The Poems of Felicia Hemans

“Oh, the glad light!--the light is fair, The soft breeze warm and free; And rich notes fill the scented air, And all are gifts--_my_ love’s last gifts to thee! “Take me to thy warm heart once more! Night falls--my pulse beats low: Seek not to quicken, to restore-- Joy is in every pang. I go, I go! “I feel thy tears, I feel thy breath, I meet thy fond look still; Keen is the strife of love and death; Faint and yet fainter grows my bosom’s thrill. “Yet swells the tide of rapture strong, Though mists o’ershade mine eye! --Sing, Pæan! sing a conqueror’s song! For thee, for _thee_, my spirit’s lord, I die!” THE HOME OF LOVE. Thou mov’st in visions, Love! Around thy way, E’en through this world’s rough path and changeful day, For ever floats a gleam-- Not from the realms of moonlight or the morn, But thine own soul’s illumined chambers born-- The colouring of a dream! Love! shall I read thy dream? Oh! is it not All of some sheltering wood-embosom’d spot-- A bower for thee and thine? Yes! lone and lowly is that home; yet there Something of heaven in the transparent air Makes every flower divine. Something that mellows and that glorifies, Breathes o’er it ever from the tender skies, As o’er some blessed isle; E’en like the soft and spiritual glow Kindling rich woods, whereon th’ ethereal bow Sleeps lovingly awhile. The very whispers of the wind have there A flute-like harmony, that seems to bear Greeting from some bright shore, Where none have said _farewell_!--where no decay Lends the faint crimson to the dying day; Where the storm’s might is o’er. And there thou dreamest of Elysian rest, In the deep sanctuary of one true breast Hidden from earthly ill: There wouldst thou watch the homeward step, whose sound Wakening all nature to sweet echoes round, Thine inmost soul can thrill. There by the hearth should many a glorious page, From mind to mind the immortal heritage, For thee its treasures pour; Or music’s voice at vesper hours be heard, Or dearer interchange of playful word, Affection’s household lore. And the rich unison of mingled prayer, The melody of hearts in heavenly air, Thence duly should arise; Lifting th’ eternal hope, th’ adoring breath, Of spirits, not to be disjoin’d by death, Up to the starry skies. There, dost thou well believe, no storm should come To mar the stillness of that angel-home; There should thy slumbers be Weigh’d down with honey-dew, serenely bless’d, Like theirs who first in Eden’s grove took rest Under some balmy tree. Love! Love! thou passionate in joy and woe! And canst _thou_ hope for cloudless peace below-- _Here_, where bright things must die? O thou! that, wildly worshipping, dost shed On the frail altar of a mortal head Gifts of infinity! Thou must be still a trembler, fearful Love! Danger seems gathering from beneath, above, Still round thy precious things; Thy stately pine-tree, or thy gracious rose, In their sweet shade can yield thee no repose, Here, where the blight hath wings. And as a flower, with some fine sense imbued, To shrink before the wind’s vicissitude, So in thy prescient breast Are lyre-strings quivering with prophetic thrill To the low footstep of each coming ill: Oh! canst _thou_ dream of rest? Bear up thy dream! thou mighty and thou weak! Heart, strong as death, yet as a reed to break-- As a flame, tempest-sway’d! He that sits calm on high is yet the source Whence thy soul’s current hath its troubled course, He that great deep hath made! Will He not pity?--He whose searching eye Reads all the secrets of thine agony?-- Oh! pray to be forgiven Thy fond idolatry, thy blind excess, And seek with _Him_ that bower of blessedness. Love! _thy_ sole home is heaven! BOOKS AND FLOWERS. “La vue d’une fleur caresse mon imagination, et flatte mes sens a un point inexprimable. Sous le tranquille abri du toit paternel j’etais nourrie des l’enfance avec des fleurs et des livres; dans l’etroite enceinte d’une prison, au milieu des fers imposies par la tyrannie, j’oublie l’injustice des hommes, leurs sottises et mes maux, avec des livres et des fleurs.” Come! let me make a sunny realm around thee Of thought and beauty! Here are books and flowers, With spells to loose the fetter which hath bound thee The ravel’d coil of this world’s feverish hours. The soul of song is in these deathless pages, Even as the odour in the flower enshrined; Here the crown’d spirits of departed ages Have left the silent melodies of mind. Their thoughts, that strove with time, and change, and anguish, For some high place where faith her wing might rest, Are burning here--a flame that may not languish-- Still pointing upward to that bright hill’s crest! Their grief, the veil’d infinity exploring For treasures lost, is here;--their boundless love, Its mighty streams of gentleness outpouring On all things round, and clasping all above. And the bright beings, their own heart’s creations, Bright, yet all human, here are breathing still; Conflicts, and agonies, and exultations Are here, and victories of prevailing will! Listen! oh, listen! let their high words cheer thee! Their swan-like music ringing through all woes; Let my voice bring their holy influence near thee-- The Elysian air of their divine repose! Or would’st thou turn to earth? _Not_ earth all furrow’d By the old traces of man’s toil and care, But the green peaceful world that never sorrow’d, The world of leaves, and dews, and summer air! Look on these flowers! as o’er an altar shedding, O’er Milton’s page, soft light from colour’d urns! They are the links, man’s heart to nature wedding, When to her breast the prodigal returns. They are from lone wild places, forest dingles, Fresh banks of many a low-voiced hidden stream, Where the sweet star of eve looks down and mingles Faint lustre with the water-lily’s gleam. They are from where the soft winds play in gladness, Covering the turf with flowery blossom-showers; --Too richly dower’d, O friend! are we for sadness-- Look on an empire--mind and nature--ours! [“The ‘brightly associated hours’ she passed with Mrs Lawrence, have been alluded to by Mrs Hemans, in the dedication to the ‘National Lyrics,’ and recorded by ‘her friend, and the sister of her friend, Colonel D’Aguilar,’ in her own affectionate ‘Recollections.’ The ‘Books and Flowers’ of Wavertree Hall were ever fondly identified with their dear mistress; and, years after the enjoyment of them had passed away from all senses but memory, she who was then herself, too, ‘passing away,’ thus tenderly alluded to them from her sick couch at Redesdale:--‘When I write to you, my imagination always brightens, and pleasant thoughts of lovely flowers, and dear old books, and strains of antique Italian melody, come floating over me, as Bacon says the rich scents go ‘to and fro like music in the air.’”] FOR A PICTURE OF ST CECILIA ATTENDED BY ANGELS. “How rich that forehead’s calm expanse! How bright that heaven-directed glance! --Waft her to glory, winged powers! Ere sorrow be renew’d, And intercourse with mortal hours Bring back a humbler mood!” Wordsworth. How can that eye, with inspiration beaming, Wear yet so deep a calm? O child of song! Is not the music-land a world of dreaming, Where forms of sad, bewildering beauty throng? Hath it not sounds from voices long departed? Echoes of tones that rung in childhood’s ear? Low haunting whispers, which the weary-hearted, Stealing midst crowds away, have wept to hear? No, not to thee! _Thy_ spirit, meek, yet queenly, On its own starry height, beyond all this, Floating triumphantly and yet serenely, Breathes no faint under-tone through songs of bliss. Say by what strain, through cloudless ether swelling, Thou hast drawn down those wanderers from the skies? Bright guests! even such as left of yore their dwelling For the deep cedar-shades of Paradise! What strain? Oh! not the nightingale’s, when, showering Her own heart’s life-drops on the burning lay, She stirs the young woods in the days of flowering, And pours her strength, but not her grief, away: And not the exile’s--when, midst lonely billows, He wakes the Alpine notes his mother sung, Or blends them with the sigh of alien willows, Where, murmuring to the wind, his harp is hung: And not the pilgrim’s--though his thoughts be holy, And sweet his avè-song when day grows dim; Yet, as he journeys, pensively and slowly, Something of sadness floats through that low hymn. But thou!--the spirit which at eve is filling All the hush’d air and reverential sky-- Founts, leaves, and flowers, with solemn rapture thrilling-- This is the soul of _thy_ rich harmony. This bears up high those breathings of devotion Wherein the currents of thy heart gush free; Therefore no world of sad and vain emotion Is the dream-haunted music-land for _thee_. THE BRIGAND LEADER AND HIS WIFE. SUGGESTED BY A PICTURE OF EASTLAKE’S. Dark chieftain of the heath and height! Wild feaster on the hills by night! See’st thou the stormy sunset’s glow Flung back by glancing spears below? Now for one strife of stern despair! The foe hath track’d thee to thy lair. Thou, against whom the voice of blood Hath risen from rock and lonely wood; And in whose dreams a moan should be, Not of the water, nor the tree; Haply thine own last hour is nigh,-- Yet shalt thou not forsaken die. There’s one that pale beside thee stands, More true than all thy mountain-bands! She will not shrink in doubt and dread When the balls whistle round thy head: Nor leave thee, though thy closing eye No longer may to hers reply. Oh! many a soft and quiet grace Hath faded from her form and face; And many a thought, the fitting guest Of woman’s meek, religious breast, Hath perish’d in her wanderings wide, Through the deep forests by thy side. Yet, mournfully surviving all, A flower upon a ruin’s wall-- A friendless thing, whose lot is cast Of lovely ones to be the last-- Sad, but unchanged through good and ill, Thine is her lone devotion still. And oh! not wholly lost the heart Where that undying love hath part; Not worthless all, though far and long From home estranged, and guided wrong; Yet may its depths by heaven be stirr’d, Its prayer for thee be pour’d and heard! THE CHILD’S RETURN FROM THE WOODLANDS. SUGGESTED BY A PICTURE OF SIR THOMAS LAWRENCE’S. “All good and guiltless as thou art, Some transient griefs will touch thy heart-- Griefs that along thy alter’d face Will breathe a more subduing grace, Than even those looks of joy that lie On the soft cheek of infancy.” Wilson.