The Poems of Felicia Hemans
And its dying fall, when it sooth’d thee best,
Sigh’d for wild-flowers and a leafy nest.”
Was it with thee thus, my bird?
Yet thine eye flash’d clear and bright;
I have seen the glance of sudden joy
In its quick and dewy light.
“It flash’d with the fire of a tameless race,
With the soul of the wild-wood, my native place!
With the spirit that panted through heaven to soar:
Woo me not back--I return no more!
My home is high, amidst rocking trees,
My kindred things are the star and the breeze,
And the fount uncheck’d in its lonely play,
And the odours that wander afar away!”
Farewell--farewell, then, bird!
I have call’d on spirits gone,
And it may be they joy’d, like _thee_, to part--
Like thee, that wert all my own!
“If they were captives, and pined like me,
Though love may guard them, they joy’d to be free;
They sprang from the earth with a burst of power,
To the strength of their wings, to their triumph’s hour!
Call them not back when the chain is riven,
When the way of the pinion is all through heaven!
Farewell!--with my song through the clouds I soar,
I pierce the blue skies--I am earth’s no more!”
MARGUERITE OF FRANCE.[401]
“Thou falcon-hearted dove!”--Coleridge.
The Moslem spears were gleaming
Round Damietta’s towers,
Though a Christian banner from her wall
Waved free its lily-flowers.
Ay, proudly did the banner wave,
As queen of earth and air;
But faint hearts throb’d beneath its folds
In anguish and despair.
Deep, deep in Paynim dungeon
Their kingly chieftain lay,
And low on many an Eastern field
Their knighthood’s best array.
’Twas mournful, when at feasts they met,
The wine-cup round to send;
For each that touch’d it silently
Then miss’d a gallant friend!
And mournful was their vigil
On the beleaguer’d wall,
And dark their slumber, dark with dreams
Of slow defeat and fall.
Yet a few hearts of chivalry
Rose high to breast the storm,
And one--of all the loftiest there--
Thrill’d in a woman’s form.
A woman, meekly bending
O’er the slumber of her child,
With her soft, sad eyes of weeping love,
As the Virgin Mother’s mild.
Oh! roughly cradled was thy babe,
Midst the clash of spear and lance,
And a strange, wild bower was thine, young queen!
Fair Marguerite of France!
A dark and vaulted chamber,
Like a scene for wizard-spell,
Deep in the Saracenic gloom
Of the warrior citadel;
And there midst arms the couch was spread,
And with banners curtain’d o’er,
For the daughter of the minstrel-land,
The gay Provençal shore!
For the bright queen of St Louis,
The star of court and hall!
But the deep strength of the gentle heart
Wakes to the tempest’s call!
Her lord was in the Paynim’s hold,
His soul with grief oppress’d,
Yet calmly lay the desolate,
With her young babe on her breast!
There were voices in the city,
Voices of wrath and fear--
“The walls grow weak, the strife is vain--
We will not perish here!
Yield! yield! and let the Crescent gleam
O’er tower and bastion high!
Our distant homes are beautiful--
We stay not here to die!”
They bore those fearful tidings
To the sad queen where she lay--
They told a tale of wavering hearts,
Of treason and dismay:
The blood rush’d through her pearly cheek,
The sparkle to her eye--
“Now call me hither those recreant knights
From the bands of Italy!”[402]
Then through the vaulted chambers
Stern iron footsteps rang;
And heavily the sounding floor
Gave back the sabre’s clang.
They stood around her--steel-clad men,
Moulded for storm and fight,
But they quail’d before the loftier soul
In that pale aspect bright.
Yes! as before the falcon shrinks
The bird of meaner wing,
So shrank they from th’ imperial glance
Of her--that fragile thing!
And her flute-like voice rose clear and high
Through the din of arms around--
Sweet, and yet stirring to the soul,
As a silver clarion’s sound.
“The honour of the Lily
Is in your hands to keep,
And the banner of the Cross, for Him
Who died on Calvary’s steep;
And the city which for Christian prayer
Hath heard the holy bell--
And is it _these_ your hearts would yield
To the godless infidel?
“Then bring me here a breastplate
And a helm, before ye fly,
And I will gird my woman’s form,
And on the ramparts die!
And the boy whom I have borne for woe,
But never for disgrace,
Shall go within mine arms to death
Meet for his royal race.
“Look on him as he slumbers
In the shadow of the lance!
_Then_ go, and with the Cross forsake
The princely babe of France!
But tell your homes ye left _one_ heart
To perish undefiled;
A woman, and a queen, to guard
Her honour and her child!”
Before her words they thrill’d, like leaves
When winds are in the wood;
And a deepening murmur told of men
Roused to a loftier mood.
And her babe awoke to flashing swords,
Unsheath’d in many a hand,
As they gather’d round the helpless One,
Again a noble band!
“We are thy warriors, lady!
True to the Cross and thee;
The spirit of thy kindling words
On every sword shall be!
Rest, with thy fair child on thy breast!
Rest--we will guard thee well!
St Denis for the Lily-flower
And the Christian citadel!”
[401] Queen of St Louis. Whilst besieged by the Turks in Damietta,
during the captivity of the king her husband, she there gave birth to
a son, whom she named Tristan, in commemoration of her misfortunes.
Information being conveyed to her, that the knights intrusted with
the defence of the city had resolved on capitulation, she had them
summoned to her apartment; and, by her heroic words, so wrought upon
their spirits, that they vowed to defend her and the Cross to the last
extremity.
[402] The proposal to capitulate is attributed by the French historian
to the Knights of Pisa.
THE WANDERER.
TRANSLATED FROM THE GERMAN OF SCHMIDT VON LUBECK.
I come down from the hills alone;
Mist wraps the vale, the billows moan!
I wander on in thoughtful care,
For ever asking, sighing--_where?_
The sunshine round seems dim and cold,
And flowers are pale, and life is old,
And words fall soulless on my ear--
Oh, I am still a stranger here!
Where art thou, land, sweet land, mine own!
Still sought for, long’d for, never known?
The land, the land of hope, of light,
Where glow my roses freshly bright,
And where my friends the green paths tread,
And where in beauty rise my dead;
The land that speaks my native speech,
The blessed land I may not reach!
I wander on in thoughtful care,
For ever asking, sighing--_where?_
And spirit-sounds come answering this--
“_There, where thou art not, there is bliss!_”
THE LAST WORDS OF THE LAST WASP OF SCOTLAND,
--A _jeu-d’esprit_ produced at this time, which owed its origin to
a simple remark on the unseasonableness of the weather, made by Mrs
Hemans to Mr Charles Kirkpatrick Sharpe, whom she was in the habit of
seeing at Sir David Wedderburn’s. “It is so little like summer,” she
said, “that I have not even seen a butterfly.” “A butterfly!” retorted
Mr Sharpe, “I have not even seen a wasp!” The next morning, as if
in confutation of this calumny, a wasp made its appearance at Lady
Wedderburn’s breakfast table. Mrs Hemans immediately proposed that it
should be made a prisoner, inclosed in a bottle, and sent to Mr Sharpe:
this was accordingly done, and the piquant missive was acknowledged by
him as follows:--
“SONNET TO A WASP, IN THE MANNER OF MILTON, &c., BUT MUCH SUPERIOR.
Poor insect! rash as rare!--Thy sovereign,[403] sure,
Hath driven thee to Siberia in disgrace--
Else what delusion could thy sense allure
To buzz and sting in this unwholesome place,
Where e’en the hornet’s hoarser, and the race
Of filmy wing are feeble? Honey here
(Scarce as its rhyme) thou find’st not. Ah, beware
Thy golden mail, to starved Arachne dear![404]
Though fingers famed, that thrill the immortal lyre,
Have pent thee up, a second Asmodeus,
I wail thy doom--I warm thee by the fire,
And blab our secrets--do not thou betray us!
I give thee liberty, I give thee breath,
To fly from Athens, Eurus, Doctors, Death!!”
To this Mrs Hemans returned the following rejoinder:--
Sooth’d by the strain, the Wasp thus made reply--
(The first, last time he spoke not waspishly)--
“Too late, kind Poet! comes thine aid, thy song,
To aught first starved, then bottled up so long.
Yet, for the warmth of this thy genial fire,
Take a Wasp’s blessing ere his race expire:--
Never may provost’s foot find entrance here!
Never may bailie’s voice invade thine ear!
Never may housemaid wipe the verd antique
From coin of thine--Assyrian, Celt, or Greek!
Never may Eurus cross thy path!--to thee
May winds and wynds[405] alike propitious be!
And when thou diest--(live a thousand years!)--
May friends fill classic bottles[406] with their tears!
I can no more--receive my parting gasp!--
Bid Scotland mourn the last, last lingering Wasp!”
[403] Beelzebub is the king of flies.
[404] A beautiful allusion to our starving weavers.
[405] Alluding to antiquarian visits to these renowned closes.
[406] Referring to certain precious lachrymatories in the possession of
Mr Sharpe.
TO CAROLINE.
When thy bounding step I hear,
And thy soft voice, low and clear;
When thy glancing eyes I meet,
In their sudden laughter sweet--
_Thou_, I dream, wert surely born
For a path by care unworn!
Thou must be a shelter’d flower,
With but sunshine for thy dower.
Ah, fair child! not e’en for thee
May this lot of brightness be;
Yet, if grief must add a tone
To thine accents now unknown;
If within that cloudless eye
Sadder thought must one day lie,
Still I trust the signs which tell
On thy life a light shall dwell,
Light--thy gentle spirit’s own,
From _within_ around thee thrown.
THE FLOWER OF THE DESERT.
“Who does not recollect the exultation of Valiant over a flower in
the torrid wastes of Africa? The affecting mention of the influence
of a flower upon the mind, by Mungo Park, in a time of suffering and
despondency, in the heart of the same savage country, is familiar to
every one.”--Howitt’s “Book of the Seasons.”
Why art thou thus in thy beauty cast,
O lonely, loneliest flower!
Where the sound of song hath never pass’d
From human hearth or bower?
I pity thee, for thy heart of love,
For that glowing heart, that fain
Would breathe out joy with each wind to rove--
In vain, lost thing! in vain!
I pity thee, for thy wasted bloom,
For thy glory’s fleeting hour,
For the desert place, thy living tomb--
O lonely, loneliest flower!
I said--but a low voice made reply,
“Lament not for the flower!
Though its blossoms all unmark’d must die,
They have had a glorious dower.
“Though it bloom afar from the minstrel’s way,
And the paths where lovers tread;