The Poems of Felicia Hemans
Doom’d with their life to expiate some wild word,
Born of the social hour. Oh! I have knelt,
E’en at my brother’s feet, with fruitless tears,
Imploring him to spare. His heart is shut
Against my voice; yet will I not forsake
The cause of mercy.
_Raim._ Waste not thou thy prayers,
O gentle love! for them. There’s little need
For pity, though the galling chain be worn
By some few slaves the less. Let them depart!
There is a world beyond the oppressor’s reach,
And thither lies their way.
_Con._ Alas! I see
That some new wrong hath pierced you to the soul.
_Raim._ Pardon, belovèd Constance, if my words,
From feelings hourly stung, have caught, perchance,
A tone of bitterness. Oh! when thine eyes,
With their sweet eloquent thoughtfulness, are fix’d
Thus tenderly on mine, I should forget
All else in their soft beams; and yet I came
To tell thee----
_Con._ What? What wouldst thou say? Oh speak!
Thou wouldst not leave me!
_Raim._ I have cast a cloud,
The shadow of dark thoughts and ruin’d fortunes,
O’er thy bright spirit. Haply, were I gone,
Thou wouldst resume thyself, and dwell once more
In the clear sunny light of youth and joy,
E’en as before we met--before we loved!
_Con._ This is but mockery. Well thou know’st thy love
Hath given me nobler being; made my heart
A home for all the deep sublimities
Of strong affection; and I would not change
Th’ exalted life I draw from that pure source,
With all its checker’d hues of hope and fear,
E’en for the brightest calm. Thou most unkind!
Have I deserved this?
_Raim._ Oh! thou hast deserved
A love less fatal to thy peace than mine.
Think not ’tis mockery! But I cannot rest
To be the scorn’d and trampled thing I am
In this degraded land. Its very skies,
That smile as if but festivals were held
Beneath their cloudless azure, weigh me down
With a dull sense of bondage, and I pine
For freedom’s charter’d air. I would go forth
To seek my noble father: he hath been
Too long a lonely exile, and his name
Seems fading in the dim obscurity
Which gathers round my fortunes.
_Con._ Must we part?
And is it come to this? Oh! I have still
Deem’d it enough of joy with _thee_ to share
E’en grief itself. And now! But this is vain.
Alas! too deep, too fond, is woman’s love:
Too full of hope, she casts on troubled waves
The treasures of her soul!
_Raim._ Oh, speak not thus!
Thy gentle and desponding tones fall cold
Upon my inmost heart. I leave thee but
To be more worthy of a love like thine;
For I have dreamt of fame! A few short years,
And we may yet be blest.
_Con._ A few short years!
Less time may well suffice for death and fate
To work all change on earth; to break the ties
Which early love had form’d; and to bow down
Th’ elastic spirit, and to blight each flower
Strewn in life’s crowded path! But be it so!
Be it enough to know that happiness
Meets thee on other shores.
_Raim._ Where’er I roam,
Thou shalt be with my soul! Thy soft low voice
Shall rise upon remembrance, like a strain
Of music heard in boyhood, bringing back
Life’s morning freshness. Oh! that there should be
Things which we love with such deep tenderness,
But, through that love, to learn how much of woe
Dwells in one hour like this! Yet weep thou not!
We shall meet soon; and many days, dear love!
Ere I depart.
_Con._ Then there’s a respite still.
Days!--not a day but in its course may bring
Some strange vicissitude to turn aside
Th’ impending blow we shrink from. Fare thee well. (_Returning._)
--Oh, Raimond! this is not our _last_ farewell!
Thou wouldst not so deceive me?
_Raim._ Doubt me not,
Gentlest and best beloved! we meet again.
[_Exit_ Constance.
_Raim._ (_after a pause._)
When shall I breathe in freedom, and give scope
To those untameable and burning thoughts,
And restless aspirations, which consume
My heart i’ th’ land of bondage? Oh! with you,
Ye everlasting images of power
And of infinity! thou blue-rolling deep,
And you, ye stars! whose beams are characters
Wherewith the oracles of fate are traced--
With you my soul finds room, and casts aside
The weight that doth oppress her. But my thoughts
Are wandering far; there should be one to share
This awful and majestic solitude
Of sea and heaven with me.
[Procida _enters unobserved_.
It is the hour
He named, and yet he comes not.
_Pro._ (_coming forward._) He is here.
_Raim._ Now, thou mysterious stranger--thou, whose glance
Doth fix itself on memory, and pursue
Thought like a spirit, haunting its lone hours--
Reveal thyself; what art thou?
_Pro._ One whose life
Hath been a troubled stream, and made its way
Through rocks and darkness, and a thousand storms,
With still a mighty aim. But now the shades
Of eve are gathering round me, and I come
To this, my native land, that I may rest
Beneath its vines in peace.
_Raim._ Seek’st thou for peace?
This is no land of peace: unless that deep
And voiceless terror, which doth freeze men’s thoughts
Back to their source, and mantle its pale mien
With a dull hollow semblance of repose,
May so be call’d.
_Pro._ There are such calms full oft
Preceding earthquakes. But I have not been
So vainly school’d by fortune, and inured
To shape my course on peril’s dizzy brink,
That it should irk my spirit to put on
Such guise of hush’d submissiveness as best
May suit the troubled aspect of the times.
_Raim._ Why, then, thou’rt welcome, stranger, to the land
Where most disguise is needful. He were bold
Who now should wear his thoughts upon his brow
Beneath Sicilian skies. The brother’s eye
Doth search distrustfully the brother’s face;
And friends, whose undivided lives have drawn
From the same past their long remembrances,
Now meet in terror, or no more; lest hearts
Full to o’erflowing, in their social hour,
Should pour out some rash word, which roving winds
Might whisper to our conquerers. This it is,
To wear a foreign yoke.
_Pro._ It matters not
To him who holds the mastery o’er his spirit,
And can suppress its workings, till endurance
Becomes as nature. We can tame ourselves
To all extremes, and there is that in life
To which we cling with most tenacious grasp,
Even when its lofty aims are all reduced
To the poor common privilege of breathing.
--Why dost thou turn away?
_Raim._ What wouldst thou with me?
I deem’d thee, by th’ ascendant soul which lived
And made its throne on thy commanding brow,
One of a sovereign nature, which would scorn
So to abase its high capacities
For aught on earth. But thou art like the rest.
What wouldst thou with me?
_Pro._ I would counsel thee.
Thou must do that which men--ay, valiant men--
Hourly submit to do; in the proud court,
And in the stately camp, and at the board
Of midnight revellers, whose flush’d mirth is all
A strife, won hardly. Where is he whose heart
Lies bare, through all its foldings, to the gaze
Of mortal eye? If vengeance wait the foe,
Or fate th’ oppressor, ’tis in depths conceal’d
Beneath a smiling surface.--Youth, I say,
Keep thy soul down! Put on a mask!--’tis worn
Alike by power and weakness, and the smooth
And specious intercourse of life requires
Its aid in every scene.
_Raim._ Away, dissembler!
Life hath its high and its ignoble tasks,
Fitted to every nature. Will the free
And royal eagle stoop to learn the arts
By which the serpent wins his spell-bound prey?
It is because I _will_ not clothe myself
In a vile garb of coward semblances,
That now, e’en now, I struggle with my heart,
To bid what most I love a long farewell,
And seek my country on some distant shore,
Where such things are unknown!
_Pro._ (_exultingly._) Why, this is joy:
After a long conflict with the doubts and fears,
And the poor subtleties, of meaner minds,
To meet a spirit, whose bold elastic wing
Oppression hath not crush’d. High-hearted youth,
Thy father, should his footsteps e’er again
Visit these shores----
_Raim._ My father! what of him?
Speak! was he known to thee?
_Pro._ In distant lands
With him I’ve traversed many a wild, and look’d
On many a danger; and the thought that thou
Wert smiling then in peace, a happy boy,
Oft through the storm hath cheer’d him.
_Raim._ Dost thou deem
That still he lives? Oh! if it be in chains,
In woe, in poverty’s obscurest cell,
Say but he lives--and I will track his steps
E’en to earth’s verge!
_Pro._ It may be that he lives,
Though long his name hath ceased to be a word
Familiar in man’s dwellings. But its sound
May yet be heard! Raimond di Procida,
Rememberest thou thy father?
_Raim._ From my mind
His form hath faded long, for years have pass’d
Since he went forth to exile: but a vague,
Yet powerful image of deep majesty,
Still dimly gathering round each thought of him,
Doth claim instinctive reverence; and my love
For his inspiring name hath long become
Part of my being.
_Pro._ Raimond! doth no voice
Speak to thy soul, and tell thee whose the arms
That would enfold thee now? My son! my son!
_Raim._ Father! Oh God!--my father! Now I know
Why my heart woke before thee!
_Pro._ Oh! this hour
Makes hope reality; for thou art all
My dreams had pictured thee!
_Raim._ Yet why so long
E’en as a stranger hast thou cross’d my paths,
One nameless and unknown?--and yet I felt
Each pulse within me thrilling to thy voice.
_Pro._ Because I would not link thy fate with I mine,
Till I could hail the dayspring of that hope
Which now is gathering round us. Listen, youth!
_Thou_ hast told _me_ of a subdued and scorn’d
And trampled land, whose very soul is bow’d
And fashion’d to her chains:--but _I_ tell _thee_
Of a most generous and devoted land,
A land of kindling energies; a land
Of glorious recollections!--proudly true
To the high memory of her ancient kings,
And rising, in majestic scorn, to cast
Her alien bondage off!
_Raim._ And where is this?
_Pro._ Here, in our isle, our own fair Sicily!
Her spirit is awake, and moving on,
In its deep silence mightier, to regain
Her place amongst the nations; and the hour
Of that tremendous effort is at hand.
_Raim._ Can it be thus indeed? Thou pour’st new life
Through all my burning veins! I am as one
Awakening from a chill and deathlike sleep
To the full glorious day.
_Pro._ Thou shalt hear more!
Thou shalt hear things which would--which _will_, arouse
The proud free spirits of our ancestors
E’en from their marble rest. Yet mark me well!
Be secret!--for along my destined path
I yet must darkly move. Now, follow me,
And join a band of men, in whose high hearts
There lies a nation’s strength.
_Raim._ My noble father!
Thy words have given me all for which I pined--
An aim, a hope, a purpose! And the blood