The Poems of Felicia Hemans
Where Day hath terrors, but majestic Night,
Calm in her pomp, magnificently reigns,
Cloudless and silent, circled with the race
Of some unnumber’d orbs, that light the depths of space.
XVIII.
Shine on! and brightly plead for erring thought,
Whose wing, unaided in its course, explored
The wide creation, and beholding nought
Like your eternal beauty, then adored
Its living splendours; deeming them inform’d
By natures temper’d with a holier fire--
Pure beings, with ethereal effluence warm’d,
Who to the source of spirit might aspire,
And mortal prayers benignantly convey
To some presiding Power, more awful far than they.
XIX.
Guides o’er the desert and the deep! to you
The seaman turn’d, rejoicing at the helm,
When from the regions of empyreal blue
Ye pour’d soft radiance o’er the ocean-realm;
To you the dweller of the plains address’d
Vain prayers, that call’d the clouds and dews your own;
To you the shepherd, on the mountain’s crest,
Kindled the fires that far through midnight shone,
As earth would light up all her hills, to vie
With your immortal host, and image back the sky.
XX.
Hail to the queen of heaven! her silvery crown
Serenely wearing, o’er her high domain
She walks in brightness, looking cloudless down,
As if to smile on her terrestrial reign.
Earth should be hush’d in slumber--but the night
Calls forth her worshippers; the feast is spread,
On hoary Lebanon’s umbrageous height
The shrine is raised, the rich libation shed
To her, whose beams illume those cedar-shades
Faintly as Nature’s light the ’wilder’d soul pervades.
XXI.
But when _thine_ orb, all earth’s rich hues restoring,
Came forth, O sun! in majesty supreme,
Still, from thy pure exhaustless fountain, pouring
Beauty and life in each triumphant beam,
Through thine own East what joyous rites prevail’d!
What choral songs re-echo’d! while thy fire
Shone o’er its thousand altars, and exhaled
The precious incense of each odorous pyre,
Heap’d with the richest balms of spicy vales,
And aromatic woods that scent the Arabian gales.
XXII.
Yet not with Saba’s fragrant wealth alone,
Balsam and myrrh, the votive pile was strew’d;
For the dark children of the burning zone
Drew frenzy from thy fervours, and bedew’d
With their own blood thy shrine; while that wild scene,
Haply with pitying eye, thine angel view’d,
And though with glory mantled, and severe
In his own fulness of beatitude,
Yet mourn’d for those whose spirits from thy ray
Caught not one transient spark of intellectual day.
XXIII.
But earth had deeper stains. Ethereal powers!
Benignant seraphs! wont to leave the skies,
And hold high converse, midst his native bowers,
With the once glorious son of Paradise,
Look’d ye from heaven in sadness! were your strains
Of choral praise suspended in dismay,
When the polluted shrine of Syria’s plains
With clouds of incense dimm’d the blaze of day?
Or did ye veil indignantly your eyes.
While demons hail’d the pomp of human sacrifice?
XXIV.
And well the powers of evil might rejoice,
When rose from Tophet’s vale the exulting cry,
And, deaf to Nature’s supplicating voice,
The frantic mother bore her child to die!
Around her vainly clung his feeble hands
With sacred instinct: love hath lost its sway,
While ruthless zeal the sacrifice demands,
And the fires blaze, impatient for their prey.
Let not his shrieks reveal the dreadful tale!
Well may the drum’s loud peal o’erpower an infant’s wail?
XXV.
A voice of sorrow! not from thence it rose;
’Twas not the childless mother. Syrian maids,
Where with red wave the mountain streamlet flows,
Keep tearful vigil in their native shades.
With dirge and plaint the cedar-groves resound,
Each rock’s deep echo for Adonis mourns:
Weep for the dead! Away! the lost is found--
To life and love the buried god returns!
Then wakes the timbrel--then the forests ring,
And shouts of frenzied joy are on each breeze’s wing!
XXVI.
But fill’d with holier joy the Persian stood,
In silent reverence, on the mountain’s brow,
At early dayspring, while the expanding flood
Of radiance burst around, above, below--
Bright, boundless as eternity: he gazed
Till his full soul, imbibing heaven, o’erflow’d
In worship of th’ Invisible, and praised
In thee, O Sun! the symbol and abode
Of life, and power, and excellence--the throne
Where dwelt the Unapproach’d, resplendently alone.[146]
XXVII.
What if his thoughts, with erring fondness, gave
Mysterious sanctity to things which wear
Th’ Eternal’s impress?--if the living wave,
The circling heavens, the free and boundless air--
If the pure founts of everlasting flame,
Deep in his country’s hallow’d vales enshrined,
And the bright stars maintain’d a silent claim
To love and homage from his awe-struck mind?
Still with his spirit dwelt a lofty dream
Of uncreated Power, far, far o’er these supreme.
XXVIII.
And with that faith was conquest. He whose name
To Judah’s harp of prophecy had rung--
He, of whose yet unborn and distant fame
The mighty voice of Inspiration sung,
He came, the victor Cyrus! As he pass’d,
Thrones to his footstep rock’d, and monarchs lay
Suppliant and clothed with dust; while nations cast
Their ancient idols down before _his_ way,
Who in majestic march, from shore to shore,
The quenchless flame revered by Persia’s children bore.
[145] _Serab_, mirage.
[146] At an earlier stage in the composition of this poem, the
following stanza was here inserted:--
“Nor rose the Magian’s hymn, sublimely swelling
In full-toned homage to the source of flame,
From fabric rear’d by man, the gorgeous dwelling
Of such bright idol-forms as art could frame.
Be rear’d no temple, bade no walls contain
The breath of incense or the voice of prayer;
But made the boundless universe his fane,
The rocks his altar-stone--adoring there
The Being whose Omnipotence pervades
All deserts and all depths, and hallows loneliest shades.”
[In the spring of 1820, Mrs Hemans first made the acquaintance of
one who became afterwards a zealous and valuable friend, revered in
life, and sincerely mourned in death--Bishop Heber, then Rector of
Hodnet, and a frequent visitor at Bodryddan, the residence of his
father-in-law, the late Dean of St Asaph, from whom also, during an
intercourse of many years, Mrs Hemans at all times received much
kindness and courtesy. Mr Reginald Heber was the first eminent
literary character with whom she had ever familiarly associated; and
she therefore entered with a peculiar freshness of feeling in to
the delight inspired by his conversational powers, enhanced as they
were by that gentle benignity of manner, so often the characteristic
of minds of the very highest order. In a letter to a friend on this
occasion, she thus describes her enjoyment:--“I am more delighted
with Mr Heber than I can possibly tell you; his conversation is
quite rich with anecdote, and every subject on which he speaks had
been, you would imagine, the whole study of his life. In short, his
society has made much the same sort of impression on my mind that the
first perusal of _Ivanhoe_ did; and was something so perfectly new
to me, that I can hardly talk of any thing else. I had a very long
conversation with him on the subject of _the_ poem, which he read
aloud, and commented upon as he proceeded. His manner was so entirely
that of a friend, that I felt perfectly at ease, and did not hesitate
to express all my own ideas and opinions on the subject, even where
they did not exactly coincide with his own.”
The poem here alluded to was the one entitled _Superstition_ and
_Revelation_, which Mrs Hemans had commenced some time before, and
which was intended to embrace a very extensive range of subject. Her
original design will be best given in her own words, from a letter
to her friend Miss Park:--“I have been thinking a good deal of the
plan we discussed together, of a poem on national superstitions. ‘Our
thoughts are linked by many a hidden chain,’ and in the course of my
lucubrations on this subject, an idea occurred to me, which I hope you
will not think me too presumptuous in wishing to realise. Might not a
poem of some extent and importance, if the execution were at all equal
to the design, be produced, from contrasting the spirit and tenets
of Paganism with those of Christianity? It would contain, of course,
much classical allusion; and all the graceful and sportive fictions
of ancient Greece and Italy, as well as the superstitions of more
barbarous climes, might be introduced to prove how little consolation
they could convey in the hour of affliction--or hope, in that of
death. Many scenes from history might be portrayed in illustration of
this idea; and the certainty of a future state, and of the immortality
of the soul, which we derive from revelation, are surely subjects for
poetry of the highest class. Descriptions of those regions which are
still strangers to the blessings of our religion, such as the greatest
part of Africa, India, &c., might contain much that is poetical; but
the subject is almost boundless, and I think of it till I am startled
by its magnitude.”
Mr Heber approved highly of the plan of the work, and gave her
every encouragement to proceed in it; supplying her with many
admirable suggestions, both as to the illustrations which might be
introduced with the happiest effect, and the sources from whence the
requisite information would best be derived. But the great labour
and research necessary to the development of a plan which included
the superstitions of every age and country, from the earliest of
all idolatries--the adoration of the sun, moon, and host of heaven,
alluded to in the book of Job--to the still existing rites of the
Hindoos--would have demanded a course of study too engrossing to be
compatible with the many other claims, both domestic and literary,
which daily pressed more and more upon the author’s time. The work
was, therefore, laid aside; and the fragment now first published
is all that remains of it, though the project was never distinctly
abandoned.]
ITALIAN LITERATURE.[147]
THE BASVIGLIANA OF MONTI.
FROM SISMONDI’s “LITTERATURE DU MIDI.”
[147] “About this time (1820) Mrs Hemans was an occasional contributor
to the _Edinburgh Monthly Magazine_, then conducted by the Rev.
Robert Morehead, whose liberal courtesy in the discharge of his
editorial office associated many agreeable recollections with the
period of this literary intercourse. Several of her poems appeared
in the above-mentioned periodical, as also a series of papers on
foreign literature, which, with very few exceptions, were the only
prose compositions she ever gave to the world; and indeed to these
papers such a distinctive appellation is perhaps scarcely applicable,
as the prose writing may be considered subordinate to the poetical
translations, which it is used to introduce.”--_Memoir_, p. 41.
Vincenzo Monti, a native of Ferrara, is acknowledged, by the unanimous
consent of the Italians, as the greatest of their living poets.
Irritable, impassioned, variable to excess, he is always actuated by
the impulse of the moment. Whatever he feels is felt with the most
enthusiastic vehemence. He sees the objects of his thoughts--they