The Poems of Felicia Hemans
By the primrose-stars in the shadowy grass,
By the green leaves opening as I pass.
I have breathed on the South, and the chestnut flowers
By thousands have burst from the forest-bowers,
And the ancient graves and the fallen fanes
Are veil’d with wreaths on Italian plains;--
But it is not for me, in my hour of bloom,
To speak of the ruin or the tomb!
I have look’d on the hills of the stormy North,
And the larch has hung all his tassels forth,
The fisher is out on the sunny sea,
And the reindeer bounds o’er the pastures free,
And the pine has a hinge of softer green,
And the moss looks bright where my foot hath been.
I have sent through the wood-paths a glowing sigh,
And call’d out each voice of the deep blue sky;
From the night-bird’s lay through the starry time,
In the groves of the soft Hesperian clime,
To the swan’s wild note by the Iceland lakes,
When the dark fir-branch into verdure breaks.
From the streams and founts I have loosed the chain,
They are sweeping on to the silvery main,
They are flashing down from the mountain brows,
They are flinging spray o’er the forest boughs,
They are bursting fresh from their sparry caves,
And the earth resounds with the joy of waves!
Come forth, O ye children of gladness! come!
Where the violets lie may be now your home.
Ye of the rose-lip and dew-bright eye,
And the bounding footstep, to meet me fly!
With the lyre, and the wreath, and the joyous lay,
Come forth to the sunshine--I may not stay.
Away from the dwellings of care-worn men,
The waters are sparkling in grove and glen!
Away from the chamber and sullen hearth,
The young leaves are dancing in breezy mirth!
Their light stems thrill to the wild-wood strains,
And youth is abroad in my green domains.
But ye!--ye are changed since ye met me last!
There is something bright from your features pass’d!
There is that come over your brow and eye
Which speaks of a world where the flowers must die!
--Ye smile! but your smile hath a dimness yet:
Oh! what have you look’d on since last we met?
Ye are changed, ye are changed!--and I see not
here
All whom I saw in the vanish’d year!
There were graceful heads, with their ringlets
bright,
Which toss’d in the breeze with a play of light;
There were eyes in whose glistening laughter lay
No faint remembrance of dull decay!
There were steps that flew o’er the cowslip’s head,
As if for a banquet all earth were spread;
There were voices that rang through the sapphire sky,
And had not a sound of mortality!
Are they gone? is their mirth from the mountains pass’d?
Ye have look’d on death since ye met me last!
I know whence the shadow comes o’er you now--
Ye have strewn the dust on the sunny brow!
Ye have given the lovely to earth’s embrace--
She hath taken the fairest of beauty’s race,
With their laughing eyes and their festal crown:
They are gone from amongst you in silence down!
They are gone from amongst you, the young and fair,
Ye have lost the gleam of their shining hair!
But I know of a land where there falls no blight--
I shall find them there, with their eyes of light!
Where Death midst the blooms of the morn may dwell,
I tarry no longer--farewell, farewell!
The summer is coming, on soft winds borne--
Ye may press the grape, ye may bind the corn!
For me, I depart to a brighter shore--
Ye are mark’d by care, ye are mine no more;
I go where the loved who have left you dwell,
And the flowers are not Death’s. Fare ye well, farewell!
[256] Originally published in the _New Monthly Magazine_.
[“‘The Voice of Spring,’ perhaps the best known and best loved of all
Mrs Hemans’ lyrics, was written early in the year 1823; and is thus
alluded to in a letter to a friend, who had lately suffered a severe
and sudden bereavement:--‘The Voice of Spring’ expresses some peculiar
feelings of my own. Although my life has yet been unvisited by any
affliction so deeply impressive, in all its circumstances, as the one
you have been called upon to sustain; yet I cannot but feel every
year, with the return of the violet, how much the shadows of my mind
have deepened since its last appearance; and to me the spring, with
all its joy and beauty, is generally a time of thoughtfulness rather
than mirth. I think the most delightful poetry I know upon the subject
of this season, is contained in the works of Tieck, a German poet,
with whom you are perhaps acquainted; but the feelings he expresses
are of a very different character from those I have described to you,
seeming all to proceed from an overflowing sense of life and joy.’
“This indefinable feeling of languor and depression produced by the
influence of spring, will be well understood by many a gentle heart.
Never do the
‘Fond strange yearnings from the soul’s deep cell
Gush for the faces we no more shall see,’
with such uncontrollable power, as when all external nature breathes
of life and gladness. Amidst all the bright and joyous things around
us, we are haunted with images of death and the grave. The force
of contrast, not less strong than that of analogy, is unceasingly
reminding us of the great gulf that divides us from those who
are now ‘gone down in silence.’ Some unforgotten voice is ever
whispering--‘And I too in Arcadia!’ We remember how we were wont to
rejoice in the soft air and pleasant sunshine; and these things can
charm us no longer, ‘because _they_ are not.’ The farewell sadness of
autumn, on the contrary--its falling leaves, and universal imagery of
decay, by bringing more home to us the sense of our own mortality,
identifies us more closely with those who are gone before, and the
veil of separation becomes, as it were, more transparent. We are
impressed with a more pervading conviction that ‘we shall go to them;’
while, in spring, every thing seems mournfully to echo, ‘they will not
return to us!’
“These peculiar associations may be traced in many of Mrs Hemans’
writings, deepening with the influence of years and of sorrows, and
more particularly developed in the poem called ‘Breathings of Spring.’
And when it is remembered that it was at this season her own earthly
course was finished, the following passage from a letter, written in
the month of May, some years after the one last quoted, cannot be
read without emotion:--‘Poor A. H. is to be buried to-morrow. With
the bright sunshine laughing around, it seems more sad to think of;
yet, if I could choose when I would wish to die, it should be in
spring--the influence of that season is so strangely depressing to my
heart and frame.’”--_Memoir_, p. 66-68.
“‘The Voice of Spring,’ one of the first of what may be called Mrs
Hemans’ fanciful lyrics, which presently became as familiar as the
music of some popular composer when brought to our doors by wandering
minstrels.”--Chorley’s _Memorials_, vol. i. p. 113.
“But it is time Mrs Hemans’ poetry were allowed to speak for itself;
in making our extracts from it, we have really been as much puzzled
as a child gathering flowers in a lovely garden--now attracted by
a rose--straightway allured by a lily--now tempted by a stately
tulip--and again unsettled by a breathing violet, or ‘well-attired
woodbine.’ We do think, however, that the ‘Voice of Spring’ is
the pride of Mrs H.’s parterre--the rose of her poetry.”--(A. A.
Watts.)--_Literary Magnet_, 1826.]
ELYSIUM.
[“In the Elysium of the ancients, we find none but heroes and
persons who had either been fortunate or distinguished on earth; the
children, and apparently the slaves and lower classes--that is to say,
Poverty, Misfortune, and Innocence--were banished to the infernal
Regions.”--Chateaubriand, _Génie du Christianisme_.]
Fair wert thou in the dreams
Of elder time, thou land of glorious flowers
And summer winds and low-toned silvery streams,
Dim with the shadows of thy laurel bowers,
Where, as they pass’d, bright hours
Left no faint sense of parting, such as clings
To earthly love, and joy in loveliest things!
Fair wert thou, with the light
On thy blue hills and sleepy waters cast
From purple skies ne’er deep’ning into night,
Yet soft, as if each moment were their last
Of glory, fading fast
Along the mountains!--but _thy_ golden day
Was not as those that warn us of decay.
And ever, through thy shades,
A swell of deep Æolian sound went by
From fountain-voices in their secret glades,
And low reed-whispers, making sweet reply
To summer’s breezy sigh,
And young leaves trembling to the wind’s light breath,
Which ne’er had touch’d them with a hue of death!
And the transparent sky
Rang as a dome, all thrilling to the strain
Of harps that midst the woods made harmony,
Solemn and sweet; yet troubling not the brain
With dreams and yearnings vain,
And dim remembrances, that still draw birth
From the bewildering music of the earth.
And who, with silent tread,
Moved o’er the plains of waving asphodel?
Call’d from the dim procession of the dead,
Who midst the shadowy amaranth-bowers might dwell,
And listen to the swell
Of those majestic hymn-notes, and inhale
The spirit wandering in the immortal gale?
They of the sword, whose praise,
With the bright wine, at nations’ feasts went round!
They of the lyre, whose unforgotten lays
Forth on the winds had sent their mighty sound,
And in all regions found
Their echoes midst the mountains!--and become
In man’s deep heart as voices of his home!
They of the daring thought!
Daring and powerful, yet to dust allied--
Whose flight through stars, and seas, and depths, had sought
The soul’s far birthplace--but without a guide!
Sages and seers, who died,
And left the world their high mysterious dreams,
born midst the olive woods by Grecian streams.
But the most _loved_ are they
Of whom fame speaks not with her clarion voice,
In regal halls! The shades o’erhang their way;
The vale, with its deep fountains, is their choice,
And gentle hearts rejoice
Around their steps; till silently they die,
As a stream shrinks from summer’s burning eye.
And these--of whose abode,
Midst her green valleys, earth retain’d no trace,
Save a flower springing from their burial-sod,
A shade of sadness on some kindred face,
A dim and vacant place
In some sweet home;--thou hadst no wreaths for _these_,
Thou sunny land! with all thy deathless trees!
The peasant at his door
Might sink to die when vintage-feasts were spread,
And songs on every wind! From _thy_ bright shore
No lovelier vision floated round his head--
Thou wert for nobler dead!
He heard the bounding steps which round him fell,
And sigh’d to bid the festal sun farewell!
The slave, whose very tears
Were a forbidden luxury, and whose breast
Kept the mute woes and burning thoughts of years,
As embers in a burial-urn compress’d;
_He_ might not be thy guest!
No gentle breathings from thy distant sky
Came o’er _his_ path, and whisper’d “Liberty!”
Calm, on its leaf-strewn bier,
Unlike a gift of Nature to Decay,
Too rose-like still, too beautiful, too dear,
The child at rest before the mother lay,
E’en so to pass away,