The Poems of Felicia Hemans
Like you, thus blooming on this lonely pile,
She seeks Despair, with heart-reviving smile!
CHRISTMAS CAROL.
Fair Gratitude! in strain sublime,
Swell high to heaven thy tuneful zeal;
And, hailing this auspicious time,
Kneel, Adoration! kneel!
CHORUS.
For lo! the day, th’ immortal day,
When Mercy’s full, benignant ray
Chased every gathering cloud away,
And pour’d the noon of light!
Rapture! be kindling, mounting, glowing,
While from thine eye the tear is flowing,
Pure, warm, and bright!
’Twas on this day--oh, love divine!--
The Orient Star’s effulgence rose;
Then waked the Morn, whose eye benign
Shall never, never close!
CHORUS.
Messiah! be thy name adored,
Eternal, high, redeeming Lord!
By grateful worlds be anthems pour’d--
Emanuel! Prince of Peace!
This day, from heaven’s empyreal dwelling,
Harp, lyre, and voice, in concert swelling,
Bade discord cease!
Wake the loud pæan, tune the voice,
Children of heaven and sons of earth!
Seraphs and men! exult, rejoice,
To bless the Saviour’s birth!
CHORUS.
Devotion! light thy purest fire!
Transport! on cherub wing aspire!
Praise! wake to Him thy golden lyre,
Strike every thrilling chord!
While, at the Ark of Mercy kneeling,
We own thy grace, reviving, healing,
Redeemer! Lord!
THE DOMESTIC AFFECTIONS.
Whence are those tranquil joys in mercy given,
To light the wilderness with beams of heaven?
To soothe our cares, and through the cloud diffuse
Their temper’d sunshine and celestial hues?
Those pure delights, ordain’d on life to throw
Gleams of the bliss ethereal natures know?
Say, do they grace Ambition’s regal throne,
When kneeling myriads call the world his own?
Or dwell with Luxury, in th’ enchanted bowers
Where taste and wealth exert _creative_ powers?
Favour’d of heaven! O Genius! are they thine,
When round thy brow the wreaths of glory shine;
While rapture gazes on thy radiant way,
Midst the bright realms of clear and mental day?
No! sacred joys! ’tis yours to dwell enshrined,
Most fondly cherish’d, in the purest mind;
To twine with flowers those loved, endearing ties,
On earth so sweet--so perfect in the skies!
Nursed in the lap of solitude and shade,
The violet smiles, embosom’d in the glade
There sheds her spirit on the lonely gale,
Gem of seclusion! treasure of the vale!
Thus, far retired from life’s tumultuous road,
Domestic Bliss has fixed her calm abode
Where hallow’d Innocence and sweet Repose
May strew her shadowy path with many a rose.
As, when dread thunder shakes the troubled sky,
The cherub, Infancy, can close its eye,
And sweetly smile, unconscious of a tear,
While viewless angels wave their pinions near;
Thus, while around the storms of Discord roll,
Borne on resistless wing from pole to pole,
While War’s red lightnings desolate the ball,
And thrones and empires in destruction fall;
Then calm as evening on the silvery wave,
When the wind slumbers in the ocean cave,
She dwells unruffled, in her bower of rest,
_Her_ empire Home!--her throne, Affection’s breast!
For her, sweet Nature wears her loveliest blooms,
And softer sunshine every scene illumes.
When Spring awakes the spirit of the breeze,
Whose light wing undulates the sleeping seas;
When Summer, waving her creative wand,
Bids verdure smile, and glowing life expand;
Or Autumn’s pencil sheds, with magic trace,
O’er fading lowliness, a moonlight grace;
Oh! still for her, through Nature’s boundless reign,
No charm is lost, no beauty blooms in vain;
While mental peace, o’er every prospect bright,
Throws mellowing tints and harmonising light!
Lo! borne on clouds, in rushing might sublime,
Stern Winter, bursting from the polar clime,
Triumphant waves his signal-torch on high,
The blood-red meteor of the northern sky!
And high through darkness rears his giant-form,
His throne the billow, and his flag the storm!
Yet then, when bloom and sunshine are no more,
And the wild surges foam along the shore,
Domestic Bliss, _thy_ heaven is still serene,
Thy star unclouded, and thy myrtle green!
Thy fane of rest no raging storms invade--
Sweet peace is thine, the seraph of the shade!
Clear through the day, her light around thee glows,
And gilds the midnight of thy deep repose!
--Hail, sacred Home! where soft Affection’s hand
With flowers of Eden twines her magic band!
Where pure and bright the social ardours rise,
Concentring all their holiest energies!--
When wasting toil has dimm’d the vital flame,
And every power deserts the sinking frame,
Exhausted nature still from sleep implores
The charm that lulls, the manna that restores!
Thus, when oppress’d with rude, tumultuous cares,
To thee, sweet Home! the fainting mind repairs;
Still to thy breast, a wearied pilgrim, flies,
Her ark of refuge from uncertain skies!
Bower of repose! when, torn from all we love,
Through toil we struggle, or through distance rove;
To _thee_ we turn, still faithful, from afar--
Thee, our bright vista! thee, our magnet-star!
And from the martial field, the troubled sea,
Unfetter’d thought still roves to bliss and thee!
When ocean-sounds in awful slumber die,
No wave to murmur, and no gale to sigh;
Wide o’er the world when Peace and Midnight reign,
And the moon trembles on the sleeping main;
At that still hour, the sailor wakes to keep,
Midst the dead calm, the vigil of the deep!
No gleaming shores his dim horizon bound,
All heaven--and sea--and solitude--around!
Then, from the lonely deck, the silent helm,
From the wide grandeur of the shadowy realm,
Still homeward borne, his fancy unconfined,
Leaving the worlds of ocean far behind,
Wings like a meteor-flash her swift career,
To the loved scenes, so distant, and so dear!
Lo! the rude whirlwind rushes from its cave,
And Danger frowns--the monarch of the wave!
Lo! rocks and storms the striving bark repel,
And Death and Shipwreck ride the foaming swell!
Child of the ocean! is thy bier the surge,
Thy grave the billow, and the wind thy dirge?
Yes! thy long toil, thy weary conflict o’er,
No storm shall wake, no perils rouse thee more!
Yet, in that solemn hour, that awful strife,
The struggling agony for death or life,
E’en _then_ thy mind, embittering every pain,
Retraced the image so beloved--in vain!
Still to sweet Home thy last regrets were true,
Life’s parting sigh--the murmur of adieu!
Can war’s dread scenes the hallow’d ties efface,
Each tender thought, each fond remembrance chase?
Can fields of carnage, days of toil, destroy
The loved impression of domestic joy?
Ye daylight dreams! that cheer the soldier’s breast,
In hostile climes, with spells benign and blest,
Soothe his brave heart, and shed your glowing ray
O’er the long march through Desolation’s way;
Oh! still ye bear him from th’ ensanguined plain,
Armour’s bright flash, and Victory’s choral strain,
To that loved Home where pure affection glows,
That shrine of bliss! asylum of repose!
When all is hush’d--the rage of combat past,
And no dread war-note swells the moaning blast;
When the warm throb of many a heart is o’er,
And many an eye is closed to wake no more;
Lull’d by the night-wind, pillow’d on the ground,
(The dewy deathbed of his comrades, round!)
While o’er the slain the tears of midnight weep,
Faint with fatigue, he sinks in slumbers deep!
E’en then, soft visions, hovering round, portray
The cherish’d forms that o’er his bosom sway;
He sees fond transport light each beaming face,
Meets the warm tear-drop and the long embrace!
While the sweet welcome vibrates through his heart,
“Hail, weary soldier!--never more to part!”
And lo! at last, released from every toil,
He comes!--the wanderer views his native soil!
Then the bright raptures words can never speak
Flash in his eye and mantle o’er his cheek!
Then Love and Friendship, whose unceasing prayer
Implored for him each guardian-spirit’s care;
Who, for his fate, through sorrow’s lingering year,
Had proved each thrilling pulse of hope and fear;
In that blest moment, all the past forget--
Hours of suspense and vigils of regret!
And oh! for him, the child of rude alarms,
Rear’d by stern danger in the school of arms!
How sweet to change the war-song’s pealing note
For woodland-sounds in summer air that float!
Through vales of peace, o’er mountain wilds to roam,
And breathe his native gales, that whisper--‘Home!’
Hail, sweet endearments of domestic ties,
Charms of existence! angel sympathies!
Though Pleasure smile, a soft Circassian queen!
And guide her votaries through a fairy scene,
Where sylphid forms beguile their vernal hours
With mirth and music in Arcadian bowers;
Though gazing nations hail the fiery car
That bears the Son of Conquest from afar,
While Fame’s loud pæan bids his heart rejoice,
And every life-pulse vibrates to her voice;--
Yet from your source _alone_, in mazes bright,
Flows the full current of serene delight!
On Freedom’s wing, that every wild explores,
Through realms of space, th’ aspiring eagle soars!
Darts o’er the clouds, exulting to admire,
Meridian glory--on her throne of fire!
Bird of the Sun! his keen unwearied gaze
Hails the full noon, and triumphs in the blaze;
But soon, descending from his height sublime.
Day’s burning fount, and light’s empyreal clime,
Once more he speeds to joys more calmly blest,
Midst the dear inmates of his lonely nest!
Thus Genius, mounting on his bright career
Through the wide regions of the mental sphere,
And proudly waving in his gifted hand,
O’er Fancy’s worlds, Invention’s plastic wand,
Fearless and firm, with lightning-eye surveys
The clearest heaven of intellectual rays!
Yet, on his course though loftiest hopes attend,
And kindling raptures aid him to ascend,
(While in his mind, with high-born grandeur fraught,
Dilate the noblest energies of thought;)
Still, from the bliss, ethereal and refined,
Which crowns the soarings of triumphant mind,
At length he flies, to that serene retreat,
Where calm and pure the mild affections meet;
Embosom’d there, to feel and to impart
The softer pleasures of the social heart!
Ah! weep for those, deserted and forlorn,
From every tie by fate relentless torn;
See, on the barren coast, the lonely isle,
Mark’d with no step, uncheer’d by human smile,
Heart-sick and faint the ship-wreck’d wanderer stand,
Raise the dim eye, and lift the suppliant hand!
Explore with fruitless gaze the billowy main,
And weep--and pray--and linger--but in vain!
Thence, roving wild through many a depth of shade,
Where voice ne’er echo’d, footstep never stray’d,
He fondly seeks, o’er cliffs and deserts rude,
Haunts of mankind midst realms of solitude!
And pauses oft, and sadly hears alone
The wood’s deep sigh, the surge’s distant moan!
All else is hush’d! so silent, so profound,
As if some viewless power, presiding round,