The Poems of Felicia Hemans
And, midst thy hamlet shades, the embosom’d spire
Catch from deep-kindling heavens their earliest fire.
Thee, too, that hour shall bless, the balmy close
Of labour’s day, the herald of repose,
Which gathers hearts in peace; while social mirth
Basks in the blaze of each free village hearth;
While peasant-songs are on the joyous gales,
And merry England’s voice floats up from all her vales.
Yet are there sweeter sounds; and thou shalt hear
Such as to Heaven’s immortal host are dear.
Oh! if there still be melody on earth
Worthy the sacred bowers where man drew birth,
When angel-steps their paths rejoicing trode,
And the air trembled with the breath of God;
It lives in those soft accents, to the sky[157]
Borne from the lips of stainless infancy,
When holy strains, from life’s pure fount which sprung,
Breathed with deep reverence, falter on his tongue.
And such shall be _thy_ music, when the cells,
Where Guilt, the child of hopeless Misery, dwells,
(And, to wild strength by desperation wrought,
In silence broods o’er many a fearful thought,)
Resound to pity’s voice; and childhood thence,
Ere the cold blight hath reach’d its innocence,
Ere that soft rose-bloom of the soul be fled,
Which vice but breathes on and its hues are dead,
Shall at the call press forward, to be made
A glorious offering, meet for Him who said,
“Mercy, not sacrifice!” and, when of old
Clouds of rich incense from his altars roll’d,
Dispersed the smoke of perfumes, and laid bare
The heart’s deep folds, to read its homage there!
When some crown’d conqueror, o’er a trampled world
His banner, shadowing nations, hath unfurl’d,
And, like those visitations which deform
Nature for centuries, hath made the storm
His pathway to dominion’s lonely sphere,
Silence behind--before him, flight and fear!
When kingdoms rock beneath his rushing wheels,
Till each fair isle the mighty impulse feels,
And earth is moulded but by one proud will,
And sceptred realms wear fetters, and are still;
Shall the free soul of song bow down to pay,
The earthquake homage on its baleful way?
Shall the glad harp send up exulting strains
O’er burning cities and forsaken plains?
And shall no harmony of softer close
Attend the stream of mercy as it flows,
And, mingling with the murmur of its wave,
Bless the green shores its gentle currents lave?
Oh! there are loftier themes, for him whose eyes
Have search’d the depths of life’s realities,
Than the red battle, or the trophied car,
Wheeling the monarch-victor fast and far;
There are more noble strains than those which swell
The triumphs ruin may suffice to tell!
Ye prophet-bards, who sat in elder days
Beneath the palms of Judah! ye whose lays
With torrent rapture, from their source on high,
Burst in the strength of immortality!
Oh! not alone, those haunted groves among,
Of conquering hosts, of empires crush’d, ye sung,
But of that spirit destined to explore,
With the bright day-spring, every distant shore,
To dry the tear, to bind the broken reed,
To make the home of peace in hearts that bleed;
With beams of hope to pierce the dungeon’s gloom.
And pour eternal starlight o’er the tomb.
And bless’d and hallow’d be its haunts! for there
Hath man’s high soul been rescued from despair!
There hath th’ immortal spark for heaven been nursed;
There from the rock the springs of life have burst
Quenchless and pure! and holy thoughts, that rise
Warm from the source of human sympathies--
Where’er its path of radiance may be traced,
Shall find their temple in the silent waste.
[151] “In some parts of Dartmoor, the surface is thickly strewed with
stones, which in many instances appear to have been collected into
piles, on the tops of prominent hillocks, as if in imitation of the
natural Tors. The Stone-barrows of Dartmoor resemble the cairns of
the Cheviot and Grampian hills, and those in Cornwall.”--See Cooke’s
_Topographical Survey of Devonshire_.
[152] Flint arrow-heads have occasionally been found upon Dartmoor.
[153]
“Vixere fortes ante Agamemnona
Multi; sed omnes illachrymabiles
Urgentur, ignotique longâ
Nocte, carent quia vate sacro.”--Horace.
“They had no poet, and they died.”--Pope’s _Translation_.
[154] On the east of Dartmoor are some Druidical remains, one of which
is a Cromlech, whose three rough pillars of granite support a ponderous
table-stone, and form a kind of large irregular tripod.
[155] In some of the Druid festivals, fires were lighted on all the
cairns and eminences around, by priests, carrying sacred torches. All
the household fires were previously extinguished, and those who were
thought worthy of such a privilege, were allowed to relight them with a
flaming brand, kindled at the consecrated cairn-fire.
[156] The French prisoners, taken in the wars with Napoleon, were
confined in a depot on Dartmoor.
[157] In allusion to a plan for the erection of a great national
school-house on Dartmoor, where it was proposed to educate the children
of convicts.
WELSH MELODIES.
THE HARP OF WALES.
INTRODUCTORY STANZAS, INSCRIBED TO THE RUTHIN WELSH LITERARY SOCIETY.
Harp of the mountain-land! sound forth again
As when the foaming Hirlas[158] horn was crown’d,
And warrior hearts beat proudly to the strain,
And the bright mead at Owain’s feast went round:
Wake with the spirit and the power of yore!
Harp of the ancient hills! be heard once more!
Thy tones are not to cease! The Roman came
O’er the blue waters with his thousand oars:
Through Mona’s oaks he sent the wasting flame;
The Druid shrines lay prostrate on our shores:
All gave their ashes to the wind and sea--
Ring out, thou harp! he could not silence thee.
Thy tones are not to cease! The Saxon pass’d,
His banners floated on Eryri’s gales;[159]
But thou wert heard above the trumpet’s blast,
E’en when his towers rose loftiest o’er the vales!
_Thine_ was the voice that cheer’d the brave and free;
They had their hills, their chainless hearts, and thee.
Those were dark years!--They saw the valiant fall,
The rank weeds gathering round the chieftain’s board,
The hearth left lonely in the ruin’d hall--
Yet power was _thine_--a gift in every chord!
Call back that spirit to the days of peace,
Thou noble harp! thy tones are not to cease!
[158] Hirlas, from _hir_, long, and _glas_, blue or azure.
[159] Eryri, the Welsh name for the Snowdon mountains.
DRUID CHORUS ON THE LANDING OF THE ROMANS.
By the dread and viewless powers
Whom the storms and seas obey,
From the Dark Isle’s[160] mystic bowers,
Romans! o’er the deep away!
Think ye, ’tis but nature’s gloom
O’er our shadowy coast which broods?
By the altar and the tomb,
Shun these haunted solitudes!
Know ye Mona’s awful spells?
She the rolling orbs can stay!
She the mighty grave compels
Back to yield its fetter’d prey!
Fear ye not the lightning stroke?
Mark ye not the fiery sky?
Hence!--around our central oak
Gods are gathering--Romans, fly!
[160] _Ynys Dywyll_, or the Dark Island--an ancient name for Anglesey.
THE GREEN ISLES OF OCEAN.[161]
Where are they, those green fairy islands, reposing
In sunlight and beauty on ocean’s calm breast?
What spirit, the things which are hidden disclosing,
Shall point the bright way to their dwellings of rest?
Oh! lovely they rose on the dreams of past ages,
The mighty have sought them, undaunted in faith;
But the land hath been sad for her warriors and sages,
For the guide to those realms of the blessèd is death.
Where are they, the high-minded children of glory,
Who steer’d for those distant green spots on the wave?
To the winds of the ocean they left their wild story,
In the fields of their country they found not a grave.
Perchance they repose where the summer-breeze gathers
From the flowers of each vale immortality’s breath;
But their steps shall be ne’er on the hills of their fathers--
For the guide to those realms of the blessèd is death.
[161] The “Green Islands of Ocean,” or “Green Spots of the Floods,”
called in the _Triads_ “Gwerddonan Llion,” (respecting which some
remarkable superstitions have been preserved in Wales,) were supposed
to be the abode of the Fair Family, or souls of the virtuous Druids,
who could not enter the Christian heaven, but were permitted to enjoy
this paradise of their own. Gafran, a distinguished British chieftain
of the fifth century, went on a voyage with his family to discover
these islands; but they were never heard of afterwards. This event, the
voyage of Merddin Emrys with his twelve bards, and the expedition of
Madoc, were called the three losses by disappearance of the island of
Britain.--See W. O. Pughe’s _Cambrian Biography_; also _Cambro-Briton_,
i. 124.
THE SEA-SONG OF GAFRAN.[162]
Watch ye well! The moon is shrouded
On her bright throne;
Storms are gathering, stars are clouded,
Waves make wild moan.
’Tis no night of hearth-fires glowing,
And gay songs and wine-cups flowing;
But of winds, in darkness blowing,
O’er seas unknown!
In the dwellings of our fathers,
Round the glad blaze,
Now the festive circle gathers
With harps and lays;
Now the rush-strewn halls are ringing,
Steps are bounding, bards are singing,
--Ay! the hour to all is bringing
Peace, joy, or praise.
Save to us, our night-watch keeping,
Storm-winds to brave,
While the very sea-bird sleeping
Rests in its cave!
Think of us when hearths are beaming,
Think of us when mead is streaming,
Ye, of whom our souls are dreaming
On the dark wave!
[162] See note to the “Green Isles of Ocean.”
THE HIRLAS HORN.
Fill high the blue hirlas that shines like the wave[163]
When sunbeams are bright on the spray of the sea;
And bear thou the rich foaming mead to the brave,
The dragons of battle, the sons of the free!
To those from whose spears, in the shock of the fight,
A beam, like heaven’s lightning,[164] flash’d over the field;
To those who came rushing as storms in their might,
Who have shiver’d the helmet, and cloven the shield;
The sound of whose strife was like oceans afar,
When lances were red from the harvest of war.
Fill high the blue hirlas! O cup-bearer, fill
For the lords of the field in their festival’s hour,
And let the mead foam, like the stream of the hill
That bursts o’er the rock in the pride of its power:
Praise, praise to the mighty, fill high the smooth horn
Of honour and mirth,[165] for the conflict is o’er;
And round let the golden-tipp’d hirlas be borne
To the lion-defenders of Gwynedd’s fair shore,
Who rush’d to the field where the glory was won,
As eagles that soar from their cliffs to the sun.
Fill higher the hirlas! forgetting not those
Who shared its bright draught in the days which are fled!
Though cold on their mountains the valiant repose,
Their lot shall be lovely--renown to the dead!
While harps in the hall of the feast shall be strung,
While regal Eryri with snow shall be crown’d--
So long by the bards shall their battles be sung,