The Poems of Felicia Hemans
With its bright smile!--Elysium! what wert _thou_
To her, who wept o’er that young slumb’rer’s brow?
Thou hadst no home, green land!
For the fair creature from her bosom gone,
With life’s fresh flowers just opening in its hand,
And all the lovely thoughts and dreams unknown,
Which in its clear eye shone
Like spring’s first wakening! but that light was past--
Where went the dewdrop swept before the blast?
Not where _thy_ soft winds play’d,
Not where thy waters lay in glassy sleep!
Fade with thy bowers, thou Land of Visions, fade!
From thee no voice came o’er the gloomy deep,
And bade man cease to weep!
Fade, with the amaranth plain, the myrtle grove,
Which could not yield one hope to sorrowing love![257]
[257] The form of this poem was a good deal altered by Mrs Hemans
some years after its first publication, and, though done so perhaps
to advantage, one verse was omitted. As originally written, the two
following stanzas concluded the piece:--
For 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 the world knows not then,
Not then, nor ever, what pure thoughts are fled!
Yet these are they, who on the souls of men
Come back, when night her folding veil hath spread,
The long-remember’d dead!
But not with thee might aught save glory dwell--
Fade, fade away, thou shore of asphodel!
THE FUNERAL GENIUS,
AN ANCIENT STATUE.
“Debout, couronné de fleurs, les bras élevés et posés sur sa tête, et
le dos appuyé contre un pin, ce génie semble exprimer par son attitude
le repos des morts. Les bas-reliefs des tombeaux offrent souvent des
figures semblables.”--Visconti, _Description des Antiques du Musée
Royal_.
Thou shouldst be look’d on when the starlight falls
Through the blue stillness of the summer air,
Not by the torch-fire wavering on the walls--
It hath too fitful and too wild a glare!
And thou!--thy rest, the soft, the lovely, seems
To ask light steps, that will not break its dreams.
Flowers are upon thy brow; for so the dead
Were crown’d of old, with pale spring-flowers like these:
Sleep on thine eye hath sunk; yet softly shed
As from the wing of some faint southern breeze:
And the pine-boughs o’ershadow thee with gloom,
Which of the grove seems breathing--not the tomb.
_They_ fear’d not death, whose calm and gracious thought
Of the last hour hath settled thus in thee!
They who thy wreath of pallid roses wrought,
And laid thy head against the forest tree,
As that of one, by music’s dreamy close,
On the wood-violets lull’d to deep repose.
They fear’d not death!--yet who shall say his touch
Thus lightly falls on gentle things and fair?
Doth he bestow, or will he leave so much
Of tender beauty as thy features wear?
Thou sleeper of the bower! on whose young eyes
So still a night, a night of summer, lies!
Had they seen aught like thee? Did some fair boy
Thus, with his graceful hair, before them rest?
--His graceful hair, no more to wave in joy,
But drooping, as with heavy dews oppress’d;
And his eye veil’d so softly by its fringe,
And his lip faded to the white-rose tinge?
Oh! happy, if to them the one dread hour
Made known its lessons from a brow like thine!
If all their knowledge of the spoiler’s power
Came by a look so tranquilly divine!
--Let him who _thus_ hath seen the lovely part,
Hold well that image to his thoughtful heart.
But thou, fair slumberer! was there less of woe,
Or love, or terror, in the days of old,
That men pour’d out their gladd’ning spirit’s flow,
Like sunshine, on the desolate and cold,
And gave thy semblance to the shadowy king,
Who for deep souls had then a deeper sting?
In the dark bosom of the earth they laid
Far more than we--for loftier faith is ours!
_Their_ gems were lost in ashes--yet they made
The grave a place of beauty and of flowers,
With fragrant wreaths, and summer boughs array’d,
And lovely sculpture gleaming through the shade.
Is it for _us_ a darker gloom to shed
O’er its dim precincts?--do we not intrust
But for a time its chambers with our dead,
And strew immortal seed upon the dust?
Why should _we_ dwell on that which lies beneath,
When living light hath touch’d the brow of death?
THE TOMBS OF PLATÆA.
FROM A PAINTING BY WILLIAMS.
And there they sleep!--the men who stood
In arms before th’ exulting sun,
And bathed their spears in Persian blood,
And taught the earth how freedom might be won.
They sleep!--th’ Olympic wreaths are dead,
Th’ Athenian lyres are hush’d and gone;
The Dorian voice of song is fled--
Slumber, ye mighty! slumber deeply on.
They sleep--and seems not all around
As hallow’d unto glory’s tomb?
Silence is on the battle-ground,
The heavens are loaded with a breathless gloom.
And stars are watching on their height,
But dimly seen through mist and cloud;
And still and solemn is the light
Which folds the plain, as with a glimmering shroud.
And thou, pale Night-queen! here thy beams
Are not as those the shepherd loves,
Nor look they down on shining streams,
By Naiads haunted in their laurel groves.
Thou seest no pastoral hamlet sleep,
In shadowy quiet, midst its vines;
No temple gleaming from the steep,
Midst the gray olives or the mountain pines:
But o’er a dim and boundless waste,
Thy rays, e’en like a tomb-lamp’s, brood,
Where man’s departed steps are traced
But by his dust, amidst the solitude.
And be it thus!--What slave shall tread
O’er freedom’s ancient battle-plains?
Let deserts wrap the glorious dead
When their bright Land sits weeping o’er her chains.
Here, where the Persian clarion rung,
And where the Spartan sword flash’d high,
And where the pæan strains were sung,
From year to year swell’d on by liberty;
Here should no voice, no sound, be heard,
Until the bonds of Greece be riven,
Save of the leader’s charging-word,
Or the shrill trumpet, pealing up through heaven!
Rest in your silent homes, ye brave!
No vines festoon your lonely tree,[258]
No harvest o’er your war-field wave,
Till rushing winds proclaim--The land is free!
[258] A single tree appears in Mr Williams’ impressive picture.
THE VIEW FROM CASTRI.
FROM A PAINTING BY WILLIAMS.
There have been bright and glorious pageants here,
Where now gray stones and moss-grown columns lie;
There have been words, which earth grew pale to hear,
Breathed from the cavern’s misty chambers nigh:
There have been voices through the sunny sky,
And the pine-woods, their choral hymn-notes sending,
And reeds and lyres, their Dorian melody
With incense-clouds around the temple blending,
And throngs with laurel-boughs before the altar bending.
There have been treasures of the seas and isles
Brought to the Day-god’s now-forsaken throne;
Thunders have peal’d along the rock-defiles,
When the far-echoing battle-horn made known
That foes were on their way! The deep wind’s moan
Hath chill’d th’ invader’s heart with secret fear;
And from the Sibyl-grottoes, wild and lone,
Storms have gone forth, which, in their fierce career,
From his bold hand have struck the banner and the spear.
The shrine hath sunk!--but thou unchanged art there!
Mount of the voice and vision, robed with dreams!
Unchanged--and rising through the radiant air,
With thy dark waving pines, and flashing streams,
And all thy founts of song! Their bright course teems
With inspiration yet; and each dim haze,
Or golden cloud which floats around thee, seems
As with its mantle veiling from our gaze
The mysteries of the past, the gods of elder days!
Away, vain fantasies!--doth less of power
Dwell round thy summit, or thy cliffs invest,
Though, in deep stillness, now the ruin’s flower
Wave o’er the pillars mouldering on thy breast?
--Lift through the free blue heavens thine arrowy crest!
Let the great rocks their solitude regain!
No Delphian lyres now break thy noontide rest
With their full chords:--but silent be the strain!
Thou hast a mightier voice to speak th’ Eternal’s reign![259]
[259] This, with the preceding, and several of the following pieces,
first appeared in the _Edinburgh Magazine_.
THE FESTAL HOUR.
When are the lessons given
That shake the startled earth? When wakes the foe
While the friend sleeps? When falls the traitor’s blow?
When are proud sceptres riven,
High hopes o’erthrown?--It is when lands rejoice,
When cities blaze and lift th’ exulting voice,
And wave their banners to the kindling heaven!
Fear ye the festal hour!
When mirth o’erflows, then tremble!--’Twas a night
Of gorgeous revel, wreaths, and dance, and light,
When through the regal bower
The trumpet peal’d ere yet the song was done,
And there were shrieks in golden Babylon,
And trampling armies, ruthless in their power.
The marble shrines were crown’d:
Young voices, through the blue Athenian sky,
And Dorian reeds, made summer-melody,
And censers waved around;
And lyres were strung and bright libations pour’d!
When through the streets flash’d out the avenging sword,
Fearless and free, the sword with myrtles bound![260]
Through Rome a triumph pass’d.
Rich in her Sun-god’s mantling beams went by
That long array of glorious pageantry,
With shout and trumpet-blast.
An empire’s gems their starry splendour shed
O’er the proud march; a king in chains was led;
A stately victor, crown’d and robed, came last.[261]
And many a Dryad’s bower
Had lent the laurels which, in waving play,
Stirr’d the warm air, and glisten’d round his way
As a quick-flashing shower.
--O’er his own porch, meantime, the cypress hung,
Through his fair halls a cry of anguish rung--
Woe for the dead!--the father’s broken flower!
A sound of lyre and song,
In the still night, went floating o’er the Nile,
Whose waves, by many an old mysterious pile,
Swept with that voice along;
And lamps were shining o’er the red wine’s foam
Where a chief revell’d in a monarch’s dome,
And fresh rose-garlands deck’d a glittering throng.
’Twas Antony that bade
The joyous chords ring out! But strains arose
Of wilder omen at the banquet’s close!
Sounds, by no mortal made,[262]
Shook Alexandria through her streets that night,
And pass’d--and with another sunset’s light,
The kingly Roman on his bier was laid.
Bright midst its vineyards lay
The fair Campanian city,[263] with its towers
And temples gleaming through dark olive-bowers,
Clear in the golden day;
Joy was around it as the glowing sky,
And crowds had fill’d its halls of revelry,
And all the sunny air was music’s way.
A cloud came o’er the face
Of Italy’s rich heaven!--its crystal blue
Was changed, and deepen’d to a wrathful hue