The Poems of Felicia Hemans
And, phantom-like, the kindling city seem’d
To spread, float, wave, as on the wind they stream’d,
With their wild splendour chasing me! I knew
The death-work was begun--I veil’d mine eyes,
Yet stopp’d in spell-bound fear to catch the victims’ cries.
LXX.
What heard I then?--a ringing shriek of pain,
Such as for ever haunts the tortured ear?
I heard a sweet and solemn-breathing strain
Piercing the flame, untremulous and clear!
The rich, triumphal tones!--I knew them well,
As they came floating with a breezy swell!
Man’s voice was there--a clarion-voice to cheer
In the mid-battle--ay, to turn the flying;
Woman’s--that might have sung of heaven beside the dying!
LXXI.
It was a fearful, yet a glorious thing
To hear that hymn of martyrdom, and know
That its glad stream of melody could spring
Up from th’ unsounded gulfs of human woe!
Alvar! Theresa!--what is deep? what strong?
--God’s breath within the soul! It fill’d that song
From your victorious voices! But the glow
On the hot air and lurid skies increased:
Faint grew the sounds--more faint: I listen’d--they had ceased!
LXXII.
And thou indeed hadst perish’d, my soul’s friend!
I might form other ties--but thou alone
Couldst with a glance the veil of dimness rend,
By other years o’er boyhood’s memory thrown!
Others might aid me onward: thou and I
Had mingled the fresh thoughts that early die,
Once flowering--never more! And thou wert gone!
Who could give back my youth, my spirit free,
Or be in aught again what thou hadst been to me?
LXXIII.
And yet I wept thee not, thou true and brave!
I could not weep--there gather’d round thy name
Too deep a passion. _Thou_ denied a grave!
_Thou_, with the blight flung on thy soldier’s fame!
Had I not known thy heart from childhood’s time?
Thy heart of hearts?--and couldst thou die for crime?
No! had all earth decreed that death of shame,
I would have set, against all earth’s decree,
Th’ inalienable trust of my firm soul in thee!
LXXIV.
There are swift hours in life--strong, rushing hours,
That do the work of tempests in their might!
They shake down things that stood as rocks and towers
Unto th’ undoubting mind; they pour in light
Where it but startles--like a burst of day
For which th’ uprooting of an oak makes way;
They sweep the colouring mists from off our sight;
They touch with fire thought’s graven page, the roll
Stamp’d with past years--and lo! it shrivels as a scroll!
LXXV.
And this was of such hours! The sudden flow
Of my soul’s tide seem’d whelming me; the glare
Of the red flames, yet rocking to and fro,
Scorch’d up my heart with breathless thirst for air,
And solitude, and freedom. It had been
Well with me then, in some vast desert scene,
To pour my voice out, for the winds to bear
On with them, wildly questioning the sky,
Fiercely the untroubled stars, of man’s dim destiny.
LXXVI.
I would have call’d, adjuring the dark cloud;
To the most ancient heavens I would have said--
“Speak to me! show me truth!”[295]--through night aloud
I would have cried to him, the newly dead,
“Come back! and show me truth!” My spirit seem’d
Gasping for some free burst, its darkness teem’d
With such pent storms of thought! Again I fled,
I fled, a refuge from man’s face to gain,
Scarce conscious when I paused, entering a lonely fane.
LXXVII.
A mighty minster, dim, and proud, and vast!
Silence was round the sleepers whom its floor
Shut in the grave; a shadow of the past,
A memory of the sainted steps that wore
Erewhile its gorgeous pavement, seem’d to brood
Like mist upon the stately solitude;
A halo of sad fame to mantle o’er
Its white sepulchral forms of mail-clad men;
And all was hush’d as night in some deep Alpine glen.
LXXVIII.
More hush’d, far more!--for there the wind sweeps by,
Or the woods tremble to the streams’ loud play;
Here a strange echo made my very sigh
Seem for the place too much a sound of day!
Too much my footsteps broke the moonlight, fading,
Yet arch through arch in one soft flow pervading.
And I stood still: prayer, chant had died away;
Yet past me floated a funereal breath
Of incense. I stood still--as before God and death.
LXXIX.
For thick ye girt me round, ye long departed![296]
Dust--imaged forms--with cross, and shield, and crest;
It seem’d as if your ashes would have started
Had a wild voice burst forth above your rest!
Yet ne’er, perchance, did worshipper of yore
Bear to your thrilling presence what _I_ bore
Of wrath, doubt, anguish, battling in the breast!
I could have pour’d out words, on that pale air,
To make your proud tombs ring. No, no! I could not _there_!
LXXX.
Not midst those aisles, through which a thousand years,
Mutely as clouds, and reverently, had swept;
Not by those shrines, which yet the trace of tears
And kneeling votaries on their marble kept!
Ye were too mighty in your pomp of gloom
And trophied age, O temple, altar, tomb!
And you, ye dead!--for in that faith ye slept,
Whose weight had grown a mountain’s on my heart,
Which could not _there_ be loosed. I turn’d me to depart.
LXXXI.
I turn’d: what glimmer’d faintly on my sight--
Faintly, yet brightening as a wreath of snow
Seen through dissolving haze? The moon, the night,
Had waned, and down pour’d in--gray, shadowy, slow,
Yet dayspring still! A solemn hue it caught,
Piercing the storied windows, darkly fraught
With stoles and draperies of imperial glow;
And, soft and sad, that colouring gleam was thrown
Where, pale, a pictured form above the altar shone.
LXXXII.
_Thy_ form, thou Son of God!--a wrathful deep,
With foam, and cloud, and tempest round Thee spread,
And such a weight of night!--a night, when sleep
From the fierce rocking of the billows fled.
A bark show’d dim beyond Thee, with its mast
Bow’d, and its rent sail shivering to the blast;
But, like a spirit in thy gliding tread,
Thou, as o’er glass, didst walk that stormy sea
Through rushing winds, which left a silent path for Thee.
LXXXIII.
So still thy white robes fell!--no breath of air
Within their long and slumb’rous folds had sway.
So still the waves of parted, shadowy hair
From thy clear brow flow’d droopingly away!
Dark were the heavens above thee, Saviour!--dark
The gulfs, Deliverer! round the straining bark!
But Thou!--o’er all thine aspect and array
Was pour’d one stream of pale, broad, silvery light:
Thou wert the single star of that all-shrouding night!
LXXXIV.
Aid for one sinking! Thy lone brightness gleam’d
On his wild face, just lifted o’er the wave,
With its worn, fearful, _human_ look, that seem’d
To cry, through surge and blast--“I perish--save!”
Not to the winds--not vainly! Thou wert nigh,
Thy hand was stretch’d to fainting agony,
Even in the portals of th’ unquiet grave!
O Thou that art the life! and yet didst bear
Too much of mortal woe to turn from mortal prayer!
LXXXV.
But was it not a thing to rise on death,
With its remember’d light, that face of thine,
Redeemer! dimm’d by this world’s misty breath,
Yet mournfully, mysteriously divine?
Oh! that calm, sorrowful, prophetic eye,
With its dark depths of grief, love, majesty!
And the pale glory of the brow!--a shrine
Where power sat veil’d, yet shedding softly round
What told that _Thou_ couldst be but for a time uncrown’d!
LXXXVI.
And, more than all, the heaven of that sad smile!
The lip of mercy, our immortal trust!
Did not that look, that very look, erewhile
Pour its o’ershadow’d beauty on the dust?
Wert thou not such when earth’s dark cloud hung o’er Thee?--
Surely thou wert! My heart grew hush’d before Thee,
Sinking, with all its passions, as the gust
Sank at thy voice, along its billowy way:
What had I there to do but kneel, and weep, and pray?
LXXXVII.
Amidst the stillness rose my spirit’s cry,
Amidst the dead--“By that full cup of woe,
Press’d from the fruitage of mortality,
Saviour! for Thee--give light! that I may know
If by _thy_ will, in thine all-healing name,
Men cast down human hearts to blighting shame,
And early death; and say, if this be so,
Where, then, is mercy? Whither shall we flee,
So unallied to hope, save by our hold on Thee?
LXXXVIII.
“But didst Thou not, the deep sea brightly treading,
Lift from despair that struggler with the wave?
And wert Thou not, sad tears, yet awful, shedding,
Beheld a weeper at a mortal’s grave?
And is this weight of anguish, which they bind
On life--this searing to the quick of mind,
That but to God its own free path would crave--
This crushing out of hope, and love, and youth,
_Thy_ will, indeed? Give light! that I may know the truth!
LXXXIX.
“For my sick soul is darken’d unto death,
With shadows from the suffering it hath seen;
The strong foundations of mine ancient faith
Sink from beneath me--whereon shall I lean?
Oh! if from thy pure lips was wrung the sigh
Of the dust’s anguish! if like man to die--
And earth round _him_ shuts heavily--hath been
Even to _Thee_ bitter, aid me! guide me! turn
My wild and wandering thoughts back from their starless bourne!”
XC.
And calm’d I rose: but how the while had risen
Morn’s orient sun, dissolving mist and shade!
Could there indeed be wrong, or chain, or prison,
In the bright world such radiance might pervade?
It fill’d the fane, it mantled the pale form
Which rose before me through the pictured storm,
Even the gray tombs it kindled, and array’d
With life!--How hard to see thy race begun,
And think man wakes to grief, wakening to _thee_, O Sun!
XCI.
I sought my home again; and thou, my child,
There at thy play beneath yon ancient pine,
With eyes, whose lightning laughter[297] hath beguiled
A thousand pangs, thence flashing joy to mine;
Thou in thy mother’s arms, a babe, didst meet
My coming with young smiles, which yet, though sweet,
Seem’d on my soul all mournfully to shine,
And ask a happier heritage for thee,
Than but in turn the blight of human hope to see.
XCII.
Now sport, for thou art free! the bright birds chasing,
Whose wings waft star-like gleams from tree to tree;
Or with the fawn, thy swift wood-playmate, racing,
Sport on, my joyous child! for thou art free!
Yes, on that day I took thee to my heart,
And inly vow’d, for thee a better part
To choose; that so thy sunny bursts of glee
Should wake no more dim thoughts of far-seen woe,
But, gladdening fearless eyes, flow on--as now they flow.
XCIII.
Thou hast a rich world round thee--mighty shades
Weaving their gorgeous tracery o’er thy head,
With the light melting through their high arcades
As through a pillar’d cloister’s;[298] but the dead
Sleep not beneath; nor doth the sunbeam pass
To marble shrines through rainbow-tinted glass;
Yet thou, by fount and forest-murmur led
To worship, thou art blest! to thee is shown
Earth in her holy pomp, deck’d for her God alone.
[290] “I recollect hearing a traveller, of poetical temperament,