The Poems of Felicia Hemans
One step, _but_ one, removed; till our fond thirst
For the still fading fountain, step by step,
Lures to the grave! So seldom do we find
What seem’d by Nature moulded for our love,
And for our bliss endow’d--or, _if_ we find,
So seldom to our yearning hearts can hold!
That which once freely made itself our own
Bursts from us!--that which eagerly we press’d
We coldly loose! A treasure may be ours,
Only we know it not, or know, perchance,
Unconscious of its worth!
But the dark clouds are gathering within the spirit of Tasso itself,
and the devotedness of affection would in vain avert their lightnings
by the sacrifice of all its own pure enjoyments. In the solitary
confinement to which the Duke has sentenced him, as a punishment
for his duel with Antonio, his jealous imagination, like that of
the self-torturing Rousseau, pictures the whole world as arrayed
in one conspiracy against him, and he doubts even of _her_ truth
and gentleness whose watching thoughts are all for his welfare.
The following passages affectingly mark the progress of the dark
despondency which finally overwhelms him, though the concluding lines
of the last are brightened by a ray of those immortal hopes, the light
of which we could have desired to recognise more frequently in this
deeply thoughtful work.
PRESENTIMENT OF HIS RUIN.
Alas! too well I feel, too true a voice
Within me whispers, that the Mighty Power
Which, on sustaining wings of strength and joy,
Bears up the healthful spirit, will but cast
Mine to the earth--will rend me utterly!----
I must away!
ON A FRIEND’S DECLARING HERSELF UNABLE TO RECOGNISE HIM.
Rightly thou speak’st--I am myself no more;
And yet in worth not less than I have been.
Seems this a dark, strange riddle? Yet,’tis none!
The gentle moon that gladdens thee by night--
Thine eye, thy spirit irresistibly
Winning with beams of love--mark! how it floats
Through the day’s glare, a pale and powerless cloud!
I am o’ercome by the full blaze of noon;
Ye know me, and I know myself no more!
ON BEING ADVISED TO REFRAIN FROM COMPOSITION.
Vainly, too vainly, ’gainst the power I strive,
Which, night and day, comes rushing through my soul!
Without that pouring forth of thought and song
My life is life no more!
Wilt thou forbid the silkworm to spin on,
When hourly, with the labour’d line, he draws
Nearer to death. In vain!--the costly web
Must from his inmost being still be wrought,
Till he lies wrapp’d in his consummate shroud.
Oh! that a gracious God to us may give
The lot of that bless’d worm!--to spread free wings,
And burst exultingly on brighter life,
In a new realm of sunshine!
He is at last released, and admitted into the presence of the Princess
Leonora, to take his leave of her before commencing a distant journey.
Notwithstanding his previous doubts of her interest in him, he is
overcome by the pitying tenderness of her manner, and breaks into a
strain of passionate gratitude and enthusiasm:--
Thou art the same pure angel, as when first
Thy radiance cross’d my path! Forgive, forgive,
If for a moment, in his blind despair,
The mortal’s troubled glance hath read thee wrong!
Once more he knows thee! His expanding soul
Flows forth to worship thee for evermore,
And his full heart dissolves in tenderness.
...
Is it false light which draws me on to thee?
Is it delirium?--Is it thought inspired,
And grasping first high truth divinely clear?
Yes! ’tis even so--the feeling which alone
Can make me bless’d on earth!
The wildness of his ecstasy at last terrifies his gentle protectress
from him; he is forsaken by all as a being lost in hopeless delusion,
and, being left alone tn the insulting pity of Antonio, his strength
of heart is utterly subdued: he passionately bewails his weakness,
and even casts down his spirit almost in wondering admiration before
the calm self-collectedness of his enemy, who himself seems at last
almost melted by the extremity of the poet’s desolation, as thus poured
forth:--
Can I then image no high-hearted man
Whose pangs and conflicts have surpass’d mine own,
That my vex’d soul might win sustaining power
From thoughts of _him_? I cannot!--all is lost!
One thing alone remains, one mournful boon:
Nature on us, her suffering children, showers
The gift of tears--the impassion’d cry of grief,
When man can bear no more;--and with _my_ woe,
With mine above all others, hath been link’d
Sad music, piercing eloquence, to pour
All, all its fulness forth! To me a God
Hath given strong utterance for mine agony,
When others, in their deep despair, are mute!
...
Thou standest calm and still, thou noble man!
I seem before thee as the troubled wave:
But oh! be thoughtful!--in thy lofty strength
Exult thou not! By nature’s might alike
That rock was fix’d, that quivering wave was made
The sensitive of storm! She sends her blasts--
The living water flies--it quakes and swells,
And bows down tremblingly with breaking foam;
Yet once that mirror gave the bright sun back
In calm transparence--once the gentle stars
Lay still upon its undulating breast!
Now the sweet peace is gone--the glory now
Departed from the wave! I know myself
No more in these dark perils, and no more
I blush to lose that knowledge. From the bark
Is wrench’d the rudder, and through all its frame
The quivering vessel groans. Beneath my feet
The rocking earth gives way--to thee I cling--
I grasp thee with mine arms. In wild despair
So doth the struggling sailor clasp the rock
Whereon he perishes!
And thus painfully ends this celebrated drama, the catastrophe being
that of the spiritual wreck within, unmingled with the terrors drawn
from outward circumstances and change. The majestic lines in which
Byron has embodied the thoughts of the captive Tasso, will form a fine
contrast and relief to the music of despair with which Goethe’s work is
closed:--
“All this hath somewhat worn me, and may wear,
But must be borne. I stoop not to despair;
For I have baffled with mine agony,
And made me wings wherewith to overfly
The narrow circus of my dungeon-wall;
And freed the Holy Sepulchre from thrall;
And revell’d among men and things divine,
And pour’d my spirit over Palestine,
In honour of the sacred war for Him,
The God who was on earth and is in heaven;
For He hath strengthen’d me in heart and limb.
That through this sufferance I might be forgiven,
I have employ’d my penance to record
How Salem’s shrine was won, and how adored.”
SCENES FROM “IPHIGENIA.”
A FRAGMENT.
There is a charm of antique grace, of the majestic repose resulting
from a faultless symmetry, about the whole of this composition, which
inclines us to rank it as among the most consummate works of art ever
achieved by the master-mind of its author. The perfection of its
design and finish is analogous to that of a Grecian temple, seen as
the crown of some old classic height, with all its pure outlines--all
the delicate proportions of its airy pillars--brought into bold relief
by the golden sunshine, and against the unclouded blue of its native
heavens. Complete within itself, the harmonious edifice is thus also
to the mind and eye of the beholder; they are filled, and desire no
more--they even feel that more would be but encumbrance upon the
fine adjustment of the well-ordered parts constituting the graceful
whole. It sends no vague dreams to wander through infinity, such as
are excited by a Gothic minster, where the slight pinnacles striving
upward, like the free but still baffled thought of the architect--the
clustering pillars and high arches imitating the bold combinations
of mysterious forests--the many-branching cells, and long visionary
aisles, of which waving torchlight or uncertain glimpses of the moon
seem the fittest illumination--ever suggest ideas of some conception in
the originally moulding mind, far more vast than the means allotted to
human accomplishment--of struggling endeavour, and painfully submitted
will. Akin to the spirit of such creations is that of the awful but
irregular Faust, and other works of Goethe, in which the restless
questionings, the lofty aspirations, and dark misgivings of the human
soul, are perpetually called up to “come like shadows, so depart,”
across the stormy splendours of the scene; and the mind is engaged
in ceaseless conflict with the interminable mysteries of life. It is
otherwise with the work before us: overshadowed, as it were, by the
dark wings of the inflexible Destiny which hovers above the children
of Tantalus, the spirit of the imaginary personages, as well as of
the reader, here moves acquiescently _within_ the prescribed circle
of events, and is seldom tempted beyond, to plunge into the abyss of
general speculations upon the lot of humanity.
* * * * *
I.
JOY OF PYLADES ON HEARING HIS NATIVE LANGUAGE.
O sweetest voice! O bless’d familiar sound
Of mother-words heard in the stranger’s land!
I see the blue hills of my native shore,
The far blue hills again! those cordial tones,
Before the captive bid them freshly rise
For ever welcome! Oh, by this deep joy,
Know the true son of Greece!
II.
EXCLAMATIONS OF IPHIGENIA ON SEEING HER BROTHER.
Oh, hear me! look upon me! How my heart,
After long desolation, now unfolds
Unto this new delight, to kiss thy head,
Thou dearest, dearest one of all on earth!
To clasp thee with my arms, which were but thrown
On the void winds before! Oh, give me way!
Give my soul’s rapture way! The eternal fount
Leaps not more brightly forth from cliff to cliff
Of high Parnassus, down the golden vale,
Than the strong joy bursts gushing from my heart,
And swells around me to a flood of bliss--
Orestes!--O my brother!
III.
LOT OF MAN AND WOMAN COMPARED BY IPHIGENIA.
Man by the battle’s hour immortalised
May fall, yet leave his name to living song;
But of forsaken woman’s countless tears,
What recks the after-world? The poet’s voice
Tells naught of all the slow, sad, weary days,
And long, long nights, through which the lonely soul
Pour’d itself forth, consumed itself away,
In passionate adjurings, vain desires,
And ceaseless weepings for the early lost,
The loved and vanish’d!
IV.
LONGING OF ORESTES FOR REPOSE.
One draught from Lethe’s flood!--reach me one draught,
One last cool goblet fill’d with dewy peace!
Soon will the spasm of life departing leave
My bosom free! Soon shall my spirit flow
Along the deep waves of forgetfulness,
Calmly and silently! away to you,
Ye dead! Ye dwellers of the eternal cloud!
Take home the son of earth, and let him steep
His o’erworn senses in your dim repose
For evermore.
V.
CONTINUATION OF ORESTES’ SOLILOQUY.
Hark! in the trembling leaves
Mysterious whispers: hark! a rushing sound
Sweeps through yon twilight depth!--e’en now they come,
They throng to greet their guest! And who are they
Rejoicing each with each in stately joy,
As a king’s children gather’d for the hour
Of some high festival! Exultingly,
And kindred-like, and godlike, on they pass--
The glorious, wandering shapes! aged and young,
Proud men and royal women! Lo! my race--
My sire’s ancestral race!
RECORDS OF THE SPRING OF 1834.