Chapter LI: Part II (14)

She came forth in her bridal robes array’d,
And midst the graceful statues, round the hall
Shedding the calm of their celestial mien,
Stood pale yet proudly beautiful as they:
Flowers in her bosom, and the star-like gleam
Of jewels trembling from her braided hair,
And _death_ upon her brow!--but glorious death!
Her own heart’s choice, the token and the seal
Of love, o’ermastering love; which, till that hour,
Almost an anguish in the brooding weight
Of its unutterable tenderness,
Had burden’d her full soul. But now, oh! now,
Its time was come--and from the spirit’s depths,
The passion and the mighty melody
Of its immortal voice in triumph broke,
Like a strong rushing wind!

The soft pure air
Came floating through that hall--the Grecian air,
Laden with music--flute-notes from the vales,
Echoes of song--the last sweet sounds of life
And the glad sunshine of the golden clime
Stream’d, as a royal mantle, round her form--
The glorified of love! But she--she look’d
Only on _him_ for whom ’twas joy to die,
Deep--deepest, holiest joy! Or if a thought
Of the warm sunlight, and the scented breeze,
And the sweet Dorian songs, o’erswept the tide
Of her unswerving soul--’twas but a thought
That own’d the summer loveliness of life
For _him_ a worthy offering! So she stood,
Wrapt in bright silence, as entranced awhile;
Till her eye kindled, and her quivering frame
With the swift breeze of inspiration shook,
As the pale priestess trembles to the breath
Of inborn oracles! Then flush’d her cheek,
And all the triumph, all the agony,
Borne on the battling waves of love and death,
All from her woman’s heart, in sudden song,
Burst like a fount of fire.

“I go, I go!
Thou sun! thou golden sun! I go
Far from thy light to dwell:
Thou shalt not find my place below,
Dim is that world--bright sun of Greece, farewell!

“The laurel and the glorious rose
Thy glad beam yet may see;
But where no purple summer glows,
O’er the dark wave _I_ haste from them and thee.

“Yet doth my spirit faint to part?
--I mourn thee not, O sun!
Joy, solemn joy, o’erflows my heart:
Sing me triumphal songs!--my crown is won!

“Let not a voice of weeping rise--
My heart is girt with power!
Let the green earth and festal skies
Laugh, as to grace a conqueror’s closing hour!

“For thee, for _thee_, my bosom’s lord!
Thee, my soul’s loved! I die;
Thine is the torch of life restored,
Mine, mine the rapture, mine the victory!

“Now may the boundless love, that lay
Unfathom’d still before,
In one consuming burst find way--
In one bright flood all, all its riches pour!

“Thou know’st, thou know’st what love is _now_!
Its glory and its might--
Are they not written on my brow?
And will that image ever quit thy sight?

“No! deathless in thy faithful breast,
There shall my memory keep
Its own bright altar-place of rest,
While o’er my grave the cypress branches weep.

“Oh, the glad light!--the light is fair,
The soft breeze warm and free;
And rich notes fill the scented air,
And all are gifts--_my_ love’s last gifts to thee!

“Take me to thy warm heart once more!
Night falls--my pulse beats low:
Seek not to quicken, to restore--
Joy is in every pang. I go, I go!

“I feel thy tears, I feel thy breath,
I meet thy fond look still;
Keen is the strife of love and death;
Faint and yet fainter grows my bosom’s thrill.

“Yet swells the tide of rapture strong,
Though mists o’ershade mine eye!
--Sing, Pæan! sing a conqueror’s song!
For thee, for _thee_, my spirit’s lord, I die!”

THE HOME OF LOVE.

Thou mov’st in visions, Love! Around thy way,
E’en through this world’s rough path and changeful day,
For ever floats a gleam--
Not from the realms of moonlight or the morn,
But thine own soul’s illumined chambers born--
The colouring of a dream!

Love! shall I read thy dream? Oh! is it not
All of some sheltering wood-embosom’d spot--
A bower for thee and thine?
Yes! lone and lowly is that home; yet there
Something of heaven in the transparent air
Makes every flower divine.

Something that mellows and that glorifies,
Breathes o’er it ever from the tender skies,
As o’er some blessed isle;
E’en like the soft and spiritual glow
Kindling rich woods, whereon th’ ethereal bow
Sleeps lovingly awhile.

The very whispers of the wind have there
A flute-like harmony, that seems to bear
Greeting from some bright shore,
Where none have said _farewell_!--where no decay
Lends the faint crimson to the dying day;
Where the storm’s might is o’er.

And there thou dreamest of Elysian rest,
In the deep sanctuary of one true breast
Hidden from earthly ill:
There wouldst thou watch the homeward step, whose sound
Wakening all nature to sweet echoes round,
Thine inmost soul can thrill.

There by the hearth should many a glorious page,
From mind to mind the immortal heritage,
For thee its treasures pour;
Or music’s voice at vesper hours be heard,
Or dearer interchange of playful word,
Affection’s household lore.

And the rich unison of mingled prayer,
The melody of hearts in heavenly air,
Thence duly should arise;
Lifting th’ eternal hope, th’ adoring breath,
Of spirits, not to be disjoin’d by death,
Up to the starry skies.

There, dost thou well believe, no storm should come
To mar the stillness of that angel-home;
There should thy slumbers be
Weigh’d down with honey-dew, serenely bless’d,
Like theirs who first in Eden’s grove took rest
Under some balmy tree.

Love! Love! thou passionate in joy and woe!
And canst _thou_ hope for cloudless peace below--
_Here_, where bright things must die?
O thou! that, wildly worshipping, dost shed
On the frail altar of a mortal head
Gifts of infinity!

Thou must be still a trembler, fearful Love!
Danger seems gathering from beneath, above,
Still round thy precious things;
Thy stately pine-tree, or thy gracious rose,
In their sweet shade can yield thee no repose,
Here, where the blight hath wings.

And as a flower, with some fine sense imbued,
To shrink before the wind’s vicissitude,
So in thy prescient breast
Are lyre-strings quivering with prophetic thrill
To the low footstep of each coming ill:
Oh! canst _thou_ dream of rest?

Bear up thy dream! thou mighty and thou weak!
Heart, strong as death, yet as a reed to break--
As a flame, tempest-sway’d!
He that sits calm on high is yet the source
Whence thy soul’s current hath its troubled course,
He that great deep hath made!

Will He not pity?--He whose searching eye
Reads all the secrets of thine agony?--
Oh! pray to be forgiven
Thy fond idolatry, thy blind excess,
And seek with _Him_ that bower of blessedness.
Love! _thy_ sole home is heaven!

BOOKS AND FLOWERS.

“La vue d’une fleur caresse mon imagination, et flatte mes sens a un point inexprimable. Sous le tranquille abri du toit paternel j’etais nourrie des l’enfance avec des fleurs et des livres; dans l’etroite enceinte d’une prison, au milieu des fers imposies par la tyrannie, j’oublie l’injustice des hommes, leurs sottises et mes maux, avec des livres et des fleurs.”

Come! let me make a sunny realm around thee
Of thought and beauty! Here are books and flowers,
With spells to loose the fetter which hath bound thee
The ravel’d coil of this world’s feverish hours.

The soul of song is in these deathless pages,
Even as the odour in the flower enshrined;
Here the crown’d spirits of departed ages
Have left the silent melodies of mind.

Their thoughts, that strove with time, and change, and anguish,
For some high place where faith her wing might rest,
Are burning here--a flame that may not languish--
Still pointing upward to that bright hill’s crest!

Their grief, the veil’d infinity exploring
For treasures lost, is here;--their boundless love,
Its mighty streams of gentleness outpouring
On all things round, and clasping all above.

And the bright beings, their own heart’s creations,
Bright, yet all human, here are breathing still;
Conflicts, and agonies, and exultations
Are here, and victories of prevailing will!

Listen! oh, listen! let their high words cheer thee!
Their swan-like music ringing through all woes;
Let my voice bring their holy influence near thee--
The Elysian air of their divine repose!

Or would’st thou turn to earth? _Not_ earth all furrow’d
By the old traces of man’s toil and care,
But the green peaceful world that never sorrow’d,
The world of leaves, and dews, and summer air!

Look on these flowers! as o’er an altar shedding,
O’er Milton’s page, soft light from colour’d urns!
They are the links, man’s heart to nature wedding,
When to her breast the prodigal returns.

They are from lone wild places, forest dingles,
Fresh banks of many a low-voiced hidden stream,
Where the sweet star of eve looks down and mingles
Faint lustre with the water-lily’s gleam.

They are from where the soft winds play in gladness,
Covering the turf with flowery blossom-showers;
--Too richly dower’d, O friend! are we for sadness--
Look on an empire--mind and nature--ours!

[“The ‘brightly associated hours’ she passed with Mrs Lawrence, have been alluded to by Mrs Hemans, in the dedication to the ‘National Lyrics,’ and recorded by ‘her friend, and the sister of her friend, Colonel D’Aguilar,’ in her own affectionate ‘Recollections.’ The ‘Books and Flowers’ of Wavertree Hall were ever fondly identified with their dear mistress; and, years after the enjoyment of them had passed away from all senses but memory, she who was then herself, too, ‘passing away,’ thus tenderly alluded to them from her sick couch at Redesdale:--‘When I write to you, my imagination always brightens, and pleasant thoughts of lovely flowers, and dear old books, and strains of antique Italian melody, come floating over me, as Bacon says the rich scents go ‘to and fro like music in the air.’”]

FOR A PICTURE OF ST CECILIA ATTENDED BY ANGELS.

“How rich that forehead’s calm expanse!
How bright that heaven-directed glance!
--Waft her to glory, winged powers!
Ere sorrow be renew’d,
And intercourse with mortal hours
Bring back a humbler mood!” Wordsworth.

How can that eye, with inspiration beaming,
Wear yet so deep a calm? O child of song!
Is not the music-land a world of dreaming,
Where forms of sad, bewildering beauty throng?

Hath it not sounds from voices long departed?
Echoes of tones that rung in childhood’s ear?
Low haunting whispers, which the weary-hearted,
Stealing midst crowds away, have wept to hear?

No, not to thee! _Thy_ spirit, meek, yet queenly,
On its own starry height, beyond all this,
Floating triumphantly and yet serenely,
Breathes no faint under-tone through songs of bliss.

Say by what strain, through cloudless ether swelling,
Thou hast drawn down those wanderers from the skies?
Bright guests! even such as left of yore their dwelling
For the deep cedar-shades of Paradise!

What strain? Oh! not the nightingale’s, when, showering
Her own heart’s life-drops on the burning lay,
She stirs the young woods in the days of flowering,
And pours her strength, but not her grief, away:

And not the exile’s--when, midst lonely billows,
He wakes the Alpine notes his mother sung,
Or blends them with the sigh of alien willows,
Where, murmuring to the wind, his harp is hung:

And not the pilgrim’s--though his thoughts be holy,
And sweet his avè-song when day grows dim;
Yet, as he journeys, pensively and slowly,
Something of sadness floats through that low hymn.

But thou!--the spirit which at eve is filling
All the hush’d air and reverential sky--
Founts, leaves, and flowers, with solemn rapture thrilling--
This is the soul of _thy_ rich harmony.

This bears up high those breathings of devotion
Wherein the currents of thy heart gush free;
Therefore no world of sad and vain emotion
Is the dream-haunted music-land for _thee_.

THE BRIGAND LEADER AND HIS WIFE.

SUGGESTED BY A PICTURE OF EASTLAKE’S.

Dark chieftain of the heath and height!
Wild feaster on the hills by night!
See’st thou the stormy sunset’s glow
Flung back by glancing spears below?
Now for one strife of stern despair!
The foe hath track’d thee to thy lair.

Thou, against whom the voice of blood
Hath risen from rock and lonely wood;
And in whose dreams a moan should be,
Not of the water, nor the tree;
Haply thine own last hour is nigh,--
Yet shalt thou not forsaken die.

There’s one that pale beside thee stands,
More true than all thy mountain-bands!
She will not shrink in doubt and dread
When the balls whistle round thy head:
Nor leave thee, though thy closing eye
No longer may to hers reply.

Oh! many a soft and quiet grace
Hath faded from her form and face;
And many a thought, the fitting guest
Of woman’s meek, religious breast,
Hath perish’d in her wanderings wide,
Through the deep forests by thy side.

Yet, mournfully surviving all,
A flower upon a ruin’s wall--
A friendless thing, whose lot is cast
Of lovely ones to be the last--
Sad, but unchanged through good and ill,
Thine is her lone devotion still.

And oh! not wholly lost the heart
Where that undying love hath part;
Not worthless all, though far and long
From home estranged, and guided wrong;
Yet may its depths by heaven be stirr’d,
Its prayer for thee be pour’d and heard!

THE CHILD’S RETURN FROM THE WOODLANDS.

SUGGESTED BY A PICTURE OF SIR THOMAS LAWRENCE’S.

“All good and guiltless as thou art,
Some transient griefs will touch thy heart--
Griefs that along thy alter’d face
Will breathe a more subduing grace,
Than even those looks of joy that lie
On the soft cheek of infancy.” Wilson.

Hast thou been in the woods with the honey-bee?
Hast thou been with the lamb in the pastures free?
With the hare through the copses and dingles wild?
With the butterfly over the heath, fair child?
Yes! the light fall of thy bounding feet
Hath not startled the wren from her mossy seat:
Yet hast thou ranged the green forest-dells,
And brought back a treasure of buds and bells.

Thou know’st not the sweetness, by antique song
Breathed o’er the names of that flowery throng:
The woodbine, the primrose, the violet dim,
The lily that gleams by the fountain’s brim;
These are old words, that have made each grove
A dreaming haunt for romance and love--
Each sunny bank, where faint odours lie,
A place for the gushings of poesy.

Thou know’st not the light wherewith fairy lore
Sprinkles the turf and the daisies o’er:
Enough for thee are the dews that sleep
Like hidden gems in the flower-urns deep;
Enough the rich crimson spots that dwell
Midst the gold of the cowslip’s perfumed cell;
And the scent by the blossoming sweetbriers shed,
And the beauty that bows the wood-hyacinth’s head.

O happy child! in thy fawn-like glee,
What is remembrance or thought to thee?
Fill thy bright locks with those gifts of spring,
O’er thy green pathway their colours fling;
Bind them in chaplet and wild festoon--
What if to droop and to perish soon?
Nature hath mines of such wealth--and thou
Never will prize its delights as now!

For a day is coming to quell the tone
That rings in thy laughter, thou joyous one!
And to dim thy brow with a touch of care,
Under the gloss of its clustering hair;
And to tame the flash of thy cloudless eyes
Into the stillness of autumn skies;
And to teach thee that grief hath her needful part
Midst the hidden things of each human heart.

Yet shall we mourn, gentle child! for this?
Life hath enough of yet holier bliss!
Such be thy portion!--the bliss to look,
With a reverent spirit, through nature’s book;
By fount, by forest, by river’s line,
To track the paths of a love divine;
To read its deep meanings--to see and hear
God in earth’s garden--and not to fear!

THE FAITH OF LOVE.

Thou hast watch’d beside the bed of death,
O fearless human Love!
Thy lip received the last, faint breath,
Ere the spirit fled above.

Thy prayer was heard by the parting bier,
In a low and farewell tone;
Thou hast given the grave both flower and tear--
--O Love! thy task is done.

Then turn thee from each pleasant spot
Where thou wert wont to rove;
For there the friend of thy soul is not,
Nor the joy of thy youth, O Love!

Thou wilt meet but mournful Memory there;
Her dreams in the grove she weaves,
With echoes filling the summer air,
With sighs the trembling leaves.

Then turn thee to the world again,
From those dim, haunted bowers,
And shut thine ear to the wild, sweet strain
That tells of vanish’d hours.

And wear not on thine aching heart
The image of the dead;
For the tie is rent that gave thee part
In the gladness its beauty shed.

And gaze on the pictured smile no more
That thus can life outlast:
All between parted souls is o’er.--
Love! Love! forget the past!

“Voice of vain boding! away, be still!
Strive not against the faith
That yet my bosom with light can fill,
Unquench’d, and undim’d by death.

“From the pictured smile I will not turn,
Though sadly now it shine;
Nor quit the shades that in whispers mourn
For the step once link’d with mine;

“Nor shut mine ear to the song of old,
Though its notes the pang renew.
--Such memories deep in my heart I hold,
To keep it pure and true.

“By the holy instinct of my heart,
By the hope that bears me on,
I have still my own undying part
In the deep affection gone.

“By the presence that about me seems
Through night and day to dwell,
Voice of vain bodings and fearful dreams!
--I have breathed no _last_ farewell!”

THE SISTER’S DREAM.

[Suggested by a picture in which a young girl is represented as sleeping, and visited during her slumbers by the spirits of her departed sisters.]

She sleeps!--but not the free and sunny sleep
That lightly on the brow of childhood lies:
Though happy be her rest, and soft, and deep,
Yet, ere it sank upon her shadow’d eyes,
Thoughts of past scenes and kindred graves o’erswept
Her soul’s meek stillness--she had pray’d and wept.

And now in visions to her couch they come,
The early lost--the beautiful--the dead!
That unto her bequeath’d a mournful home,
Whence with their voices all sweet laughter fled
They rise--the sisters of her youth arise,
As from the world where no frail blossom dies.

And well the sleeper knows them not of earth--
Not as they were when binding up the flowers,
Telling wild legends round the winter-hearth,
Braiding their long, fair hair for festal hours:
These things are past--a spiritual gleam,
A solemn glory, robes them in that dream.

Yet, if the glee of life’s fresh budding years
In those pure aspects may no more be read,
Thence, too, hath sorrow melted--and the tears
Which o’er their mother’s holy dust they shed,
Are all effaced. There earth hath left no sign
Save its deep love, still touching every line.

But oh! more soft, more tender--breathing more
A thought of pity, than in vanish’d days!
While, hovering silently and brightly o’er
The lone one’s head, they meet her spirit’s gaze
With their immortal eyes, that seem to say,
“Yet, sister! yet we love thee--come away!”

’Twill fade, the radiant dream! And will she not
Wake with more painful yearning at her heart?
Will not her home seem yet a lonelier spot,
Her task more sad, when those bright shadows part?
And the green summer after them look dim,
And sorrow’s tone be in the bird’s wild hymn?

But let her hope be strong, and let the dead
Visit her soul in heaven’s calm beauty still;
Be their names utter’d, be their memory spread
Yet round the place they never more may fill!
All is not over with earth’s broken tie--
Where, where should sisters love, if not on high?

A FAREWELL TO ABBOTSFORD.

[These lines were given to Sir Walter Scott, at the gate of Abbotsford, in the summer of 1829. He was then apparently in the vigour of an existence whose energies promised long continuance; and the glance of his quick, smiling eye, and the very sound of his kindly voice, seemed to kindle the gladness of his own sunny and benignant spirit in all who had the happiness of approaching him.]

Home of the gifted! fare thee well,
And a blessing on thee rest!
While the heather waves its purple bell
O’er moor and mountain-crest;
While stream to stream around thee calls,
And braes with broom are drest,
Glad be the harping in thy halls--
A blessing on thee rest!

While the high voice from thee sent forth
Bids rock and cairn reply,
Wakening the spirits of the North
Like a chieftain’s gathering-cry;
While its deep master-tones hold sway
As a king’s o’er every breast,
Home of the Legend and the Lay!
A blessing on thee rest!

Joy to thy hearth, and board, and bower!
Long honours to thy line!
And hearts of proof, and hands of power,
And bright names worthy thine!
By the merry step of childhood, still
May thy free sward be prest!
--While one proud pulse in the land can thrill,
A blessing on thee rest!

O’CONNOR’S CHILD.

[This piece was suggested by a picture in the possession of Mrs Lawrence of Wavertree Hall. It represents the “Hero’s Child” of Campbell’s Poem, seated beside a solitary tomb of rock, marked with a cross, in a wild and desert place. A tempest seems gathering in the angry skies above her, but the attitude of the drooping figure expresses the utter carelessness of desolation, and the countenance speaks of entire abstraction from all external objects. A bow and quiver lie beside her, amongst the weeds and wild-flowers of the desert.]

“I fled the home of grief
At Connocht Moran’s tomb to fall,
I found the helmet of my chief,
His bow still hanging on our wall;
And took it down, and vow’d to rove
This desert place a huntress bold;
Nor would I change my buried love
For any heart of living mould.”
Campbell.

The sleep of storms is dark upon the skies,
The weight of omens heavy in the cloud:--
Bid the lorn huntress of the desert rise,
And gird the form whose beauty grief hath bow’d,
And leave the tomb, as tombs are left--alone,
To the star’s vigil, and the wind’s wild moan.

Tell her of revelries in bower and hall,
Where gems are glittering, and bright wine is pour’d;
Where to glad measures chiming footsteps fall,
And soul seems gushing from the harp’s full chord;
And richer flowers amid fair tresses wave,
Than the sad _Love-lies-bleeding_ of the grave.

Oh! little know’st thou of th’ o’ermastering spell
Wherewith love binds the spirit, strong in pain,
To the spot hallow’d by a wild farewell,
A parting agony,--intense, yet vain,
A look--and darkness when its gleam hath flown,
A voice--and silence when its words are gone!

She hears thee not: her full, deep, fervent heart
Is set in her dark eyes;--and _they_ are bound
Unto that cross, that shrine, that world apart,
Where faithful blood hath sanctified the ground;
And love with death striven long by tear and prayer,
And anguish frozen into still despair.

Yet on her spirit hath arisen at last
A light, a joy, of its own wanderings born;
Around her path a vision’s glow is cast,
Back, back her lost one comes in hues of morn![397]
For her the gulf is fill’d--the dark night fled,
Whose mystery parts the living and the dead.

And she can pour forth in such converse high
All her soul’s tide of love, the deep, the strong.
Oh! lonelier far, perchance, _thy_ destiny,
And more forlorn, amidst the world’s gay throng,
Than hers--the queen of that majestic gloom,
The tempest, and the desert, and the tomb!

[397] “A son of light, a lovely form, He comes, and makes her glad.”--Campbell.

THE PRAYER FOR LIFE.

O sunshine and fair earth!
Sweet is your kindly mirth;
Angel of death! yet, yet awhile delay!
Too sad it is to part,
Thus in my spring of heart,
With all the light and laughter of the day.

For me the falling leaf
Touches no chord of grief,
No dark void in the rose’s bosom lies:
Not one triumphal tone,
One hue of hope, is gone
From song or bloom beneath the summer skies.

Death, Death! ere yet decay,
Call me not hence away!
Over the golden hours no shade is thrown:
The poesy that dwells
Deep in green woods and dells
Still to my spirit speaks of joy alone.

Yet not for this, O Death!
Not for the vernal breath
Of winds that shake forth music from the trees:
Not for the splendour given
To night’s dark, regal heaven,
Spoiler! I ask thee not reprieve for these.

But for the happy love
Whose light, where’er I rove,
Kindles all nature to a sudden smile,
Shedding on branch and flower
A rainbow-tinted shower
Of richer life--spare, spare me yet awhile.

Too soon, too fast thou’rt come!
Too beautiful is home--
A home of gentle voices and kind eyes!
And I the loved of all,
On whom fond blessings fall
From every lip. Oh! wilt thou rend such ties?

Sweet sisters! weave a chain
My spirit to detain:
Hold me to earth with strong affection back;
Bind me with mighty love
Unto the stream, the grove,
Our daily paths--our life’s familiar track.

Stay with me! gird me round!
Your voices bear a sound
Of hope--a light comes with you and departs;
Hush my soul’s boding swell,
That murmurs of farewell.
How can I leave this ring of kindest hearts?

Death! grave!--and are there those
That woo your dark repose
Midst the rich beauty of the glowing earth?
Surely about them lies
No world of loving eyes.
Leave me, oh! leave me unto home and hearth!

THE WELCOME TO DEATH.

Thou art welcome, O thou warning voice!
My soul hath pined for thee;
Thou art welcome as sweet sounds from shore
To wanderer on the sea.
I hear thee in the rustling woods,
In the sighing vernal airs;
Thou call’st me from the lonely earth
With a deeper tone than theirs.

The lonely earth! Since kindred steps
From its green paths are fled,
A dimness and a hush have lain
O’er all its beauty spread.
The silence of th’ unanswering soul
Is on me and around;
My heart hath echoes but for _thee_,
Thou still, small, warning sound!

Voice after voice hath died away,
Once in my dwelling heard;
Sweet household name by name hath changed
To grief’s forbidden word!
From dreams of night on each I call,
Each of the far removed;
And waken to my own wild cry--
“Where are ye, my beloved?”

Ye left me! and earth’s flowers were dim
With records of the past;
And stars pour’d down another light
Than o’er my youth they cast.
Birds will not sing as once they sung,
When ye were at my side,
And mournful tones are in the wind
Which I heard not till ye died!

Thou art welcome, O thou summoner!
Why should the last remain?
What eye can reach my heart of hearts,
Bearing in light again?
E’en could this be, too much of fear
O’er love would now be thrown.--
Away! away! from time, from change,
Once more to meet my own!

THE VICTOR.

“De tout ce qui t’aimoit n’est-il plus rien qui t’aime?”
Lamartine.

Mighty ones, Love and Death!
Ye are the strong in this world of ours;
Ye meet at the banquets, ye dwell midst the flowers,
--Which hath the conqueror’s wreath?

_Thou_ art the victor, Love!
_Thou_ art the fearless, the crown’d, the free,
The strength of the battle is given to thee--
The spirit from above!

Thou hast look’d on Death, and smiled!
Thou hast borne up the reed-like and fragile form
Through the waves of the fight, through the rush of the storm,
On field, and flood, and wild!

No!--_Thou_ art the victor, Death!
Thou comest, and where is that which spoke,
From the depths of the eye, when the spirit woke?
--Gone with the fleeting breath!

Thou comest--and what is left
Of all that loved us, to say if aught
_Yet loves_--yet answers the burning thought
Of the spirit lone and reft?

Silence is where thou art!
Silently there must kindred meet,
No smile to cheer, and no voice to greet,
No bounding of heart to heart!

Boast not thy victory, Death!
It is but as the cloud’s o’er the sunbeam’s power,
It is but as the winter’s o’er leaf and flower,
That slumber the snow beneath.

It is but as a tyrant’s reign
O’er the voice and the lip which he bids be still;
But the fiery thought and the lofty will
Are not for him to chain!

They shall soar his might above!
And thus with the root whence affection springs,
Though buried, it is not of mortal things--
_Thou_ art the victor, Love!

LINES WRITTEN FOR THE ALBUM AT ROSANNA.[398]

Oh! lightly tread through these deep chestnut-bowers,
Where a sweet spirit once in beauty moved!
And touch with reverent hand these leaves and flowers--
Fair things, which well a gentle heart hath loved!
A gentle heart, of love and grief th’ abode,
Whence the bright stream of song in tear-drops flow’d.

And bid its memory sanctify the scene!
And let th’ ideal presence of the dead
Float round, and touch the woods with softer green,
And o’er the streams a charm, like moonlight, shed,
Through the soul’s depths in holy silence felt--
A spell to raise, to chasten, and to melt!

[398] A beautiful place in the county of Wicklow, formerly the abode of the authoress of “Psyche.”

THE VOICE OF THE WAVES.

WRITTEN NEAR THE SCENE OF A RECENT SHIPWRECK.

“How perfect was the calm! It seem’d no sleep,
No mood which season takes away or brings;
I could have fancied that the mighty deep
Was even the gentlest of all gentle things.
...
But welcome fortitude and patient cheer,
And frequent sights of what is to be borne.”
Wordsworth.

Answer, ye chiming waves
That now in sunshine sweep!
Speak to me from thy hidden caves,
Voice of the solemn deep!

Hath man’s lone spirit here
With storms in battle striven?
Where all is now so calmly clear,
Hath anguish cried to heaven?

--Then the sea’s voice arose
Like an earthquake’s under-tone:
“Mortal! the strife of human woes
_Where_ hath _not_ nature known?

“Here to the quivering mast
Despair hath wildly clung;
The shriek upon the wind hath pass’d,
The midnight sky hath rung.

“And the youthful and the brave,
With their beauty and renown,
To the hollow chambers of the wave
In darkness have gone down.

“They are vanish’d from their place--
Let their homes and hearths make moan!
But the rolling waters keep no trace
Of pang or conflict gone.”

--Alas! thou haughty deep!
The strong, the sounding far!
My heart before thee dies,--I weep
To think on what we are!

To think that so we pass--
High hope, and thought, and mind--
Even as the breath-stain from the glass,
Leaving no sign behind!

Saw’st thou naught else, thou main?
Thou and the midnight sky?
Naught save the struggle, brief and vain,
The parting agony!

--And the sea’s voice replied:
“Here nobler things have been!
Power, with the valiant when they died,
To sanctify the scene:

“Courage, in fragile form,
Faith, trusting to the last,
Prayer, breathing heavenwards thro’ the storm:
But all alike have pass’d.”

Sound on, thou haughty sea!
_These_ have not pass’d in vain;
My soul awakes, my hope springs free
On victor wings again.

_Thou_, from thine empire driven,
May’st vanish with thy powers;
But, by the hearts that here have striven,
A loftier doom is ours!

THE HAUNTED HOUSE.

“I seem like one who treads alone
Some banquet hall deserted,
Whose lights are fled, whose garlands dead,
And all but me departed.” Moore.

See’st thou yon gray, gleaming hall,
Where the deep elm-shadows fall?
Voices that have left the earth
Long ago,
Still are murmuring round its hearth,
Soft and low:
Ever there;--yet one alone
Hath the gift to hear their tone.
Guests come thither, and depart,
Free of step, and light of heart;
Children, with sweet visions bless’d,
In the haunted chambers rest;
One alone unslumbering lies
When the night hath seal’d all eyes,
One quick heart and watchful ear,
Listening for those whispers clear.

See’st thou where the woodbine-flowers
O’er yon low porch hang in showers?
Startling faces of the dead,
Pale, yet sweet,
One lone woman’s entering tread
There still meet!
Some with young, smooth foreheads fair,
Faintly shining through bright hair;
Some with reverend locks of snow--
All, all buried long ago!
All, from under deep sea-waves,
Or the flowers of foreign graves,
Or the old and banner’d aisle,
Where their high tombs gleam the while;
Rising, wandering, floating by,
Suddenly and silently,
Through their earthly home and place,
But amidst another race.

Wherefore, unto one alone,
Are those sounds and visions known?
Wherefore hath that spell of power
Dark and dread,
On _her_ soul, a baleful dower,
Thus been shed?
Oh! in those deep-seeing eyes,
No strange gift of mystery lies!
She is lone where once she moved
Fair, and happy, and beloved!
Sunny smiles were glancing round her,
Tendrils of kind hearts had bound her.
Now those silver chords are broken,
Those bright looks have left no token--
Not one trace on all the earth,
Save her memory of their mirth.
She is lone and lingering now,
Dreams have gather’d o’er her brow,
Midst gay songs and children’s play,
She is dwelling far away,
Seeing what none else may see--
Haunted still her place must be!

[“Mrs Hemans resided in the immediate vicinity of this old house (in the village of Wavertree) for nearly three years’: it (Wavertree Hall) suggested her beautiful poem, ‘Books and Flowers;’ and one of her most exquisite lyrics, ‘The Haunted House,’ describes its local scenery, and gives ‘a brief abstract’ of the sufferings and feelings of one of its inhabitants.”--_Recollections of Mrs Hemans_, by Mrs Lawrence.

The same subject has been treated by the late lamented Thomas Hood in a poem under a similar title.--_Vide Poems_, vol. i. p. 48. It is worth referring to, if for nothing else than observing how it has been dealt with by two ingenious and original minds. Mrs Hemans’s lyric was first published.]

THE SHEPHERD-POET OF THE ALPS.

“God gave him reverence of laws,
Yet stirring blood in freedom’s cause--
A spirit to his rocks akin,
The eye of the hawk, and the fire therein!” Coleridge.

Singing of the free blue sky,
And the wild-flower glens that lie
Far amidst the ancient hills,
Which the fountain-music fills;
Singing of the snow-peaks bright,
And the royal eagle’s flight,
And the courage and the grace
Foster’d by the chamois-chase;
In his fetters, day by day,
So the Shepherd-poet lay.
Wherefore, from a dungeon-cell
Did those notes of freedom swell,
Breathing sadness not their own
Forth with every Alpine tone?
Wherefore!--can a tyrant’s ear
Brook the mountain-winds to hear,
When each blast goes pealing by
With a song of liberty?
Darkly hung th’ oppressor’s hand
O’er the Shepherd-poet’s land;
Sounding there the waters gush’d,
While the lip of man was hush’d;
There the falcon pierced the cloud,
While the fiery heart was bow’d.
But this might not long endure,
Where the mountain-homes were pure;
And a valiant voice arose,
Thrilling all the silent snows;
_His_--now singing far and lone,
Where the young breeze ne’er was known;
Singing of the glad blue sky,
Wildly--and how mournfully!

Are none but the Wind and the Lammer-Geyer
To be free where the hills unto heaven aspire?
Is the soul of song from the deep glens past,
Now that their poet is chain’d at last?--
Think of the mountains, and deem not so!
Soon shall each blast like a clarion blow!
Yes! though forbidden be every word
Wherewith that spirit the Alps hath stirr’d,
Yet even as a buried stream through earth
Rolls on to another and brighter birth,
So shall the voice that hath seem’d to die
Burst forth with the anthem of liberty!

And another power is moving
In a bosom fondly loving:
Oh! a sister’s heart is deep,
And her spirit strong to keep
Each light link of early hours,
All sweet scents of childhood’s flowers!
Thus each lay by Erni sung,
Rocks and crystal caves among,
Or beneath the linden-leaves,
Or the cabin’s vine-hung eaves,
Rapid though as bird-notes gushing,
Transient as a wan cheek’s flushing,
Each in young Teresa’s breast
Left its fiery words impress’d;
Treasured there lay every line,
As a rich book on a hidden shrine.
Fair was that lone girl, and meek,
With a pale, transparent cheek,
And a deep-fringed violet eye
Seeking in sweet shade to lie,
Or, if raised to glance above,
Dim with its own dews of love;
And a pure Madonna brow,
And a silvery voice and low,
Like the echo of a flute,
Even the last, ere all be mute.
But a loftier soul was seen
In the orphan sister’s mien,
From that hour when chains defiled
Him, the high Alps’ noble child.
Tones in her quivering voice awoke,
As if a harp of battle spoke;
Light, that seem’d born of an eagle’s nest,
Flash’d from her soft eyes unrepress’d;
And her form, like a spreading water-flower,
When its frail cup swells with a sudden shower,
Seem’d all dilated with love and pride,
And grief for that brother, her young heart’s guide.
Well might they love!--those two had grown
Orphans together and alone:
The silence of the Alpine sky
Had hush’d their hearts to piety;
The turf, o’er their dead mother laid,
Had been their altar when they pray’d;
There, more in tenderness than woe,
The stars had seen their young tears flow;
The clouds, in spirit-like descent,
Their deep thoughts by one touch had blent,
And the wild storms link’d them to each other--
How dear can peril make a brother!

Now is their hearth a forsaken spot,
The vine waves unpruned o’er their mountain cot:
Away, in that holy affection’s might,
The maiden is gone, like a breeze of the night.
She is gone forth alone, but her lighted face,
Filling with soul every secret place,
Hath a dower from heaven, and a gift of sway,
To arouse brave hearts in its hidden way,
Like the sudden flinging forth on high
Of a banner, that startleth silently!
She hath wander’d through many a hamlet-vale,
Telling its children her brother’s tale;
And the strains by his spirit pour’d away
Freely as fountains might shower their spray,
From her fervent lip a new life have caught,
And a power to kindle yet bolder thought;
While sometimes a melody, all her own,
Like a gush of tears in its plaintive tone,
May be heard midst the lonely rocks to flow,
Clear through the water-chimes--clear, yet low

“Thou’rt not where wild-flowers wave
O’er crag and sparry cave;
Thou’rt not where pines are sounding,
Or joyous torrents bounding--
Alas, my brother!

“Thou’rt not where green, on high,
The brighter pastures lie;
Ev’n those, thine own wild places,
Bear of our chain dark traces:
Alas, my brother!

“Far hath the sunbeam spread,
Nor found thy lonely bed;
Long hath the fresh wind sought thee,
Nor one sweet whisper brought thee--
Alas, my brother!

“Thou, that for joy wert born,
Free as the wings of morn!
Will aught thy young life cherish,
Where the Alpine rose would perish?--
Alas, my brother!

“Canst thou be singing still,
As once on every hill?
Is not thy soul forsaken,
And the bright gift from thee taken?--
Alas, alas, my brother!”

And _was_ the bright gift from the captive fled?
Like the fire on his hearth, was his spirit dead?
Not so!--but as rooted in stillness deep,
The pure stream-lily its place will keep,
Though its tearful urns to the blast may quiver,
While the red waves rush down the foaming river;
So freedom’s faith in his bosom lay,
Trembling, yet not to be borne away!
He thought of the Alps and their breezy air,
And felt that his country no chains might bear;
He thought of the hunter’s haughty life,
And knew there must yet be noble strife.
But, oh! when he thought of that orphan maid,
His high heart melted--he wept and pray’d!
For he saw her not as she moved e’en then,
A wakener of heroes in every glen,
With a glance inspired which no grief could tame,
Bearing on hope like a torch’s flame;
While the strengthening voice of mighty wrongs
Gave echoes back to her thrilling songs.
But his dreams were fill’d by a haunting tone,
Sad as a sleeping infant’s moan;
And his soul was pierced by a mournful eye,
Which look’d on it--oh! how beseechingly!
And there floated past him a fragile form,
With a willowy droop, as beneath the storm;
Till wakening in anguish, his faint heart strove
In vain with its burden of helpless love!
Thus woke the dreamer one weary night--
There flash’d through his dungeon a swift strong light;
He sprang up--he climb’d to the grating-bars.
--It was not the rising of moon or stars,
But a signal-flame from a peak of snow,
Rock’d through the dark skies to and fro!
There shot forth another--another still--
A hundred answers of hill to hill!
Tossing like pines in the tempest’s way,
Joyously, wildly, the bright spires play,
And each is hail’d with a pealing shout,
For the high Alps waving their banners out!
Erni! young Erni! the land hath risen!--
Alas! to be lone in thy narrow prison!
Those free streamers glancing, and thou not there!
--Is the moment of rapture, or fierce despair?
--Hark! there’s a tumult that shakes his cell,
At the gates of the mountain citadel!
Hark! a clear voice through the rude sounds ringing!
Doth he know the strain, and the wild, sweet singing?

“There may not long be fetters,
Where the cloud is earth’s array,
And the bright floods leap from cave and steep,
Like a hunter on the prey!

“There may not long be fetters,
Where the white Alps have their towers;
Unto Eagle-homes, if the arrow comes,
The chain is not for ours!”

It is she! She is come like a dayspring beam,
She that so mournfully shadow’d his dream!
With her shining eyes and her buoyant form,
She is come! her tears on his cheek are warm;
And oh! the thrill in that weeping voice!
“My brother! my brother! come forth, rejoice!”

Poet! the land of thy love is free,--
Sister! thy brother is won by thee!

TO THE MOUNTAIN WINDS.

----“How divine
The liberty, for frail, for mortal man,
To roam at large among unpeopled glens,
And mountainous retirements, only trod
By devious footsteps!--Regions consecrate
To oldest time! And reckless of the storm
That keeps the raven quiet in his nest,
Be as a presence or a motion--One
Among the many there.” Wordsworth.

Mountain winds! oh, whither do ye call me?
Vainly, vainly would my steps pursue!
Chains of care to lower earth enthrall me,
Wherefore thus my weary spirit woo?

Oh! the strife of this divided being!
Is there peace where ye are born on high?
Could we soar to your proud eyries fleeing,
In our hearts would haunting memories die?

Those wild places are not as a dwelling
Whence the footsteps of the loved are gone!
Never from those rocky halls came swelling
Voice of kindness in familiar tone!

Surely music of oblivion sweepeth
In the pathway of your wanderings free;
And the torrent, wildly as it leapeth,
Sings of no lost home amidst its glee.

There the rushing of the falcon’s pinion
Is not from some hidden pang to fly;
All things breathe of power and stern dominion--
Not of hearts that in vain yearnings die.

Mountain winds! oh! is it, is it only
Where man’s trace hath been that so we pine!
Bear me up, to grow in thought less lonely,
Even at nature’s deepest, loneliest shrine!

Wild, and mighty, and mysterious singers!
At whose tone my heart within me burns;
Bear me where the last red sunbeam lingers,
Where the waters have their secret urns!

There to commune with a loftier spirit
Than the troubling shadows of regret;
There the wings of freedom to inherit,
Where the enduring and the wing’d are met.

Hush, proud voices! gentle be your falling!
Woman’s lot thus chainless may not be;
Hush! the heart your trumpet-sounds are calling,
Darkly still may grow--but never free!

THE PROCESSION.

“‘The peace which passeth all understanding,’ disclosed itself in her looks and movements. It lay on her countenance like a steady unshadowed moonlight.”--Coleridge.

There were trampling sounds of many feet,
And music rush’d through the crowded street:
Proud music, such as tells the sky
Of a chief return’d from victory.

There were banners to the winds unroll’d,
With haughty words on each blazon’d fold;
High battle-names, which had rung of yore
When lances clash’d on the Syrian shore.

Borne from their dwellings, green and lone,
There were flowers of the woods on the pathway strown;
And wheels that crush’d as they swept along;--
Oh! what doth the violet amidst the throng?

I saw where a bright procession pass’d
The gates of a minster old and vast;
And a king to his crowning-place was led,
Through a sculptured line of the warrior-dead.

I saw, far gleaming, the long array
Of trophies, on those high tombs that lay,
And the colour’d light, that wrapp’d them all,
Rich, deep, and sad, as a royal pall.

But a lowlier grave soon won mine eye
Away from th’ ancestral pageantry--
A grave by the lordly minster’s gate,
Unhonour’d, and yet not desolate.

It was a dewy greensward bed,
Meet for the rest of a peasant head;
But Love--oh, lovelier than all beside!--
That lone place guarded and glorified.

For a gentle form stood watching there,
Young--but how sorrowfully fair!
Keeping the flowers of the holy spot,
That reckless feet might profane them not.

Clear, pale and clear, was the tender cheek,
And her eye, though tearful, serenely meek;
And I deem’d, by its lifted gaze of love,
That her sad heart’s treasure was all above.

For alone she seem’d midst the throng to be,
Like a bird of the waves far away at sea;
Alone, in a mourner’s vest array’d,
And with folded hands, e’en as if she pray’d.

It faded before me, that mask of pride,
The haughty swell of the music died;
Banner, and armour, and tossing plume,
All melted away in the twilight’s gloom.

But that orphan form, with its willowy grace,
And the speaking prayer in that pale, calm face,
Still, still o’er my thoughts in the night-hour glide--
--Oh! Love is lovelier than all beside!

THE BROKEN LUTE.

“When the lamp is shatter’d,
The light in the dust lies dead;
When the cloud is scatter’d,
The rainbow’s glory is shed.
When the lute is broken,
Sweet sounds are remember’d not;
When the words are spoken,
Loved accents are soon forgot.

As music and splendour
Survive not the lamp and lute,
The heart’s echoes render
No song when the spirit is mute.” Shelley.

She dwelt in proud Venetian halls,
Midst forms that breathed from the pictured walls
But a glow of beauty like her own,
There had no dream of the painter thrown.
Lit from within was her noble brow,
As an urn, whence rays from a lamp may flow;
Her young, clear cheek, had a changeful hue,
As if ye might see how the soul wrought through,
And every flash of her fervent eye
Seem’d the bright wakening of Poesy.

Even thus it was! From her childhood’s years
A being of sudden smiles and tears--
Passionate visions, quick light and shade--
Such was that high-born Italian maid!
And the spirit of song in her bosom-cell
Dwelt, as the odours in violets dwell,
Or as the sounds in Æolian strings,
Or in aspen-leaves the quiverings;
There, ever there, with the life enshrined,
Waiting the call of the faintest wind.

Oft, on the wave of the Adrian sea,
In the city’s hour of moonlight glee--
Oft would that gift of the southern sky
O’erflow from her lips in melody;
Oft amid festal halls it came,
Like the springing forth of a sudden flame--
Till the dance was hush’d, and the silvery tone
Of her inspiration was heard alone.
And fame went with her, the bright, the crown’d,
And music floated her steps around;
And every lay of her soul was borne
Through the sunny land, as on wings of morn.

And was the daughter of Venice blest,
With a power so deep in her youthful breast?
Could she be happy, o’er whose dark eye
So many changes and dreams went by?
And in whose cheek the swift crimson wrought
As if but born from the rush of thought?
Yes! in the brightness of joy awhile
She moved as a bark in the sunbeam’s smile;
For her spirit, as over her lyre’s full chord,
All, all on a happy love was pour’d!
How loves a heart whence the stream of song
Flows, like the life-blood, quick, bright, and strong?
How loves a heart, which hath never proved
One breath of the world? Even so she loved;
Bless’d, though the lord of her soul, afar,
Was charging the foremost in Moslem war,
Bearing the flag of St Mark’s on high,
As a ruling star in the Grecian sky.
Proud music breathed in her song, when fame
Gave a tone more thrilling to his name;
And her trust in his love was a woman’s faith--
Perfect, and fearing no change but death.

But the fields are won from the Othman host,
In the land that quell’d the Persian’s boast,
And a thousand hearts in Venice burn
For the day of triumph and return!
The day is come! the flashing deep
Foams where the galleys of victory sweep;
And the sceptred city of the wave
With her festal splendour greets the brave;
Cymbal, and clarion, and voice, around,
Make the air one stream of exulting sound;
While the beautiful, with their sunny smiles,
Look from each hall of the hundred isles.

But happiest and brightest that day of all,
Robed for her warrior’s festival,
Moving a queen midst the radiant throng,
Was she, th’ inspired one, the maid of song!
The lute he loved on her arm she bore,
As she rush’d in her joy to the crowded shore;
With a hue on her cheek like the damask glow
By the sunset given unto mountain snow,
And her eye all fill’d with the spirit’s play,
Like the flash of a gem to the changeful day,
And her long hair waving in ringlets bright--
So came that being of hope and light!
One moment, Erminia! one moment more,
And life, all the beauty of life, is o’er!
The bark of her lover hath touch’d the strand--
Whom leads he forth with a gentle hand?
--A young fair form, whose nymph-like grace
Accorded well with the Grecian face,
And the eye, in its clear, soft darkness meek,
And the lashes that droop’d o’er a pale rose cheek,
And he look’d on that beauty with tender pride--
The warrior hath brought back an Eastern bride!

But how stood she, the forsaken, there,
Struck by the lightning of swift despair?
Still, as amazed with grief, she stood,
And her cheek to her heart sent back the blood;
And there came from her quivering lip no word,
Only the fall of her lute was heard,
As it dropp’d from her hand at her rival’s feet,
Into fragments, whose dying thrill was sweet!

What more remaineth? Her day was done;
Her fate and the Broken Lute’s were one!
The light, the vision, the gift of power,
Pass’d from her soul in that mortal hour,
Like the rich sound from the shatter’d string
Whence the gush of sweetness no more might spring!
As an eagle struck in his upward flight.
So was her hope from its radiant height;
And her song went with it for evermore,
A gladness taken from sea and shore!
She had moved to the echoing sound of fame--
Silently, silently, died her name!
Silently melted her life away,
As ye have seen a young flower decay,
Or a lamp that hath swiftly burn’d expire,
Or a bright stream shrink from the summer’s fire,
Leaving its channel all dry and mute--
Woe for the Broken Heart and Lute!

THE BURIAL IN THE DESERT.

“How weeps yon gallant band
O’er him their valour could not save!
For the bayonet is red with gore,
And he, the beautiful and brave,
Now sleeps in Egypt’s sand.” Wilson.

In the shadow of the Pyramid
Our brother’s grave we made,
When the battle-day was done,
And the desert’s parting sun
A field of death survey’d.

The blood-red sky above us
Was darkening into night,
And the Arab watching silently
Our sad and hurried rite;

The voice of Egypt’s river
Came hollow and profound;
And one lone palm-tree, where we stood,
Rock’d with a shivery sound:

While the shadow of the Pyramid
Hung o’er the grave we made,
When the battle-day was done,
And the desert’s parting sun
A field of death survey’d.

The fathers of our brother
Were borne to knightly tombs,
With torch-light and with anthem-note,
And many waving plumes: