The Poems of Felicia Hemans

The sounds and dreams of other days With memory lay at rest; No other smile to thee could bring A gladdening, like the breath of spring. Yet, while thy place of weeping still Its lone memorial keeps, While on thy name, midst wood and hill, The quiet sunshine sleeps, And touches, in each graven line, Of reverential thought a sign; Can I, while yet these tokens wear The impress of the dead, Think of the love embodied there As of a vision fled? A perish’d thing, the joy and flower And glory of one earthly hour? Not so!--I will not bow me so To thoughts that breathe despair! A loftier faith we need below, Life’s farewell words to bear. Mother and child!--your tears are past-- Surely your hearts have met at last. THE GRAVE OF A POETESS.[352] I stood beside thy lowly grave; Spring odours breathed around, And music, in the river wave, Pass’d with a lulling sound. All happy things that love the sun In the bright air glanced by, And a glad murmur seem’d to run Through the soft azure sky. Fresh leaves were on the ivy bough That fringed the ruins near; Young voices were abroad--but thou Their sweetness couldst not hear. And mournful grew my heart for thee! Thou in whose woman’s mind The ray that brightens earth and sea, The light of song, was shrined. Mournful, that thou wert slumbering low, With a dread curtain drawn Between thee and the golden glow Of this world’s vernal dawn. Parted from all the song and bloom Thou wouldst have loved so well, To thee the sunshine round thy tomb Was but a broken spell. The bird, the insect on the wing, In their bright reckless play, Might feel the flush and life of spring-- And thou wert pass’d away. But then, e’en then, a nobler thought O’er my vain sadness came; Th’ immortal spirit woke, and wrought Within my thrilling frame. Surely on lovelier things, I said, Thou must have look’d ere now, Than all that round our pathway shed Odours and hues below. The shadows of the tomb are here, Yet beautiful is earth! What see’st thou, then, where no dim fear, No haunting dream hath birth? Here a vain love to passing flowers Thou gavest; but where thou art, The sway is not with changeful hours-- _There_ love and death must part. Thou hast left sorrow in thy song, A voice not loud but deep! The glorious bowers of earth among, How often didst thou weep? Where couldst thou fix on mortal ground Thy tender thoughts and high?-- Now peace the woman’s heart hath found, And joy the poet’s eye. [352] “Extrinsic interest has lately attached to the fine scenery of Woodstock, near Kilkenny, on account of its having been the last residence of the author of _Psyche_. Her grave is one of many in the churchyard of the village. The river runs smoothly by. The ruins of an ancient abbey, that have been partially converted into a church, reverently throw their mantle of tender shadow over it.”--_Tales by the O’Hara Family._ MISCELLANEOUS POEMS. THE HOMES OF ENGLAND. “Where’s the coward that would not dare To fight for such a land?” Marmion. The stately homes of England! How beautiful they stand, Amidst their tall ancestral trees, O’er all the pleasant land! The deer across their greensward bound, Through shade and sunny gleam; And the swan glides past them with the sound Of some rejoicing stream. The merry homes of England! Around their hearths by night, What gladsome looks of household love Meet in the ruddy light! There woman’s voice flows forth in song, Or childhood’s tale is told, Or lips move tunefully along Some glorious page of old. The blessed homes of England! How softly on their bowers Is laid the holy quietness That breathes from Sabbath hours! Solemn, yet sweet, the church-bell’s chime Floats through their woods at morn; All other sounds, in that still time, Of breeze and leaf are born. The cottage homes of England! By thousands on her plains, They are smiling o’er the silvery brooks, And round the hamlet fanes. Through glowing orchards forth they peep, Each from its nook of leaves; And fearless there the lowly sleep, As the bird beneath their eaves. The free, fair homes of England! Long, long, in hut and hall, May hearts of native proof be rear’d To guard each hallow’d wall! And green for ever be the groves, And bright the flowery sod, Where first the child’s glad spirit loves Its country and its God! THE SICILIAN CAPTIVE. “I have dreamt thou wert A captive in thy hopelessness; afar From the sweet home of thy young infancy, Whose image unto thee is as a dream Of fire and slaughter; I can see thee wasting, Sick for thy native air.” L. E. L. The champions had come from their fields of war, Over the crests of the billows far; They had brought back the spoils of a hundred shores, Where the deep had foam’d to their flashing oars. They sat at their feast round the Norse king’s board; By the glare of the torch-light the mead was pour’d; The hearth was heap’d with the pine-boughs high, And it flung a red radiance on shields thrown by. The Scalds had chanted in Runic rhyme Their songs of the sword and the olden time; And a solemn thrill, as the harp-chords rung, Had breathed from the walls where the bright spears hung. But the swell was gone from the quivering string, They had summon’d a softer voice to sing; And a captive girl, at the warriors’ call, Stood forth in the midst of that frowning hall. Lonely she stood,--in her mournful eyes Lay the clear midnight of southern skies; And the drooping fringe of their lashes low Half-veil’d a depth of unfathom’d woe. Stately she stood--though her fragile frame Seem’d struck with the blight of some inward flame, And her proud pale brow had a shade of scorn, Under the waves of her dark hair worn. And a deep flush pass’d, like a crimson haze, O’er her marble cheek by the pine-fire’s blaze-- No soft hue caught from the south wind’s breath, But a token of fever at strife with death. She had been torn from her home away, With her long locks crown’d for her bridal-day, And brought to die of the burning dreams That haunt the exile by foreign streams. They bade her sing of her distant land-- She held its lyre with a trembling hand, Till the spirit its blue skies had given her woke, And the stream of her voice into music broke. Faint was the strain, in its first wild flow-- Troubled its murmur, and sad and low; But it swell’d into deeper power ere long, As the breeze that swept o’er her soul grew strong. “They bid me sing of thee, mine own, my sunny land! of thee! Am I not parted from thy shores by the mournful-sounding sea? Doth not thy shadow wrap my soul? In silence let me die, In a voiceless dream of thy silvery founts, and thy pure, deep sapphire sky: How should thy lyre give _here_ its wealth of buried sweetness forth-- Its tones of summer’s breathings born, to the wild winds of the north? “Yet thus it shall be once, once more! My spirit shall awake, And through the mists of death shine out, my country, for thy sake! That I may make _thee_ known, with all the beauty and the light, And the glory never more to bless thy daughter’s yearning sight! Thy woods shall whisper in my song, thy bright streams warble by, Thy soul flow o’er my lips again--yet once, my Sicily! “There are blue heavens--far hence, far hence! but, oh! their glorious blue! Its very night is beautiful with the hyacinth’s deep hue! It is above my own fair land, and round my laughing home, And arching o’er my vintage hills, they hang their cloudless dome; And making all the waves as gems, that melt along the shore, And steeping happy hearts in joy--that now is mine no more. “And there are haunts in that green land--oh! who may dream or tell Of all the shaded loveliness it hides in grot and dell! By fountains flinging rainbow-spray on dark and glossy leaves, And bowers wherein the forest-dove her nest untroubled weaves; The myrtle dwells there, sending round the richness of its breath, And the violets gleam like amethysts from the dewy moss beneath. “And there are floating sounds that fill the skies through night and day-- Sweet sounds! the soul to hear them faints in dreams of heaven away; They wander through the olive woods, and o’er the shining seas-- They mingle with the orange scents that load the sleepy breeze; Lute, voice, and bird are blending there,--it were a bliss to die, As dies a leaf, thy groves among, my flowery Sicily! “_I_ may not thus depart--farewell! Yet no, my country! no! Is not love stronger than the grave? I feel it must be so! My fleeting spirit shall o’ersweep the mountains and the main, And in thy tender starlight rove, and through thy woods again. Its passion deepens--it prevails!--I break my chain--I come To dwell a viewless thing, yet blest--in thy sweet air, my home!” And her pale arms dropp’d the ringing lyre-- There came a mist o’er her eye’s wild fire-- And her dark rich tresses in many a fold, Loosed from their braids, down her bosom roll’d. For her head sank back on the rugged wall-- A silence fell o’er the warriors’ hall; She had pour’d out her soul with her song’s last tone: The lyre was broken, the minstrel gone! IVAN THE CZAR. [“Ivan le Terrible, étant déjà devenu vieux, assiégait Novgorod. Les Boyards, le voyant affoibli, lui demandèrent s’il ne voulait pas donner le commandement de l’assaut à son fils. Sa fureur fut si grande à cette proposition, que rien ne pût l’appaiser; son fils se prosterna à ses pieds; il le repoussa avec un coup d’une telle violence, que deux jours après le malheureux en mourut. Le père, alors au désespoir, devint indifférent à la guerre comme au pouvoir, et ne survécut que peu de mois à son fils.”--_Dix Années d’Exil, par_ Madame de Stael.] “Gieb diesen Todten mir heraus. Ich muss Ihn wieder haben! ... ... Trostlose allmacht, Die nicht einmal in Graber ihren arm Verlangern, eine kleine Ubereilung Mit Menschenleben nicht verbessern kann!” Schiller. He sat in silence on the ground, The old and haughty Czar, Lonely, though princes girt him round, And leaders of the war; He had cast his jewell’d sabre, That many a field had won, To the earth beside his youthful dead-- His fair and first-born son. With a robe of ermine for its bed Was laid that form of clay, Where the light a stormy sunset shed Through the rich tent made way; And a sad and solemn beauty On the pallid face came down, Which the lord of nations mutely watch’d, In the dust, with his renown. Low tones at last, of woe and fear, From his full bosom broke-- A mournful thing it was to hear How then the proud man spoke! The voice that through the combat Had shouted far and high,