The Poems of Felicia Hemans
Chaplets of all hues, are shed,
In a soft and rosy rain,
Touch’d with many a gem-like stain.
Thou hast gain’d the summit now!
Music hails thee from below;
Music, whose rich notes might stir
Ashes of the sepulchre;
Shaking with victorious notes
All the bright air as it floats.
Well may woman’s heart beat high
Unto that proud harmony!
Now afar it rolls--it dies--
And thy voice is heard to rise
With a low and lovely tone,
In its thrilling power alone;
And thy lyre’s deep silvery string,
Touch’d as by a breeze’s wing,
Murmurs tremblingly at first,
Ere the tide of rapture burst.
All the spirit of thy sky
Now hath lit thy large dark eye,
And thy cheek a flush hath caught
From the joy of kindled thought;
And the burning words of song
From thy lip flow fast and strong,
With a rushing stream’s delight
In the freedom of its might.
Radiant daughter of the sun!
Now thy living wreath is won.
Crown’d of Rome!--oh! art thou not
Happy in that glorious lot?--
Happier, happier far than thou,
With the laurel on thy brow,
She that makes the humblest hearth
Lovely but to one on earth!
[377] “The trebly hundred triumphs.”--Byron.
THE RUIN.
“Oh! ’tis the heart that magnifies this life,
Making a truth and beauty of its own.”
Wordsworth.
“Birth has gladden’d it: death has sanctified it.”
Guesses at Truth.
No dower of storied song is thine,
O desolate abode!
Forth from thy gates no glittering line
Of lance and spear hath flow’d.
Banners of knighthood have not flung
Proud drapery o’er thy walls,
Nor bugle-notes to battle rung
Through thy resounding halls.
Nor have rich bowers of _pleasaunce_ here
By courtly hands been dress’d,
For princes, from the chase of deer,
Under green leaves to rest:
Only some rose, yet lingering bright
Beside thy casements lone,
Tells where the spirit of delight
Hath dwelt, and now is gone.
Yet minstrel-tale of harp and sword,
And sovereign beauty’s lot,
House of quench’d light and silent board!
For me thou needest not.
It is enough to know that _here_,
Where thoughtfully I stand,
Sorrow and love, and hope and fear,
Have link’d one kindred band.
Thou bindest me with mighty spells!
--A solemnising breath,
A presence all around thee dwells
Of human life and death.
I need but pluck yon garden flower
From where the wild weeds rise,
To wake, with strange and sudden power,
A thousand sympathies.
Thou hast heard many sounds, thou hearth!
Deserted now by all!
Voices at eve here met in mirth
Which eve may ne’er recall.
Youth’s buoyant step, and woman’s tone,
And childhood’s laughing glee,
And song and prayer, have all been known,
Hearth of the dead! to thee.
Thou hast heard blessings fondly pour’d
Upon the infant head,
As if in every fervent word
The living soul were shed;
Thou hast seen partings, such as bear
The bloom from life away--
Alas! for love in changeful air,
Where naught beloved can stay!
Here, by the restless bed of pain,
The vigil hath been kept,
Till sunrise, bright with hope in vain,
Burst forth on eyes that wept;
Here hath been felt the hush, the gloom,
The breathless influence, shed
Through the dim dwelling, from the room
Wherein reposed the dead.
The seat left void, the missing face,
Have here been mark’d and mourn’d,
And time hath fill’d the vacant place,
And gladness hath return’d;
Till from the narrowing household chain
The links dropp’d one by one!
And homewards hither, o’er the main,
Came the spring-birds alone.
Is there not cause, then--cause for thought,
Fix’d eye and lingering tread,
Where, with their thousand mysteries fraught,
Even lowliest hearts have bled?
Where, in its ever-haunting thirst
For draughts of purer day,
Man’s soul, with fitful strength, hath burst
The clouds that wrapt its way?
Holy to human nature seems
The long-forsaken spot--
To deep affections, tender dreams,
Hopes of a brighter lot!
Therefore in silent reverence here,
Hearth of the dead! I stand,
Where joy and sorrow, smile and tear,
Have link’d one household band.
THE MINSTER.
Speak low! The place is holy to the breath
Of awful harmonies, of whisper’d prayer:
Tread lightly!--for the sanctity of death
Broods with a voiceless influence on the air,
Stern, yet serene!--a reconciling spell,
Each troubled billow of the soul to quell.
Leave me to linger silently awhile!
--Not for the light that pours its fervid streams
Of rainbow glory down through arch and aisle,
Kindling old banners into haughty gleams,
Flushing proud shrines, or by some warrior’s tomb
Dying away in clouds of gorgeous gloom:
Not for rich music, though in triumph pealing,
Mighty as forest-sounds when winds are high;
Nor yet for torch, and cross, and stole, revealing
Through incense-mists their sainted pageantry,--
Though o’er the spirit each hath charm and power,
Yet not for _these_ I ask one lingering hour.
But by strong sympathies, whose silver cord
Links me to mortal weal, my soul is bound;
Thoughts of the human hearts, that here have pour’d
Their anguish forth, are with me and around;
I look back on the pangs, the burning tears,
Known to these altars of a thousand years.
Send up a murmur from the dust, Remorse!
That here hast bow’d with ashes on thy head;
And thou, still battling with the tempest’s force--
Thou, whose bright spirit through all time has bled--
Speak, wounded Love! if penance here, or prayer,
Hath laid one haunting shadow of despair?
No voice, no breath!--of conflicts past, no trace!
--Doth not this hush give answer to my quest?
Surely the dread religion of the place
By every grief hath made its might confest!--
Oh! that within my heart I could but keep
Holy to heaven, a spot thus pure, and still, and deep!
THE SONG OF NIGHT.[378]
“O night,
And storm, and darkness! ye are wondrous strong,
Yet lovely in your strength!” Byron.
I come to thee, O Earth!
With all my gifts!--for every flower sweet dew
In bell, and urn, and chalice, to renew
The glory of its birth.
Not one which glimmering lies
Far amidst folding hills, or forest leaves,
But, through its veins of beauty, so receives
A spirit of fresh dyes.
I come with every star;
Making thy streams, that on their noon-day track,
Give but the moss, the reed, the lily back,
Mirrors of worlds afar.
I come with peace,--I shed
Sleep through thy wood-walks, o’er the honey-bee,
The lark’s triumphant voice, the fawn’s young glee,
The hyacinth’s meek head.
On my own heart I lay
The weary babe; and sealing with a breath
Its eyes of love, send fairy dreams, beneath
The shadowing lids to play.
I come with mightier things!
Who calls me silent? I have many tones--
The dark skies thrill with low mysterious moans,
Borne on my sweeping wings.
I waft them not alone
From the deep organ of the forest shades,
Or buried streams, unheard amidst their glades
Till the bright day is done;
But in the human breast
A thousand still small voices I awake,
Strong, in their sweetness, from the soul to shake
The mantle of its rest.
I bring them from the past:
From true hearts broken, gentle spirits torn,
From crush’d affections, which, though long o’erborne,
Make their tones heard at last.
I bring them from the tomb:
O’er the sad couch of late repentant love
They pass--though low as murmurs of a dove--
Like trumpets through the gloom.
I come with all my train:
Who calls me lonely? Hosts around me tread,
The intensely bright, the beautiful, the dead--
Phantoms of heart and brain!
Looks from departed eyes,
These are my lightnings!--fill’d with anguish vain,
Or tenderness too piercing to sustain,
They smite with agonies.
I, that with soft control,
Shut the dim violet, hush the woodland song,
I am the avenging one!--the arm’d, the strong--
The searcher of the soul!
I, that shower dewy light
Through slumbering leaves, bring storms--the tempest birth
Of memory, thought, remorse! Be holy, Earth!
I am the solemn Night![379]
[The howling of the wind at night had a very peculiar effect on her
nerves--nothing in the least approaching to the sensation of fear,
as few were more exempt from that class of alarms usually called
nervous; but working upon her imagination to a degree which was
always succeeded by a reaction of fatigue and exhaustion. The solemn
influences thus mysteriously exercised are alluded to in many of her
poems, particularly “The Song of the Night,” and “The Voice of the
Wind.”--_Memoir_, p. 84.]
[378] Suggested by Thorwaldsen’s bas-relief of Night, represented under
the form of a winged female figure, with two infants asleep in her arms.
[379] Pietro Mulier, called Il Tempesta, from his surprising pictures
of storms. “His compositions,” says Lanzi, “inspire a real horror,
presenting to our eyes death-devoted ships overtaken by tempests and
darkness--fired by lightning--now rising on the mountain-wave, and
again submerged in the abyss of ocean.” During an imprisonment of
five years in Genoa, the pictures which he painted in his dungeon
were marked by additional power and gloom.--See Lanzi’s _History of
Painting_, translated by Roscoe.
THE STORM-PAINTER IN HIS DUNGEON.
“Where of ye, O tempests, is the goal?
Are ye like those that shake the human breast?
Or do ye find at length, like eagles, some high nest?”
Childe Harold.
Midnight, and silence deep!
--The air is fill’d with sleep,
With the stream’s whisper, and the citron’s breath;
The fix’d and solemn stars
Gleam through my dungeon-bars--
Wake, rushing winds! this breezeless calm is death!
Ye watch-fires of the skies!
The stillness of your eyes
Looks too intensely through my troubled soul;
I feel this weight of rest
An earth-load on my breast--
Wake, rushing winds, awake! and, dark clouds, roll!
I am your own, _your_ child,
O ye, the fierce, and wild,
And kingly tempests!--will ye not arise?
Hear the bold spirit’s voice,
That knows not to rejoice
But in the peal of your strong harmonies.
By sounding ocean-waves,
And dim Calabrian caves,
And flashing torrents, I have been your mate;
And with the rocking pines
Of the olden Apennines,
In your dark path stood fearless and elate.
Your lightnings were as rods,
That smote the deep abodes
Of thought and vision--and the stream gush’d free;
Come! that my soul again