The Poems of Felicia Hemans
Oh! the fireside’s peace we well may prize!
For blood hath flow’d like rain,
Pour’d forth to make sweet sanctuaries
Of England’s homes again.
Heap the yule-faggots high
Till the red light fills the room!
It is home’s own hour when the stormy sky
Grows thick with evening gloom.
Gather ye round the holy hearth,
And by its gladdening blaze,
Unto thankful bliss we will change our mirth,
With a thought of the olden days!
GENIUS SINGING TO LOVE.
“That voice re-measures
Whatever tones and melancholy pleasures
The things of nature utter; birds or trees,
Or where the tall grass mid the heath-plant waves,
Murmur and music thin of sudden breeze.” Coleridge.
I heard a song upon the wandering wind,
A song of many tones--though one full soul
Breathed through them all imploringly; and made
All nature as they pass’d, all quivering leaves
And low responsive reeds and waters, thrill
As with the consciousness of human prayer.
--At times the passion-kindled melody
Might seem to gush from Sappho’s fervent heart,
Over the wild sea-wave;--at times the strain
Flow’d with more plaintive sweetness, as if born
Of Petrarch’s voice, beside the lone Vaucluse;
And sometimes, with its melancholy swell,
A graver sound was mingled, a deep note
Of Tasso’s holy lyre. Yet still the tones
Were of a suppliant--“_Leave me not!_” was still
The burden of their music; and I knew
The lay which Genius, in its loneliness,
Its own still world, amidst th’ o’erpeopled world,
Hath ever breathed to Love.
“They crown me with the glistening crown,
Borne from a deathless tree;
I hear the pealing music of renown--
O Love! forsake me not!
Mine were a lone, dark lot,
Bereft of thee!
They tell me that my soul can throw
A glory o’er the earth;
From thee, from _thee_, is caught that golden glow!
Shed by thy gentle eyes,
It gives to flower and skies
A bright, new birth!
“Thence gleams the path of morning
Over the kindling hills, a sunny zone!
Thence to its heart of hearts the rose is burning
With lustre not its own!
Thence every wood-recess
Is fill’d with loveliness,
Each bower, to ring-doves and dim violets known.
“I see all beauty by the ray
That streameth from thy smile;=
Oh! bear it, bear it not away!
Can that sweet light beguile?
Too pure, too spirit-like, it seems,
To linger long by earthly streams;
I clasp it with th’ alloy
Of fear midst quivering joy.
Yet must I perish if the gift depart--
Leave me not, Love! to mine own beating heart!
“The music from my lyre
With thy swift step would flee;
The world’s cold breath would quench the starry fire
In my deep soul--a temple fill’d with thee!
Seal’d would the fountains lie,
The waves of harmony,
Which thou alone canst free!
“Like a shrine midst rocks forsaken,
Whence the oracle hath fled;
Like a harp which none might waken
But a mighty master dead;
Like the vase of a perfume scatter’d.
Such would my spirit be--
So mute, so void, so shatter’d,
Bereft of thee!
“Leave me not, Love! or if this earth
Yield not for thee a home,
If the bright summer-land of thy pure birth
Send thee a silvery voice that whispers ‘_Come!_’
Then, with the glory from the rose,
With the sparkle from the stream,
With the light thy rainbow-presence throws
Over the poet’s dream;
With all th’ Elysian hues
Thy pathway that suffuse,
With joy, with music, from the fading grove,
Take _me_, too, heavenward on thy wing, sweet Love!”
MUSIC AT A DEATHBED.
“Music! why thy power employ
Only for the sons of joy?
Only for the smiling guests
At natal or at nuptial feasts?
Rather thy lenient numbers pour
On those whom secret griefs devour;
And with some softly-whisper’d air
Smooth the brow of dumb despair!”
Warton from Euripides.
Bring music! stir the brooding air
With an ethereal breath!
Bring sounds, my struggling soul to bear
Up from the couch of death!
A voice, a flute, a dreamy lay,
Such as the southern breeze
Might waft, at golden fall of day,
O’er blue, transparent seas!
Oh, no! not such! That lingering spell
Would lure me back to life,
When my wean’d heart hath said farewell,
And pass’d the gates of strife.
Let not a sigh of human love
Blend with the song its tone!
Let no disturbing echo move
One that must die alone!
But pour a solemn-breathing strain
Fill’d with the soul of prayer!
Let a life’s conflict, fear, and pain,
And trembling hope be there.
Deeper, yet deeper! In my thought
Lies more prevailing sound,
A harmony intensely fraught
With pleading more profound:
A passion unto music given,
A sweet, yet piercing cry;
A breaking heart’s appeal to Heaven,
A bright faith’s victory!
Deeper! Oh! may no richer power
Be in those notes enshrined?
Can all which crowds on earth’s last hour
No fuller language find?
Away! and hush the feeble song,
And let the chord be still’d!
Far in another land ere long
My dream shall be fulfill’d.
MARSHAL SCHWERIN’S GRAVE.
[“I came upon the tomb of Marshal Schwerin--a plain, quiet cenotaph,
erected in the middle of a wide corn-field, on the very spot where he
closed a long, faithful, and glorious career in arms. He fell here, at
eighty years of age, at the head of his own regiment, the standard of
it waving in his hand. His seat was in the leathern saddle--his foot
in the iron stirrup--his fingers reined the young war-horse to the
last.”--_Notes and Reflections during a Ramble into Germany._]
Thou didst fall in the field with thy silver hair,
And a banner in thy hand;
Thou wert laid to rest from thy battles there,
By a proudly mournful band.
In the camp, on the steed, to the bugle’s blast,
Thy long bright years had sped;
And a warrior’s bier was thine at last,
When the snows had crown’d thy head.
Many had fallen by thy side, old chief!
Brothers and friends, perchance;
But thou wert yet as the fadeless leaf,
And light was in thy glance.
The soldier’s heart at thy step leapt high,
And thy voice the war-horse knew;
And the first to arm, when the foe was nigh,
Wert thou, the bold and true.
Now may’st thou slumber--thy work is done--
Thou of the well-worn sword!
From the stormy fight in thy fame thou’rt gone,
But not to the festal board.
The corn-sheaves whisper thy grave around,
Where fiery blood hath flow’d:
O lover of battle and trumpet-sound!
Thou art couch’d in a still abode!
A quiet home from the noonday’s glare,
And the breath of the wintry blast--
Didst thou toil through the days of thy silvery hair
To win thee but _this_ at last?
THE FALLEN LIME-TREE.
O joy of the peasant! O stately lime!
Thou art fall’n in thy golden honey-time!
Thou whose wavy shadows,
Long and long ago,
Screen’d our gray forefathers
From the noontide’s glow;
Thou, beneath whose branches,
Touch’d with moonlight gleams,
Lay our early poets
Wrapt in fairy dreams.
O tree of our fathers! O hallow’d tree!
A glory is gone from our home with thee.
Where shall now the weary
Rest through summer eves?
Or the bee find honey,
As on thy sweet leaves?
Where shall now the ringdove
Build again her nest?
She so long the inmate
Of thy fragrant breast!
But the sons of the peasant have lost in thee
Far more than the ringdove, far more than the bee!
These may yet find coverts
Leafy and profound,
Full of dewy dimness,
Odour, and soft sound:
But the gentle memories
Clinging all to thee,
When shall they be gather’d
Round another tree?
O pride of our fathers! O hallow’d tree!
The crown of the hamlet is fallen in thee!
THE BIRD AT SEA.
Bird of the greenwood!
Oh, why art thou here?
Leaves dance not o’er thee,
Flowers bloom not near.
All the sweet waters
Far hence are at play--
Bird of the greenwood!
Away, away!
Where the mast quivers
Thy place will not be,
As midst the waving
Of wild-rose and tree.
How shouldst thou battle
With storm and with spray?
Bird of the greenwood!
Away, away!
Or art thou seeking
Some brighter land,
Where by the south wind
Vine leaves are fann’d?
’Midst the wild billows
Why then delay?
Bird of the greenwood!
Away, away!
“Chide not my lingering
Where storms are dark;
A hand that hath nursed me
Is in the bark--
A heart that hath cherish’d
Through winter’s long day:
So I turn from the greenwood,
Away, away!”
THE DYING GIRL AND FLOWERS.
“I desire as I look on these, the ornaments and children of earth, to
know whether, indeed, such things I shall see no more?--whether they
have no likeness, no archetype in the world in which my future home is
to be cast? or whether they have their images above, only wrought in a
more wondrous and delightful mould.”--
“Conversations with an ambitious Student in ill health.”
Bear them not from grassy dells
Where wild bees have honey-cells;
Not from where sweet water-sounds
Thrill the greenwood to its bounds;
Not to waste their scented breath
On the silent room of Death!
Kindred to the breeze they are,
And the glow-worm’s emerald star,
And the bird whose song is free,
And the many-whispering tree:
Oh! too deep a love, and vain,
They would win to earth again.
Spread them not before the eyes
Closing fast on summer skies!
Woo thou not the spirit back
From its lone and viewless track,
With the bright things which have birth
Wide o’er all the colour’d earth!
With the violet’s breath would rise
Thoughts too sad for her who dies;
From the lily’s pearl-cup shed,
Dreams too sweet would haunt her bed;
Dreams of youth--of spring-time’s eves--
Music--beauty--all she leaves!
Hush! ’tis thou that dreaming art,
Calmer is _her_ gentle heart.
Yes! o’er fountain, vale, and grove,
Leaf and flower, hath gush’d her love;
But that passion, deep and true,
Knows not of a last adieu.
Types of lovelier forms than these
In their fragile mould she sees;
Shadows of yet richer things,
Born beside immortal springs,
Into fuller glory wrought,
Kindled by surpassing thought!
Therefore, in the lily’s leaf,
She can read no word of grief;
O’er the woodbine she can dwell,
Murmuring not--Farewell! farewell!
And her dim, yet speaking eye
Greets the violet solemnly.
Therefore once, and yet again,
Strew them o’er her bed of pain;
From her chamber take the gloom