The Poems of Felicia Hemans
Blends with the music of his own;
And his heart beats high with hope again,
As a well-known voice prolongs the strain.
“Are there none within thy father’s hall,
Far o’er the wide blue main,
Young Christian! left to deplore thy fall,
With sorrow deep and vain?”
“There are hearts that still, through all the past,
Unchanging have loved me well;
There are eyes whose tears were streaming fast
When I bade my home farewell.
“Better they wept o’er the warrior’s bier
Than th’ apostate’s living stain;
There’s a land where those who loved when here
Shall meet to love again.”
’Tis he! thy prince--long sought, long lost,
The leader of the red-cross host!
’Tis he!--to none thy joy betray,
Young Troubadour! away, away!
Away to the island of the brave,
The gem on the bosom of the wave;[129]
Arouse the sons of the noble soil
To win their Lion from the toil.
And free the wassail-cup shall flow,
Bright in each hall the hearth shall glow;
The festal board shall be richly crown’d,
While knights and chieftains revel round,
And a thousand harps with joy shall ring,
When merry England hails her king.
[128] The Plain of Esdräelon, called by way of eminence the “Great
Plain;” in Scripture, and elsewhere, the “field of Megiddo,” the
“Galilean Plain.” This plain, the most fertile part of all the land
of Canaan, has been the scene of many a memorable contest in the
first ages of Jewish history, as well as during the Roman empire, the
Crusades, and even in later times. It has been a chosen place for
encampment in every contest carried on in this country, from the days
of Nabuchodonosor, King of the Assyrians, until the disastrous march of
Buonaparte from Egypt into Syria. Warriors out of “every nation which
is under heaven” have pitched their tents upon the Plain of Esdräelon,
and have beheld the various banners of their nations wet with the dews
of Hermon and Thabor.--_Dr Clarke’s Travels._
[129] “This precious stone set in the sea.”--_Richard II._
THE DEATH OF CONRADIN.
[“La défaite de Conradin ne devoit mettre une terme ni à ses malheurs,
ni aux vengeances du roi (Charles d’Anjou.) L’amour du peuple pour
l’héritier légitime du trône avoit éclaté d’une manière effrayante;
il pouvoit causer de nouvelles révolutions, si Conradin demeuroit en
vie; et Charles, revêtant sa défiance et sa cruauté des formes de la
justice, résolut de faire périr sur l’échafaud le dernier rejeton de
la Maison de Souabe, l’unique espérance de son parti. Un seul juge
Provençal et sujet de Charles, dont les historiens n’ont pas voulu
conserver le nom, osa voter pour la mort, d’autres se renfermèrent
dans un timide et coupable silence; et Charles, sur l’autorité de ce
seul juge, fit prononcer, par Robert de Bari, protonotaire du royaume,
la sentence de mort contre Conradin et tous ses compagnons. Cette
sentence fut communiquée à Conradin, comme il jouoit aux échecs; on
lui laissa peu de temps pour se préparer à son exécution, et le 26
d’Octobre il fut conduit, avec tous ses amis, sur la Place du Marché
de Naples, le long du rivage de la mer. Charles étoit présent, avec
toute sa cour, et une foule immense entouroit le roi vainqueur et
le roi condamné. Conradin étoit entre les mains des bourreaux; il
détacha lui-même son manteau, et s’étant mis à genoux pour prier,
il se releva en s’écriant: ‘Oh, ma mère, quelle profonde douleur te
causera la nouvelle qu’on va te porter de moi!’ Puis il tourna les
yeux sur la foule qui l’entouroit; il vit les larmes, il entendit les
sanglots de son peuple; alors, détachant son gant, il jeta au milieu
de ses sujets ce gage d’un combat de vengeance, et rendit sa tête au
bourreau. Après lui, sur le même échafaud, Charles fit trancher la
tête au Duc d’Autriche, aux Comtes Gualferano et Bartolommeo Lancia,
et aux Comtes Gerard et Galvano Donoratico de Pise. Par un raffinement
de cruauté, Charles voulut que le premier, fils du second, précédât
son père, et mourût entre ses bras. Les cadavres, d’après ses ordres,
furent exclus d’une terre sainte, et inhumés sans pompe sur le rivage
de la mer. Charles II. cependant fit dans la suite bâtir sur le
même lieu une église de Carmélites, comme pour apaiser ces ombres
irritées.”--Sismondi’s _Républiques Italiennes_.]
No cloud to dim the splendour of the day
Which breaks o’er Naples and her lovely bay,
And lights that brilliant sea and magic shore
With every tint that charm’d the great of yore--
Th’ imperial ones of earth, who proudly bade
Their marble domes e’en ocean’s realm invade.
That race is gone--but glorious Nature here
Maintains unchanged her own sublime career,
And bids these regions of the sun display
Bright hues, surviving empires pass’d away.
The beam of heaven expands--its kindling smile
Reveals each charm of many a fairy isle,
Whose image floats, in softer colouring drest,
With all its rocks and vines, on ocean’s breast.
Misenum’s cape hath caught the vivid ray,
On Roman streamers there no more to play;
Still, as of old, unalterably bright,
Lovely it sleeps on Posilippo’s height,
With all Italia’s sunshine to illume
The ilex canopy of Virgil’s tomb.
Campania’s plains rejoice in light, and spread
Their gay luxuriance o’er the mighty dead;
Fair glittering to thine own transparent skies,
Thy palaces, exulting Naples! rise;
While far on high Vesuvius rears his peak,
Furrow’d and dark with many a lava streak.
Oh, ye bright shores of Circe and the Muse!
Rich with all nature’s and all fiction’s hues,
Who shall explore your regions, and declare
The poet err’d to paint Elysium there?
Call up his spirit, wanderer! bid him guide
Thy steps those syren-haunted seas beside;
And all the scene a lovelier light shall wear,
And spells more potent shall pervade the air.
What though his dust be scatter’d, and his urn
Long from its sanctuary of slumber torn,[130]
Still dwell the beings of his verse around,
Hovering in beauty o’er th’ enchanted ground;
His lays are murmur’d in each breeze that roves
Soft o’er the sunny waves and orange-groves;
His memory’s charm is spread o’er shore and sea,
The soul, the genius of Parthenope;
Shedding o’er myrtle shade and vine-clad hill
The purple radiance of Elysium still.
Yet that fair soil and calm resplendent sky
Have witness’d many a dark reality.
Oft o’er those bright blue seas the gale hath borne
The sighs of exiles never to return.[131]
There with the whisper of Campania’s gale
Hath mingled oft affection’s funeral wail,
Mourning for buried heroes--while to her
That glowing land was but their sepulchre.[132]
And there, of old, the dread mysterious moan
Swell’d from strange voices of no mortal tone;
And that wild trumpet, whose unearthly note
Was heard at midnight o’er the hills to float
Around the spot where Agrippina died,
Denouncing vengeance on the matricide.[133]
Pass’d are those ages--yet another crime,
Another woe, must stain th’ Elysian clime.
There stands a scaffold on the sunny shore--
It must be crimson’d ere the day is o’er!
There is a throne in regal pomp array’d,--
A scene of death from thence must be survey’d.
Mark’d ye the rushing throngs?--each mien is pale,
Each hurried glance reveals a fearful tale:
But the deep workings of th’ indignant breast,
Wrath, hatred, pity, must be all suppress’d;
The burning tear awhile must check its course,
Th’ avenging thought concentrate all its force;
For tyranny is near, and will not brook
Aught but submission in each guarded look.
Girt with his fierce Provençals, and with mien
Austere in triumph, gazing on the scene,[134]
And in his eye a keen suspicious glance
Of jealous pride and restless vigilance,
Behold the conqueror! Vainly in his face
Of gentler feeling hope would seek a trace;
Cold, proud, severe, the spirit which hath lent
Its haughty stamp to each dark lineament:
And pleading mercy, in the sternness there,
May read at once her sentence--to despair!
But thou, fair boy! the beautiful, the brave,
Thus passing from the dungeon to the grave,
While all is yet around thee which can give
A charm to earth, and make it bliss to live;
Thou on whose form hath dwelt a mother’s eye,
Till the deep love that not with thee shall die
Hath grown too full for utterance--Can it be!
And is this pomp of death prepared for _thee_?
Young, royal Conradin! who shouldst have known
Of life as yet the sunny smile alone!
Oh! who can view thee, in the pride and bloom
Of youth, array’d so richly for the tomb,
Nor feel, deep swelling in his inmost soul,
Emotions tyranny may ne’er control?
Bright victim! to Ambition’s altar led,
Crown’d with all flowers that heaven on earth can shed,
Who, from th’ oppressor towering in his pride,
May hope for mercy--if to thee denied?
There is dead silence on the breathless throng,
Dead silence all the peopled shore along,
As on the captive moves--the only sound,
To break that calm so fearfully profound,
The low, sweet murmur of the rippling wave,
Soft as it glides, the smiling shore to lave;
While on that shore, his own fair heritage,
The youthful martyr to a tyrant’s rage
Is passing to his fate: the eyes are dim
Which gaze, through tears that dare not flow, on him.
He mounts the scaffold--doth his footstep fail?
Doth his lip quiver? doth his cheek turn pale?
Oh! it may be forgiven him if a thought
Cling to that world, for him with beauty fraught,
To all the hopes that promised glory’s meed,
And all th’ affections that with him shall bleed!
If, in his life’s young dayspring, while the rose
Of boyhood on his cheek yet freshly glows,
One human fear convulse his parting breath,
And shrink from all the bitterness of death!
But no! the spirit of his royal race
Sits brightly on his brow: that youthful face
Beams with heroic beauty, and his eye
Is eloquent with injured majesty.
He kneels--but not to man; his heart shall own
Such deep submission to his God alone!
And who can tell with what sustaining power
That God may visit him in fate’s dread hour?
How the still voice, which answers every moan,
May speak of hope--when hope on earth is gone?
That solemn pause is o’er--the youth hath given
One glance of parting love to earth and heaven:
The sun rejoices in th’ unclouded sky,
Life all around him glows--and he must die?
Yet midst his people, undismay’d, he throws
The gage of vengeance for a thousand woes;
Vengeance that, like their own volcano’s fire,
May sleep suppress’d a while--but not expire.
One softer image rises o’er his breast,
One fond regret, and all shall be at rest!
“Alas, for thee, my mother! who shall bear
To thy sad heart the tidings of despair,
When thy lost child is gone?”--that thought can thrill
His soul with pangs one moment more shall still.
The lifted axe is glittering in the sun--
It falls--the race of Conradin is run!
Yet, from the blood which flows that shore to stain,
A voice shall cry to heaven--and not in vain!
Gaze thou, triumphant from thy gorgeous throne,
In proud supremacy of guilt alone,
Charles of Anjou!--but that dread voice shall be
A fearful summoner e’en yet to thee!