The Poems of Felicia Hemans
But must thou not mingle with throngs the more?
The bird when he pineth, may hush his song,
Till the hour when his heart shall again be strong;
But thou--canst thou turn in thy woe aside,
And weep, midst thy brethren? No, not for pride.
May the fiery word from thy lip find way,
When the thoughts burning in thee shall spring to day?
May the care that sits in thy weary breast
Look forth from thine aspect, the revel’s guest?
No! with the shaft in thy bosom borne,
Thou must hide the wound in thy fear of scorn;
Thou must fold thy mantle that none may see,
And mask thee with laughter, and say thou art free.
No! thou art chain’d till thy race is run,
By the power of all in the soul of one;
On thy heart, on thy lip, must the fetter be--
Dreamer! fond dreamer! oh, who is free?
THE SHADOW OF A FLOWER.
“La voila telle que la mort nous l’a faite.”--Bossuet.
[“Never was a philosophical imagination more beautiful than that
exquisite one of Kircher, Digby, and others, who discovered in the
ashes of plants their primitive forms, which were again raised up by
the power of heat. The ashes of roses, say they, will again revive in
roses, unsubstantial and unodoriferous; they are not roses which grow
on rose-trees, but their delicate apparitions, and, like apparitions,
they are seen but for a moment.”--_Curiosities of Literature._]
’Twas a dream of olden days
That Art, by some strange power,
The visionary form could raise
From the ashes of a flower.
That a shadow of the rose,
By its own meek beauty bow’d,
Might slowly, leaf by leaf, unclose,
Like pictures in a cloud.
Or the hyacinth, to grace,
As a second rainbow, spring;
Of summer’s path a dreary trace,
A fair, yet mournful thing!
For the glory of the bloom
That a flush around it shed,
And the soul within, the rich perfume,
Where were they? Fled, all fled!
Naught but the dim, faint line
To speak of vanish’d hours.--
Memory! what are joys of thine?
--Shadows of buried flowers!
LINES TO A BUTTERFLY RESTING ON A SKULL.
Creature of air and light!
Emblem of that which will not fade or die!
Wilt thou not speed thy flight,
To chase the south wind through the glowing sky?
What lures thee thus to stay
With silence and decay,
Fix’d on the wreck of cold mortality?
The thoughts once chamber’d there,
Have gather’d up their treasures and are gone;--
Will the dust tell thee where
That which hath burst the prison-house is flown?
Rise, nursling of the day!
If thou wouldst trace its way--
Earth has no voice to make the secret known.
Who seeks the vanish’d bird
Near the deserted nest and broken shell?
Far thence, by us unheard,
He sings, rejoicing in the woods to dwell:
Thou of the sunshine born,
Take the bright wings of morn!
_Thy_ hope springs heavenward from yon ruin’d cell.
THE BELL AT SEA.
[The dangerous islet called the Bell Rock, on the coast of
Forfarshire, used formerly to be marked only by a bell, which was so
placed as to be swung by the motion of the waves, when the tide rose
above the rock. A lighthouse has since been erected there.]
When the tide’s billowy swell
Had reach’d its height,
Then toll’d the rock’s lone bell
Sternly by night.
Far over cliff and surge
Swept the deep sound,
Making each wild wind’s dirge
Still more profound.
Yet that funereal tone
The sailor bless’d,
Steering through darkness on
With fearless breast.
E’en so may we, that float
On life’s wide sea,
Welcome each warning note,
Stern though it be![390]
[390] It may be scarcely necessary to remind the reader, that the
stealing of this bell by a Pirate forms the subject of Southey’s
spirited ballad, “The Inchcape Rock.”
THE SUBTERRANEAN STREAM.
“Thou stream,
Whose source is inaccessibly profound,
Whither do thy mysterious waters tend?
--Thou imagest my life.”
Darkly thou glidest onward,
Thou deep and hidden wave!
The laughing sunshine hath not look’d
Into thy secret cave.
Thy current makes no music--
A hollow sound we hear,
A muffled voice of mystery,
And know that thou art near.
No brighter line of verdure
Follows thy lonely way;
No fairy moss, or lily’s cup
Is freshen’d by thy play.
The halcyon doth not seek thee,
Her glorious wings to lave;
Thou know’st no tint of the summer sky,
Thou dark and hidden wave!
Yet once will day behold thee,
When to the mighty sea,
Fresh bursting from their cavern’d veins,
Leap thy lone waters free.
There wilt thou greet the sunshine
For a moment, and be lost,
With all thy melancholy sounds,
In the ocean’s billowy host.
Oh! art thou not, dark river!
Like the fearful thoughts untold
Which haply, in the hush of night,
O’er many a soul have roll’d?
Those earth-born strange misgivings--
Who hath not felt their power?
Yet who hath breathed them to his friend,
E’en in his fondest hour?
They hold no heart-communion,
They find no voice in song,
They dimly follow far from earth
The grave’s departed throng.
Wild is their course and lonely,
And fruitless in man’s breast;
They come and go, and leave no trace
Of their mysterious guest.
Yet surely must their wanderings
At length be like thy way;
Their shadows, as thy waters, lost
In one bright flood of day!
THE SILENT MULTITUDE.
“For we are many in our solitudes.”--Lament of Tasso.
A mighty and a mingled throng
Were gather’d in one spot;
The dwellers of a thousand homes--
Yet midst them voice was not.
The soldier and his chief were there--
The mother and her child:
The friends, the sisters of one hearth--
None spoke--none moved--none smiled.
There lovers met, between whose lives
Years had swept darkly by;
After that heart-sick hope deferr’d,
They met--but silently.
You might have heard the rustling leaf,
The breeze’s faintest sound,
The shiver of an insect’s wing,
On that thick-peopled ground.
Your voice to whispers would have died
For the deep quiet’s sake;
Your tread the softest moss have sought,
Such stillness not to break.
What held the countless multitude
Bound in that spell of peace?
How could the ever-sounding life
Amid so many cease?
Was it some pageant of the air--
Some glory high above,
That link’d and hush’d those human souls
In reverential love?
Or did some burdening passion’s weight
Hang on their indrawn breath?
Awe--the pale awe that freezes words?
Fear--the strong fear of death?
A mightier thing--Death, Death himself
Lay on each lonely heart!
Kindred were there--yet hermits all,
Thousands--but each apart.
THE ANTIQUE SEPULCHRE.[391]
[“Les sarcophages même chez les anciens, ne rapellent que des idées
guerrières ou riantes: on voit des jeux, des danses, représentés en
bas-relief sur les tombeaux.”--_Corinne._
O ever-joyous band
Of revellers amidst the southern vines!
On the pale marble, by some gifted hand,
Fix’d in undying lines!
Thou, with the sculptured bowl,
And thou, that wearest the immortal wreath,
And thou, from whose young lip and flute the soul
Of music seems to breathe;
And ye, luxuriant flowers!
Linking the dancers with your graceful ties,
And cluster’d fruitage, born of sunny hours,
Under Italian skies:
Ye, that a thousand springs,
And leafy summers with their odorous breath,
May yet outlast,--what do ye there, bright things!
Mantling the place of death?
Of sunlight and soft air,
And Dorian reeds, and myrtles ever green,
Unto the heart a glowing thought ye bear;--
Why thus, where dust hath been?
Is it to show how slight
The bound that severs festivals and tombs,
Music and silence, roses and the blight,
Crowns and sepulchral glooms?
Or, when the father laid
Haply his child’s pale ashes here to sleep,
When the friend visited the cypress shade
Flowers o’er the dead to heap;
Say if the mourners sought,
In these rich images of summer mirth,
These wine-cups and gay wreaths, to lose the thought
Of our last hour on earth?
Ye have no voice, no sound,
Ye flutes and lyres! to tell me what I seek:
Silent ye are, light forms with vine-leaves crown’d,
Yet to my soul ye speak.
Alas! for those that lay
Down in the dust without their hope of old!
Backward they look’d on life’s rich banquet-day,
But all beyond was cold.
Every sweet wood-note then,
And through the plane-trees every sunbeam’s glow,
And each glad murmur from the homes of men,
Made it more hard to go.
But we, when life grows dim,
When its last melodies float o’er our way,
Its changeful hues before us faintly swim,
Its flitting lights decay;--
E’en though we bid farewell
Unto the spring’s blue skies and budding trees,
Yet may we lift our hearts in hope to dwell
Midst brighter things than these;
And think of deathless flowers,
And of bright streams to glorious valleys given,
And know the while, how little dream of ours
Can shadow forth of heaven.
[391] Transcriber’s Note: Footnote not found on original page 493
footnote 1.
EVENING SONG OF THE TYROLESE PEASANTS.[392]
Come to the sunset tree!
The day is past and gone;
The woodman’s axe lies free,
And the reaper’s work is done.
The twilight star to heaven,
And the summer dew to flowers,
And rest to us, is given
By the cool, soft evening hours.
Sweet is the hour of rest!
Pleasant the wind’s low sigh,
And the gleaming of the west,
And the turf whereon we lie;
When the burden and the heat
Of labour’s task are o’er,
And kindly voices greet
The tired one at his door.
Come to the sunset tree!
The day is past and gone;
The woodman’s axe lies free,
And the reaper’s work is done.
Yes! tuneful is the sound
That dwells in whispering boughs;
Welcome the freshness round,
And the gale that fans our brows!
But rest more sweet and still
Than ever nightfall gave,
Our yearning hearts shall fill
In the world beyond the grave.
There shall no tempest blow,
No scorching noontide heat;
There shall be no more snow,[393]
No weary, wandering feet.
So we lift our trusting eyes
From the hills our fathers trode,
To the quiet of the skies,
To the Sabbath of our God.
Come to the sunset tree!
The day is past and gone;
The woodman’s axe lies free,
And the reaper’s work is done.
[392] “The loved hour of repose is striking. Let us come to the sunset
tree.”--See Captain Sherer’s interesting _Notes and Reflections during
a Ramble in Germany_.
[393]
“Wohl ihm, er ist hingegangen