Miscellaneous Poems

The Homes of England.

“Where’s the coward that would not dare
To fight for such a land?” Marmion.

The stately homes of England!
How beautiful they stand,
Amidst their tall ancestral trees,
O’er all the pleasant land!
The deer across their greensward bound,
Through shade and sunny gleam;
And the swan glides past them with the sound
Of some rejoicing stream.

The merry homes of England!
Around their hearths by night,
What gladsome looks of household love
Meet in the ruddy light!
There woman’s voice flows forth in song,
Or childhood’s tale is told,
Or lips move tunefully along
Some glorious page of old.

The blessed homes of England!
How softly on their bowers
Is laid the holy quietness
That breathes from Sabbath hours!
Solemn, yet sweet, the church-bell’s chime
Floats through their woods at morn;
All other sounds, in that still time,
Of breeze and leaf are born.

The cottage homes of England!
By thousands on her plains,
They are smiling o’er the silvery brooks,
And round the hamlet fanes.
Through glowing orchards forth they peep,
Each from its nook of leaves;
And fearless there the lowly sleep,
As the bird beneath their eaves.

The free, fair homes of England!
Long, long, in hut and hall,
May hearts of native proof be rear’d
To guard each hallow’d wall!
And green for ever be the groves,
And bright the flowery sod,
Where first the child’s glad spirit loves
Its country and its God!

The Sicilian Captive.

“I have dreamt thou wert
A captive in thy hopelessness; afar
From the sweet home of thy young infancy,
Whose image unto thee is as a dream
Of fire and slaughter; I can see thee wasting,
Sick for thy native air.” L. E. L.

The champions had come from their fields of war,
Over the crests of the billows far;
They had brought back the spoils of a hundred shores,
Where the deep had foam’d to their flashing oars.

They sat at their feast round the Norse king’s board;
By the glare of the torch-light the mead was pour’d;
The hearth was heap’d with the pine-boughs high,
And it flung a red radiance on shields thrown by.

The Scalds had chanted in Runic rhyme
Their songs of the sword and the olden time;
And a solemn thrill, as the harp-chords rung,
Had breathed from the walls where the bright spears hung.

But the swell was gone from the quivering string,
They had summon’d a softer voice to sing;
And a captive girl, at the warriors’ call,
Stood forth in the midst of that frowning hall.

Lonely she stood,—in her mournful eyes
Lay the clear midnight of southern skies;
And the drooping fringe of their lashes low
Half-veil’d a depth of unfathom’d woe.

Stately she stood—though her fragile frame
Seem’d struck with the blight of some inward flame,
And her proud pale brow had a shade of scorn,
Under the waves of her dark hair worn.

And a deep flush pass’d, like a crimson haze,
O’er her marble cheek by the pine-fire’s blaze—
No soft hue caught from the south wind’s breath,
But a token of fever at strife with death.

She had been torn from her home away,
With her long locks crown’d for her bridal-day,
And brought to die of the burning dreams
That haunt the exile by foreign streams.

They bade her sing of her distant land—
She held its lyre with a trembling hand,
Till the spirit its blue skies had given her woke,
And the stream of her voice into music broke.

Faint was the strain, in its first wild flow—
Troubled its murmur, and sad and low;
But it swell’d into deeper power ere long,
As the breeze that swept o’er her soul grew strong.

“They bid me sing of thee, mine own, my sunny land! of thee!
Am I not parted from thy shores by the mournful-sounding sea?
Doth not thy shadow wrap my soul? In silence let me die,
In a voiceless dream of thy silvery founts, and thy pure, deep sapphire sky:
How should thy lyre give here its wealth of buried sweetness forth—
Its tones of summer’s breathings born, to the wild winds of the north?

“Yet thus it shall be once, once more! My spirit shall awake,
And through the mists of death shine out, my country, for thy sake!
That I may make thee known, with all the beauty and the light,
And the glory never more to bless thy daughter’s yearning sight!
Thy woods shall whisper in my song, thy bright streams warble by,
Thy soul flow o’er my lips again—yet once, my Sicily!

“There are blue heavens—far hence, far hence! but, oh! their glorious blue!
Its very night is beautiful with the hyacinth’s deep hue!
It is above my own fair land, and round my laughing home,
And arching o’er my vintage hills, they hang their cloudless dome;
And making all the waves as gems, that melt along the shore,
And steeping happy hearts in joy—that now is mine no more.

“And there are haunts in that green land—oh! who may dream or tell
Of all the shaded loveliness it hides in grot and dell!
By fountains flinging rainbow-spray on dark and glossy leaves,
And bowers wherein the forest-dove her nest untroubled weaves;
The myrtle dwells there, sending round the richness of its breath,
And the violets gleam like amethysts from the dewy moss beneath.

“And there are floating sounds that fill the skies through night and day—
Sweet sounds! the soul to hear them faints in dreams of heaven away;
They wander through the olive woods, and o’er the shining seas—
They mingle with the orange scents that load the sleepy breeze;
Lute, voice, and bird are blending there,—it were a bliss to die,
As dies a leaf, thy groves among, my flowery Sicily!

“I may not thus depart—farewell! Yet no, my country! no!
Is not love stronger than the grave? I feel it must be so!
My fleeting spirit shall o’ersweep the mountains and the main,
And in thy tender starlight rove, and through thy woods again.
Its passion deepens—it prevails!—I break my chain—I come
To dwell a viewless thing, yet blest—in thy sweet air, my home!”

And her pale arms dropp’d the ringing lyre—
There came a mist o’er her eye’s wild fire—
And her dark rich tresses in many a fold,
Loosed from their braids, down her bosom roll’d.

For her head sank back on the rugged wall—
A silence fell o’er the warriors’ hall;
She had pour’d out her soul with her song’s last tone:
The lyre was broken, the minstrel gone!

Ivan the Czar.

[“Ivan le Terrible, étant déjà devenu vieux, assiégait Novgorod. Les Boyards, le voyant affoibli, lui demandèrent s’il ne voulait pas donner le commandement de l’assaut à son fils. Sa fureur fut si grande à cette proposition, que rien ne pût l’appaiser; son fils se prosterna à ses pieds; il le repoussa avec un coup d’une telle violence, que deux jours après le malheureux en mourut. Le père, alors au désespoir, devint indifférent à la guerre comme au pouvoir, et ne survécut que peu de mois à son fils.”—Dix Années d’Exil, par Madame de Stael.]

“Gieb diesen Todten mir heraus. Ich muss
Ihn wieder haben!...
... Trostlose allmacht,
Die nicht einmal in Graber ihren arm
Verlangern, eine kleine Ubereilung
Mit Menschenleben nicht verbessern kann!” Schiller.

He sat in silence on the ground,
The old and haughty Czar,
Lonely, though princes girt him round,
And leaders of the war;
He had cast his jewell’d sabre,
That many a field had won,
To the earth beside his youthful dead—
His fair and first-born son.
With a robe of ermine for its bed
Was laid that form of clay,
Where the light a stormy sunset shed
Through the rich tent made way;
And a sad and solemn beauty
On the pallid face came down,
Which the lord of nations mutely watch’d,
In the dust, with his renown.

Low tones at last, of woe and fear,
From his full bosom broke—
A mournful thing it was to hear
How then the proud man spoke!
The voice that through the combat
Had shouted far and high,
Came forth in strange, dull, hollow tones,
Burden’d with agony.

“There is no crimson on thy cheek,
And on thy lip no breath;
I call thee, and thou dost not speak—
They tell me this is death!
And fearful things are whispering
That I the deed have done—
For the honour of thy father’s name,
Look up, look up, my son!

“Well might I know death’s hue and mien—
But on thine aspect, boy!
What, till this moment, have I seen
Save pride and tameless joy?
Swiftest thou wert to battle,
And bravest there of all—
How could I think a warrior’s frame
Thus like a flower should fall?

“I will not bear that still cold look—
Rise up, thou fierce and free!
Wake as the storm wakes! I will brook
All, save this calm, from thee!
Lift brightly up, and proudly,
Once more thy kindling eyes!
Hath my word lost its power on earth?
I say to thee, arise!

“Didst thou not know I loved thee well?
Thou didst not! and art gone,
In bitterness of soul, to dwell
Where man must dwell alone.
Come back, young fiery spirit!
If but one hour, to learn
The secrets of the folded heart
That seem’d to thee so stern.

“Thou wert the first, the first, fair child
That in mine arms I press’d:
Thou wert the bright one, that hast smiled
Like summer on my breast!
I rear’d thee as an eagle,
To the chase thy steps I led,
I bore thee on my battle-horse,
I look upon thee—dead!

“Lay down my warlike banners here,
Never again to wave,
And bury my red sword and spear,
Chiefs! in my first-born’s grave!
And leave me!—I have conquer’d,
I have slain: my work is done!
Whom have I slain? Ye answer not—
Thou too art mute, my son!”

And thus his wild lament was pour’d
Through the dark resounding night,
And the battle knew no more his sword,
Nor the foaming steed his might.
He heard strange voices moaning
In every wind that sigh’d;
From the searching stars of heaven he shrank—
Humbly the conqueror died.

Carolan’s Prophecy.

[“It is somewhat remarkable that Carolan, the Irish bard, even in his gayest mood, never could compose a planxty for a Miss Brett, in the county of Sligo, whose father’s house he frequented, and where he always met with a reception due to his exquisite taste and mental endowments. One day, after an unsuccessful attempt to compose something in a sprightly strain for this lady, he threw aside his harp with a mixture of rage and grief; and addressing himself in Irish to her mother, ‘Madam,’ said he, ‘I have often, from my great respect to your family, attempted a planxty in order to celebrate your daughter’s perfections, but to no purpose. Some evil genius hovers over me; there is not a string in my harp that does not vibrate a melancholy sound when I set about this task. I fear she is not doomed to remain long among us; nay,’ said he emphatically, ‘she will not survive twelve months.’ The event verified the prediction, and the young lady died within the period limited by the unconsciously prophetic bard.”—Percy Anecdotes.]

Thy cheek too swiftly flushes, o’er thine eye
The lights and shadows come and go too fast;
Thy tears gush forth too soon, and in thy voice
Are sounds of tenderness too passionate
For peace on earth: oh! therefore, child of song!
’Tis well thou shouldst depart.

A sound of music, from amidst the hills,
Came suddenly, and died; a fitful sound
Of mirth, soon lost in wail. Again it rose,
And sank in mournfulness. There sat a bard
By a blue stream of Erin, where it swept
Flashing through rock and wood: the sunset’s light
Was on his wavy, silver-gleaming hair,
And the wind’s whisper in the mountain ash,
Whose clusters droop’d above. His head was bow’d,
His hand was on his harp, yet thence its touch
Had drawn but broken strains; and many stood
Waiting around, in silent earnestness,
Th’ unchaining of his soul, the gush of song—
Many and graceful forms!—yet one alone
Seem’d present to his dream; and she, indeed,
With her pale virgin brow, and changeful cheek,
And the clear starlight of her serious eyes,
Lovely amidst the flowing of dark locks
And pallid braiding flowers, was beautiful,
E’en painfully!—a creature to behold
With trembling midst our joy, lest aught unseen
Should waft the vision from us, leaving earth
Too dim without its brightness! Did such fear
O’ershadow in that hour the gifted one,
By his own rushing stream? Once more he gazed
Upon the radiant girl, and yet once more
From the deep chords his wandering hand brought out
A few short festive notes, an opening strain
Of bridal melody, soon dash’d with grief—
As if some wailing spirit in the strings
Met and o’ermaster’d him; but yielding then
To the strong prophet impulse, mournfully,
Like moaning waters o’er the harp he pour’d
The trouble of his haunted soul, and sang—

“Voice of the grave!
I hear thy thrilling call;
It comes in the dash of the foaming wave,
In the sere leaf’s trembling fall!
In the shiver of the tree,
I hear thee, O thou voice!
And I would thy warning were but for me,
That my spirit might rejoice.

“But thou art sent
For the sad earth’s young and fair,
For the graceful heads that have not bent
To the wintry hand of care!
They hear the wind’s low sigh,
And the river sweeping free,
And the green reeds murmuring heavily,
And the woods—but they hear not thee!

“Long have I striven
With my deep-foreboding soul,
But the full tide now its bounds hath riven,
And darkly on must roll.
There’s a young brow smiling near,
With a bridal white-rose wreath—
Unto me it smiles from a flowery bier,
Touch’d solemnly by death!

“Fair art thou, Morna!
The sadness of thine eye
Is beautiful as silvery clouds
On the dark-blue summer sky!
And thy voice comes like the sound
Of a sweet and hidden rill,
That makes the dim woods tuneful round—
But soon it must be still!

“Silence and dust
On thy sunny lips must lie—
Make not the strength of love thy trust,
A stronger yet is nigh!
No strain of festal flow
That my hand for thee hath tried,
But into dirge-notes wild and low
Its ringing tones have died.

“Young art thou, Morna!
Yet on thy gentle head,
Like heavy dew on the lily’s leaves,
A spirit hath been shed!
And the glance is thine which sees
Through nature’s awful heart—
But bright things go with the summer breeze,
And thou too must depart!

“Yet, shall I weep?
I know that in thy breast
There swells a fount of song too deep,
Too powerful for thy rest!
And the bitterness I know,
And the chill of this world’s breath—
Go—all undimm’d in thy glory, go!
Young and crown’d bride of death!

“Take hence to heaven
Thy holy thoughts and bright,
And soaring hopes, that were not given
For the touch of mortal blight!
Might we follow in thy track,
This parting should not be!
But the spring shall give us violets back,
And every flower but thee!”

There was a burst of tears around the bard:
All wept but one—and she serenely stood,
With her clear brow and dark religious eye
Raised to the first faint star above the hills,
And cloudless; though it might be that her cheek
Was paler than before. So Morna heard
The minstrel’s prophecy.
And spring return’d,
Bringing the earth her lovely things again—
All, save the loveliest far! A voice, a smile,
A young sweet spirit gone.

The Lady of the Castle.

FROM THE “PORTRAIT GALLERY,” AN UNFINISHED POEM.

If there be but one spot on thy name,
One eye thou fear’st to meet, one human voice
Whose tones thou shrink’st from—Woman! veil thy face,
And bow thy head—and die!

Thou see’st her pictured with her shining hair,
(Famed were those tresses in Provençal song,)
Half braided, half o’er cheek and bosom fair
Let loose, and pouring sunny waves along
Her gorgeous vest. A child’s light hand is roving
Midst the rich curls; and, oh! how meekly loving
Its earnest looks are lifted to the face
Which bends to meet its lip in laughing grace!
Yet that bright lady’s eye, methinks, hath less
Of deep, and still, and pensive tenderness,
Than might beseem a mother’s; on her brow
Something too much there sits of native scorn,
And her smile kindles with a conscious glow
As from the thought of sovereign beauty born.
These may be dreams—but how shall woman tell
Of woman’s shame, and not with tears? She fell!
That mother left that child!—went hurrying by
Its cradle—haply not without a sigh,
Haply one moment o’er its rest serene
She hung. But no! it could not thus have been,
For she went on!—forsook her home, her hearth,
All pure affection, all sweet household mirth,
To live a gaudy and dishonour’d thing,
Sharing in guilt the splendours of a king.

Her lord, in very weariness of life,
Girt on his sword for scenes of distant strife.
He reck’d no more of glory: grief and shame
Crush’d out his fiery nature, and his name
Died silently. A shadow o’er his halls
Crept year by year: the minstrel pass’d their walls;
The warder’s horn hung mute. Meantime the child
On whose first flowering thoughts no parent smiled,
A gentle girl, and yet deep-hearted, grew
Into sad youth; for well, too well, she knew
Her mother’s tale! Its memory made the sky
Seem all too joyous for her shrinking eye;
Check’d on her lip the flow of song, which fain
Would there have linger’d; flush’d her cheek to pain,
If met by sudden glance; and gave a tone
Of sorrow, as for something lovely gone,
E’en to the spring’s glad voice. Her own was low
And plaintive. Oh! there lie such depths of woe
In a young blighted spirit! Manhood rears
A haughty brow, and age has done with tears;
But youth bows down to misery, in amaze
At the dark cloud o’ermantling its fresh days;—
And thus it was with her. A mournful sight
In one so fair—for she indeed was fair;
Not with her mother’s dazzling eyes of light—
Hers were more shadowy, full of thought and prayer,
And with long lashes o’er a white-rose cheek
Drooping in gloom, yet tender still and meek,
Still that fond child’s—and oh! the brow above
So pale and pure! so form’d for holy love
To gaze upon in silence! But she felt
That love was not for her, though hearts would melt
Where’er she moved, and reverence mutely given
Went with her; and low prayers, that call’d on heaven
To bless the young Isaure.

One sunny morn
With alms before her castle-gate she stood,
Midst peasant groups: when, breathless and o’erworn,
And shrouded in long weeds of widowhood,
A stranger through them broke. The orphan maid,
With her sweet voice and proffer’d hand of aid,
Turn’d to give welcome; but a wild sad look
Met hers—a gaze that all her spirit shook;
And that pale woman, suddenly subdued
By some strong passion, in its gushing mood,
Knelt at her feet, and bathed them with such tears
As rain the hoarded agonies of years
From the heart’s urn; and with her white lips press’d
The ground they trod; then, burying in her vest
Her brow’s deep flush, sobb’d out—“O undefiled!
I am thy mother—spurn me not, my child!”

Isaure had pray’d for that lost mother; wept
O’er her stain’d memory, while the happy slept
In the hush’d midnight; stood with mournful gaze
Before yon picture’s smile of other days,
But never breathed in human ear the name
Which weigh’d her being to the earth with shame.
What marvel if the anguish, the surprise,
The dark remembrances, the alter’d guise,
Awhile o’erpower’d her? From the weeper’s touch
She shrank—’twas but a moment—yet too much
For that all-humbled one; its mortal stroke
Came down like lightning, and her full heart broke
At once in silence. Heavily and prone
She sank, while o’er her castle’s threshold stone,
Those long fair tresses—they still brightly wore
Their early pride, though bound with pearls no more—
Bursting their fillet, in sad beauty roll’d,
And swept the dust with coils of wavy gold.

Her child bent o’er her—call’d her: ’twas too late—
Dead lay the wanderer at her own proud gate!
The joy of courts, the star of knight and bard—
How didst thou fall, O bright-hair’d Ermengarde!

The Mourner for the Barmecides.

“O good old man! how well in thee appears
The constant service of the antique world!
Thou art not for the fashion of these times.”
As You Like It.

Fallen was the house of Giafar; and its name,
The high romantic name of Barmecide,
A sound forbidden on its own bright shores,
By the swift Tigris’ wave. Stern Haroun’s wrath,
Sweeping the mighty with their fame away,
Had so pass’d sentence: but man’s chainless heart
Hides that within its depths which never yet
Th’ oppressor’s thought could reach.

’Twas desolate
Where Giafar’s halls, beneath the burning sun,
Spread out in ruin lay. The songs had ceased;
The lights, the perfumes, and the genii tales
Had ceased; the guests were gone. Yet still one voice
Was there—the fountain’s; through those Eastern courts,
Over the broken marble and the grass,
Its low clear music shedding mournfully.

And still another voice! An aged man,
Yet with a dark and fervent eye beneath
His silvery hair, came day by day, and sate
On a white column’s fragment; and drew forth,
From the forsaken walls and dim arcades,
A tone that shook them with its answering thrill,
To his deep accents. Many a glorious tale
He told that sad yet stately solitude,
Pouring his memory’s fulness o’er its gloom,
Like waters in the waste; and calling up,
By song or high recital of their deeds,
Bright solemn shadows of its vanish’d race
To people their own halls: with these alone,
In all this rich and breathing world, his thoughts
Held still unbroken converse. He had been
Rear’d in this lordly dwelling, and was now
The ivy of its ruins, unto which
His fading life seem’d bound. Day roll’d on day,
And from that scene the loneliness was fled;
For crowds around the gray-hair’d chronicler
Met as men meet, within whose anxious hearts
Fear with deep feeling strives; till, as a breeze
Wanders through forest branches, and is met
By one quick sound and shiver of the leaves,
The spirit of his passionate lament,
As through their stricken souls it pass’d, awoke
One echoing murmur. But this might not be
Under a despot’s rule, and, summon’d thence,
The dreamer stood before the Caliph’s throne:
Sentenced to death he stood, and deeply pale,
And with his white lips rigidly compress’d;
Till, in submissive tones, he ask’d to speak
Once more, ere thrust from earth’s fair sunshine forth.
Was it to sue for grace? His burning heart
Sprang, with a sudden lightning, to his eye,
And he was changed!—and thus, in rapid words,
Th’ o’ermastering thoughts, more strong than death, found way:—

“And shall I not rejoice to go, when the noble and the brave,
With the glory on their brows, are gone before me to the grave?
What is there left to look on now, what brightness in the land?
I hold in scorn the faded world, that wants their princely band!

“My chiefs! my chiefs! the old man comes that in your halls was nursed—
That follow’d you to many a fight, where flash’d your sabres first—
That bore your children in his arms, your name upon his heart:—
Oh! must the music of that name with him from earth depart?

“It shall not be! A thousand tongues, though human voice were still,
With that high sound the living air triumphantly shall fill;
The wind’s free flight shall bear it on as wandering seeds are sown,
And the starry midnight whisper it with a deep and thrilling tone.

“For it is not as a flower whose scent with the dropping leaves expires,
And it is not as a household lamp, that a breath should quench its fires;
It is written on our battle-fields with the writing of the sword,
It hath left upon our desert-sands a light in blessings pour’d.

“The founts, the many gushing founts which to the wild ye gave,
Of you, my chiefs! shall sing aloud, as they pour a joyous wave;
And the groves, with whose deep lovely gloom ye hung the pilgrim’s way,
Shall send from all their sighing leaves your praises on the day.

“The very walls your bounty rear’d for the stranger’s homeless head,
Shall find a murmur to record your tale, my glorious dead!
Though the grass be where ye feasted once, where lute and cittern rung,
And the serpent in your palaces lie coil’d amidst its young.

“It is enough! Mine eye no more of joy or splendour sees—
I leave your name in lofty faith to the skies and to the breeze!
I go, since earth her flower hath lost, to join the bright and fair,
And call the grave a kingly house, for ye, my chiefs! are there.”

But while the old man sang, a mist of tears
O’er Haroun’s eyes had gather’d, and a thought—
Oh! many a sudden and remorseful thought—
Of his youth’s once-loved friends, the martyr’d race,
O’erflow’d his softening heart. “Live! live!” he cried,
“Thou faithful unto death! Live on, and still
Speak of thy lords—they were a princely band!”

The Spanish Chapel.

“Weep not for those whom the veil of the tomb,
In life’s early morning, hath hid from our eyes,
Ere sin threw a veil o’er the spirit’s young bloom,
Or earth had profaned what was born for the skies.”
Moore.

I made a mountain brook my guide
Through a wild Spanish glen,
And wander’d on its grassy side,
Far from the homes of men.

It lured me with a singing tone,
And many a sunny glance,
To a green spot of beauty lone,
A haunt for old romance.

A dim and deeply bosom’d grove
Of many an aged tree,
Such as the shadowy violets love,
The fawn and forest bee.

The darkness of the chestnut-bough
There on the waters lay,
The bright stream reverently below
Check’d its exulting play;

And bore a music all subdued,
And led a silvery sheen
On through the breathing solitude
Of that rich leafy scene.

For something viewlessly around
Of solemn influence dwelt,
In the soft gloom and whispery sound,
Not to be told, but felt;

While, sending forth a quiet gleam
Across the wood’s repose,
And o’er the twilight of the stream,
A lowly chapel rose.

A pathway to that still retreat
Through many a myrtle wound,
And there a sight—how strangely sweet!
My steps in wonder bound.

For on a brilliant bed of flowers,
E’en at the threshold made,
As if to sleep through sultry hours,
A young fair child was laid.

To sleep?—oh! ne’er, on childhood’s eye
And silken lashes press’d,
Did the warm living slumber lie
With such a weight of rest!

Yet still a tender crimson glow
Its cheeks’ pure marble dyed—
’Twas but the light’s faint streaming flow
Through roses heap’d beside.

I stoop’d—the smooth round arm was chill,
The soft lips’ breath was fled,
And the bright ringlets hung so still—
The lovely child was dead!

“Alas!” I cried, “fair faded thing!
Thou hast wrung bitter tears,
And thou hast left a woe, to cling
Round yearning hearts for years!”

But then a voice came sweet and low—
I turn’d, and near me sate
A woman with a mourner’s brow,
Pale, yet not desolate.

And in her still, clear, matron face,
All solemnly serene,
A shadow’d image I could trace
Of that young slumberer’s mien.

“Stranger! thou pitiest me,” she said
With lips that faintly smiled,
“As here I watch beside my dead,
My fair and precious child.

“But know, the time-worn heart may be
By pangs in this world riven,
Keener than theirs who yield, like me,
An angel thus to heaven!”

The Kaiser’s Feast.

[Louis, Emperor of Germany, having put his brother, the Palsgrave Rodolphus, under the ban of the empire in the twelfth century, that unfortunate prince fled to England, where he died in neglect and poverty. “After his decease, his mother Matilda privately invited his children to return to Germany; and, by her mediation, during a season of festivity, when Louis kept wassail in the castle of Heidelberg, the family of his brother presented themselves before him in the garb of suppliants, imploring pity and forgiveness. To this appeal the victor softened.”—Miss Benger’s Memoirs of the Queen of Bohemia.]

The Kaiser feasted in his hall—
The red wine mantled high;
Banners were trembling on the wall
To the peals of minstrelsy:
And many a gleam and sparkle came
From the armour hung around,
As it caught the glance of the torch’s flame,
Or the hearth with pine-boughs crown’d.

Why fell there silence on the chord
Beneath the harper’s hand?
And suddenly from that rich board,
Why rose the wassail band?
The strings were hush’d—the knights made way
For the queenly mother’s tread,
As up the hall, in dark array,
Two fair-hair’d boys she led.

She led them e’en to the Kaiser’s place,
And still before him stood;
Till, with strange wonder, o’er his face
Flush’d the proud warrior-blood:
And “Speak, my mother! speak!” he cried,
“Wherefore this mourning vest?
And the clinging children by thy side,
In weeds of sadness drest?”

“Well may a mourning vest be mine,
And theirs, my son, my son!
Look on the features of thy line
In each fair little one!
Though grief awhile within their eyes
Hath tamed the dancing glee,
Yet there thine own quick spirit lies—
Thy brother’s children see!

“And where is he, thy brother—where?
He in thy home that grew,
And smiling, with his sunny hair,
Ever to greet thee flew?
How would his arms thy neck entwine,
His fond lips press thy brow!
My son! oh, call these orphans thine!—
Thou hast no brother now!

“What! from their gentle eyes doth naught
Speak of thy childhood’s hours,
And smite thee with a tender thought
Of thy dead father’s towers?
Kind was thy boyish heart and true,
When rear’d together there,
Through the old woods like fawns ye flew—
Where is thy brother—where?

“Well didst thou love him then, and he
Still at thy side was seen!
How is it that such things can be
As though they ne’er had been?
Evil was this world’s breath, which came
Between the good and brave!
Now must the tears of grief and shame
Be offer’d to the grave.

“And let them, let them there be pour’d!
Though all unfelt below—
Thine own wrung heart, to love restored,
Shall soften as they flow.
Oh! death is mighty to make peace;
Now bid his work be done!
So many an inward strife shall cease—
Take, take these babes, my son!”

His eye was dimm’d—the strong man shook
With feelings long suppress’d;
Up in his arms the boys he took,
And strain’d them to his breast.
And a shout from all in the royal hall
Burst forth to hail the sight;
And eyes were wet midst the brave that met
At the Kaiser’s feast that night.

Tasso and His Sister.

“Devant vous est Sorrente; la demeuroit la sœur de Tasse, quand il vint en pelerin demander a cette obscure amie un asyle contre l’injustice des princes.—Ses longues douleurs avaient presque egare sa raison; il ne lui restoit plus que son genie.”—Corinne.

She sat, where on each wind that sigh’d
The citron’s breath went by,
While the red gold of eventide
Burn’d in the Italian sky.
Her bower was one where daylight’s close
Full oft sweet laughter found,
As thence the voice of childhood rose
To the high vineyards round.

But still and thoughtful at her knee
Her children stood that hour,
Their bursts of song and dancing glee
Hush’d as by words of power.
With bright fix’d wondering eyes, that gazed
Up to their mother’s face,
With brows through parted ringlets raised,
They stood in silent grace.

While she—yet something o’er her look
Of mournfulness was spread—
Forth from a poet’s magic book
The glorious numbers read;
The proud undying lay, which pour’d
Its light on evil years;
His of the gifted pen and sword,
The triumph, and the tears.

She read of fair Erminia’s flight,
Which Venice once might hear
Sung on her glittering seas at night
By many a gondolier:
Of him she read, who broke the charm
That wrapt the myrtle grove;
Of Godfrey’s deeds, of Tancred’s arm,
That slew his Paynim love.

Young cheeks around that bright page glow’d,
Young holy hearts were stirr’d;
And the meek tears of woman flow’d
Fast o’er each burning word.
And sounds of breeze, and fount, and leaf,
Came sweet, each pause between,
When a strange voice of sudden grief
Burst on the gentle scene.

The mother turn’d—a way-worn man,
In pilgrim garb, stood nigh,
Of stately mien, yet wild and wan,
Of proud yet mournful eye.
But drops which would not stay for pride
From that dark eye gush’d free,
As pressing his pale brow, he cried,
“Forgotten! e’en by thee!

“Am I so changed?—and yet we two
Oft hand in hand have play’d;
This brow hath been all bathed in dew
From wreaths which thou hast made;
We have knelt down and said one prayer,
And sung one vesper strain;
My soul is dim with clouds of care—
Tell me those words again!

“Life hath been heavy on my head—
I come a stricken deer,
Bearing the heart, midst crowds that bled,
To bleed in stillness here.”
She gazed, till thoughts that long had slept
Shook all her thrilling frame—
She fell upon his neck and wept,
Murmuring her brother’s name.

Her brother’s name!—and who was he,
The weary one, th’ unknown,
That came, the bitter world to flee,
A stranger to his own?
He was the bard of gifts divine
To sway the souls of men;
He of the song for Salem’s shrine,
He of the sword and pen!

Ulla; Or, the Adjuration.

“Yet speak to me! I have outwatch’d the stars,
And gazed o’er heaven in vain, in search of thee.
Speak to me! I have wander’d o’er the earth,
And never found thy likeness. Speak to me!
This once—once more!” Manfred.

“Thou’rt gone!—thou’rt slumbering low,
With the sounding seas above thee:
It is but a restless woe,
But a haunting dream to love thee!
Thrice the glad swan has sung
To greet the spring-time hours,
Since thine oar at parting flung
The white spray up in showers.
There’s a shadow of the grave on thy hearth and round thy home;
Come to me from the ocean’s dead!—thou’rt surely of them—come!”

’Twas Ulla’s voice! Alone she stood
In the Iceland summer night,
Far gazing o’er a glassy flood
From a dark rock’s beetling height.

“I know thou hast thy bed
Where the sea-weed’s coil hath bound thee;
The storm sweeps o’er thy head,
But the depths are hush’d around thee.
What wind shall point the way
To the chambers where thou’rt lying?
Come to me thence, and say
If thou thought’st on me in dying?
I will not shrink to see thee with a bloodless lip and cheek.
Come to me from the ocean’s dead!—thou’rt surely of them—speak!”

She listen’d—’twas the wind’s low moan,
’Twas the ripple of the wave,
’Twas the wakening osprey’s cry alone
As it startled from its cave.

“I know each fearful spell
Of the ancient Runic lay,
Whose mutter’d words compel
The tempest to obey.
But I adjure not thee
By magic sign or song;
My voice shall stir the sea
By love—the deep, the strong!
By the might of woman’s tears, by the passion of her sighs,
Come to me from the ocean’s dead!—by the vows we pledged, arise!”

Again she gazed with an eager glance,
Wandering and wildly bright;—
She saw but the sparkling waters dance
To the arrowy northern-light.

“By the slow and struggling death
Of hope that loathed to part,
By the fierce and withering breath
Of despair on youth’s high heart—
By the weight of gloom which clings
To the mantle of the night,
By the heavy dawn which brings
Naught lovely to the sight—
By all that from my weary soul thou hast wrung of grief and fear,
Come to me from the ocean’s dead! Awake, arise, appear!”

Was it her yearning spirit’s dream?
Or did a pale form rise,
And o’er the hush’d wave glide and gleam,
With bright, still, mournful eyes?

“Have the depths heard? They have!
My voice prevails: thou’rt there,
Dim from thy watery grave—
O thou that wert so fair!
Yet take me to thy rest!
There dwells no fear with love;
Let me slumber on thy breast,
While the billow rolls above!
Where the long-lost things lie hid, where the bright ones have their home,
We will sleep among the ocean’s dead. Stay for me, stay!—I come!”

There was a sullen plunge below,
A flashing on the main;
And the wave shut o’er that wild heart’s woe—
Shut, and grew still again.

To Wordsworth.

Thine is a strain to read among the hills,
The old and full of voices,—by the source
Of some free stream, whose gladdening presence fills
The solitude with sound; for in its course
Even such is thy deep song, that seems a part
Of those high scenes, a fountain from their heart.

Or its calm spirit fitly may be taken
To the still breast in sunny garden bowers,
Where vernal winds each tree’s low tones awaken,
And bud and bell with changes mark the hours.
There let thy thoughts be with me, while the day
Sinks with a golden and serene decay.

Or by some hearth where happy faces meet,
When night hath hush’d the woods with all their birds,
There, from some gentle voice, that lay were sweet
As antique music, link’d with household words;
While in pleased murmurs woman’s lip might move,
And the raised eye of childhood shine in love.

Or where the shadows of dark solemn yews
Brood silently o’er some lone burial-ground,
Thy verse hath power that brightly might diffuse
A breath, a kindling, as of spring, around;
From its own glow of hope and courage high,
And steadfast faith’s victorious constancy.

True bard and holy!—thou art e’en as one
Who, by some secret gift of soul or eye,
In every spot beneath the smiling sun,
Sees where the springs of living waters lie:
Unseen awhile they sleep—till, touch’d by thee,
Bright healthful waves flow forth, to each glad wanderer free.

[These verses, addressed “To the Author of the Excursion and the Lyrical Ballads,” first appeared in the Literary Magnet for April 1826—a clever and tasteful periodical at that time conducted by Mr Alaric A. Watts—who appended to it the following complimentary editorial note:—

“We have much pleasure in presenting to our readers this exquisite address to the poet Wordsworth, with which we have been kindly favoured by its distinguished author. Those who are acquainted with Mr W.’s writings, will readily feel and appreciate the truth and beauty of the tribute.”

The same little poem was afterwards inclosed by Mrs Hemans in one of her letters to her accomplished and deeply attached friend, Miss Jewsbury—at whose recommendation the writings of the great poet of the Lakes had become an earnest study with our author, and with what advantage, her compositions subsequent to this time sufficiently testify. In the letter referred to, Mrs Hemans seems proud to avow these obligations.

“The inclosed lines,” she says—“an effusion of deep and sincere admiration—will give you some idea of the enjoyment, and I hope I may say advantage, which you have been the means of imparting, by so kindly intrusting me with your precious copy of Wordsworth’s Miscellaneous Poems. It has opened to me such a treasure of thought and feeling, that I shall always associate your name with some of my pleasantest recollections, as having introduced me to the knowledge of what I can only regret should have been so long a ‘Yarrow unvisited.’ I would not write to you sooner, because I wished to tell you that I had really studied these poems, and they have been the daily food of my mind ever since I borrowed them. There is hardly any scene of a happy, though serious, domestic life, or any mood of a reflective mind, with the spirit of which some one or other of them does not beautifully harmonise. This author is the true poet of home, and of all the lofty feelings which have their root in the soil of home affections. His fine sonnets to Liberty, and indeed all his pieces which have any reference to political interest, remind me of the spirit in which Schiller has conceived the character of William Tell—a calm, single-hearted herdsman of the hills, breaking forth into fiery and indignant eloquence when the sanctity of his hearth is invaded. Then what power Wordsworth condenses into single lines, like Lord Byron’s ‘curdling a long life into one hour!’

‘The still, sad music of humanity’—

‘The river glideth at his own sweet will’—

‘Over his own sweet voice the stock-dove broods’—

and a thousand others, which we must some time (and I hope not a very distant one) talk over together. Many of these lines quite haunt me: and I have a strange feeling, as if I must have known them in my childhood; they come over me so like old melodies. I can hardly speak of favourites among so many things that delight me; but I think ‘The Narrow Glen,’ the ‘Lines on Corra Linn,’ the ‘Song for the Feast of Brougham Castle,’ ‘Yarrow Visited,’ and ‘The Cuckoo,’ are among those which take hold of imagination the soonest, and recur most frequently to memory.

“I know not how I can have so long omitted to mention the Ecclesiastical Sketches, which I have read, and do constantly read, with deep interest. Their beauty grows upon you, and develops as you study it, like that of the old pictures by the Italian masters.”]

A Monarch’s Death-Bed.

[The Emperor Albert of Hapsburg, who was assassinated by his nephew, afterwards called John the Parricide, was left to die by the wayside, and only supported in his last moments by a female peasant, who happened to be passing.]

A monarch on his deathbed lay—
Did censers waft perfume,
And soft lamps pour their silvery ray,
Through his proud chamber’s gloom?
He lay upon a greensward bed,
Beneath a darkening sky—
A lone tree waving o’er his head,
A swift stream rolling by.

Had he then fallen as warriors fall,
Where spear strikes fire with spear?
Was there a banner for his pall,
A buckler for his bier?
Not so—nor cloven shields nor helms
Had strewn the bloody sod,
Where he, the helpless lord of realms,
Yielded his soul to God.

Were there not friends with words of cheer,
And princely vassals nigh?
And priests, the crucifix to rear
Before the glazing eye?
A peasant girl that royal head
Upon her bosom laid,
And, shrinking not for woman’s dread,
The face of death survey’d.

Alone she sat: from hill and wood
Red sank the mournful sun;
Fast gush’d the fount of noble blood—
Treason its worst had done.
With her long hair she vainly press’d
The wounds, to stanch their tide—
Unknown, on that meek humble breast,
Imperial Albert died!

To the Memory of Heber.

“Umile in tanta gloria.”—Petrarch.

If it be sad to speak of treasures gone,
Of sainted genius call’d too soon away,
Of light from this world taken, while it shone
Yet kindling onward to the perfect day—
How shall our grief, if mournful these things be,
Flow forth, O thou of many gifts! for thee?
Hath not thy voice been here amongst us heard
And that deep soul of gentleness and power,
Have we not felt its breath in every word
Wont from thy lip as Hermon’s dew to shower?
Yes! in our hearts thy fervent thoughts have burn’d—
Of heaven they were, and thither have return’d.

How shall we mourn thee? With a lofty trust,
Our life’s immortal birthright from above!
With a glad faith, whose eye, to track the just,
Through shades and mysteries lifts a glance of love,
And yet can weep!—for nature thus deplores
The friend that leaves us, though for happier shores.

And one high tone of triumph o’er thy bier,
One strain of solemn rapture, be allow’d!
Thou, that rejoicing on thy mid career,
Not to decay, but unto death hast bow’d,
In those bright regions of the rising sun,
Where victory ne’er a crown like thine had won.

Praise! for yet one more name with power endow’d
To cheer and guide us, onward as we press;
Yet one more image on the heart bestow’d
To dwell there, beautiful in holiness!
Thine, Heber, thine! whose memory from the dead
Shines as the star which to the Saviour led!

The Adopted Child.

“Why wouldst thou leave me, O gentle child?
Thy home on the mountain is bleak and wild,
A straw-roof’d cabin, with lowly wall—
Mine is a fair and a pillar’d hall,
Where many an image of marble gleams,
And the sunshine of picture for ever streams.”

“Oh! green is the turf where my brothers play,
Through the long bright hours of the summer day;
They find the red cup-moss where they climb,
And they chase the bee o’er the scented thyme,
And the rocks where the heath-flower blooms they know—
Lady, kind lady! oh, let me go!”

“Content thee, boy! in my bower to dwell—
Here are sweet sounds which thou lovest well;
Flutes on the air in the stilly noon,
Harps which the wandering breezes tune,
And the silvery wood-note of many a bird
Whose voice was ne’er in thy mountains heard.”

“Oh! my mother sings, at the twilight’s fall,
A song of the hills far more sweet than all;
She sings it under our own green tree
To the babe half slumbering on her knee:
I dreamt last night of that music low—
Lady, kind lady! oh, let me go!”

“Thy mother is gone, from her cares to rest—
She hath taken the babe on her quiet breast;
Thou wouldst meet her footstep, my boy! no more,
Nor hear the song at the cabin door.
Come thou with me to the vineyards nigh,
And we’ll pluck the grapes of the richest dye.”

“Is my mother gone from her home away?
But I know that my brothers are there at play—
I know they are gathering the foxglove’s bell,
Or the long fern-leaves by the sparkling well;
Or they launch their boats where the bright streams flow—
Lady, kind lady! oh, let me go!”

“Fair child! thy brothers are wanderers now,
They sport no more on the mountain’s brow;
They have left the fern by the spring’s green side,
And the streams where the fairy barks were tried.
Be thou at peace in thy brighter lot,
For thy cabin home is a lonely spot.”

“Are they gone, all gone from the sunny hill?—
But the bird and the blue-fly rove o’er it still;
And the red-deer bound in their gladness free,
And the heath is bent by the singing bee,
And the waters leap, and the fresh winds blow—
Lady, kind lady! oh, let me go!”

Invocation.

“I call’d on dreams and visions, to disclose
That which is veil’d from waking thought; conjured
Eternity, as men constrain a ghost
To appear and answer.” Wordsworth.

Answer me, burning stars of night!
Where is the spirit gone,
That past the reach of human sight
As a swift breeze hath flown?
And the stars answer’d me—“We roll
In light and power on high;
But, of the never-dying soul,
Ask that which cannot die.”
O many-toned and chainless wind!
Thou art a wanderer free;
Tell me if thou its place canst find,
Far over mount and sea?
And the wind murmur’d in reply—
“The blue deep I have cross’d,
And met its barks and billows high,
But not what thou hast lost.”

Ye clouds that gorgeously repose
Around the setting sun,
Answer! have ye a home for those
Whose earthly race is run?
The bright clouds answer’d—“We depart,
We vanish from the sky;
Ask what is deathless in thy heart,
For that which cannot die.”

Speak then, thou voice of God within,
Thou of the deep low tone!
Answer me, through life’s restless din—
Where is the spirit flown?
And the voice answer’d—“Be thou still!
Enough to know is given:
Clouds, winds, and stars their part fulfil—
Thine is, to trust in Heaven.”

Körner and His Sister.

[“Charles Theodore Körner, the celebrated young German poet and soldier, was killed in a skirmish with a detachment of French troops on the 20th of August 1813, a few hours after the composition of his popular piece, The Sword-Song. He was buried at the village of Wöbbelin in Mecklenburg, under a beautiful oak, in a recess of which he had frequently deposited verses composed by him while campaigning in its vicinity. The monument erected to his memory is of cast-iron; and the upper part is wrought into a lyre and sword, a favourite emblem of Körner’s, from which one of his works had been entitled. Near the grave of the poet is that of his only sister, who died of grief for his loss, having only survived him long enough to complete his portrait and a drawing of his burial-place. Over the gate of the cemetery is engraved one of his own lines:—

‘Vergiss die treuen Todten nicht.’
(Forget not the faithful dead.)”

—See Richardson’s Translation of Körner’s Life and Works, and Downe’s Letters from Mecklenburg.]

Green wave the oak for ever o’er thy rest,
Thou that beneath its crowning foliage sleepest,
And, in the stillness of thy country’s breast,
Thy place of memory as an altar keepest;
Brightly thy spirit o’er her hills was pour’d,
Thou of the Lyre and Sword!
Rest, bard! rest, soldier! By the father’s hand
Here shall the child of after years be led,
With his wreath-offering silently to stand
In the hush’d presence of the glorious dead—
Soldier and bard! for thou thy path hast trod
With freedom and with God.

The oak waved proudly o’er thy burial rite,
On thy crown’d bier to slumber warriors bore thee,
And with true hearts thy brethren of the fight
Wept as they veil’d their drooping banners o’er thee;
And the deep guns with rolling peal gave token
That Lyre and Sword were broken.

Thou hast a hero’s tomb: a lowlier bed
Is hers, the gentle girl beside thee lying—
The gentle girl that bow’d her fair young head
When thou wert gone, in silent sorrow dying.
Brother, true friend! the tender and the brave!—
She pined to share thy grave.

Fame was thy gift from others;—but for her,
To whom the wide world held that only spot,
She loved thee!—lovely in your lives ye were,
And in your early deaths divided not.
Thou hast thine oak, thy trophy,—what hath she?
Her own bless’d place by thee!

It was thy spirit, brother! which had made
The bright earth glorious to her youthful eye,
Since first in childhood midst the vines ye play’d,
And sent glad singing through the free blue sky.
Ye were but two—and when that spirit pass’d,
Woe to the one, the last!

Woe, yet not long! She linger’d but to trace
Thine image from the image in her breast—
Once, once again to see that buried face
But smile upon her, ere she went to rest.
Too sad a smile! its living light was o’er—
It answer’d hers no more.

The earth grew silent when thy voice departed,
The home too lonely whence thy step had fled;
What then was left for her the faithful-hearted?
Death, death, to still the yearning for the dead!
Softly she perish’d: be the Flower deplored
Here with the Lyre and Sword!

Have ye not met ere now?—so let those trust
That meet for moments but to part for years—
That weep, watch, pray, to hold back dust from dust—
That love, where love is but a fount of tears.
Brother! sweet sister! peace around ye dwell:
Lyre, Sword, and Flower, farewell!

The Death-Day of Körner.

A song for the death-day of the brave—
A song of pride!
The youth went down to a hero’s grave,
With the sword, his bride.

He went, with his noble heart unworn,
And pure, and high—
An eagle stooping from clouds of morn,
Only to die.

He went with the lyre, whose lofty tone
Beneath his hand
Had thrill’d to the name of his God alone
And his fatherland.

And with all his glorious feelings yet
In their first glow,
Like a southern stream that no frost hath met
To chain its flow.

A song for the death-day of the brave—
A song of pride!
For him that went to a hero’s grave,
With the sword, his bride.

He hath left a voice in his trumpet lays
To turn the flight,
And a guiding spirit for after days,
Like a watch-fire’s light.

And a grief in his father’s soul to rest,
Midst all high thought;
And a memory unto his mother’s breast,
With healing fraught.

And a name and fame above the blight
Of earthly breath,
Beautiful—beautiful and bright,
In life and death!

A song for the death-day of the brave—
A song of pride!
For him that went to a hero’s grave,
With the sword, his bride!

[As the great German writers at this time, and ever afterwards, exerted a great influence over the mind of Mrs Hemans, it may please the reader to know, on the authority of her sister, the degrees of estimation in which she held some of these. We quote from the Memoir, p. 54-8.

“She in general preferred the writings of Schiller to those of Goethe, and could for ever find fresh beauties in Wallenstein, with which she was equally familiar in its eloquent original, and in Coleridge’s magnificent translation, or, as it may truly be called, transfusion. Those most conversant with her literary tastes, will remember her almost actual relation-like love for the characters of Max and Thekla, whom, like many other ‘beings of the mind,’ she had learned to consider as friends; and her constant quotations of certain passages from this noble tragedy, which peculiarly accorded with her own views and feelings. In the Stimmen der Völker in Lieder of Herder, she found a rich store of thoughts and suggestions; and it was this work which inspired her with the idea of her own ‘Lays of Many Lands,’ most of which appeared originally in the New Monthly Magazine, then edited by Mr Campbell. She also took great delight in the dreamy beauties of Novalis and Tieck, and in what has been gracefully characterised by Mr Chorley, as the ‘moonlight tenderness’ of Oehlenschläger. Of the works of the latter, her especial favourite was Coreggio; and of Tieck, Sternbald’s Wanderungen, which she often made her out-of-doors companion. It was always an especial mark of her love for a book, and of her considering it true to nature, and to the best wisdom of the heart, when she promoted it to the list of those with which she would ‘take sweet counsel’ amidst the woods and fields.

“But, amongst all these names of power, none awakened a more lively interest in her mind, than that of the noble-hearted Körner, the young soldier-bard, who, in the words of Professor Bouterwek, ‘would have become a distinguished tragic poet, had he not met with the still more glorious fate of falling on the field of battle, while fighting for the deliverance of Germany.’ The stirring events of his life, the heroism of his early death, and the beautiful tie which subsisted between him and his only sister, whose fate was so touchingly bound up with his own, formed a romance of real life which could not fail to excite feelings of the warmest enthusiasm in a bosom so ready as hers to respond to all things high and holy. The lyric of ‘The Grave of Körner,’ is, perhaps, one of the most impressive Mrs Hemans ever wrote. Her whole heart was in a subject which so peculiarly combined the two strains dearest to her nature, the chivalrous and the tender.

‘They were but two—and when that spirit pass’d,
Woe to the one, the last!’

“That mournful echo—‘They were but two,’ was, by some indefinable association, connected in her mind with another and far differing brother and sister, called into existence by the magic pen of Sir Walter Scott. The affecting ejaculation, ‘There are but two of us!’ so often repeated by the hapless Clara Mowbray in St Ronan’s Well, was frequently quoted by Mrs Hemans as an instance of the deepest pathos. The lyric in question was, it is believed, one of the first tributes which appeared in England to the memory of the author of ‘The Lyre and Sword,’ though his name has since become ‘familiar in our ears as household words.’ A translation of the ‘Life of Körner,’ with selections from his poems, &c., was published in 1827, by G. F. Richardson, Esq., whose politeness in presenting a copy of the work to Mrs Hemans, inscribed with a dedicatory sonnet, led to an interchange of letters with that gentleman, and was further the means of procuring for her the high gratification of a direct message, full of the most feeling acknowledgment, from the venerable father of the hero, who afterwards addressed to her a poetical tribute from Theodor Körner’s Father [see p. 425.] Her pleasure in receiving this genuine offering was thus expressed to Mr Richardson, who had been the medium through which it reached her. ‘Theodor Körner’s Vater!’—it is, indeed, a title beautifully expressing all the holy pride which the memory of die treuen Todten must inspire; and awakening every good and high feeling to its sound. I shall prize the lines as a relic. Will you be kind enough to assure M. Körner, with my grateful respects, of the value which will be attached to them, a value so greatly enhanced by their being in his own hand. They are very beautiful, I think, in their somewhat antique and treuherzig simplicity, and worthy to have proceeded from Theodor Körner’s Vater.

“The following almost literal translation of these lines is given by W. B. Chorley, Esq., in his interesting little volume, ‘The Lyre and Sword,’ published in 1834:—

‘Gently a voice from afar is borne to the ear of the mourner;
Mildly it soundeth, yet strong, grief in his bosom to soothe;
Strong in the soul-cheering faith, that hearts have a share in his sorrow,
In whose depths all things holy and noble are shrined.
From that land once dearly beloved by our brave one, the fallen,
Mourning blent with bright fame—cometh a wreath for his urn.
Hail to thee, England the free! thou see’st in the German no stranger.
Over the earth and the seas, join’d be both lands, heart and hand!’

“There was nothing which delighted Mrs Hemans more in German literature, than the cordial feeling of brotherhood, so conspicuous amongst its most eminent authors, and their freedom from all the petty rivalries and manœuvres on which she herself looked down with as much of wonder as of contempt. In a letter, in which she speaks of the bitterness, and jealousy, and strife, pervading the tone of many of our own Reviews, she adds, turning to a brighter picture with a feeling of relief, like that of one emerging from the heated atmosphere of a city to breathe the fresh air of the mountains:—‘How very different seems the spirit of literary men in Germany! I am just reading a work of Tieck’s, which is dedicated to Schlegel; and I am delighted with the beautiful simplicity of these words in the dedication:—Es war eine schöne Zeit meines Lebens, als ich dich und deinen Bruder Friedrich zuerst kennen lernte’; eine noch schönere als wir und Novalis für Kunst und Wissenschaft vereinigt lebten, und uns in mannigfaltigen Bestrebungen begegneten. Jetzt hat uns das Schicksal schon seit vielen Jahren getrennt. Ich kann nur in Geist und in der Erinnerung mit dir leben. ‘Is not that union of bright minds, für Kunst und Wissenschaft, a picture on which it is delightful to repose?’”]

An Hour of Romance.

“I come
To this sweet place for quiet. Every tree
And bush, and fragrant flower, and hilly path,
And thymy mound that flings unto the winds
Its morning incense, is my friend.”—Barry Cornwall.

There were thick leaves above me and around,
And low sweet sighs like those of childhood’s sleep,
Amidst their dimness, and a fitful sound
As of soft showers on water; dark and deep
Lay the oak shadows o’er the turf, so still
They seem’d but pictured glooms; a hidden rill
Made music, such as haunts us in a dream,
Under the fern-tufts; and a tender gleam
Of soft green light, as by the glow-worm shed,
Came pouring through the woven beech-boughs down,
And steep’d the magic page wherein I read
Of royal chivalry and old renown,
A tale of Palestine. Meanwhile the bee
Swept past me with a tone of summer hours—
A drowsy bugle, wafting thoughts of flowers,
Blue skies, and amber sunshine: brightly free,
On filmy wings, the purple dragon-fly
Shot glancing like a fairy javelin by;
And a sweet voice of sorrow told the dell
Where sat the lone wood-pigeon.
But ere long,
All sense of these things faded, as the spell
Breathing from that high gorgeous tale grew strong
On my chain’d soul. ’Twas not the leaves I heard:—
A Syrian wind the lion-banner stirr’d,
Through its proud floating folds. ’Twas not the brook
Singing in secret through its grassy glen;—
A wild shrill trumpet of the Saracen
Peal’d from the desert’s lonely heart, and shook
The burning air. Like clouds when winds are high,
O’er glittering sands flew steeds of Araby,
And tents rose up, and sudden lance and spear
Flash’d where a fountain’s diamond wave lay clear,
Shadow’d by graceful palm-trees. Then the shout
Of merry England’s joy swell’d freely out,
Sent through an Eastern heaven, whose glorious hue
Made shields dark mirrors to its depths of blue:
And harps were there—I heard their sounding strings,
As the waste echo’d to the mirth of kings.
The bright mask faded. Unto life’s worn track,
What call’d me from its flood of glory back?
A voice of happy childhood!—and they pass’d,
Banner, and harp, and Paynim’s trumpet’s blast.
Yet might I scarce bewail the splendours gone,
My heart so leap’d to that sweet laughter’s tone.

A Voyager’s Dream of Land.

“His very heart athirst
To gaze at nature in her green array,
Upon the ship’s tall side he stands possess’d
With visions prompted by intense desire;
Fair fields appear below, such as he left
Far distant, such as he would die to find:
He seeks them headlong, and is seen no more.”
Cowper.

The hollow dash of waves!—the ceaseless roar!—
Silence, ye billows!—vex my soul no more.
There’s a spring in the woods by my sunny home,
Afar from the dark sea’s tossing foam;
Oh! the fall of that fountain is sweet to hear,
As a song from the shore to the sailor’s ear!
And the sparkle which up to the sun it throws
Through the feathery fern and the olive boughs,
And the gleam on its path as it steals away
Into deeper shades from the sultry day,
And the large water-lilies that o’er its bed
Their pearly leaves to the soft light spread,
They haunt me! I dream of that bright spring’s flow,
I thirst for its rills like a wounded roe!

Be still, thou sea-bird, with thy clanging cry!
My spirit sickens as thy wing sweeps by.

Know ye my home, with the lulling sound
Of leaves from the lime and the chestnut round
Know ye it, brethren! where bower’d it lies
Under the purple of southern skies?
With the streamy gold of the sun that shines
In through the cloud of its clustering vines,
And the summer breath of the myrtle flowers,
Borne from the mountain in dewy hours,
And the fire-fly’s glance through the darkening shades,
Like shooting stars in the forest glades,
And the scent of the citron at eve’s dim fall—
Speak! have ye known, have ye felt them all?

The heavy-rolling surge! the rocking mast!—
Hush! give my dream’s deep music way, thou blast!

Oh, the glad sounds of the joyous earth!
The notes of the singing cicala’s mirth,
The murmurs that live in the mountain pines,
The sighing of reeds as the day declines,
The wings flitting home through the crimson glow
That steeps the wood when the sun is low,
The voice of the night-bird that sends a thrill
To the heart of the leaves when the winds are still—
I hear them!—around me they rise, they swell,
They call back my spirit with Hope to dwell—
They come with a breath from the fresh spring-time,
And waken my youth in its hour of prime.

The white foam dashes high—away, away!
Shroud my green land no more, thou blinding spray!

It is there!—down the mountains I see the sweep
Of the chestnut forests, the rich and deep,
With the burden and glory of flowers that they bear
Floating upborne on the blue summer air,
And the light pouring through them in tender gleams,
And the flashing forth of a thousand streams!
Hold me not, brethren! I go, I go
To the hills of my youth, where the myrtles blow,
To the depths of the woods, where the shadows rest,
Massy and still, on the greensward’s breast,
To the rocks that resound with the water’s play—
I hear the sweet laugh of my fount—give way!

Give way!—the booming surge, the tempest’s roar,
The sea-bird’s wail shall vex my soul no more.

The Effigies.

“Der rasche Kampf verewigt einen Mann:
Er falle gleich, so preiset ihn das Lied.
Allein die Thränen, die unendlichen
Der überbliebnen, der verlass’nen Frau,
Zählt keine Nachwelt.” Goethe.

Warrior! whose image on thy tomb,
With shield and crested head,
Sleeps proudly in the purple gloom
By the stain’d window shed;
The records of thy name and race
Have faded from the stone,
Yet, through a cloud of years, I trace
What thou hast been and done.

A banner, from its flashing spear,
Flung out o’er many a fight;
A war-cry ringing far and clear,
And strong to turn the flight;
An arm that bravely bore the lance
On for the holy shrine;
A haughty heart and a kingly glance—
Chief! were not these things thine?

A lofty place where leaders sate
Around the council board;
In festive halls a chair of state
When the blood-red wine was pour’d;
A name that drew a prouder tone
From herald, harp, and bard:
Surely these things were all thine own—
So hadst thou thy reward.

Woman! whose sculptured form at rest
By the arm’d knight is laid,
With meek hands folded o’er a breast
In matron robes array’d;
What was thy tale?—O gentle mate
Of him, the bold and free,
Bound unto his victorious fate,
What bard hath sung of thee?

He woo’d a bright and burning star—
Thine was the void, the gloom,
The straining eye that follow’d far
His fast-receding plume;
The heart-sick listening while his steed
Sent echoes on the breeze;
The pang—but when did Fame take heed
Of griefs obscure as these?

Thy silent and secluded hours
Through many a lonely day
While bending o’er thy broider’d flowers,
With spirits far away;
Thy weeping midnight prayers for him
Who fought on Syrian plains,
Thy watchings till the torch grew dim—
These fill no minstrel strains.

A still, sad life was thine!—long years
With tasks unguerdon’d fraught—
Deep, quiet love, submissive tears,
Vigils of anxious thought;
Prayer at the cross in fervour pour’d,
Alms to the pilgrim given—
Oh! happy, happier than thy lord,
In that lone path to heaven!

The Landing of the Pilgrim Fathers in New England.

“Look now abroad! Another race has fill’d
Those populous borders—wide the wood recedes,
And towns shoot up, and fertile realms are till’d;
The land is full of harvests and green meads.” Bryant.

The breaking waves dash’d high
On a stern and rock-bound coast,
And the woods against a stormy sky
Their giant branches toss’d;

And the heavy night hung dark
The hills and waters o’er,
When a band of exiles moor’d their bark
On the wild New England shore.

Not as the conqueror comes,
They, the true-hearted, came;
Not with the roll of the stirring drums,
And the trumpet that sings of fame;

Not as the flying come,
In silence and in fear;—
They shook the depths of the desert gloom
With their hymns of lofty cheer.

Amidst the storm they sang,
And the stars heard and the sea;
And the sounding aisles of the dim woods rang
To the anthem of the free!

The ocean eagle soar’d
From his nest by the white wave’s foam;
And the rocking pines of the forest roar’d—
This was their welcome home!

There were men with hoary hair
Amidst that pilgrim band;—
Why had they come to wither there,
Away from their childhood’s land?

There was woman’s fearless eye,
Lit by her deep love’s truth;
There was manhood’s brow serenely high,
And the fiery heart of youth.

What sought they thus afar?—
Bright jewels of the mine?
The wealth of seas, the spoils of war?—
They sought a faith’s pure shrine!

Ay, call it holy ground,
The soil where first they trode.
They have left unstain’d what there they found—
Freedom to worship God.

The Spirit’s Mysteries.

“And slight, withal, may be the things which bring
Back on the heart the weight which it would fling
Aside for ever;—it may be a sound—
A tone of music—summer’s breath, or spring—
A flower—a leaf—the ocean—which may wound—
Striking th’ electric chain wherewith we are darkly bound.”
Childe Harold.

The power that dwelleth in sweet sounds to waken
Vague yearnings, like the sailor’s for the shore,
And dim remembrances, whose hue seems taken
From some bright former state, our own no more;
Is not this all a mystery? Who shall say
Whence are those thoughts, and whither tends their way?

The sudden images of vanish’d things,
That o’er the spirit flash, we know not why;
Tones from some broken harp’s deserted strings,
Warm sunset hues of summers long gone by;
A rippling wave—the dashing of an oar—
A flower-scent floating past our parents’ door;

A word—scarce noted in its hour perchance,
Yet back returning with a plaintive tone;
A smile—a sunny or a mournful glance,
Full of sweet meanings now from this world flown;
Are not these mysteries when to life they start,
And press vain tears in gushes from the heart?

And the far wanderings of the soul in dreams,
Calling up shrouded faces from the dead,
And with them bringing soft or solemn gleams,
Familiar objects brightly to o’erspread;
And wakening buried love, or joy, or fear—
These are night’s mysteries—who shall make them clear?

And the strange inborn sense of coming ill,
That ofttimes whispers to the haunted breast,
In a low tone which naught can drown or still,
Midst feasts and melodies a secret guest;
Whence doth that murmur wake, that shadow fall?
Why shakes the spirit thus? ’Tis mystery all!

Darkly we move—we press upon the brink
Haply of viewless worlds, and know it not;
Yes! it may be, that nearer than we think
Are those whom death has parted from our lot!
Fearfully, wondrously, our souls are made—
Let us walk humbly on, but undismay’d!

Humbly—for knowledge strives in vain to feel
Her way amidst these marvels of the mind;
Yet undismay’d—for do they not reveal
Th’ immortal being with our dust entwin’d?—
So let us deem! and e’en the tears they wake
Shall then be blest, for that high nature’s sake.

The Departed.

“Thou shalt lie down
With patriarchs of the infant world—with kings,
The powerful of the earth—the wise—the good,
Fair forms, and hoary seers of ages past,
All in one mighty sepulchre.” Bryant.

And shrink ye from the way
To the spirit’s distant shore?—
Earth’s mightiest men, in arm’d array,
Are thither gone before.

The warrior-kings, whose banner
Flew far as eagles fly,
They are gone where swords avail them not,
From the feast of victory.

And the seers who sat of yore
By Orient palm or wave,
They have pass’d with all their starry lore—
Can ye still fear the grave?

We fear! we fear! The sunshine
Is joyous to behold,
And we reck not of the buried kings,
Nor the awful seers of old.

Ye shrink! The bards whose lays
Have made your deep hearts burn,
They have left the sun, and the voice of praise,
For the land whence none return.

And the beautiful, whose record
Is the verse that cannot die,
They too are gone, with their glorious bloom,
From the love of human eye.

Would ye not join that throng
Of the earth’s departed flowers,
And the masters of the mighty song,
In their far and fadeless bowers?

Those songs are high and holy,
But they vanquish not our fear:
Not from our path those flowers are gone—
We fain would linger here!

Linger then yet awhile,
As the last leaves on the bough!—
Ye have loved the light of many a smile
That is taken from you now.

There have been sweet singing voices
In your walks, that now are still;
There are seats left void in your earthly homes,
Which none again may fill.

Soft eyes are seen no more,
That made spring-time in your heart;
Kindred and friends are gone before—
And ye still fear to part?

We fear not now, we fear not!
Though the way through darkness bends;
Our souls are strong to follow them,
Our own familiar friends!

The Palm-Tree.

It waved not through an eastern sky,
Beside a fount of Araby;
It was not fann’d by southern breeze
In some green isle of Indian seas;
Nor did its graceful shadow sleep
O’er stream of Afric, lone and deep.

But fair the exiled palm-tree grew
Midst foliage of no kindred hue;
Through the laburnum’s dropping gold
Rose the light shaft of orient mould,
And Europe’s violets, faintly sweet,
Purpled the moss-beds at its feet.

Strange look’d it there! The willow stream’d
Where silvery waters near it gleam’d;
The lime-bough lured the honey-bee
To murmur by the desert’s tree,
And showers of snowy roses made
A lustre in its fan-like shade.

There came an eve of festal hours—
Rich music fill’d that garden’s bowers;
Lamps, that from flowering branches hung,
On sparks of dew soft colour flung;
And bright forms glanced—a fairy show—
Under the blossoms to and fro.

But one, a lone one, midst the throng,
Seem’d reckless all of dance or song:
He was a youth of dusky mien,
Whereon the Indian sun had been,
Of crested brow and long black hair—
A stranger, like the palm-tree, there.

And slowly, sadly, moved his plumes,
Glittering athwart the leafy glooms.
He pass’d the pale-green olives by,
Nor won the chestnut flowers his eye;
But when to that sole palm he came,
Then shot a rapture through his frame!

To him, to him its rustling spoke—
The silence of his soul it broke!
It whisper’d of his own bright isle,
That lit the ocean with a smile;
Ay, to his ear that native tone
Had something of the sea-wave’s moan?

His mother’s cabin-home, that lay
Where feathery cocoas fringed the bay;
The dashing of his brethren’s oar—
The conch-note heard along the shore;
All through his wakening bosom swept—
He clasp’d his country’s tree, and wept!

Oh! scorn him not! The strength whereby
The patriot girds himself to die,
Th’ unconquerable power which fills
The freeman battling on his hills,
These have one fountain deep and clear—
The same whence gush’d that childlike tear!

The Child’s Last Sleep.

SUGGESTED BY A MONUMENT OF CHANTREY’S.

Thou sleepest—but when wilt thou wake, fair child?
When the fawn awakes in the forest wild?
When the lark’s wing mounts with the breeze of morn?
When the first rich breath of the rose is born?—
Lovely thou sleepest! yet something lies
Too deep and still on thy soft-seal’d eyes;
Mournful, though sweet, is thy rest to see—
When will the hour of thy rising be?

Not when the fawn wakes—not when the lark
On the crimson cloud of the morn floats dark.
Grief with vain passionate tears hath wet
The hair, shedding gleams from thy pale brow yet;
Love, with sad kisses unfelt, hath press’d
Thy meek-dropt eyelids and quiet breast;
And the glad Spring, calling out bird and bee,
Shall colour all blossoms, fair child! but thee.

Thou’rt gone from us, bright one!—that thou shouldst die,
And life be left to the butterfly!
Thou’rt gone as a dewdrop is swept from the bough:
Oh! for the world where thy home is now!
How may we love but in doubt and fear,
How may we anchor our fond hearts here;
How should e’en joy but a trembler be,
Beautiful dust! when we look on thee?

The Sunbeam.

Thou art no lingerer in monarch’s hall—
A joy thou art, and a wealth to all!
A bearer of hope unto land and sea—
Sunbeam! what gift hath the world like thee?

Thou art walking the billows, and ocean smiles;
Thou hast touch’d with glory his thousand isles;
Thou hast lit up the ships and the feathery foam,
And gladden’d the sailor like words from home.

To the solemn depths of the forest-shades,
Thou art streaming on through their green arcades;
And the quivering leaves that have caught thy glow
Like fire-flies glance to the pools below.

I look’d on the mountains—a vapour lay
Folding their heights in its dark array:
Thou brakest forth, and the mist became
A crown and a mantle of living flame.

I look’d on the peasant’s lowly cot—
Something of sadness had wrapt the spot;
But a gleam of thee on its lattice fell,
And it laugh’d into beauty at that bright spell.

To the earth’s wild places a guest thou art,
Flushing the waste like the rose’s heart;
And thou scornest not from thy pomp to shed
A tender smile on the ruin’s head.

Thou tak’st through the dim church-aisle thy way,
And its pillars from twilight flash forth to day,
And its high, pale tombs, with their trophies old,
Are bathed in a flood as of molten gold.

And thou turnest not from the humblest grave,
Where a flower to the sighing winds may wave;
Thou scatter’st its gloom like the dreams of rest,
Thou sleepest in love on its grassy breast.

Sunbeam of summer! oh, what is like thee?
Hope of the wilderness, joy of the sea!—
One thing is like thee to mortals given,
The faith touching all things with hues of heaven!

Breathings of Spring.

Thou givest me flowers, thou givest me songs; bring back
The love that I have lost!

What wakest thou, Spring? Sweet voices in the woods,
And reed-like echoes, that have long been mute:
Thou bringest back, to fill the solitudes,
The lark’s clear pipe, the cuckoo’s viewless flute,
Whose tone seems breathing mournfulness or glee,
E’en as our hearts may be.

And the leaves greet thee, Spring!—the joyous leaves,
Whose tremblings gladden many a copse and glade,
Where each young spray a rosy flush receives,
When thy south wind hath pierced the whispery shade,
And happy murmurs, running through the grass,
Tell that thy footsteps pass.

And the bright waters—they too hear thy call,
Spring, the awakener! thou hast burst their sleep!
Amidst the hollows of the rocks their fall
Makes melody, and in the forests deep,
Where sudden sparkles and blue gleams betray
Their windings to the day.

And flowers—the fairy-peopled world of flowers!
Thou from the dust hast set that glory free,
Colouring the cowslip with the sunny hours,
And penciling the wood anemone:
Silent they seem—yet each to thoughtful eye
Glows with mute poesy.

But what awakest thou in the heart, O Spring!
The human heart, with all its dreams and sighs?
Thou that givest back so many a buried thing,
Restorer of forgotten harmonies!
Fresh songs and scents break forth where’er thou art—
What wakest thou in the heart?

Too much, oh! there too much! We know not well
Wherefore it should be thus, yet roused by thee,
What fond, strange yearnings, from the soul’s deep cell,
Gush for the faces we no more may see!
How are we haunted, in the wind’s low tone,
By voices that are gone!

Looks of familiar love, that never more,
Never on earth, our aching eyes shall meet,
Past words of welcome to our household door,
And vanish’d smiles, and sounds of parted feet—
Spring! midst the murmurs of thy flowering trees,
Why, why revivest thou these?

Vain longings for the dead!—why come they back
With thy young birds, and leaves, and living blooms?
Oh! is it not, that from thine earthly track
Hope to thy world may look beyond the tombs?
Yes, gentle Spring! no sorrow dims thine air,
Breathed by our loved ones there!

The Illuminated City.

The hills all glow’d with a festive light,
For the royal city rejoiced by night:
There were lamps hung forth upon tower and tree,
Banners were lifted and streaming free;
Every tall pillar was wreath’d with fire;
Like a shooting meteor was every spire;
And the outline of many a dome on high
Was traced, as in stars, on the clear dark sky.

I pass’d through the streets. There were throngs on throngs—
Like sounds of the deep were their mingled songs;
There was music forth from each palace borne—
A peal of the cymbal, the harp, and horn;
The forests heard it, the mountains rang,
The hamlets woke to its haughty clang;
Rich and victorious was every tone,
Telling the land of her foes o’erthrown.

Didst thou meet not a mourner for all the slain?
Thousands lie dead on their battle-plain!
Gallant and true were the hearts that fell—
Grief in the homes they have left must dwell:
Grief o’er the aspect of childhood spread,
And bowing the beauty of woman’s head!
Didst thou hear, midst the songs, not one tender moan
For the many brave to their slumbers gone?

I saw not the face of a weeper there—
Too strong, perchance, was the bright lamps’ glare!
I heard not a wail midst the joyous crowd—
The music of victory was all too loud!
Mighty it roll’d on the winds afar,
Shaking the streets like a conqueror’s car—
Through torches and streamers its flood swept by:
How could I listen for moan or sigh?

Turn then away from life’s pageants—turn,
If its deep story thy heart would learn!
Ever too bright is that outward show,
Dazzling the eyes till they see not woe.
But lift the proud mantle which hides from thy view
The things thou shouldst gaze on, the sad and true;
Nor fear to survey what its folds conceal:—
So must thy spirit be taught to feel!

The Spells of Home.

“There blend the ties that strengthen
Our hearts in hours of grief,
The silver links that lengthen
Joy’s visits when most brief.”
Bernard Barton.

By the soft green light in the woody glade,
On the banks of moss where thy childhood play’d,
By the household tree through which thine eye
First look’d in love to the summer sky,
By the dewy gleam, by the very breath
Of the primrose-tufts in the grass beneath,
Upon thy heart there is laid a spell,
Holy and precious—oh, guard it well!

By the sleepy ripple of the stream,
Which hath lull’d thee into many a dream,
By the shiver of the ivy leaves
To the wind of morn at thy casement eaves,
By the bee’s deep murmur in the limes,
By the music of the Sabbath chimes,
By every sound of thy native shade,
Stronger and dearer the spell is made.

By the gathering round the winter hearth,
When twilight call’d unto household mirth,
By the fairy tale or the legend old
In that ring of happy faces told,
By the quiet hour when hearts unite
In the parting prayer and the kind “Good-night!”
By the smiling eye, and the loving tone,
Over thy life has the spell been thrown.

And bless that gift!—it hath gentle might,
A guardian power and a guiding light.
It hath led the freeman forth to stand
In the mountain-battles of his land;
It hath brought the wanderer o’er the seas
To die on the hills of his own fresh breeze;
And back to the gates of his father’s hall
It hath led the weeping prodigal.

Yes! when thy heart, in its pride, would stray
From the pure first-loves of its youth away—
When the sullying breath of the world would come
O’er the flowers it brought from its childhood’shome—
Think thou again of the woody glade,
And the sound by the rustling ivy made—
Think of the tree at thy father’s door,
And the kindly spell shall have power once more!

Roman Girl’s Song.

“Roma, Roma, Roma!
Non e piu come era prima.”

Rome, Rome! thou art no more
As thou hast been!
On thy seven hills of yore
Thou sat’st a queen.

Thou hadst thy triumphs then
Purpling the street,
Leaders and sceptred men
Bow’d at thy feet.

They that thy mantle wore,
As gods were seen—
Rome, Rome! thou art no more
As thou hast been!

Rome! thine imperial brow
Never shall rise:
What hast thou left thee now?—
Thou hast thy skies!

Blue, deeply blue, they are,
Gloriously bright!
Veiling thy wastes afar
With colour’d light.

Thou hast the sunset’s glow,
Rome! for thy dower,
Flushing tall cypress-bough,
Temple and tower!

And all sweet sounds are thine,
Lovely to hear,
While night, o’er tomb and shrine,
Rests darkly clear.

Many a solemn hymn,
By starlight sung,
Sweeps through the arches dim,
Thy wrecks among.

Many a flute’s low swell,
On thy soft air
Lingers and loves to dwell
With summer there.

Thou hast the south’s rich gift
Of sudden song—
A charm’d fountain, swift,
Joyous and strong.

Thou hast fair forms that move
With queenly tread;
Thou hast proud fanes above
Thy mighty dead.

Yet wears thy Tiber’s shore
A mournful mien:—
Rome, Rome! thou art no more
As thou hast been!

The Distant Ship.

The sea-bird’s wing o’er ocean’s breast
Shoots like a glancing star,
While the red radiance of the west
Spreads kindling fast and far;
And yet that splendour wins thee not—
Thy still and thoughtful eye
Dwells but on one dark distant spot
Of all the main and sky.
Look round thee! O’er the slumbering deep
A solemn glory broods;
A fire hath touch’d the beacon-steep,
And all the golden woods;
A thousand gorgeous clouds on high
Burn with the amber light!—
What spell from that rich pageantry
Chains down thy gazing sight?

A softening thought of human cares,
A feeling link’d to earth!
Is not yon speck a bark which bears
The loved of many a hearth?
Oh! do not Hope, and Grief, and Fear,
Crowd her frail world even now,
And manhood’s prayer and woman’s tear
Follow her venturous prow?

Bright are the floating clouds above,
The glittering seas below;
But we are bound by cords of love
To kindred weal and woe.
Therefore, amidst this wide array
Of glorious things and fair,
My soul is on that bark’s lone way—
For human hearts are there.

The Birds of Passage.

Birds, joyous birds of the wandering wing!
Whence is it ye come with the flowers of spring?
“We come from the shores of the green old Nile,
From the land where the roses of Sharon smile,
From the palms that wave through the Indian sky,
From the myrrh-trees of glowing Araby.

“We have swept o’er cities in song renown’d—
Silent they lie with the deserts round!
We have cross’d proud rivers, whose tide hath roll’d
All dark with the warrior-blood of old;
And each worn wing hath regain’d its home,
Under peasant’s roof-trees or monarch’s dome.”

And what have ye found in the monarch’s dome,
Since last ye traversed the blue sea’s foam?—
“We have found a change, we have found a pall,
And a gloom o’ershadowing the banquet’s hall,
And a mark on the floor as of life-drops spilt—
Naught looks the same, save the nest we built!”

O joyous birds! it hath still been so;
Through the halls of kings doth the tempest go!
But the huts of the hamlet lie still and deep,
And the hills o’er their quiet a vigil keep:
Say what have ye found in the peasant’s cot,
Since last ye parted from that sweet spot?—

“A change we have found there—and many a change!
Faces and footsteps, and all things strange!
Gone are the heads of the silvery hair,
And the young that were have a brow of care,
And the place is hush’d where the children play’d—
Naught looks the same, save the nest we made!”

Sad is your tale of the beautiful earth,
Birds that o’ersweep it in power and mirth!
Yet through the wastes of the trackless air
Ye have a guide, and shall we despair?
Ye over desert and deep have pass’d—
So may we reach our bright home at last!

The Graves of a Household.

They grew in beauty side by side,
They fill’d one home with glee;—
Their graves are sever’d far and wide,
By mount, and stream, and sea.

The same fond mother bent at night
O’er each fair sleeping brow:
She had each folded flower in sight—
Where are those dreamers now?

One, midst the forest of the West,
By a dark stream is laid—
The Indian knows his place of rest,
Far in the cedar-shade.

The sea, the blue lone sea, hath one—
He lies where pearls lie deep;
He was the loved of all, yet none
O’er his low bed may weep.

One sleeps where southern vines are drest
Above the noble slain:
He wrapt his colours round his breast
On a blood-red field of Spain.

And one—o’er her the myrtle showers
Its leaves, by soft winds fann’d;
She faded ’midst Italian flowers—
The last of that bright band.
And parted thus they rest, who play’d
Beneath the same green tree;
Whose voices mingled as they pray’d
Around one parent knee!

They that with smiles lit up the hall,
And cheer’d with song the hearth!—
Alas, for love! if thou wert all,
And naught beyond, O Earth!

Mozart’s Requiem.

[A short time before the death of Mozart, a stranger of remarkable appearance, and dressed in deep mourning, called at his house, and requested him to prepare a requiem, in his best style, for the funeral of a distinguished person. The sensitive imagination of the composer immediately seized upon the circumstance as an omen of his own fate; and the nervous anxiety with which he laboured to fulfil the task, had the effect of realising his impression. He died within a few days after completing this magnificent piece of music, which was performed at his interment.]

“These birds of Paradise but long to flee
Back to their native mansion.”
“Prophecy of Dante.”

A requiem!—and for whom?
For beauty in its bloom?
For valour fallen—a broken rose or sword?
A dirge for king or chief,
With pomp of stately grief,
Banner, and torch, and waving plume deplored?

Not so—it is not so!
The warning voice I know,
From other worlds a strange mysterious tone;
A solemn funeral air
It call’d me to prepare,
And my heart answer’d secretly—my own!

One more then, one more strain,
In links of joy and pain,
Mighty the troubled spirit to enthrall!
And let me breathe my dower
Of passion and of power
Full into that deep lay—the last of all!

The last!—and I must go
From this bright world below,
This realm of sunshine, ringing with sweet sound!
Must leave its festal skies,
With all their melodies,
That ever in my breast glad echoes found!

Yet have I known it long:
Too restless and too strong
Within this clay hath been th’ o’ermastering flame;
Swift thoughts, that came and went,
Like torrents o’er me sent,
Have shaken, as a reed, my thrilling frame.

Like perfumes on the wind,
Which none may stay or bind,
The beautiful comes floating through my soul;
I strive with yearnings vain
The spirit to detain
Of the deep harmonies that past me roll!

Therefore disturbing dreams
Trouble the secret streams
And founts of music that o’erflow my breast;
Something far more divine
Than may on earth be mine,
Haunts my worn heart, and will not let me rest.

Shall I then fear the tone
That breathes from worlds unknown?—
Surely these feverish aspirations there
Shall grasp their full desire,
And this unsettled fire
Burn calmly, brightly, in immortal air.

One more then, one more strain;
To earthly joy and pain
A rich, and deep, and passionate farewell!
I pour each fervent thought,
With fear, hope, trembling, fraught,
Into the notes that o’er my dust shall swell.

[One of the peculiar features of the increased sensitiveness of her temperament at this time, was an awakened enthusiasm for music, which amounted to an absolute passion. “I do not think,” she wrote, “that I can bear the burden of my life without music for more than two or three days.” Yet, with sensibilities so exquisite as hers, this melomania was a source of far more pain than pleasure; it was so impossible for any earthly strains to approach that ideal and unattainable standard of perfection which existed within her mind, and which she has shadowed forth with a mournful energy in “Mozart’s Requiem.”

From time to time, however, she had enjoyment of music of a very high character, for much of which she was indebted to her acquaintance with Mr Lodge, the distinguished amateur, by whom so many of her songs have been set to melodies of infinite beauty and feeling. At a somewhat later period she derived much delight from the talents of Mr James Zengheer Herrmann, from whom, for a time, she took lessons, for the express purpose of studying, and fully understanding, the Stabat Mater of Pergolesi, which had taken an extraordinary hold of her imagination. This fine composition was first brought to her notice by Mr Lodge, to whom she thus expressed her appreciation of it:—“It is quite impossible for me to tell you the impression I have received from that most spiritual music of Pergolesi’s, which really haunted me the whole night. How much I have to thank you for introducing me, in such a manner, to so new and glorious a world of musical thought and feeling!”—Memoir, p. 167-8.]

The Image in Lava.

Thou thing of years departed!
What ages have gone by
Since here the mournful seal was set
By love and agony?

Temple and tower have moulder’d,
Empires from earth have pass’d,
And woman’s heart hath left a trace
Those glories to outlast!

And childhood’s fragile image,
Thus fearfully enshrined,
Survives the proud memorials rear’d
By conquerors of mankind.

Babe! wert thou brightly slumbering
Upon thy mother’s breast
When suddenly the fiery tomb
Shut round each gentle guest?

A strange, dark fate o’ertook you,
Fair babe and loving heart!
One moment of a thousand pangs—
Yet better than to part!

Haply of that fond bosom
On ashes here impress’d,
Thou wert the only treasure, child!
Whereon a hope might rest.

Perchance all vainly lavish’d
Its other love had been,
And where it trusted, naught remain’d
But thorns on which to lean.

Far better, then, to perish,
Thy form within its clasp,
Than live and lose thee, precious one!
From that impassion’d grasp.

Oh! I could pass all relics
Left by the pomps of old,
To gaze on this rude monument
Cast in affection’s mould.
Love! human love! what art thou?
Thy print upon the dust
Outlives the cities of renown
Wherein the mighty trust!

Immortal, oh! immortal
Thou art, whose earthly glow
Hath given these ashes holiness—
It must, it must be so!

Christmas Carol.

O lovely voices of the sky,
That hymn’d the Saviour’s birth!
Are ye not singing still on high,
Ye that sang “Peace on earth?”
To us yet speak the strains
Wherewith, in days gone by,
Ye bless’d the Syrian swains,
O voices of the sky!

O clear and shining light! whose beams
That hour heaven’s glory shed
Around the palms, and o’er the streams,
And on the shepherd’s head;
Be near, through life and death,
As in that holiest night
Of Hope, and Joy, and Faith,
O clear and shining light!

O star! which led to Him whose love
Brought down man’s ransom free;
Where art thou?—Midst the hosts above
May we still gaze on thee?
In heaven thou art not set,
Thy rays earth might not dim—
Send them to guide us yet,
O star which led to Him!

A Father Reading the Bible.

’Twas early day, and sunlight stream’d
Soft through a quiet room,
That hush’d, but not forsaken seem’d,
Still, but with naught of gloom.
For there, serene in happy age
Whose hope is from above,
A father communed with the page
Of heaven’s recorded love.

Pure fell the beam, and meekly bright,
On his gray holy hair,
And touch’d the page with tenderest light,
As if its shrine were there!
But oh! that patriarch’s aspect shone
With something lovelier far—
A radiance all the spirit’s own,
Caught not from sun or star.

Some word of life e’en then had met
His calm, benignant eye;
Some ancient promise, breathing yet
Of immortality!
Some martyr’s prayer, wherein the glow
Of quenchless faith survives:
While every feature said—“I know
That my Redeemer lives!”

And silent stood his children by,
Hushing their very breath,
Before the solemn sanctity
Of thoughts o’ersweeping death.
Silent—yet did not each young breast
With love and reverence melt?
Oh! blest be those fair girls, and blest
That home where God is felt!

[This little poem, which, as its Author herself expressed in a letter to Mrs Joanna Baillie, was to her “a thing set apart,” as being the last of her productions ever read to her beloved mother, was written at the request of a young lady, who thus made known her wish “that Mrs Hemans would embody in poetry a picture that so warmed a daughter’s heart:”—

“Upon going into our dear father’s sitting-room this morning, my sister and I found him deeply engaged reading his Bible, and, being unwilling to interrupt such a holy occupation, we retired to the further end of the apartment, to gaze unobserved upon the serene picture. The bright morning sun was beaming on his venerable silver hair, while his defective sight increased the earnestness with which he perused the blessed book. Our fancy led us to believe that some immortal thought was engaging his mind, for he raised his fine open brow to the light, and we felt we had never loved him more deeply. After an involuntary prayer had passed from our hearts, we whispered to each other, ‘Oh! if Mrs Hemans could only see our father at this moment, her glowing pen would detain the scene; for even as we gaze upon it, the bright gleam is vanishing.’

“December 9, 1826.”

The Meeting of the Brothers.

——“His early days
Were with him in his heart.” Wordsworth.

The voices of two forest boys,
In years when hearts entwine,
Had fill’d with childhood’s merry noise
A valley of the Rhine:
To rock and stream that sound was known,
Gladsome as hunter’s bugle-tone.

The sunny laughter of their eyes,
There had each vineyard seen;
Up every cliff whence eagles rise,
Their bounding step had been:
Ay! their bright youth a glory threw
O’er the wild place wherein they grew.

But this, as day-spring’s flush, was brief
As early bloom or dew;
Alas! ’tis but the wither’d leaf
That wears th’ enduring hue!
Those rocks along the Rhine’s fair shore
Might girdle in their world no more.

For now on manhood’s verge they stood,
And heard life’s thrilling call,
As if a silver clarion woo’d
To some high festival;
And parted as young brothers part,
With love in each unsullied heart.

They parted. Soon the paths divide
Wherein our steps were one,
Like river branches, far and wide,
Dissevering as they run;
And making strangers in their course,
Of waves that had the same bright source.

Met they no more? Once more they met,
Those kindred hearts and true!
’Twas on a field of death, where yet
The battle-thunders flew,
Though the fierce day was wellnigh past,
And the red sunset smiled its last.

But as the combat closed, they found
For tender thoughts a space,
And e’en upon that bloody ground
Room for one bright embrace,
And pour’d forth on each other’s neck
Such tears as warriors need not check.

The mists o’er boyhood’s memory spread
All melted with those tears,
The faces of the holy dead
Rose as in vanish’d years;
The Rhine, the Rhine, the ever-blest,
Lifted its voice in each full breast!

Oh! was it then a time to die?
It was!—that not in vain
The soul of childhood’s purity
And peace might turn again.
A ball swept forth—’twas guided well—
Heart unto heart those brothers fell!

Happy, yes, happy thus to go!
Bearing from earth away
Affections, gifted ne’er to know
A shadow—a decay—
A passing touch of change or chill,
A breath of aught whose breath can kill.

And they, between whose sever’d souls,
Once in close union tied,
A gulf is set, a current rolls
For ever to divide;
Well may they envy such a lot,
Whose hearts yearn on—but mingle not.

The Last Wish.

Go to the forest-shade,
Seek thou the well-known glade,
Where, heavy with sweet dew, the violets lie,
Gleaming through moss-tufts deep,
Like dark eyes fill’d with sleep,
And bathed in hues of summer’s midnight sky.

Bring me their buds, to shed
Around my dying bed
A breath of May and of the wood’s repose;
For I, in sooth, depart
With a reluctant heart,
That fain would linger where the bright sun glows.

Fain would I stay with thee!—
Alas! this may not be;
Yet bring me still the gifts of happier hours!
Go where the fountain’s breast
Catches, in glassy rest,
The dim green light that pours through laurel bowers.

I know how softly bright,
Steep’d in that tender light,
The water-lilies tremble there e’en now;
Go to the pure stream’s edge,
And from its whispering sedge
Bring me those flowers to cool my fever’d brow!

Then, as in Hope’s young days,
Track thou the antique maze
Of the rich garden to its grassy mound;
There is a lone white rose,
Shedding, in sudden snows,
Its faint leaves o’er the emerald turf around.

Well know’st thou that fair tree—
A murmur of the bee
Dwells ever in the honey’d lime above:
Bring me one pearly flower
Of all its clustering shower—
For on that spot we first reveal’d our love.

Gather one woodbine bough,
Then, from the lattice low
Of the bower’d cottage which I bade thee mark,
When by the hamlet last
Through dim wood-lanes we pass’d,
While dews were glancing to the glowworm’s spark.

Haste! to my pillow bear
Those fragrant things and fair;
My hand no more may bind them up at eve—
Yet shall their odour soft
One bright dream round me waft
Of life, youth, summer—all that I must leave!

And oh! if thou wouldst ask
Wherefore thy steps I task,
The grove, the stream, the hamlet vale to trace—
’Tis that some thought of me,
When I am gone, may be
The spirit bound to each familiar place.

I bid mine image dwell
(Oh! break not thou the spell!)
In the deep wood and by the fountain-side;
Thou must not, my beloved!
Rove where we two have roved,
Forgetting her that in her spring-time died!

Fairy Favours.

[This little poem was written in the winter of 1827. In writing to a friend shortly afterwards, Mrs Hemans herself thus alludes to it: “I am so glad you liked ‘Fairy Favours.’ It is, indeed, filled with my own true and ever-yearning feeling—that longing for more affection, more confidence, more entire interchange of thought, than I am ever likely to meet with. However, I will not repine whilst I have friends who love me as you do.”]

——Give me but
Something whereunto I may bind my heart;
Something to love, to rest upon, to clasp
Affection’s tendrils round.

Wouldst thou wear the gift of immortal bloom?
Wouldst thou smile in scorn at the shadowy tomb?
Drink of this cup! it is richly fraught
With balm from the gardens of Genii brought;
Drink! and the spoiler shall pass thee by,
When the young all scatter’d like rose-leaves lie.

And would not the youth of my soul be gone,
If the loved had left me, one by one?
Take back the cup that may never bless,
The gift that would make me brotherless.
How should I live, with no kindred eye
To reflect mine immortality!

Wouldst thou have empire, by sign or spell,
Over the mighty in air that dwell?
Wouldst thou call the spirits of shore and steep
To fetch thee jewels from ocean’s deep?
Wave but this rod, and a viewless band,
Slaves to thy will, shall around thee stand.

And would not fear, at my coming, then
Hush every voice in the homes of men?
Would not bright eyes in my presence quail?
Young cheeks with a nameless thrill turn pale?
No gift be mine that aside would turn
The human love for whose founts I yearn!

Wouldst thou then read through the hearts of those
Upon whose faith thou hast sought repose?
Wear this rich gem! it is charm’d to show
When a change comes over affection’s glow:
Look on its flushing or fading hue,
And learn if the trusted be false or true!

Keep, keep the gem, that I still may trust,
Though my heart’s wealth be but pour’d on dust!
Let not a doubt in my soul have place,
To dim the light of a loved one’s face;
Leave to the earth its warm sunny smile—
That glory would pass could I look on guile!

Say, then, what boon of my power shall be,
Favour’d of spirits! pour’d forth on thee?
Thou scornest the treasures of wave and mine,
Thou wilt not drink of the cup divine,
Thou art fain with a mortal’s lot to rest—
Answer me! how may I grace it best?

Oh! give me no sway o’er the powers unseen,
But a human heart where my own may lean!
A friend, one tender and faithful friend,
Whose thoughts’ free current with mine may blend;
And, leaving not either on earth alone,
Bid the bright, calm close of our lives be one!

Annotation on “Records of Woman,” &C.

[We feel certain that every admirer of the genius of Mrs Hemans will be obliged to us for here reprinting, almost at length, the admirable critique on her writings which appeared in the XCIXth Number of the Edinburgh Review. The acumen, the taste, and elegance of Lord Jeffrey, are evident throughout.

“Women, we fear, cannot do every thing, nor even every thing they attempt. But what they can do, they do, for the most part, excellently—and much more frequently with an absolute and perfect success, than the aspirants of our rougher and more ambitious sex. They cannot, we think, represent naturally the fierce and sullen passions of men—nor their coarser vices—nor even scenes of actual business or contention—and the mixed motives, and strong and faulty characters, by which affairs of moment are usually conducted on the great theatre of the world. For much of this they are disqualified by the delicacy of their training and habits, and the still more disabling delicacy which pervades their conceptions and feelings; and from much they are excluded by their actual inexperience of the realities they might wish to describe—by their substantial and incurable ignorance of business—of the way in which serious affairs are actually managed—and the true nature of the agents and impulses that give movement and direction to the stronger currents of ordinary life. Perhaps they are also incapable of long moral or political investigations, where many complex and indeterminate elements are to be taken into account, and a variety of opposite probabilities to be weighed before coming to a conclusion. They are generally too impatient to get at the ultimate results, to go well through with such discussions; and either stop short at some imperfect view of the truth, or turn aside to repose in the shadow of some plausible error. This, however, we are persuaded, arises entirely from their being seldom set on such tedious tasks. Their proper and natural business is the practical regulations of private life, in all its bearings, affections, and concerns; and the questions with which they have to deal in that most important department, though often of the utmost difficulty and nicety, involve, for the most part, but few elements; and may generally be better described as delicate than intricate—requiring for their solution rather a quick tact and fine perception, than a patient or laborious examination. For the same reason, they rarely succeed in long works, even on subjects the best suited to their genius; their natural training rendering them equally averse to long doubt and long labour.

“For all other intellectual efforts, however, either of the understanding or the fancy, and requiring a thorough knowledge either of man’s strength or his weakness, we apprehend them to be, in all respects, as well qualified as their brethren of the stronger sex; while, in their perceptions of grace, propriety, ridicule—their power of detecting artifice, hypocrisy, and affectation—the force and prompitude of their sympathy, and their capacity of noble and devoted attachment, and of the efforts and sacrifices it may require—they are, beyond all doubt, our superiors.

“Their business being, as we have said, with actual or social life, and the colours it receives from the conduct and dispositions of individuals, they unconsciously acquire, at a very early age, the finest perception of character and manners, and are almost as soon instinctively schooled in the deep and dangerous learning of feeling and emotion; while the very minuteness with which they make and meditate on these interesting observations, and the finer shades and variations of sentiment which are thus treasured and recorded, trains their whole faculties to a nicety and precision of operation, which often discloses itself to advantage in their application to studies of a very different character. When women, accordingly, have turned their minds—as they have done but too seldom—to the exposition or arrangement of any branch of knowledge, they have commonly exhibited, we think, a more beautiful accuracy, and a more uniform and complete justness of thinking, than their less discriminating brethren. There is a finish and completeness about every thing they put out of their hands, which indicates not only an inherent taste for elegance and neatness, but a habit of nice observation, and singular exactness of judgment.

“It has been so little the fashion, at any time, to encourage women to write for publication, that it is more difficult than it should be to prove these truths by examples. Yet there are enough, within the reach of a very careless and superficial glance over the open field of literature, to enable us to explain, at least, and illustrate, if not entirely to verify, our assertions. No man, we will venture to say, could have written the letters of Madame de Sevigné, or the novels of Miss Austin, or the hymns and early lessons of Mrs Barbauld, or the conversations of Mrs Marcet. These performances, too, are not only essentially and intensely feminine, but they are, in our judgment, decidedly more perfect than any masculine productions with which they can be brought into comparison. They accomplish more completely all the ends at which they aim, and are worked out with a gracefulness and felicity of execution which excludes all idea of failure, and entirely satisfies the expectations they may have raised. We might easily have added to these instances. There are many parts of Miss Edgeworth’s earlier stories, and of Miss Mitford’s sketches and descriptions, and not a little of Mrs Opie’s, that exhibit the same fine and penetrating spirit of observation, the same softness and delicacy of hand, and unerring truth of delineation, to which we have alluded as characterising the pure specimens of female art. The same distinguishing traits of a woman’s spirit are visible through the grief and the piety of Lady Russell, and the gaiety, the spite, and the venturesomeness of Lady Mary Wortley. We have not as yet much female poetry; but there is a truly feminine tenderness, purity, and elegance, in the Psyche of Mrs Tighe, and in some of the smaller pieces of Lady Craven. On some of the works of Madame de Staël—her Corinne especially—there is a still deeper stamp of the genius of her sex. Her pictures of its boundless devotedness—its depth and capacity of suffering—its high aspirations—its painful irritability, and inextinguishable thirst for emotion, are powerful specimens of that morbid anatomy of the heart, which no hand but that of a woman’s was fine enough to have laid open, or skilful enough to have recommended to our sympathy and love. There is the same exquisite and inimitable delicacy, if not the same power, in many of the happier passages of Madame de Souza and Madame Cottin—to say nothing of the more lively and yet melancholy records of Madame de Staël, during her long penance in the Court of the Duchesse de Maine.

“But we are preluding too largely; and must come at once to the point, to which the very heading of this article has already admonished the most careless of our readers that we are tending. We think the poetry of Mrs Hemans a fine exemplification of female poetry; and we think it has much of the perfection which we have ventured to ascribe to the happier productions of female genius.

“It may not be the best imaginable poetry, and may not indicate the very highest or most commanding genius, but it embraces a great deal of that which gives the very best poetry its chief power of pleasing; and would strike us, perhaps, as more impassioned and exalted, if it were not regulated and harmonised by the most beautiful taste. It is infinitely sweet, elegant, and tender—touching, perhaps, and contemplative, rather than vehement and overpowering; and not only finished throughout with an exquisite delicacy, and even serenity of execution, but informed with a purity and loftiness of feeling, and a certain sober and humble tone of indulgence and piety, which must satisfy all judgments, and allay the apprehensions of those who are most afraid of the passionate exaggerations of poetry. The diction is always beautiful, harmonious, and free; and the themes, though of infinite variety, uniformly treated with a grace, originality, and judgment, which mark the same master-hand. These themes she has borrowed, with the peculiar interest and imagery that belong to them, from the legends of different nations, and the most opposite states of society; and has contrived to retain much of what is interesting and peculiar in each of them, without adopting, along with it, any of the revolting or extravagant excesses which may characterise the taste or manners of the people or the age from which it has been derived. She has thus transfused into her German or Scandinavian legends, the imaginative and daring tone of the originals, without the mystical exaggerations of the one, or the painful fierceness and coarseness of the other—she has preserved the clearness and elegance of the French, without their coldness or affectation—and the tenderness and simplicity of the early Italians, without their diffuseness or languor. Though occasionally expatiating, somewhat fondly and at large, amongst the sweets of her own planting, there is, on the whole, a great condensation and brevity in most of her pieces, and, almost without exception, a most judicious and vigorous conclusion. The great merit, however, of her poetry, is undoubtedly in its tenderness and its beautiful imagery. The first requires no explanation; but we must be allowed to add a word as to the peculiar charm and character of the latter.

“It has always been our opinion, that the very essence of poetry, apart from the pathos, the wit, or the brilliant description which may be embodied in it, but may exist equally in prose, consists in the fine perception and vivid expression of that subtle and mysterious analogy which exists between the physical and the moral world—which makes outward things and qualities the natural types and emblems of inward gifts and emotions, and leads us to ascribe life and sentiment to every thing that interests us in the aspects of external nature. The feeling of this analogy, obscure and inexplicable as the theory of it may be, is so deep and universal in our nature, that it has stamped itself on the ordinary language of men of every kindred and speech: and that to such an extent, that one-half of the epithets by which we familiarly designate moral and physical qualities, are in reality so many metaphors, borrowed reciprocally, upon this analogy, from those opposite forms of existence. The very familiarity, however, of the expression, in these instances, takes away its poetical effect—and indeed, in substance, its metaphorical character. The original sense of the word is entirely forgotten in the derivative one to which it has succeeded; and it requires some etymological recollection to convince us that it was originally nothing else than a typical or analogical illustration. Thus we talk of a penetrating understanding, and a furious blast—a weighty argument, and a gentle stream—without being at all aware that we are speaking in the language of poetry, and transferring qualities from one extremity of the sphere of being to another. In these cases, accordingly, the metaphor, by ceasing to be felt, in reality ceases to exist; and the analogy, being no longer intimated, of course can produce no effect. But whenever it is intimated, it does produce an effect; and that effect, we think, is poetry.

“It has substantially two functions, and operates in two directions. In the first place, it strikes vividly out, and flashes at once on our minds, the conception of an inward feeling or emotion, which it might otherwise have been difficult to convey, by the presentment of some bodily form or quality, which is instantly felt to be its true representative; and enables us to fix and comprehend it with a force and clearness not otherwise attainable: and, in the second place, it vivifies dead and inanimate matter with the attributes of living and sentient mind; and fills the whole visible universe around us with objects of interest and sympathy, by tinging them with the hues of life, and associating them with our own passions and affections. This magical operation the poet, too, performs, for the most part, in one of two ways—either by the direct agency of similes and metaphors, more or less condensed or developed, or by the mere graceful presentment of such visible objects on the scene of his passionate dialogues or adventures, as partake of the character of the emotion he wishes to excite, and thus form an appropriate accompaniment or preparation for its direct indulgence or display. The former of those methods has perhaps been most frequently employed, and certainly has most attracted attention. But the latter, though less obtrusive, and perhaps less frequently resorted to of set purpose, is, we are inclined to think, the most natural and efficacious of the two, and is often adopted, we believe unconsciously, by poets of the highest order—the predominant emotion of their minds overflowing spontaneously on all the objects which present themselves to their fancy, and calling out from them, and colouring with its own hues, those that are naturally emblematic of its character, and in accordance with its general expression. It would be easy to show how habitually this is done by Shakspeare and Milton especially, and how much many of their finest passages are indebted, both for force and richness of effect, to this general and diffusive harmony of the external character of their scenes with the passions of their living agents—this harmonising and appropriate glow with which they kindle the whole surrounding atmosphere, and bring all that strikes the sense into unison with all that touches the heart.

“But it is more to our present purpose to say, that we think the fair writer before us is eminently a mistress of this poetical secret; and, in truth, it was solely for the purpose of illustrating this great charm and excellence in her imagery, that we have ventured upon this little dissertation. Almost all her poems are rich with fine descriptions, and studded over with images of visible beauty. But these are never idle ornaments: all her pomps have a meaning; and her flowers and her gems are arranged, as they are said to be among Eastern lovers, so as to speak the language of truth and of passion. This is peculiarly remarkable in some little pieces, which seem at first sight to be purely descriptive, but are soon found to tell upon the heart, with a deep moral and pathetic impression. But it is a truth nearly as conspicuous in the greater part of her productions, where we scarcely meet with any striking sentiment that is not ushered in by some such symphony of external nature, and scarcely a lovely picture that does not serve as a foreground to some deep or lofty emotion. We may illustrate this proposition, we think, by opening either of these little volumes at random, and taking what they first present to us. The following exquisite lines, for example, on a Palm-tree in an English garden:—

‘It waved not through an Eastern sky,
Beside a fount of Araby,’ etc.

“The following, which the author has named, ‘Graves of a Household,’ has rather less of external scenery, but serves, like the others, to show how well the graphic and pathetic may be made to set off each other:—

‘They grew in beauty, side by side,
They fill’d one home with glee,’ etc.

“We have taken these pieces chiefly on account of their shortness; but it would not be fair to Mrs Hemans not to present our readers with one longer specimen, and to give a portion of her graceful narrative along with her pathetic descriptions. This story, of ‘The Lady of the Castle,’ is told, we think, with great force and sweetness:—.

‘Thou see’st her pictured with her shining hair,
(Famed were these tresses in Provençal song,)’ etc.

“The following sketch of ‘Joan of Arc in Rheims,’ is in a loftier and more ambitious vein, but sustained with equal grace, and as touching in its solemn tenderness. We can afford to extract but a part of it:—

——‘Within, the light,
Through the rich gloom of pictured windows flowing,’ etc.

“There are several strains of a more passionate character, especially in the two poetical epistles from Lady Arabella Stuart and Properzia Rossi. We shall venture to give a few lines from the former. The Lady Arabella was of royal descent; and having excited the fears of our pusillanimous James by a secret union with the Lord Seymour, was detained in a cruel captivity, by that heartless monarch, till the close of her life—during which she is supposed to have indited this letter to her lover from her prison-house:—

‘My friend, my friend! where art thou? Day by day,
Gliding, like some dark mournful stream, away,’ etc.

“The following, though it has no very distinct object or moral, breathes, we think, the very spirit of poetry, in its bright and vague picturings, and is well entitled to the name it bears—‘An Hour of Romance:’

‘There were thick leaves above me and around,
And low sweet sighs, like those of childhood’s sleep,’ etc.

“There is great sweetness in the following portion of a little poem on a ‘Girl’s School:’—

‘Oh! joyous creatures! that will sink to rest
Lightly, when those pure orisons are done,’ etc.

“There is a fine and stately solemnity in these lines on ‘The Lost Pleiad:’

‘Hath the night lost a gem, the regal night?
She wears her crown of old magnificence,’ etc.

“The following on ‘The Dying Improvisatore,’ have a rich lyrical cadence, and glow of deep feeling:—

‘Never, oh! never more,
On thy Rome’s purple heaven mine eye shall dwell,’ etc.

“But we must stop here. There would be no end of our extracts, if we were to yield to the temptation of noting down every beautiful passage which arrests us in turning over the leaves of the volumes before us. We ought to recollect, too, that there are few to whom our pages are likely to come, who are not already familiar with their beauties; and, in fact, we have made these extracts, less with the presumptuous belief that we are introducing Mrs Hemans for the first time to the knowledge or admiration of our readers, than from a desire of illustrating, by means of them, the singular felicity in the choice and employment of her imagery, of which we have already spoken so much at large;—that fine accord she has established between the world of sense and of soul—that delicate blending of our deep inward emotions with their splendid symbols and emblems without.”]