About this book

The Poems of Felicia Hemans

Mrs. Hemans

Ere sin had dimm’d the flowers. Let me not know the change O’er nature thrown by guilt!--the boding sky, The hollow leaf-sounds ominous and strange, The weight wherewith the dark tree-shadows lie! Father! oh! keep my footsteps pure and free, To walk the woods with thee! PRAYER OF THE LONELY STUDENT. “Soul of our souls! and safeguard of the world! Sustain--Thou only canst--the sick at heart; Restore their languid spirits, and recall Their lost affections unto thee and thine.”--Wordsworth. Night--holy night--the time For mind’s free breathings in a purer clime! Night!--when in happier hour the unveiling sky Woke all my kindled soul To meet its revelations, clear and high, With the strong joy of immortality! Now hath strange sadness wrapp’d me, strange and deep-- And my thoughts faint, and shadows o’er them roll, E’en when I deem’d them seraph-plumed, to sweep Far beyond earth’s control. Wherefore is this? I see the stars returning, Fire after fire in heaven’s rich temple burning: Fast shine they forth--my spirit-friends, my guides, Bright rulers of my being’s inmost tides; They shine--but faintly, through a quivering haze: Oh! is the dimness _mine_ which clouds those rays? They from whose glance my childhood drank delight! A joy unquestioning--a love intense-- They that, unfolding to more thoughtful sight The harmony of their magnificence, Drew silently the worship of my youth To the grave sweetness on the brow of truth; Shall they shower blessing, with their beams divine, Down to the watcher on the stormy sea, And to the pilgrim toiling for his shrine Through some wild pass of rocky Apennine, And to the wanderer lone On wastes of Afric thrown, And not to _me_? Am I a thing forsaken? And is the gladness taken From the bright-pinion’d nature which hath soar’d Through realms by royal eagle ne’er explored, And, bathing there in streams of fiery light, Found strength to gaze upon the Infinite? And now an alien! Wherefore must this be? How shall I rend the chain? How drink rich life again From those pure urns of radiance, welling free? --Father of Spirits! let me turn to thee! Oh! if too much exulting in her dower, My soul, not yet to lowly thought subdued, Hath stood without thee on her hill of power-- A fearful and a dazzling solitude! And therefore from that haughty summit’s crown To dim desertion is by thee cast down; Behold! thy child submissively hath bow’d-- Shine on him through the cloud! Let the now darken’d earth and curtain’d heaven Back to his vision with thy face be given! Bear him on high once more, But in thy strength to soar, And wrapt and still’d by that o’ershadowing might, Forth on the empyreal blaze to look with chasten’d sight. Or if it be that, like the ark’s lone dove, My thoughts go forth, and find no resting-place, No sheltering home of sympathy and love In the responsive bosoms of my race, And back return, a darkness and a weight, Till my unanswer’d heart grows desolate-- _Yet_, yet sustain me, Holiest!--I am vow’d To solemn service high; And shall the spirit, for thy tasks endow’d, Sink on the threshold of the sanctuary, Fainting beneath the burden of the day, Because no human tone Unto the altar-stone Of that pure spousal fane inviolate, Where it should make eternal truth its mate, May cheer the sacred, solitary way? Oh! be the whisper of thy voice within Enough to strengthen! Be the hope to win A more deep-seeing homage for thy name, Far, far beyond the burning dream of fame! Make me thine only!--Let me add but one To those refulgent steps all undefiled, Which glorious minds have piled Through bright self-offering, earnest, childlike, lone, For mounting to thy throne! And let my soul, upborne On wings of inner morn, Find, in illumined secrecy, the sense Of that bless’d work, its own high recompense. The dimness melts away That on your glory lay, O ye majestic watchers of the skies! Through the dissolving veil, Which made each aspect pale, Your gladdening fires once more I recognise; And once again a shower Of hope, and joy, and power, Streams on my soul from your immortal eyes. And if that splendour to my sober’d sight Come tremulous, with more of pensive light-- Something, though beautiful, yet deeply fraught With more that pierces through each fold of thought Than I was wont to trace On heaven’s unshadow’d face-- Be it e’en so!--be mine, though set apart Unto a radiant ministry, yet still A lowly, fearful, self-distrusting heart, Bow’d before thee, O Mightiest! whose bless’d will All the pure stars rejoicingly fulfil.[422] [422] Written after hearing the introductory Lecture on Astronomy delivered in Trinity College, Dublin, by Sir William Hamilton, royal astronomer of Ireland, on the 8th November 1832. THE TRAVELLER’S EVENING SONG. Father! guide me! Day declines, Hollow winds are in the pines; Darkly waves each giant bough O’er the sky’s last crimson glow: Hush’d is now the convent’s bell, Which erewhile with breezy swell From the purple mountains bore Greeting to the sunset-shore. Now the sailor’s vesper-hymn Dies away. Father! in the forest dim, Be my stay! In the low and shivering thrill Of the leaves that late hung still; In the dull and muffled tone Of the sea-wave’s distant moan; In the deep tints of the sky, There are signs of tempests nigh. Ominous, with sullen sound, Falls the closing dusk around. Father! through the storm and shade O’er the wild, Oh! be _Thou_ the lone one’s aid-- Save thy child! Many a swift and sounding plume Homewards, through the boding gloom, O’er my way hath flitted fast Since the farewell sunbeam pass’d From the chestnut’s ruddy bark, And the pools, now lone and dark, Where the wakening night-winds sigh Through the long reeds mournfully. Homeward, homeward, all things haste-- God of might! Shield the homeless midst the waste! Be his light! In his distant cradle-nest, Now my babe is laid to rest; Beautiful its slumber seems With a glow of heavenly dreams-- Beautiful, o’er that bright sleep. Hang soft eyes of fondness deep, Where his mother bends to pray For the loved and far away. Father! guard that household bower, Hear that prayer! Back, through thine all-guiding power, Lead me there! Darker, wilder grows the night; Not a star sends quivering light Through the massy arch of shade By the stern, old forest made. Thou! to whose unslumbering eyes All my pathway open lies, By thy Son who knew distress In the lonely wilderness, Where no roof to that bless’d head Shelter gave-- Father! through the time of dread, Save--oh, save! BURIAL OF AN EMIGRANT’S CHILD IN THE FORESTS. Scene.--_The banks of a solitary river in an American forest. A tent under pine-trees in the foreground._ Agnes _sitting before the tent, with a child in her arms apparently sleeping._ _Agnes._ Surely ’tis all a dream--a fever-dream! The desolation and the agony-- The strange, red sunrise, and the gloomy woods, So terrible with their dark giant boughs, And the broad, lonely river!--all a dream! And my boy’s voice will wake me, with its clear, Wild singing tones, as they were wont to come Through the wreath’d sweetbrier at my lattice-panes In happy, happy England! Speak to me! Speak to thy mother, bright one! she hath watch’d All the dread night beside thee, till her brain Is darken’d by swift waves of fantasies, And her soul faint with longing for thy voice. Oh! I _must_ wake him with one gentle kiss On his fair brow! (_Shudderingly._) The strange, damp, thrilling touch! The marble chill! Now, now it rushes back-- Now I know all!--dead--_dead!_--a fearful word! My boy hath left me in the wilderness, To journey on without the blessed light In his deep, loving eyes. He’s gone!--he’s gone! _Her_ Husband _enters_. _Husband._ Agnes! my Agnes! hast thou look’d thy last On our sweet slumberer’s face? The hour is come-- The couch made ready for his last repose. _Agnes._ Not yet! thou canst not take him from me yet! If he but left me for a few short days, This were too brief a gazing time to draw His angel image into my fond heart, And fix its beauty there. And now--oh! _now_, Never again the laughter of his eye Shall send its gladdening summer through my soul --Never on earth again. Yet, yet delay! Thou canst not take him from me. _Husband._ My beloved! Is it not God hath taken him? the God That took our first-born, o’er whose early grave Thou didst bow down thy saint-like head, and say, “His will be done!” _Agnes._ Oh! that near household grave, Under the turf of England, seem’d not half-- Not half so much to part me from my child As these dark woods. It lay beside our home, And I could watch the sunshine, through all hours, Loving and clinging to the grassy spot; And I could dress its greensward with fresh flowers, Familiar meadow-flowers. O’er _thee_, my babe! The primrose will not blossom! Oh! that now, Together, by thy fair young sister’s side, We lay midst England’s valleys! _Husband._ Dost thou grieve, Agnes! that thou hast follow’d o’er the deep An exile’s fortunes? If it _thus_ can be, Then, after many a conflict cheerily met, My spirit sinks at last. _Agnes._ Forgive! forgive! My Edmund, pardon me! Oh! grief is wild-- Forget its words, quick spray-drops from a fount Of unknown bitterness! Thou art my home! Mine only and my blessed one! Where’er Thy warm heart beats in its true nobleness, _There_ is my country! _there_ my head shall rest, And throb no more. Oh! still, by thy strong love, Bear up the feeble reed! (_Kneeling with the child in her arms._) And thou, my God! Hear my soul’s cry from this dread wilderness! Oh! hear, and pardon me! If I have made This treasure, sent from thee, too much the ark Fraught with mine earthward-clinging happiness, Forgetting Him who gave, and might resume, Oh, pardon me! If nature hath rebell’d, And from thy light turn’d wilfully away, Making a midnight of her agony, When the despairing passion of her clasp Was from its idol stricken at one touch Of thine Almighty hand--oh, pardon me! By thy Son’s anguish, pardon! In the soul The tempests and the waves will know thy voice-- Father! say, “Peace, be still!” (_Giving the child to her husband._) Farewell, my babe!