The Poems of Felicia Hemans
Hush’d are the voices that in years gone by
Have mourn’d, exulted, menaced, through thy towers;
Within thy pillar’d courts the grass waves high,
And all uncultured bloom thy fairy bowers.
Unheeded there the flowering myrtle blows,
Through tall arcades unmark’d the sunbeam smiles,
And many a tint of soften’d brilliance throws
O’er fretted walls and shining peristyles.
And well might Fancy deem thy fabrics lone,
So vast, so silent, and so wildly fair,
Some charm’d abode of beings all unknown,
Powerful and viewless, children of the air.
For there no footstep treads th’ enchanted ground,
There not a sound the deep repose pervades,
Save winds and founts, diffusing freshness round,
Through the light domes and graceful colonnades.
Far other tones have swell’d those courts along
In days romance yet fondly loves to trace
The clash of arms, the voice of choral song,
The revels, combats of a vanish’d race.
And yet awhile, at Fancy’s potent call,
Shall rise that race, the chivalrous, the bold;
Peopling once more each fair forsaken hall
With stately forms, the knights and chiefs of old.
----The sun declines: upon Nevada’s height
There dwells a mellow flush of rosy light;
Each soaring pinnacle of mountain snow
Smiles in the richness of that parting glow,
And Darro’s wave reflects each passing dye
That melts and mingles in th’ empurpled sky.
Fragrance, exhaled from rose and citron bower,
Blends with the dewy freshness of the hour;
Hush’d are the winds, and nature seems to sleep
In light and stillness; wood, and tower, and steep,
Are dyed with tints of glory, only given
To the rich evening of a southern heaven--
Tints of the sun, whose bright farewell is fraught
With all that art hath dreamt, but never caught
--Yes, Nature sleeps; but not with her at rest
The fiery passions of the human breast,
Hark! from th’ Alhambra’s towers what stormy sound,
Each moment deepening, wildly swells around?
Those are no tumults of a festal throng,
Not the light zambra[65] nor the choral song:
The combat rages--’tis the shout of war,
’Tis the loud clash of shield and scimitar.
Within the Hall of Lions,[66] where the rays
Of eve, yet lingering, on the fountain blaze;
There, girt and guarded by his Zegri bands,
And stern in wrath, the Moorish monarch stands:
There the strife centres--swords around him wave,
There bleed the fallen, there contend the brave;
While echoing domes return the battle-cry,
“Revenge and freedom! let the tyrant die!”
And onward rushing, and prevailing still,
Court, hall, and tower the fierce avengers fill.
But first and bravest of that gallant train,
Where foes are mightiest, charging ne’er in vain;
In his red hand the sabre glancing bright,
His dark eye flashing with a fiercer light,
Ardent, untired, scarce conscious that he bleeds,
His Aben-Zurrahs[67] there young Hamet leads;
While swells his voice that wild acclaim on high,
“Revenge and freedom! let the tyrant die!”
Yes! trace the footsteps of the warrior’s wrath
By helm and corslet shatter’d in his path,
And by the thickest harvest of the slain,
And by the marble’s deepest crimson stain:
Search through the serried fight, where loudest cries
From triumph, anguish, or despair, arise;
And brightest where the shivering falchions glare,
And where the ground is reddest--he is there.
Yes! that young arm, amidst the Zegri host,
Hath well avenged a sire, a brother, lost.
They perish’d--not as heroes should have died,
On the red field, in victory’s hour of pride,
In all the glow and sunshine of their fame,
And proudly smiling as the death-pang came:
Oh! had they _thus_ expired, a warrior’s tear
Had flow’d, almost in triumph, o’er their bier.
For thus alone the brave should weep for those
Who brightly pass in glory to repose.
--Not such their fate: a tyrant’s stern command
Doom’d them to fall by some ignoble hand,
As, with the flower of all their high-born race,
Summon’d Abdallah’s royal feast to grace,
Fearless in heart, no dream of danger nigh,
They sought the banquet’s gilded hall--to die.
Betray’d, unarm’d, they fell--the fountain wave
Flow’d crimson with the life-blood of the brave,
Till far the fearful tidings of their fate
Through the wide city rang from gate to gate,
And of that lineage each surviving son
Rush’d to the scene where vengeance might be won.
For this young Hamet mingles in the strife,
Leader of battle, prodigal of life,
Urging his followers, till their foes, beset,
Stand faint and breathless, but undaunted yet.
Brave Aben-Zurrahs, on! one effort more,
Yours is the triumph, and the conflict o’er.
But lo! descending o’er the darken’d hall,
The twilight-shadows fast and deeply fall,
Nor yet the strife hath ceased--though scarce they know,
Through that thick gloom, the brother from the foe;
Till the moon rises with her cloudless ray,
The peaceful moon, and gives them light to slay.
Where lurks Abdallah?--midst his yielding train
They seek the guilty monarch, but in vain.
He lies not number’d with the valiant dead,
His champions round him have not vainly bled;
But when the twilight spread her shadowy veil,
And his last warriors found each effort fail,
In wild despair he fled--a trusted few,
Kindred in crime, are still in danger true;
And o’er the scene of many a martial deed,
The Vega’s[68] green expanse, his flying footsteps lead.
He pass’d th’ Alhambra’s calm and lovely bowers,
Where slept the glistening leaves and folded flowers
In dew and starlight--there, from grot and cave,
Gush’d in wild music many a sparkling wave;
There on each breeze the breath of fragrance rose,
And all was freshness, beauty, and repose.
But thou, dark monarch! in thy bosom reign
Storms that, once roused, shall never sleep again.
Oh! vainly bright is nature in the course
Of him who flies from terror or remorse!
A spell is round him which obscures her bloom,
And dims her skies with shadows of the tomb;
There smiles no Paradise on earth so fair
But guilt will raise avenging phantoms there.
Abdallah heeds not, though the light gale roves
Fraught with rich odour, stolen from orange-groves;
Hears not the sounds from wood and brook that rise,
Wild notes of nature’s vesper-melodies;
Marks not how lovely, on the mountain’s head,
Moonlight and snow their mingling lustre spread;
But urges onward, till his weary band,
Worn with their toil, a moment’s pause demand.
He stops, and turning, on Granada’s fanes
In silence gazing, fix’d awhile remains
In stern, deep silence: o’er his feverish brow,
And burning cheek, pure breezes freshly blow,
But waft in fitful murmurs, from afar,
Sounds indistinctly fearful--as of war.
What meteor bursts with sudden blaze on high,
O’er the blue clearness of the starry sky?
Awful it rises, like some Genie-form,
Seen midst the redness of the desert storm,
Magnificently dread--above, below,
Spreads the wild splendour of its deepening glow.
Lo! from the Alhambra’s towers the vivid glare
Streams through the still transparence of the air!
Avenging crowds have lit the mighty pyre,
Which feeds that waving pyramid of fire;
And dome and minaret, river, wood, and height,
From dim perspective start to ruddy light.
Oh Heaven! the anguish of Abdallah’s soul,
The rage, though fruitless, yet beyond control!
Yet must he cease to gaze, and raving fly
For life--such life as makes it bliss to die!
On yon green height, the mosque, but half reveal’d
Through cypress-groves, a safe retreat may yield.
Thither his steps are bent--yet oft he turns,
Watching that fearful beacon as it burns.
But paler grow the sinking flames at last,
Flickering they fade, their crimson light is past;
And spiry vapours, rising o’er the scene,
Mark where the terrors of their wrath have been.
And now his feet have reach’d that lonely pile,
Where grief and terror may repose awhile;
Embower’d it stands, midst wood and cliff on high,
Through the gray rocks a torrent sparkling nigh:
He hails the scene where every care should cease,
And all--except the heart he brings--is peace.
There is deep stillness in those halls of state
Where the loud cries of conflict rang so late;
Stillness like that, when fierce the Kamsin’s blast
Hath o’er the dwellings of the desert pass’d.[70]
Fearful the calm--nor voice, nor step, nor breath
Disturbs that scene of beauty and of death:
Those vaulted roofs re-echo not a sound,
Save the wild gush of waters--murmuring round
In ceaseless melodies of plaintive tone,
Through chambers peopled by the dead alone.
O’er the mosaic floors, with carnage red,
Breastplate and shield and cloven helm are spread
In mingled fragments--glittering to the light
Of yon still moon, whose rays, yet softly bright,
Their streaming lustre tremulously shed,
And smile in placid beauty o’er the dead:
O’er features where the fiery spirit’s trace
E’en death itself is powerless to efface;
O’er those who flush’d with ardent youth awoke,
When glowing morn in bloom and radiance broke,
Nor dreamt how near the dark and frozen sleep
Which hears not Glory call, nor Anguish weep;
In the low silent house, the narrow spot,
Home of forgetfulness--and soon forgot.
But slowly fade the stars--the night is o’er--
Morn beams on those who hail her light no more;
Slumberers who ne’er shall wake on earth again,
Mourners, who call the loved, the lost, in vain.
Yet smiles the day--oh! not for mortal tear
Doth nature deviate from her calm career:
Nor is the earth less laughing or less fair,
Though breaking hearts her gladness may not share.
O’er the cold urn the beam of summer glows,
O’er fields of blood the zephyr freshly blows;
Bright shines the sun, though all be dark below,
And skies arch cloudless o’er a world of woe;
And flowers renew’d in spring’s green pathway bloom,
Alike to grace the banquet and the tomb.
Within Granada’s walls the funeral rite
Attends that day of loveliness and light;
And many a chief, with dirges and with tears,
Is gather’d to the brave of other years:
And Hamet, as beneath the cypress shade
His martyr’d brother and his sire are laid,
Feels every deep resolve and burning thought
Of ampler vengeance e’en to passion wrought;
Yet is the hour afar--and he must brood
O’er those dark dreams awhile in solitude.
Tumult and rage are hush’d--another day
In still solemnity hath pass’d away,
In that deep slumber of exhausted wrath,
The calm that follows in the tempest’s path.
And now Abdallah leaves yon peaceful fane,
His ravaged city traversing again.
No sound of gladness his approach precedes,
No splendid pageant the procession leads;
Where’er he moves the silent streets along,
Broods a stern quiet o’er the sullen throng.
No voice is heard; but in each alter’d eye,
Once brightly beaming when his steps were nigh,
And in each look of those whose love hath fled
From all on earth to slumber with the dead,
Those by his guilt made desolate, and thrown