The Poems of Felicia Hemans
Its forms and colour seem alike of air.
Here, by sweet orange-boughs half shaded o’er,
The deep clear bath reveals its marble floor,
Its margin fringed with flowers, whose glowing hues
The calm transparence of its wave suffuse.
There round the court, where Moorish arches bend,
Aërial columns, richly deck’d, ascend;
Unlike the models of each classic race,
Of Doric grandeur or Corinthian grace,
But answering well each vision that portrays
Arabian splendour to the poet’s gaze:
Wild, wondrous, brilliant, all--a mingling glow
Of rainbow-tints, above, around, below;
Bright streaming from the many-tinctured veins
Of precious marble, and the vivid stains
Of rich mosaics o’er the light arcade,
In gay festoons and fairy knots display’d.
On through th’ enchanted realm, that only seems
Meet for the radiant creatures of our dreams,
The royal conquerors pass--while still their sight
On some new wonder dwells with fresh delight.
Here the eye roves through slender colonnades,
O’er bowery terraces and myrtle shades;
Dark olive-woods beyond, and far on high
The vast sierra mingling with the sky.
There, scattering far around their diamond spray,
Clear streams from founts of alabaster play,
Through pillar’d halls, where, exquisitely wrought,
Rich arabesques, with glittering foliage fraught,
Surmount each fretted arch, and lend the scene
A wild, romantic, oriental mien:
While many a verse, from eastern bards of old,
Borders the walls in characters of gold.[94]
Here Moslem luxury, in her own domain,
Hath held for ages her voluptuous reign
Midst gorgeous domes, where soon shall silence brood,
And all be lone--a splendid solitude.
Now wake their echoes to a thousand songs,
From mingling voices of exulting throngs;
Tambour and flute, and atabal are there,[95]
And joyous clarions pealing on the air;
While every hall resounds, “Granada won!
Granada! for Castile and Aragon!”[96]
’Tis night--from dome and tower, in dazzling maze,
The festal lamps innumerably blaze;[97]
Through long arcades their quivering lustre gleams,
From every lattice tremulously streams,
Midst orange-gardens plays on fount and rill,
And gilds the waves of Darro and Xenil;
Red flame the torches on each minaret’s height,
And shines each street an avenue of light;
And midnight feasts are held, and music’s voice
Through the long night still summons to rejoice.
Yet there, while all would seem to heedless eye
One blaze of pomp, one burst of revelry,
Are hearts unsoothed by those delusive hours,
Gall’d by the chain, though deck’d awhile with flowers;
Stern passions working in th’ indignant breast,
Deep pangs untold, high feelings unexpress’d,
Heroic spirits, unsubmitting yet--
Vengeance and keen remorse, and vain regret.
From yon proud height, whose olive-shaded brow
Commands the wide luxuriant plains below,
Who lingering gazes o’er the lovely scene,
Anguish and shame contending in his mien
He who of heroes and of kings the son,
Hath lived to lose whate’er his fathers won;
Whose doubts and fears his people’s fate have seal’d,
Wavering alike in council and in field;
Weak, timid ruler of the wise and brave,
Still a fierce tyrant or a yielding slave.
Far from these vine-clad hills and azure skies,
To Afric’s wilds the royal exile flies;[98]
Yet pauses on his way to weep in vain
O’er all he never must behold again.
Fair spreads the scene around--for him _too_ fair,
Each glowing charm but deepens his despair.
The Vega’s meads, the city’s glittering spires,
The old majestic palace of his sires,
The gay pavilions and retired alcoves,
Bosom’d in citron and pomegranate groves;
Tower-crested rocks, and streams that wind in light,
All in one moment bursting on his sight,
Speak to his soul of glory’s vanish’d years,
And wake the source of unavailing tears.
--Weep’st thou, Abdallah?--Thou dost well to weep,
O feeble heart! o’er all thou couldst not keep!
Well do a woman’s tears befit the eye
Of him who knew not as a man to die.[99]
The gale sighs mournfully through Zayda’s bower,
The hand is gone that nursed each infant flower.
No voice, no step, is in her father’s halls,
Mute are the echoes of their marble walls;
No stranger enters at the chieftain’s gate,
But all is hush’d, and void, and desolate.
There, through each tower and solitary shade,
In vain doth Hamet seek the Zegri maid:
Her grove is silent, her pavilion lone,
Her lute forsaken, and her doom unknown;
And through the scene she loved, unheeded flows
The stream whose music lull’d her to repose.
But oh! to him, whose self-accusing thought
Whispers ’twas _he_ that desolation wrought;
He who his country and his faith betray’d,
And lent Castile revengeful, powerful aid;
A voice of sorrow swells in every gale,
Each wave low rippling tells a mournful tale:
And as the shrubs, untended, unconfined,
In wild exuberance rustle to the wind,
Each leaf hath language to his startled sense,
And seems to murmur--“Thou hast driven her hence!”
And well he feels to trace her flight were vain,
--Where hath lost love been once recall’d again?
In her pure breast, so long by anguish torn,
His name can rouse no feeling now--but scorn.
O bitter hour! when first the shuddering heart
Wakes to behold the void within--and start!
To feel its own abandonment, and brood
O’er the chill bosom’s depth of solitude.
The stormy passions that in Hamet’s breast
Have sway’d so long, so fiercely, are at rest;
The avenger’s task is closed:[100]--he finds too late
It hath not changed his feelings, but his fate.
He was a lofty spirit, turn’d aside
From its bright path by woes, and wrongs, and pride,
And onward, in its new tumultuous course,
Borne with too rapid and intense a force
To pause one moment in the dread career,
And ask if such could be its native sphere.
Now are those days of wild delirium o’er,
Their fears and hopes excite his soul no more;
The feverish energies of passion close,
And his heart sinks in desolate repose,
Turns sickening from the world, yet shrinks not less
From its own deep and utter loneliness.
There is a sound of voices on the air,
A flash of armour to the sunbeam’s glare,
Midst the wild Alpuxarras;[101]--there, on high,
Where mountain-snows are mingling with the sky,
A few brave tribes, with spirits yet unbroke,
Have fled indignant from the Spaniard’s yoke.
O ye dread scenes! where nature dwells alone,
Severely glorious on her craggy throne;
Ye citadels of rock, gigantic forms,
Veil’d by the mists and girdled by the storms,--
Ravines, and glens, and deep resounding caves,
That hold communion with the torrent-waves;
And ye, th’ unstain’d and everlasting snows,
That dwell above in bright and still repose;
To you, in every clime, in every age,
Far from the tyrant’s or the conqueror’s rage,
Hath Freedom led her sons--untired to keep
Her fearless vigils on the barren steep.
She, like the mountain-eagle, still delights
To gaze exulting from unconquer’d heights,
And build her eyrie in defiance proud,
To dare the wind, and mingle with the cloud.
Now her deep voice, the soul’s awakener, swells,
Wild Alpuxarras! through your inmost dells.
There, the dark glens and lonely rocks among,
As at the clarion’s call, her children throng.
She with enduring strength has nerved each frame,
And made each heart the temple of her flame,
Her own resisting spirit, which shall glow
Unquenchably, surviving all below.
There high-born maids, that moved upon the earth
More like bright creatures of aërial birth,
Nurslings of palaces, have fled to share
The fate of brothers and of sires; to bear,
All undismay’d, privation and distress,
And smile the roses of the wilderness:
And mothers with their infants, there to dwell
In the deep forest or the cavern cell,
And rear their offspring midst the rocks, to be,
If now no more the mighty, still the free.
And midst that band are veterans, o’er whose head
Sorrows and years their mingled snow have shed:
They saw thy glory, they have wept thy fall,
O royal city! and the wreck of all
They loved and hallow’d most:--doth aught remain
For these to prove of happiness or pain?
Life’s cup is drain’d--earth fades before their eye;
Their task is closing--they have but to die.
Ask ye why fled they hither?--that their doom
Might be, to sink unfetter’d to the tomb.
And youth, in all its pride of strength, is there,
And buoyancy of spirit, form’d to dare
And suffer all things--fall’n on evil days,
Yet darting o’er the world an ardent gaze,
As on the arena where its powers may find
Full scope to strive for glory with mankind.
Such are the tenants of the mountain-hold,
The high in heart, unconquer’d, uncontroll’d:
By day, the huntsmen of the wild--by night,
Unwearied guardians of the watch-fire’s light,
They from their bleak majestic home have caught
A sterner tone of unsubmitting thought,
While all around them bids the soul arise
To blend with nature’s dread sublimities.
--But these are lofty dreams, and must not be
Where tyranny is near:--the bended knee,
The eye whose glance no inborn grandeur fires,
And the tamed heart, are tributes she requires;
Nor must the dwellers of the rock look down
On regal conquerors, and defy their frown.
What warrior-band is toiling to explore
The mountain-pass, with pine-wood shadow’d o’er,
Startling with martial sounds each rude recess,
Where the deep echo slept in loneliness?
These are the sons of Spain!--Your foes are near,
O exiles of the wild sierra! hear!
Hear! wake! arise! and from your inmost caves
Pour like the torrent in its might of waves!
Who leads the invaders on?--his features bear
The deep-worn traces of a calm despair;
Yet his dark brow is haughty--and his eye
Speaks of a soul that asks not sympathy.
’Tis he! ’tis he again! the apostate chief;
He comes in all the sternness of his grief.
He comes, but changed in heart, no more to wield
Falchion for proud Castile in battle-field,
Against his country’s children though he leads
Castilian bands again to hostile deeds:
His hope is but from ceaseless pangs to fly,
To rush upon the Moslem spears, and die.
So shall remorse and love the heart release,
Which dares not dream of joy, but sighs for peace.
The mountain-echoes are awake--a sound
Of strife is ringing through the rocks around.
Within the steep defile that winds between
Cliffs piled on cliffs, a dark, terrific scene,
Where Moorish exile and Castilian knight
Are wildly mingling in the serried fight.
Red flows the foaming streamlet of the glen,
Whose bright transparence ne’er was stain’d till then;
While swell the war-note and the clash of spears
To the bleak dwellings of the mountaineers,
Where thy sad daughters, lost Granada! wait
In dread suspense the tidings of their fate.
But he--whose spirit, panting for its rest,
Would fain each sword concentrate in his breast--
Who, where a spear is pointed, or a lance