The Poems of Felicia Hemans

Knelt at her feet, and bathed them with such tears As rain the hoarded agonies of years From the heart’s urn; and with her white lips press’d The ground they trod; then, burying in her vest Her brow’s deep flush, sobb’d out--“O undefiled! I am thy mother--spurn me not, my child!” Isaure had pray’d for that lost mother; wept O’er her stain’d memory, while the happy slept In the hush’d midnight; stood with mournful gaze Before yon picture’s smile of other days, But never breathed in human ear the name Which weigh’d her being to the earth with shame. What marvel if the anguish, the surprise, The dark remembrances, the alter’d guise, Awhile o’erpower’d her? From the weeper’s touch She shrank--’twas but a moment--yet too much For that all-humbled one; its mortal stroke Came down like lightning, and her full heart broke At once in silence. Heavily and prone She sank, while o’er her castle’s threshold stone, Those long fair tresses--_they_ still brightly wore Their early pride, though bound with pearls no more-- Bursting their fillet, in sad beauty roll’d, And swept the dust with coils of wavy gold. Her child bent o’er her--call’d her: ’twas too late-- Dead lay the wanderer at her own proud gate! The joy of courts, the star of knight and bard-- How didst thou fall, O bright-hair’d Ermengarde! THE MOURNER FOR THE BARMECIDES. “O good old man! how well in thee appears The constant service of the antique world! Thou art not for the fashion of these times.” As You Like It. Fallen was the house of Giafar; and its name, The high romantic name of Barmecide, A sound forbidden on its own bright shores, By the swift Tigris’ wave. Stern Haroun’s wrath, Sweeping the mighty with their fame away, Had so pass’d sentence: but man’s chainless heart Hides that within its depths which never yet Th’ oppressor’s thought could reach. ’Twas desolate Where Giafar’s halls, beneath the burning sun, Spread out in ruin lay. The songs had ceased; The lights, the perfumes, and the genii tales Had ceased; the guests were gone. Yet still one voice Was there--the fountain’s; through those Eastern courts, Over the broken marble and the grass, Its low clear music shedding mournfully. And still another voice! An aged man, Yet with a dark and fervent eye beneath His silvery hair, came day by day, and sate On a white column’s fragment; and drew forth, From the forsaken walls and dim arcades, A tone that shook them with its answering thrill, To his deep accents. Many a glorious tale He told that sad yet stately solitude, Pouring his memory’s fulness o’er its gloom, Like waters in the waste; and calling up, By song or high recital of their deeds, Bright solemn shadows of its vanish’d race To people their own halls: with these alone, In all this rich and breathing world, his thoughts Held still unbroken converse. He had been Rear’d in this lordly dwelling, and was now The ivy of its ruins, unto which His fading life seem’d bound. Day roll’d on day, And from that scene the loneliness was fled; For crowds around the gray-hair’d chronicler Met as men meet, within whose anxious hearts Fear with deep feeling strives; till, as a breeze Wanders through forest branches, and is met By one quick sound and shiver of the leaves, The spirit of his passionate lament, As through their stricken souls it pass’d, awoke One echoing murmur. But this might not be Under a despot’s rule, and, summon’d thence, The dreamer stood before the Caliph’s throne: Sentenced to death he stood, and deeply pale, And with his white lips rigidly compress’d; Till, in submissive tones, he ask’d to speak Once more, ere thrust from earth’s fair sunshine forth. Was it to sue for grace? His burning heart Sprang, with a sudden lightning, to his eye, And he was changed!--and thus, in rapid words, Th’ o’ermastering thoughts, more strong than death, found way:-- “And shall I not rejoice to go, when the noble and the brave, With the glory on their brows, are gone before me to the grave? What is there left to look on now, what brightness in the land? I hold in scorn the faded world, that wants their princely band! “My chiefs! my chiefs! the old man comes that in your halls was nursed-- That follow’d you to many a fight, where flash’d your sabres first-- That bore your children in his arms, your name upon his heart:-- Oh! must the music of that name with him from earth depart? “It shall not be! A thousand tongues, though human voice were still, With that high sound the living air triumphantly shall fill; The wind’s free flight shall bear it on as wandering seeds are sown, And the starry midnight whisper it with a deep and thrilling tone. “For it is not as a flower whose scent with the dropping leaves expires, And it is not as a household lamp, that a breath should quench its fires; It is written on our battle-fields with the writing of the sword, It hath left upon our desert-sands a light in blessings pour’d. “The founts, the many gushing founts which to the wild ye gave, Of you, my chiefs! shall sing aloud, as they pour a joyous wave; And the groves, with whose deep lovely gloom ye hung the pilgrim’s way, Shall send from all their sighing leaves your praises on the day. “The very walls your bounty rear’d for the stranger’s homeless head, Shall find a murmur to record your tale, my glorious dead! Though the grass be where ye feasted once, where lute and cittern rung, And the serpent in your palaces lie coil’d amidst its young. “It is enough! Mine eye no more of joy or splendour sees-- I leave your name in lofty faith to the skies and to the breeze! I go, since earth her flower hath lost, to join the bright and fair, And call the grave a kingly house, for ye, my chiefs! are there.” But while the old man sang, a mist of tears O’er Haroun’s eyes had gather’d, and a thought-- Oh! many a sudden and remorseful thought-- Of his youth’s once-loved friends, the martyr’d race, O’erflow’d his softening heart. “Live! live!” he cried, “Thou faithful unto death! Live on, and still Speak of thy lords--they _were_ a princely band!” THE SPANISH CHAPEL.[353] “Weep not for those whom the veil of the tomb, In life’s early morning, hath hid from our eyes, Ere sin threw a veil o’er the spirit’s young bloom, Or earth had profaned what was born for the skies.” Moore. I made a mountain brook my guide Through a wild Spanish glen, And wander’d on its grassy side, Far from the homes of men. It lured me with a singing tone, And many a sunny glance, To a green spot of beauty lone, A haunt for old romance. A dim and deeply bosom’d grove Of many an aged tree, Such as the shadowy violets love, The fawn and forest bee. The darkness of the chestnut-bough There on the waters lay, The bright stream reverently below Check’d its exulting play; And bore a music all subdued, And led a silvery sheen On through the breathing solitude Of that rich leafy scene. For something viewlessly around Of solemn influence dwelt, In the soft gloom and whispery sound, Not to be told, but felt; While, sending forth a quiet gleam Across the wood’s repose, And o’er the twilight of the stream, A lowly chapel rose. A pathway to that still retreat Through many a myrtle wound, And there a sight--how strangely sweet! My steps in wonder bound. For on a brilliant bed of flowers, E’en at the threshold made, As if to sleep through sultry hours, A young fair child was laid. To sleep?--oh! ne’er, on childhood’s eye And silken lashes press’d, Did the warm _living_ slumber lie With such a weight of rest! Yet still a tender crimson glow Its cheeks’ pure marble dyed-- ’Twas but the light’s faint streaming flow Through roses heap’d beside. I stoop’d--the smooth round arm was chill, The soft lips’ breath was fled, And the bright ringlets hung so still-- The lovely child was dead! “Alas!” I cried, “fair faded thing! Thou hast wrung bitter tears, And thou hast left a woe, to cling Round yearning hearts for years!” But then a voice came sweet and low-- I turn’d, and near me sate A woman with a mourner’s brow, Pale, yet not desolate. And in her still, clear, matron face, All solemnly serene, A shadow’d image I could trace Of that young slumberer’s mien. “Stranger! thou pitiest me,” she said With lips that faintly smiled, “As here I watch beside my dead, My fair and precious child. “But know, the time-worn heart may be By pangs in this world riven, Keener than theirs who yield, like me, An angel thus to heaven!” [353] Suggested by a scene beautifully described in the _Recollections of the Peninsula_. THE KAISER’S FEAST. [Louis, Emperor of Germany, having put his brother, the Palsgrave Rodolphus, under the ban of the empire in the twelfth century, that unfortunate prince fled to England, where he died in neglect and poverty. “After his decease, his mother Matilda privately invited his children to return to Germany; and, by her mediation, during a season of festivity, when Louis kept wassail in the castle of Heidelberg, the family of his brother presented themselves before him in the garb of suppliants, imploring pity and forgiveness. To this appeal the victor softened.”--_Miss Benger’s Memoirs of the Queen of Bohemia._] The Kaiser feasted in his hall-- The red wine mantled high; Banners were trembling on the wall To the peals of minstrelsy: And many a gleam and sparkle came From the armour hung around, As it caught the glance of the torch’s flame, Or the hearth with pine-boughs crown’d. Why fell there silence on the chord Beneath the harper’s hand? And suddenly from that rich board, Why rose the wassail band? The strings were hush’d--the knights made way For the queenly mother’s tread, As up the hall, in dark array, Two fair-hair’d boys she led. She led them e’en to the Kaiser’s place, And still before him stood; Till, with strange wonder, o’er his face Flush’d the proud warrior-blood: And “Speak, my mother! speak!” he cried, “Wherefore this mourning vest? And the clinging children by thy side, In weeds of sadness drest?” “Well may a mourning vest be mine, And theirs, my son, my son! Look on the features of thy line In each fair little one! Though grief awhile within their eyes Hath tamed the dancing glee, Yet there thine own quick spirit lies-- Thy brother’s children see! “And where is he, thy brother--where? He in thy home that grew, And smiling, with his sunny hair, Ever to greet thee flew? How would his arms thy neck entwine, His fond lips press thy brow! My son! oh, call these orphans thine!-- Thou hast no brother now!