The Poems of Felicia Hemans
expressing the kind of horror which he felt on beholding, on the banks
of the Missouri, an oak of prodigious size, which had been in a manner
overpowered by an enormous wild-grape vine. The vine had clasped its
huge folds round the trunk, and from thence had wound about every
branch and twig, until the mighty tree had withered in its embrace. It
seemed like Laocoon struggling ineffectually in the hideous coils of
the monster Python.”--_Bracebridge Hall._ Chapter on Forest-Trees.
[291] For a most interesting account of the Spanish Protestants, and
the heroic devotion with which they met the spirit of persecution in
the sixteenth century, see the _Quarterly Review_, No. 57, Art. “Quin’s
Visit to Spain.”
[292] “A priest named Gonzalez had, among other proselytes, gained
over two young females, his sisters, to the Protestant faith. All
three were confined in the dungeons of the Inquisition. The torture,
repeatedly applied, could not draw from them the least evidence against
their religious associates. Every artifice was employed to obtain a
recantation from the two sisters, since the constancy and learning of
Gonzalez precluded all hopes of a theological victory. Their answer,
if not exactly logical, is wonderfully simple and affecting:--‘We will
die in the faith of our brother: he is too wise to be wrong, and too
good to deceive us.’ The three stakes on which they died were near
each other. The priest had been gagged till the moment of lighting up
the wood. The few minutes that he was allowed to speak he employed in
comforting his sisters, with whom he sung the 109th Psalm, till the
flames smothered their voices.”--_Ibid._
[293] The names, not only of the immediate victims of the Inquisition
were devoted to infamy, but those of all their relations were branded
with the same indelible stain, which was likewise to descend as an
inheritance to their latest posterity.
[294] The piles erected for these executions were without the towns,
and the final scene of an Auto da Fe was sometimes, from the length of
the preceding ceremonies, delayed till midnight.
[295] For one of the most powerful and impressive pictures perhaps ever
drawn, of a young mind struggling against habit and superstition in its
first aspirations after truth, see the admirable _Letters from Spain by
Don Leucadio Doblado_.
[296] “You walk from end to end over a floor of tombstones, inlaid
in brass with the forms of the departed, mitres, and crosiers, and
spears, and shields, and helmets, all mingled together--all worn into
glass-like smoothness by the feet and the knees of long-departed
worshippers. Around, on every side, each in their separate chapel,
sleep undisturbed from age to age the venerable ashes of the holiest
or the loftiest that of old came thither to worship--their images
and their dying prayers sculptured among the resting-places of their
remains.”--From a beautiful description of ancient Spanish Cathedrals,
in _Peter’s Letters to his Kinsfolk_.
[297] “El’ _lampeggiar_ de l’angelico riso.”--Petrarch.
[298] “Sometimes their discourse was held in the deep shades of
moss-grown forests, whose gloom and interlaced boughs first suggested
that Gothic architecture beneath whose pointed arches, where they had
studied and prayed, the parti-coloured windows shed a tinged light;
scenes which the gleams of sunshine, penetrating the deep foliage, and
flickering on the variegated turf below, might have recalled to their
memory.”--Webster’s Oration on the Landing of the Pilgrim Fathers in
New England.--See Hodgson’s _Letters from North America_, vol. ii. p.
305.
PART II.
Wie diese treue liebe seele
Von ihrem Glauben Voll,
Der ganz allein
Ihr selig machend ist, sich heilig quale,
Das sie den liebsten Mann verloren halten soll.--Faust.
I never shall smile more--but all my days
Walk with still footsteps and with humble eyes,
An everlasting hymn within my soul.--Wilson.
I.
Bring me the sounding of the torrent-water,
With yet a nearer swell! Fresh breeze, awake![299]
And river, darkening ne’er with hues of slaughter
Thy wave’s pure silvery green,--and shining lake,
Spread far before my cabin, with thy zone
Of ancient woods, ye chainless things and lone!
Send voices through the forest aisles, and make
Glad music round me, that my soul may dare,
Cheer’d by such tones, to look back on a dungeon’s air!
II.
O Indian hunter of the desert’s race!
That with the spear at times, or bended bow,
Dost cross my footsteps in thy fiery chase
Of the swift elk or blue hill’s flying roe;
Thou that beside the red night-fire thou heapest,
Beneath the cedars and the starlight sleepest,
Thou know’st not, wanderer--never may’st thou know!--
Of the dark holds wherewith man cumbers earth,
To shut from human eyes the dancing seasons’ mirth.
III.
There, fetter’d down from day, to think the while
How bright in heaven the festal sun is glowing,
Making earth’s loneliest places, with his smile,
Flush like the rose; and how the streams are flowing
With sudden sparkles through the shadowy grass,
And water-flowers, all trembling as they pass;
And how the rich, dark summer trees are bowing
With their full foliage: this to know, and pine
Bound unto midnight’s heart, seems a stern lot--’twas mine!
IV.
Wherefore was this? Because my soul had drawn
Light from the Book whose words are graved in light!
There, at its well-head, had I found the dawn,
And day, and noon of freedom: but too bright
It shines on that which man to man hath given,
And call’d the truth--the very truth, from heaven!
And therefore seeks he in his brother’s sight
To cast the mote; and therefore strives to bind,
With his strong chains, to earth what is not earth’s--the mind!
V.
It is a weary and a bitter task
Back from the lip the burning word to keep,
And to shut out heaven’s air with falsehood’s mask,
And in the dark urn of the soul to heap
Indignant feelings--making e’en of thought
A buried treasure, which may but be sought
When shadows are abroad--and night--and sleep.
I might not brook it long--and thus was thrown
Into that grave-like cell, to wither there alone.
VI.
And I, a child of danger, whose delights
Were on dark hills and many-sounding seas--
I, that amidst the Cordillera heights
Had given Castilian banners to the breeze,
And the full circle of the rainbow seen
There, on the snows;[300] and in my country been
A mountain wanderer, from the Pyrenees
To the Morena crags--how left I not
Life, or the soul’s life, quench’d on that sepulchral spot?
VII.
Because _Thou_ didst not leave me, O my God!
Thou wert with those that bore the truth of old
Into the deserts from th’ oppressor’s rod,
And made the caverns of the rock their fold;
And in the hidden chambers of the dead,
Our guiding lamp with fire immortal fed;
And met when stars met, by their beams to hold
The free heart’s communing with Thee,--and Thou
Wert in the midst, felt, own’d--the Strengthener then as now!
VIII.
Yet once I sank. Alas! man’s wavering mind!
Wherefore and whence the gusts that o’er it blow?
How they bear with them, floating uncombined,
The shadows of the past, that come and go,
As o’er the deep the old long-buried things
Which a storm’s working to the surface brings!
Is the reed shaken,--and must _we_ be so,
With every wind? So, Father! must we be,
Till we can fix undimm’d our steadfast eyes on Thee.
IX.
Once my soul died within me. What had thrown
That sickness o’er it? Even a passing thought
Of a clear spring, whose side, with flowers o’ergrown,
Fondly and oft my boyish steps had sought!
Perchance the damp roof’s water-drops that fell
Just then, low tinkling through my vaulted cell,
Intensely heard amidst the stillness, caught
Some tone from memory, of the music, welling
Ever with that fresh rill, from its deep rocky dwelling.
X.
But so my spirit’s fever’d longings wrought,
Wakening, it might be, to the faint, sad sound,
That from the darkness of the walls they brought
A loved scene round me, visibly around.[301]
Yes! kindling, spreading, brightening, hue by hue,
Like stars from midnight, through the gloom, it grew,
That haunt of youth, hope, manhood!--till the bound
Of my shut cavern seem’d dissolved, and I
Girt by the solemn hills and burning pomp of sky.
XI.
I look’d--and lo! the clear, broad river flowing
Past the old Moorish ruin on the steep,
The lone tower dark against a heaven all glowing,
Like seas of glass and fire!--I saw the sweep
Of glorious woods far down the mountain side,
And their still shadows in the gleaming tide,
And the red evening on its waves asleep;
And midst the scene--oh! more than all--there smiled
My child’s fair face, and hers, the mother of my child!
XII.
With their soft eyes of love and gladness raised
Up to the flushing sky, as when we stood
Last by that river, and in silence gazed
On the rich world of sunset. But a flood
Of sudden tenderness my soul oppress’d;
And I rush’d forward, with a yearning breast,
To clasp--alas!--a vision! Wave and wood,
And gentle faces, lifted in the light
Of day’s last hectic blush, all melted from my sight.
XIII.
Then darkness!--oh! th’ unutterable gloom
That seem’d as narrowing round me, making less
And less my dungeon, when, with all its bloom,
That bright dream vanish’d from my loneliness!
It floated off, the beautiful! yet left
Such deep thirst in my soul, that thus bereft,
I lay down, sick with passion’s vain excess,
And pray’d to die. How oft would sorrow weep
Her weariness to death, if he might come like sleep!
XIV.
But I was roused--and how? It is no tale,
Even midst _thy_ shades, thou wilderness! to tell.
I would not have my boy’s young cheek made pale,
Nor haunt his sunny rest with what befell
In that drear prison-house. His eye must grow
More dark with thought, more earnest his fair brow,
More high his heart in youthful strength must swell;
So shall it fitly burn when all is told:
Let childhood’s radiant mist the free child yet enfold.
XV.
It is enough that through such heavy hours
As wring us by our fellowship of clay,
I lived, and undegraded. We have powers
To snatch th’ oppressor’s bitter joy away!
Shall the wild Indian for his savage fame
Laugh and expire, and shall not Truth’s high name
Bear up her martyrs with all-conquering sway?
It is enough that torture may be vain:
I had seen Alvar die--the strife was won from Pain.
XVI.
And faint not, heart of man! Though years wane slow,
There have been those that from the deepest caves,
And cells of night, and fastnesses below
The stormy dashing of the ocean waves,
Down, farther down than gold lies hid, have nursed
A quenchless hope, and watch’d their time, and burst
On the bright day, like wakeners from the graves!
I was of such at last!--unchain’d I trode
This green earth, taking back my freedom from my God!
XVII.
That was an hour to send its fadeless trace
Down life’s far-sweeping tide! A dim, wild night,
Like sorrow, hung upon the soft moon’s face,
Yet how my heart leap’d in her blessed light!
The shepherd’s light--the sailor’s on the sea--
The hunter’s homeward from the mountains free,