The Poems of Felicia Hemans
Theirs were no bright varieties of mind,
One image stamp’d the rough, colossal race,
In rugged grandeur frowning o’er mankind,
Stern, and disdainful of each milder grace;
As to the sky some mighty rock may tower,
Whose front can brave the storm, but will not rear the flower.
LV.
Such were thy sons--their life a battle-day!
Their youth one lesson how for thee to die!
Closed is that task, and they have passed away
Like softer beings train’d to aims less high.
Yet bright on earth _their_ fame who proudly fell,
True to their shields, the champions of thy cause,
Whose funeral column bade the stranger tell
How died the brave, obedient to thy laws![36]
O lofty mother of heroic worth,
How couldst thou live to bring a meaner offspring forth?
LVI.
Hadst thou but perish’d with the free, nor known
A second race, when glory’s noon went by,
Then had thy name in single brightness shone
A watchword on the helm of liberty!
Thou shouldst have pass’d with all the light of fame,
And proudly sunk in ruins, not in chains.
But slowly set thy star midst clouds of shame,
And tyrants rose amidst thy falling fanes;
And thou, surrounded by thy warriors’ graves,
Hast drain’d the bitter cup once mingled for thy slaves.
LVII.
Now all is o’er--for thee alike are flown
Freedom’s bright noon and slavery’s twilight cloud;
And in thy fall, as in thy pride, alone,
Deep solitude is round thee as a shroud.
Home of Leonidas! thy halls are low;
From their cold altars have thy Lares fled;
O’er thee, unmark’d, the sunbeams fade or glow,
And wild-flowers wave, unbent by human tread;
And midst thy silence, as the grave’s profound,
A voice, a step, would seem as some unearthly sound.
LVIII.
Taÿgetus still lifts his awful brow
High o’er the mouldering city of the dead,
Sternly sublime; while o’er his robe of snow
Heaven’s floating tints their warm suffusions spread.
And yet his rippling wave Eurotas leads
By tombs and ruins o’er the silent plain;
While, whispering there, his own wild graceful reeds
Rise as of old, when hail’d by classic strain;
There the rose-laurels still in beauty wave,[37]
And a frail shrub survives to bloom o’er Sparta’s grave.
LIX.
Oh, thus it is with man! A tree, a flower,
While nations perish, still renews its race,
And o’er the fallen records of his power
Spreads in wild pomp, or smiles in fairy grace.
The laurel shoots when those have pass’d away,
Once rivals for its crown, the brave, the free;
The rose is flourishing o’er beauty’s clay,
The myrtle blows when love hath ceased to be;
Green waves the bay when song and bard are fled,
And all that round us blooms is blooming o’er the dead.
LX.
And still the olive spreads its foliage round
Morea’s fallen sanctuaries and towers.
Once its green boughs Minerva’s votaries crown’d,
Deem’d a meet offering for celestial powers.
The suppliant’s hand its holy branches bore;[38]
They waved around the Olympic victor’s head;
And, sanctified by many a rite of yore,
Its leaves the Spartan’s honour’d bier o’erspread.
Those rites have vanish’d--but o’er vale and hill
Its fruitful groves arise, revered and hallow’d still.[39]
LXI.
Where now thy shrines, Eleusis! where thy fane
Of fearful visions, mysteries wild and high?
The pomp of rites, the sacrificial train,
The long procession’s awful pageantry?
Quench’d is the torch of Ceres[40]--all around
Decay hath spread the stillness of her reign;
There never more shall choral hymns resound
O’er the hush’d earth and solitary main,
Whose wave from Salamis deserted flows,
To bathe a silent shore of desolate repose.
LXII.
And oh, ye secret and terrific powers!
Dark oracles! in depth of groves that dwelt,
How are they sunk, the altars of your bowers,
Where Superstition trembled as she knelt!
Ye, the unknown, the viewless ones! that made
The elements your voice, the wind and wave;
Spirits! whose influence darken’d many a shade,
Mysterious visitants of fount and cave!
How long your power the awe-struck nations sway’d,
How long earth dreamt of you, and shudderingly obey’d!
LXIII.
And say, what marvel, in those early days,
While yet the light of heaven-born truth was not,
If man around him cast a fearful gaze,
Peopling with shadowy powers each dell and grot?
Awful is nature in her savage forms,
Her solemn voice commanding in its might,
And mystery then was in the rush of storms,
The gloom of woods, the majesty of night;
And mortals heard Fate’s language in the blast,
And rear’d your forest-shrines, ye phantoms of the past!
LXIV.
Then through the foliage not a breeze might sigh
But with prophetic sound--a waving tree,
A meteor flashing o’er the summer sky,
A bird’s wild flight reveal’d the things to be.
All spoke of unseen natures, and convey’d
Their inspiration; still they hover’d round,
Hallow’d the temple, whisper’d through the shade,
Pervaded loneliness, gave soul to sound;
Of them the fount, the forest, murmur’d still,
Their voice was in the stream, their footstep on the hill.
LXV.
Now is the train of Superstition flown!
Unearthly beings walk on earth no more;
The deep wind swells with no portentous tone,
The rustling wood breathes no fatidic lore.
Fled are the phantoms of Livadia’s cave,
There dwell no shadows, but of crag and steep;
Fount of Oblivion! in thy gushing wave,[41]
That murmurs nigh, those powers of terror sleep.
Oh that such dreams alone had fled that clime!
But Greece is changed in all that could be changed by time!
LXVI.
Her skies are those whence many a mighty bard
Caught inspiration, glorious as their beams;
Her hills the same that heroes died to guard,
Her vales, that foster’d Art’s divinest dreams!
But that bright spirit o’er the land that shone,
And all around pervading influence pour’d,
That lent the harp of Æschylus its tone,
And proudly hallow’d Lacedæmon’s sword,
And guided Phidias o’er the yielding stone,
With them its ardours lived--with them its light is flown.
LXVII.
Thebes, Corinth, Argos!--ye renown’d of old,
Where are your chiefs of high romantic name?
How soon the tale of ages may be told!
A page, a verse, records the fall of fame,
The work of centuries. We gaze on you,
O cities! once the glorious and the free,
The lofty tales that charm’d our youth renew,
And wondering ask, if these their scenes could be?
Search for the classic fane, the regal tomb,
And find the mosque alone--a record of their doom!
LXVIII.
How oft hath war his host of spoilers pour’d,
Fair Elis! o’er thy consecrated vales?[42]
There have the sunbeams glanced on spear and sword,
And banners floated on the balmy gales.
Once didst thou smile, secure in sanctitude,
As some enchanted isle mid stormy seas;
On thee no hostile footstep might intrude,
And pastoral sounds alone were on thy breeze.
Forsaken home of peace! that spell is broke:
Thou too hast heard the storm, and bow’d beneath the yoke.
LXIX.
And through Arcadia’s wild and lone retreats
Far other sounds have echo’d than the strain
Of faun and dryad, from their woodland seats,
Or ancient reed of peaceful mountain-swain!
There, though at times Alpheus yet surveys,
On his green banks renew’d, the classic dance,
And nymph-like forms, and wild melodious lays,
Revive the sylvan scenes of old romance;
Yet brooding fear and dark suspicion dwell
Midst Pan’s deserted haunts, by fountain, cave, and dell.
LXX.
But thou, fair Attica! whose rocky bound
All art and nature’s richest gifts enshrined,
Thou little sphere, whose soul-illumined round
Concentrated each sunbeam of the mind;
Who, as the summit of some Alpine height
Glows earliest, latest, with the blush of day,
Didst first imbibe the splendours of the light,[43]
And smile the longest in its lingering ray;
Oh! let us gaze on thee, and fondly deem
The past awhile restored, the present but a dream.
LXXI.
Let Fancy’s vivid hues awhile prevail--
Wake at her call--be all thou wert once more!
Hark! hymns of triumph swell on every gale--
Lo! bright processions move along thy shore;
Again thy temples, midst the olive-shade,
Lovely in chaste simplicity arise;
And graceful monuments, in grove and glade,
Catch the warm tints of thy resplendent skies;
And sculptured forms, of high and heavenly mien,
In their calm beauty smile around the sun-bright scene.
LXXII.
Again renew’d by Thought’s creative spells,
In all her pomp thy city, Theseus! towers:
Within, around, the light of glory dwells
On art’s fair fabrics, wisdom’s holy bowers.
There marble fanes in finish’d grace ascend,
The pencil’s world of life and beauty glows;
Shrines, pillars, porticoes, in grandeur blend,
Rich with the trophies of barbaric foes;
And groves of platane wave in verdant pride,
The sage’s blest retreats, by calm Ilissus’ tide.
LXXIII.
Bright as that fairy vision of the wave,
Raised by the magic of Morgana’s wand,[44]
On summer seas that undulating lave
Romantic Sicily’s Arcadian strand;
That pictured scene of airy colonnades,
Light palaces, in shadowy glory drest,
Enchanted groves, and temples, and arcades,
Gleaming and floating on the ocean’s breast;
Athens! thus fair the dream of thee appears,
As Fancy’s eye pervades the veiling cloud of years.
LXXIV.
Still be that cloud withdrawn--oh! mark on high,
Crowning yon hill, with temples richly graced,
That fane, august in perfect symmetry,
The purest model of Athenian taste.
Fair Parthenon! thy Doric pillars rise
In simple dignity, thy marble’s hue
Unsullied shines, relieved by brilliant skies,
That round thee spread their deep ethereal blue;
And art o’er all thy light proportions throws
The harmony of grace, the beauty of repose.
LXXV.
And lovely o’er thee sleeps the sunny glow,
When morn and eve in tranquil splendour reign,
And on thy sculptures, as they smile, bestow
Hues that the pencil emulates in vain.
Then the fair forms by Phidias wrought, unfold
Each latent grace, developing in light;
Catch, from soft clouds of purple and of gold,
Each tint that passes, tremulously bright;
And seem indeed whate’er devotion deems,
While so suffused with heaven, so mingling with its beams.
LXXVI.
But oh! what words the vision may portray,
The form of sanctitude that guards thy shrine?
There stands thy goddess, robed in war’s array,
Supremely glorious, awfully divine!
With spear and helm she stands, and flowing vest,
And sculptured ægis, to perfection wrought;
And on each heavenly lineament imprest,
Calmly sublime, the majesty of thought--