The Poems of Felicia Hemans
And all the memories, all the dreams,
They woke in floating by;
The tender thoughts, th’ Elysian gleams--
Could these too die?
They died! As on the water’s breast
The ripple melts away,
When the breeze that stirr’d it sinks to rest--
So perish’d they!
Mysterious in their sudden birth,
And mournful in their close,
Passing, and finding not on earth
Aim or repose.
Whence were they?--like the breath of flowers
Why thus to come and go?
A long, long journey must be ours
Ere this we know!
THE FORSAKEN HEARTH.
“Was mir fehlt?--Mir fehlt ja alles,
Bin so ganz verlassen hier!”
Tyrolese Melody.
The Hearth, the Hearth is desolate! the fire is quench’d and gone
That into happy children’s eyes once brightly laughing shone;
The place where mirth and music met is hush’d through day and night.
Oh! for one kind, one sunny face, of all that there made light!
But scatter’d are those pleasant smiles afar by mount and shore,
Like gleaming waters from one spring dispersed to meet no more.
Those kindred eyes reflect not now each other’s joy or mirth,
Unbound is that sweet wreath of home--alas! the lonely hearth!
The voices that have mingled here now speak another tongue,
Or breathe, perchance, to alien ears the songs their mother sung.
Sad, strangely sad, in stranger lands, must sound each household
tone:
The hearth, the hearth is desolate! the bright fire quench’d and
gone!
But _are_ they speaking, singing yet, as in their days of glee?
Those voices, are they lovely still, still sweet on earth or sea?
Oh! some are hush’d, and some are changed, and never shall one
strain
Blend their fraternal cadences triumphantly again.
And of the hearts that here were link’d by long-remember’d years,
Alas! the brother knows not now when fall the sister’s tears!
One haply revels at the feast, while one may droop alone:
For broken is the household chain, the bright fire quench’d and
gone!
Not so--’tis _not_ a broken chain: thy memory binds them still,
Thou holy hearth of other days! though silent now and chill.
The smiles, the tears, the rites, beheld by thine attesting stone,
Have yet a living power to mark thy children for thine own.
The father’s voice, the mother’s prayer, though call’d from earth
away,
With music rising from the dead, their spirits yet shall sway;
And by the past, and by the grave, the parted yet are one,
Though the loved hearth be desolate, the bright fire quench’d and
gone!
THE DREAMER.
“There is no such thing as forgetting, possible to the mind; a
thousand accidents may, and will, interpose a veil between our present
consciousness and the secret inscription on the mind; but alike,
whether veiled or unveiled, the inscription remains for ever.”
English Opium-Eater.
“Thou hast been call’d, O sleep! the friend of woe,
But ’tis the happy who have call’d thee so.” Southey.
Peace to thy dreams! thou art slumbering now--
The moonlight’s calm is upon thy brow;
All the deep love that o’erflows thy breast
Lies midst the hush of thy heart at rest--
Like the scent of a flower in its folded bell,
When eve through the woodlands hath sigh’d farewell.
Peace! The sad memories that through the day
With a weight on thy lonely bosom lay,
The sudden thoughts of the changed and dead,
That bow’d thee as winds bow the willow’s head,
The yearnings for faces and voices gone--
All are forgotten! Sleep on, sleep on!
_Are_ they forgotten? It is not so!
Slumber divides not the heart from its woe.
E’en now o’er thine aspect swift changes pass,
Like lights and shades over wavy grass:
Tremblest thou, Dreamer? O love and grief!
Ye have storms that shake e’en the closed-up leaf!
On thy parted lips there’s a quivering thrill,
As on a lyre ere its chords are still;
On the long silk lashes that fringe thine eye,
There’s a large tear gathering heavily--
A rain from the clouds of thy spirit press’d:
Sorrowful Dreamer! this is not rest!
It is Thought at work amidst buried hours--
It is Love keeping vigil o’er perish’d flowers.
--Oh, we bear within us mysterious things!
Of Memory and Anguish, unfathom’d springs;
And Passion--those gulfs of the heart to fill
With bitter waves, which it ne’er may still.
Well might we pause ere we gave them sway,
Flinging the peace of our couch away!
Well might we look on our souls in fear--
They find no fount of oblivion here!
They forget not, the mantle of sleep beneath--
How know we if under the wings of death?
THE WINGS OF THE DOVE.
“Oh, that I had wings like a dove, for then would I fly away and be at
rest.”--Psalm lv.
Oh, for thy wings, thou dove!
Now sailing by with sunshine on thy breast;
That, borne like thee above,
I too might flee away, and be at rest!
Where wilt thou fold those plumes,
Bird of the forest-shadows, holiest bird?
In what rich leafy glooms,
By the sweet voice of hidden waters stirr’d?
Over what blessed home,
What roof with dark, deep summer foliage crown’d,
O fair as ocean’s foam!
Shall thy bright bosom shed a gleam around?
Or seek’st thou some old shrine
Of nymph or saint, no more by votary woo’d,
Though still, as if divine,
Breathing a spirit o’er the solitude?
Yet wherefore ask thy way?
Blest, ever blest, whate’er its aim, thou art!
Unto the greenwood spray,
Bearing no dark remembrance at thy heart!
No echoes that will blend
A sadness with the whispers of the grove;
No memory of a friend
Far off, or dead, or changed to thee, thou dove!
Oh! to some cool recess
Take, take me with thee on the summer wind,
Leaving the weariness
And all the fever of this life behind:
The aching and the void
Within the heart, whereunto none reply,
The young bright hopes destroy’d--
Bird! bear me with thee through the sunny sky!
Wild wish, and longing vain,
And brief upspringing to be glad and free!
Go to thy woodland reign:
My soul is bound and held--I may not flee.
For even by all the fears
And thoughts that haunt my dreams--untold, unknown,
And burning woman’s tears,
Pour’d from mine eyes in silence and alone;
_Had_ I thy wings, thou dove!
High midst the gorgeous isles of cloud to soar,
Soon the strong cords of love
Would draw me earthwards--homewards--yet once more.
PSYCHE BORNE BY ZEPHYRS TO THE ISLAND OF PLEASURE.[336]
“Souvent l’ame, fortifiée par la contemplation des choses divines,
voudroit déployer ses ailes vers le ciel. Elle croit qu’au terme de
sa carrière un rideau va se lever pour lui découvrir des scènes de
lumière: mais quand la mort touche son corps périssable, elle jette un
regard en arrière vers les plaisirs terrestres et vers ses compagnes
mortelles.”
Schlegel, translated by Madame de Stael.
Fearfully and mournfully
Thou bidd’st the earth farewell;
And yet thou’rt passing, loveliest one!
In a brighter land to dwell.
Ascend, ascend rejoicing!
The sunshine of that shore
Around thee, as a glorious robe,
Shall stream for evermore.
The breezy music wandering
There through th’ Elysian sky,
Hath no deep tone that seems to float
From a happier time gone by.
And there the day’s last crimson
Gives no sad memories birth,
No thought of dead or distant friends,
Or partings--as on earth.
Yet fearfully and mournfully
Thou bidd’st that earth farewell,
Although thou’rt passing, loveliest one!
In a brighter land to dwell.
A land where all is deathless--
The sunny wave’s repose,
The wood with its rich melodies,
The summer and its rose:
A land that sees no parting,
That hears no sound of sighs,
That waits thee with immortal air--
Lift, lift those anxious eyes!
Oh! how like _thee_, thou trembler!
Man’s spirit fondly clings
With timid love, to this, its world
Of old familiar things!
We pant, we thirst for fountains
That gush not here below!
On, on we toil, allured by dreams
Of the living water’s flow:
We pine for kindred natures
To mingle with our own;
For communings more full and high
Than aught by mortal known:
We strive with brief aspirings
Against our bonds in vain;
Yet summon’d to be free at last,
We shrink--and clasp our chain;
And fearfully and mournfully
We bid the earth farewell,
Though passing from its mists, like thee,
In a brighter world to dwell.
[336] Written for a picture in which Psyche, on her flight upwards, is
represented looking back sadly and anxiously to the earth.
THE BOON OF MEMORY.
“Many things answered me.”--Manfred.
I go, I go!--and must mine image fade
From the green spots wherein my childhood play’d,
By my own streams?
Must my life part from each familiar place,
As a bird’s song, that leaves the woods no trace
Of its lone themes?
Will the friend pass my dwelling, and forget
The welcomes there, the hours when we have met
In grief or glee?
All the sweet counsel, the communion high,
The kindly words of trust, in days gone by,
Pour’d full and free?
A boon, a talisman, O Memory! give,
To shrine my name in hearts where I would live
For evermore!
Bid the wind speak of me where I have dwelt,
Bid the stream’s voice, of all my soul hath felt,
A thought restore!
In the rich rose, whose bloom I loved so well,
In the dim brooding violet of the dell,
Set deep that thought;
And let the sunset’s melancholy glow,
And let the spring’s first whisper, faint and low,
With me be fraught!
And Memory answer’d me:--“Wild wish, and vain!
I have no hues the loveliest to detain
In the heart’s core.
The place they held in bosoms all their own,
Soon with new shadows fill’d, new flowers o’ergrown,
Is theirs no more.”
Hast _thou_ such power, O Love? And Love replied:
--“It is not mine! Pour out thy soul’s full tide
Of hope and trust,
Prayer, tear, devotedness, that boon to gain--
’Tis but to write, with the heart’s fiery rain,
Wild words on dust!”
Song, is the gift with thee? I ask a lay,
Soft, fervent, deep, that will not pass away
From the still breast;
Fill’d with a tone--oh! not for deathless fame,
But a sweet haunting murmur of my name,
Where it would rest.
And Song made answer--“It is not in me,
Though call’d immortal; though my gifts may be
All but divine.
A place of lonely brightness I can give:
A changeless one, where thou with Love wouldst live--
This is not mine!”
Death, Death! wilt _thou_ the restless wish fulfil?
And Death, the Strong One, spoke:--“I can but still
Each vain regret.
What if forgotten?--All thy soul would crave,
Thou, too, within the mantle of the grave,
Wilt soon forget.”
Then did my heart in lone faint sadness die,