Chapter XLVII: Part II (10)

He died--_he_ died
On whom my lone devotedness was cast!
I might not keep one vigil by his side,
_I_, whose wrung heart watch’d with him to the last!
I might not once his fainting head sustain,
Nor bathe his parch’d lips in the hour of pain,
Nor say to him, “Farewell!” He pass’d away--
Oh! had _my_ love been there, its conquering sway
Had won him back from death! But thus removed,
Borne o’er th’ abyss no sounding line hath proved,
Join’d with the unknown, the viewless--he became
Unto my thoughts another, yet the same--
Changed--hallow’d--glorified!--and his low grave
Seem’d a bright mournful altar--mine, all mine:
Brother and friend soon left me _that_ sole shrine,
The birthright of the faithful!--_their_ world’s wave
Soon swept them from its brink. Oh! deem thou not
That on the sad and consecrated spot
My soul grew weak! I tell thee that a power
There kindled heart and lip--a fiery shower
My words were made--a might was given to prayer,
And a strong grasp to passionate despair,
And a dread triumph! Know’st thou what I sought?
For what high boon my struggling spirit wrought?
--Communion with the dead! I sent a cry
Through the veil’d empires of eternity--
A voice to cleave them! By the mournful truth,
By the lost promise of my blighted youth.
By the strong chain a mighty love can bind
On the beloved, the spell of mind o’er mind;
By words, which in themselves are magic high,
Armed, and inspired, and wing’d with agony;
By tears, which comfort not, but burn, and seem
To bear the heart’s blood in their passion-stream;
I summon’d, I adjured!--with quicken’d sense,
With the keen vigil of a life intense.
I watch’d, an answer from the winds to wring,
I listen’d, if perchance the stream might bring
Token from worlds afar; I taught _one_ sound
Unto a thousand echoes--one profound
Imploring accent to the tomb, the sky--
One prayer to night--“Awake! appear! reply!”
Hast thou been told that from the viewless bourne
The dark way never hath allow’d return?
That all, which tears can move, with life is fled--
That earthly love is powerless on the dead?
Believe it not!--There is a large lone star
Now burning o’er yon western hill afar,
And under its clear light there lies a spot
Which well might utter forth--Believe it not!

I sat beneath that planet. I had wept
My woe to stillness; every night-wind slept;
A hush was on the hills; the very streams
Went by like clouds, or noiseless founts in dreams;
And the dark tree o’ershadowing me that hour,
Stood motionless, even as the gray church-tower
Whereon I gazed unconsciously. There came
A low sound, like the tremor of a flame,
Or like the light quick shiver of a wing,
Flitting through twilight woods, across the air;
And I look’d up! Oh! for strong words to bring
Conviction o’er thy thought! Before me there,
He, the departed, stood! Ay, face to face,
So near, and yet how far! His form, his mien,
Gave to remembrance back each burning trace
Within:--Yet something awfully serene,
Pure, sculpture-like, on the pale brow, that wore
Of the once beating heart no token more;
And stillness on the lip--and o’er the hair
A gleam, that trembled through the breathless air;
And an unfathom’d calm, that seem’d to lie
In the grave sweetness of th’ illumined eye,
Told of the gulfs between our being set,
And, as that unsheath’d spirit-glance I met,
Made my soul faint:--with _fear_? Oh! _not_ with fear!
With the sick feeling that in _his_ far sphere
_My_ love could be as nothing! But he spoke--
How shall I tell thee of the startling thrill
In that low voice, whose breezy tones could fill
My bosom’s infinite? O friend! I woke
_Then_ first to heavenly life! Soft, solemn, clear,
Breathed the mysterious accents on mine ear,
Yet strangely seem’d as if the while they rose
From depths of distance, o’er the wide repose
Of slumbering waters wafted, or the dells
Of mountains, hollow with sweet echo-cells.
But, as they murmur’d on, the mortal chill
Pass’d from me, like a mist before the morn;
And, to that glorious intercourse upborne
By slow degrees, a calm, divinely still,
Possess’d my frame. I sought that lighted eye--
From its intense and searching purity
I drank in _soul_!--I question’d of the dead--
Of the hush’d, starry shores their footsteps tread,
And I was answer’d. If remembrance there
With dreamy whispers fill the immortal air;
If thought, here piled from many a jewel-heap,
Be treasure in that pensive land to keep;
If love, o’ersweeping change, and blight, and blast,
Find _there_ the music of his home at last:
I ask’d, and I was answer’d. Full and high
Was that communion with eternity--
Too rich for aught so fleeting! Like a knell
Swept o’er my sense its closing words, “Farewell!
On earth we meet no more!” And all was gone--
The pale, bright settled brow--the thrilling tone,
The still and shining eye! and never more
May twilight gloom or midnight hush restore
That radiant guest! One full-fraught hour of heaven,
To earthly passion’s wild implorings given,
Was made my own--the ethereal fire hath shiver’d
The fragile censer in whose mould it quiver’d,
Brightly, consumingly! What now is left?
A faded world, of glory’s hues bereft--
A void, a chain! I dwell midst throngs, apart,
In the cold silence of the stranger’s heart;
A fix’d immortal shadow stands between
My spirit and life’s fast-receding scene;
A gift hath sever’d me from human ties,
A power is gone from all earth’s melodies,
Which never may return: their chords are broken,
The music of another land hath spoken--
No after-sound is sweet! This weary thirst!
And I have heard celestial fountains burst!
What _here_ shall quench it?

Dost thou not rejoice,
When the spring sends forth an awakening voice
Through the young woods? Thou dost! And in that birth
Of early leaves, and flowers, and songs of mirth,
Thousands, like thee, find gladness! Couldst thou know
How every breeze then summons _me_ to go!
How all the light of love and beauty shed
By those rich hours, but woos me to the dead!
The _only_ beautiful that change no more--
The only loved!--the dwellers on the shore
Of spring fulfill’d! The dead! _whom_ call we so?
They that breathe purer air, that feel, that know
Things wrapt from us! Away! within me pent,
That which is barr’d from its own element
Still droops or struggles! But the day _will_ come--
Over the deep the free bird finds its home;
And the stream lingers midst the rocks, yet greets
The sea at last; and the wing’d flower-seed meets
A soil to rest in: shall not _I_, too, be,
My spirit-love! upborne to dwell with thee?
Yes! by the power whose conquering anguish stirr’d
The tomb, whose cry beyond the stars was heard,
Whose agony of triumph won thee back
Through the dim pass no mortal step may track,
Yet shall we meet! that glimpse of joy divine
Proved thee for ever and for ever mine!

[“It was towards the close of the year 1829, that Mrs Hemans began to contemplate the publication of a new volume of poems. She had already made some preparation for this by contributing a series of lyrics under the title of “Songs of the Affections,” to Blackwood’s Magazine, together with the long ballad, “The Lady of Provence,” which, for the glowing pictures it contains, the lofty yet tender affection to which it is consecrated, and the striking but never uncouth changes of its versification, must be considered as one of its author’s finest chivalresque poems. She had still, however, to produce some work of greater importance than these, suitable for the commencement of a volume. The subject at length fixed upon by her, as peculiar as it was almost dangerously fascinating, was suggested by a fireside conversation. It had long been a favourite amusement to wind up our evenings by telling ghost-stories. One night, however, the store of thrilling narratives was exhausted, and we began to talk of the feelings with which the presence and the speech of a visitant from another world, (if indeed a spirit could return,) would be most likely to impress the person so visited. After having exhausted all the common varieties of fear and terror in our speculations, Mrs Hemans said that she thought the predominant sensation at the time must partake of awe and rapture, and resemble the feelings of those who listen to a revelation, and at the same moment know themselves to be favoured above all men, and humbled before a being no longer sharing their own cares or passions; but that the person so visited must thenceforward and for ever be inevitably separated from this world and its concerns: for the soul which had once enjoyed such a strange and spiritual communion, which had been permitted to look, though but for a moment, beyond the mysterious gates of death, must be raised, by its experience, too high for common grief again to perplex, or common joy to enliven. She spoke long and eloquently upon this subject; and I have reason to believe that this conversation settled her wandering fancy, and gave rise to the principal poem in her next volume.”--Chorley’s _Memorials of Mrs Hemans_, p. 69-72.

Mr Chorley, in an after part of the same work, makes the following ingenious and suggestive remarks in reference to the same exquisite poem:--“The coming of the apparition is described with all the plainness and intensity of the most entire conviction, so difficult in these days for a writer to assume--might it not almost be said, so impossible to be assumed by those who have wholly and scornfully cast off those superstitions, so distasteful to reason, but so dear to fancy? It is impossible, in reading Sir Walter Scott’s incomparable descriptions of supernatural visitations,--the episode of the ‘Bodach Glas’ for instance, or ‘Wandering Willie’s tale,’ or the vigil of Master Holdenough in the Mirror Chamber, (though this is afterwards explained away,)--to imagine that the creator of these scenes did not in some measure _believe_ in their possibility, though it might be but with a poetical faith. Were it otherwise, they must strike us as unnaturally as the recent French revivifications of the antique Catholic legends and mysteries--as merely grotesque old fables, adopted as studies by clever artists, for the sake of their glaring contrasts and effective situations.”--_Memorials_, p. 103.

In conclusion, we add the comparative estimate formed of this production by its author. It is from one of her letters to a friend. “Your opinion of the ‘Spirit’s Return’ has given me particular pleasure, because I prefer that poem to any thing else I have written; but if there be, as my friends say, a greater power in it than I had before evinced, I paid dearly for the discovery, and it almost made me tremble as I sounded ‘the deep places’ of my soul.”]

THE LADY OF PROVENCE.[368]

“Courage was cast about her like a dress
Of solemn comeliness,
A gather’d mind and an untroubled face
Did give her dangers grace.” Donne.

The war-note of the Saracen
Was on the winds of France;
It had still’d the harp of the Troubadour,
And the clash of the tourney’s lance.
The sounds of the sea, and the sounds of the night,
And the hollow echoes of charge and flight,
Were around Clotilde, as she knelt to pray
In a chapel where the mighty lay,
On the old Provençal shore.
Many a Chatillon beneath,
Unstirr’d by the ringing trumpet’s breath,
His shroud of armour wore;
And the glimpses of moonlight that went and came
Through the clouds, like bursts of a dying flame,
Gave quivering life to the slumber pale
Of stern forms couch’d in their marble mail,
At rest on the tombs of the knightly race,
The silent throngs of that burial-place.

They were imaged there with helm and spear,
As leaders in many a bold career,
And haughty their stillness look’d and high,
Like a sleep whose dreams were of victory.
But meekly the voice of the lady rose
Through the trophies of their proud repose;
Meekly, yet fervently, calling down aid,
Under their banners of battle she pray’d;
With her pale, fair brow, and her eyes of love,
Upraised to the Virgin’s portray’d above,
And her hair flung back, till it swept the grave
Of a Chatillon with its gleamy wave;
And her fragile frame, at every blast,
That full of the savage war-horn pass’d,
Trembling, as trembles a bird’s quick heart,
When it vainly strives from its cage to part--
So knelt she in her woe;
A weeper alone with the tearless dead--
Oh! they reck not of tears o’er their quiet shed,
Or the dust had stirr’d below!

Hark! a swift step! she hath caught its tone,
Through the dash of the sea, through the wild wind’s moan:
Is her lord return’d with his conquering bands?
No! a breathless vassal before her stands!
--“Hast thou been on the field?--Art thou come from the host?”
--“From the slaughter, lady!--All, all is lost!
Our banners are taken, our knights laid low,
Our spearmen chased by the Paynim foe;
And thy lord,” his voice took a sadder sound--
“Thy lord--he is not on the bloody ground!
There are those who tell that the leader’s plume
Was seen on the flight through th’ gathering gloom.”

--A change o’er her mien and her spirit pass’d:
She ruled the heart which had beat so fast,
She dash’d the tears from her kindling eye,
With a glance, as of sudden royalty:
The proud blood sprang in a fiery flow,
Quick o’er bosom, and cheek, and brow,
And her young voice rose till the peasant shook
At the thrilling tone and the falcon-look:
--“Dost thou stand by the tombs of the glorious dead,
And fear not to say that their son hath fled?
--Away! he is lying by lance and shield,--
Point me the path to his battle-field!”

The shadows of the forest
Are about the lady now;
She is hurrying through the midnight on,
Beneath the dark pine-bough.

There’s a murmur of omens in every leaf,
There’s a wail in the stream like the dirge of a chief;
The branches that rock to the tempest strife
Are groaning like things of troubled life;
The wind from the battle seems rushing by
With a funeral-march through the gloomy sky;
The pathway is rugged, and wild, and long,
But her frame in the daring of love is strong,
And her soul as on swelling seas upborne,
And girded all fearful things to scorn.

And fearful things were around her spread,
When she reach’d the field of the warrior-dead;
There lay the noble, the valiant, low--
Ay! but _one_ word speaks of deeper woe;
There lay the _loved_--on each fallen head
Mothers vain blessings and tears had shed;
Sisters were watching in many a home
For the fetter’d footstep, no more to come;
Names in the prayer of that night were spoken,
Whose claim unto kindred prayer was broken;
And the fire was heap’d, and the bright wine pour’d,
For those, now needing nor hearth nor board;
Only a requiem, a shroud, a knell,
And oh! ye beloved of women, farewell!

Silently, with lips compress’d,
Pale hands clasp’d above her breast,
Stately brow of anguish high,
Deathlike cheek, but dauntless eye;
Silently, o’er that red plain,
Moved the lady midst the slain.

Sometimes it seem’d as a charging-cry,
Or the ringing tramp of a steed, came nigh;
Sometimes a blast of the Paynim horn,
Sudden and shrill from the mountains borne;
And her maidens trembled;--but on _her_ ear
No meaning fell with those sounds of fear;
They had less of mastery to shake her now,
Than the quivering, erewhile, of an aspen bough.
She search’d into many an unclosed eye,
That look’d, without soul, to the starry sky;
She bow’d down o’er many a shatter’d breast,
She lifted up helmet and cloven crest--
Not there, not there he lay!
“Lead where the most hath been dared and done,
Where the heart of the battle hath bled,--lead on!”
And the vassal took the way.

He turn’d to a dark and lonely tree
That waved o’er a fountain red:
Oh! swiftest _there_ had the currents free
From noble veins been shed.

Thickest there the spear-heads gleam’d,
And the scatter’d plumage stream’d,
And the broken shields were toss’d,
And the shiver’d lances cross’d,
And the mail-clad sleepers round
Made the harvest of that ground.

He was there! the leader amidst his band,
Where the faithful had made their last, vain stand;
He was there! but affection’s glance alone
The darkly-changed in that hour had known;
With the falchion yet in his cold hand grasp’d,
And a banner of France to his bosom clasp’d,
And the form that of conflict bore fearful trace,
And the face--oh! speak not of that dead face!
As it lay to answer love’s look no more,
Yet never so proudly loved before!

She quell’d in her soul the deep floods of woe,--
The time was not yet for their waves to flow;
She felt the full presence, the might of death,
Yet there came no sob with her struggling breath;
And a proud smile shone o’er her pale despair,
As she turn’d to his followers--“Your lord is there!
Look on him! know him by scarf and crest!--
Bear him away with his sires to rest!”

Another day, another night,
And the sailor on the deep
Hears the low chant of a funeral rite
From the lordly chapel sweep.

It comes with a broken and muffled tone,
As if that rite were in terror done;
Yet the song midst the seas hath a thrilling power,
And he knows ’tis a chieftain’s burial-hour.

Hurriedly, in fear and woe,
Through the aisle the mourners go;
With a hush’d and stealthy tread,
Bearing on the noble dead;
Sheath’d in armour of the field--
Only his wan face reveal’d,
Whence the still and solemn gleam
Doth a strange, sad contrast seem
To the anxious eyes of that pale band,
With torches wavering in every hand,
For they dread each moment the shout of war
And the burst of the Moslem scimitar.

There is no plumed head o’er the bier to bend,
No brother of battle, no princely friend:
No sound comes back, like the sounds of yore,
Unto sweeping swords from the marble floor;
By the red fountain the valiant lie,
The flower of Provençal chivalry;
But _one_ free step, and one lofty heart,
Bear through that scene to the last their part.

She hath led the death-train of the brave
To the verge of his own ancestral grave;
She hath held o’er her spirit long rigid sway,
But the struggling passion must now have way.
In the cheek, half seen through her mourning veil,
By turns does the swift blood flush and fail;
The pride on the lip is lingering still,
But it shakes as a flame to the blast might thrill;
Anguish and triumph are met at strife,
Rending the cords of her frail young life;
And she sinks at last on her warrior’s bier,
Lifting her voice, as if death might hear.
“I have won thy fame from the breath of wrong,
My soul hath risen for thy glory strong!
Now call me hence, by thy side to be,
The world thou leav’st has no place for me.
The light goes with thee, the joy, the worth--
Faithful and tender! Oh! call me forth!
Give me my home on thy noble heart,--
Well have we loved, let us both depart!”--
And pale on the breast of the dead she lay,
The living cheek to the cheek of clay;
The _living_ cheek!--oh! it was not vain,
That strife of the spirit to rend its chain;
She is there at rest in her place of pride,
In death how queen-like--a glorious bride!

Joy for the freed one!--she might not stay
When the crown had fallen from her life away;
She might not linger--a weary thing,
A dove with no home for its broken wing,
Thrown on the harshness of alien skies,
That know not its own land’s melodies.
From the long heart-withering early gone;
She hath lived--she hath loved--her task is done!

[368] Founded on an incident in the early French history.

THE CORONATION OF INEZ DE CASTRO.

“Tableau, ou l’Amour fait alliance avec la Tombe; union redoutable de la mort et de la vie.”--Madame de Stael.

There was music on the midnight--
From a royal fane it roll’d;
And a mighty bell, each pause between,
Sternly and slowly toll’d.
Strange was their mingling in the sky,
It hush’d the listener’s breath;
For the music spoke of triumph high,
The lonely bell--of death!

There was hurrying through the midnight
A sound of many feet;
But they fell with a muffled fearfulness
Along the shadowy street:
And softer, fainter, grew their tread,
As it near’d the minster gate,
Whence a broad and solemn light was shed
From a scene of royal state.

Full glow’d the strong red radiance
In the centre of the nave,
Where the folds of a purple canopy
Swept down in many a wave,
Loading the marble pavement old
With a weight of gorgeous gloom;
For something lay midst their fretted gold,
Like a shadow of the tomb.

And within that rich pavilion,
High on a glittering throne,
A woman’s form sat silently,
Midst the glare of light alone.
Her jewell’d robes fell strangely still--
The drapery on her breast
Seem’d with no pulse beneath to thrill,
So stonelike was its rest!

But a peal of lordly music
Shook e’en the dust below,
When the burning gold of the diadem
Was set on her pallid brow!
Then died away that haughty sound;
And from the encircling band
Stepp’d prince and chief, midst the hush profound,
With homage to her hand.

Why pass’d a faint, cold shuddering
Over each martial frame,
As one by one, to touch that hand,
Noble and leader came?
Was not the settled aspect fair?
Did not a queenly grace,
Under the parted ebon hair,
Sit on the pale still face?

Death! death! canst _thou_ be lovely
Unto the eye of life?
Is not each pulse of the quick high breast
With thy cold mien at strife?
--It was a strange and fearful sight,
The crown upon that head,
The glorious robes, and the blaze of light,
All gather’d round the Dead!

And beside her stood in silence
One with a brow as pale,
And white lips rigidly compress’d,
Lest the strong heart should fail:
King Pedro, with a jealous eye,
Watching the homage done
By the land’s flower and chivalry
To her, his martyr’d one.

But on the face he look’d not,
Which once his star had been;
To every form his glance was turn’d,
Save of the breathless queen:
Though something, won from the grave’s embrace,
Of her beauty still was there,
Its hues were all of that shadowy place,
It was not for _him_ to bear.

Alas! the crown, the sceptre,
The treasures of the earth,
And the priceless love that pour’d those gifts,
Alike of wasted worth!
The rites are closed:--bear back the dead
Unto the chamber deep!
Lay down again the royal head,
Dust with the dust to sleep!

There is music on the midnight--
A requiem sad and slow,
As the mourners through the sounding aisle
In dark procession go;
And the ring of state, and the starry crown,
And all the rich array,
Are borne to the house of silence down,
With her, that queen of clay!

And tearlessly and firmly
King Pedro led the train;
But his face was wrapt in his folding robe,
When they lower’d the dust again.
’Tis hush’d at last the tomb above--
Hymns die, and steps depart:
Who call’d thee strong as Death, O Love?
_Mightier_ thou wast and art.

ITALIAN GIRL’S HYMN TO THE VIRGIN.

“O sanctissima, O purissima!
Dulcis Virgo Maria!
Mater amata, intemerata,
Ora, ora pro nobis.” Sicilian Mariner’s Hymn.

In the deep hour of dreams,
Through the dark woods, and past the moaning sea,
And by the starlight gleams,
Mother of sorrows! lo, I come to thee!

Unto thy shrine I bear
Night-blowing flowers, like my own heart, to lie
All, all unfolded there,
Beneath the meekness of thy pitying eye.

For thou, that once didst move
In thy still beauty through an early home--
Thou know’st the grief, the love,
The fear of woman’s soul;--to thee I come!

Many, and sad, and deep,
Were the thoughts folded in thy silent breast;
Thou, too, couldst watch and weep--
Hear, gentlest mother! hear a heart oppress’d!

There is a wandering bark
Bearing one from me o’er the restless wave:
Oh, let thy soft eye mark
His course! Be with him, holiest! guide and save!

My soul is on that way;
My thoughts are travellers o’er the waters dim;
Through the long weary day
I walk, o’ershadow’d by vain dreams of him.

Aid him--and me, too, aid!
Oh! ’tis not well, this earthly love’s excess!
On thy weak child is laid
The burden of too deep a tenderness.

Too much o’er _him_ is pour’d
My being’s hope--scarce leaving heaven a part;
Too fearfully adored,
Oh! make not him the chastener of my heart!

I tremble with a sense
Of grief to be; I hear a warning low--
Sweet mother! call me hence!
This wild idolatry must end in woe.

The troubled joy of life,
Love’s lightning happiness, my soul hath known;
And, worn with feverish strife,
Would fold its wings: take back, take back thine own!

Hark! how the wind swept by!
The tempest’s voice comes rolling o’er the wave--
Hope of the sailor’s eye,
And maiden’s heart, blest mother! guide and save.

TO A DEPARTED SPIRIT.

From the bright stars, or from the viewless air,
Or from some world unreach’d by human thought,
Spirit, sweet spirit! if thy home be there,
And if thy visions with the past be fraught,
Answer me, answer me!

Have we not communed here of life and death?
Have we not said that love, such love as ours,
Was not to perish as a rose’s breath,
To melt away, like song from festal bowers?
Answer, oh! answer me!

Thine eye’s last light was mine--the soul that shone
Intensely, mournfully, through gathering haze--
Didst thou bear with thee to the shore unknown,
Naught of what lived in that long, earnest gaze?
Hear, hear and answer me!

Thy voice--its low, soft, fervent, farewell tone
Thrill’d through the tempest of the parting strife,
Like a faint breeze: oh! from that music flown,
Send back _one_ sound, if love’s be quenchless life!
But once, oh! answer me!

In the still noontide, in the sunset’s hush,
In the dead hour of night, when thought grows deep,
When the heart’s phantoms from the darkness rush,
Fearfully beautiful, to strive with sleep--
Spirit! then answer me!

By the remembrance of our blended prayer;
By all our tears, whose mingling made them sweet;
By our last hope, the victor o’er despair;--
Speak! if our souls in deathless yearnings meet;
Answer me, answer me!

The grave is silent: and the far-off sky,
And the deep midnight--silent all, and lone!
Oh! if thy buried love make no reply,
What voice has earth? Hear, pity, speak, mine own!
Answer me, answer me!

THE CHAMOIS HUNTER’S LOVE.

“For all his wildness and proud fantasies,
I love him.” Croly.

Thy heart is in the upper world, where fleet the chamois bounds,
Thy heart is where the mountain-fir shakes to the torrent-sounds;
And where the snow-peaks gleam like stars, through the stillness of
the air,
And where the Lauwine’s[369] peal is heard--hunter! thy heart is
there!

I know thou lov’st me well, dear friend! but better, better far,
Thou lovest that high and haughty life, with rocks and storms at
war;
In the green, sunny vales with me, thy spirit would but pine--
And yet I will be thine, my love! and yet I will be thine!

And I will not seek to woo thee down from those thy native heights,
With the sweet song, our land’s own song, of pastoral delights;
For thou must live as eagles live, thy path is not as mine--
And yet I will be thine, my love! and yet I will be thine.

And I will leave my blessed home, my father’s joyous hearth,
With all the voices meeting there in tenderness and mirth,
With all the kind and laughing eyes, that in its firelight shine,
To sit forsaken in thy hut, yet know that thou art mine!

It is my youth, it is my bloom, it is my glad free heart,
That I cast away for thee--for thee, all reckless as thou art!
With tremblings and with vigils lone I bind myself to dwell--
Yet, yet I would not change that lot; oh no! I love too well!

A mournful thing is love which grows to one so wild as thou,
With that bright restlessness of eye, that tameless fire of brow!
Mournful!--but dearer far I call its mingled fear and pride,
And the trouble of its happiness, than aught on earth beside.

To listen for thy step in vain, to start at every breath,
To watch through long, long nights of storm, to sleep and dream of
death,
To wake in doubt and loneliness--this doom I know is mine;
And yet I will be thine, my love! and yet I will be thine!

That I may greet thee from thine Alps, when thence thou com’st at
last,
That I may hear thy thrilling voice tell o’er each danger past,
That I may kneel and pray for thee, and win thee aid divine--
For this I will be thine, my love! for this I will be thine!

[369] _Lauwine_, the avalanche.

THE INDIAN WITH HIS DEAD CHILD.[370]

In the silence of the midnight
I journey with my dead;
In the darkness of the forest boughs
A lonely path I tread.

But my heart is high and fearless,
As by mighty wings upborne;
The mountain eagle hath not plumes
So strong as love and scorn.

I have raised thee from the grave-sod,
By the white man’s path defiled;
On to th’ ancestral wilderness,
I bear thy dust, my child!

I have ask’d the ancient deserts
To give my dead a place,
Where the stately footsteps of the free
Alone should leave a trace.

And the tossing pines made answer--
“Go, bring us back thine own!”
And the streams from all the hunters’ hills,
Rush’d with an echoing tone.

Thou shalt rest by sounding waters
That yet untamed may roll;
The voices of that chainless host
With joy shall fill thy soul.

In the silence of the midnight
I journey with the dead,
Where the arrows of my father’s bow
Their falcon-flight have sped.

I have left the spoilers’ dwellings
For evermore behind;
Unmingled with their household sounds,
For me shall sweep the wind.

Alone, amidst their hearth-fires,
I watch’d my child’s decay,
Uncheer’d I saw the spirit-light
From his young eyes fade away.

When his head sank on my bosom,
When the death-sleep o’er him fell,
Was there one to say, “A friend is near?”
There was none!--pale race, farewell!

To the forests, to the cedars,
To the warrior and his bow,
Back, back!--I bore thee laughing thence,
I bear thee slumbering now!

I bear thee unto burial
With the mighty hunters gone;
I shall hear thee in the forest breeze,
Thou wilt speak of joy, my son!

In the silence of the midnight
I journey with the dead;
But my heart is strong, my step is fleet,
My fathers’ path I tread.

[370] An Indian, who had established himself in a township of Maine, feeling indignantly the want of sympathy evinced towards him by the white inhabitants, particularly on the death of his only child, gave up his farm soon afterwards, dug up the body of his child, and carried it with him two hundred miles through the forests to join the Canadian Indians.--See _Tudor’s Letters on the Eastern States of America_.

SONG OF EMIGRATION.

There was heard a song on the chiming sea.
A mingled breathing of grief and glee;
Man’s voice, unbroken by sighs, was there,
Filling with triumph the sunny air;
Of fresh, green lands, and of pastures new,
It sang, while the bark through the surges flew.

But ever and anon
A murmur of farewell
Told, by its plaintive tone,
That from woman’s lip it fell.

“Away, away o’er the foaming main!”
This was the free and the joyous strain,
“There are clearer skies than ours, afar,
We will shape our course by a brighter star;
There are plains whose verdure no foot hath press’d,
And whose wealth is all for the first brave guest.”

“But, alas! that we should go,”
Sang the farewell voices then,
“From the homesteads, warm and low,
By the brook and in the glen!”

“We will rear new homes under trees that glow
As if gems were the fruitage of every bough;
O’er our white walls we will train the vine,
And sit in its shadow at day’s decline;
And watch our herds, as they range at will
Through the green savannas, all bright and still.

“But woe for that sweet shade
Of the flowering orchard-trees,
Where first our children play’d
Midst the birds and honey-bees!

“All, all our own shall the forests be,
As to the bound of the roebuck free!
None shall say, ‘Hither, no further pass!’
We will track each step through the wavy grass
We will chase the elk in his speed and might,
And bring proud spoils to the hearth at night.”

“But, oh! the gray church-tower,
And the sound of Sabbath bell,
And the shelter’d garden-bower,
We have bid them all farewell!

“We will give the names of our fearless race
To each bright river whose course we trace;
We will leave our memory with mounts and floods,
And the path of our daring in boundless woods;
And our works unto many a lake’s green shore,
Where the Indians’ graves lay, alone, before.”

“But who shall teach the flowers,
Which our children loved, to dwell
In a soil that is not ours?
Home, home and friends, farewell!”

THE KING OF ARRAGON’S LAMENT FOR HIS BROTHER.[371]

“If I could see him, it were well with me!”
Coleridge’s “Wallenstein.”

There were lights and sounds of revelling in the vanquish’d city’s
halls,
As by night the feast of victory was held within its walls;
And the conquerors fill’d the wine-cup high, after years of bright
blood shed;
But their lord, the King of Arragon, midst the triumph wail’d the
dead.

He look’d down from the fortress won, on the tents and flowers
below,
The moonlit sea, the torchlit streets--and a gloom came o’er his
brow:
The voice of thousands floated up, with the horn and cymbal’s tone;
But his heart, midst that proud music, felt more utterly alone.

And he cried, “Thou art mine, fair city! thou city of the sea!
But, oh! what portion of delight is mine at last in thee?--
I am lonely midst thy palaces, while the glad waves past them roll,
And the soft breath of thine orange bowers is mournful to my soul.

“My brother! O my brother! thou art gone--the true and brave,
And the haughty joy of victory hath died upon thy grave.
There are many round my throne to stand, and to march where I lead
on;
There was _one_ to _love_ me in the world--my brother! thou art
gone!

“In the desert, in the battle, in the ocean-tempest’s wrath,
We stood together, side by side--one hope was ours, one path;
Thou hast wrapp’d me in thy soldier’s cloak, thou hast fenced me
with thy breast;
Thou hast watch’d beside my couch of pain--oh! bravest heart, and
best!

“I see the festive lights around,--o’er a dull, sad world they
shine;
I hear the voice of victory--my Pedro! where is _thine_?
The only voice in whose kind tone my spirit found reply!--
O brother! I have bought too dear this hollow pageantry!

“I have hosts and gallant fleets, to spread my glory and my sway,
And chiefs to lead them fearlessly,--my _friend_ hath pass’d away!
For the kindly look, the word of cheer, my heart may thirst in vain;
And the face that was as light to mine--it cannot come again!

“I have made thy blood, thy faithful blood, the offering for a
crown;
With love, which earth bestows not twice, I have purchased cold
renown;
How often will my weary heart midst the sounds of triumph die,
When I think of thee, my brother! thou flower of chivalry!

“I am lonely--I am lonely! this rest is even as death!
Let me hear again the ringing spears, and the battle-trumpet’s
breath;
Let me see the fiery charger foam, and the royal banner wave--
But where art thou, my brother? where? In thy low and early grave!”

And louder swell’d the songs of joy through that victorious night,
And faster flow’d the red wine forth, by the stars’ and torches’
light:
But low and deep, amidst the mirth, was heard the conqueror’s moan--
“My brother! O my brother! best and bravest! thou art gone!”

[371] The grief of Ferdinand, King of Arragon, for the loss of his brother, Don Pedro, who was killed during the siege of Naples, is affectingly described by the historian Mariana. It is also the subject of one of the old Spanish Ballads in Lockhart’s beautiful collection.

THE RETURN.

“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?”

“Hast thou borne in thy bosom the holy prayer
Of the child in his parent-halls?”
Thus breathed a voice on the thrilling air,
From the old ancestral walls.

“Hast thou kept thy faith with the faithful dead,
Whose place of rest is nigh?
With the father’s blessing o’er thee shed,
With the mother’s trusting eye?”

Then my tears gush’d forth in sudden rain,
As I answer’d--“O ye shades!
I bring not my childhood’s heart again
To the freedom of your glades.

“I have turn’d from my first pure love aside,
O bright and happy streams!
Light after light, in my soul have died
The day-spring’s glorious dreams.

“And the holy prayer from my thoughts hath pass’d--
The prayer at my mother’s knee;
Darken’d and troubled I come at last,
Home of my boyish glee!

“But I bear from my childhood a gift of tears,
To soften and atone;
And oh! ye scenes of those bless’d years,
They shall make me again your own.”

THE VAUDOIS WIFE.[372]

“Clasp me a little longer, on the brink
Of fate! while I can feel thy dear caress;
And when this heart hath ceased to beat, oh! think--
And let it mitigate thy woe’s excess--
That thou hast been to me all tenderness,
And friend, to more than human friendship just.
Oh! by that retrospect of happiness,
And by the hopes of an immortal trust,
God shall assuage thy pangs, when I am laid in dust.”
Gertrude of Wyoming.

Thy voice is in mine ear, beloved!
Thy look is in my heart,
Thy bosom is my resting-place,
And yet I must depart.
Earth on my soul is strong--too strong--
Too precious is its chain,
All woven of thy love, dear friend,
Yet vain--though mighty--vain!

Thou see’st mine eye grow dim, beloved!
Thou see’st my life-blood flow--
Bow to the Chastener silently,
And calmly let me go!
A little while between our hearts
The shadowy gulf must lie,
Yet have we for their communing
Still, still Eternity!

Alas! thy tears are on my cheek,
My spirit they detain;
I know that from thine agony
Is wrung that burning rain.
Best! kindest! weep not--make the pang,
The bitter conflict less--
Oh! sad it is, and yet a joy,
To feel thy love’s excess!

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 kind looks and words
Shower’d on my path like dew,
For all the love in those deep eyes,
A gladness ever new!
For the voice which ne’er to mine replied
But in kindly tones of cheer;
For every spring of happiness
My soul hath tasted here!

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 rouse 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;
There 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!

[372] 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.

THE GUERILLA LEADER’S VOW.

“All my pretty ones!
Did you say all?
...
Let us make medicine of this great revenge,
To cure this deadly grief!” Macbeth.

My battle-vow!--no minster walls
Gave back the burning word,
Nor cross nor shrine the low deep tone
Of smother’d vengeance heard:
But the ashes of a ruin’d home
Thrill’d as it sternly rose,
With the mingling voice of blood that shook
The midnight’s dark repose.

I breathed it not o’er kingly tombs,
But where my children lay,
And the startled vulture at my step
Soar’d from their precious clay.
I stood amidst my dead alone--
I kiss’d their lips--I pour’d,
In the strong silence of that hour,
My spirit on my sword.

The roof-tree fallen, the smouldering floor,
The blacken’d threshold-stone,
The bright hair torn, and soil’d with blood,
Whose fountain was my own--
These, and the everlasting hills,
Bore witness that wild night;
Before them rose th’ avenger’s soul
In crush’d affection’s might.

The stars, the searching stars of heaven,
With keen looks would upbraid
If from my heart the fiery vow,
Sear’d on it then, could fade.
They have no cause! Go, ask the streams
That by my paths have swept,
The red waves that unstain’d were born--
How hath my faith been kept?

And other eyes are on my soul,
That never, never close,
The sad, sweet glances of the lost--
They leave me no repose.
Haunting my night-watch midst the rocks,
And by the torrent’s foam,
Through the dark-rolling mists they shine,
Full, full of love and home!

Alas! the mountain eagle’s heart,
When wrong’d, may yet find rest;
Scorning the place made desolate,
He seeks another nest.
But I--your soft looks wake the thirst
That wins no quenching rain;
Ye drive me back, my beautiful!
To the stormy fight again.

THEKLA AT HER LOVER’S GRAVE.

“Thither where he lies buried!
That single spot is the whole world to me.”
Coleridge’s “Wallenstein.”

Thy voice was in my soul! it call’d me on;
O my lost friend! thy voice was in my soul.
From the cold, faded world whence thou art gone,
To hear no more life’s troubled billows roll,
I come! I come!

Now speak to me again! we loved so well--
We _loved_!--oh! still, I know that still we love!
I have left all things with thy dust to dwell,
Through these dim aisles in dreams of _thee_ to rove:
This is my home!

Speak to me in the thrilling minster’s gloom!
Speak! thou hast died, and sent me no farewell!
I will not shrink--oh! mighty is the tomb,
But one thing mightier, which it cannot quell--
This woman’s heart!

This lone, full, fragile heart!--the strong alone
In love and grief--of both the burning shrine!
Thou, my soul’s friend! with grief hast surely done,
But with the love which made thy spirit mine,
Say, couldst thou part?

I hear the rustling banners; and I hear
The wind’s low singing through the fretted stone.
I hear not _thee_; and yet I feel thee near--
What is this bound that keeps thee from thine own?
Breathe it away.

I wait thee--I adjure thee! Hast thou known
How I have loved thee? couldst thou dream it all?
Am I not here, with night and death alone,
And fearing not? And hath my spirit’s call
O’er thine no sway?

Thou _canst_ not come! or thus I should not weep!
Thy love is deathless--but no longer free!
Soon would its wing triumphantly o’ersweep
The viewless barrier, if such power might be,
Soon, soon, and fast!

But I shall come to thee! our souls’ deep dreams,
Our young affections, have not gush’d in vain;
Soon in one tide shall blend the sever’d streams,
The worn heart break its bonds--and death and pain
Be with the past!

THE SISTERS OF SCIO.

“As are our hearts, our way is one,
And cannot be divided. Strong affection
Contends with all things, and o’ercometh all things.
Will I not live with thee? will I not cheer thee?
Wouldst thou be lonely then? wouldst thou be sad?”
Joanna Baillie.

“Sister, sweet sister! let me weep awhile!
Bear with me--give the sudden passion way!
Thoughts of our own lost home, our sunny isle,
Come as a wind that o’er a reed hath sway;
Till my heart dies with yearnings and sick fears--
Oh! could my life melt from me in these tears!

“Our father’s voice, our mother’s gentle eye,
Our brother’s bounding step--where are they, where?
Desolate, desolate our chambers lie!
--How hast _thou_ won thy spirit from despair?
O’er _mine_ swift shadows, gusts of terror, sweep:
I sink away--bear with me--let me weep!”

“Yes! weep my sister! weep, till from thy heart
The weight flow forth in tears; yet sink thou not.
I bind my sorrow to a lofty part,
For thee, my gentle one! our orphan lot
To meet in quenchless trust. My soul is strong:
Thou, too, wilt rise in holy might ere long.

“A breath of our free heavens and noble sires,
A memory of our old victorious dead--
These mantle me with power; and though their fires
In a frail censer briefly may be shed,
Yet shall they light us onward, side by side--
Have the wild birds, and have not _we_, a guide?

“Cheer, then, beloved! on whose meek brow is set
Our mother’s image--in whose voice a tone,
A faint, sweet sound of hers is lingering yet,
An echo of our childhood’s music gone.
Cheer thee! thy sister’s heart and faith are high:
Our path is one--with thee I live and die!”

[“But who are they that sit, mourning in their loveliness, beneath the shadow of a rock on the surf-beaten shore? The Sisters of Scio ... by Felicia Dorothea Hemans sung. Die--rather let them die in famine amongst sea-sand shells, than ere their virgin charms be polluted in the harem of the barbarian who has desolated their native isle. Bowed down and half dead, beneath what a load of anguish hangs the orphan’s dishevelled head on the knee of a sister, in pensive resignation, and holy faith triumphant over despair, as Felicia happily singeth!”--Professor Wilson, _Blackwood’s Magazine_. Dec. 1829.]

BERNARDO DEL CARPIO.

[The celebrated Spanish champion, Bernardo del Carpio, having made many ineffectual efforts to procure the release of his father, the Count Saldana, who had been imprisoned by King Alfonso of Asturias, almost from the time of Bernardo’s birth, at last took up arms in despair. The war which he maintained proved so destructive, that the men of the land gathered round the King, and united in demanding Saldana’s liberty. Alfonso, accordingly, offered Bernardo immediate possession of his father’s person in exchange for his castle of Carpio. Bernardo, without hesitation, gave up his stronghold, with all his captives; and being assured that his father was then on his way from prison, rode forth with the King to meet him. “And when he saw his father approaching, he exclaimed,” says the ancient chronicle, “‘Oh, God! is the Count of Saldana indeed coming?’--‘Look where he is,’ replied the cruel King; ‘and now go and greet him whom you have so long desired to see.’” The remainder of the story will be found related in the ballad. The chronicles and romances leave us nearly in the dark as to Bernardo’s history after this event.]

The warrior bow’d his crested head, and tamed his heart of fire,
And sued the haughty king to free his long-imprison’d sire:
“I bring thee here my fortress keys, I bring my captive train,
I pledge thee faith, my liege, my lord!--oh, break my father’s
chain!”

“Rise, rise! even now thy father comes, a ransom’d man this day:
Mount thy good horse, and thou and I will meet him on his way.”
Then lightly rose that loyal son, and bounded on his steed,
And urged, as if with lance in rest, the charger’s foamy speed.

And lo! from far, as on they press’d, there came a glittering band,
With one that midst them stately rode, as a leader in the land;
“Now haste, Bernardo, haste! for there, in very truth, is he,
The father whom thy faithful heart hath yearn’d so long to see.”

His dark eye flash’d, his proud breast heaved, his cheek’s blood
came and went;
He reach’d that gray-hair’d chieftain’s side, and there,
dismounting, bent;
A lowly knee to earth he bent, his father’s hand he took,--
What was there in its touch that all his fiery spirit shook?

That hand was cold--a frozen thing--it dropp’d from his like lead:
He look’d up to the face above--the face was of the dead!
A plume waved o’er the noble brow--the brow was fix’d and white;
He met at last his father’s eyes--but in them was no sight!

Up from the ground he sprang, and gazed, but who could paint that
gaze?
They hush’d their very hearts, that saw its horror and amaze;
They might have chain’d him, as before that stony form he stood,
For the power was stricken from his arm, and from his lip the blood.

“Father!” at length he murmur’d low, and wept like childhood then--
Talk not of grief till thou hast seen the tears of warlike men!--
He thought on all his glorious hopes, and all his young renown,--
He flung the falchion from his side, and in the dust sat down.

Then covering with his steel-gloved hands his darkly mournful brow,
“No more, there is no more,” he said, “to lift the sword for now.--
My king is false, my hope betray’d, my father--oh! the worth,
The glory and the loveliness, are pass’d away from earth!

“I thought to stand where banners waved, my sire! beside thee yet--
I would that _there_ our kindred blood on Spain’s free soil had met!
Thou wouldst have known my spirit then--for thee my fields were
won,--
And thou hast perish’d in thy chains, as though thou hadst no son!”

Then, starting from the ground once more, he seized the monarch’s
rein,
Amidst the pale and wilder’d looks of all the courtier train;
And with a fierce, o’ermastering grasp, the rearing war-horse led,
And sternly set them face to face--the king before the dead!--

“Came I not forth upon thy pledge, my father’s hand to kiss?--
Be still, and gaze thou on, false king! and tell me what is this!
The voice, the glance, the heart I sought--give answer, where are
they?--
If thou wouldst clear thy perjured soul, send life through this cold
clay!

“Into these glassy eyes put light----Be still! keep down thine
ire,--
Bid these white lips a blessing speak--this earth is _not_ my sire!
Give me back him for whom I strove, for whom my blood was shed,--
Thou canst not--and a king! His dust be mountains on thy head!”

He loosed the steed; his slack hand fell--upon the silent face
He cast one long, deep, troubled look--then turn’d from that sad
place:
His hope was crush’d, his after-fate untold in martial strain,--
His banner led the spears no more amidst the hills of Spain.

THE TOMB OF MADAME LANGHANS.

“To a mysteriously consorted pair
This place is consecrate; to death and life,
And to the best affections that proceed
From this conjunction.” Wordsworth.

[At Hindlebank, near Berne, she is represented as bursting from the sepulchre, with her infant in her arms, at the sound of the last trumpet. An inscription on the tomb concludes thus:--“Here am I, O God! with the child whom thou hast given me.”]