The Poems of Felicia Hemans
Floats with leafy scents along--
Come away!
Where the boughs with dewy gloom
Darken each thick bed of bloom,
Come away!
In the deep heart of the rose
Now the crimson love-hue glows;
Now the glow-worm’s lamp by night
Sheds a ray,
Dreamy, starry, greenly bright--
Come away!
Where the fairy cup-moss lies,
With the wild-wood strawberries,
Come away!
Now each tree by summer crown’d,
Sheds its own rich twilight round;
Glancing there from sun to shade,
Bright wings play;
There the deer its couch hath made--
Come away!
Where the smooth leaves of the lime
Glisten in their honey-time,
Come away--away![411]
[410] “The Summer’s Call.”--This faculty for realising images of the
distant and the beautiful, amidst outward circumstances of apparently
the most adverse influence, is thus gracefully illustrated by
Washington Irving in the “Royal Poet” of his _Sketch-Book_:--“Some
minds corrode and grow inactive under the loss of personal liberty;
others grow morbid and irritable; but it is the nature of the poet to
become tender and imaginative in the loneliness of confinement. He
banquets upon the honey of his own thoughts, and, like the captive
bird, pours forth his soul in melody.
‘Have you not seen the nightingale,
A pilgrim cooped into a cage,
How doth she chant her wonted tale
In that her lonely hermitage?
Even there her charming melody doth prove,
That all her boughs are trees, her cage a grove.’”
Roger L’Estrange.
Indeed, it is the divine attribute of the imagination, that it is
irrepressible, unconfinable; and that, when the real world is shut out,
it can create a world for itself, and with a necromantic power can
conjure up glorious shapes and forms, and irradiate the gloom of the
dungeon. Such was the world of pomp and pageant that lived ’round Tasso
in his dismal cell at Ferrara, when he conceived the splendid scenes of
his _Jerusalem_; and we may consider _The King’s Quair_, composed by
James of Scotland during his captivity at Windsor, as another of those
beautiful breakings forth of the soul from the restraint and gloom of
the prison-house.”
[411] “In my literary pursuits,” wrote Mrs Hemans at this time to a
friend, “I fear I shall be obliged to look out for an amanuensis. I
sometimes retain a piece of poetry several weeks in my memory, from
actual dread of writing it down.... I was so glad you liked my little
summer breathing strain, (‘The Summer’s Call.’) I assure you it quite
consoled me for the want of natural objects of beauty around, to heap
up their remembered images in one wild strain.”
OH! SKYLARK, FOR THY WING.
Oh! Skylark, for thy wing!
Thou bird of joy and light,
That I might soar and sing
At heaven’s empyreal height!
With the heathery hills beneath me,
Whence the streams in glory spring,
And the pearly clouds to wreathe me,
O Skylark! on thy wing!
Free, free, from earth-born fear,
I would range the blessed skies,
Through the blue divinely clear,
Where the low mists cannot rise!
And a thousand joyous measures
From my chainless heart should spring,
Like the bright rain’s vernal treasures,
As I wander’d on thy wing.
But oh! the silver cords
That around the heart are spun,
From gentle tones and words,
And kind eyes that make our sun!
To some low, sweet nest returning,
How soon my love would bring
There, _there_ the dews of morning,
O Skylark! on thy wing!
SONGS OF CAPTIVITY.
[These songs (with the exception of the fifth) have all been set to
music by the author’s sister, and are in the possession of Mr Willis,
by whose permission they are here published.]
INTRODUCTION.
One hour for distant homes to weep
Midst Afric’s burnings sands,
One silent sunset hour was given
To the slaves of many lands.
They sat beneath a lonely palm,
In the gardens of their lord;
And, mingling with the fountain’s tune,
Their songs of exile pour’d.
And strangely, sadly did those lays
Of Alp and ocean sound,
With Afric’s wild, red skies above,
And solemn wastes around.
Broken with tears were oft their tones,
And most when most they tried
To breathe of hope and liberty,
From hearts that inly died.
So met the sons of many lands,
Parted by mount and main;
So did they sing in brotherhood,
Made kindred by the chain.
THE BROTHER’S DIRGE.
In the proud old fanes of England
My warrior-fathers lie,
Banners hang drooping o’er their dust
With gorgeous blazonry.
But thou, but _thou_, my brother!
O’er thee dark billows sweep--
The best and bravest heart of all
Is shrouded by the deep.
In the old high wars of England
My noble fathers bled;
For her lion-kings of lance and spear,
They went down to the dead.
But thou, but thou, my brother!
_Thy_ life-drops flow’d for me--
Would I were with thee in thy rest,
Young sleeper of the sea!
In a shelter’d home of England
Our sister dwells alone,
With quick heart listening for the sound
Of footsteps that are gone.
She little dreams, my brother!
Of the wild fate we have found;
I, midst the Afric sands a slave,
Thou, by the dark seas bound.
THE ALPINE HORN.
The Alpine horn! the Alpine horn!
Oh! through my native sky,
Might I but hear its deep notes borne
Once more--but once--and die!
Yet, no! Midst breezy hills thy breath,
So full of hope and morn,
Would win me from the bed of death--
O joyous Alpine horn!
But _here_ the echo of that blast,
To many a battle known,
Seems mournfully to wander past,
A wild, shrill, wailing tone!
Haunt me no more! for slavery’s air
Thy proud notes were not born;
The dream but deepens my despair--
Be hush’d, thou Alpine horn!
O YE VOICES!
O ye voices round my own hearth singing,
As the winds of May to memory sweet!
Might I yet return, a worn heart bringing,
Would those vernal tones the wanderer greet,
Once again?
Never, never! Spring hath smiled and parted
Oft since then your fond farewell was said;
O’er the green turf of the gentle-hearted
Summer’s hand the rose-leaves may have shed,
Oft again!
Or if still around my heart ye linger,
Yet, sweet voices! there must change have come:
Years have quell’d the free soul of the singer,
Vernal tones shall greet the wanderer home
Ne’er again!
I DREAM OF ALL THINGS FREE.
I dream of all things free!
Of a gallant, gallant bark
That sweeps through storm and sea,
Like an arrow to its mark!
Of a stag that o’er the hills
Goes bounding in his glee;
Of a thousand flashing rills--
Of all things glad and free.
I dream of some proud bird,
A bright-eyed mountain-king!
In my visions I have heard
The rushing of his wing.
I follow some wild river,
On whose breast no sail may be;
Dark woods around it shiver--
I dream of all things free!
Of a happy forest child,
With the fawns and flowers at play;
Of an Indian midst the wild,
With the stars to guide his way;
Of a chief his warriors leading,
Of an archer’s greenwood tree--
My heart in chains is bleeding,
And I dream of all things free!
FAR O’ER THE SEA.
Where are the vintage songs
Wandering in glee?
Where dance the peasant bands
Joyous and free?
Under a kind blue sky,
Where doth my birthplace lie?
--Far o’er the sea.
Where floats the myrtle-scent
O’er vale and lea,
When evening calls the dove
Homewards to flee!
Where doth the orange gleam
Soft on my native stream?
--Far o’er the sea!
Where are sweet eyes of love
Watching for me?
Where o’er the cabin roof
Waves the green tree?
Where speaks the vesper-chime
Still of a holy time?
--Far o’er the sea.
Dance on, ye vintage bands!
Fearless and free;
Still fresh and greenly wave,
My father’s tree!
Still smile, ye kind, blue skies!
Though your son pines and dies
Far o’er the sea!
THE INVOCATION.
Oh! art thou still on earth, my love?
My only love!
Or smiling in a brighter home,
Far, far above?
Oh! is thy sweet voice fled, my love?
Thy light step gone?
And art thou not, in earth or heaven,
Still, still my own?
I see thee with thy gleaming hair,
In midnight dreams!
But cold, and clear, and spirit-like,
Thy soft eye seems.
Peace in thy saddest hour, my love!
Dwelt on thy brow;
But something mournfully divine
There shineth now!
And silent ever is thy lip,
And pale thy cheek;--
Oh! art thou earth’s, or art thou heaven’s?
Speak to me, speak!
THE SONG OF HOPE.
Droop not, my brothers! I hear a glad strain--
We shall burst forth like streams from the winter night’s chain;
A flag is unfurl’d, a bright star of the sea,
A ransom approaches--we yet shall be free!
Where the pines wave, where the light chamois leaps,
Where the lone eagle hath built on the steeps;
Where the snows glisten, the mountain-rills foam,
Free as the falcon’s wing, yet shall we roam.
Where the hearth shines, where the kind looks are met,
Where the smiles mingle, our place shall be yet!
Crossing the desert, o’ersweeping the sea--
Droop not, my brothers! we yet shall be free!
MISCELLANEOUS LYRICS.
THE CALL TO BATTLE.
“Ah! then and there was hurrying to and fro,
And gathering tears, and tremblings of distress,
And there were sudden partings, such as press
The life from out young hearts, and choking signs,
Which ne’er might be repeated.” Byron.
The vesper-bell, from church and tower,
Had sent its dying sound;
And the household, in the hush of eve,
Were met their porch around.
A voice rang through the olive-wood, with a sudden trumpet’s power--
“We rise on all our hills! Come forth! ’tis thy country’s
gathering-hour:
There’s a gleam of spears by every stream in each old battle-dell.
Come forth, young Juan! Bid thy home a brief and proud farewell!”
Then the father gave his son the sword
Which a hundred fights had seen--
“Away! and bear it back, my boy!
All that it still hath been!
“Haste, haste! The hunters of the foe are up: and who shall stand
The lion-like awakening of the roused indignant land?
Our chase shall sound through each defile where swept the clarion’s
blast,
With the flying footsteps of the Moor, in stormy ages past.”
Then the mother kiss’d her son with tears
That o’er his dark locks fell:
“I bless, I bless thee o’er and o’er,
Yet I stay thee not--Farewell!”
“One moment! but one moment give to parting thought or word!
It is no time for woman’s tears when manhood’s heart is stirr’d.
Bear but the memory of my love about thee in the fight,
To breathe upon th’ avenging sword a spell of keener might.
And a maiden’s fond adieu was heard,