Chapter III: Part II: Analysis of Part II (1)

Apostrophe to the power of Love ... its intimate connection with generous and social Sensibility ... allusion to that beautiful passage in the beginning of the book of Genesis, which represents the happiness of Paradise itself incomplete, till love was superadded to its other blessings ... the dreams of future felicity which a lively imagination is apt to cherish, when Hope is animated by refined attachment ... this disposition to combine, in one imaginary scene of residence, all that is pleasing in our estimate of happiness, compared to the skill of the great artist who personified perfect beauty, in the picture of Venus, by an assemblage of the most beautiful features he could find ... a summer and winter evening described, as they may be supposed to arise in the mind of one who wishes, with enthusiasm, for the union of friendship and retirement.

Hope and imagination inseparable agents ... even in those contemplative moments when our imagination wanders beyond the boundaries of this world, our minds are not unattended with an impression that we shall some day have a wider and distinct prospect of the universe, instead of the partial glimpse we now enjoy.

The last and most sublime influence of Hope is the concluding topic of the poem ... the predominance of a belief in a future state over the terrors attendant on dissolution ... the baneful influence of that sceptical philosophy which bars us from such comforts ... allusion to the fate of a suicide ... episode of Conrad and Ellenore ... conclusion.

PLEASURES OF HOPE. PART II.

In joyous youth, what soul hath never known
Thought, feeling, taste, harmonious to its own?
Who hath not paused while Beauty’s pensive eye
Asked from his heart the homage of a sigh?
Who hath not owned, with rapture-smitten frame,
The power of grace, the magic of a name?

There be, perhaps, who barren hearts avow,
Cold as the rocks on Torneo’s hoary brow;
There be, whose loveless wisdom never failed,
In self-adoring pride securely mailed:—
But, triumph not, ye peace-enamoured few!
Fire, Nature, Genius, never dwelt with you!
For you no fancy consecrates the scene
Where rapture uttered vows, and wept between;
’Tis yours, unmoved, to sever and to meet;
No pledge is sacred, and no home is sweet!

Who that would ask a heart to dulness wed,
The waveless calm, the slumber of the dead?
No; the wild bliss of Nature needs alloy,
And fear and sorrow fan the fire of joy!
And say, without our hopes, without our fears,
Without the home that plighted love endears,
Without the smile from partial beauty won,
Oh! what were man?—a world without a sun.

Till Hymen brought his love-delighted hour,
There dwelt no joy in Eden’s rosy bower!
In vain the viewless seraph lingering there,
At starry midnight charmed the silent air:
In vain the wild bird carolled on the steep,
To hail the sun, slow wheeling from the deep;
In vain, to soothe, the solitary shade,
Aërial notes in mingling measure played;
The summer wind that shook the spangled tree,
The whispering wave, the murmur of the bee;—
Still slowly passed the melancholy day,
And still the stranger wist not where to stray.
The world was sad!—the garden was a wild!
And man, the hermit, sighed—till woman smiled!

True, the sad power to generous hearts may bring
Delirious anguish on his fiery wing;
Barred from delight by Fate’s untimely hand,
By wealthless lot, or pitiless command;
Or doomed to gaze on beauties that adorn
The smile of triumph or the frown of scorn;
While Memory watches o’er the sad review,
Of joys that faded like the morning dew;
Peace may depart—and life and nature seem
A barren path, a wildness, and a dream!

But can the noble mind for ever brood,
The willing victim of a weary mood,
On heartless cares that squander life away,
And cloud young Genius brightening into day?—
Shame to the coward thought that e’er betrayed
The noon of manhood to a myrtle shade![21]—
If HOPE’S creative spirit cannot raise
One trophy sacred to thy future days,
Scorn the dull crowd that haunt the gloomy shrine
Of hopeless love to murmur and repine!
But, should a sigh of milder mood express
Thy heart-warm wishes, true to happiness,
Should Heaven’s fair harbinger delight to pour
Her blissful visions on thy pensive hour,
No tear to blot thy memory’s pictured page
No fears but such as fancy can assuage;
Though thy wild heart some hapless hour may miss
The peaceful tenor of unvaried bliss,
(For love pursues an ever-devious race,
True to the winding lineaments of grace;)
Yet still may hope her talisman employ
To snatch from Heaven anticipated joy,
And all her kindred energies impart
That burn the brightest in the purest heart.

When first the Rhodian’s mimic art arrayed
The queen of Beauty in her Cyprian shade,
The happy master mingled on his piece
Each look that charmed him in the fair of Greece.
To faultless nature true, he stole a grace
From every finer form and sweeter face;
And as he sojourned on the Ægean isles,
Woo’d all their love, and treasured all their smiles;
Then glowed the tints, pure, precious, and refined,
And mortal charms seemed heavenly when combined
Love on the picture smiled! Expression poured
Her mingling spirit there—and Greece adored!

So thy fair hand, enamoured Fancy! gleans
The treasured pictures of a thousand scenes;
Thy pencil traces on the lover’s thought
Some cottage-home, from towns and toil remote,
Where love and lore may claim alternate hours,
With Peace embosom’d in Idalian bowers!
Remote from busy Life’s bewildered way,
O’er all his heart shall Taste and Beauty sway!
Free on the sunny slope, or winding shore,
With hermit steps to wander and adore!
There shall he love, when genial morn appears,
Like pensive Beauty smiling in her tears,
To watch the brightening roses of the sky,
And muse on Nature with a poet’s eye!—
And when the sun’s last splendour lights the deep,
The woods and waves, and murmuring winds asleep;
When fairy harps the Hesperian planet hail,
And the lone cuckoo sighs along the vale,
His path shall be where streamy mountains swell
Their shadowy grandeur o’er the narrow dell,
Where mouldering piles and forests intervene,
Mingling with darker tints the living green:
No circling hills his ravished eye to bound,
Heaven, Earth, and Ocean, blazing all around.

The moon is up—the watch-tower dimly burns—
And down the vale his sober step returns;
But pauses oft, as winding rocks convey
The still sweet fall of music far away;
And oft he lingers from his home a while
To watch the dying notes!—and start, and smile!

Let Winter come! let polar spirits sweep
The darkening world, and tempest-troubled deep!
Though boundless snows the withered heath deform
And the dim sun scarce wanders through the storm,
Yet shall the smile of social love repay,
With mental light, the melancholy day!
And, when its short and sullen noon is o’er,
The ice-chained waters slumbering on the shore,
How bright the faggots in his little hall
Blaze on the hearth, and warm the pictured wall!

How blest he names, in Love’s familiar tone,
The kind, fair friend, by nature marked his own;
And, in the waveless mirror of his mind,
Views the fleet years of pleasure left behind,
Since Anna’s empire o’er his heart began!
Since first he called her his before the holy man!

Trim the gay taper in his rustic dome,
And light the wintry paradise of home!
And let the half-uncurtained window hail
Some way-worn man benighted in the vale!
Now, while the moaning night-wind rages high,
As sweep the shot-stars down the troubled sky,
While fiery hosts in Heaven’s wide circle play,
And bathe in lurid light the milky-way,
Safe from the storm, the meteor, and the shower,
Some pleasing page shall charm the solemn hour—
With pathos shall command, with wit beguile,
A generous tear of anguish, or a smile—
Thy woes, Arion![22] and thy simple tale,
O’er all the heart shall triumph and prevail!
Charmed as they read the verse too sadly true,
How gallant Albert, and his weary crew,
Heaved all their guns, their foundering bark to save,
And toiled—and shrieked—and perished on the wave!

Yes, at the dead of night, by Lonna’s steep,
The seaman’s cry was heard along the deep;
There, on his funeral waters, dark and wild,
The dying father blessed his darling child!
“Oh! Mercy, shield her innocence,” he cried,
Spent on the prayer his bursting heart, and died!

Or they will learn how generous worth sublimes
The robber Moor,[23] and pleads for all his crimes!
How poor Amelia kissed, with many a tear,
His hand blood-stained, but ever, ever dear!
Hung on the tortured bosom of her lord,
And wept and prayed perdition from his sword!
Nor sought in vain! at that heart-piercing cry
The strings of Nature cracked with agony!
He, with delirious laugh, the dagger hurled,
And burst the ties that bound him to the world!

Turn from his dying words, that smite with steel
The shuddering thoughts, or wind them on the wheel—
Turn to the gentler melodies that suit
Thalia’s harp, or Pan’s Arcadian lute;
Or, down the stream of Truth’s historic page,
From clime to clime descend, from age to age!

Yet there, perhaps, may darker scenes obtrude
Than Fancy fashions in her wildest mood;
There shall he pause with horrent brow, to rate
What millions died—that Cæsar might be great![24]
Or learn the fate that bleeding thousands bore,
Marched by their Charles[25] to Dneiper’s swampy shore;
Faint in his wounds, and shivering in the blast,
The Swedish soldier sunk—and groaned his last!
File after file the stormy showers benumb,
Freeze every standard-sheet, and hush the drum!
Horseman and horse confessed the bitter pang,
And arms and warriors fell with hollow clang!
Yet, ere he sunk in Nature’s last repose,
Ere life’s warm torrent to the fountain froze,
The dying man to Sweden turned his eye,
Thought of his home, and closed it with a sigh!
Imperial Pride looked sullen on his plight,
And Charles beheld—nor shuddered at the sight!

Above, below, in Ocean, Earth, and Sky,
Thy fairy worlds, Imagination, lie,
And HOPE attends, companion of the way,
Thy dream by night, thy visions of the day!
In yonder pensile orb, and every sphere
That gems the starry girdle of the year;
In those unmeasured worlds, she bids thee tell,
Pure from their God, created millions dwell,
Whose names and natures, unrevealed below,
We yet shall learn, and wonder as we know;
For, as Iona’s saint,[26] a giant form,
Throned on her towers, conversing with the storm
(When o’er each Runic altar, weed-entwined,
The vesper clock tolls mournful to the wind,)
Counts every wave-worn isle, and mountain hoar
From Kilda to the green Ierne’s shore;
So, when thy pure and renovated mind
This perishable dust hath left behind,
Thy seraph eye shall count the starry train,
Like distant isles embosomed in the main;
Rapt to the shrine where motion first began,
And light and life in mingling torrent ran;
From whence each bright rotundity was hurled,
The throne of God,—the centre of the world!

Oh! vainly wise, the moral Muse hath sung
That suasive HOPE hath but a Syren tongue!
True; she may sport with life’s untutored day,
Nor heed the solace of its last decay,
The guileless heart her happy mansion spurn,
And part, like Ajut—never to return![27]

But yet, methinks, when Wisdom shall assuage
The grief and passions of our greener age,
Though dull the close of life, and far away
Each flower that hailed the dawning of the day;
Yet o’er her lovely hopes, that once were dear,
The time-taught spirit, pensive, not severe,
With milder griefs her aged eye shall fill,
And weep their falsehood, though she love them still!

Thus, with forgiving tears, and reconciled,
The king of Judah mourned his rebel child!
Musing on days, when yet the guiltless boy
Smiled on his sire, and filled his heart with joy!
My Absalom! the voice of Nature cried:
Oh! that for thee thy father could have died!
For bloody was the deed, and rashly done,
That slew my Absalom!—my son!—my son!

Unfading HOPE! when life’s last embers burn,
When soul to soul, and dust to dust return!
Heaven to thy charge resigns the awful hour!
Oh! then, thy kingdom comes! Immortal Power!
What though each spark of earth-born rapture fly
The quivering lip, pale cheek, and closing eye!
Bright to the soul thy seraph hands convey
The morning dream of life’s eternal day—
Then, then, the triumph and the trance begin,
And all the phœnix spirit burns within!

Oh! deep-enchanting prelude to repose,
The dawn of bliss, the twilight of our woes!
Yet half I hear the panting spirit sigh,
It is a dread and awful thing to die!
Mysterious worlds, untravelled by the sun!
Where Time’s far-wandering tide has never run,
From your unfathomed shades, and viewless spheres,
A warning comes, unheard by other ears.
’Tis Heaven’s commanding trumpet, long and loud,
Like Sinai’s thunder, pealing from the cloud!
While Nature hears, with terror-mingled trust,
The shock that hurls her fabric to the dust;
And, like the trembling Hebrew, when he trod
The roaring waves, and call’d upon his God,
With mortal terrors clouds immortal bliss,
And shrieks, and hovers o’er the dark abyss!

Daughter of Faith, awake, arise, illume
The dread unknown, the chaos of the tomb;
Melt, and dispel, ye spectre-doubts, that roll
Cimmerian darkness on the parting soul!
Fly, like the moon-eyed herald of dismay,
Chased on his night-steed by the star of day.
The strife is o’er—the pangs of Nature close,
And life’s last rapture triumphs o’er her woes.
Hark! as the spirit eyes, with eagle gaze,
The noon of Heaven undazzled by the blaze,
On heavenly winds that waft her to the sky,
Float the sweet tones of star-born melody;
Wild as that hallowed anthem sent to hail
Bethlehem’s shepherds in the lonely vale,
When Jordan hushed his waves, and midnight still
Watched on the holy towers of Zion hill!

Soul of the just! companion of the dead!
Where is thy home, and whither art thou fled?
Back to its heavenly source thy being goes,
Swift as the comet wheels to whence he rose;
Doomed on his airy path a while to burn,
And doomed, like thee, to travel, and return.—
Hark! from the world’s exploding centre driven,
With sounds that shook the firmament of Heaven,
Careers the fiery giant, fast and far,
On bickering wheels, and adamantine car;
From planet whirled to planet more remote,
He visits realms beyond the reach of thought,
But wheeling homeward, when his course is run,
Curbs the red yoke, and mingles with the sun!
So hath the traveller of earth unfurled
Her trembling wings, emerging from the world;
And o’er the path by mortal never trod,
Sprung to her source, the bosom of her God!

Oh! lives there, Heaven! beneath thy dread expanse,
One hopeless, dark idolater of Chance,
Content to feed, with pleasures unrefined,
The lukewarm passions of a lowly mind;
Who, mouldering earthward, ’reft of every trust,
In joyless union wedded to the dust,
Could all his parting energy dismiss,
And call this barren world sufficient bliss?—
There live, alas! of heaven-directed mien,
Of cultured soul, and sapient eye serene,
Who hail thee, Man! the pilgrim of a day,
Spouse of the worm, and brother of the clay,
Frail as the leaf in Autumn’s yellow bower,
Dust in the wind, or dew upon the flower;
A friendless slave, a child without a sire,
Whose mortal life and momentary fire,
Lights to the grave his chance-created form,
As ocean-wrecks illuminate the storm;
And, when the gun’s tremendous flash is o’er,
To night and silence sink for evermore!—

Are these the pompous tidings ye proclaim,
Lights of the world, and demi-gods of Fame?
Is this your triumph—this your proud applause,
Children of Truth, and champions of her cause?
For this hath Science searched, on weary wing,
By shore and sea—each mute and living thing!
Launched with Iberia’s pilot[28] from the steep,
To worlds unknown, and isles beyond the deep?
Or round the cope her living chariot driven,
And wheeled in triumph through the signs of Heaven?
Oh! star-eyed Science, hast thou wandered there,
To waft us home the message of despair?
Then bind the palm, thy sage’s brow to suit,
Of blasted leaf, and death-distilling fruit!
Ah me! the laurelled wreath that Murder rears,
Blood-nursed, and watered by the widow’s tears,
Seems not so foul, so tainted, and so dread,
As waves the night-shade round the sceptic’s head.
What is the bigot’s torch, the tyrant’s chain?
I smile on death, if heavenward HOPE remain!
But, if the warring winds of Nature’s strife
Be all the faithless charter of my life,
If Chance awaked, inexorable power,
This frail and feverish being of an hour;
Doomed o’er the world’s precarious scene to sweep,
Swift as the tempest travels on the deep,
To know Delight but by her parting smile,
And toil, and wish, and weep a little while;
Then melt, ye elements, that formed in vain
This troubled pulse, and visionary brain!
Fade, ye wild flowers, memorials of my doom,
And sink, ye stars, that light me to the tomb!
Truth, ever lovely,—since the world began,
The foe of tyrants, and the friend of man,—
How can thy words from balmy slumber start
Reposing Virtue, pillowed on the heart!
Yet, if thy voice the note of thunder rolled,
And that were true which Nature never told,
Let Wisdom smile not on her conquered field;
No rapture dawns, no treasure is revealed!
Oh! let her read, nor loudly, nor elate,
The doom that bars us from a better fate;
But, sad as angels for the good man’s sin,
Weep to record, and blush to give it in!

And well may Doubt, the mother of Dismay,
Pause at her martyr’s tomb, and read the lay.
Down by the wilds of yon deserted vale
It darkly hints a melancholy tale!
There, as the homeless madman sits alone,
In hollow winds he hears a spirit moan!
And there, they say, a wizard orgie crowds,
When the Moon lights her watch-tower in the clouds.
Poor lost Alonzo! Fate’s neglected child!
Mild be the doom of Heaven—as thou wert mild!
For oh! thy heart in holy mould was cast,
And all thy deeds were blameless, but the last.
Poor lost Alonzo! still I seem to hear
The clod that struck thy hollow-sounding bier!
When Friendship paid, in speechless sorrow drowned,
Thy midnight rites, but not on hallowed ground!

Cease, every joy, to glimmer on my mind,
But leave—oh! leave the light of HOPE behind!
What though my wingèd hours of bliss have been,
Like angel-visits, few and far between,
Her musing mood shall every pang appease,
And charm—when pleasures lose the power to please!
Yes; let each rapture, dear to Nature, flee:
Close not the light of Fortune’s stormy sea—
Mirth, Music, Friendship, Love’s propitious smile,
Chase every care, and charm a little while,
Ecstatic throbs the fluttering heart employ,
And all her strings are harmonised to joy!—
But why so short is Love’s delighted hour?
Why fades the dew on Beauty’s sweetest flower?
Why can no hymnèd charm of music heal
The sleepless woes impassioned spirits feel?
Can Fancy’s fairy hands no veil create,
To hide the sad realities of fate?—

No! not the quaint remark, the sapient rule,
Nor all the pride of Wisdom’s worldly school,
Have power to soothe, unaided and alone,
The heart that vibrates to a feeling tone!
When stepdame Nature every bliss recalls,
Fleet as the meteor o’er the desert falls;
When, ’reft of all, yon widowed sire appears
A lonely hermit in the vale of years;
Say, can the world one joyous thought bestow
To Friendship, weeping at the couch of Woe?
No! but a brighter soothes the last adieu,—
Souls of impassioned mould, she speaks to you!
Weep not, she says, at Nature’s transient pain,
Congenial spirits part to meet again!

What plaintive sobs thy filial spirit drew,
What sorrow choked thy long and last adieu,—
Daughter of Conrad! when he heard his knell,
And bade his country and his child farewell!
Doomed the long isles of Sydney-cove to see,
The martyr of his crimes, but true to thee.
Thrice the sad father tore thee from his heart,
And thrice returned, to bless thee, and to part;
Thrice from his trembling lips he murmured low
The plaint that owned unutterable woe;
Till Faith, prevailing o’er his sullen doom,
As bursts the morn on night’s unfathomed gloom,
Lured his dim eye to deathless hopes sublime,
Beyond the realms of Nature and of Time!

“And weep not thus,” he cried, “young Ellenore,
My bosom bleeds, but soon shall bleed no more!
Short shall this half-extinguished spirit burn,
And soon these limbs to kindred dust return!
But not, my child, with life’s precarious fire,
The immortal ties of Nature shall expire;
These shall resist the triumph of decay,
When time is o’er, and worlds have passed away!
Cold in the dust this perished heart may lie,
But that which warmed it once shall never die!
That spark unburied in its mortal frame,
With living light, eternal, and the same,
Shall beam on Joy’s interminable years,
Unveiled by darkness—unassuaged by tears!

“Yet, on the barren shore and stormy deep,
One tedious watch is Conrad doomed to weep;
But when I gain the home without a friend,
And press the uneasy couch where none attend,
This last embrace, still cherished in my heart,
Shall calm the struggling spirit ere it part;
Thy darling form shall seem to hover nigh,
And hush the groan of life’s last agony!

“Farewell! when strangers lift thy father’s bier,
And place my nameless stone without a tear;
When each returning pledge hath told my child
That Conrad’s tomb is on the desert piled;
And when the dream of troubled Fancy sees
Its lonely rank grass waving in the breeze;
Who then will soothe thy grief, when mine is o’er?
Who will protect thee, helpless Ellenore?
Shall secret scenes thy filial sorrows hide,
Scorned by the world, to factious guilt allied?
Ah! no; methinks the generous and the good
Will woo thee from the shades of solitude!
O’er friendless grief compassion shall awake,
And smile on innocence, for Mercy’s sake!”

Inspiring thought of rapture yet to be,
The tears of Love were hopeless, but for thee!
If in that frame no deathless spirit dwell,
If that faint murmur be the last farewell,
If Fate unite the faithful but to part,
Why is their memory sacred to the heart?
Why does the brother of my childhood seem
Restored a while in every pleasing dream?
Why do I joy the lonely spot to view,
By artless friendship blessed when life was new?

Eternal HOPE! when yonder spheres sublime
Pealed their first notes to sound the march of Time,
Thy joyous youth began—but not to fade.—
When all the sister planets have decayed;
When wrapt in fire the realms of ether glow,
And Heaven’s last thunder shakes the world below;
Thou, undismayed, shalt o’er the ruins smile,
And light thy torch at Nature’s funeral pile.

[21] “Sacred to Venus is the myrtle shade.”—_Dryden._

[22] Falconer, who calls himself Arion in “The Shipwreck” (Canto III.)

[23] See Schiller’s tragedy of “The Robbers,” Scene 5.

[24] The carnage occasioned by the wars of Julius Cæsar has been usually estimated at two millions of men.

[25] Charles XII., of Sweden.—See Notes.

[26] See Notes.

[27] See “Rambler.”

[28] Columbus.

GERTRUDE OF WYOMING.

ADVERTISEMENT.

Most of the popular histories of England, as well as of the American war, give an authentic account of the desolation of Wyoming, in Pennsylvania, which took place in 1778, by an incursion of the Indians. The Scenery and Incidents of the following Poem are connected with that event. The testimonies of historians and travellers concur in describing the infant colony as one of the happiest spots of human existence, for the hospitable and innocent manners of the inhabitants, the beauty of the country, and the luxuriant fertility of the soil and climate. In an evil hour, the junction of European with Indian arms, converted this terrestrial paradise into a frightful waste. Mr. ISAAC WELD informs us, that the ruins of many of the villages, perforated with balls, and bearing marks of conflagration, were still preserved by the recent inhabitants, when he travelled through America in 1796.

GERTRUDE OF WYOMING. PART I.

I.

On Susquehana’s side, fair Wyoming!
Although the wild-flower on thy ruined wall
And roofless homes, a sad remembrance bring
Of what thy gentle people did befall;
Yet thou wert once the loveliest land of all
That see the Atlantic wave their morn restore.
Sweet land! may I thy lost delights recall,
And paint thy Gertrude in her bowers of yore,
Whose beauty was the love of Pennsylvania’s shore!

II.

Delightful Wyoming! beneath thy skies,
The happy shepherd swains had nought to do
But feed their flocks on green declivities,
Or skim perchance thy lake with light canoe,
From morn till evening’s sweeter pastime grew,
With timbrel, when beneath the forests brown,
Thy lovely maidens would the dance renew;
And aye those sunny mountains half-way down
Would echo flageolet from some romantic town.

III.

Then, where of Indian hills the daylight takes
His leave, how might you the flamingo see
Disporting like a meteor on the lakes—
And playful squirrel on his nut-grown tree:
And every sound of life was full of glee,
From merry mock-bird’s song,[29] or hum of men;
While hearkening, fearing nought their revelry,
The wild-deer arched his neck from glades, and then
Unhunted, sought his woods and wilderness again.

IV.

And scarce had Wyoming of war or crime
Heard, but in transatlantic story rung,
For here the exile met from every clime,
And spoke in friendship every distant tongue:
Men from the blood of warring Europe sprung,
Were but divided by the running brook;
And happy where no Rhenish trumpet sung,
On plains no sieging mine’s volcano shook,
The blue-eyed German changed his sword to pruning-hook.

V.

Nor far some Andalusian saraband
Would sound to many a native roundelay—
But who is he that yet a dearer land
Remembers over hills and far away?
Green Albin![30] what though he no more survey
Thy ships at anchor on the quiet shore,
Thy pellochs[31] rolling from the mountain bay,
Thy lone sepulchral cairn upon the moor,
And distant isles that hear the loud Corbrechtan roar![32]

VI.

Alas! poor Caledonia’s mountaineer,
That want’s stern edict e’er, and feudal grief,
Had forced him from a home he loved so dear!
Yet found he here a home, and glad relief,
And plied the beverage from his own fair sheaf,
That fired his Highland blood with mickle glee:
And England sent her men, of men the chief,
Who taught those sires of Empire yet to be,
To plant the tree of life,—to plant fair Freedom’s tree!

VII.

Here was not mingled in the city’s pomp
Of life’s extremes the grandeur and the gloom;
Judgment awoke not here her dismal tromp,
Nor sealed in blood a fellow-creature’s doom,
Nor mourned the captive in a living tomb.
One venerable man, beloved of all,
Sufficed, where innocence was yet in bloom,
To sway the strife, that seldom might befall:
And Albert was their judge in patriarchal hall.

VIII.

How reverend was the look, serenely aged,
He bore, this gentle Pennsylvanian sire,
Where all but kindly fervours were assuaged,
Undimmed by weakness’ shade, or turbid ire!
And though, amidst the calm of thought entire,
Some high and haughty features might betray
A soul impetuous once, ’twas earthly fire
That fled composure’s intellectual ray,
As Etna’s fires grow dim before the rising day.

IX.

I boast no song in magic wonders rife,
But yet, oh, Nature! is there nought to prize,
Familiar in thy bosom scenes of life?
And dwells in daylight truth’s salubrious skies
No form with which the soul may sympathise?—
Young, innocent, on whose sweet forehead mild
The parted ringlet shone in simplest guise,
An inmate in the home of Albert smiled,
Or blest his noonday walk—she was his only child.

X.

The rose of England bloomed on Gertrude’s cheek—
What though these shades had seen her birth, her sire
A Briton’s independence taught to seek
Far western worlds; and there his household fire
The light of social love did long inspire,
And many a halcyon day he lived to see
Unbroken but by one misfortune dire,
When fate had reft his mutual heart—but she
Was gone—and Gertrude climbed a widowed father’s knee.

XI.

A loved bequest,—and I may half impart—
To them that feel the strong paternal tie,
How like a new existence to his heart
That living flower uprose beneath his eye,
Dear as she was from cherub infancy,
From hours when she would round his garden play,
To time when as the ripening years went by,
Her lovely mind could culture well repay,
And more engaging grew; from pleasing day to day.

XII.

I may not paint those thousand infant charms;
(Unconscious fascination, undesigned!)
The orison repeated in his arms,
For God to bless her sire and all mankind;
The book, the bosom on his knee reclined,
Or how sweet fairy-lore he heard her con,
(The playmate ere the teacher of her mind:)
All uncompanioned else her heart had gone
Till now, in Gertrude’s eyes, their ninth blue summer shone.

XIII.

And summer was the tide, and sweet the hour,
When sire and daughter saw, with fleet descent,
An Indian from his bark approach their bower,
Of buskined limb, and swarthy lineament;[33]
The red wild feathers on his brow were blent,
And bracelets bound the arm that helped to light
A boy, who seemed, as he beside him went,
Of Christian vesture, and complexion bright,
Led by his dusky guide, like morning brought by night.

XIV.

Yet pensive seemed the boy for one so young—
The dimple from his polished cheek had fled;
When, leaning on his forest-bow unstrung,
The Oneyda warrior to the planter said,
And laid his hand upon the stripling’s head,
“Peace be to thee! my words this belt[34] approve;
The paths of peace my steps have hither led:[33]
This little nursling, take him to thy love,
And shield the bird unfledged, since gone the parent dove.

XV.

“Christian! I am the foeman of thy foe;
Our wampum league thy brethren did embrace:[33]
Upon the Michigan, three moons ago,
We launched our pirogues for the bison chase,
And with the Hurons planted for a space,
With true and faithful hands, the olive-stalk;
But snakes are in the bosoms of their race,
And though they held with us a friendly talk,
The hollow peace-tree fell beneath their tomahawk.

XVI.

“It was encamping on the lake’s far port,
A cry of Areouski[35] broke our sleep,
Where stormed an ambushed foe thy nation’s fort,
And rapid, rapid whoops came o’er the deep;
But long thy country’s war-sign on the steep
Appeared through ghastly intervals of light,
And deathfully their thunders seemed to sweep,
Till utter darkness swallowed up the sight,
As if a shower of blood had quenched the fiery fight.

XVII.

“It slept—it rose again—on high their tower
Sprung upwards like a torch to light the skies
Then down again it rained an ember shower,
And louder lamentations heard we rise:
As when the evil Manitou[36] that dries
The Ohio woods, consumes them in his ire,
In vain the desolated panther flies,
And howls amidst his wilderness of fire:
Alas! too late, we reached and smote those Hurons dire!

XVIII.

“But as the fox beneath the nobler hound,
So died their warriors by our battle-brand;
And from the tree we, with her child, unbound
A lonely mother of the Christian land:—
Her lord—the captain of the British band—
Amidst the slaughter of his soldiers lay.
Scarce knew the widow our delivering hand;
Upon her child she sobbed, and swooned away,
Or shrieked unto the God to whom the Christians pray.

XIX.

“Our virgins fed her with their kindly bowls
Of fever-balm and sweet sagamité:[37]
But she was journeying to the land of souls,
And lifted up her dying head to pray
That we should bid an ancient friend convey
Her orphan to his home of England’s shore;—
And take, she said, this token far away,
To one that will remember us of yore,
When he beholds the ring that Waldegrave’s Julia wore.

XX.

“And I, the eagle of my tribe,[38] have rushed
With this lorn dove.”—A sage’s self-command
Had quelled the tears from Albert’s heart that gushed;
But yet his cheek—his agitated hand—
That showered upon the stranger of the land
No common boon, in grief but ill beguiled
A soul that was not wont to be unmanned;
“And stay,” he cried, “dear pilgrim of the wild,
Preserver of my old, my boon companion’s child!—

XXI.

“Child of a race whose name my bosom warms,
On earth’s remotest bounds how welcome here?
Whose mother oft, a child, has filled these arms,
Young as thyself, and innocently dear,
Whose grandsire was my early life’s compeer.
Ah, happiest home of England’s happy clime!
How beautiful e’en now thy scenes appear,
As in the noon and sunshine of my prime!
How gone like yesterday these thrice ten years of time!

XXII.

“And, Julia! when thou wert like Gertrude now,
Can I forget thee, favourite child of yore?
Or thought I, in thy father’s house, when thou
Wert lightest hearted on his festive floor,
And first of all at his hospitable door
To meet and kiss me at my journey’s end?
But where was I when Waldegrave was no more?
And thou didst pale thy gentle head extend
In woes, that e’en the tribe of deserts was thy friend?”

XXIII.

He said—and strained unto his heart the boy;—
Far differently, the mute Oneyda took[39]
His calumet of peace, and cup of joy;[40]
As monumental bronze unchanged his look;
A soul that pity touched, but never shook;
Trained from his tree-rocked cradle[41] to his bier
The fierce extremes of good and ill to brook
Impassive[39]—fearing but the shame of fear—
A stoic of the woods—a man without a tear.

XXIV.

Yet deem not goodness on the savage stock
Of Outalissi’s heart disdained to grow;
As lives the oak unwithered on the rock
By storms above, and barrenness below;
He scorned his own, who felt another’s woe:
And ere the wolf-skin on his back he flung,
Or laced his moccasins,[42] in act to go,
A song of parting to the boy he sung,
Who slept on Albert’s couch, nor heard his friendly tongue.

XXV.

“Sleep, wearied one! and in the dreaming land
Shouldst thou to-morrow with thy mother meet.[39]
Oh! tell her spirit, that the white man’s hand
Hath plucked the thorns of sorrow from thy feet;
While I in lonely wilderness shall greet
Thy little foot-prints—or by traces know
The fountain, where at noon I thought it sweet
To feed thee with the quarry of my bow,
And poured the lotus-horn,[43] or slew the mountain roe.

XXVI.

“Adieu! sweet scion of the rising sun!
But should affliction’s storms thy blossom mock
Then come again—my own adopted one!
And I will graft thee on a noble stock:
The crocodile, the condor of the rock,[44]
Shall be the pastime of thy sylvan wars;
And I will teach thee, in the battle’s shock,
To pay with Huron blood thy father’s scars,
And gratulate his soul rejoicing in the stars!”

XXVII.

So finished he the rhyme (howe’er uncouth)
That true to nature’s fervid feelings ran;
(And song is but the eloquence of truth:)
Then forth uprose that lone way-faring man;[44]
But dauntless he, nor chart, nor journey’s plan
In woods required, whose trainèd eye was keen
As eagle of the wilderness, to scan
His path, by mountain, swamp, or deep ravine,
Or ken far friendly huts on good savannahs green.

XXVIII.

Old Albert saw him from the valley’s side—
His pirogue launched—his pilgrimage begun—
Far, like the red-bird’s wing he seemed to glide;
Then dived, and vanished in the woodlands dun.
Oft, to that spot by tender memory won,
Would Albert climb the promontory’s height,
If but a dim sail glimmered in the sun;
But never more, to bless his longing sight,
Was Outalissi hailed, with bark and plumage bright.

[29] See Notes at the end of the Volume.

[30] Scotland.

[31] The Gaelic appellation for the porpoise.

[32] A great whirlpool near the island of Jura.—See Notes.

[33] See Notes at the end of the Volume.

[34] The wampum, offered in token of amity.—See Notes.

[35] The Indian God of War.

[36] Spirit.—See Notes.

[37] A kind of soup.—See Notes.

[38] The Indians are distinguished both personally and by tribes by the name of particular animals, whose qualities they affect to resemble, either for cunning, strength, swiftness, or other qualities:—as the eagle, the serpent, the fox, or bear.—See Notes.

[39] See Notes at the end of the Volume.

[40] _Calumet of peace._—The calumet is the Indian name for the ornamented pipe of friendship, which they smoke as a pledge of amity.—See Notes.

[41] _Tree-rocked cradle._—The Indian mothers suspend their children in their cradles from the boughs of trees, and let them be rocked by the wind.—See Notes.

[42] Moccasins are a sort of Indian buskin.

[43] From a flower shaped like a horn, which Chateaubriand presumes to be of the lotus kind, the Indians in their travels through the desert often find a draught of dew purer than any other water.

[44] See Notes.

GERTRUDE OF WYOMING. PART II.

I.

A valley from the river shore withdrawn
Was Albert’s home, two quiet woods between,
Whose lofty verdure overlooked his lawn;
And waters to their resting-place serene
Came freshening, and reflecting all the scene:
(A mirror in the depth of flowery shelves;)
So sweet a spot of earth, you might (I ween)
Have guessed some congregation of the elves,
To sport by summer moons, had shaped it for themselves.

II.

Yet wanted not the eye far scope to muse,
Nor vistas opened by the wandering stream;
Both were at evening Allegany views
Through ridges burning in her western beam,
Lake after lake interminably gleam:
And past those settlers’ haunts the eye might roam
Where earth’s unliving silence all would seem;
Save where on rocks the beaver built his dome,
Or buffalo remote lowed far from human home.

III.

But silent not that adverse eastern path,
Which saw Aurora’s hills the horizon crown;
There was the river heard, in bed of wrath
(A precipice of foam from mountains brown),
Like tumults heard from some far distant town;
But softening in approach he left his gloom,
And murmured pleasantly, and laid him down
To kiss those easy curving banks of bloom,
That lent the windward air an exquisite perfume.

IV.

It seemed as if those scenes sweet influence had
On Gertrude’s soul, and kindness like their own
Inspired those eyes affectionate and glad,
That seemed to love whate’er they looked upon
Whether with Hebe’s mirth her features shone,
Or if a shade more pleasing them o’ercast,
(As if for heavenly musing meant alone;)
Yet so becomingly the expression past,
That each succeeding look was lovelier than the last.

V.

Nor, guess I, was that Pennsylvanian home,
With all its picturesque and balmy grace,
And fields that were a luxury to roam,
Lost on the soul that looked from such a face!
Enthusiast of the woods! when years apace
Had bound thy lovely waist with woman’s zone,
The sunrise path, at morn, I see thee trace
To hills with high magnolia overgrown,
And joy to breathe the groves, romantic and alone.

VI.

The sunrise drew her thoughts to Europe forth,
That thus apostrophised its viewless scene:
“Land of my father’s love, my mother’s birth!
The home of kindred I have never seen!
We know not other—oceans are between:
Yet say! far friendly hearts, from whence we came,
Of us does oft remembrance intervene?
My mother sure—my sire a thought may claim;—
But Gertrude is to you an unregarded name.

VII.

“And yet, loved England! when thy name I trace
In many a pilgrim’s tale and poet’s song,
How can I choose but wish for one embrace
Of them, the dear unknown, to whom belong
My mother’s looks,—perhaps her likeness strong?
Oh, parent! with what reverential awe,
From features of thine own related throng,
An image of thy face my soul could draw!
And see thee once again whom I too shortly saw!”

VIII.

Yet deem not Gertrude sighed for foreign joy;
To soothe a father’s couch her only care,
And keep his reverend head from all annoy:
For this, methinks, her homeward steps repair,
Soon as the morning wreath had bound her hair;
While yet the wild deer trod in spangling dew,
While boatmen carolled to the fresh-blown air,
And woods a horizontal shadow threw,
And early fox appeared in momentary view.

IX.

Apart there was a deep untrodden grot,
Where oft the reading hours sweet Gertrude wore.
Tradition had not named its lonely spot;
But here (methinks) might India’s sons explore
Their fathers’ dust,[45] or lift, perchance of yore,
Their voice to the great Spirit:—rocks sublime
To human art a sportive semblance bore,
And yellow lichens coloured all the clime,
Like moonlight battlements, and towers decayed by time.

X.

But high in amphitheatre above,
His arms the everlasting aloes threw:
Breathed but an air of heaven, and all the grove
As if with instinct living spirit grew,
Rolling its verdant gulfs of every hue;
And now suspended was the pleasing din,
Now from a murmur faint it swelled anew,
Like the first note of organ heard within
Cathedral aisles,—ere yet its symphony begin.

XI.

It was in this lone valley she would charm
The lingering noon, where flowers a couch had strewn;
Her cheek reclining, and her snowy arm
On hillock by the palm-tree half o’ergrown:
And aye that volume on her lap is thrown,
Which every heart of human mould endears;
With Shakespeare’s self she speaks and smiles alone,
And no intruding visitation fears,
To shame the unconscious laugh, or stop her sweetest tears.

XII.

And nought within the grove was heard or seen
But stock-doves ’plaining through its gloom profound,
Or winglet of the fairy humming bird,
Like atoms of the rainbow fluttering round;
When, lo! there entered to its inmost ground
A youth, the stranger of a distant land;
He was, to wit, for eastern mountains bound;
But late the equator suns his cheek had tanned,
And California’s gales his roving bosom fanned.

XIII.

A steed, whose rein hung loosely o’er his arm,
He led dismounted; ere his leisure pace,
Amid the brown leaves, could her ear alarm,
Close he had come, and worshipped for a space
Those downcast features:—she her lovely face
Uplift on one, whose lineaments and frame
Were youth and manhood’s intermingled grace:
Iberian seemed his boot—his robe the same,
And well the Spanish plume his lofty looks became.

XIV.

For Albert’s home he sought—her finger fair
Has pointed where the father’s mansion stood.
Returning from the copse he soon was there
And soon has Gertrude hied from dark green wood
Nor joyless, by the converse, understood
Between the man of age and pilgrim young
That gay congeniality of mood,
And early liking from acquaintance sprung;
Full fluently conversed their guest in England’s tongue.

XV.

And well could he his pilgrimage of taste
Unfold,—and much they loved his fervid strain,
While he each fair variety retraced
Of climes, and manners, o’er the eastern main.
Now happy Switzer’s hills,—romantic Spain,—
Gay lilied fields of France,—or, more refined,
The soft Ausonia’s monumental reign;
Nor less each rural image he designed
Than all the city’s pomp and home of human kind.

XVI.

Anon some wilder portraiture he draws;
Of Nature’s savage glories he would speak,—
The loneliness of earth that overawes,—
Where resting by some tomb of old Cacique,
The llama-driver on Peruvia’s peak,
Nor living voice nor motion marks around;
But storks that to the boundless forest shriek,
Or wild-cane arch high flung o’er gulf profound,[46]
That fluctuates when the storms of El Dorado sound.

XVII.

Pleased with his guest, the good man still would ply
Each earnest question, and his converse court;
But Gertrude, as she eyed him, knew not why
A strange and troubling wonder stopt her short.
“In England thou hast been,—and, by report,
An orphan’s name,” quoth Albert, “may’st have known.
Sad tale!—when latest fell our frontier fort,—
One innocent—one soldier’s child—alone
Was spared, and brought to me, who loved him as my own.

XVIII.

“Young Henry Waldegrave! three delightful years
These very walls his infant sports did see;
But most I loved him when his parting tears
Alternately bedewed my child and me:
His sorest parting, Gertrude, was from thee;
Nor half its grief his little heart could hold:
By kindred he was sent for o’er the sea,
They tore him from us when but twelve years old,
And scarcely for his loss have I been yet consoled!”

XIX.

His face the wanderer hid—but could not hide
A tear, a smile, upon his cheek that dwell;—
“And speak! mysterious stranger!” Gertrude cried,
“It is!—it is!—I knew—I knew him well!
’Tis Waldegrave’s self, of Waldegrave come to tell!”
A burst of joy the father’s lips declare;
But Gertrude speechless on his bosom fell:
At once his open arms embraced the pair,
Was never group more blest, in this wide world of care.

XX.

“And will ye pardon then,” replied the youth,
“Your Waldegrave’s feignèd name, and false attire?
I durst not in the neighbourhood, in truth,
The very fortunes of your house inquire;
Lest one that knew me might some tidings dire
Impart, and I my weakness all betray;
For had I lost my Gertrude and my sire,
I meant but o’er your tombs to weep a day,
Unknown I meant to weep, unknown to pass away.

XXI.

“But here ye live,—ye bloom,—in each dear face,
The changing hand of time I may not blame;
For there, it hath but shed more reverend grace,
And here of beauty perfected the frame:
And well I know your hearts are still the same—
They could not change—ye look the very way,
As when an orphan first to you I came.
And have ye heard of my poor guide, I pray?
Nay, wherefore weep ye, friends, on such a joyous day?”

XXII.

“And art thou here? or is it but a dream?
And wilt thou, Waldegrave, wilt thou, leave us more?”—
“No, never! thou that yet dost lovelier seem
Than aught on earth—than e’en thyself of yore—
I will not part thee from thy father’s shore;
But we shall cherish him with mutual arms,
And hand in hand again the path explore,
Which every ray of young remembrance warms,
While thou shalt be my own, with all thy truth and charms!”

XXIII.

At morn, as if beneath a galaxy
Of over-arching groves in blossoms white,
Where all was odorous scent and harmony,
And gladness to the heart, nerve, ear, and sight:
There, if, oh, gentle Love! I read aright
The utterance that sealed thy sacred bond,
’Twas listening to these accents of delight,
She hid upon his breast those eyes, beyond
Expression’s power to paint, all languishingly fond—

XXIV.

“Flower of my life, so lovely, and so lone!
Whom I would rather in this desert meet,
Scorning, and scorned by fortune’s power, than own
Her pomp and splendours lavished at my feet!
Turn not from me thy breath, more exquisite
Than odours cast on heaven’s own shrine—to please—
Give me thy love, than luxury more sweet,
And more than all the wealth that loads the breeze,
When Coromandel’s ships return from Indian seas.”

XXV.

Then would that home admit them—happier far
Than grandeur’s most magnificent saloon,
While, here and there, a solitary star
Flushed in the darkening firmament of June,
And silence brought the soul-felt hour, full soon
Ineffable, which I may not portray;
For never did the hymenean moon
A paradise of hearts more sacred sway,
In all that slept beneath her soft voluptuous ray.

[45] It is a custom of the Indian tribes to visit the tombs of their ancestors in the cultivated parts of America, who have been buried for upwards of a century.

[46] The bridges over narrow streams in many parts of Spanish America are said to be built of cane, which, however strong to support the passenger, are yet waved in the agitation of the storm, and frequently add to the effect of a mountainous and picturesque scenery.

GERTRUDE OF WYOMING. PART III.

I.

O love! in such a wilderness as this,
Where transport and security entwine,
Here is the empire of thy perfect bliss,
And here thou art a god indeed divine.
Here shall no forms abridge, no hours confine
The views, the walks, that boundless joy inspire!
Roll on, ye days of raptured influence, shine!
Nor, blind with ecstasy’s celestial fire,
Shall love behold the spark of earth-born time expire.

II.

Three little moons, how short! amidst the grove
And pastoral savannahs they consume!
While she, beside her buskined youth to rove,
Delights, in fancifully wild costume,
Her lovely brow to shade with Indian plume;
And forth in hunter-seeming vest they fare;
But not to chase the deer in forest gloom;
’Tis but the breath of heaven—the blessed air—
And interchange of hearts unknown, unseen to share.

III.

What though the sportive dog oft round them note,
Or fawn, or wild bird bursting on the wing;
Yet who in love’s own presence, would devote
To death those gentle throats that wake the spring,
Or writhing from the brook its victim bring?
No!—nor let fear one little warbler rouse;
But, fed by Gertrude’s hand, still let them sing,
Acquaintance of her path, amidst the boughs,
That shade e’en now her love, and witnessed first her vows.

IV.

Now labyrinths, which but themselves can pierce,
Methinks, conduct them to some pleasant ground,
Where welcome hills shut out the universe,
And pines their lawny walk encompass round;
There, if a pause delicious converse found,
’Twas but when o’er each heart the idea stole,
(Perchance a while in joy’s oblivion drowned)
That come what may, while life’s glad pulses roll,
Indissolubly thus should soul be knit to soul.

V.

And in the visions of romantic youth,
What years of endless bliss are yet to flow!
But, mortal pleasure, what art thou in truth?
The torrent’s smoothness, ere it dash below!
And must I change my song? and must I show,
Sweet Wyoming! the day when thou wert doomed,
Guiltless, to mourn thy loveliest bowers laid low!
When where of yesterday a garden bloomed,
Death overspread his pall, and blackening ashes gloomed!

VI.

Sad was the year, by proud oppression driven,
When Transatlantic Liberty arose,
Not in the sunshine and the smile of heaven,
But wrapt in whirlwinds, and begirt with woes,
Amidst the strife of fratricidal foes;
Her birth star was the light of burning plains;[47]
Her baptism is the weight of blood that flows
From kindred hearts—the blood of British veins—
And famine tracks her steps, and pestilential pains.

VII.

Yet, ere the storm of death had raged remote,
Or siege unseen in heaven reflects its beams,
Who now each dreadful circumstance shall note,
That fills pale Gertrude’s thoughts, and nightly dreams?
Dismal to her the forge of battle gleams
Portentous light! and music’s voice is dumb;
Save where the fife its shrill reveillè screams,
Or midnight streets re-echo to the drum,
That speaks of maddening strife, and bloodstained fields to come.

VIII.

It was in truth a momentary pang;
Yet how comprising myriad shapes of woe!
First when in Gertrude’s ear the summons rang,
A husband to the battle doomed to go!
“Nay meet not thou,” she cries, “thy kindred foe!
But peaceful let us seek fair England’s strand!”
“Ah, Gertrude! thy belovèd heart, I know,
Would feel like mine, the stigmatising brand!
Could I forsake the cause of Freedom’s holy band!

IX.

“But shame—but flight—a recreant’s name to prove,
To hide in exile ignominious fears;
Say, e’en if this I brooked,—the public love
Thy father’s bosom to his home endears:
And how could I his few remaining years,
My Gertrude, sever from so dear a child?”
So, day by day, her boding heart he cheers;
At last that heart to hope is half beguiled,
And, pale through tears suppressed, the mournful beauty smiled.

X.

Night came,—and in their lighted bower, full late,
The joy of converse had endured—when, hark!
Abrupt and loud a summons shook their gate;
And heedless of the dog’s obstreperous bark,
A form has rushed amidst them from the dark,
And spread his arms,—and fell upon the floor:
Of aged strength his limbs retained the mark;
But desolate he looked, and famished poor,
As ever shipwrecked wretch lone left on desert shore.

XI.

Uprisen, each wondering brow is knit and arched:
A spirit from the dead they deem him first:
To speak he tries; but quivering, pale, and parched,
From lips, as by some powerless dream accursed,
Emotions unintelligible burst;
And long his filmed eye is red and dim;
At length the pity-proffered cup his thirst
Had half assuaged, and nerved his shuddering limb,
When Albert’s hand he grasped;—but Albert knew not him—

XII.

“And hast thou then forgot,” he cried, forlorn,
And eyed the group with half indignant air,
“Oh! hast thou, Christian chief, forgot the morn
When I with thee the cup of peace did share?
Then stately was this head, and dark this hair
That now is white as Appalachia’s snow;
But, if the weight of fifteen years’ despair,
And age hath bowed me, and the torturing foe,
Bring me my boy—and he will his deliverer know!”

XIII.