The Poems of Felicia Hemans
In life, in death, we yield thee boundless trust!
HYMN OF THE VAUDOIS MOUNTAINEERS IN TIMES OF PERSECUTION.
“Thanks be to God for the mountains!”
Howitt’s “Book of the Seasons.”
For the strength of the hills we bless thee,
Our God, our fathers’ God!
Thou hast made thy children mighty,
By the touch of the mountain-sod.
Thou hast fix’d our ark of refuge
Where the spoiler’s foot ne’er trod;
For the strength of the hills we bless thee,
Our God, our fathers’ God!
We are watchers of a beacon
Whose light must never die;
We are guardians of an altar
Midst the silence of the sky:
The rocks yield founts of courage,
Struck forth as by thy rod;
For the strength of the hills we bless thee,
Our God, our fathers’ God!
For the dark, resounding caverns,
Where thy still, small voice is heard;
For the strong pines of the forests,
That by thy breath are stirr’d;
For the storms, on whose free pinions
Thy spirit walks abroad;
For the strength of the hills we bless thee,
Our God, our fathers’ God!
The royal eagle darteth
On his quarry from the heights,
And the stag that knows no master,
Seeks there his wild delights;
But we, for _thy_ communion,
Have sought the mountain-sod;
For the strength of the hills we bless thee,
Our God, our fathers’ God!
The banner of the chieftain
Far, far below us waves;
The war-horse of the spearman
Cannot reach our lofty caves:
Thy dark clouds wrap the threshold
Of freedom’s last abode;
For the strength of the hills we bless thee,
Our God, our fathers’ God!
For the shadow of thy presence,
Round our camp of rock outspread;
For the stern defiles of battle,
Bearing record of our dead;
For the snows and for the torrents,
For the free heart’s burial-sod;
For the strength of the hills we bless thee,
Our God, our fathers’ God!
PRAYER AT SEA AFTER VICTORY.
“The land shall never rue,
So England to herself do prove but true.”--Shakspeare.
Through evening’s bright repose
A voice of prayer arose,
When the sea-fight was done:
The sons of England knelt,
With hearts that now could melt,
For on the wave her battle had been won.
Round their tall ship, the main
Heaved with a dark red stain,
Caught not from sunset’s cloud;
While with the tide swept past
Pennon and shiver’d mast,
Which to the Ocean-Queen that day had bow’d.
But free and fair on high,
A native of the sky,
_Her_ streamer met the breeze;
It flow’d o’er fearless men,
Though, hush’d and child-like then,
Before their God they gather’d on the seas.
Oh! did not thoughts of home
O’er each bold spirit come,
As from the land sweet gales?
In every word of prayer
Had not some hearth a share,
Some bower, inviolate midst England’s vales?
Yes! bright, green spots that lay
In beauty far away,
Hearing no billow’s roar,
Safer from touch of spoil,
For that day’s fiery toil,
Rose on high hearts, that now with love gush’d o’er.
A solemn scene and dread!
The victors and the dead,
The breathless burning sky!
And, passing with the race
Of waves that keep no trace,
The wild, brief signs of human victory!
A stern, yet holy scene!
Billows, where strife hath been,
Sinking to awful sleep;
And words, that breathe the sense
Of God’s omnipotence,
Making a minster of that silent deep.
Borne through such hours afar,
Thy flag hath been a star,
Where eagle’s wings ne’er flew:
England! the unprofaned,
Thou of the earth unstain’d,
Oh! to the banner and the shrine be true!
THE INDIAN’S REVENGE.
SCENE IN THE LIFE OF A MORAVIAN MISSIONARY.
[Circumstances similar to those on which this scene is founded are
recorded in Carne’s Narrative of the Moravian Missions in Greenland,
and gave rise to the dramatic sketch.]
“But by my wrongs and by my wrath,
To-morrow Areouski’s breath
That fires yon heaven with storms of death,
Shall light me to the foe!”
Indian Song in “Gertrude of Wyoming.”
Scene.--_The shore of a Lake surrounded by deep woods. A solitary
cabin on its banks, overshadowed by maple and sycamore trees._
Herrmann, _the missionary, seated alone before the cabin. The hour is
evening twilight._
_Herrmann._ Was that the light from some lone, swift canoe
Shooting across the waters?--No, a flash
From the night’s first, quick fire-fly, lost again
In the deep bay of cedars. Not a bark
Is on the wave; no rustle of a breeze
Comes through the forest. In this new, strange world,
Oh! how mysterious, how eternal, seems
The mighty melancholy of the woods!
The desert’s own great spirit, infinite!
Little they know, in mine own fatherland,
Along the castled Rhine, or e’en amidst
The wild Harz mountains, or the sylvan glades
Deep in the Odenwald--they little know
Of what is solitude! In hours like this,
There, from a thousand nooks, the cottage-hearths
Pour forth red light through vine-hung lattices,
To guide the peasant, singing cheerily,
On the home-path; while round his lowly porch,
With eager eyes awaiting his return,
The cluster’d faces of his children shine
To the clear harvest moon. Be still, fond thoughts!
Melting my spirit’s grasp from heavenly hope
By your vain, earthward yearnings. O my God!
Draw me still nearer, closer unto thee,
Till all the hollow of these deep desires
May with thyself be fill’d! Be it enough
At once to gladden and to solemnise
My lonely life, if for thine altar here
In this dread temple of the wilderness,
By prayer, and toil, and watching, I may win
The offering of one heart, one human heart,
Bleeding, repenting, loving!
Hark! a step,
An Indian tread! I know the stealthy sound--
’Tis on some quest of evil, through the grass
Gliding so serpent-like.
(_He comes forward, and meets an Indian warrior armed._)
Enonio, is it thou? I see thy form
Tower stately through the dusk, yet scarce mine eye
Discerns thy face.
_Enonio._ My father speaks my name.
_Herrmann._ Are not the hunters from the chase return’d?
The night-fires lit? Why is my son abroad?
_Enonio._ The warrior’s arrow knows of nobler prey
Than elk or deer. Now let my father leave
The lone path free.
_Herrmann._ The forest way is long
From the red chieftain’s home. Rest thee awhile
Beneath my sycamore, and we will speak
Of these things further.
_Enonio._ Tell me not of rest!
My heart is sleepless, and the dark night swift.
I must begone.
_Herrmann_, (_solemnly._) No, warrior! thou must stay!
The Mighty One hath given me power to search
Thy soul with piercing words--and thou must stay,
And hear me, and give answer! If thy heart
Be grown thus restless, is it not because
Within its dark folds thou hast mantled up
Some burning thought of ill?
_Enonio_, (_with sudden impetuosity._) How should I rest?--
Last night the spirit of my brother came,
An angry shadow in the moonlight streak,
And said, “_Avenge me!_” In the clouds this morn
I saw the frowning colour of his blood--
And that, too, had a voice. I lay at noon
Alone beside the sounding waterfall,
And through its thunder-music spake a tone--
A low tone piercing all the roll of waves--
And said “_Avenge me!_” Therefore have I raised
The tomahawk, and strung the bow again,
That I may send the shadow from my couch,
And take the strange sound from the cataract,
And sleep once more.
_Herrmann._ A better path, my son!
Unto the still and dewy land of sleep,
My hand in peace can guide thee--e’en the way
Thy dying brother trod. Say, didst thou love
That lost one well?
_Enonio._ Know’st thou not we grew up
Even as twin roes amidst the wilderness?
Unto the chase we journey’d in one path;
We stemm’d the lake in one canoe; we lay
Beneath one oak to rest. When fever hung
Upon my burning lips, my brother’s hand
Was still beneath my head; my brother’s robe
Cover’d my bosom from the chill night-air--
Our lives were girdled by one belt of love
Until he turn’d him from his father’s gods.
And then my soul fell from him--then the grass
Grew in the way between our parted homes;
And wheresoe’er I wander’d, then it seem’d
That all the woods were silent. I went forth--
I journey’d, with my lonely heart, afar,
And so return’d--and where was he? The earth
Own’d him no more.
_Herrmann._ But thou thyself, since then,
Hast turn’d thee from the idols of thy tribe,
And, like thy brother, bow’d the suppliant knee
To the one God.
_Enonio._ Yes! I have learn’d to pray
With my white father’s words, yet all the more
My heart, that shut against my brother’s love,
Hath been within me as an arrowy fire,
Burning my sleep away. In the night-hush,
Midst the strange whispers and dim shadowy things
Of the great forests, I have call’d aloud,
“Brother! forgive, forgive!” He answer’d not--
His deep voice, rising from the land of souls,
Cries but “_Avenge me!_”--and I go forth now
To slay his murderer, that when next his eyes
Gleam on me mournfully from that pale shore,
I may look up, and meet their glance, and say,
“I _have_ avenged thee!”
_Herrmann._ Oh! that human love
Should be the root of this dread bitterness,
Till heaven through all the fever’d being pours
Transmuting balsam! Stay, Enonio! stay!
Thy brother calls thee not! The spirit-world
Where the departed go, sends back to earth
No visitants for evil. ’Tis the might
Of the strong passion, the remorseful grief
At work in thine own breast, which lends the voice
Unto the forest and the cataract,
The angry colour to the clouds of morn,
The shadow to the moonlight. Stay, my son!
Thy brother is at peace. Beside his couch,
When of the murderer’s poison’d shaft he died,
I knelt and pray’d; he named his Saviour’s name,
Meekly, beseechingly; he spoke of thee
In pity and in love.
_Enonio_, (_hurriedly._) Did he not say
My arrow should avenge him?
_Herrmann._ His last words
Were all forgiveness.
_Enonio._ What! and shall the man
Who pierced him with the shaft of treachery,
Walk fearless forth in joy?
_Herrmann._ Was he not once
Thy brother’s friend? Oh! trust me, not in _joy_
He walks the frowning forest. Did keen love,
Too late repentant of its heart estranged,
Wake in _thy_ haunted bosom, with its train
Of sounds and shadows--and shall _he_ escape?
Enonio, dream it not! Our God, the All-just,
Unto himself reserves this royalty--
The secret chastening of the guilty heart,
The fiery touch, the scourge that purifies,
Leave it with him! Yet make it not thy _hope_:
For that strong heart of thine--oh! listen yet--
Must, in its depths, o’ercome the very wish