The Poems of Felicia Hemans
The mounds arise where heroes died;
But show me, on thy flowery breast,
Earth! where thy _nameless_ martyrs rest!
The thousands that, uncheer’d by praise,
Have made one offering of their days;
For Truth, for Heaven, for Freedom’s sake,
Resign’d the bitter cup to take;
And silently, in fearless faith,
Bowing their noble souls to death.
Where sleep they, Earth? By no proud stone
Their narrow couch of rest is known;
The still sad glory of their name
Hallows no fountain unto Fame;
No--not a tree the record bears
Of their deep thoughts and lonely prayers.
Yet haply all around lie strew’d
The ashes of that multitude:
It may be that each day we tread
Where thus devoted hearts have bled;
And the young flowers our children sow,
Take root in holy dust below.
Oh, that the many-rustling leaves,
Which round our homes the summer weaves,
Or that the streams, in whose glad voice
Our own familiar paths rejoice,
Might whisper through the starry sky,
To tell where those blest slumberers lie!
Would not our inmost hearts be still’d,
With knowledge of their presence fill’d,
And by its breathings taught to prize
The meekness of self-sacrifice?
--But the old woods and sounding waves
Are silent of those hidden graves.
Yet what if no light footstep there
In pilgrim-love and awe repair,
So let it be! Like him, whose clay
Deep buried by his Maker lay,
They sleep in secret,--but their sod,
Unknown to man, is mark’d of God!
THE HOUR OF PRAYER.
“Pregar, pregar, pregar,
Ch’ altro ponno i mortali al pianger nati?” Alfieri.
Child, amidst the flowers at play,
While the red light fades away;
Mother, with thine earnest eye
Ever following silently;
Father, by the breeze of eve
Call’d thy harvest-work to leave--
Pray: ere yet the dark hours be,
Lift the heart and bend the knee!
Traveller, in the stranger’s land,
Far from thine own household band;
Mourner, haunted by the tone
Of a voice from this world gone;
Captive, in whose narrow cell
Sunshine hath not leave to dwell;
Sailor on the darkening sea--
Lift the heart and bend the knee!
Warrior, that from battle won
Breathest now at set of sun;
Woman, o’er the lowly slain
Weeping on his burial-plain;
Ye that triumph, ye that sigh,
Kindred by one holy tie,
Heaven’s first star alike ye see--
Lift the heart and bend the knee!
THE VOICE OF HOME TO THE PRODIGAL.
“Von Baumen, aus Wellen, aus Mauern,
Wie ruft es dir freundlich und lind;
Was hast du zu wandern, zu trauern?
Komm’ spielen, du freundliches Kind!”
La Motte Fouque.
Oh! when wilt thou return
To thy spirit’s early loves?
To the freshness of the morn,
To the stillness of the groves?
The summer birds are calling
Thy household porch around,
And the merry waters falling
With sweet laughter in their sound.
And a thousand bright-vein’d flowers,
From their banks of moss and fern,
Breathe of the sunny hours--
But when wilt thou return?
Oh! thou hast wander’d long
From thy home without a guide;
And thy native woodland song
In thine alter’d heart hath died.
Thou hast flung the wealth away,
And the glory of thy spring;
And to thee the leaves’ light play
Is a long-forgotten thing.
But when wilt thou return?--
Sweet dews may freshen soon
The flower, within whose urn
Too fiercely gazed the noon.
O’er the image of the sky,
Which the lake’s clear bosom wore,
Darkly may shadows lie--
But not for evermore.
Give back thy heart again
To the freedom of the woods,
To the birds’ triumphant strain,
To the mountain solitudes!
But when wilt thou return?
Along thine own pure air
There are young sweet voices borne--
Oh! should not thine be there?
Still at thy father’s board
There is kept a place for thee;
And, by thy smile restored,
Joy round the hearth shall be.
Still hath thy mother’s eye,
Thy coming step to greet,
A look of days gone by,
Tender and gravely sweet.
Still, when the prayer is said,
For thee kind bosoms yearn,
For thee fond tears are shed--
Oh! when wilt thou return?
THE WAKENING.
How many thousands are wakening now!
Some to the songs from the forest bough,
To the rustling of leaves at the lattice pane,
To the chiming fall of the early rain.
And some, far out on the deep mid-sea,
To the dash of the waves in their foaming glee,
As they break into spray on the ship’s tall side,
That holds through the tumult her path of pride.
And some--oh, well may _their_ hearts rejoice!--
To the gentle sound of a mother’s voice:
Long shall they yearn for that kindly tone,
When from the board and the hearth ’tis gone.
And some, in the camp, to the bugle’s breath,
And the tramp of the steed on the echoing heath,
And the sudden roar of the hostile gun,
Which tells that a field must ere night be won.
And some, in the gloomy convict cell,
To the dull deep note of the warning bell,
As it heavily calls them forth to die,
When the bright sun mounts in the laughing sky.
And some to the peal of the hunter’s horn,
And some to the din from the city borne,
And some to the rolling of torrent floods,
Far midst old mountains and solemn woods.
So are we roused on this checker’d earth:
Each unto light hath a daily birth;
Though fearful or joyous, though sad or sweet,
Are the voices which first our upspringing meet.
But _one_ must the sound be, and _one_ the call,
Which from the dust shall awaken us all:
One!--but to sever’d and distant dooms,
How shall the sleepers arise from the tombs?
THE BREEZE FROM SHORE.
[“Poetry reveals to us the loveliness of nature, brings back the
freshness of youthful feeling, revives the relish of simple pleasures,
keeps unquenched the enthusiasm which warmed the spring-time of our
being, refines youthful love, strengthens our interest in human
nature, by vivid delineations of its tenderest and loftiest feelings;
and, through the brightness of its prophetic visions, helps faith to
lay hold on the future life.”--Channing.]
Joy is upon the lonely seas,
When Indian forests pour
Forth, to the billow and the breeze,
Their odours from the shore;
Joy, when the soft air’s fanning sigh
Bears on the breath of Araby.
Oh! welcome are the winds that tell
A wanderer of the deep
Where, far away, the jasmines dwell,
And where the myrrh-trees weep!
Blest on the sounding surge and foam
Are tidings of the citron’s home!
The sailor at the helm they meet,
And hope his bosom stirs,
Upspringing, midst the waves, to greet
The fair earth’s messengers,
That woo him, from the moaning main,
Back to her glorious bowers again.
They woo him, whispering lovely tales
Of many a flowering glade,
And fount’s bright gleam, in island vales
Of golden-fruited shade:
Across his lone ship’s wake they bring
A vision and a glow of spring.
And, O ye masters of the lay!
Come not even thus your songs
That meet us on life’s weary way,
Amidst her toiling throngs?
Yes! o’er the spirit thus they bear
A current of celestial air.
Their power is from the brighter clime
That in our birth hath part;
Their tones are of the world, which time
Sears not within the heart:
They tell us of the living light
In its green places ever bright.
They call us, with a voice divine,
Back to our early love,--
Our vows of youth at many a shrine,
Whence far and fast we rove.
Welcome high thought and holy strain
That make us Truth’s and Heaven’s again!
THE DYING IMPROVISATORE.[335]
“My heart shall be pour’d over thee--and break.”
Prophecy of Dante.
The spirit of my land,
It visits me once more!--though I must die
Far from the myrtles which thy breeze hath fann’d,
My own bright Italy!
It is, it is thy breath,
Which stirs my soul e’en yet, as wavering flame
Is shaken by the wind,--in life and death
Still trembling, yet the same!
Oh! that love’s quenchless power
Might waft my voice to fill thy summer sky,
And through thy groves its dying music shower,
Italy! Italy!
The nightingale is there,
The sunbeam’s glow, the citron flower’s perfume,
The south wind’s whisper in the scented air--
It will not pierce the tomb!
Never, oh! never more,
On thy Rome’s purple heaven mine eye shall dwell,
Or watch the bright waves melt along thy shore--
My Italy! farewell!
Alas!--thy hills among
Had I but left a memory of my name,
Of love and grief one deep, true, fervent song,
Unto immortal fame!
But like a lute’s brief tone,
Like a rose-odour on the breezes cast,
Like a swift flush of dayspring, seen and gone,
So hath my spirit pass’d--
Pouring itself away
As a wild bird amidst the foliage turns
That which within him triumphs, beats, or burns,
Into a fleeting lay;
That swells, and floats, and dies,
Leaving no echo to the summer woods
Of the rich breathings and impassion’d sighs
Which thrill’d their solitudes.
Yet, yet remember me!
Friends! that upon its murmurs oft have hung,
When from my bosom, joyously and free,
The fiery fountain sprung.
Under the dark rich blue
Of midnight heavens, and on the star-lit sea,
And when woods kindle into spring’s first hue,
Sweet friends! remember me!
And in the marble halls,
Where life’s full glow the dreams of beauty wear,
And poet-thoughts embodied light the walls,
Let me be with you there!
Fain would I bind, for you,
My memory with all glorious things to dwell!
Fain bid all lovely sounds my name renew--
Sweet friends! bright land! farewell!
[335] Sestini, the Roman Improvisatore, when on his deathbed at
Paris, is said to have poured forth a Farewell to Italy, in his most
impassioned poetry.
MUSIC OF YESTERDAY.
“O! mein Geist, ich fuhle es in mir, strebt nach etwas Ueberirdischem,
das keinem Menschen gegonnt ist.”--Tieck
The chord, the harp’s full chord is hush’d,
The voice hath died away,
Whence music, like sweet waters, gush’d
But yesterday.
Th’ awakening note, the breeze-like swell.
The full o’ersweeping tone,
The sounds that sigh’d “Farewell, farewell!”
Are gone--all gone!
The love, whose fervent spirit pass’d
With the rich measure’s flow;
The grief, to which it sank at last--
Where are they now?
They are with the scents by summer’s breath
Borne from a rose now shed:
With the words from lips long seal’d in death--
For ever fled.
The sea-shell of its native deep
A moaning thrill retains;
But earth and air no record keep
Of parted strains.