe,
In Carolan's witching strain.

Until at last the gift of words
Denied to it so long,
Poured o'er the now enfranchised chords
The articulate light of song.

Poured the bright light from genius won,
That woke the harp's wild lays;
Even as that statue which the sun
Made vocal with his rays.

Thus Ossian in disparted dream
Outpoured the varied lay,
But now in one united stream
His rapture finds its way:--

"Yes, in thy hands, illustrious son,
The harp shall speak once more,
Its sweet lament shall rippling run
From listening shore to shore.

Till mighty lands that lie unknown
Far in the fabled west,
And giant isles of verdure thrown
Upon the South Sea's breast.

And plains where rushing rivers flow--
Fit emblems of the free--
Shall learn to know of Ireland's woe,
And Ireland's weal through thee."

'Twas thus he sang, And while tumultuous plaudits rang From the immortal throng, In the younger minstrel's hand He placed the emblem of the land-- The harp of Irish song.

Oh! what dulcet notes are heard. Never bird Soaring through the sunny air Like a prayer Borne by angel's hands on high So entranced the listening sky As his song-- Soft, pathetic, joyous, strong, Rising now in rapid flight Out of sight Like a lark in its own light, Now descending low and sweet To our feet, Till the odours of the grass With the light notes as they pass Blend and meet: All that Erin's memory guards In her heart, Deeds of heroes, songs of bards, Have their part.

Brian's glories reappear, Fionualla's song we hear, Tara's walls resound again With a more inspir`ed strain, Rival rivers meet and join, Stately Shannon blends with Boyne; While on high the storm-winds cease Heralding the arch of peace.

And all the bright creations fair That 'neath his master-hand awake, Some in tears and some in smiles, Like Nea in the summer isles, Or Kathleen by the lonely lake, Round his radiant throne repair: Nay, his own Peri of the air Now no more disconsolate, Gives in at Fame's celestial gate His passport to the skies-- The gift to heaven most dear, His country's tear. From every lip the glad refrain doth rise, "Joy, ever joy, his glorious task is done, The gates are passed and Fame's bright heaven is won!"

Ah! yes, the work, the glorious work is done, And Erin crowns to-day her brightest son, Around his brow entwines the victor bay, And lives herself immortal in his lay-- Leads him with honour to her highest place, For he had borne his more than mother's name Proudly along the Olympic lists of fame When mighty athletes struggled in the race. Byron, the swift-souled spirit, in his pride Paused to cheer on the rival by his side, And Lycidas, so long Lost in the light of his own dazzling song, Although himself unseen, Gave the bright wreath that might his own have been To him whom 'mid the mountain shepherd throng, The minstrels of the isles, When Adonais died so fair and young, Ierne sent from out her green defiles "The sweetest lyrist of her saddest wrong, And love taught grief to fall like music from his tongue." And he who sang of Poland's kindred woes, And Hope's delicious dream, And all the mighty minstrels who arose In that auroral gleam That o'er our age a blaze of glory threw Which Shakspere's only knew-- Some from their hidden haunts remote, Like him the lonely hermit of the hills, Whose song like some great organ note The whole horizon fills. Or the great Master, he whose magic hand, Wielding the wand from which such wonder flows, Transformed the lineaments of a rugged land, And left the thistle lovely as the rose. Oh! in a concert of such minstrelsy, In such a glorious company, What pride for Ireland's harp to sound, For Ireland's son to share, What pride to see him glory-crowned, And hear amid the dazzling gleam Upon the rapt and ravished air Her harp still sound supreme!

Glory to Moore, eternal be the glory
That here we crown and consecrate to-day,
Glory to Moore, for he has sung our story
In strains whose sweetness ne'er can pass away.

Glory to Moore, for he has sighed our sorrow
In such a wail of melody divine,
That even from grief a passing joy we borrow,
And linger long o'er each lamenting line.

Glory to Moore, that in his songs of gladness
Which neither change nor time can e'er destroy,
Though mingled oft with some faint sigh of sadness,
He sings his country's rapture and its joy.

What wit like his flings out electric flashes
That make the numbers sparkle as they run:
Wit that revives dull history's Dead-sea ashes,
And makes the ripe fruit glisten in the sun?

What fancy full of loveliness and lightness
Has spread like his as at some dazzling feast,
The fruits and flowers, the beauty and the brightness,
And all the golden glories of the East?

Perpetual blooms his bower of summer roses,
No winter comes to turn his green leaves sere,
Beside his song-stream where the swan reposes
The bulbul sings as by the Bendemeer.

But back returning from his flight with Peris,
Above his native fields he sings his best,
Like to the lark whose rapture never wearies,
When poised in air he singeth o'er his nest.

And so we rank him with the great departed,
The kings of song who rule us from their urns,
The souls inspired, the natures noble hearted,
And place him proudly by the side of Burns.

And as not only by the Calton Mountain,
Is Scotland's bard remembered and revered,
But whereso'er, like some o'erflowing fountain,
Its hardy race a prosperous path has cleared.

There 'mid the roar of newly-rising cities,
His glorious name is heard on every tongue,
There to the music of immortal ditties,
His lays of love, his patriot songs are sung.

So not alone beside that bay of beauty
That guards the portals of his native town
Where like two watchful sentinels on duty,
Howth and Killiney from their heights look down.

But wheresoe'er the exiled race hath drifted,
By what far sea, what mighty stream beside,
There shall to-day the poet's name be lifted,
And Moore proclaimed its glory and its pride:

There shall his name be held in fond memento,
There shall his songs resound for evermore,
Whether beside the golden Sacramento,
Or where Niagara's thunder shakes the shore.

For all that's bright indeed must fade and perish,
And all that's sweet when sweetest not endure,
Before the world shall cease to love and cherish
The wit and song, the name and fame of MOORE.

Miscellaneous Poems.

THE SPIRIT OF THE SNOW.

The night brings forth the morn--
Of the cloud is lightning born;
From out the darkest earth the brightest roses grow.
Bright sparks from black flints fly,
And from out a leaden sky
Comes the silvery-footed Spirit of the Snow.

The wondering air grows mute,
As her pearly parachute
Cometh slowly down from heaven, softly floating to and fro;
And the earth emits no sound,
As lightly on the ground
Leaps the silvery-footed Spirit of the Snow.

At the contact of her tread,
The mountain's festal head,
As with chaplets of white roses, seems to glow;
And its furrowed cheek grows white
With a feeling of delight,
At the presence of the Spirit of the Snow.

As she wendeth to the vale,
The longing fields grow pale--
The tiny streams that vein them cease to flow;
And the river stays its tide
With wonder and with pride,
To gaze upon the Spirit of the Snow.

But little doth she deem
The love of field or stream--
She is frolicsome and lightsome as the roe;
She is here and she is there,
On the earth or in the air,
Ever changing, floats the Spirit of the Snow.

Now a daring climber, she
Mounts the tallest forest tree--
Out along the giddy branches doth she go;
And her tassels, silver-white,
Down swinging through the night,
Mark the pillow of the Spirit of the Snow.

Now she climbs the mighty mast,
When the sailor boy at last
Dreams of home in his hammock down below
There she watches in his stead
Till the morning sun shines red,
Then evanishes the Spirit of the Snow.

Or crowning with white fire.
The minster's topmost spire
With a glory such as sainted foreheads show;
She teaches fanes are given
Thus to lift the heart to heaven,
There to melt like the Spirit of the Snow.

Now above the loaded wain,
Now beneath the thundering train,
Doth she hear the sweet bells tinkle and the snorting engine blow;
Now she flutters on the breeze,
Till the branches of the trees
Catch the tossed and tangled tresses of the Spirit of the Snow.

Now an infant's balmy breath
Gives the spirit seeming death,
When adown her pallid features fair Decay's damp dew-drops flow;
Now again her strong assault
Can make an army halt,
And trench itself in terror 'gainst the Spirit of the Snow.

At times with gentle power,
In visiting some bower,
She scarce will hide the holly's red, the blackness of the sloe;
But, ah! her awful might,
When down some Alpine height
The hapless hamlet sinks before the Spirit of the Snow.

On a feather she floats down
The turbid rivers brown,
Down to meet the drifting navies of the winter-freighted floe;
Then swift o'er the azure walls
Of the awful waterfalls,
Where Niagara leaps roaring, glides the Spirit of the Snow.

With her flag of truce unfurled,
She makes peace o'er all the world--
Makes bloody battle cease awhile, and war's unpitying woe;
Till, its hollow womb within,
The deep dark-mouthed culverin
Encloses, like a cradled child, the Spirit of the Snow.

She uses in her need
The fleetly-flying steed--
Now tries the rapid reindeer's strength, and now the camel slow;
Or, ere defiled by earth,
Unto her place of birth,
Returns upon the eagle's wing the Spirit of the Snow.

Oft with pallid figure bowed,
Like the Banshee in her shroud,
Doth the moon her spectral shadow o'er some silent gravestone throw;
Then moans the fitful wail,
And the wanderer grows pale,
Till at morning fades the phantom of the Spirit of the Snow.

In her ermine cloak of state
She sitteth at the gate
Of some winter-prisoned princess in her palace by the Po;
Who dares not to come forth
Till back unto the North
Flies the beautiful besieger--the Spirit of the Snow.

In her spotless linen hood,
Like the other sisterhood,
She braves the open cloister when the psalm sounds sweet and low;
When some sister's bier doth pass
From the minster and the Mass,
Soon to sink into the earth, like the Spirit of the Snow.

But at times so full of joy,
She will play with girl and boy,
Fly from out their tingling fingers, like white fireballs on the foe;
She will burst in feathery flakes,
And the ruin that she makes
Will but wake the crackling laughter of the Spirit of the Snow.

Or in furry mantle drest,
She will fondle on her breast
The embryo buds awaiting the near Spring's mysterious throe;
So fondly that the first
Of the blossoms that outburst
Will be called the beauteous daughter of the Spirit of the Snow.

Ah! would that we were sure
Of hearts so warmly pure,
In all the winter weather that this lesser life must know;
That when shines the Sun of Love
From the warmer realm above,
In its light we may dissolve, like the Spirit of the Snow.

TO THE BAY OF DUBLIN.

My native Bay, for many a year I've lov'd thee with a trembling fear, Lest thou, though dear and very dear, And beauteous as a vision, Shouldst have some rival far away, Some matchless wonder of a bay, Whose sparkling waters ever play 'Neath azure skies elysian.

'Tis Love, methought, blind Love that pours The rippling magic round these shores, For whatsoever Love adores Becomes what Love desireth: 'Tis ignorance of aught beside That throws enchantment o'er the tide, And makes my heart respond with pride To what mine eye admireth,

And thus, unto our mutual loss, Whene'er I paced the sloping moss Of green Killiney, or across The intervening waters, Up Howth's brown sides my feet would wend, To see thy sinuous bosom bend, Or view thine outstretch'd arms extend To clasp thine islet daughters;

Then would this spectre of my fear Beside me stand--How calm and clear Slept underneath, the green waves, near The tide-worn rocks' recesses; Or when they woke, and leapt from land, Like startled sea-nymphs, hand-in-hand, Seeking the southern silver strand With floating emerald tresses:

It lay o'er all, a moral mist, Even on the hills, when evening kissed The granite peaks to amethyst, I felt its fatal shadow: It darkened o'er the brightest rills, It lowered upon the sunniest hills, And hid the wing`ed song that fills The moorland and the meadow.

But now that I have been to view All even Nature's self can do, And from Gaeta's arch of blue Borne many a fond memento; And from each fair and famous scene, Where Beauty is, and Power hath been, Along the golden shores between Misenum and Sorrento:

I can look proudly in thy face, Fair daughter of a hardier race, And feel thy winning well-known grace, Without my old misgiving; And as I kneel upon thy strand, And kiss thy once unvalued hand, Proclaim earth holds no lovelier land, Where life is worth the living.

TO ETHNA.

First loved, last loved, best loved of all I've loved!
Ethna, my boyhood's dream, my manhood's light,
Pure angel spirit, in whose light I've moved,
Full many a year, along life's darksome night!
Thou wert my star, serenely shining bright
Beyond youth's passing clouds and mists obscure
Thou wert the power that kept my spirit white,
My soul unsoiled, my heart untouched and pure.
Thine was the light from heaven that ever must endure.

Purest, and best, and brightest, no mishap,
No chance, or change can break our mutual ties;
My heart lies spread before thee like a map,
Here roll the tides, and there the mountains rise;
Here dangers frown and there hope's streamlet flies,
And golden promontories cleave the main:
And I have looked into thy lustrous eyes,
And saw the thought thou couldst not all restrain,
A sweet, soft, sympathetic pity for my pain!

Dearest, and best, I dedicate to thee,
From this hour forth, my hopes, my dreams, my cares,
All that I am, and all I e'er may be,
Youth's clustering locks, and age's thin white hairs;
Thou by my side, fair vision, unawares--
Sweet saint--shalt guard me as with angel's wings;
To thee shall rise the morning's hopeful prayers,
The evening hymns, the thoughts that midnight brings,
The worship that like fire out of the warm heart springs.

Thou wilt be with me through the struggling day,
Thou wilt be with me through the pensive night,
Thou wilt be with me, though far, far away
Some sad mischance may snatch you from my sight,
In grief, in pain, in gladness, in delight,
In every thought thy form shall bear a part,
In every dream thy memory shall unite,
Bride of my soul! and partner of my heart!
Till from the dreadful bow flieth the fatal dart!

Am I deceived? and do I pine and faint
For worth that only dwells in heaven above,
And if thou'rt not the Ethna that I paint,
Then thou art not the Ethna that I love;
If thou art not as gentle as the dove,
And good as thou art beautiful, the tooth
Of venomed serpent will not deadlier prove
Than that dark revelation; but in sooth,
Ethna, I wrong thee, dearest, for thy name is TRUTH.

"NOT KNOWN."

On receiving through the Post-Office a Returned Letter from an old residence, marked on the envelope, "Not Known."

A beauteous summer-home had I
As e'er a bard set eyes on--
A glorious sweep of sea and sky,
Near hills and far horizon.
Like Naples was the lovely bay,
The lovely hill like Rio--
And there I lived for many a day
In Campo de Estio.

It seemed as if the magic scene
No human skill had planted;
The trees remained for ever green,
As if they were enchanted:
And so I said to Sweetest-eyes,
My dear, I think that we owe
To fairy hands this paradise
Of Campo de Estio.

How swiftly flew the hours away!
I read and rhymed and revelled;
In interchange of work and play,
I built, and drained, and levelled;
"The Pope," so "happy," days gone by
(Unlike our ninth Pope Pio),
Was far less happy then than I
In Campo de Estio.

For children grew in that sweet place,
As in the grape wine gathers--
Their mother's eyes in each bright face,
In each light heart, their father's:
Their father, who by some was thought
A literary 'leo,'
Ne'er dreamed he'd be so soon forgot
In Campo de Estio.

But so it was:--Of hope bereft,
A year had scarce gone over,
Since he that sweetest place had left,
And gone--we'll say--to Dover,
When letters came where he had flown.
Returned him from the "P. O.,"
On which was writ, O Heavens! "NOT KNOWN
IN CAMPO DE ESTIO!"

"Not known" where he had lived so long,
A "cintra" home created,
Where scarce a shrub that now is strong
But had its place debated;
Where scarce a flower that now is shown,
But shows his care: O Dio!
And now to be described, "Not known
In Campo de Estio."

That pillar from the Causeway brought--
This fern from Connemara--
That pine so long and widely sought--
This Cedrus deodara--
That bust (if Shakespeare's doth survive,
And busts had brains and 'brio'),
Might keep his name at least alive
In Campo de Estio.

When Homer went from place to place,
The glorious siege reciting
(Of course I presuppose the case
Of reading and of writing),
I've little doubt the Bard divine
His letters got from Scio,
Inscribed "Not known," Ah! me, like mine
From Campo de Estio.

The poet, howsoe'er inspired,
Must brave neglect and danger;
When Philip Massinger expired,
The death-list said "a stranger!"
A stranger! yes, on earth, but let
The poet sing 'laus Deo'!--
Heaven's glorious summer waits him yet--
God's "Campo de Estio."

THE LAY MISSIONER.

Had I a wish--'twere this, that heaven would make
My heart as strong to imitate as love,
That half its weakness it could leave, and take
Some spirit's strength, by which to soar above,
A lordly eagle mated with a dove.
Strong-will and warm affection, these be mine;
Without the one no dreams has fancy wove,
Without the other soon these dreams decline,
Weak children of the heart, which fade away and pine!

Strong have I been in love, if not in will;
Affections crowd and people all the past,
And now, even now, they come and haunt me still,
Even from the graves where once my hopes were cast.
But not with spectral features--all aghast--
Come they to fright me; no, with smiles and tears,
And winding arms, and breasts that beat as fast
As once they beat in boyhood's opening years,
Come the departed shades, whose steps my rapt soul hears.

Youth has passed by, its first warm flush is o'er,
And now, 'tis nearly noon; yet unsubdued
My heart still kneels and worships, as of yore,
Those twin-fair shapes, the Beautiful and Good!
Valley and mountain, sky and stream, and wood,
And that fair miracle, the human face,
And human nature in its sunniest mood,
Freed from the shade of all things low and base,--
These in my heart still hold their old accustom'd place.

'Tis not with pride, but gratitude, I tell
How beats my heart with all its youthful glow,
How one kind act doth make my bosom swell,
And down my cheeks the sweet, warm, glad tears flow.
Enough of self, enough of me you know,
Kind reader, but if thou wouldst further wend,
With me, this wilderness of weak words thro',
Let me depict, before the journey end,
One whom methinks thou'lt love, my brother and my friend.

Ah! wondrous is the lot of him who stands
A Christian Priest, with a Christian fane,
And binds with pure and consecrated hands,
Round earth and heaven, a festal, flower chain;
Even as between the blue arch and the main,
A circling western ring of golden light
Weds the two worlds, or as the sunny rain
Of April makes the cloud and clay unite,
Thus links the Priest of God the dark world and the bright.

All are not priests, yet priestly duties may
And should be all men's: as a common sight
We view the brightness of a summer's day,
And think 'tis but its duty to be bright;
But should a genial beam of warming light
Suddenly break from out a wintry sky,
With gratitude we own a new delight,
Quick beats the heart and brighter beams the eye,
And as a boon we hail the splendour from on high.

'Tis so with men, with those of them at least
Whose hearts by icy doubts are chill'd and torn;
They think the virtues of a Christian Priest
Something professional, put on and worn
Even as the vestments of a Sabbath morn:
But should a friend or act or teach as he,
Then is the mind of all its doubting shorn,
The unexpected goodness that they see
Takes root, and bears its fruit, as uncoerced and free!

One I have known, and haply yet I know,
A youth by baser passions undefiled,
Lit by the light of genius and the glow
Which real feeling leaves where once it smiled;
Firm as a man, yet tender as a child;
Armed at all points by fantasy and thought,
To face the true or soar amid the wild;
By love and labour, as a good man ought,
Ready to pay the price by which dear truth is bought!

'Tis not with cold advice or stern rebuke,
With formal precept, or wit face demure,
But with the unconscious eloquence of look,
Where shines the heart so loving and so pure:
'Tis these, with constant goodness, that allure
All hearts to love and imitate his worth.
Beside him weaker natures feel secure,
Even as the flower beside the oak peeps forth,
Safe, though the rain descends, and blows the biting North!

Such is my friend, and such I fain would be,
Mild, thoughtful, modest, faithful, loving, gay,
Correct, not cold, nor uncontroll'd though free,
But proof to all the lures that round us play,
Even as the sun, that on his azure way
Moveth with steady pace and lofty mien,
Though blushing clouds, like syrens, woo his stay,
Higher and higher through the pure serene,
Till comes the calm of eve and wraps him from the scene.

THE SPIRIT OF THE IDEAL.

Sweet sister spirits, ye whose starlight tresses Stream on the night-winds as ye float along, Missioned with hope to man--and with caresses

To slumbering babes--refreshment to the strong-- And grace the sensuous soul that it's arrayed in: As the light burden of melodious song

Weighs down a poet's words;--as an o'erladen Lily doth bend beneath its own pure snow; Or with its joy, the free heart of a maiden:--

Thus, I behold your outstretched pinions grow Heavy with all the priceless gifts and graces God through thy ministration doth bestow.

Do ye not plant the rose on youthful faces? And rob the heavens of stars for Beauty's eyes? Do ye not fold within love's pure embraces

All that Omnipotence doth yet devise For human bliss, or rapture superhuman-- Heaven upon earth, and earth still in the skies?

Do ye not sow the fruitful heart of woman With tenderest charities and faith sincere, To feed man's sterile soul and to illumine

His duller eyes, that else might settle here, With the bright promise of a purer region-- A starlight beacon to a starry sphere?

Are they not all thy children, that bright legion-- Of aspirations, and all hopeful sighs That in the solemn train of grave Religion

Strew heavenly flowers before man's longing eyes, And make him feel, as o'er life's sea he wendeth, The far-off odorous airs of Paradise?--

Like to the breeze some flowery island sendeth Unto the seaman, ere its bowers are seen, Which tells him soon his weary wandering endeth--

Soon shall he rest, in bosky shades of green, By daisied meadows prankt with dewy flowers, With ever-running rivulets between.

These are thy tasks, my sisters--these the powers God in his goodness gives into thy hands:-- 'Tis from thy fingers fall the diamond showers

Of budding Spring, and o'er the expectant lands June's odorous purple and rich Autumn's gold: And even when needful Winter wide expands

His fallow wings, and winds blow sharp and cold From the harsh east, 'tis thine, o'er all the plain, The leafless woodlands and the unsheltered wold,

Gently to drop the flakes of feathery rain-- Heaven's warmest down--around the slumbering seeds, And o'er the roots the frost-blanched counterpane.

What though man's careless eye but little heeds Even the effects, much less the remoter cause, Still, in the doing of beneficent deeds--

By God and his Vicegerent Nature's laws-- Ever a compensating joy is found. Think ye the rain-drop heedeth if it draws

Rankness as well as Beauty from the ground? Or that the sullen wind will deign to wake Only Aeolian melodies of sound--

And not the stormy screams that make men quake Thus do ye act, my sisters; thus ye do Your cheerful duty for the doing's sake--

Not unrewarded surely--not when you See the successful issue of your charms, Bringing the absent back again to view--

Giving the loved one to the lover's arms-- Smoothing the grassy couch in weary age-- Hushing in death's great calm a world's alarms.

I, I alone upon the earth's vast stage Am doomed to act an unrequited part-- I, the unseen preceptress of the sage--

I, whose ideal form doth win the heart Of all whom God's vocation hath assigned To wear the sacred vesture of high Art--

To pass along the electric sparks of mind From age to age, from race to race, until The expanding truth encircles all mankind.

What without me were all the poet's skill?-- Dead, sensuous form without the quickening soul. What without me the instinctive aim of will?--

A useless magnet pointing to no pole. What the fine ear and the creative hand? Most potent spirits free from man's control.

I, THE IDEAL, by the poet stand When all his soul o'erflows with holy fire, When currents of the beautiful and grand

Run glittering down along each burning wire Until the heart of the great world doth feel The electric shock of his God-kindled lyre:--

Then rolls the thunderous music peal on peal, Or in the breathless after-pause, a strain Simpler and sweeter through the hush doth steal--

Like to the pattering drops of summer rain Or rustling grass, when fragrance fills the air And all the groves are vocal once again:

Whatever form, whatever shape I bear, The Spirit of high Impulse, and the Soul Of all conceptions beautiful and rare,

Am I; who now swift spurning all control, On rapid wings--the Ariel of the Muse-- Dart from the dazzling centre to the pole;

Now in the magic mimicry of hues Such as surround God's golden throne, descend In Titian's skies the boundaries to confuse

Betwixt earth's heaven and heaven's own heaven to blend In Raphael's forms the human and divine, Where spirit dawns, and matter seems to end.

Again on wings of melody, so fine They mock the sight, but fall upon the ear Like tuneful rose-leaves at the day's decline--

And with the music of a happier sphere Entrance some master of melodious sound, Till startled men the hymns of angels hear.

Happy for me when, in the vacant round Of barren ages, one great steadfast soul Faithful to me and to his art is found.

But, ah! my sisters, with my grief condole; Join in my sorrows and respond my sighs; And let your sobs the funeral dirges toll;

Weep those who falter in the great emprise-- Who, turning off upon some poor pretence, Some worthless guerdon or some paltry prize,

Down from the airy zenith through the immense Sink to the low expedients of an hour, And barter soul for all the slough of sense,--

Just when the mind had reached its regal power, And fancy's wing its perfect plume unfurl'd,-- Just when the bud of promise in the flower

Of all completeness opened on the world-- When the pure fire that heaven itself outflung Back to its native empyrean curled,

Like vocal incense from a censer swung:-- Ah, me! to be subdued when all seemed won-- That I should fly when I would fain have clung.

Yet so it is,--our radiant course is run;-- Here we must part, the deathless lay unsung, And, more than all, the deathless deed undone.

RECOLLECTIONS.

Ah! summer time, sweet summer scene,
When all the golden days,
Linked hand-in-hand, like moonlit fays,
Danced o'er the deepening green.

When, from the top of Pelier[111] down
We saw the sun descend,
With smiles that blessings seemed to send
To our near native town.

And when we saw him rise again
High o'er the hills at morn--
God's glorious prophet daily born
To preach good will to men--

Good-will and peace to all between
The gates of night and day--
Join with me, love, and with me say--
Sweet summer time and scene.

Sweet summer time, true age of gold,
When hand-in-hand we went
Slow by the quickening shrubs, intent
To see the buds unfold:

To trace new wild flowers in the grass,
New blossoms on the bough,
And see the water-lilies now
Rise o'er the liquid glass.

When from the fond and folding gale
The scented briar I pulled,
Or for thy kindred bosom culled
The lily of the vale;--

Thou without whom were dark the green,
The golden turned to gray,
Join with me, love, and with me say--
Sweet summer time and scene.

Sweet summer time, delight's brief reign,
Thou hast one memory still,
Dearer than ever tree or hill
Yet stretched along life's plain.

Stranger than all the wond'rous whole,
Flowers, fields, and sunset skies--
To see within our infant's eyes
The awakening of the soul.

To see their dear bright depths first stirred
By the far breath of thought,
To feel our trembling hearts o'erfraught
With rapture when we heard

Her first clear laugh, which might have been
A cherub's laugh at play--
Ah! love, thou canst but join and say--
Sweet summer time and scene.

Sweet summer time, sweet summer days,
One day I must recall;
One day the brightest of them all,
Must mark with special praise.

'Twas when at length in genial showers
The spring attained its close;
And June with many a myriad rose
Incarnadined the bowers:

Led by the bright and sun-warm air,
We left our indoor nooks;
Thou with my paper and my books,
And I thy garden chair;

Crossed the broad, level garden-walks,
With countless roses lined;
And where the apple still inclined
Its blossoms o'er the box,

Near to the lilacs round the pond,
In its stone ring hard by
We took our seats, where save the sky,
And the few forest trees beyond

The garden wall, we nothing saw,
But flowers and blossoms, and we heard
Nought but the whirring of some bird,
Or the rooks' distant, clamorous caw.

And in the shade we saw the face
Of our dear infant sleeping near,
And thou wert by to smile and hear,
And speak with innate truth and grace.

There through the pleasant noontide hours
My task of echoed song I sung;
Turning the golden southern tongue
Into the iron ore of ours!

'Twas the great Spanish master's pride,
The story of the hero proved;
'Twas how the Moorish princess loved,
And how the firm Fernando died.[112]

O happiest season ever seen,
O day, indeed the happiest day;
Join with me, love, and with me say--
Sweet summer time and scene.

One picture more before I close
Fond Memory's fast dissolving views;
One picture more before I lose
The radiant outlines as they rose.

'Tis evening, and we leave the porch,
And for the hundredth time admire
The rhododendron's cones of fire
Rise round the tree, like torch o'er torch.