The Poems of Felicia Hemans

created her Christian patriots at Valencia, she but translated herself into a new dialect of manners and motives. Of this one elevated material she has, however, made fine dramatic use. The language, while faultless in its measured music, has passion to swell its cadences; the loftiness is never languid; and the flow of the verse is skilfully broken into the animated abruptness suitable to earnest dialogue. There are many, too, of those sudden glimpses of profound truth in which the energy of passion seems to force its rude way, in a moment, into regions of the heart that philosophy would take hours to survey with its technical language. Thus, when the iron-hearted monk is telling the story of his son’s disgrace,-- ’Elmina. He died? Hernandez. Not so! --Death! death! Why, earth should be a paradise To make that name so fearful! Had he died, With his young fame about him for a shroud, I had not learn’d the might of agony To bring proud natures low! No! he fell off---- Why do I tell thee this? What right hast thou To learn how pass’d the glory from my house? Yet listen. He forsook me! He that was As mine own soul forsook me!--trampled o’er The ashes of his sires!--ay, leagued himself Even with the infidel, the curse of Spain; And, for the dark eye of a Moorish maid, Abjured his faith, his God! Now, talk of death! “The whole of the scene to which the passage belongs, is moulded in the highest spirit of tragic verse. The bewilderment of the mother betrayed into guilt by overpowering affection, and the death of the beautiful enthusiast Ximena, are sketched in a style of excellence little inferior; and the peculiar powers of Mrs Hemans’s poetry, less dramatic than declamatory, have full scope in the spirit-stirring address of the latter to the fainting host of Valencia, as she lifts in her own ancient city the banner of the Cid, and recounts the sublime legend of his martial burial. Spain and its romances formed the darling theme of Mrs Hemans’s muse; and before leaving the subject, she gives us her magnificent series of ballads, the ‘Songs of the Cid,’ which meet us at the close of the drama, as if to form an appropriate chorus to the whole.”--William Archer Butler, _Introductory Notice to National Lyrics and Songs for Music_. Dublin: 1838.] Miscellaneous Poems. SONG. FOUNDED ON AN ARABIAN ANECDOTE. Away! though still thy sword is red With life-blood from my sire, No drop of thine may now be shed To quench my bosom’s fire; Though on my heart ’twould fall more blest Than dews upon the desert’s breast. I’ve sought thee midst the sons of men, Through the wide city’s fanes; I’ve sought thee by the lion’s den, O’er pathless, boundless plains; No step that mark’d the burning waste, But mine its lonely course hath traced. Thy name hath been a baleful spell, O’er my dark spirit cast; No thought may dream, no words may tell, What there unseen hath pass’d: This wither’d cheek, this faded eye, Are seals of thee--behold! and fly! Hath not my cup for thee been pour’d Beneath the palm-tree’s shade? Hath not soft sleep thy frame restored Within my dwelling laid? What though unknown--yet who shall rest Secure--if not the Arab’s guest? Haste thee! and leave my threshold-floor Inviolate and pure! Let not thy presence tempt me more, --Man may not thus endure! Away! I bear a fetter’d arm, A heart that burns--but must not harm. Begone! outstrip the swift gazelle! The wind in speed subdue! Fear cannot fly so swift, so well, As vengeance shall pursue; And hate, like love in parting pain, Smiles o’er _one_ hope--we meet again! To-morrow--and th’ avenger’s hand, The warrior’s dart is free! E’en now, no spot in all thy land, Save _this_, had shelter’d thee; Let blood the monarch’s hall profane,-- The Arab’s tent must bear no stain! Fly! may the desert’s fiery blast Avoid thy secret way! And sternly, till thy steps be past, Its whirlwinds sleep to-day! I would not that thy doom should be Assign’d by heaven to aught but me. ALP-HORN SONG. TRANSLATED FROM THE GERMAN OF TIECK. What dost thou here, brave Swiss? Forgett’st thou thus thy native clime-- The lovely land of thy bright spring-time? The land of thy home, with its free delights, And fresh green valleys and mountain heights? Can the stranger’s yield thee bliss? What welcome cheers thee now? Dar’st thou lift thine eye to gaze around? Where are the peaks, with their snow-wreaths crown’d? Where is the song, on the wild winds borne, Or the ringing peal of the joyous horn, Or the peasant’s fearless brow? But thy spirit is far away! Where a greeting waits thee in kindred eyes. Where the white Alps look through the sunny skies, With the low senn-cabins, and pastures free, And the sparkling blue of the glacier-sea, And the summits clothed with day! Back, noble child of Tell! Back to the wild and the silent glen, And the frugal board of peasant-men! Dost thou seek the friend, the loved one, here?-- Away! not a true Swiss heart is near, Against thine own to swell! THE CROSS OF THE SOUTH. [The beautiful constellation of the Cross is seen only in the southern hemisphere. The following lines are supposed to be addressed to it by a Spanish traveller in South America.] In the silence and grandeur of midnight I tread, Where savannahs in boundless magnificence spread, And bearing sublimely their snow-wreaths on high, The far Cordilleras unite with the sky. The fir-tree waves o’er me, the fire-flies’ red light With its quick-glancing splendour illumines the night; And I read in each tint of the skies and the earth, How distant my steps from the land of my birth. But to thee, as thy lode-stars resplendently bum In their clear depths of blue, with devotion I turn, Bright Cross of the South! and beholding thee shine, Scarce regret the loved land of the olive and vine. Thou recallest the ages when first o’er the main My fathers unfolded the ensign of Spain, And planted their faith in the regions that see Its unperishing symbol emblazon’d in thee. How oft in their course o’er the oceans unknown, Where all was mysterious, and awful, and lone, Hath their spirit been cheer’d by thy light, when the deep Reflected its brilliance in tremulous sleep! As the vision that rose to the Lord of the world,[285] When first his bright banner of faith was unfurl’d; Even such, to the heroes of Spain, when their prow Made the billows the path of their glory, wert thou. And to me, as I traversed the world of the west, Through deserts of beauty in stillness that rest; By forests and rivers untamed in their pride, Thy hues have a language, thy course is a guide. Shine on!--my own land is a far distant spot, And the stars of thy sphere can enlighten it not; And the eyes that I love, though e’en now they may be O’er the firmament wandering, can gaze not on thee! But thou to my thoughts art a pure-blazing shrine, A fount of bright hopes and of visions divine; And my soul, as an eagle exulting and free, Soars high o’er the Andes to mingle with thee. [285] Constantine. THE SLEEPER OF MARATHON. I lay upon the solemn plain, And by the funeral mound, Where those who died not there in vain, Their place of sleep had found. ’Twas silent where the free blood gush’d, When Persia came array’d-- So many a voice had there been hush’d, So many a footstep stay’d. I slumber’d on the lonely spot So sanctified by death; I slumber’d--but my rest was not As theirs, who lay beneath. For on my dreams, that shadowy hour, They rose--the chainless dead-- All arm’d they sprang, in joy, in power, Up from their grassy bed. I saw their spears, on that red field, Flash as in time gone by-- Chased to the seas without his shield, I saw the Persian fly. I woke--the sudden trumpet’s blast Call’d to another fight: From visions of our glorious past, Who doth not wake in might? TO MISS F. A. L. ON HER BIRTH-DAY. What Wish can Friendship form for thee, What brighter star invoke to shine?-- Thy path from every thorn is free, And every rose is thine! Life hath no purer joy in store, Time hath no sorrow to efface; Hope cannot paint one blessing more Than memory can retrace! _Some_ hearts a boding fear might own, Had Fate to _them_ thy portion given, Since many an eye, by tears alone, Is taught to gaze on heaven! And there are virtues oft conceal’d, Till roused by anguish from repose; As odorous trees no balm will yield, Till from their wounds it flows. But fear not _thou_ the lesson fraught With Sorrow’s chastening power to know; Thou need’st not thus be sternly taught “To melt at others’ woe.” Then still, with heart as blest, as warm, Rejoice thou in thy lot on earth; Ah! why should Virtue dread the _storm_, If _sunbeams_ prove her worth? WRITTEN ON THE FIRST LEAF OF THE ALBUM OF THE SAME. What first should consecrate as thine, The volume, destined to be fraught With many a sweet and playful line, With many a pure and pious thought? It should be, what a loftier strain Perchance less meetly would impart; What never yet was pour’d in vain,-- The blessing of a grateful heart-- For kindness, which hath soothed the hour Of anxious grief, of weary pain, And oft, with its beguiling power, Taught languid Hope to smile again. Long shall that fervent blessing rest On thee and thine; and, heavenwards borne, Call down such peace to soothe _thy_ breast, As _thou_ wouldst bear to all that mourn. TO THE SAME; ON THE DEATH OF HER MOTHER. Say not ’tis fruitless, nature’s holy tear, Shed by affection o’er a parent’s bier! More blest than dew on Hermon’s brow that falls, Each drop to life some latent virtue calls, Awakes some purer hope, ordain’d to rise, By earthly sorrow strengthen’d for the skies; Till the sad heart, whose pangs exalt its love, With its lost treasure, seeks a home--above. But grief will claim her hour,--and He whose eye Looks pitying down on nature’s agony, He, in whose love the righteous calmly sleep, Who bids us hope, forbids us not to weep! He, too, hath wept--and sacred be the woes Once borne by Him, their inmost source who knows, Searches each wound, and bids His Spirit bring Celestial healing on its dove-like wing! And who but He shall soothe, when one dread stroke Ties, that were fibres of the soul, hath broke? Oh! well may those, yet lingering here, deplore The vanish’d light, that cheers their path no more! Th’ Almighty hand, which many a blessing dealt, Sends its keen arrows not to be unfelt! By fire and storm, heaven tries the Christian’s worth, And joy departs, to wean us from the earth, Where still too long, with beings born to die, Time hath dominion o’er Eternity. Yet not the less, o’er all the heart hath lost,