PART II.

ANALYSIS OF PART II

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.

It was not long, with eyes and heart of flame, Ere Henry to his loved Oneyda flew: “Bless thee, my guide!”—but backward, as he came, The chief his old bewildered head withdrew, And grasped his arm, and looked and looked him through. ’Twas strange—nor could the group a smile control— The long, the doubtful scrutiny to view:— At last delight o’er all his features stole, “It is—my own,” he cried, and clasped him to his soul.

XIV.

“Yes! thou recall’st my pride of years, for then The bowstring of my spirit was not slack, When, spite of woods, and floods, and ambushed men, I bore thee like the quiver on my back, Fleet as the whirlwind hurries on the rack; Nor foeman then, nor cougar’s[48] crouch I feared, For I was strong as mountain cataract: And dost thou not remember how we cheered, Upon the last hill top, when white men’s huts appeared?

XV.

“Then welcome be my death song, and my death! Since I have seen thee, and again embraced.” And longer had he spent his toil-worn breath; But with affectionate and eager haste, Was every arm outstretched around their guest, To welcome and to bless his aged head. Soon was the hospitable banquet placed; And Gertrude’s lovely hands a balsam shed On wounds with fevered joy that more profusely bled.

XVI.

“But this is not a time,”—he started up, And smote his breast with woe-denouncing hand— “This is no time to fill the joyous cup, The Mammoth comes,—the foe,—the Monster Brandt,[49] With all his howling desolating band;— These eyes have seen their blade and burning pine Awake at once, and silence half your land. Red is the cup they drink; but not with wine: Awake, and watch to-night, or see no morning shine!

XVII.

“Scorning to wield the hatchet for his bribe, ’Gainst Brandt himself I went to battle forth:[50] Accursed Brandt! he left of all my tribe Nor man, nor child, nor thing of living birth: No! not the dog, that watched my household hearth, Escaped that night of blood, upon our plains! All perished!—I alone am left on earth! To whom nor relative nor blood remains, No!—not a kindred drop that runs in human veins![50]

XVIII.

“But go!—and rouse your warriors;—for, if right These old bewildered eyes could guess, by signs Of striped and starrèd banners, on yon height Of eastern cedars, o’er the creek of pines— Some fort embattled by your country shines: Deep roars the innavigable gulf below Its squarèd rock, and palisaded lines. Go! seek the light its warlike beacons show; Whilst I in ambush wait for vengeance, and the foe!”

XIX.

Scarce had he uttered—when Heaven’s verge extreme Reverberates the bomb’s descending star,— And sounds that mingled laugh,—and shout,—and scream,— To freeze the blood, in one discordant jar, Rung to the pealing thunderbolts of war. Whoop after whoop with rack the ear assailed; As if unearthly fiends had burst their bar; While rapidly the marksman’s shot prevailed:— And aye, as if for death, some lonely trumpet wailed.

XX.

Then looked they to the hills, where fire o’erhung The bandit groups, in one Vesuvian glare; Or swept, far seen, the tower, whose clock unrung, Told legible that midnight of despair. She faints,—she falters not,—the heroic fair,— As he the sword and plume in haste arrayed. One short embrace—he clasped his dearest care— But hark! what nearer war-drum shakes the glade? Joy, joy! Columbia’s friends are trampling through the shade!

XXI.

Then came of every race the mingled swarm, Far rung the groves and gleamed the midnight grass, With flambeau, javelin, and naked arm, As warriors wheeled their culverins of brass, Sprung from the woods, a bold athletic mass, Whom virtue fires, and liberty combines: And first the wild Moravian yagers pass, His plumed host the dark Iberian joins— And Scotia’s sword beneath the Highland thistle shines.

XXII.

And in, the buskined hunters of the deer, To Albert’s home, with shout and cymbal throng:— Roused by their warlike pomp, and mirth, and cheer, Old Outalissi woke his battle song, And, beating with his war-club cadence strong, Tells how his deep-stung indignation smarts, Of them that wrapt his house in flames, ere long, To whet a dagger on their stony hearts, And smile avenged ere yet his eagle spirit parts.

XXIII.

Calm, opposite the Christian father rose, Pale on his venerable brow its rays Of martyr light the conflagration throws; One hand upon his lovely child he lays, And one the uncovered crowd to silence sways; While, though the battle flash is faster driven,— Unawed, with eye unstartled by the blaze, He for his bleeding country prays to Heaven,— Prays that the men of blood themselves may be forgiven.

XXIV.

Short time is now for gratulating speech: And yet, beloved Gertrude, ere began Thy country’s flight, yon distant towers to reach, Looked not on thee the rudest partisan With brow relaxed to love? And murmurs ran, As round and round their willing ranks they drew, From beauty’s sight to shield the hostile van. Grateful, on them a placid look she threw, Nor wept, but as she bade her mother’s grave adieu!

XXV.

Past was the flight, and welcome seemed the tower, That like a giant standard-bearer frowned Defiance on the roving Indian power. Beneath, each bold and promontory mound With embrasure embossed, and armour crowned, And arrowy frieze, and wedgèd ravelin, Wove like a diadem its tracery round The lofty summit of that mountain green; Here stood secure the group, and eyed a distant scene,—

XXVI.

A scene of death! where fires beneath the sun, And blended arms, and white pavilions glow; And for the business of destruction done Its requiem the war-horn seemed to blow: There sad spectatress of her country’s woe! The lovely Gertrude, safe from present harm, Had laid her cheek, and clasped her hands of snow On Waldegrave’s shoulder, half within his arm Enclosed, that felt her heart, and hushed its wild alarm!

XXVII.

But short that contemplation—sad and short The pause to bid each much-loved scene adieu! Beneath the very shadow of the fort, Where friendly swords were drawn, and banners flew, Ah! who could deem that foot of Indian crew Was near?—yet there, with lust of murderous deeds, Gleamed like a basilisk, from woods in view, The ambushed foeman’s eye—his volley speeds, And Albert—Albert—falls! the dear old father bleeds!

XXVIII.

And tranced in giddy horror Gertrude swooned; Yet, while she clasps him lifeless to her zone, Say, burst they, borrowed from her father’s wound, These drops?—Oh, God! the life-blood is her own! And faltering, on her Waldegrave’s bosom thrown— “Weep not, O Love!” she cries, “to see me bleed— Thee, Gertrude’s sad survivor, thee alone Heaven’s peace commiserate; for scarce I heed These wounds; yet thee to leave is death, is death indeed.

XXIX.

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

XXX.

“Go, Henry, go not back, when I depart, The scene thy bursting tears too deep will move, Where my dear father took thee to his heart, And Gertrude thought it ecstasy to rove With thee, as with an angel, through the grove Of peace, imagining her lot was cast In heaven; for ours was not like earthly love. And must this parting be our very last? No! I shall love thee still, when death itself is past.

XXXI.

“Half could I bear, methinks, to leave this earth,— And thee, more loved than aught beneath the sun, If I had lived to smile but on the birth Of one dear pledge;—but shall there then be none, In future times—no gentle little one, To clasp thy neck, and look, resembling me? Yet seems it, e’en while life’s last pulses run, A sweetness in the cup of death to be, Lord of my bosom’s love! to die beholding thee!”

XXXII.

Hushed were his Gertrude’s lips! but still their bland And beautiful expression seemed to melt With love that could not die! and still his hand She presses to the heart no more that felt. Ah, heart! where once each fond affection dwelt, And features yet that spoke a soul more fair. Mute, gazing, agonising as he knelt,— Of them that stood encircling his despair, He heard some friendly words; but knew not what they were.

XXXIII.

For now, to mourn their judge and child, arrives A faithful band. With solemn rites between, ’Twas sung, how they were lovely in their lives, And in their deaths had not divided been. Touched by the music, and the melting scene, Was scarce one tearless eye amidst the crowd:— Stern warriors, resting on their swords, were seen To veil their eyes, as passed each much-loved shroud— While woman’s softer soul in woe dissolved aloud.

XXXIV.

Then mournfully the parting bugle bid Its farewell, o’er the grave of worth and truth; Prone to the dust, afflicted Waldegrave hid His face on earth;—him watched, in gloomy ruth, His woodland guide: but words had none to soothe The grief that knew not consolation’s name: Casting his Indian mantle o’er the youth, He watched, beneath its folds, each burst that came Convulsive, ague-like, across his shuddering frame!

XXXV.

“And I could weep;”—the Oneyda chief His descant wildly thus begun: “But that I may not stain with grief The death-song of my father’s son, Or bow this head in woe! For by my wrongs, and by my wrath! To morrow Areouski’s breath (That fires yon heaven with storms of death), Shall light us to the foe: And we shall share, my Christian boy! The foeman’s blood, the avenger’s joy!

XXXVI.

“But thee, my flower, whose breath was given By milder genii o’er the deep, The spirits of the white man’s heaven Forbid not thee to weep:— Nor will the Christian host, Nor will thy father’s spirit grieve, To see thee, on the battle’s eve, Lamenting, take a mournful leave Of her who loved thee most: She was the rainbow to thy sight! Thy sun—thy heaven—of lost delight!

XXXVII.

“To-morrow let us do or die! But when the bolt of death is hurled, Ah! whither then with thee to fly, Shall Outalissi roam the world? Seek we thy once-loved home? The hand is gone that cropt its flowers: Unheard their clock repeats its hours! Cold is the hearth within their bowers! And should we thither roam, Its echoes, and its empty tread, Would sound like voices from the dead!

XXXVIII.

“Or shall we cross yon mountains blue, Whose streams my kindred nation quaffed? And by my side, in battle true, A thousand warriors drew the shaft? Ah! there in desolation cold The desert serpent dwells alone, Where grass o’ergrows each mouldering bone, And stones themselves to ruin grown, Like me, are death-like old. Then seek we not their camp,—for there— The silence dwells of my despair!

XXXIX.

“But hark, the trump!—to-morrow thou In glory’s fires shalt dry thy tears: E’en from the land of shadows now My father’s awful ghost appears, Amidst the clouds that round us roll; He bids my soul for battle thirst— He bids me dry the last—the first— The only tears that ever burst From Outalissi’s soul; Because I may not stain with grief The death-song of an Indian chief!”

[47] Alluding to the miseries that attended the American civil war.

[48] Cougar, the American tiger.

[49] Imaginary leader of those Mohawks, and other savages, who laid waste this part of Pennsylvania.—See Notes.

[50] See Notes.

O’CONNOR’S CHILD; OR, THE “FLOWER OF LOVE LIES BLEEDING.”

O’CONNOR’S CHILD; OR, THE “FLOWER OF LOVE LIES BLEEDING.”

I.

Oh! once the harp of Innisfail[51] Was strung full high to notes of gladness; But yet it often told a tale Of more prevailing sadness. Sad was the note, and wild its fall, As winds that moan at night forlorn Along the isles of Fion-Gall, When, for O’Connor’s child to mourn, The harper told, how lone, how far From any mansion’s twinkling star, From any path of social men, Or voice, but from the fox’s den, The lady in the desert dwelt; And yet no wrongs, no fear she felt: Say, why should dwell in place so wild, O’Connor’s pale and lovely child?

II.

Sweet lady! she no more inspires Green Erin’s hearts with beauty’s power, As, in the palace of her sires, She bloomed a peerless flower. Gone from her hand and bosom, gone, The royal brooch, the jewelled ring, That o’er her dazzling whiteness shone, Like dews on lilies of the spring. Yet why, though fallen her brother’s kerne,[52] Beneath De Bourgo’s battle stern, While yet in Leinster unexplored, Her friends survive the English sword; Why lingers she from Erin’s host, So far on Galway’s shipwrecked coast; Why wanders she a huntress wild— O’Connor’s pale and lovely child?

III.

And fixed on empty space, why burn Her eyes with momentary wildness; And wherefore do they then return To more than woman’s mildness? Dishevelled are her raven locks; On Connocht Moran’s name she calls; And oft amidst the lonely rocks She sings sweet madrigals. Placed in the foxglove and the moss, Behold a parted warrior’s cross! That is the spot where, evermore, The lady, at her shieling[53] door, Enjoys that, in communion sweet, The living and the dead can meet: For, lo! to love-lorn fantasy, The hero of her heart is nigh.

IV.

Bright as the bow that spans the storm, In Erin’s yellow[54] vesture clad, A son of light—a lovely form, He comes and makes her glad; Now on the grass-green turf he sits, His tasselled horn beside him laid; Now o’er the hills in chase he flits, The hunter and the deer a shade! Sweet mourner! those are shadows vain That cross the twilight of her brain; Yet she will tell you she is blest, Of Connocht Moran’s tomb possessed, More richly than in Aghrim’s bower, When bards high praised her beauty’s power, And kneeling pages offered up The morat[55] in a golden cup.

V.

“A hero’s bride! this desert bower, It ill befits thy gentle breeding: And wherefore dost thou love this flower To call—‘My love lies bleeding?’” “This purple flower my tears have nursed; A hero’s blood supplied its bloom: I love it, for it was the first That grew on Connocht Moran’s tomb. Oh! hearken, stranger, to my voice! This desert mansion is my choice! And blest, though fatal, be the star That led me to its wilds afar: For here these pathless mountains free Gave shelter to my love and me; And every rock and every stone Bear witness that he was my own.

VI.

“O’Connor’s child, I was the bud Of Erin’s royal tree of glory; But woe to them that wrapt in blood The tissue of my story! Still as I clasp my burning brain, A death-scene rushes on my sight; It rises o’er and o’er again, The bloody feud—the fatal night, When chafing Connocht Moran’s scorn, They called my hero basely born; And bade him choose a meaner bride Than from O’Connor’s house of pride. Their tribe, they said, their high degree, Was sung in Tara’s psaltery;[56] Witness their Eath’s victorious brand,[57] And Cathal of the bloody hand; Glory (they said) and power and honour Were in the mansion of O’Connor: But he, my loved one, bore in field A meaner crest upon his shield.

VII.

“Ah, brothers! what did it avail, That fiercely and triumphantly Ye fought the English of the pale, And stemmed De Bourgo’s chivalry?[58] And what was it to love and me, That barons by your standard rode; Or beal-fires[59] for your jubilee, Upon a hundred mountains glowed? What though the lords of tower and dome From Shannon to the North Sea foam,— Thought ye your iron hands of pride Could break the knot that love had tied? No:—let the eagle change his plume, The leaf its hue, the flower its bloom; But ties around this heart were spun, That could not, would not, be undone!

VIII.

“At bleating of the wild watch-fold Thus sang my love—‘Oh, come with me: Our bark is on the lake, behold Our steeds are fastened to the tree, Come far from Castle Connor’s clans— Come with thy belted forestere, And I, beside the lake of swans, Shall hunt for thee the fallow-deer; And build thy hut, and bring thee home The wild-fowl and the honey-comb; And berries from the wood provide, And play my clarshech[60] by thy side. Then come, my love!’—How could I stay? Our nimble stag-hounds tracked the way, And I pursued, by moonless skies, The light of Connocht Moran’s eyes.

IX.

“And fast and far, before the star Of day-spring, rushed we through the glade, And saw at dawn the lofty bawn[61] Of Castle Connor fade. Sweet was to us the hermitage Of this unploughed, untrodden shore; Like birds all joyous from the cage, For man’s neglect we loved it more. And well he knew, my huntsman dear, To search the game with hawk and spear; While I, his evening food to dress, Would sing to him in happiness. But, oh, that midnight of despair! When I was doomed to rend my hair: The night, to me, of shrieking sorrow! The night, to him, that had no morrow!

X.

“When all was hushed, at eventide, I heard the baying of their beagle: ‘Be hushed!’ my Connocht Moran cried, ‘’Tis but the screaming of the eagle.’ Alas! t’was not the eyrie’s sound; Their bloody bands had tracked us out; Up-listening starts our couchant hound, And, hark! again, that nearer shout Brings faster on the murderers. Spare—spare him—Brazil—Desmond fierce! In vain—no voice the adder charms; Their weapons crossed my sheltering arms: Another’s sword has laid him low. Another’s and another’s; And every hand that dealt the blow— Ah me! it was a brother’s! Yes, when his moanings died away, Their iron hands had dug the clay, And o’er his burial turf they trod, And I beheld—Oh God! Oh God! His life-blood oozing from the sod!

XI.

“Warm in his death-wounds sepulchred, Alas! my warrior’s spirit brave. Nor mass nor ulla-lulla[62] heard, Lamenting, soothe his grave. Dragged to their hated mansion back, How long in thraldom’s grasp I lay, I knew not, for my soul was black, And knew no change of night or day. One night of horror round me grew; Or if I saw, or felt, or knew, ’Twas but when those grim visages, The angry brothers of my race, Glared on each eye-ball’s aching throb, And checked my bosom’s power to sob, Or when my heart with pulses drear, Beat like a death-watch to my ear.

XII.

“But Heaven, at last, my soul’s eclipse Did with a vision bright inspire: I woke and felt upon my lips A prophetess’s fire. Thrice in the east a war-drum beat, I heard the Saxon’s trumpet sound, And ranged, as to the judgment-seat, My guilty, trembling brothers round. Clad in the helm and shield they came; For now De Bourgo’s sword and flame Had ravaged Ulster’s boundaries, And lighted up the midnight skies. The standard of O’Connor’s sway Was in the turret where I lay; That standard with so dire a look, As ghastly shone the moon and pale, I gave, that every bosom shook Beneath its iron mail.

XIII.

“‘And go!’ I cried, ‘the combat seek, Ye hearts that unappallèd bore The anguish of a sister’s shriek, Go!—and return no more! For sooner guilt the ordeal brand Shall gasp unhurt, than ye shall hold The banner with victorious hand, Beneath a sister’s curse unrolled.’ O stranger! by my country’s loss! And by my love! and by the cross! I swear I never could have spoke The curse that severed nature’s yoke, But that a spirit o’er me stood, And fired me with the wrathful mood; And frenzy to my heart was given, To speak the malison of heaven.[63]

XIV.

“They would have crossed themselves, all mute; They would have prayed to burst the spell; But at the stamping of my foot, Each hand down powerless fell! ‘And go to Athunree!’[64] I cried, ‘High lift the banner of your pride! But know that where its sheet unrolls, The weight of blood is on your souls! Go where the havoc of your kerne Shall float as high as mountain fern! Men shall no more your mansion know; The nettles on your hearth shall grow! Dead, as the green oblivious flood That mantles by your walls, shall be The glory of O’Connor’s blood: Away! away to Athunree! Where, downward when the sun shall fall, The raven’s wing shall be your pall! And not a vassal shall unlace The vizor from your dying face!’

XV.

A bolt that overhung our dome Suspended till my curse was given, Soon as it passed these lips of foam, Pealed in the blood-red heaven. Dire was the look that o’er their backs The angry parting brothers threw: But now, behold! like cataracts, Come down the hills in view O’Connor’s plumèd partisans, Thrice ten Kilnagorvian clans Were marching to their doom: A sudden storm their plumage tossed, A flash of lightning o’er them crossed, And all again was gloom!

XVI.

“Stranger! I fled the home of grief, At Connocht Moran’s tomb to fall; I found the helmet of my chief, His bow still hanging on our wall, And took it down, and vowed to rove This desert place a huntress bold; Nor would I change my buried love For any heart of living mould. No! for I am a hero’s child; I’ll hunt my quarry in the wild; And still my home this mansion make, Of all unheeded and unheeding, And cherish, for my warrior’s sake— ‘The flower of love lies bleeding.’”

[51] The ancient name of Ireland.

[52] The plural of kern—an Irish foot soldier.

[53] A rude hut, or cabin.

[54] Yellow, dyed from saffron, was the favourite colour of the ancient Irish.

[55] A drink made of the juice of mulberry mixed with honey.

[56] See Notes.

[57] Eath O’Connor defeated the English.

[58] See Notes.

[59] Fires lighted in honour of the sun on the hill tops by the Irish.—See Notes.

[60] The Irish harp.—See Notes.

[61] Fortification—See Notes.

[62] The Irish wail for the dead.

[63] See Notes.

[64] An important battle was fought here, August 10, 1315, which decided the subjection of Ireland.—See Notes.

THEODRIC; A DOMESTIC TALE.

THEODRIC; A DOMESTIC TALE.

’Twas sunset, and the “Ranz des Vaches” was sung, And lights were o’er the Helvetian mountains flung, That gave the glacier tops their richest glow,[65] And tinged the lakes like molten gold below. Warmth flushed the wonted regions of the storm, Where, Phœnix-like, you saw the eagle’s form, That high in Heaven’s vermilion wheeled and soared. Woods nearer frowned, and cataracts dashed and roared, From heights browsed by the bounding bouquetin;[65] Herds tinkling roamed the long-drawn vales between, And hamlets glittered white, and gardens flourished green. ’Twas transport to inhale the bright sweet air! The mountain-bee was revelling in its glare, And roving with his minstrelsy across The scented wild weeds, and enamelled moss.[65] Earth’s features so harmoniously were linked, She seemed one great glad form, with life instinct, That felt Heaven’s ardent breath, and smiled below Its flush of love, with consentaneous glow.

A Gothic church was near; the spot around Was beautiful, even though sepulchral ground; For there nor yew nor cypress spread their gloom, But roses blossomed by each rustic tomb. Amidst them one of spotless marble shone— A maiden’s grave—and ’twas inscribed thereon, That young and loved she died whose dust was there:

“Yes,” said my comrade, “young she died, and fair! Grace formed her, and the soul of gladness played Once in the blue eyes of that mountain-maid: Her fingers witched the chords they passed along, And her lips seemed to kiss the soul in song: Yet wooed, and worshipped as she was, till few Aspired to hope, ’twas sadly, strangely true, That heart, the martyr of its fondness, burned And died of love that could not be returned.

“Her father dwelt where yonder castle shines O’er clustering trees and terrace-mantling vines. As gay as ever, the laburnum’s pride Waves o’er each walk where she was wont to glide,— And still the garden whence she graced her brow, As lovely blooms, though trod by strangers now. How oft from yonder window o’er the lake, Her song of wild Helvetian swell and shake Has made the rudest fisher bend his ear, And rest enchanted on his oar to hear! Thus bright, accomplished, spirited, and bland, Well-born, and wealthy for that simple land, Why had no gallant native youth the art To win so warm—so exquisite a heart? She, midst these rocks inspired with feelings strong By mountain-freedom—music—fancy—song, Herself descended from the brave in arms, And conscious of romance-inspiring charms, Dreamt of Heroic beings; hoped to find Some extant spirit of chivalric kind; And scorning wealth, looked cold e’en on the claim Of manly worth, that lacked the wreath of fame.

“Her younger brother, sixteen summers old, And much her likeness both in mind and mould, Had gone, poor boy! in soldiership to shine, And bore an Austrian banner on the Rhine. ’Twas when, alas! our Empire’s evil star Shed all the plagues, without the pride, of war; When patriots bled, and bitterer anguish crossed Our brave, to die in battles foully lost. The youth wrote home the rout of many a day; Yet still he said, and still with truth could say, One corps had ever made a valiant stand,— The corps in which he served—Theodric’s band. _His_ fame, forgotten chief, is now gone by, Eclipsed by brighter orbs in glory’s sky; Yet once it shone, and veterans, when they show Our fields of battle twenty years ago, Will tell you feats his small brigade performed, In charges nobly faced and trenches stormed. Time was, when songs were chanted to his fame, And soldiers loved the march that bore his name: The zeal of martial hearts was at his call, And that Helvetian, Udolph’s, most of all. ’Twas touching, when the storm of war blew wild, To see a blooming boy,—almost a child,— Spur fearless at his leader’s words and signs, Brave death in reconnoitring hostile lines, And speed each task, and tell each message clear, In scenes where war-trained men were stunned with fear.

“Theodric praised him, and they wept for joy In yonder house,—when letters from the boy Thanked Heaven for life, and more, to use his phrase, Than twenty lives—his own Commander’s praise. Then followed glowing pages, blazoning forth The fancied image of his Leader’s worth, With such hyperbolés of youthful style As made his parents dry their tears and smile: But differently far his words impressed A wondering sister’s well-believing breast;— She caught the illusion, blest Theodric’s name, And wildly magnified his worth and fame; Rejoicing life’s reality contained One, heretofore, her fancy had but feigned, Whose love could make her proud;—and time and chance To passion raised that day-dream of Romance.

“Once, when with hasty charge of horse and man Our arrière-guard had checked the Gallic van, Theodric, visiting the outposts, found His Udolph wounded, weltering on the ground:— Sore crushed,—half-swooning, half-upraised, he lay, And bent his brow, fair boy! and grasped the clay. His fate moved e’en the common soldier’s ruth— Theodric succoured him; nor left the youth To vulgar hands, but brought him to his tent, And lent what aid a brother would have lent.

“Meanwhile, to save his kindred half the smart The war-gazette’s dread blood-roll might impart, He wrote the event to them; and soon could tell Of pains assuaged and symptoms auguring well, And last of all, prognosticating cure, Enclosed the leech’s vouching signature.

“Their answers, on whose pages you might note That tears had fallen, whilst trembling fingers wrote, Gave boundless thanks for benefits conferred, Of which the boy, in secret, sent them word, Whose memory Time, they said, would never blot; But which the giver had himself forgot

“In time, the stripling, vigorous and healed, Resumed his barb and banner in the field, And bore himself right soldier-like, till now The third campaign had manlier bronzed his brow, When peace, though but a scanty pause for breath,— A curtain-drop between the acts of death,— A check in frantic war’s unfinished game, Yet dearly bought, and direly welcome, came. The camp broke up, and Udolph left his chief As with a son’s or younger brother’s grief: But journeying home, how rapt his spirits rose! How light his footsteps crushed St. Gothard’s snows! How dear seemed e’en the waste and wild Shreckhorn, Though wrapt in clouds, and frowning as in scorn Upon a downward world of pastoral charms; Where, by the very smell of dairy-farms, And fragrance from the mountain-herbage blown, Blindfold his native hills he could have known![66]

“His coming down yon lake,—his boat in view Of windows where love’s fluttering kerchief flew,— The arms spread out for him—the tears that burst, (’Twas Julia’s, ’twas his sister’s, met him first:)— Their pride to see war’s medal at his breast, And all their rapture’s greeting, may be guessed.

“Ere long, his bosom triumphed to unfold A gift he meant their gayest room to hold,— The picture of a friend in warlike dress; And who it was he first bade Julia guess. ‘Yes,’ she replied, ‘’twas he, methought in sleep, When you were wounded, told me not to weep.’ The painting long in that sweet mansion drew Regards its living semblance little knew.

“Meanwhile Theodric, who had years before Learnt England’s tongue, and loved her classic lore, A glad enthusiast now explored the land, Where Nature, Freedom, Art, smile hand in hand: Her women fair; her men robust for toil; Her vigorous souls, high-cultured as her soil; Her towns, where civic independence flings The gauntlet down to senates, courts, and kings; Her works of art, resembling magic’s powers, Her mighty fleets, and learning’s beauteous bowers.— These he had visited, with wonder’s smile, And scarce endured to quit so fair an isle. But how our fates from unmomentous things May rise, like rivers out of little springs! A trivial chance postponed his parting day, And public tidings caused, in that delay, An English jubilee. ’Twas a glorious sight; At eve, stupendous London, clad in light, Poured out triumphant multitudes to gaze; Youth, age, wealth, penury, smiling in the blaze; The illumined atmosphere was warm and bland, And Beauty’s groups, the fairest of the land, Conspicuous, as in some wide festive room, In open chariots passed with pearl and plume. Amidst them he remarked a lovelier mien Than e’er his thoughts had shaped, or eyes had seen; The throng detained her till he reined his steed, And, ere the beauty passed, had time to read The motto and the arms her carriage bore. Led by that clue, he left not England’s shore Till he had known her: and to know her well Prolonged, exalted, bound, enchantment’s spell; For with affections warm, intense, refined, She mixed such calm and holy strength of mind, That, like Heaven’s image in the smiling brook, Celestial peace was pictured in her look. Hers was the brow, in trials unperplexed, That cheered the sad, and tranquillised the vexed; She studied not the meanest to eclipse, And yet the wisest listened to her lips; She sang not, knew not Music’s magic skill, But yet her voice had tones that swayed the will. He sought—he won her—and resolved to make His future home in England for her sake.

“Yet, ere they wedded, matters of concern To Cæsar’s court commanded his return, A season’s space,—and on his Alpine way, He reached those bowers, that rang with joy that day: The boy was half beside himself,—the sire, All frankness, honour, and Helvetian fire, Of speedy parting would not hear him speak; And tears bedewed and brightened Julia’s cheek.

“Thus, loth to wound their hospitable pride, A month he promised with them to abide; As blithe he trode the mountain-sward as they, And felt his joy make e’en the young more gay. How jocund was their breakfast-parlour fanned By yon blue water’s breath,—their walks how bland! Fair Julia seemed her brother’s softened sprite— A gem reflecting Nature’s purest light,— And with her graceful wit there was inwrought A wildly sweet unworldliness of thought, That almost child-like to his kindness drew, And twin with Udolph in his friendship grew. But did his thoughts to love one moment range?— No! he who had loved Constance could not change! Besides, till grief betrayed her undesigned, The unlikely thought could scarcely reach his mind, That eyes so young on years like his should beam Unwooed devotion back for pure esteem.

“True, she sang to his very soul, and brought Those trains before him of luxuriant thought Which only Music’s heaven-born art can bring, To sweep across the mind with angel wing. Once, as he smiled amidst that waking trance, She paused o’ercome: he thought it might be chance, And, when his first suspicions dimly stole Rebuked them back like phantoms from his soul. But when he saw his caution gave her pain, And kindness brought suspense’s rack again, Faith, honour, friendship, bound him to unmask Truths which her timid fondness feared to ask.

“And yet with gracefully ingenuous power Her spirit met the explanatory hour;— Even conscious beauty brightened in her eyes, That told she knew their love no vulgar prize; And pride, like that of one more woman-grown, Enlarged her mien, enriched her voice’s tone. ’Twas then she struck the keys, and music made That mocked all skill her hand had e’er displayed: Inspired and warbling, rapt from things around, She looked the very Muse of magic sound, Painting in sound the forms of joy and woe, Until the mind’s eye saw them melt and glow. Her closing strain composed and calm she played, And sang no words to give its pathos aid; But grief seemed lingering in its lengthened swell, And like so many tears the trickling touches fell. Of Constance then she heard Theodric speak, And steadfast smoothness still possessed her cheek; But when he told her how he oft had planned Of old a journey to their mountain land, That might have brought him hither years before, ‘Ah! then,’ she cried, ‘you knew not England’s shore; And, had you come,—and wherefore did you not?’ ‘Yes,’ he replied, ‘it would have changed our lot!’ Then burst her tears through pride’s restraining bands, And with her handkerchief, and both her hands, She hid her face and wept.—Contrition stung Theodric for the tears his words had wrung. ‘But no,’ she cried, ‘unsay not what you’ve said, Nor grudge one prop on which my pride is stayed; To think I could have merited your faith, Shall be my solace even unto death?’— ‘Julia,’ Theodric said, with purposed look Of firmness, ‘my reply deserved rebuke; But by your pure and sacred peace of mind, And by the dignity of womankind, Swear that when I am gone you’ll do your best To chase this dream of fondness from your breast.’

“The abrupt appeal electrified her thought;— She looked to Heaven, as if its aid she sought, Dried hastily the tear-drops from her cheek, And signified the vow she could not speak.

“Ere long he communed with her mother mild: ‘Alas!’ she said, ‘I warned—conjured my child, And grieved for this affection from the first, But like fatality it has been nursed; For when her filled eyes on your picture fixed, And when your name in all she spoke was mixed, ’Twas hard to chide an over-grateful mind! Then each attempt a likelier choice to find Made only fresh-rejected suitors grieve, And Udolph’s pride—perhaps her own—believe That could she meet, she might enchant e’en you. You came.—I augured the event, ’tis true, But how was Udolph’s mother to exclude The guest that claimed our boundless gratitude? And that unconscious you had cast a spell On Julia’s peace, my pride refused to tell: Yet in my child’s illusion I have seen, Believe me well, how blameless you have been: Nor can it cancel, howsoe’er it end, Our debt of friendship to our boy’s best friend.’ At night he parted with the aged pair; At early morn rose Julia to prepare The last repast her hands for him should make, And Udolph to convoy him o’er the lake. The parting was to her such bitter grief, That of her own accord she made it brief; But, lingering at her window, long surveyed His boat’s last glimpses melting into shade.

“Theodric sped to Austria, and achieved His journey’s object. Much was he relieved When Udolph’s letters told that Julia’s mind Had borne his loss firm, tranquil, and resigned. He took the Rhenish route to England, high Elate with hopes, fulfilled their ecstacy, And interchanged with Constance’s own breath The sweet eternal vows that bound their faith.

“To paint that being to a grovelling mind Were like portraying pictures to the blind. ’Twas needful e’en infectiously to feel Her temper’s fond and firm and gladsome zeal, To share existence with her, and to gain Sparks from her love’s electrifying chain, Of that pure pride, which lessening to her breast Life’s ills, gave all its joys a treble zest, Before the mind completely understood That mighty truth—how happy are the good!—

“E’en when her light forsook him, it bequeathed Ennobling sorrow; and her memory breathed A sweetness that survived her living days As odorous scents outlast the censer’s blaze.

“Or if a trouble dimmed their golden joy, ’Twas outward dross, and not infused alloy: _Their home_ knew but affection’s looks and speech— A little Heaven, above dissension’s reach. But midst her kindred there was strife and gall; Save one congenial sister, they were all Such foils to her bright intellect and grace, As if she had engrossed the virtue of her race. Her nature strove the unnatural feuds to heal, Her wisdom made the weak to her appeal; And though the wounds she cured were soon unclosed, Unwearied still her kindness interposed.

“Oft on those errands though she went, in vain, And home, a blank without her, gave him pain, He bore her absence for its pious end.— But public grief his spirit came to bend; For war laid waste his native land once more, And German honour bled at every pore. Oh! were he there, he thought, to rally back One broken band, or perish in the wrack! Nor think that Constance sought to move or melt His purpose: like herself she spoke and felt:— ‘Your fame is mine, and I will bear all woe Except its loss!—but with you let me go To arm you for, to embrace you from the fight; Harm will not reach me—hazards will delight!’ He knew those hazards better; one campaign In England he conjured her to remain, And she expressed assent, although her heart In secret had resolved _they_ should not part.

“How oft the wisest on misfortune’s shelves Are wrecked by errors most unlike themselves! _That_ little fault, _that_ fraud of love’s romance, _That_ plan’s concealment, wrought their whole mischance. _He_ knew it not preparing to embark, But felt extinct his comfort’s latest spark, When, midst those numbered days, she made repair Again to kindred worthless of her care. ’Tis true she said the tidings she would write Would make her absence on his heart sit light; But, haplessly, revealed not yet her plan, And left him in his home a lonely man.

“Thus damped in thoughts, he mused upon the past: ’Twas long since he had heard from Udolph last, And deep misgivings on his spirit fell, That all with Udolph’s household was not well. ’Twas that too true prophetic mood of fear That augurs griefs inevitably near, Yet makes them not less startling to the mind, When come. Least looked-for then of human kind, His Udolph (’twas, he thought at first, his sprite) With mournful joy that morn surprised his sight. How changed was Udolph! Scarce Theodric durst Inquire his tidings,—he revealed the worst. ‘At first,’ he said, ‘as Julia bade me tell, She bore her fate high-mindedly and well, Resolved from common eyes her grief to hide, And from the world’s compassion saved our pride; But still her health gave way to secret woe, And long she pined—for broken hearts die slow! Her reason went, but came returning, like The warning of her death-hour—soon to strike; And all for which she now, poor sufferer! sighs, Is once to see Theodric ere she dies. Why should I come to tell you this caprice? Forgive me! for my mind has lost its peace. I blame myself, and ne’er shall cease to blame, That my insane ambition for the name Of brother to Theodric, founded all Those high-built hopes that crushed her by their fall. I made her slight a mother’s counsel sage, But now my parents droop with grief and age; And though my sister’s eyes mean no rebuke, They overwhelm me with their dying look. The journey’s long, but you are full of ruth; And she who shares your heart, and knows its truth, Has faith in your affection, far above The fear of a poor dying object’s love.’ ‘She has, my Udolph,’ he replied, ‘’tis true; And oft we talk of Julia—oft of you.’ Their converse came abruptly to a close; For scarce could each his troubled looks compose, When visitants, to Constance near akin (In all but traits of soul), were ushered in. They brought not her, nor midst their kindred band The sister who alone, like her, was bland; But said—and smiled to see it gave him pain— That Constance would a fortnight yet remain. Vexed by their tidings, and the haughty view They cast on Udolph as the youth withdrew, Theodric blamed his Constance’s intent.— The demons went, and left him as they went, To read, when they were gone beyond recall, A note from her loved hand, explaining all. She said, that with their house she only staid That parting peace might with them all be made; But prayed for love to share his foreign life, And shun all future chance of kindred strife. He wrote with speed, his soul’s consent to say: The letter missed her on her homeward way. In six hours Constance was within his arms: Moved, flushed, unlike her wonted calm of charms, And breathless—with uplifted hands outspread— Burst into tears upon his neck, and said,— ‘I knew that those who brought your message laughed With poison of their own to point the shaft; And this my one kind sister thought, yet loth Confessed she feared ’twas true you had been wroth. But here you are, and smile on me: my pain Is gone, and Constance is herself again.’ His ecstasy, it may be guessed, was much: Yet pain’s extreme and pleasure’s seemed to touch. What pride! embracing beauty’s perfect mould; What terror! lest his few rash words, mistold, Had agonised her pulse to fever’s heat: But calmed again so soon it healthful beat, And such sweet tones were in her voice’s sound, Composed herself, she breathed composure round.

“Fair being! with what sympathetic grace She heard, bewailed, and pleaded Julia’s case; Implored he would her dying wish attend, ‘And go,’ she said, ‘to-morrow with your friend; I’ll wait for your return on England’s shore, And then we’ll cross the deep, and part no more.’

“To-morrow both his soul’s compassion drew To Julia’s call, and Constance urged anew That not to heed her now would be to bind A load of pain for life upon his mind. He went with Udolph—from his Constance went— Stifling, alas! a dark presentiment Some ailment lurked, e’en whilst she smiled, to mock His fears of harm from yester-morning’s shock. Meanwhile a faithful page he singled out, To watch at home, and follow straight his route, If aught of threatened change her health should show: With Udolph then he reached the house of woe.

“That winter’s eve how darkly Nature’s brow Scowled on the scenes it lights so lovely now! The tempest, raging o’er the realms of ice, Shook fragments from the rifted precipice; And whilst their falling echoed to the wind, The wolf’s long howl in dismal discord joined, While white yon water’s foam was raised in clouds That whirled like spirits wailing in their shrouds: Without was Nature’s elemental din— And beauty died, and friendship wept, within!

“Sweet Julia, though her fate was finished half, Still knew him—smiled on him with feeble laugh— And blessed him, till she drew her latest sigh! But lo! while Udolph’s bursts of agony, And age’s tremulous wailings, round him rose, What accents pierced him deeper yet than those? ’Twas tidings by his English messenger, Of Constance—brief and terrible they were. She still was living when the page set out From home, but whether now was left in doubt. Poor Julia! saw he then thy death’s relief— Stunned into stupor more than wrung with grief? It was not strange; for in the human breast Two master-passions cannot co-exist, And that alarm which now usurped his brain Shut out not only peace, but other pain. ’Twas fancying Constance underneath the shroud That covered Julia made him first weep loud, And tear himself away from them that wept. Fast hurrying homeward, night nor day he slept, Till, launched at sea, he dreamt that his soul’s saint Clung to him on a bridge of ice, pale, faint, O’er cataracts of blood. Awake, he blessed The shore; nor hope left utterly his breast, Till reaching home, terrific omen! there The straw-laid street preluded his despair— The servant’s look—the table that revealed His letter sent to Constance last, still sealed— Though speech and hearing left him, told too clear That he had now to suffer—not to fear. He felt as if he ne’er should cease to feel— A wretch live-broken on misfortune’s wheel; Her death’s cause—he might make his peace with Heaven, Absolved from guilt, but never self-forgiven.

“The ocean has its ebbings—so has grief; ’Twas vent to anguish, if ’twas not relief, To lay his brow e’en on her death-cold cheek. Then first he heard her one kind sister speak: She bade him, in the name of Heaven, forbear With self-reproach to deepen his despair: ‘’Twas blame,’ she said, ‘I shudder to relate, But none of yours, that caused our darling’s fate; Her mother (must I call her such?) foresaw, Should Constance leave the land, she would withdraw Our House’s charm against the world’s neglect— The only gem that drew it some respect. Hence, when you went, she came and vainly spoke To change her purpose—grew incensed, and broke With execrations from her kneeling child. Start not! your angel from her knee rose mild, Feared that she should not long the scene outlive, Yet bade e’en you the unnatural one forgive. Till then her ailment had been slight or none; But fast she drooped, and fatal pains came on: Foreseeing their event, she dictated And signed these words for you.’ The letter said—

“‘Theodric, this is destiny above Our power to baffle; bear it then, my love! Rave not to learn the usage I have borne, For one true sister left me not forlorn; And though you’re absent in another land, Sent from me by my own well-meant command, Your soul, I know, as firm is knit to mine As these clasped hands in blessing you now join: Shape not imagined horrors in my fate— E’en now my sufferings are not very great; And when your grief’s first transports shall subside I call upon your strength of soul and pride To pay my memory, if ’tis worth the debt, Love’s glorying tribute—not forlorn regret: I charge my name with power to conjure up Reflection’s balmy, not its bitter cup. My pardoning angel, at the gates of Heaven, Shall look not more regard than you have given To me; and our life’s union has been clad In smiles of bliss as sweet as life e’er had. Shall gloom be from such bright remembrance cast? Shall bitterness outflow from sweetness past? No! imaged in the sanctuary of your breast, There let me smile, amidst high thoughts at rest; And let contentment on your spirit shine, As if its peace were still a part of mine: For if you war not proudly with your pain, For you I shall have worse than lived in vain. But I conjure your manliness to bear My loss with noble spirit—not despair: I ask you by our love to promise this, And kiss these words, where I have left a kiss,— The latest from my living lips for yours.’—

“Words that will solace him while life endures: For though his spirit from affliction’s surge Could ne’er to life, as life had been, emerge, Yet still that mind whose harmony elate Rang sweetness, e’en beneath the crush of fate,— That mind in whose regard all things were placed In views that softened them, or lights that graced, That soul’s example could not but dispense A portion of its own blessed influence; Invoking him to peace, and that self-sway Which Fortune cannot give, nor take away: And though he mourned her long, ’twas with such woe As if her spirit watched him still below.”

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

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

LOCHIEL’S WARNING.

LOCHIEL’S WARNING.[67]

WIZARD—LOCHIEL.

WIZARD.

Lochiel, Lochiel! beware of the day When the Lowlands shall meet thee in battle array! For a field of the dead rushes red on my sight, And the clans of Culloden are scattered in fight. They rally, they bleed, for their kingdom and crown; Woe, woe to the riders that trample them down! Proud Cumberland prances, insulting the slain, And their hoof-beaten bosoms are trod to the plain. But hark! through the fast-flashing lightning of war, What steed to the desert flies frantic and far? ’Tis thine, oh Glenullin! whose bride shall await, Like a love-lighted watch-fire, all night at the gate. A steed comes at morning: no rider is there; But its bridle is red with the sign of despair. Weep, Albin![68] to death and captivity led! O weep! but thy tears cannot number the dead: For a merciless sword on Culloden shall wave, Culloden! that reeks with the blood of the brave.

LOCHIEL.

Go, preach to the coward, thou death-telling seer! Or, if gory Culloden so dreadful appear, Draw, dotard, around thy old wavering sight, This mantle, to cover the phantoms of fright.

WIZARD.

Ha! laugh’st thou, Lochiel, my vision to scorn? Proud bird of the mountain, thy plume shall be torn! Say, rushed the bold eagle exultingly forth, From his home, in the dark rolling clouds of the north? Lo! the death-shot of foemen outspeeding, he rode Companionless, bearing destruction abroad; But down let him stoop from his havoc on high! Ah! home let him speed,—for the spoiler is nigh. Why flames the far summit? Why shoot to the blast Those embers, like stars from the firmament cast? ’Tis the fire-shower of ruin, all dreadfully driven From his eyrie, that beacons the darkness of heaven. Oh, crested Lochiel! the peerless in might, Whose banners arise on the battlement’s height, Heaven’s fire is around thee, to blast and to burn; Return to thy dwelling! all lonely return! For the blackness of ashes shall mark where it stood, And a wild mother scream o’er her famishing brood.

LOCHIEL.

False Wizard, avaunt! I have marshalled my clan, Their swords are a thousand, their bosoms are one! They are true to the last of their blood and their breath, And like reapers descend to the harvest of death. Then welcome be Cumberland’s steed to the shock! Let him dash his proud foam like a wave on the rock! But woe to his kindred, and woe to his cause, When Albin her claymore indignantly draws; When her bonneted chieftains to victory crowd, Clanronald the dauntless, and Moray the proud, All plaided and plumed in their tartan array——

WIZARD.

——Lochiel, Lochiel! beware of the day; For, dark and despairing, my sight I may seal, But man cannot cover what God would reveal; ’Tis the sunset of life gives me mystical lore, And coming events cast their shadows before. I tell thee, Culloden’s dread echoes shall ring With the bloodhounds that bark for thy fugitive king. Lo! anointed by Heaven with the vials of wrath, Behold, where he[69] flies on his desolate path! Now in darkness and billows, he sweeps from my sight: Rise, rise! ye wild tempests, and cover his flight! ’Tis finished. Their thunders are hushed on the moors: Culloden is lost, and my country deplores. But where is the iron-bound prisoner? Where? For the red eye of battle is shut in despair. Say, mounts he the ocean-wave, banished forlorn, Like a limb from his country cast bleeding and torn? Ah no! for a darker departure is near; The war-drum is muffled, and black is the bier; His death-bell is tolling: oh! mercy dispel Yon sight, that it freezes my spirit to tell! Life flutters convulsed in his quivering limbs, And his blood-streaming nostril in agony swims. Accursed be the faggots, that blaze at his feet, Where his heart shall be thrown, ere it ceases to beat, With the smoke of its ashes to poison the gale——

LOCHIEL.

——Down, soothless insulter! I trust not the tale: For never shall Albin a destiny meet, So black with dishonour, so foul with retreat. Though my perishing ranks should be strewed in their gore, Like ocean-weeds heaped on the surf-beaten shore, Lochiel, untainted by flight or by chains, While the kindling of life in his bosom remains, Shall victor exult, or in death be laid low, With his back to the field, and his feet to the foe! And leaving in battle no blot on his name, Look proudly to Heaven from the death-bed of fame

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

[68] The Gaelic appellation of Scotland,—more particularly the Highlands.

[69] Charles Edward Stuart.

MISCELLANEOUS POEMS.

BATTLE OF THE BALTIC.

I.

Of Nelson and the North, Sing the glorious day’s renown, When to battle fierce came forth All the might of Denmark’s crown, And her arms along the deep proudly shone; By each gun the lighted brand, In a bold determined hand, And the Prince of all the land Led them on.

II.

Like leviathans afloat, Lay their bulwarks on the brine; While the sign of battle flew On the lofty British line: It was ten of April morn by the chime; As they drifted on their path, There was silence deep as death; And the boldest held his breath, For a time.

III.

But the might of England flushed To anticipate the scene; And her van the fleeter rushed O’er the deadly space between. “Hearts of oak!” our captain cried; when each gun From its adamantine lips Spread a death-shade round the ships, Like the hurricane eclipse Of the sun.

IV.

Again! again! again! And the havoc did not slack, Till a feeble cheer the Dane To our cheering sent us back;— Their shots along the deep slowly boom:— Then ceased—and all is wail, As they strike the shattered sail; Or, in conflagration pale, Light the gloom.

V.

Out spoke the victor then, As he hailed them o’er the wave; “Ye are brothers! ye are men! And we conquer but to save:— So peace instead of death let us bring; But yield, proud foe, thy fleet, With the crews, at England’s feet, And make submission meet To our King.”

VI.

Then Denmark blessed our chief, That he gave her wounds repose; And the sounds of joy and grief From her people wildly rose, As death withdrew his shades from the day. While the sun looked smiling bright O’er a wide and woeful sight, Where the fires of funeral light Died away.

VII.

Now joy, Old England, raise! For the tidings of thy might, By the festal cities’ blaze, While the wine-cup shines in light; And yet amidst that joy and uproar, Let us think of them that sleep, Full many a fathom deep, By thy wild and stormy steep. Elsinore!

VIII.

Brave hearts! to Britain’s pride Once so faithful and so true, On the deck of fame that died;— With the gallant good Riou:[70] Soft sigh the winds of Heaven o’er their grave! While the billow mournful rolls And the mermaid’s song condoles, Singing glory to the souls Of the brave!

[70] Captain Riou, justly entitled the gallant and the good, by Lord Nelson when he wrote home his despatches.

YE MARINERS OF ENGLAND: A NAVAL ODE.

I.

Ye Mariners of England! That guard our native seas; Whose flag has braved, a thousand years, The battle and the breeze! Your glorious standard launch again To meet another foe! And sweep through the deep, While the stormy tempests blow; While the battle rages loud and long, And the stormy tempests blow.

II.

The spirits of your fathers Shall start from every wave!— For the deck it was their field of fame, And Ocean was their grave: Where Blake and mighty Nelson fell, Your manly hearts shall glow, As ye sweep through the deep, While the stormy tempests blow; While the battle rages loud and long, And the stormy tempests blow.

III.

Britannia needs no bulwark, No towers along the steep; Her march is o’er the mountain-waves, Her home is on the deep. With thunders from her native oak, She quells the floods below,— As they roar on the shore, When the stormy tempests blow: When the battle rages loud and long, And the stormy tempests blow.

IV.

The meteor flag of England Shall yet terrific burn; Till danger’s troubled night depart, And the star of peace return. Then, then, ye ocean-warriors! Our song and feast shall flow To the fame of your name, When the storm has ceased to blow; When the fiery fight is heard no more, And the storm has ceased to blow.

TO THE RAINBOW.

Triumphal arch, that fill’st the sky When storms prepare to part, I ask not proud Philosophy To teach me what thou art—

Still seem as to my childhood’s sight, A midway station given For happy spirits to alight Betwixt the earth and heaven.

Can all that Optics teach, unfold Thy form to please me so, As when I dreamt of gems and gold Hid in thy radiant bow?

When Science from Creation’s face Enchantment’s veil withdraws, What lovely visions yield their place To cold material laws!

And yet, fair bow, no fabling dreams, But words of the Most High, Have told why first thy robe of beams Was woven in the sky.

When o’er the green undeluged earth Heaven’s covenant thou didst shine, How came the world’s grey fathers forth To watch thy sacred sign.

And when its yellow lustre smiled O’er mountains yet untrod, Each mother held aloft her child To bless the bow of God.

Methinks, thy jubilee to keep, The first made anthem rang On earth delivered from the deep, And the first poet sang.

Nor ever shall the Muse’s eye Unraptured greet thy beam: Theme of primeval prophecy, Be still the poet’s theme!

The earth to thee her incense yields, The lark thy welcome sings, When glittering in the freshened fields The snowy mushroom springs.

How glorious is thy girdle cast O’er mountain, tower, and town, Or mirrored in the ocean vast, A thousand fathoms down!

As fresh in yon horizon dark, As young thy beauties seem, As when the eagle from the ark First sported in thy beam

For, faithful to its sacred page, Heaven still rebuilds thy span, Nor lets the type grow pale with age That first spoke peace to man.

THE LAST MAN.

All worldly shapes shall melt in gloom, The Sun himself must die, Before this mortal shall assume Its Immortality! I saw a vision in my sleep, That gave my spirit strength to sweep Adown the gulph of Time! I saw the last of human mould, That shall Creation’s death behold, As Adam saw her prime!

The Sun’s eye had a sickly glare, The Earth with age was wan, The skeletons of nations were Around that lonely man! Some had expired in fight,—the brands Still rested in their bony hands; In plague and famine some! Earth’s cities had no sound nor tread; And ships were drifting with the dead To shores where all was dumb!

Yet, prophet-like, that lone one stood With dauntless words and high, That shook the sere leaves from the wood As if a storm passed by, Saying, “We are twins in death, proud Sun, Thy face is cold, thy race is run, ’Tis Mercy bids thee go. For thou ten thousand thousand years Hast seen the tide of human tears, That shall no longer flow.

“What though beneath thee man put forth His pomp, his pride, his skill; And arts that made fire, flood, and earth, The vassals of his will;— Yet mourn I not thy parted sway, Thou dim discrownèd king of day: For all those trophied arts And triumphs that beneath thee sprang, Healed not a passion or a pang Entailed on human hearts.

“Go, let oblivion’s curtain fall Upon the stage of men, Nor with thy rising beams recall Life’s tragedy again. Its piteous pageants bring not back, Nor waken flesh, upon the rack Of pain anew to writhe; Stretched in disease’s shapes abhorred, Or mown in battle by the sword, Like grass beneath the scythe.

“E’en I am weary in yon skies To watch thy fading fire; Test of all sumless agonies, Behold not me expire. My lips that speak thy dirge of death— Their rounded gasp and gurgling breath To see thou shalt not boast. The eclipse of Nature spreads my pall,— The majesty of Darkness shall Receive my parting ghost!

“This spirit shall return to Him That gave its heavenly spark; Yet think not, Sun, it shall be dim When thou thyself art dark! No! it shall live again, and shine In bliss unknown to beams of thine, By Him recalled to breath, Who captive led captivity, Who robbed the grave of Victory,— And took the sting from Death!

“Go, Sun, while Mercy holds me up On Nature’s awful waste To drink this last and bitter cup Of grief that man shall taste— Go, tell the night that hides thy face, Thou saw’st the last of Adam’s race, On Earth’s sepulchral clod, The darkening universe defy To quench his Immortality, Or shake his trust in God!”

VALEDICTORY STANZAS To J. P. KEMBLE, ESQ. COMPOSED FOR A PUBLIC MEETING, _Held June, 1817_.

Pride of the British stage, A long and last adieu! Whose image brought the heroic age Revived to Fancy’s view Like fields refreshed with dewy light When the sun smiles his last Thy parting presence makes more bright Our memory of the past; And memory conjures feelings up That wine or music need not swell, As high we lift the festal cup To Kemble—fare thee well!

His was the spell o’er hearts Which only Acting lends,— The youngest of the sister Arts, Where all their beauty blends: For ill can Poetry express Full many a tone of thought sublime, And Painting, mute and motionless, Steals but a glance of time. But by the mighty actor brought, Illusion’s perfect triumphs come,— Verse ceases to be airy thought, And Sculpture to be dumb.

Time may again revive, But ne’er eclipse the charm, When Cato spoke in him alive, Or Hotspur kindled warm. What soul was not resigned entire To the deep sorrows of the Moor,— What English heart was not on fire With him at Agincourt? And yet a Majesty possessed His transport’s most impetuous tone, And to each passion of his breast The Graces gave their zone.

High were the task—too high, Ye conscious bosoms here! In words to paint your memory Of Kemble and of Lear; But who forgets that white discrownèd head, Those bursts of Reason’s half-extinguished glare— Those tears upon Cordelia’s bosom shed, In doubt more touching than despair, If ’twas reality he felt? Had Shakespeare’s self amidst you been, Friends, he had seen you melt, And triumphed to have seen!

And there was many an hour Of blended kindred fame, When Siddons’ auxiliar power And sister magic came. Together at the Muse’s side The tragic paragons had grown— They were the children of her pride, The columns of her throne, And undivided favour ran From heart to heart in their applause, Save for the gallantry of man, In lovelier woman’s cause.

Fair as some classic dome, Robust and richly graced, Your Kemble’s spirit was the home Of genius and of taste:— Taste like the silent dial’s power, That when supernal light is given, Can measure inspiration’s hour And tell its height in Heaven. At once ennobled and correct, His mind surveyed the tragic page, And what the actor could effect, The scholar could presage.

These were his traits of worth:— And must we lose them now! And shall the scene no more show forth His sternly pleasing brow! Alas, the moral brings a tear!— ’Tis all a transient hour below; And we that would detain thee here, Ourselves as fleetly go! Yet shall our latest age This parting scene review:— Pride of the British stage, A long and last adieu!

A DREAM.

Well may sleep present us fictions, Since our waking moments teem With such fanciful convictions As make life itself a dream. Half our daylight faith’s a fable; Sleep disports with shadows too Seeming in their turn as stable As the world we wake to view. Ne’er by day did Reason’s mint Give my thoughts a clearer print Of assured reality, Than was left by Phantasy, Stamped and coloured on my sprite, In a dream of yesternight.

In a bark, methought, lone steering, I was cast on Ocean’s strife; This, ’twas whispered in my hearing, Meant the sea of life. Sad regrets from past existence Came, like gales of chilling breath; Shadowed in the forward distance Lay the land of Death. Now seeming more, now less remote, On that dim-seen shore, methought, I beheld two hands a space Slow unshroud a spectre’s face; And my flesh’s hair upstood,— ’Twas mine own similitude.

But my soul revived at seeing Ocean, like an emerald spark, Kindle, while an air-dropt being Smiling steered my bark. Heaven-like—yet he looked as human As supernal beauty can, More compassionate than woman Lordly more than man. And as some sweet clarion’s breath Stirs the soldier’s scorn of death— So his accents bade me brook The spectre’s eyes of icy look, Till it shut them—turned its head, Like a beaten foe, and fled.

“Types not this,” I said, “fair spirit! That my death-hour is not come? Say, what days shall I inherit?— Tell my soul their sum.” “No,” he said, “yon phantom’s aspect, Trust me, would appal thee worse, Held in clearly measured prospect:— Ask not for a curse! Make not, for I overhear Thine unspoken thoughts as clear As thy mortal ear could catch The close-brought tickings of a watch— Make not the untold request That’s now revolving in thy breast.

“’Tis to live again, remeasuring Youth’s years, like a scene rehearsed, In thy second life-time treasuring Knowledge from the first. Hast thou felt, poor self-deceiver! Life’s career so void of pain, As to wish its fitful fever New begun again? Could experience, ten times thine, Pain from Being disentwine— Threads by Fate together spun? Could thy flight Heaven’s lightning shun? No, nor could thy foresight’s glance ’Scape the myriad shafts of Chance.

“Would’st thou bear again Love’s trouble— Friendship’s death-dissevered ties; Toil to grasp or miss the bubble Of Ambition’s prize? Say thy life’s new guided action Flowed from Virtue’s fairest springs— Still would Envy and Detraction Double not their stings? Worth itself is but a charter To be mankind’s distinguished martyr.” I caught the moral, and cried, “Hail! Spirit! let us onward sail, Envying, fearing, hating none— Guardian Spirit, steer me on!”

LINES WRITTEN AT THE REQUEST OF THE HIGHLAND SOCIETY IN LONDON, WHEN MET TO COMMEMORATE THE 21ST OF MARCH, THE DAY OF VICTORY IN EGYPT.

Pledge to the much-loved land that gave us birth! Invincible romantic Scotia’s shore! Pledge to the memory of her parted worth! And first, amidst the brave, remember Moore!

And be it deemed not wrong that name to give, In festive hours, which prompts the patriot’s sigh! Who would not envy such as Moore to live? And died he not as heroes wish to die?

Yes, though too soon attaining glory’s goal, To us his bright career too short was given; Yet in a mighty cause his phœnix soul Rose on the flames of victory to Heaven!

How oft (if beats in subjugated Spain One patriot heart) in secret shall it mourn For him!—How oft on far Corunna’s plain Shall British exiles weep upon his urn!

Peace to the mighty dead!—our bosom thanks In sprightlier strains the living may inspire! Joy to the chiefs that lead old Scotia’s ranks, Of Roman garb and more than Roman fire!

Triumphant be the thistle still unfurled, Dear symbol wild! on Freedom’s hills it grows, Where Fingal stemmed the tyrants of the world, And Roman eagles found unconquered foes!

Joy to the band[71] this day on Egypt’s coast, Whose valour tamed proud France’s tricolor, And wrenched the banner from her bravest host, Baptised Invincible in Austria’s gore!

Joy for the day on red Vimeira’s strand, When, bayonet to bayonet opposed, First of Britannia’s host her Highland band Gave but the death-shot once, and foremost closed!

Is there a son of generous England here Or fervid Erin?—he with us shall join, To pray that in eternal union dear, The rose, the shamrock, and the thistle twine!

Types of a race who shall the invader scorn, As rocks resist the billows round their shore; Types of a race who shall to time unborn Their country leave unconquered as of yore!

[71] The 42nd Regiment.

STANZAS TO THE MEMORY OF THE SPANISH PATRIOTS LATEST KILLED IN RESISTING THE REGENCY AND THE DUKE OF ANGOULEME.

Brave men who at the Trocadero fell— Beside your cannons conquered not, though slain, There is a victory in dying well For Freedom,—and ye have not died in vain, For come what may, there shall be hearts in Spain To honour, ay embrace your martyred lot, Cursing the Bigot’s and the Bourbon’s chain, And looking on your graves, though trophied not, As holier, hallowed ground than priests could make the spot!

What though your cause be baffled—freemen cast In dungeons—dragged to death, or forced to flee; Hope is not withered in affliction’s blast— The patriot’s blood’s the seed of Freedom’s tree; And short your orgies of revenge shall be, Cowled Demons of the Inquisitorial cell! Earth shudders at your victory,—for ye Are worse than common fiends from Heaven that fell, The baser, ranker sprung, _Autochthones_ of Hell!

Go to your bloody rites again—bring back The hall of horrors and the assessor’s pen, Recording answers shrieked upon the rack; Smile o’er the gaspings of spine-broken men;— Preach, perpetrate damnation in your den;— Then let your altars, ye blasphemers! peal With thanks to Heaven, that let you loose again, To practise deeds with torturing fire and steel No eye may search—no tongue may challenge or reveal!

Yet laugh not in your carnival of crime Too proudly, ye oppressors!—Spain was free, Her soil has felt the foot-prints, and her clime Been winnowed by the wings of Liberty; And these even parting scatter as they flee Thoughts—influences, to live in hearts unborn, Opinions that shall wrench the prison-key From Persecution—show her mask off-torn, And tramp her bloated head beneath the foot of Scorn.

Glory to them that die in this great cause! Kings, Bigots, can inflict no brand of shame, Or shape of death, to shroud them from applause:— No!—manglers of the martyr’s earthly frame! Your hangmen fingers cannot touch his fame. Still in your prostrate land there shall be some Proud hearts, the shrines of Freedom’s vestal flame. Long trains of ill may pass unheeded, dumb, But vengeance is behind, and justice is to come.

SONG OF THE GREEKS.

Again to the battle, Achaians! Our hearts bid the tyrants defiance; Our land, the first garden of Liberty’s tree— It has been, and shall yet be the land of the free: For the cross of our faith is replanted, The pale dying crescent is daunted, And we march that the foot-prints of Mahomet’s slaves May be washed out in blood from our forefathers’ graves. Their spirits are hovering o’er us, And the sword shall to glory restore us.

Ah! what though no succour advances, Nor Christendom’s chivalrous lances Are stretched in our aid—be the combat our own! And we’ll perish or conquer more proudly alone; For we’ve sworn by our Country’s assaulters, By the virgins they’ve dragged from our altars, By our massacred patriots, our children in chains, By our heroes of old and their blood in our veins. That living, we shall be victorious, Or that dying, our deaths shall be glorious.

A breath of submission we breathe not; The sword that we’ve drawn we will sheathe not! Its scabbard is left where our martyrs are laid, And the vengeance of ages has whetted its blade. Earth may hide—waves engulph—fire consume us, But they shall not to slavery doom us: If they rule, it shall be o’er our ashes and graves; But we’ve smote them already with fire on the waves, And new triumphs on land are before us, To the charge!—Heaven’s banner is o’er us.

This day shall ye blush for its story, Or brighten your lives with its glory. Our women, oh, say, shall they shriek in despair, Or embrace us from conquest with wreaths in their hair? Accursed may his memory blacken, If a coward there be that would slacken Till we’ve trampled the turban and shown ourselves worth Being sprung from and named for the godlike of earth. Strike home, and the world shall revere us As heroes descended from heroes.

Old Greece lightens up with emotion Her inlands, her isles of the Ocean; Fanes rebuilt and fair towns shall with jubilee ring, And the Nine shall new-hallow their Helicon’s spring: Our hearths shall be kindled in gladness, That were cold and extinguished in sadness; Whilst our maidens shall dance with their white-waving arms, Singing joy to the brave that delivered their charms, When the blood of yon Mussulman cravens Shall have purpled the beaks of our ravens.

ODE TO WINTER.

When first the fiery-mantled sun His heavenly race began to run; Round the earth and ocean blue, His children four the Seasons flew. First, in green apparel dancing, The young Spring smiled with angel grace; Rosy Summer next advancing, Rushed into her sire’s embrace:— Her bright-haired sire, who bade her keep For ever nearest to his smiles, On Calpe’s olive-shaded steep, On India’s citron-covered isles: More remote and buxom-brown, The Queen of vintage bowed before his throne; A rich pomegranate gemmed her crown, A ripe sheaf bound her zone.

But howling Winter fled afar, To hills that prop the polar star, And loves on deer-borne car to ride, With barren darkness by his side, Round the shore where loud Lofoden Whirls to death the roaring whale, Round the hall where Runic Odin Howls his war-song to the gale; Save when adown the ravaged globe He travels on his native storm, Deflowering Nature’s grassy robe, And trampling on her faded form:— Till light’s returning lord assume The shaft that drives him to his polar field, Of power to pierce his raven plume And crystal-covered shield.

Oh, sire of storms! whose savage ear The Lapland drum delights to hear, When frenzy with her blood-shot eye Implores thy dreadful deity, Archangel! power of desolation! Fast descending as thou art, Say, hath mortal invocation Spells to touch thy stony heart? Then, sullen Winter, hear my prayer, And gently rule the ruined year; Nor chill the wanderer’s bosom bare, Nor freeze the wretch’s falling tear;— To shuddering Want’s unmantled bed Thy horror-breathing agues cease to lead, And gently on the orphan head Of innocence descend.

But chiefly spare, O, king of clouds! The sailor on his airy shrouds; When wrecks and beacons strew the steep, And spectres walk along the deep. Milder yet thy snowy breezes Pour on yonder tented shores, Where the Rhine’s broad billow freezes, Or the dark-brown Danube roars. Oh, winds of Winter! list ye there To many a deep and dying groan; Or start, ye demons of the midnight air, At shrieks and thunders louder than your own. Alas! ev’n your unhallowed breath May spare the victim fallen low; But man will ask no truce to death,— No bounds to human woe.[72]

[72] This ode was written in Germany, at the close of 1800, before the conclusion of hostilities.

LINES SPOKEN BY MR. * * *, AT DRURY-LANE THEATRE, ON THE FIRST OPENING OF THE HOUSE AFTER THE DEATH OF THE PRINCESS CHARLOTTE, 1817.

Britons! although our task is but to show The scenes and passions of fictitious woe, Think not we come this night without a part In that deep sorrow of the public heart, Which like a shade hath darkened every place, And moistened with a tear the manliest face! The bell is scarcely hushed in Windsor’s piles, That tolled a requiem from the solemn aisles, For her, the royal flower, low laid in dust, That was your fairest hope, your fondest trust. Unconscious of the doom, we dreamt, alas! That e’en these walls, ere many months should pass, Which but return sad accents for her now, Perhaps had witnessed her benignant brow, Cheered by the voice you would have raised on high, In bursts of British love and loyalty. But, Britain! now thy chief, thy people mourn, And Claremont’s home of love is left forlorn:— There, where the happiest of the happy dwelt, The ’scutcheon glooms, and royalty hath felt A wound that every bosom feels its own,— The blessing of a father’s heart o’erthrown— The most beloved and most devoted bride Torn from an agonizèd husband’s side, Who “long as Memory holds her seat” shall view That speechless, more than spoken last adieu, When the fixed eye long looked connubial faith, And beamed affection in the trance of death. Sad was the pomp that yesternight beheld, As with the mourner’s heart the anthem swelled; While torch succeeding torch illumed each high And bannered arch of England’s chivalry. The rich plumed canopy, the gorgeous pall, The sacred march, and sable-vested wall,— These were not rites of inexpressive show, But hallowed as the types of real woe! Daughter of England! for a nation’s sighs. A nation’s heart went with thine obsequies!— And oft shall time revert a look of grief On thine existence, beautiful and brief. Fair spirit! send thy blessing from above On realms where thou art canonised by love! Give to a father’s, husband’s bleeding mind, The peace that angels lend to human kind, To us who in thy loved remembrance feel A sorrowing, but a soul-ennobling zeal— A loyalty that touches all the best And loftiest principles of England’s breast! Still may thy name speak concord from the tomb— Still in the Muse’s breath thy memory bloom! They shall describe thy life—thy form portray; But all the love that mourns thee swept away, ’Tis not in language or expressive arts To paint—yet feel it, Britons in your hearts!

LINES ON THE GRAVE OF A SUICIDE.

By strangers left upon a lonely shore, Unknown, unhonoured, was the friendless dead, For child to weep, or widow to deplore, There never came to his unburied head:— All from his dreary habitation fled. Nor will the lanterned fisherman at eve Launch on that water by the witches’ tower, Where hellebore and hemlock seem to weave Round its dark vaults a melancholy bower, For spirits of the dead at night’s enchanted hour. They dread to meet thee, poor unfortunate! Whose crime it was, on life’s unfinished road To feel the stepdame buffetings of fate, And render back thy being’s heavy load. Ah! once, perhaps, the social passions glowed In thy devoted bosom—and the hand That smote its kindred heart, might yet be prone To deeds of mercy. Who may understand Thy many woes, poor suicide, unknown?— He who thy being gave shall judge of thee alone.

THE TURKISH LADY.

’Twas the hour when rites unholy Called each Paynim voice to prayer, And the star that faded slowly Left to dews the freshened air.

Day her sultry fires had wasted, Calm and sweet the moonlight rose; E’en a captive spirit tasted Half oblivion of his woes.

Then ’twas from an Emir’s palace Came an Eastern lady bright: She, in spite of tyrants jealous, Saw and loved an English knight.

“Tell me, captive, why in anguish Foes have dragged thee here to dwell, Where poor Christians as they languish Hear no sound of Sabbath bell?”

“’Twas on Transylvania’s Bannat, When the Crescent shone afar, Like a pale disastrous planet O’er the purple tide of war—

“In that day of desolation, Lady, I was captive made; Bleeding for my Christian nation By the walls of high Belgrade.”

“Captive! could the brightest jewel From my turban set thee free?” “Lady no!—the gift were cruel, Ransomed, yet if reft of thee.”

“Say, fair princess! would it grieve thee Christian climes should we behold?” “Nay, bold knight! I would not leave thee Were thy ransom paid in gold!”

Now in heaven’s blue expansion Rose the midnight star to view, When to quit her father’s mansion Thrice she wept, and bade adieu!

“Fly we then, while none discover! Tyrant barks, in vain ye ride!” Soon at Rhodes the British lover Clasped his blooming Eastern bride.

THE WOUNDED HUSSAR.

Alone to the banks of the dark-rolling Danube Fair Adelaide hied when the battle was o’er:— “Oh, whither,” she cried, “hast thou wandered, my lover? Or here dost thou welter and bleed on the shore?

“What voice did I hear? ’twas my Henry that sighed!” All mournful she hastened, nor wandered she far, When bleeding, and low, on the heath she descried, By the light of the moon, her poor wounded Hussar!

From his bosom that heaved, the last torrent was streaming, And pale was his visage, deep marked with a scar! And dim was that eye, once expressively beaming, That melted in love, and that kindled in war!

How smit was poor Adelaide’s heart at the sight! How bitter she wept o’er the victim of war! “Hast thou come, my fond Love, this last sorrowful night, To cheer the lone heart of your wounded Hussar?”

“Thou shalt live,” she replied, “Heaven’s mercy relieving Each anguishing wound, shall forbid me to mourn!” “Ah, no! the last pang of my bosom is heaving! No light of the morn shall to Henry return!

“Thou charmer of life, ever tender and true! Ye babes of my love, that await me afar!” His faltering tongue scarce could murmur adieu, When he sunk in her arms—the poor wounded Hussar!

LINES INSCRIBED ON THE MONUMENT LATELY FINISHED BY MR. CHANTREY, WHICH HAS BEEN ERECTED BY THE WIDOW OF ADMIRAL SIR G. CAMPBELL K.C.B., TO THE MEMORY OF HER HUSBAND.

To him, whose loyal, brave, and gentle heart, Fulfilled the hero’s and the patriot’s part,— Whose charity, like that which Paul enjoined, Was warm, beneficent, and unconfined,— This stone is reared: to public duty true, The seaman’s friend, the father of his crew— Mild in reproof, sagacious in command, He spread fraternal zeal throughout his band, And led each arm to act, each heart to feel, What British valour owes to Britain’s weal. These were his public virtues:—but to trace His private life’s fair purity and grace, To paint the traits that drew affection strong From friends, an ample and an ardent throng, And, more, to speak his memory’s grateful claim On her who mourns him most, and bears his name— O’ercomes the trembling hand of widowed grief, O’ercomes the heart, unconscious of relief Save in religion’s high and holy trust, Whilst placing their memorial o’er his dust.

THE BRAVE ROLAND.[73]

The brave Roland!—the brave Roland!— False tidings reached the Rhenish strand That he had fallen in fight; And thy faithful, bosom swooned with pain, O loveliest maiden of Allémayne! For the loss of thine own true knight.

But why so rash has she ta’en the veil, In yon Nonnenwerder’s cloisters pale? For her vow had scarce been sworn, And the fatal mantle o’er her flung, When the Drachenfells to a trumpet rung— ’Twas her own dear warrior’s horn!

Woe! woe! each heart shall bleed—shall break! She would have hung upon his neck, Had he come but yester-even; And he had clasped those peerless charms That shall never, never fill his arms, Or meet him but in heaven.

Yet Roland the brave—Roland the true— He could not bid that spot adieu; It was dear still ’midst his woes; For he loved to breathe the neighbouring air, And to think she blessed him in her prayer, When the Halleluiah rose.

There’s yet one window of that pile, Which he built above the Nun’s green isle; Thence sad and oft looked he (When the chant and organ sounded slow) On the mansion of his love below, For herself he might not see.

She died!—He sought the battle plain; Her image filled his dying brain, When he fell and wished to fall: And her name was in his latest sigh, When Roland, the flower of chivalry, Expired at Roncevall.

[73] The tradition which forms the substance of these stanzas is still preserved in Germany. An ancient tower on a height, called the Rolandseck, a few miles above Bonn on the Rhine, is shown as the habitation which Roland built in sight of a nunnery, into which his mistress had retired, on having heard an unfounded account of his death. Whatever may be thought of the credibility of the legend, its scenery must be recollected with pleasure by every one who has visited the romantic landscape of the Drachenfells, the Rolandseck, and the beautiful adjacent islet of the Rhine, where a nunnery still stands.

THE SPECTRE BOAT. A BALLAD.

Light rued false Ferdinand to leave a lovely maid forlorn, Who broke her heart and died to hide her blushing cheek from scorn. One night he dreamt he wooed her in their wonted bower of love, Where the flowers sprang thick around them, and the birds sang sweet above.

But the scene was swiftly changed into a churchyard’s dismal view, And her lips grew black beneath his kiss, from love’s delicious hue. What more he dreamt, he told to none; but, shuddering, pale, and dumb, Looked out upon the waves, like one that knew his hour was come.

’Twas now the dead watch of the night—the helm was lashed a-lee, And the ship rode where Mount Ætna lights the deep Levantine sea; When beneath its glare a boat came, rowed by a woman in her shroud, Who, with eyes that made our blood run cold, stood up and spoke aloud:—

“Come, Traitor, down, for whom my ghost still wanders unforgiven! Come down, false Ferdinand, for whom I broke my peace with heaven!”— It was vain to hold the victim, for he plunged to meet her call, Like the bird that shrieks and flutters in the gazing serpent’s thrall.

You may guess the boldest mariner shrunk daunted from the sight, For the spectre and her winding-sheet shone blue with hideous light; Like a fiery wheel the boat spun with the waving of her hand, And round they went, and down they went, as the cock crew from the land.

THE LOVER TO HIS MISTRESS ON HER BIRTH-DAY.

If any white-winged Power above My joys and griefs survey, The day when thou wert born, my love— He surely blessed that day.

I laughed (till taught by thee) when told Of Beauty’s magic powers, That ripened life’s dull ore to gold, And changed its weeds to flowers.

My mind had lovely shapes portrayed, But thought I earth had one Could make e’en Fancy’s visions fade Like stars before the sun?

I gazed, and felt upon my lips The unfinished accents hang: One moment’s bliss, one burning kiss, To rapture changed each pang.

And though as swift as lightning’s flash Those trancèd moments flew, Not all the waves of time shall wash Their memory from my view.

But duly shall my raptured song, And gladly shall my eyes Still bless this day’s return, as long As thou shalt see it rise.

HOHENLINDEN.

On Linden, when the sun was low, All bloodless lay the untrodden snow, And dark as winter was the flow Of Iser, rolling rapidly.

But Linden saw another sight, When the drum beat, at dead of night, Commanding fires of death to light The darkness of her scenery.

By torch and trumpet fast arrayed, Each horseman drew his battle blade, And furious every charger neighed, To join the dreadful revelry.

Then shook the hills with thunder riven, Then rushed the steed to battle driven, And louder than the bolts of heaven, Far flashed the red artillery.

But redder yet that light shall glow On Linden’s hills of stainèd snow, And bloodier yet the torrent flow Of Iser, rolling rapidly.

’Tis morn, but scarce yon level sun Can pierce the war-clouds, rolling dun, Where furious Frank, and fiery Hun, Shout in their sulph’rous canopy.

The combat deepens. On, ye brave, Who rush to glory, or the grave! Wave, Munich! all thy banners wave, And charge with all thy chivalry!

Few, few, shall part where many meet! The snow shall be their winding-sheet, And every turf beneath their feet Shall be a soldier’s sepulchre.

GLENARA.

O heard ye yon pibroch sound sad in the gale, Where a band cometh slowly with weeping and wail? ’Tis the chief of Glenara[74] laments for his dear; And her sire, and the people, are called to her bier.

Glenara came first with the mourners and shroud; Her kinsmen they followed, but mourned not aloud: Their plaids all their bosoms were folded around: They marched all in silence,—they looked on the ground.

In silence they reached over mountain and moor, To a heath, where the oak-tree grew lonely and hoar; “Now here let us place the grey stone of her cairn: Why speak ye no word!”—said Glenara the stern.

“And tell me, I charge you! ye clan of my spouse, Why fold ye your mantles, why cloud ye your brows?” So spake the rude chieftain:—no answer is made, But each mantle unfolding a dagger displayed.

“I dreamt of my lady, I dreamt of her shroud,” Cried a voice from the kinsmen, all wrathful and loud; “And empty that shroud, and that coffin did seem: Glenara! Glenara! now read me my dream!”

O! pale grew the cheek of that chieftain, I ween, When the shroud was unclosed, and no lady was seen; When a voice from the kinsmen spoke louder in scorn, ’Twas the youth who had loved the fair Ellen of Lorn:

“I dreamt of my lady, I dreamt of her grief, I dreamt that her lord was a barbarous chief: On a rock of the ocean fair Ellen did seem; Glenara! Glenara! now read me my dream!”

In dust, low the traitor has knelt to the ground, And the desert revealed where his lady was found; From a rock of the ocean that beauty is borne— Now joy to the house of fair Ellen of Lorn!

[74] Maclean of Duart.

LINES ON RECEIVING A SEAL WITH THE CAMPBELL CREST, FROM K. M——, BEFORE HER MARRIAGE.

This wax returns not back more fair The impression of the gift you send, Than stamped upon my thoughts I bear The image of your worth, my friend!

We are not friends of yesterday;— But poet’s fancies are a little Disposed to heat and cool (they say),— By turns impressible and brittle.

Well! should its frailty e’er condemn My heart to prize or please you less, _Your_ type is still the sealing gem, And _mine_ the waxen brittleness.

What transcripts of my weal and woe This little signet yet may lock,— What utterances to friend or foe, In reason’s calm or passion’s shock!

What scenes of life’s yet curtained page May own its confidential die, Whose stamp awaits the unwritten page, And feelings of futurity!

Yet wheresoe’er my pen I lift To date the epistolary sheet, The blest occasion of the gift Shall make its recollection sweet;

Sent when the star that rules your fates Hath reached its influence most benign— When every heart congratulates, And none more cordially than mine.

So speed my song—marked with the crest That erst the adventurous Norman[75] wore, Who won the Lady of the West, The daughter of Macaillain Mor.

Crest of my sires! whose blood it sealed With glory in the strife of swords, Ne’er may the scroll that bears it yield Degenerate thoughts or faithless words!

Yet little might I prize the stone, If it but typed the feudal tree From whence a scattered leaf, I’m blown In Fortune’s mutability.

No!—but it tells me of a heart, Allied by friendship’s living tie; A prize beyond the herald’s art— Our soul-sprung consanguinity!

Katherine! to many an hour of mine Light wings and sunshine you have lent; And so adieu, and still be thine The all-in-all of life—Content!

[75] A Norman leader, Gilliespie le Camile, in the service of the king of Scotland, married the heiress of Lochaw in the twelfth century, and from him the Campbells are sprung.

GILDEROY.

The last, the fatal hour is come, That bears my love from me; I hear the dead note of the drum, I mark the gallows’ tree!

The bell has tolled; it shakes my heart; The trumpet speaks thy name; And must my Gilderoy depart To bear a death of shame?

No bosom trembles for thy doom; No mourner wipes a tear; The gallows’ foot is all thy tomb, The sledge is all thy bier.

Oh, Gilderoy! bethought we then So soon, so sad to part, When first in Roslin’s lovely glen You triumphed o’er my heart?

Your locks they glittered to the sheen, Your hunter garb was trim; And graceful was the ribbon green That bound your manly limb!

Ah! little thought I to deplore Those limbs in fetters bound; Or hear, upon the scaffold floor, The midnight hammer sound.

Ye cruel, cruel, that combined The guiltless to pursue; My Gilderoy was ever kind, He could not injure you!

A long adieu! but where shall fly Thy widow all forlorn, When every mean and cruel eye Regards my woe with scorn?

Yes! they will mock thy widow’s tears, And hate thine orphan boy; Alas! his infant beauty wears The form of Gilderoy.

Then will I seek the dreary mound That wraps thy mouldering clay, And weep and linger on the ground, And sigh my heart away.

ADELGITHA.

The ordeal’s fatal trumpet sounded, And sad pale Adelgitha came, When forth a valiant champion bounded, And slew the slanderer of her fame.

She wept, delivered from her danger; But when he knelt to claim her glove— “Seek not,” she cried, “oh! gallant stranger, For hapless Adelgitha’s love.

“For he is in a foreign far land Whose arm should now have set me free And I must wear the willow garland For him that’s dead, or false to me.”

“Nay! say not that his faith is tainted!” He raised his vizor—At the sight She fell into his arms and fainted; It was indeed her own true knight!

ABSENCE.

’Tis not the loss of love’s assurance, It is not doubting what thou art, But ’tis the too, too long endurance Of absence, that afflicts my heart.

The fondest thoughts two hearts can cherish, When each is lonely doomed to weep, Are fruits on desert isles that perish, Or riches buried in the deep.

What though, untouched by jealous madness, Our bosom’s peace may fall to wreck; The undoubting heart, that breaks with sadness, Is but more slowly doomed to break.

Absence! is not the soul torn by it From more than light, or life, or breath? ’Tis Lethe’s gloom, but not its quiet,— The pain without the peace of death!

THE RITTER BANN.

The Ritter Bann from Hungary Came back renowned in arms, But scorning jousts of chivalry And love and ladies’ charms.

While other knights held revels, he Was wrapt in thoughts of gloom, And in Vienna’s hostelrie Slow paced his lonely room.

There entered one whose face he knew,— Whose voice, he was aware, He oft at mass had listened to, In the holy house of prayer.

’Twas the Abbot of St. James’s monks, A fresh and fair old man: His reverend air arrested even The gloomy Ritter Bann.

But seeing with him an ancient dame Come clad in Scotch attire, The Ritter’s colour went and came, And loud he spoke in ire.

“Ha! nurse of her that was my bane, Name not her name to me; I wish it blotted from my brain: Art poor?—take alms, and flee.”

“Sir Knight,” the Abbot interposed, “This case your ear demands;” And the crone cried, with a cross enclosed In both her trembling hands:—

“Remember, each his sentence waits; And he that shall rebut Sweet Mercy’s suit, on him the gates Of Mercy shall be shut.

“You wedded, undispensed by Church, Your cousin Jane in Spring; In Autumn, when you went to search For churchmen’s pardoning,

“Her house denounced your marriage-band, Betrothed her to De Grey, And the ring you put upon her hand Was wrenched by force away.

“Then wept your Jane upon my neck, Crying, ‘Help me, nurse, to flee To my Howel Bann’s Glamorgan hills;’ But word arrived—ah me!—

“You were not there; and ’twas their threat, By foul means or by fair, To-morrow morning was to set The seal on her despair.

“I had a son, a sea-boy, in A ship at Hartland Bay; By his aid from her cruel kin I bore my bird away.

“To Scotland from the Devon’s Green myrtle shores we fled; And the Hand that sent the ravens To Elijah, gave us bread.

“She wrote you by my son, but he From England sent us word You had gone into some far countrie, In grief and gloom he heard.

“For they that wronged you, to elude Your wrath, defamed my child; And you—ay, blush, Sir, as you should— Believed, and were beguiled.

“To die but at your feet, she vowed To roam the world; and we Would both have sped and begged our bread, But so it might not be.

“For when the snow-storm beat our roof, She bore a boy, Sir Bann, Who grew as fair your likeness proof As child e’er grew like man.

“’Twas smiling on that babe one morn While heath bloomed on the moor, Her beauty struck young Lord Kinghorn As he hunted past our door.

‘She shunned him, but he raved of Jane, And roused his mother’s pride; Who came to us in high disdain,— ‘And where’s the face,’ she cried,

“‘Has witched my boy to wish for one So wretched for his wife?— Dost love thy husband? Know, my son Has sworn to seek his life.’

“Her anger sore dismayed us, For our mite was wearing scant, And unless that dame would aid us, There was none to aid our want.

“So I told her, weeping bitterly, What all our woes had been; And though she was a stern ladie, The tears stood in her een.

“And she housed us both, when, cheerfully, My child to her had sworn, That even if made a widow, she Would never wed Kinghorn.”——

Here paused the nurse, and then began The Abbot, standing by:— “Three months ago a wounded man To our abbey came to die.

“He heard me long, with ghastly eyes And hand obdurate clenched, Speak of the worm that never dies, And the fire that is not quenched.

“At last by what this scroll attests He left atonement brief, For years of anguish to the breasts His guilt had wrung with grief.

“‘There lived,’ he said, ‘a fair young dame Beneath my mother’s roof; I loved her, but against my flame Her purity was proof.

“‘I feigned repentance, friendship pure: That mood she did not check, But let her husband’s miniature Be copied from her neck.

“‘As means to search him, my deceit Took care to him was borne Nought but his picture’s counterfeit, And Jane’s reported scorn.

“‘The treachery took: she waited wild; My slave came back and lied Whate’er I wished; she clasped her child, And swooned, and all but died.

“‘I felt her tears for years and years Quench not my flame, but stir; The very hate I bore her mate Increased my love for her.

“‘Fame told us of his glory, while Joy flushed the face of Jane; And while she blessed his name, her smile Struck fire into my brain.

“‘No fears could damp; I reached the camp, Sought out its champion; And if my broad-sword failed at last, ’Twas long and well laid on.

“‘This wound’s my meed, my name’s Kinghorn, My foe’s the Ritter Bann.’—— The wafer to his lips was borne, And we shrived the dying man.

“He died not till you went to fight The Turks at Warradein; But I see my tale has changed you pale.”— The Abbot went for wine;

And brought a little page who poured It out, and knelt and smiled:— The stunned knight saw himself restored To childhood in his child;

And stooped and caught him to his breast, Laughed loud and wept anon, And with a shower of kisses pressed The darling little one.

“And where went Jane?”—“To a nunnery, Sir— Look not again so pale— Kinghorn’s old dame grew harsh to her.”— “And has she ta’en the veil?”—

“Sit down, Sir,” said the priest, “I bar Rash words.”—They sat all three, And the boy played with the knight’s broad star, As he kept him on his knee.

“Think ere you ask her dwelling-place,” The Abbot further said; “Time draws a veil o’er beauty’s face More deep than cloister’s shade.

“Grief may have made her what you can Scarce love perhaps for life.” “Hush, Abbot,” cried the Ritter Bann, “Or tell me where’s my wife.”

The priest undid two doors that hid The inn’s adjacent room, And there a lovely woman stood, Tears bathed her beauty’s bloom.

One moment may with bliss repay Unnumbered hours of pain; Such was the throb and mutual sob Of the Knight embracing Jane.

THE HARPER.

On the green banks of Shannon, when Sheelah was nigh, No blithe Irish lad was so happy as I; No harp like my own could so cheerily play, And wherever I went was my poor dog Tray.

When at last I was forced from my Sheelah to part, She said (while the sorrow was big at her heart), “Oh! remember your Sheelah when far, far away; And be kind, my dear Pat, to our poor dog Tray.”

Poor dog! he was faithful and kind, to be sure, And he constantly loved me, although I was poor; When the sour-looking folks sent me heartless away, I had always a friend in my poor dog Tray.

When the road was so dark, and the night was so cold, And Pat and his dog were grown weary and old, How snugly we slept in my old coat of grey, And he licked me for kindness—my poor dog Tray.

Though my wallet was scant, I remembered his case, Nor refused my last crust to his pitiful face; But he died at my feet on a cold winter day, And I played a sad lament for my poor dog Tray.

Where now shall I go, poor, forsaken, and blind Can I find one to guide me, so faithful, and kind; To my sweet native village, so far, far away, I can never more return with my poor dog Tray.

SONG TO THE EVENING STAR.

Star that bringest home the bee, And sett’st the weary labourer free! If any star shed peace, ’tis thou, That send’st it from above, Appearing when Heaven’s breath and brow Are sweet as hers we love.

Come to the luxuriant skies, Whilst the landscape’s odours rise, Whilst far-off lowing herds are heard, And songs, when toil is done, From cottages whose smoke unstirred Curls yellow in the sun.

Star of love’s soft interviews, Parted lovers on thee muse; Their remembrancer in Heaven Of thrilling vows thou art, Too delicious to be riven By absence from the heart.

SONG. “MEN OF ENGLAND.”

Men of England! who inherit Rights that cost your sires their blood! Men whose undegenerate spirit Has been proved on land and flood:—

By the foes ye’ve fought uncounted, By the glorious deeds ye’ve done, Trophies captured—breaches mounted, Navies conquered—kingdoms won!

Yet, remember, England gathers Hence but fruitless wreaths of fame, If the patriotism of your fathers Glow not in your hearts the same.

What are monuments of bravery, Where no public virtues bloom? What avail in lands of slavery, Trophied temples, arch, and tomb?

Pageants!—Let the world revere us For our people’s rights and laws, And the breasts of civic heroes Bared in Freedom’s holy cause.

Yours are Hampden’s, Russell’s glory, Sydney’s matchless shade is yours,— Martyrs in heroic story, Worth a hundred Agincourts!

We’re the sons of sires that baffled Crowned and mitred tyranny:— They defied the field and scaffold For their birthrights—so will we!

THE MAID’S REMONSTRANCE.

Never wedding, ever wooing, Still a love-lorn heart pursuing, Read you not the wrong you’re doing In my cheek’s pale hue? All my life with sorrow strewing, Wed, or cease to woo.

Rivals banished, bosoms plighted, Still our days are disunited; Now the lamp of hope is lighted, Now half quenched appears, Damped, and wavering, and benighted, Midst my sighs and tears.

Charms you call your dearest blessing, Lips that thrill at your caressing, Eyes a mutual soul confessing, Soon you’ll make them grow Dim, and worthless your possessing Not with age, but woe!

SONG.

Drink ye to her that each loves best. And if you nurse a flame That’s told but to her mutual breast, We will not ask her name.

Enough, while memory tranced and glad Paints silently the fair, That each should dream of joys he’s had, Or yet may hope to share.

Yet far, far hence be jest or boast From hallowed thoughts so dear; But drink to them that we love most, As they would love to hear.

SONG.

When Napoleon was flying From the field of Waterloo, A British soldier dying To his brother bade adieu!

“And take,” he said, “this token To the maid that owns my faith, With the words that I have spoken In affection’s latest breath.”

Sore mourned the brother’s heart, When the youth beside him fell; But the trumpet warned to part, And they took a sad farewell.

There was many a friend to lose him, For that gallant soldier sighed; But the maiden of his bosom Wept when all their tears were dried.

THE BEECH-TREE’S PETITION.

O leave this barren spot to me! Spare, woodman, spare the beechen tree Though bush or floweret never grow My dark unwarming shade below; Nor summer bird perfume the dew Of rosy blush, or yellow hue; Nor fruits of autumn, blossom-born, My green and glossy leaves adorn; Nor murmuring tribes from me derive The ambrosial amber of the hive; Yet leave this barren spot to me: Spare, woodman, spare the beechen tree!

Thrice twenty summers I have seen The sky grow bright, the forest green; And many a wintry wind have stood In bloomless, fruitless solitude, Since childhood in my pleasant bower First spent its sweet and sportive hour. Since youthful lovers in my shade Their vows of truth and rapture made; And on my trunk’s surviving frame Carved many a long-forgotten name. Oh! by the sighs of gentle sound, First breathed upon this sacred ground, By all that Love has whispered here, Or Beauty heard with ravished ear; As Love’s own altar honour me: Spare woodman, spare the beechen tree!

SONG.

Earl March looked on his dying child, And smit with grief to view her— “The youth,” he cried, “whom I exiled, Shall be restored to woo her.”

She’s at the window many an hour His coming to discover; And her love looked up to Ellen’s bower, And she looked on her lover—

But ah! so pale, he knew her not, Though her smile on him was dwelling. “And am I then forgot—forgot?”— It broke the heart of Ellen.

In vain he weeps, in vain he sighs, Her cheek is cold as ashes; Nor love’s own kiss shall wake those eyes To lift their silken lashes.

LOVE AND MADNESS. AN ELEGY. WRITTEN IN 1795.

Hark! from the battlements of yonder tower[76] The solemn bell has tolled the midnight hour! Roused from drear visions of distempered sleep, Poor Broderick[77] wakes—in solitude to weep!

“Cease, Memory, cease,” the friendless mourner cried, “To probe the bosom too severely tried! Oh! ever cease, my pensive thoughts, to stray Through the bright fields of Fortune’s better day When youthful Hope, the music of the mind, Tuned all its charms, and Errington was kind!

“Yet, can I cease, while glows this trembling frame, In sighs to speak thy melancholy name? I hear thy spirit wail in every storm! In midnight shades I view thy passing form! Pale as in that sad hour when doomed to feel, Deep in thy perjured heart, the bloody steel!

“Demons of Vengeance! ye at whose command I grasped the sword with more than woman’s hand. Say ye, did Pity’s trembling voice control, Or horror damp the purpose of my soul? No! my wild heart sat smiling o’er the plan, Till Hate fulfilled what baffled Love began!

“Yes; let the clay-cold breast that never knew One tender pang to generous Nature true, Half-mingling pity with the gall of scorn, Condemn this heart, that bled in love forlorn!

“And ye, proud fair, whose soul no gladness warms, Save Rapture’s homage to your conscious charms! Delighted idols of a gaudy train, Ill can your blunter feelings guess the pain, When the fond faithful heart, inspired to prove Friendship refined, the calm delight of love, Feels all its tender strings with anguish torn, And bleeds at perjured Pride’s inhuman scorn!

“Say, then, did pitying Heaven condemn the deed, When Vengeance bade thee, faithless lover! bleed? Long had I watched thy dark foreboding brow, What time thy bosom scorned its dearest vow! Sad, though I wept the friend, the lover changed, Still thy cold look was scornful and estranged, Till from thy pity, love, and shelter thrown, I wandered hopeless, friendless, and alone!

“Oh! righteous Heaven! ’twas then my tortured soul First gave to wrath unlimited control! Adieu the silent look! the streaming eye! The murmured plaint! the deep heart-heaving sigh Long-slumbering Vengeance wakes to better deeds; He shrieks, he falls, the perjured lover bleeds! Now the last laugh of agony is o’er, And pale in blood he sleeps, to wake no more!

“’Tis done! the flame of hate no longer burns Nature relents, but, ah! too late returns! Why does my soul this gush of fondness feel? Trembling and faint, I drop the guilty steel! Cold on my heart the hand of terror lies, And shades of horror close my languid eyes!

“Oh!’twas a deed of Murder’s deepest grain, Could Broderick’s soul so true to wrath remain? A friend long true, a once fond lover fell!— Where Love was fostered could not Pity dwell?

“Unhappy youth! while yon pale crescent glows To watch on silent nature’s deep repose, Thy sleepless spirit, breathing from the tomb, Foretells my fate, and summons me to come! Once more I see thy sheeted spectre stand, Roll the dim eye, and wave the paly hand!

“Soon may this fluttering spark of vital flame Forsake its languid melancholy frame! Soon may these eyes their trembling lustre close, Welcome the dreamless night of long repose! Soon may this woe-worn spirit seek the bourne Where, lulled to slumber, Grief forgets to mourn!”

[76] Warwick Castle.

[77] Miss Broderick: she murdered her lover, Errington.—See Campbell’s “Life and Letters,” by Dr. Beattie.

SONG.

Oh, how hard it is to find The one just suited to our mind; And if that one should be False, unkind, or found too late, What can we do but sigh at fate, And sing, Woe’s me—Woe’s me!

Love’s a boundless burning waste, Where Bliss’s stream we seldom taste, And still more seldom flee Suspense’s thorns, Suspicion’s stings; Yet somehow Love a something brings That’s sweet—e’en when we sigh, “Woe’s me!”

STANZAS ON THE THREATENED INVASION 1803.

Our bosoms we’ll bare for the glorious strife, And our oath is recorded on high, To prevail in the cause that is dearer than life, Or crushed in its ruins to die! Then rise, fellow freemen, and stretch the right hand, And swear to prevail in your dear native land!

’Tis the home we hold sacred is laid to our trust— God bless the green Isle of the brave! Should a conqueror tread on our forefathers’ dust, It would rouse the old dead from their grave! Then rise, fellow freemen, and stretch the right hand, And swear to prevail in your dear native land!

In a Briton’s sweet home shall a spoiler abide, Profaning its loves and its charms? Shall a Frenchman insult the loved fair at our side? To arms! oh, my Country, to arms! Then rise, fellow freemen, and stretch the right hand, And swear to prevail in your dear native land!

Shall a tyrant enslave us, my countrymen!—No! His head to the sword shall be given— A death-bed repentance be taught the proud foe, And his blood be an offering to Heaven! Then rise, fellow freemen, and stretch the right hand, And swear to prevail in your dear native land!

EXILE OF ERIN.[78]

There came to the beach a poor Exile of Erin, The dew on his thin robe was heavy and chill: For his country he sighed, when at twilight repairing To wander alone by the wind-beaten hill. But the day-star attracted his eye’s sad devotion, For it rose o’er his own native isle of the ocean, Where once in the fire of his youthful emotion, He sang the bold anthem of “Erin go bragh!”[79]

“Sad is my fate!” said the heart-broken stranger; “The wild deer and wolf to a covert can flee, But I have no refuge from famine and danger, A home and a country remain not to me. Never again, in the green sunny bowers, Where my forefathers lived, shall I spend the sweet hours, Or cover my harp with the wild-woven flowers, And strike to the numbers of ‘Erin go bragh!’

“Erin, my country! though sad and forsaken, In dreams I revisit the sea-beaten shore; But, alas! in a far foreign land I awaken, And sigh for the friends who can meet me no more! Oh cruel fate! wilt thou never replace me In a mansion of peace—where no perils can chase me? Never again shall my brothers embrace me? They die to defend me, or live to deplore!

“Where is my cabin-door, fast by the wild-wood? Sisters and sire! did ye weep for its fall? Where is the mother that looked on my childhood? And where is the bosom-friend, dearer than all? Oh! my sad heart! long abandoned by pleasure, Why did it doat on a fast-fading treasure? Tears, like the rain-drop, may fall without measure, But rapture and beauty they cannot recall.

“Yet all its sad recollections suppressing, One dying wish my lone bosom can draw: Erin! an exile bequeaths thee his blessing! Land of my forefathers! ‘Erin go bragh!’ Buried and cold, when my heart stills her motion, Green be thy fields,—sweetest isle of the ocean! And thy harp-striking bards sing aloud with devotion,— Erin mavournin[80]—Erin go bragh!’”

[78] Anthony McCann, exiled for being implicated in the Irish Rebellion of 1798. Campbell met him at Hamburg.

[79] Ireland for ever.

[80] Ireland my darling.

LORD ULLIN’S DAUGHTER.

A chieftain to the Highlands bound, Cries, “Boatman, do not tarry! And I’ll give thee a silver pound, To row us o’er the ferry.”

“Now who be ye, would cross Lochgyle, This dark and stormy water?” “O, I’m the chief of Ulva’s isle, And this Lord Ullin’s daughter.

“And fast before her father’s men Three days we’ve fled together, For should he find us in the glen, My blood would stain the heather.

“His horsemen hard behind us ride; Should they our steps discover, Then who will cheer my bonny bride When they have slain her lover?”

Outspoke the hardy Highland wight “I’ll go, my chief—I’m ready; It is not for your silver bright, But for your winsome lady:

“And by my word! the bonny bird In danger shall not tarry; So though the waves are raging white, I’ll row you o’er the ferry.”

By this the storm grew loud apace, The water-wraith was shrieking;[81] And in the scowl of heaven each face Grew dark as they were speaking.

But still as wilder blew the wind, And as the night grew drearer, Adown the glen rode armèd men, Their trampling sounded nearer.

“O haste thee, haste!” the lady cries, “Though tempests round us gather; I’ll meet the raging of the skies, But not an angry father.”

The boat has left a stormy land, A stormy sea before her,— When, oh! too strong for human hand, The tempest gathered o’er her.

And still they rowed amidst the roar Of waters fast prevailing: Lord Ullin reached that fatal shore, His wrath was changed to wailing.

For sore dismayed, through storm and shade, His child he did discover: One lovely hand she stretched for aid, And one was round her lover.

“Come back! come back!” he cried in grief, “Across this stormy water: And I’ll forgive your Highland chief, My daughter!—oh my daughter!”

Twas vain: the loud waves lashed the shore, Return or aid preventing: The waters wild went o’er his child— And he was left lamenting.

[81] The evil spirit of the waters.

ODE TO THE MEMORY OF BURNS.

Soul of the Poet! wheresoe’er, Reclaimed from earth, thy genius plume Her wings of immortality: Suspend thy harp in happier sphere, And with thine influence illume The gladness of our jubilee.

And fly like fiends from secret spell, Discord and strife, at BURNS’S name, Exorcised by his memory; For he was chief of bards that swell The heart with songs of social flame, And high delicious revelry.

And Love’s own strain to him was given, To warble all its ecstasies With Pythian words unsought, unwilled— Love, the surviving gift of Heaven, The choicest sweet of Paradise, In life’s else bitter cup distilled.

Who that has melted o’er his lay To Mary’s soul, in Heaven above, But pictured sees, in fancy strong, The landscape and the livelong day That smiled upon their mutual love? Who that has felt forgets the song?

Nor skilled one flame alone to fan: His country’s high-souled peasantry What patriot-pride he taught!—how much To weigh the inborn worth of man! And rustic life and poverty Grow beautiful beneath his touch.

Him, in his clay-built cot,[82] the muse Entranced, and showed him all the forms Of fairy-light and wizard gloom (That only gifted Poet views), The Genii of the floods and storms, And martial shades from Glory’s tomb.

On Bannock-field what thoughts arouse The swain whom BURNS’S song inspires? Beat not his Caledonian veins, As o’er the heroic turf he ploughs, With all the spirit of his sires, And all their scorn of death and chains?

And see the Scottish exile tanned By many a far and foreign clime, Bend o’er his home-born verse, and weep In memory of his native land, With love that scorns the lapse of time, And ties that stretch beyond the deep.

Encamped by Indian rivers wild, The soldier resting on his arms, In BURNS’S carol sweet recalls The scenes that blessed him when a child, And glows and gladdens at the charms Of Scotia’s woods and waterfalls.

O deem not, midst this worldly strife, An idle art the Poet brings: Let high Philosophy control And sages calm the stream of life, ’Tis he refines its fountain-springs, The nobler passions of the soul.

It is the muse that consecrates The native banner of the brave, Unfurling at the trumpet’s breath, Rose, thistle, harp; ’tis she elates To sweep the field or ride the wave, A sunburst in the storm of death.

And thou, young hero, when thy pall Is crossed with mournful sword and plume, When public grief begins to fade, And only tears of kindred fall, Who but the Bard shall dress thy tomb, And greet with fame thy gallant shade?

Such was the soldier—BURNS, forgive That sorrows of mine own intrude In strains to thy great memory due. In verse like thine, oh! could he live, The friend I mourned—the brave, the good— Edward that died at Waterloo![83]

Farewell, high chief of Scottish song! That couldst alternately impart Wisdom and rapture in thy page, And brand each vice with satire strong, Whose lines are mottoes of the heart, Whose truths electrify the sage.

Farewell! and ne’er may Envy dare To wring one baleful poison drop From the crushed laurels of thy bust: But while the lark sings sweet in air, Still may the grateful pilgrim stop, To bless the spot that holds thy dust.

[82] Burns was born in a clay cottage, which his father had built with his own hands.

[83] Major Edward Hodge, of the 7th Hussars, who fell at the head of his squadron in the attack of the Polish Lancers.

THE SOLDIER’S DREAM.

Our bugles sang truce—for the night-cloud had lowered, And the sentinel stars set their watch in the sky; And thousands had sunk on the ground overpowered, The weary to sleep, and the wounded to die.

When reposing that night on my pallet of straw, By the wolf-scaring faggot that guarded the slain, At the dead of the night a sweet vision I saw, And thrice ere the morning I dreamt it again.

Methought from the battle-field’s dreadful array, Far, far I had roamed on a desolate track: ’Twas Autumn,—and sunshine arose on the way To the home of my fathers, that welcomed me back.

I flew to the pleasant fields traversed so oft In life’s morning march, when my bosom was young I heard my own mountain-goats bleating aloft, And knew the sweet strain that the corn-reapers sung.

Then pledged we the wine-cup, and fondly I swore, From my home and my weeping friends never to part My little ones kissed me a thousand times o’er, And my wife sobbed aloud in her fulness of heart,

Stay, stay with us,—rest, thou art weary and worn; And fain was their war-broken soldier to stay;— But sorrow returned with the dawning of morn, And the voice in my dreaming ear melted away.

LINES WRITTEN ON VISITING A SCENE IN ARGYLESHIRE.

At the silence of twilight’s contemplative hour, I have mused in a sorrowful mood, On the wind-shaken weeds that embosom the bower, Where the home of my forefathers stood.[84] All ruined and wild is their roofless abode, And lonely the dark raven’s sheltering tree: And travelled by few is the grass-covered road, Where the hunter of deer and the warrior trode To his hills that encircle the sea.

Yet wandering, I found on my ruinous walk, By the dial-stone agèd and green, One rose of the wilderness left on its stalk, To mark where a garden had been Like a brotherless hermit, the last of its race, All wild in the silence of nature, it drew, From each wandering sun-beam, a lonely embrace, For the night-weed and thorn overshadowed the place, Where the flower of my forefathers grew.

Sweet bud of the wilderness! emblem of all That remains in this desolate heart! The fabric of bliss to its centre may fall, But patience shall never depart! Though the wilds of enchantment, all vernal and bright, In the days of delusion by fancy combined With the vanishing phantoms of love and delight, Abandon my soul, like a dream of the night, And leave but a desert behind.

Be hushed, my dark spirit! for wisdom condemns When the faint and the feeble deplore; Be strong as the rock of the ocean that stems A thousand wild waves on the shore! Through the perils of chance, and the scowl of disdain, May thy front be unaltered, thy courage elate! Yea! even the name I have worshipped in vain Shall awake not the sigh of remembrance again: To bear is to conquer our fate.

[84] Kirnan.

SPANISH PATRIOT’S SONG.

How rings each sparkling Spanish brand, There’s music in its rattle; And gay, as for a saraband, We gird us for the battle. Follow, follow! To the glorious revelry, When the sabres bristle, And the death-shots whistle.

Of rights for which our swords outspring, Shall Angoulême bereave us? We’ve plucked a bird of nobler wing— The eagle could not brave us. Follow, follow! Shake the Spanish blade, and sing— France shall ne’er enslave us: Tyrants shall not brave us.

Shall yonder rag, the Bourbon’s flag, White emblem of his liver, For Spain the proud be Freedom’s shroud? Oh, never, never, never. Follow, follow! Follow to the fight, and sing— Liberty for ever: Ever, ever, ever.

Thrice welcome hero of the hilt, We laugh to see his standard; Here let his miscreant blood be spilt Where braver men’s was squandered. Follow, follow! If the laureled tricolor Durst not over-flaunt us, Shall yon lily daunt us?

No! ere they quell our valour’s veins, They’ll upward to their fountains Turn back the rivers on our plains, And trample flat our mountains. Follow, follow! Shake the Spanish blade, and sing— France shall ne’er enslave us: Tyrants shall not brave us.

VERSES ON MARIE ANTOINETTE.[85]

Behold where Gallia’s captive queen, With steady eye and look serene, In life’s last awful—awful scene, Slow leaves her sad captivity.

Hark! the shrill horn that rends the sky Bespeaks thy ready murder nigh, The long parade of death I spy, And leave my lone captivity.

Farewell, ye mansions of despair, Scenes of my sad sequestered care. The balm of bleeding war is near. Adieu, my lone captivity.

To purer mansions in the sky, Fair Hope directs my grief-worn eye, Where sorrow’s child no more shall sigh Amid her lone captivity.

Adieu, ye babes whose infant bloom Beneath oppression’s lawless doom, Pines in the solitary gloom Of undeserved captivity.

O Power benign that rul’st on high, Cast down, cast down a pitying eye; Shed consolation from the sky, To soothe their sad captivity.

Now virtue’s sure reward to prove, I seek empyreal realms above, To meet my long-departed love; Adieu my lone captivity.

[85] These lines were published in a leading Glasgow newspaper in 1792.

DIRGE OF WALLACE.

They lighted the tapers at dead of night, And chanted their holiest hymn, But her brow and her bosom were damp with affright, Her eye was all sleepless and dim.

And the lady of Elderslie wept for her lord, When a deathwatch beat in her lonely room, When her curtain had shook of its own accord, And the raven had flapped at her window board, To tell of her warrior’s doom.

Now sing the death-song and loudly pray For the soul of my knight so dear, And call me a widow this wretched day, Since the warning of God is here.

For a nightmare rides on my strangled sleep— The lord of my bosom is doomed to die; His valorous heart they have wounded deep, And the blood-red tears shall his country weep, For Wallace of Elderslie.

Yet knew not his country that ominous hour, Ere the loud matin bell was rung, That a trumpet of death on an English tower Had the dirge of her champion sung.

When his dungeon light looked dim and red On the high-born blood of a martyr slain, No anthem was sung at his holy death-bed; No weeping was there when his bosom bled, And his heart was rent in twain.

Oh! it was not thus when his ashen spear Was true to that knight forlorn, And hosts of a thousand were scattered like deer, At the sound of the hunter’s horn!

When he strode o’er the wreck of each well-fought field, With the yellow-haired chiefs of his native land; For his lance was not shivered on helmet or shield, And the sword that seemed fit for archangel to wield, Was light in his terrible hand.

But bleeding and bound though “the Wallace wight,” For his much-loved country die, The bugle ne’er sung to a braver knight Than Wallace of Elderslie.

But the day of his glory shall never depart, His head unentombed shall with glory be palmed, From its blood-streaming altar his spirit shall start; Though the raven has fed on his mouldering heart— A nobler was never embalmed.

JEMIMA, ROSE, AND ELEANORE; THREE CELEBRATED SCOTTISH BEAUTIES.

Adieu! Romance’s heroines— Give me the nymphs who this good hour May charm me, not in Fiction’s scenes, But teach me Beauty’s living power. My harp that has been mute too long Shall sleep at Beauty’s name no more, So but your smiles reward my song— Jemima, Rose, and Eleanore.

In whose benignant eyes are beaming The rays of purity and truth; Such as we fancy woman’s seeming In the creation’s golden youth. The more I look upon thy grace, Rosina, I could look the more; But for Jemima’s witching face, And the sweet smile of Eleanore.

Had I been Lawrence, kings had wanted Their portraits, till I painted yours; And these had future hearts enchanted, When this poor verse no more endures. I would have left the Congress faces, A dull-eyed diplomatic corps, Till I had grouped you as the Graces— Jemima, Rose, and Eleanore.

The Catholic bids fair saints befriend him, Your poet’s heart is Catholic too; His rosary shall be flowers ye send him, His saints’ days when he visits you. And my sere laurels for my duty, Miraculous at your touch would rise; Could I give verse one trait of beauty Like that which glads me from your eyes.

Unsealed by you these lips have spoken, Disused to song for many a day, Ye’ve tuned a harp whose strings were broken, And warmed a heart of callous clay; So when my fancy next refuses To twine for you a garland more, Come back again and be my Muses— Jemima, Rose, and Eleanore.

THE DEATH-BOAT OF HELIGOLAND

Can restlessness reach the cold sepulchred head?— Ay, the quick have their sleep-walkers, so have the dead There are brains, though they moulder, that dream in the tomb, And that maddening forehear the last trumpet of doom, Till their corses start sheeted to revel on earth, Making horror more deep by the semblance of mirth: By the glare of new-lighted volcanoes they dance, Or at mid-sea appal the chilled mariner’s glance. Such I wot, was the band of cadaverous smile Seen ploughing the night-surge of Heligo’s isle. The foam of the Baltic had sparkled like fire, And the red moon looked down with an aspect of ire; But her beams on a sudden grew sick-like and grey, And the mews that had slept clanged and shrieked far away And the buoys and the beacons extinguished their light, As the boat of the stony-eyed dead came in sight, High bounding from billow to billow; each form Had its shroud like a plaid flying loose to the storm; With an oar in each pulseless and icy-cold hand, Fast they ploughed, by the lee-shore of Heligoland, Such breakers as boat of the living ne’er crossed; Now surf-sunk for minutes again they uptossed, And with livid lips shouted reply o’er the flood To the challenging watchman that curdled his blood— “We are dead—we are bound from our graces in the west, First to Hecla, and then to——” Unmeet was the rest For man’s ear. The old abbey bell thundered its clang, And their eyes gleamed with phosphorous light as it rang Ere they vanished, they stopped, and gazed silently grim, Till the eye could define them, garb, feature and limb Now who were those roamers?—of gallows or wheel Bore they marks, or the mangling anatomist’s steel? No, by magistrates’ chains ’mid their grave-clothes you saw, They were felons too proud to have perished by law; But a ribbon that hung where a rope should have been, ’Twas the badge of their faction, its hue was not green, Showed them men who had trampled and tortured and driven To rebellion the fairest Isle breathed on by Heaven,— Men whose heirs would yet finish the tyrannous task, If the Truth and the Time had not dragged off their mask. They parted—but not till the sight might discern A scutcheon distinct at their pinnace’s stern, Where letters emblazoned in blood-coloured flame, Named their faction—I blot not my page with its name.

SONG.

When Love came first to Earth, the SPRING Spread rose-beds to receive him And back he vowed his flight he’d wing To Heaven, if she should leave him.

But SPRING departing, saw his faith Pledged to the next new comer— He revelled in the warmer breath And richer bowers of SUMMER.

Then sportive AUTUMN claimed by rights An Archer for her lover, And even in WINTER’S dark, cold nights A charm he could discover.

Her routs and balls, and fireside joy, For this time were his reasons— In short, Young Love’s a gallant boy, That likes all times and seasons.

LINES ON THE DEPARTURE OF EMIGRANTS FOR NEW SOUTH WALES.

On England’s shore I saw a pensive band, With sails unfurled for earth’s remotest strand, Like children parting from a mother, shed Tears for the home that could not yield them bread, Grief marked each face receding from the view, ’Twas grief to nature honourably true. And long, poor wanderers o’er the ecliptic deep, The song that names but home shall bid you weep; Oft shall ye fold your flocks by stars above In that far world, and miss the stars ye love; Oft, when its tuneless birds scream round forlorn, Regret the lark that gladdens England’s morn, And, giving England’s names to distant scenes, Lament that earth’s extension intervenes.

But cloud not yet too long, industrious train, Your solid good with sorrow nursed in vain: For has the heart no interest yet as bland As that which binds us to our native land? The deep-drawn wish, when children crown our hearth, To hear the cherub-chorus of their mirth, Undamped by dread that want may e’er unhouse, Or servile misery knit those smiling brows: The pride to rear an independent shed, And give the lips we love unborrowed bread; To see a world, from shadowy forests won, In youthful beauty wedded to the sun; To skirt our home with harvests widely sown, And call the blooming landscape all our own, Our children’s heritage, in prospect long. These are the hopes, high-minded hopes and strong, That beckon England’s wanderers o’er the brine, To realms where foreign constellations shine; Where streams from undiscovered fountains roll, And winds shall fan them from th’ Antarctic pole, And what though doomed to shores so far apart From England’s home, that e’en the home-sick heart Quails, thinking, ere that gulf can be recrossed, How large a space of fleeting life is lost: Yet there, by time, their bosoms shall be changed, And strangers once shall cease to sigh estranged, But jocund in the year’s long sunshine roam, That yields their sickle twice its harvest-home.

There, marking o’er his farm’s expanding ring New fleeces whiten and new fruits upspring, The grey-haired swain, his grandchild sporting round, Shall walk at eve his little empire’s bound, Emblazed with ruby vintage, ripening corn, And verdant rampart of Acacian thorn, While, mingling with the scent his pipe exhales, The orange-grove’s and fig-tree’s breath prevails; Survey with pride beyond a monarch’s spoil, His honest arm’s own subjugated soil; And summing all the blessings God has given, Put up his patriarchal prayer to Heaven, That when his bones shall here repose in peace, The scions of his love may still increase, And o’er a land where life has ample room, In health and plenty innocently bloom.

Delightful land, in wildness e’en benign, The glorious past is ours, the future thine! As in a cradled Hercules, we trace The lines of empire in thine infant face. What nations in thy wide horizon’s span Shall teem on tracts untrodden yet by man! What spacious cities with their spires shall gleam Where now the panther laps a lonely stream, And all but brute or reptile life is dumb! Land of the free! thy kingdom is to come, Of states, with laws from Gothic bondage burst, And creeds by chartered priesthood’s unaccurst; Of navies, hoisting their emblazoned flags, Where shipless seas now wash unbeaconed crags; Of hosts reviewed in dazzling files and squares, Their pennoned trumpets breathing native airs,— For minstrels thou shalt have of native fire, And maids to sing the songs themselves inspire:— Our very speech, methinks, in after time, Shall catch th’ Ionian blandness of thy clime; And whilst the light and luxury of thy skies Give brighter smiles to beauteous woman’s eyes, The Arts, whose soul is love, shall all spontaneous rise.

Untracked in deserts lies the marble mine, Undug the ore that midst thy roofs shall shine; Unborn the hands—but born they are to be— Fair Australasia, that shall give to thee Proud temple-domes, with galleries winding high, So vast in space, so just in symmetry, They widen to the contemplating eye, With colonnaded aisles in long array, And windows that enrich the flood of day O’er tesselated pavements, pictures fair, And nichèd statues breathing golden air. Nor there, whilst all that’s seen bids Fancy swell, Shall Music’s voice refuse to seal the spell; But choral hymns shall wake enchantment round, And organs yield their tempests of sweet sound.

Meanwhile, ere Arts triumphant reach their goal, How blest the years of pastoral life shall roll! E’en should some wayward hour the settler’s mind Brood sad on scenes for ever left behind, Yet not a pang that England’s name imparts, Shall touch a fibre of his children’s hearts; Bound to that native land by nature’s bond, Full little shall their wishes rove beyond Its mountains blue, and melon-skirted streams, Since childhood loved and dreamt of in their dreams. How many a name, to us uncouthly wild, Shall thrill that region’s patriotic child, And bring as sweet thoughts o’er his bosom’s chords, As aught that’s named in song to us affords! Dear shall that river’s margin be to him, Where sportive first he bathed his boyish limb, Or petted birds, still brighter than their bowers, Or twined his tame young kangaroo with flowers. But more magnetic yet to memory Shall be the sacred spot, still blooming nigh, The bower of love, where first his bosom burned, And smiling passion saw its smile returned.

Go forth and prosper then, emprizing band: May He, who in the hollow of his hand The ocean holds, and rules the whirlwind’s sweep, Assuage its wrath, and guide you on the deep!

FAREWELL TO LOVE.

I had a heart that doated once in passion’s boundless pain, And though the tyrant I abjured, I could not break his chain; But now that Fancy’s fire is quenched, and ne’er can burn anew, I’ve bid to Love, for all my life, adieu! adieu! adieu!

I’ve known, if ever mortal knew, the spells of Beauty’s thrall, And if my song has told them not, my soul has felt them all; But Passion robs my peace no more, and Beauty’s witching sway Is now to me a star that’s fall’n—a dream that’s passed away.

Hail! welcome tide of life, when no tumultuous billows roll, How wondrous to myself appears this halcyon calm of soul! The wearied bird blown o’er the deep would sooner quit its shore, Than I would cross the gulf again that time has brought me o’er.

Why say the Angels feel the flame?—Oh, spirits of the skies! Can love like ours, that doats on dust, in heavenly bosoms rise?— Ah no; the hearts that best have felt its power, the best can tell, That peace on earth itself begins, when Love has bid farewell.

LINES ON A PICTURE OF A GIRL IN THE ATTITUDE OF PRAYER, BY THE ARTIST GRUSE, IN THE POSSESSION OF LADY STEPNEY.

Was man e’er doomed that beauty made By mimic art should haunt him? Like Orpheus, I adore a shade, And doat upon a phantom.

Thou maid that in my inmost thought Art fancifully sainted, Why liv’st thou not—why art thou nought But canvass sweetly painted?

Whose looks seem lifted to the skies, Too pure for love of mortals— As if they drew angelic eyes To greet thee at heaven’s portals.

Yet loveliness has here no grace, Abstracted or ideal— Art ne’er but from a living face Drew looks so seeming real.

What wert thou, maid?—thy life—thy name Oblivion hides in mystery; Though from thy face my heart could frame A long romantic history.

Transported to thy time I seem, Though dust thy coffin covers— And hear the songs, in fancy’s dream, Of thy devoted lovers.

How witching must have been thy breath— How sweet the living charmer— Whose very semblance after death Can make the heart grow warmer!

Adieu, the charms that vainly move My soul in their possession— That prompt my lips to speak of love, Yet rob them of expression.

Yet thee, dear picture, to have praised Was but a poet’s duty; And shame to him that ever gazed Impassive on thy beauty.

STANZAS ON THE BATTLE OF NAVARINO.

Hearts of oak that have bravely delivered the brave, And uplifted old Greece from the brink of the grave, ’Twas the helpless to help, and the hopeless to save, That your thunderbolts swept o’er the brine; And as long as yon sun shall look down on the wave The light of your glory shall shine.

For the guerdon ye sought with your bloodshed and toil, Was it slaves, or dominion, or rapine, or spoil? No! your lofty emprize was to fetter and foil The uprooter of Greece’s domain! When he tore the last remnant of food from her soil, Till her famished sank pale as the slain!

Yet, Navarin’s heroes! does Christendom breed The base hearts that will question the fame of your deed Are they men?—let ineffable scorn be their meed, And oblivion shadow their graves!— Are they women?—to Turkish serails let them speed! And be mothers of Mussulman slaves.

Abettors of massacre! dare ye deplore That the death-shriek is silenced on Hellas’s shore? That the mother aghast sees her offspring no more By the hand of Infanticide grasped? And that stretched on yon billows distained by their gore Missolonghi’s assassins have gasped?

Prouder scene never hallowed war’s pomp to the mind, Than when Christendom’s pennons wooed social the wind, And the flower of her brave for the combat combined, Their watch-word, humanity’s vow;— Not a sea-boy that fought in that cause, but mankind Owes a garland to honour his brow!

Nor grudge, by our side, that to conquer or fall, Came the hardy rude Russ, and the high-mettled Gaul; For whose was the genius, that planned at its call, Where the whirlwind of battle should roll? All were brave! but the star of success over all Was the light of our Codrington’s soul.

That star of the day-spring, regenerate Greek! Dimmed the Saracen’s moon, and struck pallid his cheek; In its first flushing morning thy Muses shall speak When their lore and their lutes they reclaim: And the first of their songs from Parnassus’s peak Shall be “_Glory to Codrington’s name!_”

LINES ON LEAVING A SCENE IN BAVARIA.

Adieu the woods and waters’ side Imperial Danube’s rich domain! Adieu the grotto, wild and wide, The rocks abrupt, and grassy plain! For pallid Autumn once again Hath swelled each torrent of the hill; Her clouds collect, her shadows sail, And watery winds that sweep the vale, Grow loud and louder still.

But not the storm, dethroning fast Yon monarch oak of massy pile; Nor river roaring to the blast Around its dark and desert isle; Nor church-bell[86] tolling to beguile The cloud-born thunder passing by, Can sound in discord to my soul: Roll on, ye mighty waters, roll! And rage, thou darkened sky!

Thy blossoms now no longer bright; Thy withered woods no longer green Yet, Eldurn shore, with dark delight I visit thy unlovely scene! For many a sunset hour serene My steps have trod thy mellow dew; When his green light the fire-fly gave, When Cynthia from the distant wave Her twilight anchor drew,

And ploughed, as with a swelling sail, The billowy clouds and starry sea: Then while thy hermit nightingale Sang on his fragrant apple-tree,— Romantic, solitary, free, The visitant of Eldurn’s shore, On such a moonlight mountain strayed As echoed to the music made By Druid harps of yore.

Around thy savage hills of oak, Around thy waters bright and blue, No hunter’s horn the silence broke, No dying shriek thine echo knew; But safe, sweet Eldurn woods, to you The wounded wild deer ever ran. Whose myrtle bound their grassy cave, Whose very rocks a shelter gave From blood-pursuing man.

Oh heart effusions, that arose From nightly wanderings cherished here; To him who flies from many woes, Even homeless deserts can be dear! The last and solitary cheer Of those that own no earthly home, Say—is it not, ye banished race, In such a loved and lonely place Companionless to roam?

Yes! I have loved thy wild abode, Unknown, unploughed, untrodden shore; Where scarce the woodman finds a road, And scarce the fisher plies an oar: For man’s neglect I love thee more; That art nor avarice intrude To tame thy torrent’s thunder-shock, Or prune thy vintage of the rock Magnificently rude.

Unheeded spreads thy blossomed bud Its milky bosom to the bee; Unheeded falls along the flood desolate and aged tree. Forsaken scene, how like to thee The fate of unbefriended Worth! Like thine her fruit dishonoured falls, Like thee in solitude she calls A thousand treasures forth.

O! silent spirit of the place, If, lingering with the ruined year, Thy hoary form and awful face I yet might watch and worship here! Thy storm were music to mine ear, Thy wildest walk a shelter given Sublimer thoughts on earth to find, And share, with no unhallowed mind, The majesty of heaven.

What though the bosom friends of Fate,— Prosperity’s unweanèd brood,— Thy consolations cannot rate, O self-dependent solitude! Yet with a spirit unsubdued, Though darkened by the clouds of Care, To worship thy congenial gloom, A pilgrim to the Prophet’s tomb Misfortune shall repair.

On her the world hath never smiled Or looked but with accusing eye; All-silent goddess of the wild, To thee that misanthrope shall fly! I hear her deep soliloquy, I mark her proud but ravaged form, As stern she wraps her mantle round, And bids, on winter’s bleakest ground, Defiance to the storm.

Peace to her banished heart, at last, In thy dominions shall descend, And, strong as beechwood in the blast, Her spirit shall refuse to bend; Enduring life without a friend, The world and falsehood left behind, Thy votary shall bear elate (Triumphant o’er opposing Fate), Her dark inspirèd mind.

But dost thou, Folly, mock the muse A wanderer’s mountain walk to sing, Who shuns a warring world, nor wooes The vulture cover of its wing? Then fly, thou cowering, shivering thing, Back to the fostering world beguiled To waste in self-consuming strife The loveless brotherhood of life, Reviling and reviled!

Away, thou lover of the race That hither chased yon weeping deer! If Nature’s all majestic face More pitiless than man’s appear; Or if the wild winds seem more drear Than man’s cold charities below, Behold around his peopled plains, Where’er the social savage reigns, Exuberance of woe!

His art and honours wouldst thou seek Embossed on grandeur’s giant walls? Or hear his moral thunders speak Where senates light their airy halls, Where man his brother man enthralls; Or sends his whirlwind warrants forth To rouse the slumbering fiends of war, To dye the blood-warm waves afar, And desolate the earth?

From clime to clime pursue the scene, And mark in all thy spacious way, Where’er the tyrant man has been, There Peace, the cherub, cannot stay; In wilds and woodlands far away She builds her solitary bower, Where only anchorites have trod, Or friendless men, to worship God, Have wandered for an hour.

In such a far forsaken vale,— And such, sweet Eldurn vale, is thine,— Afflicted nature shall inhale Heaven-borrowed thoughts and joys divine: No longer wish, no more repine For man’s neglect or woman’s scorn;— Then wed thee to an exile’s lot, For if the world hath loved thee not, Its absence may be borne.

[86] In Catholic countries you often hear the church bells rung to propitiate Heaven during thunder storms.

STANZAS TO PAINTING.

O thou by whose expressive art Her perfect image Nature sees In union with the Graces start, And sweeter by reflection please!

In whose creative hand the hues Fresh from yon orient rainbow shine; I bless thee, Promethéan Muse! And call thee brightest of the Nine!

Possessing more than vocal power, Persuasive more than poet’s tongue; Whose lineage, in a raptured hour,[87] From Love, the Sire of Nature, sprung.

Does Hope her high possession meet? Is joy triumphant, sorrow flown? Sweet is the trance, the tremor sweet, When all we love is all our own.

But oh! thou pulse of pleasure dear, Slow throbbing, cold, I feel thee part; Lone absence plants a pang severe, Or death inflicts a keener dart.

Then for a beam of joy to light In memory’s sad and wakeful eye! Or banish from the noon of night Her dreams of deeper agony.

Shall Song its witching cadence roll? Yea, even the tenderest air repeat, That breathed when soul was knit to soul, And heart to heart responsive beat?

What visions rise! to charm, to melt! The lost, the loved, the dead are near! Oh, hush that strain too deeply felt! And cease that solace too severe!

But thou serenely silent art! By heaven and love wast taught to lend A milder solace to the heart, The sacred image of a friend.

All is not lost! if, yet possest, To me that sweet memorial shine:— If close and closer to my breast I hold that idol all divine.

Or, gazing through luxurious tears, Melt o’er the loved departed form, Till death’s cold bosom half appears With life, and speech, and spirit warm.

She looks! she lives! this trancèd hour, Her bright eye seems a purer gem Than sparkles on the throne of power, Or glories wealthy diadem.

Yes, Genius, yes! thy mimic aid A treasure to my soul has given, Where beauty’s canonisèd shade Smiles in the sainted hues of heaven

No spectre forms of pleasure fled, Thy softening, sweetening tints restore; For thou canst give us back the dead, E’en in the loveliest looks they wore.

Then blest be Nature’s guardian Muse, Whose hand her perished grace redeems! Whose tablet of a thousand hues The mirror of creation seems.

From Love began thy high descent; And lovers, charmed by gifts of thine, Shall bless thee mutely eloquent; And call thee brightest of the Nine!

[87] Alluding to the well-known tradition respecting the origin of painting, that it arose from a young Corinthian female tracing the shadow of her lovers profile on the wall, as he lay asleep.

DRINKING-SONG OF MUNICH.

Sweet Iser! were thy sunny realm And flowery gardens mine, Thy waters I would shade with elm To prop the tender vine; My golden flagons I would fill With rosy draughts from every hill; And under every myrtle bower, My gay companions should prolong The laugh, the revel, and the song, To many an idle hour.

Like rivers crimsoned with the beam Of yonder planet bright, Our balmy cups should ever stream Profusion of delight; No care should touch the mellow heart, And sad or sober none depart; For wine can triumph over woe, And Love and Bacchus, brother powers, Could build in Iser’s sunny bowers A paradise below.

LINES ON REVISITING A SCOTTISH RIVER.

And call they this Improvement?—to have changed, My native Clyde, thy once romantic shore, Where Nature’s face is banished and estranged, And Heaven reflected in thy wave no more; Whose banks, that sweetened May-day’s breath before, Lie sere and leafless now in summer’s beam, With sooty exhalations covered o’er; And for the daisied green sward, down thy stream Unsightly brick-lanes smoke, and clanking engines gleam.

Speak not to me of swarms the scene sustains; One heart free tasting Nature’s breath and bloom Is worth a thousand slaves to Mammon’s gains. But whither goes that wealth, and gladd’ning whom? See, left but life enough and breathing-room The hunger and the hope of life to feel, Yon pale Mechanic bending o’er his loom, And Childhood’s self as at Ixion’s wheel, From morn till midnight tasked to earn its little meal.

Is this Improvement?—where the human breed Degenerates as they swarm and overflow, Till Toil grows cheaper than the trodden weed, And man competes with man, like foe with foe, Till Death, that thins them, scarce seems public woe? Improvement!—smiles it in the poor man’s eyes, Or blooms it on the cheek of Labour?—No— To gorge a few with Trade’s precarious prize, We banish rural life, and breathe unwholesome skies.

Nor call that evil slight; God has not given This passion to the heart of man in vain, For Earth’s green face, th’ untainted air of Heaven, And all the bliss of Nature’s rustic reign. For not alone our frame imbibes a stain From fœtid skies; the spirit’s healthy pride Fades in their gloom—And therefore I complain, That thou no more through pastoral scenes shouldst glide, My Wallace’s own stream, and once romantic Clyde!

LINES ON REVISITING CATHCART.

Oh! scenes of my childhood, and dear to my heart Ye green waving woods on the margin of Cart, How blest in the morning of life I have strayed, By the stream of the vale and the grass-covered glade!

Then, then every rapture was young and sincere, Ere the sunshine of bliss was bedimmed by a tear, And a sweeter delight every scene seemed to lend, That the mansion of peace was the house of a friend.

Now the scenes of my childhood and dear to my heart, All pensive I visit, and sigh to depart; Their flowers seem to languish, their beauty to cease, For a _stranger_ inhabits the mansion of peace.

But hushed be the sigh that untimely complains, While Friendship and all its enchantment remains, While it blooms like the flower of a winterless clime, Untainted by chance, unabated by time.

THE “NAME UNKNOWN;” IN IMITATION OF KLOPSTOCK.

Prophetic pencil! wilt thou trace A faithful image of the face, Or wilt thou write the “Name Unknown,” Ordained to bless my charmèd soul, And all my future fate control, Unrivalled and alone?

Delicious Idol of my thought! Though sylph or spirit hath not taught My boding heart thy precious name; Yet musing on my distant fate, To charms unseen I consecrate A visionary flame

Thy rosy blush, thy meaning eye, Thy virgin voice of melody, Are ever present to my heart; Thy murmured vows shall yet be mine, My thrilling hand shall meet with thine, And never, never part!

Then fly, my days, on rapid wing, Till Love the viewless treasure bring; While I, like conscious Athens, own A power in mystic silence sealed, A guardian angel unrevealed, And bless the “Name Unknown!”

SONG.

Withdraw not yet those lips and fingers, Whose touch to mine is rapture’s spell; Life’s joy for us a moment lingers, And death seems in the word—farewell. The hour that bids us part and go, It sounds not yet,—oh! no, no, no!

Time, whilst I gaze upon thy sweetness, Flies like a courser nigh the goal; To-morrow where shall be his fleetness, When thou art parted from my soul? Our hearts shall beat, our tears shall flow, But not together,—no, no, no!

HALLOWED GROUND.

What’s hallowed ground? Has earth a clod Its Maker meant not should be trod By man, the image of his God, Erect and free, Unscourged by superstition’s rod To bow the knee?

That’s hallowed ground—where mourned and missed The lips repose our love has kissed;— But where’s their memory’s mansion? Is’t Yon churchyard’s bowers? No! in ourselves their souls exist, A part of ours.

A kiss can consecrate the ground Where mated hearts are mutual bound: The spot where love’s first links were wound, That ne’er are riven, Is hallowed down to earth’s profound, And up to Heaven!

For time makes all but true love old; The burning thoughts that then were told Run molten still in memory’s mould; And will not cool, Until the heart itself be cold In Lethe’s pool.

What hallows ground where heroes sleep? ’Tis not the sculptured piles you heap! In dews that heavens far distant weep Their turf may bloom; Or Genii twine beneath the deep Their coral tomb.

But strew his ashes to the wind Whose sword or voice has served mankind— And is he dead, whose glorious mind Lifts thine on high?— To live in hearts we leave behind, Is not to die.

Is’t death to fall for Freedom’s right? He’s dead alone that lacks her light! And murder sullies in Heaven’s sight The sword he draws:— What can alone ennoble fight? A noble cause!

Give that! and welcome war to brace Her drums! and rend Heaven’s reeking space! The colours planted face to face, The charging cheer, Though Death’s pale horse lead on the chase, Shall still be dear.

And place our trophies where men kneel To Heaven!—but Heaven rebukes my zeal! The cause of Truth and Human weal, O God above! Transfer it from the sword’s appeal To Peace and Love.

Peace, Love! the cherubim that join Their spread wings o’er Devotion’s shrine— Prayers sound in vain, and temples shine, Where they are not— The heart alone can make divine Religion’s spot.

To incantations dost thou trust, And pompous rites in domes august? See mouldering stones and metal’s rust Belie the vaunt, That man can bless one pile of dust With chime or chaunt.

The ticking wood-worm mocks thee, man! Thy temples—creeds themselves grow wan! But there’s a dome of nobler span, A temple given Thy faith, that bigots dare not ban— Its space is Heaven!

Its roof star-pictured Nature’s ceiling, Where trancing the rapt spirit’s feeling, And God himself to man revealing The harmonious spheres Make music, though unheard their pealing By mortal ears.

Fair stars! are not your beings pure? Can sin, can death your worlds obscure? Else why so swell the thoughts at your Aspect above? Ye must be Heaven’s that make us sure Of heavenly love!

And in your harmony sublime I read the doom of distant time; That man’s regenerate soul from crime Shall yet be drawn, And reason on his mortal clime Immortal dawn.

What’s hallowed ground? ’Tis what gives birth To sacred thoughts in souls of worth!— Peace! Independence! Truth! go forth Earth’s compass round; And your high priesthood shall make earth _All hallowed ground_.

CAROLINE.