Chapter LX: Introduction (6)

My earliest memories to thy shores are bound,
Thy solemn shores, thou ever-chanting main!
The first rich sunsets, kindling thought profound
In my lone being, made thy restless plain
As the vast, shining floor of some dread fane,
All paved with glass and fire. Yet, O blue deep!
Thou that no trace of human hearts dost keep,
Never to thee did love with silvery chain
Draw my soul’s dream, which through all nature
sought
What waves deny,--some bower of _steadfast_ bliss,
A _home_ to twine with fancy, feeling, thought,
As with sweet flowers. But chasten’d hope for this
Now turns from earth’s green valleys, as from thee,
To that sole changeless world, where “there is no more sea.”[433]

[433] [The sight and sound of the sea were always connected in her mind with melancholy associations; with

“Doubt, and something dark.
Of the old sea some reverential fear;”

with images of storm and desolation, of shipwreck and sea-burial: the last, indeed, was so often present to her imagination, and has so frequently been introduced into her poetry, that any one inclined to superstitious presentiments might almost have been disposed to fancy it a foreshadowing of some such dark fate in store either for herself or for some one dear to her. These associations, like those awakened by the wind, were perfectly distinct from any thing of personal timidity, and were the more indefinable, as she had never suffered any calamity at all connected with the sea: none of those she loved had been consigned to its reckless waters, nor had she ever seen it in all its terrors, for the coast on which her early years were passed is by no means a rugged or dangerous one, and is seldom visited by disaster.

“Are all these notes in thee, wild wind! these many notes in thee? Far in our own unfathom’d souls their fount must surely be; Yes! buried, but unsleeping there, thought watches, memory lies, From whose deep urn the tones are poured through all earth’s harmonies.”

In one of her later sonnets on this subject, a chord is struck which may perhaps find an echo in other bosoms:--

----“Yet, O blue deep!” etc.

The same feeling is expressed in one of her letters:--“Did you ever observe how strangely sounds and images of waters--rushing torrents, and troubled ocean-waves, are mingled with the visionary distresses of dreams and delirium? To me there is no more perfect emblem of peace than that expressed by the Scriptural phrase, ‘There shall be no more sea.’”

How forcible is the contrast between the essential womanliness of these associations, so full of “the still, sad music of humanity,” and the “stern delight” with which Lord Byron, in his magnificent apostrophe to the Sea, exults in its ministry of wrath, and recounts, as with a fierce joy, its dealings with its victim, man!

----“The vile strength he wields
For earth’s destruction, thou dost all despise,
Spurning him from thy bosom to the skies,
And send’st him, shivering in thy playful spray,
And howling, to his Gods, where haply lies
His petty hope in some near port or bay,
And dashest him again to earth--there let them lay.”
Childe Harold.]

DISTANT SOUND OF THE SEA AT EVENING.

Yet, rolling far up some green mountain-dale,
Oft let me hear, as ofttimes I have heard,
Thy swell, thou deep! when evening calls the bird
And bee to rest; when summer-tints grow pale,
Seen through the gathering of a dewy veil;
And peasant-steps are hastening to repose,
And gleaming flocks lie down, and flower-cups close
To the last whisper of the falling gale.
Then midst the dying of all other sound,
When the soul hears thy distant voice profound,
Lone worshipping, and knows that through the night
’Twill worship still, then most its anthem-tone
Speaks to our being of the Eternal One,
Who girds tired nature with unslumbering might.

THE RIVER CLWYD IN NORTH WALES.

O Cambrian river! with slow music gliding
By pastoral hills, old woods, and ruin’d towers;
Now midst thy reeds and golden willows hiding,
Now gleaming forth by some rich bank of flowers;
Long flow’d the current of my life’s clear hours
Onward with thine, whose voice yet haunts my dream,
Tho’ time and change, and other mightier powers,
Far from thy side have borne me. Thou, smooth stream!
Art winding still thy sunny meads along,
Murmuring to cottage and gray hall thy song,
Low, sweet, unchanged. _My_ being’s tide hath pass’d
Through rocks and storms; yet will I not complain,
If, thus wrought free and pure from earthly stain,
Brightly its waves may reach their parent-deep at last.

ORCHARD-BLOSSOMS.

Doth thy heart stir within thee at the sight
Of orchard-blooms upon the mossy bough?
Doth their sweet household-smile waft back the glow
Of childhood’s morn--the wondering, fresh delight
In earth’s new colouring, then all strangely bright,
A joy of fairyland? Doth some old nook,
Haunted by visions of thy first-loved book,
Rise on thy soul, with faint-streak’d blossoms white
Shower’d o’er the turf, and the lone primrose-knot,
And robin’s nest, still faithful to the spot,
And the bee’s dreary chime? O gentle friend!
The world’s cold breath, not _Time’s_, this life bereaves
Of vernal gifts: time hallows what he leaves,
And will for us endear spring-memories to the end.
8th May.

TO A DISTANT SCENE.

Still are the cowslips from thy bosom springing,
O far-off, grassy dell?--and dost thou see,
When southern winds first wake their vernal singing,
The star-gleam of the wood anemone?
Doth the shy ringdove haunt thee yet? the bee
Hang on thy flowers as when I breathed farewell
To their wild blooms? and, round my beechen tree,
Still, in green softness, doth the moss-bank swell?
Oh, strange illusion! by the fond heart wrought,
Whose own warm life suffuses nature’s face!
_My_ being’s tide of many-colour’d thought
Hath pass’d from thee; and now, rich, leafy place!
I paint thee oft, scarce consciously, a scene,
Silent, forsaken, dim, shadow’d by what hath been.

A REMEMBRANCE OF GRASMERE.[434]

O vale and lake, within your mountain-urn
Smiling so tranquilly, and set so deep!
Oft doth your dreamy loveliness return,
Colouring the tender shadows of my sleep
With light Elysian; for the hues that steep
Your shores in melting lustre, seem to float
On golden clouds from spirit-lands remote,
Isles of the blest; and in our memory keep
Their place with holiest harmonies. Fair scene,
Most loved by evening and her dewy star!
Oh! ne’er may man, with touch unhallow’d, jar
The perfect music of thy charm serene!
Still, still unchanged, may _one_ sweet region wear
Smiles that subdue the soul to love, and tears, and prayer.

[434] It would have been very dear to her, could she have foreseen the delicate and appropriate commemoration awarded to her by Mr Wordsworth, in the elegiac stanzas which record the high names of some of his most distinguished contemporaries, (Scott, Coleridge, Lamb, Crabbe, and Hogg,) summoned in quick succession “to the land whence none return:”--

“Mourn rather for that holy spirit,
Sweet as the spring, as ocean deep,
For her who, ere her summer faded,
Has sunk into a breathless sleep.”

THOUGHTS CONNECTED WITH TREES.

Trees, gracious trees!--how rich a gift ye are,
Crown of the earth! to human hearts and eyes!
How doth the thought of home, in lands afar,
Link’d with your forms and kindly whisperings rise!
How the whole picture of a childhood lies
Oft midst your boughs forgotten, buried deep!
Till, gazing through them up the summer skies,
As hush’d we stand, a breeze perchance may creep,
And old, sweet leaf-sounds reach the inner world
Where memory coils--and lo! at once unfurl’d,
The past, a glowing scroll, before our sight
Spreads clear; while, gushing from their long-seal’d urn,
Young thoughts, pure dreams, undoubting prayers return,
And a lost mother’s eye gives back its holy light.

THE SAME.

And ye are strong to shelter!--all meek things,
All that need home and covert, love your shade!
Birds of shy song, and low-voiced quiet springs,
And nun-like violets, by the winds betray’d.
Childhood beneath your fresh green tents hath play’d
With his first primrose-wreath: there love hath sought
A veiling gloom for his unutter’d thought;
And silent grief, of day’s keen glare afraid,
A refuge for her tears; and ofttimes there
Hath lone devotion found a place of prayer,
A native temple, solemn, hush’d, and dim;
For wheresoe’er your murmuring tremours thrill
The woody twilight, there man’s heart hath still
Confess’d a spirit’s breath, and heard a ceaseless hymn.

ON READING PAUL AND VIRGINIA IN CHILDHOOD.

O gentle story of the Indian isle!
I loved thee in my lonely childhood well
On the sea-shore, when day’s last, purple smile
Slept on the waters, and their hollow swell
And dying cadence lent a deeper spell
Unto thine ocean-pictures. Midst thy palms
And strange bright birds, my fancy joy’d to dwell,
And watch the southern cross through midnight calms,
And track the spicy woods. Yet more I bless’d
Thy vision of sweet love--kind, trustful, true,
Lighting the citron groves, a heavenly guest,
With such pure smiles as Paradise once knew.
Even then my young heart wept o’er this world’s power
To reach with blight that holiest Eden-flower.

A THOUGHT AT SUNSET.

Still that last look is solemn! though thy rays,
O sun! to-morrow will give back, we know,
The joy to nature’s heart. Yet through the glow
Of clouds that mantle thy decline, our gaze
Tracks thee with love half-fearful: and in days
When earth too much adored thee, what a swell
Of mournful passion, deepening mighty lays,
Told how the dying bade thy light farewell,
O sun of Greece! O glorious, festal sun!
Lost, lost!--for them thy golden hours were done,
And darkness lay before them! Happier far
Are we, not thus to thy bright wheels enchain’d,
Not thus for thy last parting unsustain’d--
Heirs of a purer day, with its unsetting star.

IMAGES OF PATRIARCHAL LIFE.

Calm scenes of patriarch life! how long a power
Your unworn pastoral images retain
O’er the true heart, which in its childhood’s hour
Drank their pure freshness deep! The camels’ train
Winding in patience o’er the desert plain--
The tent, the palm-tree, the reposing flock,
The gleaming fount, the shadow of the rock--
Oh! by how subtle, yet how strong a chain,
And in the influence of its touch how bless’d,
Are these things link’d, in many a thoughtful breast,
To household-memories, thro’ all change endear’d!
--The matin bird, the ripple of a stream
Beside our native porch, the hearth-light’s gleam,
The voices, earliest by the soul revered!

ATTRACTION OF THE EAST.

What secret current of man’s nature turns
Unto the golden East with ceaseless flow?
Still, where the sunbeam at its fountain burns,
The pilgrim-spirit would adore and glow;
Rapt in high thoughts, though weary, faint, and slow,
Still doth the traveller through the deserts wind,
Led by those old Chaldean stars, which know
Where pass’d the shepherd-fathers of mankind.
Is it some quenchless instinct, which from far
Still points to where our alienated home
Lay in bright peace? O thou true Eastern star!
Saviour! atoning Lord! where’er we roam,
Draw still our hearts to thee, else, else how vain
Their hope, the fair lost birthright to regain!

TO AN AGED FRIEND.[435]

Not long thy voice amongst us may be heard,
Servant of God!--thy day is almost done;
The charm now lingering in thy look and word
Is that which hangs about thy setting sun--
That which the meekness of decay hath won
Still from revering love. Yet doth the sense
Of life immortal--progress but begun--
Pervade thy mien with such clear eloquence,
That hope, not sadness, breathes from thy decline;
And the loved flowers which round thee smile farewell
Of more than vernal glory seem to tell,
By thy pure spirit touch’d with light divine;
While we, to whom its parting gleams are given,
Forget the grave in trustful thoughts of heaven.

[435] The sonnet “To an aged Friend,” first published in Mrs Hemans’s _Poetical Remains_, was addressed to Dr Perceval of Dublin. The sonnet “To the Datura Arborea,” in the same volume, was written after seeing a superb specimen of that striking plant in Dr Perceval’s beautiful greenhouse at Annefield.

Dr Perceval died 3d March 1839, equally respected for his talents and virtues.

A HAPPY HOUR.

[“The ‘Thoughts’ were published in the _New Monthly Magazine_ for March 1835. They are intensely individual. One of them, on Retzsch’s design of the Angel of Death, was suggested by an impressive description in Mrs Jameson’s ‘Visits and Sketches.’ In another, she speculates earnestly and reverently upon the direction of the flight of the spirit when the soul and body shall part; in others again, she recurs tenderly to the haunts and pleasures of childhood, which had of late been present to her memory with more than usual force and freshness. To these the following sonnet refers, dated 21st May 1834, which, as far as I am aware, has not hitherto been published.”--Chorley’s _Memorials of Mrs Hemans_, p. 339-40.]

Oh! what a joy to feel that, in my breast,
The founts of childhood’s vernal fancies lay
Still pure, though heavily and long repress’d
By early-blighted leaves, which o’er their way
Dark summer-storms had heaped. But free, glad play
Once more was given them: to the sunshine’s glow,
And the sweet wood-song’s penetrating flow,
And to the wandering primrose-breath of May,
And the rich hawthorn-odours, forth they sprung.
Oh! not less freshly bright, that now a thought
Of spiritual presence o’er them hung,
And of immortal life! a germ, unwrought
In childhood’s soul to power--now strong, serene,
And full of love and light, colouring the whole blest scene.

FOLIAGE.

Come forth, and let us through our hearts receive
The joy of verdure! See! the honey’d lime
Showers cool green light o’er banks where wild-flowers weave
Thick tapestry, and woodbine-tendrils climb
Up the brown oak from buds of moss and thyme.
The rich deep masses of the sycamore
Hang heavy with the fulness of their prime;
And the white poplar, from its foliage hoar,
Scatters forth gleams like moonlight, with each gale
That sweeps the boughs: the chestnut-flowers are past,
The crowning glories of the hawthorn fail,
But arches of sweet eglantine are cast
From every hedge. Oh! never may we lose,
Dear friend! our fresh delight in simplest nature’s hues!

2d June.

A PRAYER.

Father in heaven! from whom the simplest flower,
On the high Alps or fiery desert thrown,
Draws not sweet odour or young life alone,
But the deep virtue of an inborn power,
To cheer the wanderer in his fainting hour
With thoughts of Thee--to strengthen, to infuse
Faith, love, and courage, by the tender hues
That speak thy presence! oh, with such a dower
Grace thou my song!--the precious gift bestow
From thy pure Spirit’s treasury divine,
To wake one tear of purifying flow,
To soften one wrung heart for thee and thine;
So shall the life breathed through the lowly strain
Be as the meek wild-flower’s--if transient, yet not vain.

PRAYER CONTINUED.

“What in me is dark,
Illumine; what is low, raise and support.”--Milton.
Far are the wings of intellect astray
That strive not, Father! to thy heavenly seat;
They rove, but mount not, and the tempests beat
Still on their plumes. O Source of mental day!
Chase from before my spirit’s track the array
Of mists and shadows, raised by earthly care,
In troubled hosts that cross the purer air,
And veil the opening of the starry way,
Which brightens on to thee! Oh, guide thou right
My thought’s weak pinion; clear my inward sight,
The eternal springs of beauty to discern,
Welling beside thy throne; unseal mine ear,
Nature’s true oracles in joy to hear;
Keep my soul wakeful still to listen and to learn.

MEMORIAL OF A CONVERSATION.

Yes! all things tell us of a birthright lost--
A brightness from our nature pass’d away!
Wanderers we seem that from an alien coast
Would turn to where their Father’s mansion lay;
And but by some lone flower, that midst decay
Smiles mournfully, or by some sculptured stone,
Revealing dimly, with gray moss o’ergrown,
The faint, worn impress of its glory’s day,
Can trace their once-free heritage, though dreams,
Fraught with its picture, oft in startling gleams
Flash o’er their souls. But One, oh! _One_ alone,
For us the ruin’d fabric may rebuild,
And bid the wilderness again be fill’d
With Eden-flowers--One mighty to atone!

27th June.[436]

[436] [For this corrected chronology of these sonnets, we are indebted to the Rev. R. P. Graves, Bowness; as also for some improved readings, and the MS. of “A Happy Hour.”]

RECORDS OF THE AUTUMN OF 1834.

THE RETURN TO POETRY.

Once more the eternal melodies from far
Woo me like songs of home: once more discerning,
Through fitful clouds, the pure majestic star
Above the poet’s world serenely burning,
Thither my soul, fresh-wing’d by love, is turning,
As o’er the waves the wood-bird seeks her nest,
For those green heights of dewy stillness yearning,
Whence glorious minds o’erlook this earth’s unrest.
Now be the Spirit of heaven’s truth my guide
Through the bright land!--that no brief gladness, found
In passing bloom, rich odour, or sweet sound,
May lure my footsteps from their aim aside:
Their true, high quest--to seek, if ne’er to gain,
The inmost, purest shrine of that august domain.

9th September.

TO SILVIO PELLICO, ON READING HIS “PRIGIONE.”

There are who climb the mountain’s heathery side,
Or, in life’s vernal strength triumphant, urge
The bark’s fleet rushing through the crested surge,
Or spur the courser’s fiery race of pride
Over the green savannahs, gleaming wide
By some vast lake; yet thus, on foaming sea,
Or chainless wild, reign far less nobly free
Than _thou_, in that lone dungeon, glorified
By thy brave suffering. Thou from its dark cell
Fierce thought and baleful passion didst exclude,
Filling the dedicated solitude
With God; and where _His_ Spirit deigns to dwell,
Though the worn frame in fetters withering lie,
There throned in _peace_ divine is liberty!

TO THE SAME, RELEASED.[437]

How flows thy being now?--like some glad hymn
One strain of solemn rapture?--doth thine eye
Wander through tears of voiceless feeling dim
O’er the crown’d Alps, that, midst the upper sky,
Sleep in the sunlight of thine Italy?
Or is thy gaze of reverent love profound
Unto these dear, parental faces bound,
Which, with their silvery hair, so oft glanced by,
Haunting thy prison-dreams? Where’er thou art,
Blessings be shed upon thine inmost heart!
Joy, from kind looks, blue skies, and flowery sod,
For that pure voice of thoughtful wisdom sent
Forth from thy cell, in sweetness eloquent
Of love to man, and quenchless trust in God!

[437] In reference to these two sonnets, Mrs Hemans thus remarks in a letter to a friend;--“I wrote them only a few days ago (almost the first awakening of my spirit, indeed, after a long silence and darkness,) upon reading that delightful book of Pellico’s,[438] which I borrowed in consequence of what you had told me of it. I know not when I have read any thing which has so deeply impressed me: the gradual brightening of heart and soul into ‘the perfect day’ of Christian excellence through all those fiery trials, presents, I think, one of the most touching, as well as instructing pictures ever contemplated. How beautiful is the scene between him and Oroboni, in which they mutually engage to shrink not from the avowal of their faith, should they ever return into the world! But I could say so much on this subject, which has quite taken hold of my thoughts, that it would lead me to fill up my whole letter.”

In another letter she spoke further of this book, as a “work with which I have been both impressed and delighted, and one which I strongly recommend you to procure. It is the _Prigioni_ of Silvio Pellico, a distinguished young Italian poet, who incurred the suspicions of the Austrian government, and was condemned to the penalty of the _carcere duro_ during ten years, of which this most interesting work contains the narrative. It is deeply affecting, from the heart-springing eloquence with which he details his varied sufferings. What forms, however, the great charm of the work, is the gradual and almost unconsciously-revealed exaltation of the sufferer’s character, spiritualised through suffering, into the purest Christian excellence. It is beautiful to see the lessons of trust in God, and love to mankind, brought out more and more into shining light from the depth of the dungeon-gloom; and all this crowned at last by the release of the noble, all-forgiving captive, and his restoration to his aged father and mother, whose venerable faces seem perpetually to have haunted the solitude of his cell. The book is written in the most classic Italian, and will, I am sure, be one to afford you lasting delight.”

[438] “Le mie Prigioni.”

ON A SCENE IN THE DARGLE.[439]

’Twas a bright moment of my life when first,
O thou pure stream through rocky portals flowing!
That temple-chamber of thy glory burst
On my glad sight! Thy pebbly couch lay glowing
With deep mosaic hues; and, richly throwing
O’er thy cliff-walls a tinge of autumn’s vest,
High bloom’d the heath-flowers, and the wild wood’s crest
Was touch’d with gold. Flow ever thus, bestowing
Gifts of delight, sweet stream! on all who move
Gently along thy shores; and oh! if love--
True love, in secret nursed, with sorrow fraught--
Should sometimes bear his treasured griefs to thee,
_Then_ full of kindness let thy music be,
Singing repose to every troubled thought!

[439] A beautiful valley in the county of Wicklow.

ON THE DATURA ARBOREA.

Majestic plant! such fairy dreams as lie,
Nursed, where the bee sucks in the cowslip’s bell,
Are not _thy_ train. Those flowers of vase-like swell,
Clear, large, with dewy moonlight fill’d from high,
And in their monumental purity
Serenely drooping, round thee seem to draw
Visions link’d strangely with that silent awe
Which broods o’er sculpture’s works. A meet ally
For those heroic forms, the simply grand
Art thou: and worthy, carved by plastic hand,
Above some kingly poet’s tomb to shine
In spotless marble; honouring one whose strain
Soar’d, upon wings of thought that knew no stain,
Free through the starry heavens of truth divine.

ON READING COLERIDGE’S EPITAPH,

WRITTEN BY HIMSELF.

“Stop, Christian passer-by! stop, child of God!
And read with gentle breast:--Beneath this sod
A Poet lies, or that which once seem’d he:
Oh! lift one thought in prayer for S. T. C.!
That he, who once in vain, with toil of breath,
Found death in life, may here find life in death:
Mercy, for praise--to be forgiven, for fame--
He ask’d and hoped through Christ. Do thou the same.”

Spirit! so oft in radiant freedom soaring
High through seraphic mysteries unconfined,
And oft, a diver through the deep of mind,
Its caverns, far below its waves, exploring;
And oft such strains of breezy music pouring,
As, with the floating sweetness of their sighs,
Could still all fevers of the heart, restoring
Awhile that freshness left in Paradise;
Say, of those glorious wanderings what the goal?
What the rich fruitage to man’s kindred soul
From wealth of thine bequeathed? O strong and high,
And sceptred intellect! thy goal confess’d
Was the Redeemer’s Cross--thy last bequest
_One_ lesson breathing thence profound humility!

DESIGN AND PERFORMANCE.

They float before my soul, the fair designs
Which I would body forth to life and power,
Like clouds, that with their wavering hues and lines
Portray majestic buildings:--dome and tower,
Bright spire, that through the rainbow and the shower
Points to th’ unchanging stars; and high arcade,
Far-sweeping to some glorious altar, made
For holiest rites. Meanwhile the waning hour
Melts from me, and by fervent dreams o’erwrought,
I sink. O friend! O link’d with each high thought!
Aid me, of those rich visions to detain
All I may grasp; until thou see’st fulfill’d,
While time and strength allow, my hope to build
For lowly hearts devout, but _one_ enduring fane!

18th October.

HOPE OF FUTURE COMMUNION WITH NATURE.

If e’er again my spirit be allow’d
Converse with Nature in her chambers deep,
Where lone, and mantled with the rolling cloud,
She broods o’er new-born waters, as they leap
In sword-like flashes down the heathery steep
From caves of mystery;--if I roam once more
Where dark pines quiver to the torrent’s roar,
And voiceful oaks respond;--may I not reap
A more ennobling joy, a loftier power,
Than e’er was shed on life’s more vernal hour
From such communion? Yes! I then shall know
That not in vain have sorrow, love, and thought
Their long, still work of preparation wrought,
For that more perfect sense of God reveal’d below.

DREAMS OF THE DEAD.

Oft in still night-dreams a departed face
Bends o’er me with sweet earnestness of eye,
Wearing no more of earthly pains a trace,
But all the tender pity that may lie
On the clear brow of Immortality,
Calm, yet profound. Soft rays illume that mien;
Th’ unshadow’d moonlight of some far-off sky
Around it floats transparently serene
As a pure veil of waters. O rich Sleep!
The spells are mighty in thy regions deep,
To glorify with reconciling breath,
Effacing, brightening, giving forth to shine
Beauty’s high truth; and how much more divine
Thy power when link’d, in this, with thy strong brother--Death!

THE POETRY OF THE PSALMS.

Nobly thy song, O minstrel! rush’d to meet
Th’ Eternal on the pathway of the blast,
With darkness round him as a mantle cast,
And cherubim to waft his flying seat.
Amidst the hills that smoked beneath his feet,
With trumpet-voice thy spirit call’d aloud,
And bade the trembling rocks his name repeat,
And the bent cedars, and the bursting cloud.
But far more gloriously to earth made known
By that high strain, than by the thunder’s tone,
The flashing torrents, or the ocean’s roll,
Jehovah spake, through thee imbreathing fire,
Nature’s vast realms for ever to inspire
With the deep worship of a living soul.

DESPONDENCY AND ASPIRATION.

“Par correr miglior acqua alza le vele,
Omai la navicella del mio Intelletto.”--Dante.

My soul was mantled with dark shadows, born
Of lonely Fear, disquieted in vain;
Its phantoms hung around the star of morn,
A cloud-like, weeping train:
Thro’ the long day they dimm’d the autumn gold
On all the glistening leaves, and wildly roll’d,
When the last farewell flush of light was glowing
Across the sunset sky,
O’er its rich isles of vaporous glory throwing
One melancholy dye.

And when the solemn night
Came rushing with her might
Of stormy oracles from caves unknown,
Then with each fitful blast
Prophetic murmurs pass’d,
Wakening or answering some deep Sybil-tone
Far buried in my breast, yet prompt to rise
With every gusty wail that o’er the wind-harp flies.

“Fold, fold thy wings,” they cried, “and strive no more--
Faint spirit! strive no more: for thee too strong
Are outward ill and wrong,
And inward wasting fires! Thou canst not soar
Free on a starry way,
Beyond their blighting sway,
At heaven’s high gate serenely to adore!
How shouldst _thou_ hope earth’s fetters to unbind!
O passionate, yet weak! O trembler to the wind!

“Never shall aught but broken music flow
From joy of thine, deep love, or tearful woe--
Such homeless notes as through the forest sigh,
From the reeds’ hollow shaken,
When sudden breezes waken
Their vague, wild symphony.
No power is theirs, and no abiding-place
In human hearts; their sweetness leaves no trace--
Born only so to die!

“Never shall aught but perfume, faint and vain,
On the fleet pinion of the changeful hour,
From thy bruised life again
A moment’s essence breathe;
Thy life, whose trampled flower
Into the blessed wreath
Of household-charities no longer bound,
Lies pale and withering on the barren ground.

“So fade, fade on! Thy gift of love shall cling
A coiling sadness round thy heart and brain--
A silent, fruitless, yet undying thing,
All sensitive to pain!
And still the shadow of vain dreams shall fall
O’er thy mind’s world, a daily darkening pall.
Fold, then, thy wounded wing, and sink subdued
In cold and unrepining quietude!”

Then my soul yielded: spells of numbing breath
Crept o’er it heavy with a dew of death--
Its powers, like leaves before the night-rain, closing;
And, as by conflict of wild sea-waves toss’d
On the chill bosom of some desert coast,
Mutely and hopelessly I lay reposing.

When silently it seem’d
As if a soft mist gleam’d
Before my passive sight, and, slowly curling,
To many a shape and hue
Of vision’d beauty grew,
Like a wrought banner, fold by fold unfurling.
Oh! the rich scenes that o’er mine inward eye
Unrolling then swept by
With dreamy motion! Silvery seas were there,
Lit by large dazzling stars, and arch’d by skies
Of southern midnight’s most transparent dyes;
And gemm’d with many an island, wildly fair,
Which floated past me into orient day,
Still gathering lustre on th’ illumin’d way,
Till its high groves of wondrous flowering-trees
Colour’d the silvery seas.

And then a glorious mountain-chain uprose,
Height above spiry height!
A soaring solitude of woods and snows,
All steep’d in golden light!
While as it pass’d, those regal peaks unveiling,
I heard, methought, a waving of dread wings,
And mighty sounds, as if the vision hailing,
From lyres that quiver’d through ten thousand strings--
Or as if waters, forth to music leaping
From many a cave, the Alpine Echo’s hall,
On their bold way victoriously were sweeping,
Link’d in majestic anthems!--while through all
That billowy swell and fall,
Voices, like ringing crystal, fill’d the air
With inarticulate melody, that stirr’d
My being’s core; then, moulding into word
Their piercing sweetness, bade me rise, and bear
In that great choral strain my trembling part,
Of tones by love and faith struck from a human heart.

Return no more, vain bodings of the night!
A happier oracle within my soul
Hath swell’d to power; a clear, unwavering light
Mounts through the battling clouds that round me roll;
And to a new control
Nature’s full harp gives forth rejoicing tones,
Wherein my glad sense owns
The accordant rush of elemental sound
To one consummate harmony profound--
One grand Creation-Hymn,
Whose notes the seraphim
Lift to the glorious height of music wing’d and crown’d.

Shall not those notes find echoes in my lyre,
Faithful though faint? Shall not my spirit’s fire,
If slowly, yet unswervingly, ascend
Now to its fount and end?
Shall not my earthly love, all purified,
Shine forth a heavenward guide,
An angel of bright power--and strongly bear
My being upward into holier air,
Where fiery passion-clouds have no abode,
And the sky’s temple-arch o’erflows with God?

The radiant hope new-born
Expands like rising morn
In my life’s life: and as a ripening rose
The crimson shadow of its glory throws
More vivid, hour by hour, on some pure stream;
So from that hope are spreading
Rich hues, o’er nature shedding
Each day a clearer, spiritual gleam.

Let not those rays fade from me!--once enjoy’d,
Father of Spirits! let them not depart--
Leaving the chill’d earth, without form and void,
Darken’d by mine own heart!
Lift, aid, sustain me! Thou, by whom alone
All lovely gifts and pure
In the soul’s grasp endure;
Thou, to the steps of whose eternal throne
All knowledge flows--a sea for evermore
Breaking its crested waves on that sole shore--
Oh, consecrate my life! that I may sing
Of thee with joy that hath a living spring,
In a full heart of music! Let my lays
Through the resounding mountains waft thy praise,
And with that theme the wood’s green cloisters fill.
And make their quivering, leafy dimness thrill
To the rich breeze of song! Oh! let me wake
The deep religion, which hath dwelt from yore
Silently brooding by lone cliff and lake,
And wildest river-shore!
And let me summon all the voices dwelling
Where eagles build, and cavern’d rills are welling,
And where the cataract’s organ-peal is swelling,
In that one spirit gather’d to adore!

Forgive, O Father! if presumptuous thought
Too daringly in aspiration rise!
Let not thy child all vainly have been taught
By weakness, and by wanderings, and by sighs
Of sad confession! Lowly be my heart,
And on its penitential altar spread
The offerings worthless, till thy grace impart
The fire from heaven, whose touch alone can shed
Life, radiance, virtue!--let that vital spark
Pierce my whole being, wilder’d else and dark!

Thine are all holy things--oh, make _me_ thine!
So shall I, too, be pure--a living shrine
Unto that Spirit which goes forth from thee,
Strong and divinely free,
Bearing thy gifts of wisdom on its flight,
And brooding o’er them with a dove-like wing,
Till thought, word, song, to thee in worship spring,
Immortally endow’d for liberty and light.

[This exquisite poem was composed during the Author’s last illness; and the following account of her situation at the time, from the pen of her sister, cannot fail to be read with a deep and painful interest. It is another forcible, visible illustration of “the ruling passion strong in death.” Happy, as in her case, when the direction of the mind is towards all that is high, pure, and excellent!

“A shuddering thrill pervaded her whole frame, and she felt, as she often afterwards declared, a presentiment that from that moment her hours were numbered. The same evening she was attacked by a fit of ague; and this insidious and harassing complaint continued its visitations for several weeks, reducing her poor, wasted form to the most lamentable state of debility, and at length retiring only to make way for a train of symptoms still more fatal and distressing. Yet, while the work of decay was going on thus surely and progressively upon the earthly tabernacle, the bright flame within continued to burn with a pure and holy light, and, at times, even to flash forth with more than wonted brightness. The lyric of ‘Despondency and Aspiration,’ which may be considered as her noblest and highest effort, and in which, from a feeling that it might be her last work, she felt anxious to concentrate all her powers, was written during the few intervals accorded her from acute suffering or powerless languor. And in the same circumstances she wrote, or rather dictated, the series of sonnets called _Thoughts during Sickness_, which present so interesting a picture of the calm, submissive tone of her mind, whether engaged in tender remembrances of the past, or in solemn and reverential speculations on the future. The one entitled ‘Sickness like Night’ discloses a view, no less affecting than consolatory, of the sweet and blessed peace which hovered round the couch where

‘Mutely and hopelessly she lay reposing.’

“The last sonnet of the series, entitled ‘Recovery,’ was written under temporary appearances of convalescence, which proved as fugitive as they were fallacious.”

THE HUGUENOT’S FAREWELL.

I stand upon the threshold stone
Of mine ancestral hall;
I hear my native river moan;
I see the night o’er my old forests fall.

I look round on the darkening vale
That saw my childhood’s plays;
The low wind in its rising wail
Hath a strange tone, a sound of other days.

But I must rule my swelling breast:
A sign is in the sky!
Bright o’er yon gray rock’s eagle-nest
Shines forth a warning star--it bids me fly.

My father’s sword is in my hand,
His deep voice haunts mine ear;
He tells me of the noble band
Whose lives have left a brooding glory here.

He bids their offspring guard from stain
Their pure and lofty faith;
And yield up all things, to maintain
The cause for which they girt themselves to death.

And I obey. I leave their towers
Unto the stranger’s tread,
Unto the creeping grass and flowers,
Unto the fading pictures of the dead.

I leave their shields to slow decay,
Their banners to the dust:
I go, and only bear away
Their old majestic name--a solemn trust!

I go up to the ancient hills.
Where chains may never be,
Where leap in joy the torrent-rills,
Where man may worship God, alone and free.

There shall an altar and a camp
Impregnably arise;
There shall be lit a quenchless lamp,
To shine, unwavering, through the open skies.

And song shall midst the rocks be heard,
And fearless prayer ascend;
While, thrilling to God’s holy word,
The mountain-pines in adoration bend.

And there the burning heart no more
Its deep thought shall suppress,
But the long-buried truth shall pour
Free currents thence, amidst the wilderness.

Then fare thee well, my mother’s bower!
Farewell, my father’s hearth!--
Perish my home! where lawless power
Hath rent the tie of love to native earth.

Perish! let deathlike silence fall
Upon the lone abode;
Spread fast, dark ivy! spread thy pall;--
I go up to the mountains with my God.

ANTIQUE GREEK LAMENT.[440]

By the blue waters--the restless ocean-waters,
Restless as they with their many-flashing surges,
Lonely I wander, weeping for my lost one!

I pine for thee through all the joyless day--
Through the long night I pine: the golden sun
Looks dim since thou hast left me, and the spring
Seems but to weep. Where art thou, my beloved?
Night after night, in fond hope vigilant,
By the old temple on the breezy cliff,
These hands have heap’d the watch-fire, till it stream’d
Red o’er the shining columns--darkly red
Along the crested billows!--but in vain:
Thy white sail comes not from the distant isles--
Yet thou wert faithful ever. Oh! the deep
Hath shut above thy head--that graceful head;
The sea-weed mingles with thy clustering locks;
The white sail never will bring back the loved!

By the blue waters--the restless ocean-waters,
Restless as they with their many-flashing surges,
Lonely I wander, weeping for my lost one!

Where art thou?--where? Had I but lingering press’d
On thy cold lips the last long kiss--but smooth’d
The parted ringlets of thy shining hair
With love’s fond touch, my heart’s cry had been still’d
Into a voiceless grief: I would have strew’d
With all the pale flowers of the vernal woods--
White violets, and the mournful hyacinth,
And frail anemone, thy marble brow,
In slumber beautiful! I would have heap’d
Sweet boughs and precious odours on thy pyre,
And with mine own shorn tresses hung thine urn,
And many a garland of the pallid rose:
But thou liest far away! No funeral chant,
Save the wild moaning of the wave, is thine:
No pyre--save, haply, some long-buried wreck;
Thou that wert fairest--thou that wert most loved!

By the blue waters--the restless ocean-waters,
Restless as they with their many-flashing surges,
Lonely I wander, weeping for my lost one!

Come, in the dreamy shadow of the night,
And speak to me! E’en though thy voice be changed,
My heart would know it still. Oh, speak to me!
And say if yet, in some dim, far-off world,
Which knows not how the festal sunshine burns,
If yet, in some pale mead of asphodel,
We two shall meet again! Oh, I would quit
The day rejoicingly--the rosy light--
All the rich flowers and fountains musical,
And sweet, familiar melodies of earth,
To dwell with thee below! Thou answerest not!
The powers whom I have call’d upon are mute:
The voices buried in old whispery caves,
And by lone river-sources, and amidst
The gloom and mystery of dark prophet-oaks,
The wood-gods’ haunt--they give me no reply!
All silent--heaven and earth! For evermore
From the deserted mountains thou art gone--
For ever from the melancholy groves,
Whose laurels wail thee with a shivering sound!
And I--I pine through all the joyous day,
Through the long night I pine--as fondly pines
The night’s own bird, dissolving her lorn life
To song in moonlight woods. Thou hear’st me not!
The heavens are pitiless of human tears:
The deep sea-darkness is about thy head;
The white sail never will bring back the loved!

By the blue waters--the restless ocean-waters,
Restless as they with their many-flashing surges,
Lonely I wander, weeping for my lost one!

[440] The original title given to this poem was The Lament of Alcyone, which was altered to its present one, on the suggestion of a friend. It was written in November 1834.

THOUGHTS DURING SICKNESS.

INTELLECTUAL POWERS.

O Thought! O Memory! gems for ever heaping
High in the illumined chambers of the mind--
And thou, divine Imagination! keeping
Thy lamp’s lone star mid shadowy hosts enshrined;
How in one moment rent and disentwined,
At Fever’s fiery touch, apart they fall,
Your glorious combinations! broken all,
As the sand-pillars by the desert’s wind
Scatter’d to whirling dust! Oh, soon uncrown’d!
Well may your parting swift, your strange return,
Subdue the soul to lowliness profound,
Guiding its chasten’d vision to discern
How by meek Faith heaven’s portals must be pass’d,
Ere it can hold your gifts inalienably fast.

SICKNESS LIKE NIGHT.

Thou art like Night, O Sickness! deeply stilling
Within my heart the world’s disturbing sound,
And the dim quiet of my chamber filling
With low, sweet voices by Life’s tumult drown’d.
Thou art like awful Night! thou gatherest round
The things that are unseen--though close they lie;
And with a truth, clear, startling, and profound,
Giv’st their dread presence to our mental eye.
Thou art like starry, spiritual Night!
High and immortal thoughts attend thy way,
And revelations, which the common light
Brings not, though wakening with its rosy ray
All outward life:--Be welcome, then, thy rod,
Before whose touch my soul unfolds itself to God.

ON RETZSCH’S DESIGN OF THE ANGEL OF DEATH.[441]

Well might thine awful image thus arise
With that high calm upon thy regal brow,
And the deep, solemn sweetness in those eyes,
Unto the glorious artist! Who but thou
The fleeting forms of beauty can endow
For him with permanence? who make those gleams
Of brighter life, that colour his lone dreams,
Immortal things? Let others _trembling_ bow,
Angel of Death! before thee;--not to those
Whose spirits with Eternal Truth repose,
Art thou a fearful shape! And oh! for me,
How full of welcome would thine aspect shine,
Did not the cords of strong affection twine
So fast around my soul, it _cannot_ spring to thee!

[441] This sonnet was suggested by the following passage out of Mrs Jameson’s _Visits and Sketches at Home and Abroad_, in a description she gives of a visit paid to the artist Retzsch, near Dresden:--“Afterwards he placed upon his easel a wondrous face which made me shrink back--not with terror, for it was perfectly beautiful,--but with awe, for it was unspeakably fearful: the hair streamed back from the pale brow--the orbs of sight appeared at first two dark, hollow, unfathomable spaces, like those in a skull; but when I drew nearer and looked attentively, two lovely living eyes looked at me again out of the depth of the shadow, as if from the bottom of an abyss. The mouth was divinely sweet, but sad, and the softest repose rested on every feature. This, he told me, was the Angel of Death.”

REMEMBRANCE OF NATURE.

O Nature! thou didst rear me for thine own,
With thy free singing-birds and mountain-brooks;
Feeding my thoughts in primrose-haunted nooks,
With fairy fantasies and wood-dreams lone;
And thou didst teach me every wandering tone
Drawn from thy many-whispering trees and waves,
And guide my steps to founts and sparry caves,
And where bright mosses wove thee a rich throne
Midst the green hills: and now that, far estranged
From all sweet sounds and odours of thy breath,
Fading I lie, within my heart unchanged,
So glows the love of thee, that not for death
Seems that pure passion’s fervour--but ordain’d
To meet on brighter shores thy majesty unstain’d.

FLIGHT OF THE SPIRIT.

Whither, oh! whither wilt thou wing thy way?
What solemn region first upon thy sight
Shall break, unveil’d for terror or delight?
What hosts, magnificent in dread array,
My spirit! when thy prison-house of clay,
After long strife is rent? Fond, fruitless quest!
The unfledged bird, within his narrow nest,
Sees but a few green branches o’er him play,
And through their parting leaves, by fits reveal’d,
A glimpse of summer sky; nor knows the field
Wherein his dormant powers must yet be tried.
Thou art that bird!--of what beyond thee lies
Far in the untrack’d, immeasurable skies,
Knowing but this--that thou shalt find thy Guide?

FLOWERS.

Welcome, O pure and lovely forms! again
Unto the shadowy stillness of my room!
For not alone ye bring a joyous train
Of summer-thoughts attendant on your bloom--
Visions of freshness, of rich bowery gloom,
Of the low murmurs filling mossy dells,
Of stars that look down on your folded bells
Through dewy leaves, of many a wild perfume
Greeting the wanderer of the hill and grove
Like sudden music: more than this ye bring--
Far more; ye whisper of the all-fostering love
Which thus hath clothed you, and whose dove-like wing
Broods o’er the sufferer drawing fever’d breath,
Whether the couch be that of life or death.

RECOVERY.[442]

Back, then, once more to breast the waves of life,
To battle on against the unceasing spray,
To sink o’erwearied in the stormy strife,
And rise to strive again; yet on my way,
Oh! linger still, thou light of better day!
Born in the hours of loneliness: and you,
Ye childlike thoughts! the holy and the true--
Ye that came bearing, while subdued I lay,
The faith, the insight of life’s vernal morn
Back on my soul, a clear, bright sense, new-born,
Now leave me not! but as, profoundly pure,
A blue stream rushes through a darker lake
Unchanged, e’en thus with me your journey take,
Wafting sweet airs of heaven thro’ this low world obscure.

[442] Written under the false impression occasioned by a temporary improvement in strength.

SABBATH SONNET.[443]

COMPOSED BY MRS HEMANS A FEW DAYS BEFORE HER DEATH, AND DICTATED TO HER BROTHER.

How many blessed groups this hour are bending,
Thro’ England’s primrose meadow-paths, their way
Towards spire and tower, midst shadowy elms ascending,
Whence the sweet chimes proclaim the hallow’d day!
The halls from old heroic ages gray
Pour their fair children forth; and hamlets low,
With whose thick orchard-blooms the soft winds play,
Send out their inmates in a happy flow,
Like a freed vernal stream. I may not tread
With them those pathways--to the feverish bed
Of sickness bound; yet, O my God! I bless
Thy mercy, that with Sabbath-peace hath fill’d
My chasten’d heart, and all its throbbings still’d
To one deep calm of lowliest thankfulness!

26th April 1835.

[443] After the exhausting vicissitudes of days when it seemed that the night of death was indeed at hand--of nights when it was thought that she could never see the light of morning--wonderful even to those who had witnessed, throughout her illness, the clearness and brightness of the never-dying principle, amidst the desolation and decay of its earthly companion, was the consecrated power and facility with which, on Sunday, the 26th of April, she dictated to her brother the “Sabbath Sonnet,” the last strain of the “sweet singer,” whose harp was henceforth to be hung upon the willows.

Amongst the many tributes of interest and admiration elicited by a poem, so remarkable to all readers--so precious to many hearts--the following expressions, contained in a letter from the late venerable Bishop of Salisbury to Mrs Joanna Baillie, and already published by the latter, are too pleasingly applicable not to be inserted here. “There is something peculiarly touching in the time, the subject, and the occasion of this deathbed sonnet, and in the affecting contrast between the ‘blessed groups’ she describes, and her own (humanly speaking) helpless state of sickness; and that again contrasted with the hopeful state of mind with which the sonnet concludes, expressive both of the quiet comforts of a Christian Sabbath, and the blessed fruits of profitable application. Her ‘Sweet Chimes’ on ‘Sabbath-peace,’ appear to me very characteristic of the writer.”--_Memoir_, p. 311-12.