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The Poems of Felicia Hemans

Mrs. Hemans

Should have bid violets wave With the white rose. Now must the trumpet’s note, Savage and shrill, For requiem o’er thee float, Thou fair and still! And the swift charger sweep In full career, Trampling thy place of sleep-- Why cam’st thou here? Why? Ask the true heart why Woman hath been Ever where brave men die, Unshrinking seen? Unto this harvest ground Proud reapers came,-- Some, for that stirring sound, A warrior’s name; Some for the stormy play And joy of strife; And some to fling away A weary life;-- But thou, pale sleeper! thou With the slight frame, And the rich locks, whose glow Death cannot tame; Only one thought, one power, _Thee_ could have led, So, through the tempest’s hour, To lift thy head! Only the true, the strong, The love, whose trust Woman’s deep soul too long Pours on the dust! THE DESERTED HOUSE. Gloom is upon thy lonely hearth, O silent house! once fill’d with mirth; Sorrow is in the breezy sound Of thy tall poplars whispering round. The shadow of departed hours Hangs dim upon thine early flowers; Ev’n in thy sunshine seems to brood Something more deep than solitude. Fair art thou, fair to a stranger’s gaze, Mine own sweet home of other days! My children’s birthplace!--yet for me It is too much to look on thee. Too much! for all about thee spread, I feel the memory of the dead, And almost linger for the feet That never more my step shall meet. The looks, the smiles, all vanish’d now, Follow me where thy roses blow; The echoes of kind household-words Are with me midst thy singing-birds. Till my heart dies, it dies away In yearnings for what might not stay; For love which ne’er deceived my trust, For all which went with “dust to dust!” What now is left me, but to raise From thee, lorn spot! my spirit’s gaze, To lift through tears my straining eye Up to my Father’s house on high? Oh! many are the mansions there,[374] But not in one hath grief a share! No haunting shade from things gone by May there o’ersweep th’ unchanging sky. And _they_ are there, whose long-loved mien In earthly home no more is seen; Whose places, where they smiling sate, Are left unto us desolate. We miss them when the board is spread; We miss them when the prayer is said; Upon our dreams their dying eyes In still and mournful fondness rise. But they are where these longings vain Trouble no more the heart and brain; The sadness of this aching love Dims not our Father’s house above. Ye are at rest, and I in tears,[375] Ye dwellers of immortal spheres! Under the poplar boughs I stand, And mourn the broken household band. But, by your life of lowly faith, And by your joyful hope in death, Guide me, till on some brighter shore The sever’d wreath is bound once more! Holy ye were, and good, and true! No change can cloud my thoughts of you; Guide me, like you to live and die, And reach my Father’s house on high! [374] “In my father’s house there are many mansions.”--_John_, chap. xiv. [375] From an ancient Hebrew dirge: “Mourn for the mourner, and not for the dead. For he is at rest, and we in tears!” THE STRANGER’S HEART. The stranger’s heart! Oh, wound it not! A yearning anguish is its lot; In the green shadow of thy tree, The stranger finds no rest with thee. Thou think’st the vine’s low rustling leaves Glad music round thy household eaves; To him that sound hath sorrow’s tone-- The stranger’s heart is with his own. Thou think’st thy children’s laughing play A lovely sight at fall of day; Then are the stranger’s thoughts oppress’d-- His mother’s voice comes o’er his breast. Thou think’st it sweet when friend with friend Beneath one roof in prayer may blend; Then doth the stranger’s eye grow dim-- Far, far are those who pray’d with him. Thy hearth, thy home, thy vintage-land, The voices of thy kindred band-- Oh! midst them all when bless’d thou art, Deal gently with the stranger’s heart! TO A REMEMBERED PICTURE. [She was singularly impressed by the picture at Holyrood House, shown as that of Rizzio. The authenticity of this designation is more than doubtful; but hers was not a mind for question or cavil on points of this nature. The “local habitation and the name” were in themselves sufficient to awaken her fancy, and to satisfy her faith. As Rizzio’s portrait, it took its place in her imagination; and the train of deep and mournful thoughts it suggested, imbued, as was her wont, with the colouring of her own individual feelings, was embodied in the lines “To a Remembered Picture.”--_Memoir_, p. 197-8.] They haunt me still--those calm, pure, holy eyes! Their piercing sweetness wanders through my dreams; The soul of music that within them lies Comes o’er _my_ soul in soft and sudden gleams: Life--spirit-life--immortal and divine-- Is there; and yet how dark a death was thine! Could it--oh! _could_ it be--meek child of song? The might of gentleness on that fair brow-- Was the celestial gift no shield from wrong? Bore it no talisman to ward the blow? Ask if a flower, upon the billows cast, Might brave their strife--a flute-note hush the blast! Are there not deep, sad oracles to read In the clear stillness of that radiant face? Yes! even like thee must gifted spirits bleed, Thrown on a world, for heavenly things no place! Bright, exiled birds that visit alien skies, Pouring on storms their suppliant melodies. And seeking ever some true, gentle breast, Whereon their trembling plumage might repose, And their free song-notes, from that happy nest, Gush as a fount that forth from sunlight flows: Vain dream!--the love whose precious balms might save Still, still denied--they struggle to the grave. Yet my heart shall not sink!--another doom, Victim! hath set its promise in thine eye: A light is there, too quenchless for the tomb, Bright earnest of a nobler destiny; Telling of answers, in some far-off sphere, To the deep souls that find no echo here. COME HOME! Come home! There is a sorrowing breath In music since ye went, And the early flower-scents wander by With mournful memories blent. The tones in every household voice Are grown more sad and deep; And the sweet word--_brother_--wakes a wish To turn aside and weep. O ye beloved! come home! The hour Of many a greeting tone, The time of hearth-light and of song Returns--and ye are gone! And darkly, heavily it falls On the forsaken room, Burdening the heart with tenderness, That deepens midst the gloom. Where finds it _you_, ye wandering ones! With all your boyhood’s glee Untamed? Beneath the desert’s palm, Or on the lone mid-sea? By stormy hills of battles old? Or where dark rivers foam?-- Oh! life is dim where ye are not-- Back, ye beloved, come home! Come with the leaves and winds of spring, And swift birds, o’er the main! Our love is grown too sorrowful-- Bring us its youth again! Bring the glad tones to music back! Still, still your home is fair, The spirit of your sunny life Alone is wanting there! THE FOUNTAIN OF OBLIVION. “Implora pace!”[376] One draught, kind fairy! from that fountain deep, To lay the phantoms of a haunted breast; And lone affections, which are griefs, to steep In the cool honey-dews of dreamless rest; And from the soul the lightning-marks to lave-- One draught of that sweet wave! Yet, mortal! pause! Within thy mind is laid Wealth, gather’d long and slowly; thoughts divine Heap that full treasure-house; and thou hast made The gems of many a spirit’s ocean thine;-- Shall the dark waters to oblivion bear A pyramid so fair? Pour from the fount! and let the draught efface All the vain lore by memory’s pride amass’d, So it but sweep along the torrent’s trace, And fill the hollow channels of the past; And from the bosom’s inmost folded leaf, Rase the one master-grief! Yet pause once more! All, _all_ thy soul hath known, Loved, felt, rejoiced in, from its grasp must fade! Is there no voice whose kind, awakening tone A sense of spring-time in thy heart hath made? No eye whose glance thy daydreams would recall? --Think--wouldst thou part with all? Fill with forgetfulness! There are, there _are_ Voices whose music I have loved too well-- Eyes of deep gentleness; but they are far-- Never! oh never, in my home to dwell! Take their soft looks from off my yearning soul-- Fill high th’ oblivious bowl! Yet pause again! With memory wilt thou cast The undying hope away, of memory born? Hope of reunion, heart to heart at last, No restless doubt between, no rankling thorn? Wouldst thou erase all records of delight That make such visions bright? Fill with forgetfulness, fill high!----Yet stay-- Tis from the past we shadow forth the land Where smiles, long lost, again shall light our way, And the soul’s friends be wreath’d in one bright band. Pour the sweet waters back on their own rill-- I _must_ remember still. For their sake, for the dead--whose image naught May dim within the temple of my breast-- For their love’s sake, which now no earthly thought May shake or trouble with its own unrest, Though the past haunt me as a spirit--yet I ask not to forget. [376] Quoted from a letter of Lord Byron’s. He describes the impression produced upon him by some tombs at Bologna, bearing this simple inscription, and adds, “When I die, I could wish that some friend would see these words, and no other, placed above my grave,--‘_Implora pace!_’” [“The ‘Songs of the Affections’ were published in the summer of 1830. This collection of lyrics has been, perhaps, less popular than other of Mrs Hemans’s later works. It was hardly, indeed, to be expected that the principal poem, ‘A Spirit’s Return,’ the origin and subject of which we have already described, should appeal to the feelings of so large a circle as had borne witness to the truth of the tales of actual life and sacrifice and suffering contained in the ‘Records of Woman.’ But there are parts of the poem solemnly and impressively powerful. The passages in which the speaker describes her youth--the disposition born with her to take pleasure in spiritual contemplations, and to listen to that voice in nature which speaks of another state of being beyond this visible world--prepare us most naturally for the agony of her desire--when he, in whom she had devotedly embarked all her earthly hopes and affections-- ‘----till the world held naught Save the one being to my centred thought,’ was taken away from her for ever--to see him, if but for a moment--to speak with him only once again! * * * * * As the crisis of interest approaches, the variety given by alternate