The Poems of Felicia Hemans
[At Hindlebank, near Berne, she is represented as bursting from the
sepulchre, with her infant in her arms, at the sound of the last
trumpet. An inscription on the tomb concludes thus:--“Here am I, O
God! with the child whom thou hast given me.”]
How many hopes were borne upon thy bier,
O bride of stricken love! in anguish hither!
Like flowers, the first and fairest of the year,
Pluck’d on the bosom of the dead to wither;
Hopes from their source all holy, though of earth,
All brightly gathering round affection’s hearth.
Of mingled prayer they told; of Sabbath hours;
Of morn’s farewell, and evening’s blessed meeting;
Of childhood’s voice, amidst the household bowers;
And bounding step, and smile of joyous greeting;--
But thou, young mother! to thy gentle heart
Did’st take thy babe, and meekly so depart.
How many hopes have sprung in radiance hence!
Their trace yet lights the dust where thou art sleeping!
A solemn joy comes o’er me, and a sense
Of triumph, blent with nature’s gush of weeping,
As, kindling up the silent stone, I see
The glorious vision, caught by faith, of thee.
Slumberer! love calls thee, for the night is past;
Put on the immortal beauty of thy waking!
Captive! and hear’st thou not the trumpet’s blast,
The long, victorious note, thy bondage breaking?
Thou hear’st, thou answer’st, “God of earth and heaven!
Here am I, with the child whom thou hast given!”
THE EXILE’S DIRGE.
“Fear no more the heat o’ the sun,
Nor the furious winter’s rages;
Thou thy worldly task hast done,
Home art gone and ta’en thy wages.” Cymbeline.
[“I attended a funeral where there were a number of the German
settlers present. After I had performed such service as is usual on
similar occasions, a most venerable-looking old man came forward, and
asked me if I were willing that they should perform some of their
peculiar rites. He opened a very ancient version of Luther’s Hymns,
and they all began to sing, in German, so loud that the woods echoed
the strain. There was something affecting in the singing of these
ancient people, carrying one of their brethren to his last home, and
using the language and rites which they had brought with them over
the sea from the _Vaterland_, a word which often occurred in this
hymn. It was a long, slow, and mournful air, which they sung as they
bore the body along: the words ‘_mein Gott_,’ ‘_mein Bruder_,’ and
‘_Vaterland_,’ died away in distant echoes amongst the woods. I shall
long remember that funeral hymn.”--Flint’s _Recollections of the
Valley of the Mississippi_.]
There went a dirge through the forest’s gloom.
--An exile was borne to a lonely tomb.
“Brother!” (so the chant was sung
In the slumberer’s native tongue,)
“Friend and brother! not for thee
Shall the sound of weeping be:
Long the exile’s woe hath lain
On thy life a withering chain;
Music from thine own blue streams
Wander’d through thy fever-dreams;
Voices from thy country’s vines
Met thee midst the alien pines;
And thy time heart died away,
And thy spirit would not stay.”
So swell’d the chant; and the deep wind’s moan,
Seem’d through the cedars to murmur--“_Gone!_”
“Brother! by the rolling Rhine
Stands the home that once was thine;
Brother! now thy dwelling lies
Where the Indian arrow flies!
He that bless’d thine infant head
Fills a distant greensward bed;
She that heard thy lisping prayer
Slumbers low beside him there;
They that earliest with thee play’d
Rest beneath their own oak-shade,
Far, far hence!--yet sea nor shore
Haply, brother! part ye more;
God hath call’d thee to that band
In the immortal Fatherland!”
“The _Fatherland_!”--with that sweet word
A burst of tears midst the strain was heard.
“Brother! were we there with thee
Rich would many a meeting be!
Many a broken garland bound,
Many a mourn’d and lost one found!
But our task is still to bear,
Still to breathe in changeful air;
Loved and bright things to resign,
As even now this dust of thine;
Yet to hope!--to hope in heaven,
Though flowers fall, and ties be riven--
Yet to pray! and wait the hand
Beckoning to the Fatherland!”
And the requiem died in the forest’s gloom;
They had reach’d the exile’s lonely tomb.
THE DREAMING CHILD.
“Alas! what kind of grief should thy years know?
Thy brow and cheek are smooth as waters be
When no breath troubles them.”
Beaumont and Fletcher.
And is there sadness in _thy_ dreams, my boy?
What should the cloud be made of? Blessed child!
Thy spirit, borne upon a breeze of joy,
All day hath ranged through sunshine clear, yet mild:
And now thou tremblest!--wherefore?--in _thy_ soul
There lies no past, no future. Thou hast heard
No sound of presage from the distance roll,
Thy heart bears traces of no arrowy word.
From thee no love hath gone; thy mind’s young eye
Hath look’d not into death’s, and thence become
A questioner of mute eternity,
A weary searcher for a viewless home:
Nor hath thy sense been quicken’d unto pain
By feverish watching for some step beloved:
Free are thy thoughts, an ever-changeful train,
Glancing like dewdrops, and as lightly moved.
Yet now, on billows of strange passion toss’d,
How art thou wilder’d in the cave of sleep!
My gentle child! midst what dim phantoms lost,
Thus in mysterious anguish dost thou weep?
Awake! they sadden me--those early tears,
First gushings of the strong, dark river’s flow,
That must o’ersweep thy soul with coming years,
Th’ unfathomable flood of human woe!
Awful to watch, even rolling through a dream,
Forcing wild spray-drops but from childhood’s eyes!
Wake, wake! as yet _thy_ life’s transparent stream
Should wear the tinge of none but summer skies.
Come from the shadow of those realms unknown,
Where now thy thoughts dismay’d and darkling rove;
Come to the kindly region all thine own,
The home still bright for thee with guardian love.
Happy, fair child! that yet a mother’s voice
Can win thee back from visionary strife!--
Oh, shall _my_ soul, thus waken’d to rejoice,
Start from the dreamlike wilderness of life?
THE CHARMED PICTURE.
“Oh! that those lips had language! Life hath pass’d
With me but roughly since I saw thee last.”
Cowper.
Thine eyes are charm’d--thine earnest eyes--
Thou image of the dead!
A spell within their sweetness lies,
A virtue thence is shed.
Oft in their meek blue light enshrined
A blessing seems to be,
And sometimes there my wayward mind
A still reproach can see:
And sometimes pity--soft and deep,
And quivering through a tear;
Even as if love in heaven could weep
For grief left drooping here.
And oh, my spirit needs that balm!
Needs it midst fitful mirth!
And in the night-hour’s haunted calm,
And by the lonely hearth.
Look on me _thus_, when hollow praise
Hath made the weary pine
For one true tone of other days,
One glance of love like thine!
Look on me _thus_, when sudden glee
Bears my quick heart along,
On wings that struggle to be free,
As bursts of skylark song.
In vain, in vain!--too soon are felt
The wounds they cannot flee:
Better in childlike tears to melt,
Pouring my soul on thee!
Sweet face, that o’er my childhood shone!
Whence is thy power of change,
Thus ever shadowing back my own,
The rapid and the strange?
Whence are they charm’d--those earnest eyes?
--I know the mystery well!
In mine own trembling bosom lies
The spirit of the spell!
Of Memory, Conscience, Love, ’tis born--
Oh! change no longer, thou!
For ever be the blessing worn
On thy pure thoughtful brow!
PARTING WORDS.
“One struggle more, and I am free.”--Byron.
Leave me! oh, leave me! Unto all below
Thy presence binds me with too deep a spell;
Thou makest those mortal regions, whence I go,
Too mighty in their loveliness. Farewell,
That I may part in peace!
Leave me!--thy footstep, with its lightest sound,
The very shadow of thy waving hair,
Wakes in my soul a feeling too profound,
Too strong for aught that loves and dies, to bear--
Oh! bid the conflict cease!
I hear thy whisper--and the warm tears gush
Into mine eyes, the quick pulse thrills my heart;
Thou bid’st the peace, the reverential hush,
The still submission, from my thoughts depart:
Dear one! this must not be.
The past looks on me from thy mournful eye,
The beauty of our free and vernal days;
Our communings with sea, and hill, and sky--
Oh! take that bright world from my spirit’s gaze!
Thou art all earth to me!
Shut out the sunshine from my dying room,
The jasmine’s breath, the murmur of the bee;
Let not the joy of bird-notes pierce the gloom!
They speak of love, of summer, and of thee,
Too much--and death is here!
Doth our own spring make happy music now,
From the old beech-roots flashing into day?
Are the pure lilies imaged in its flow?
Alas! vain thoughts! that fondly thus can stray
From the dread hour so near!
If I could but draw courage from the light
Of thy clear eye, that ever shone to bless!
--Not now! ’twill not be now!--my aching sight,
Drinks from that fount a flood of tenderness,
Bearing all strength away!
Leave me!--thou com’st between my heart and Heaven;
I would be still, in voiceless prayer to die!--
Why must our souls thus love, and then be riven?
Return! thy parting wakes mine agony!
Oh, yet awhile delay!
THE MESSAGE TO THE DEAD.
Thou’rt passing hence, my brother!
O my earliest friend, farewell!
Thou’rt leaving me, without thy voice,
In a lonely home to dwell;
And from the hills, and from the hearth,
And from the household tree,
With thee departs the lingering mirth,
The brightness goes with thee.[373]
But thou, my friend, my brother!
Thou’rt speeding to the shore
Where the dirge-like tone of parting words
Shall smite the soul no more!
And thou wilt see our holy dead,
The lost on earth and main:
Into the sheaf of kindred hearts,
Thou wilt be bound again!
Tell, then, our friend of boyhood
That yet his name is heard
On the blue mountains, whence his youth
Pass’d like a swift, bright bird.
The light of his exulting brow,
The vision of his glee,
Are on me still--oh! still I trust
That smile again to see.
And tell our fair young sister,
The rose cut down in spring,
That yet my gushing soul is fill’d
With lays she loved to sing.
Her soft deep eyes look through my dreams,
Tender and sadly sweet;--
Tell her my heart within me burns
Once more that gaze to meet.
And tell our white-hair’d father,
That in the paths be trode,
The child he loved, the last on earth,