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Title: Poems by Speranza
Author: Wilde, Lady
Language: English
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*** Start of this LibraryBlog Digital Book "Poems by Speranza" ***
Transcriber's Notes
1. Typographical Errors have been silently corrected.
2. Variations of spelling and hyphenation are as in the original.
3. In the following text, it is coded for italics thus _italic_ and
small-caps as +CAPITALS+
4. Footnotes moved to the end of the book.
* * * * *
POEMS
BY
SPERANZA
(LADY WILDE)
_NEW EDITION._,
Dublin:
M. H. GILL & SON, LTD.
_Printed and Bound_
[Illustration]
_in Ireland_
CONTENTS.
DEDICATION,--TO IRELAND, iii
THE BROTHERS, 7
THE FAMINE YEAR, 10
THE ENIGMA, 12
THE VOICE OF THE POOR, 14
A SUPPLICATION, 15
FORESHADOWINGS, 17
TO A DESPONDENT NATIONALIST, 20
SIGNS OF THE TIMES, 21
THE OLD MAN'S BLESSING, 23
MAN'S MISSION, 25
A LAMENT, 27
THE YOUNG PATRIOT LEADER, 28
ATTENDITE POPULE, 30
FORWARD, 30
HAVE YE COUNTED THE COST, 33
THE YEAR OF REVOLUTIONS, 35
RUINS, 36
DISCIPLINE, 41
THE EXODUS, 43
THE FAITHLESS SHEPHERDS, 45
WORK WHILE IT IS CALLED TO-DAY, 47
TO-DAY, 50
A REMONSTRANCE, 52
FRANCE IN '93, 53
THE FALL OF THE TYRANTS, 55
WHO WILL SHOW US ANY GOOD? 59
A LAMENT FOR THE POTATO, 63
HAVE WE DONE WELL FOR IRELAND, 65
WILLIAM CARLETON, 66
THE NEW PATH, 68
O'CONNELL, 71
ASPIRATIONS, 72
THE PARABLE OF LIFE, 75
VANITAS, 80
FATALITY, 81
DESTINY, 82
MEMORY, 84
CORINNE'S LAST LOVE-SONG, 85
THE DYING CHRISTIAN, 85
SYMPATHIES WITH THE UNIVERSAL, 87
LA VIA DOLOROSA, 88
SHADOWS FROM LIFE, 89
Wanderings through European Literature:
LE REVEILLE, 97
OUR FATHERLAND, 98
THE KNIGHT'S PLEDGE, 100
OPPORTUNITY, 101
KING ERICK'S FAITH, 102
"FOR NORGE!" 103
THE FOUNTAIN IN THE FOREST, 105
SALVATION, 108
MISERY IS MYSTERY, 109
FAREWELL! 110
CATARINA, 110
THE POET AT COURT, 111
THE MYSTIC TREE, 112
'TIS NOT UPON EARTH, 113
THE ITINERANT SINGING GIRL, 114
IGNEZ DE CASTRO, 115
THE WAIWODE, 117
THE COMPARISON, 119
BUDRIS AND HIS SONS, 121
THE LADY BEATRIZ, 123
A SERVIAN SONG, 124
INSTABILITY, 125
A WARNING, 126
CASSANDRA, 128
UNDINE, 132
THE PAST, 136
THE FISHERMAN, 138
THE IDEAL, 139
THE EXILE, 142
DEATH WISHES, 143
HYMN TO THE CROSS, 144
JESUS TO THE SOUL, 145
TRISTAN AND ISOLDE, 146
THEKLA: A SWEDISH SAGA--
PART I.--THE TEMPTATION, 148
" II.--THE SIN, 150
" III.--THE BRIDAL, 153
" IV.--THE PUNISHMENT, 154
" V.--THE EXPIATION, 160
" VI.--GOD'S JUSTICE, 162
" VII.--GOD'S MERCY, 165
WHY WEEPEST THOU? 168
SULEIMA TO HER LOVER, 169
A LA SOMBRA DE MIS CABELLOS, 169
CONSTANCY, 170
THE FATE OF THE LYRIST, 171
THE POET'S DESTINY, 172
DESILLUSION, 172
THE PRISONERS, 173
THE DAWN, 176
AN APPEAL TO IRELAND, 178
DEDICATION.
To Ireland.
I.
My country, wounded to the heart,
Could I but flash along thy soul
Electric power to rive apart
The thunder-clouds that round thee roll,
And, by my burning words, uplift
Thy life from out Death's icy drift,
Till the full splendours of our age
Shone round thee for thy heritage--
As Miriam's, by the Red Sea strand
Clashing proud cymbals, so my hand
Would strike thy harp,
Loved Ireland!
II.
She flung her triumphs to the stars
In glorious chants for freedom won,
While over Pharaoh's gilded cars
The fierce, death-bearing waves rolled on;
I can but look in God's great face,
And pray Him for our fated race,
To come in Sinai thunders down,
And, with His mystic radiance, crown
Some Prophet-Leader, with command
To break the strength of Egypt's band,
And set thee free,
Loved Ireland!
III.
New energies, from higher source,
Must make the strong life-currents flow,
As Alpine glaciers in their course
Stir the deep torrents 'neath the snow.
The woman's voice dies in the strife
Of Liberty's awakening life;
We wait the hero heart to lead,
The hero, who can guide at need,
And strike with bolder, stronger hand,
Though towering hosts his path withstand
Thy golden harp,
Loved Ireland!
IV.
For I can breathe no trumpet call,
To make the slumb'ring Soul arise;
I only lift the funeral-pall,
That so God's light might touch thine eyes,
And ring the silver prayer-bell clear,
To rouse thee from thy trance of fear;
Yet, if thy mighty heart has stirred,
Even with one pulse-throb at my word,
Then not in vain my woman's hand
Has struck thy gold harp while I stand,
Waiting thy rise
Loved Ireland!
POEMS.
THE BROTHERS.
A SCENE FROM '98.
--------"Oh! give me _truths_,
For I am weary of the surfaces,
And die of inanition."--+EMERSON.+
I.
'Tis midnight, falls the lamp-light dull and sickly,
On a pale and anxious crowd,
Through the court, and round the judges, thronging thickly,
With prayers none dare to speak aloud.
Two youths, two noble youths, stand prisoners at the bar--
You can see them through the gloom--
In pride of life and manhood's beauty, there they are
Awaiting their death doom.
II.
All eyes an earnest watch on them are keeping,
Some, sobbing, turn away,
And the strongest men can hardly see for weeping,
So noble and so loved were they.
Their hands are locked together, those young brothers,
As before the judge they stand--
They feel not the deep grief that moves the others,
For they die for Fatherland.
III.
They are pale, but it is not fear that whitens
On each proud, high brow,
For the triumph of the martyr's glory brightens
Around them even now.
They sought to free their land from thrall of stranger;
Was it treason? Let them die;
But their blood will cry to Heaven--the Avenger
Yet will hearken from on high.
IV.
Before them, shrinking, cowering, scarcely human,
The base informer bends,
Who, Judas-like, could sell the blood of true men,
While he clasped their hands as friends.
Aye, could fondle the young children of his victim,
Break bread with his young wife,
At the moment that for gold his perjured dictum
Sold the husband and the father's life.
V.
There is silence in the midnight--eyes are keeping
Troubled watch till forth the jury come;
There is silence in the midnight--eyes are weeping--
"Guilty!"--is the fatal uttered doom.
For a moment o'er the brothers' noble faces
Came a shadow sad to see;
Then silently they rose up in their places,
And embraced each other fervently.
VI.
Oh! the rudest heart might tremble at such sorrow,
The rudest cheek might blanch at such a scene:
Twice the judge essayed to speak the word--to-morrow--
Twice faltered, as a woman he had been.
To-morrow!--Fain the elder would have spoken,
Prayed for respite, tho' it is not death he fears;
But thoughts of home and wife his heart hath broken,
And his words are stopped by tears.
VII.
But the youngest--oh, he spake out bold and clearly:--
"I have no ties of children or of wife;
Let me die--but spare the brother who more dearly
Is loved by me than life."
Pale martyrs, ye may cease, your days are numbered;
Next noon your sun of life goes down;
One day between the sentence and the scaffold--
One day between the torture and the crown!
VIII.
A hymn of joy is rising from creation;
Bright the azure of the glorious summer sky;
But human hearts weep sore in lamentation,
For the Brothers are led forth to die.
Aye, guard them with your cannon and your lances--
So of old came martyrs to the stake;
Aye, guard them--see the people's flashing glances,
For those noble two are dying for their sake.
IX.
Yet none spring forth their bonds to sever
Ah! methinks, had I been there,
I'd have dared a thousand deaths ere ever
The sword should touch their hair.
It falls!--there is a shriek of lamentation
From the weeping crowd around;
They're stilled--the noblest hearts within the nation--
The noblest heads lie bleeding on the ground.
X.
Years have passed since that fatal scene of dying,
Yet, lifelike to this day,
In their coffins still those severed heads are lying,
Kept by angels from decay.
Oh! they preach to us, those still and pallid features--
Those pale lips yet implore us, from their graves,
To strive for our birthright as God's creatures,
Or die, if we can but live as slaves.
THE FAMINE YEAR.
I.
Weary men, what reap ye?--Golden corn for the stranger.
What sow ye?--Human corses that wait for the avenger.
Fainting forms, hunger-stricken, what see you in the offing?
Stately ships to bear our food away, amid the stranger's scoffing.
There's a proud array of soldiers--what do they round your door?
They guard our masters' granaries from the thin hands of the poor.
Pale mothers, wherefore weeping?--Would to God that we were dead--
Our children swoon before us, and we cannot give them bread.
II.
Little children, tears are strange upon your infant faces,
God meant you but to smile within your mother's soft embraces.
Oh! we know not what is smiling, and we know not what is dying;
But we're hungry, very hungry, and we cannot stop our crying.
And some of us grow cold and white--we know not what it means;
But, as they lie beside us, we tremble in our dreams.
There's a gaunt crowd on the highway--are ye come to pray to man,
With hollow eyes that cannot weep, and for words your faces wan?
III.
No; the blood is dead within our veins--we care not now for life;
Let us die hid in the ditches, far from children and from wife;
We cannot stay and listen to their raving, famished cries--
Bread! Bread! Bread! and none to still their agonies.
We left our infants playing with their dead mother's hand:
We left our maidens maddened by the fever's scorching brand:
Better, maiden, thou were strangled in thy own dark-twisted tresses--
Better, infant, thou wert smothered in thy mother's first caresses.
IV.
We are fainting in our misery, but God will hear our groan;
Yet, if fellow-men desert us, will He hearken from His Throne?
Accursed are we in our own land, yet toil we still and toil;
But the stranger reaps our harvest--the alien owns our soil.
O Christ! how have we sinned, that on our native plains
We perish houseless, naked, starved, with branded brow, like Cain's?
Dying, dying wearily, with a torture sure and slow--
Dying, as a dog would die, by the wayside as we go.
V.
One by one they're falling round us, their pale faces to the sky;
We've no strength left to dig them graves--there let them lie.
The wild bird, if he's stricken, is mourned by the others,
But we--we die in Christian land--we die amid our brothers,
In the land which God has given, like a wild beast in his cave,
Without a tear, a prayer, a shroud, a coffin, or a grave.
Ha! but think ye the contortions on each livid face ye see,
Will not be read on judgment-day by eyes of Deity?
VI.
We are wretches, famished, scorned, human tools to build your pride,
But God will yet take vengeance for the souls for whom Christ died.
Now is your hour of pleasure--bask ye in the world's caress;
But our whitening bones against ye will rise as witnesses,
From the cabins and the ditches, in their charred, uncoffin'd masses,
For the Angel of the Trumpet will know them as he passes.
A ghastly, spectral army, before the great God we'll stand,
And arraign ye as our murderers, the spoilers of our land.
THE ENIGMA.
Pale victims, where is your Fatherland?
Where oppression is law from age to age,
Where the death-plague, and hunger, and misery rage.
And tyrants a godless warfare wage
'Gainst the holiest rights of an ancient land
Where the corn waves green on the fair hillside,
But each sheaf by the serfs and slavelings tied
Is taken to pamper a foreigner's pride--
There is our suffering Fatherland.
Where broad rivers flow 'neath a glorious sky,
And the valleys like gems of emerald lie;
Yet, the young men, and strong men, starve and die,
For want of bread in their own rich land.
And we pile up their corpses, heap on heap,
While the pale mothers faint, and the children weep;
Yet, the living might envy the dead their sleep,
So bitter is life in that mourning land.
Oh! Heaven ne'er looked on a sadder scene;
Earth shuddered to hear that such woe had been;
Then we prayed, in despair, to a foreign queen,
For leave to live on our own fair land.
We have wept till our faces are pale and wan;
We have knelt to a throne till our strength is gone;
We prayed to our masters, but, one by one,
They laughed to scorn our suffering land;
And sent forth their minions, with cannon and steel,
Swearing with fierce, unholy zeal,
To trample us down with an iron heel,
If we dared but to murmur our just demand.--
Know ye not now our Fatherland?
What! are there no +MEN+ in your Fatherland,
To confront the tyrant's stormy glare,
With a scorn as deep as the wrongs ye bear,
With defiance as fierce as the oaths they sware,
With vengeance as wild as the cries of despair,
That rise from your suffering Fatherland?
Are there no +SWORDS+ in your Fatherland,
To smite down the proud, insulting foe,
With the strength of dispair give blow for blow
Till the blood of the baffled murderers flow
On the trampled soil of your outraged land?
Are your right arms weak in that land of slaves,
That ye stand by your murdered brothers' graves,
Yet tremble like coward and crouching knaves,
To strike for freedom and Fatherland?
Oh! had ye faith in your Fatherland,
In God, your Cause, and your own right hand,
Ye would go forth as saints to the holy fight,
Go in the strength of eternal right,
Go in the conquering Godhead's might--
And save or +AVENGE+ your Fatherland!
THE VOICE OF THE POOR.
I.
Was sorrow ever like to our sorrow?
Oh, God above!
Will our night never change into a morrow
Of joy and love?
A deadly gloom is on us waking, sleeping,
Like the darkness at noontide,
That fell upon the pallid mother, weeping
By the Crucified.
II.
Before us die our brothers of starvation:
Around are cries of famine and despair
Where is hope for us, or comfort, or salvation--
Where--oh! where?
If the angels ever hearken, downward bending
They are weeping, we are sure,
At the litanies of human groans ascending
From the crushed hearts of the poor.
III.
When the human rests in love upon the human,
All grief is light;
But who bends one kind glance to illumine
Our life-long night?
The air around is ringing with their laughter--
God has only made the rich to smile;
But we--in our rags, and want, and woe--we follow after,
Weeping the while.
IV.
And the laughter seems but uttered to deride us.
When--oh! when
Will fall the frozen barriers that divide us
From other men?
Will ignorance for ever thus enslave us?
Will misery for ever lay us low?
All are eager with their insults, but to save us,
None, none, we know
V.
We never knew a childhood's mirth and gladness,
Nor the proud heart of youth, free and brave;
Oh! a deathlike dream of wretchedness and sadness,
Is life's weary journey to the grave.
Day by day we lower sink and lower,
Till the Godlike soul within,
Falls crushed, beneath the fearful demon power
Of poverty and sin.
VI.
So we toil on, on with fever burning
In heart and brain;
So we toil on, on through bitter scorning,
Want, woe, and pain:
We dare not raise our eyes to the blue heaven,
Or the toil must cease--
We date not breathe the fresh air God has given
One hour in peace.
VII.
We must toil, though the light of life is burning,
Oh, how dim!
We must toil on our sick bed, feebly turning
Our eyes to Him,
Who alone can hear the pale lip faintly saying,
With scarce moved breath
While the paler hands, uplifted, aid the praying--
"Lord, grant us _Death_!"
A SUPPLICATION.
"DE PROFUNDIS CLAMAVI AD TE DOMINE."
By our looks of mute despair,
By the sighs that rend the air,
From lips too faint to utter prayer,
Kyrie Eleison.
By the last groans of our dying,
Echoed by the cold wind's sighing
On the wayside as they're lying,
Kyrie Eleison.
By our fever-stricken bands
Lifting up their wasted hands
For bread throughout the far-off lands,
Kyrie Eleison
Miserable outcasts we,
Pariahs of humanity,
Shunned by all where'er we flee,
Kyrie Eleison.
For our dead no bell is ringing,
Round their forms no shroud is clinging,
Save the rank grass newly springing,
Kyrie Eleison.
Golden harvests we are reaping,
With golden grain our barns heaping,
But for us our bread is weeping,
Kyrie Eleison.
Death-devoted in our home,
Sad we cross the salt sea's foam,
But death we bring where'er we roam,
Kyrie Eleison.
Whereso'er our steps are led,
They can track us by our dead,
Lying on their cold earth bed,
Kyrie Eleison.
We have sinned--in vain each warning--
Brother lived his brother scorning,
Now in ashes see us mourning,
Kyrie Eleison.
Heeding not our country's state,
Trodden down and desolate,
While we strove in senseless hate,
Kyrie Eleison.
We have sinned, but holier zeal
May we Christian patriots feel,
Oh! for our dear country's weal,
Kyrie Eleison.
Let us lift our streaming eyes
To God's throne above the skies,
He will hear our anguish cries,
Kyrie Eleison.
Kneel beside me, oh! my brother,
Let us pray each with the other,
For Ireland, our mourning mother,
Kyrie Eleison.
FORESHADOWINGS.
I.
Oremus! Oremus! Look down on us, Father!
Like visions of Patmos Thy last judgments gather
The angels of doom, in bright, terrible beauty,
Rise up from their thrones to fulfil their stern duty.
Woe to us, woe! the thunders have spoken,
The first of the mystical seals hath been broken.
II.
Through the cleft thunder-cloud the weird coursers are rushing--
Their hoofs will strike deep in the hearts they are crushing;
And the crown'd and the proud of the old kingly races
Fall down at the vision, like stars from their places:
_Oremus! Oremus!_ The pale earth is heark'ning;
Already the spirit-steeds round us are dark'ning.
III.
With crown and with bow, on his white steed immortal,
The Angel of Wrath passes first through the portal;
But faces grow paler, and hush'd is earth's laughter,
When on his pale steed comes the Plague Spirit after.
_Oremus! Oremus!_ His poison-breath slayeth;
The red will soon fade from each bright lip that prayeth.
IV.
Now, with nostrils dilated and thunder hoofs crashing,
On rushes the war-steed, his lurid eyes flashing;
There is blood on the track where his long mane is streaming,
There is death where the sword of his rider is gleaming.
Woe to the lands where that red steed is flying!
There tyrants are warring, and heroes are dying.
V.
Oh! the golden-hair'd children reck nought but their playing,
Thro' the rich fields of corn with their young mothers straying;
And the strong-hearted men, with their muscles of iron,
What reck they of ills that their pathway environ?
There's a tramp like a knell--a cold shadow gloometh--
Woe! 'tis the black steed of Famine that cometh.
VI.
At the breath of its rider the green earth is blasted,
And childhood's frail form droops down pallid, and wasted;
The soft sunny hair falleth dank on the arm
Of the mother, whose love shields no longer from harm.
For strength is scarce left her to weep o'er the dying,
Ere dead by the loved one the mother is lying.
VII.
But can we only weep, when above us thus lour
The death-bearing wings of the angels of power;
When around are the arrows of pestilence flying--
Around, the pale heaps of the famine-struck lying
--No, brother of sorrow, when life's light is weakest,
Look up, it is nigh the redemption thou seekest.
VIII.
Still +WORK+, though the tramp of the weird spirit-horses,
Fall dull on the ear, like the clay upon corses;
Still Freedom must send forth her young heroes glowing,
Though her standard be red with their life-current flowing;
Still the preacher must cast forth the seed, as God's sower
Though he perish like grass at the scythe of the mower.
IX.
Still do the Lord's work through life's tragical drama,
Though weeping goes upward like weeping at Rama;
The path may be thorny, but Spirit eyes see us;
The cross may be heavy, but Death will soon free us:
Still, strong in Christ's power we'll chant the Hosanna,
Fling down Christ's defiance--[Greek: Upage Satana]!
X.
I see in a vision the shadowy portal,
That leadeth to regions of glory immortal;
I see the pale forms from the seven wounds bleeding,
Which up to God's Throne the bright angels are leading;
I see the crown placed on each saint bending lowly,
While sounds the Trisagion--Holy, thrice Holy!
XI.
I have Paradise dreams of a band with palm-branches,
Whose wavings give back their gold harps' resonances,
And a jewelled-walled city, where walketh in splendour
Each one who his life for God's truth did surrender.
Who would weep their death-doom, if such bliss we inherit,
When the veil of the human falls off from the spirit?
XII.
The Christian may shrink from the last scenes of trial,
And the woes yet unknown of each mystical vial;
But the hosts of Jehovah will gather beside him,
The rainbow-crowned angel stoop downward to guide him;
And to him, who as hero and martyr hath striven,
Will the Crown, and the Throne, and the Palm-branch be given.
TO A DESPONDENT NATIONALIST.
I.
Wherefore wail you for the harp? Is it broken?
Have the bold hands that once struck it weaker grown?
Can false words, by false traitors spoken,
Blight a cause which we know is God's own?
No coward hearts are with us that would falter,
Tho' a thousand tyrants strove to crush us low;
No coward pen the daring words to alter,
That we fling in haughty scorn 'gainst the foe.
II.
Who has doomed, or can dare "doom us to silence?"
In the conscious pride of truth and right we stand.
Let them rave like the ocean round the islands,
Firm as they we stand unmoved for Fatherland.
Ay, we'll "till," spite of banded foes who hate us--
But to rear the tree of Freedom God hath given;
Ay, we'll toil--but for triumphs that await us,
If not leading to the Capitol--to Heaven.
III.
Shall we mourn if we're martyrs for the truth?
God has ever tried His noblest by the cross--
Let us bless Him that we're worthy in our youth,
For Country, truth, and right to suffer loss.
So the word that we have spoken be immortal,
Little reck we tho' no glory may be won;
If of God, it will scorn ban of mortal--
Standing ever as the archetypal sun.
IV.
True, the path is dark, but ever sunward,
In faith, and love, and hope we journey on;
We may pause in the desert passing onward.
Lay our weary heads to rest upon the stone;
But ever in our visions, low and faintly,
Come the voices of the far-off angel band,
To earnest souls, in prophecy all saintly,
That the good cause will yet triumph in the land.
V.
Fear not, oh! my brother, then, that any
Will hush Ierne's harp at man's command;
For phylacteries of misery too many,
Are bound upon all foreheads in the land.
Let others bow in abject genuflexion--
Sue from _Pity_ what they ought to claim as right;
By God's grace we'll stand by our election--
Freedom, Knowledge, Independence, Truth, and Light!
SIGNS OF THE TIMES.
I.
When mighty passions, surging, heave the depth of life's great ocean--
When the people sway, like forest trees, to and fro in wild commotion--
When the world-old kingdoms, rent and riven, quiver in their place,
As the human central fire is upheaving at their base,
And throbbing hearts, and flashing eyes, speak a language deep and cryptic;
Yet he who runs may read aright these signs apocalyptic:
Then rise, ye crownéd Elohim[1]--rise trembling from your thrones;
Soon shall cease the eternal rhythm betwixt them and human groans.
II.
Ah! ye thought the nations, faint and weary, lay for ever bound;
They were sleeping like Orestes, with the Furies watching round;
Soon they'll spring to vengeance, maddened by the whisperings divine,
That breathed of human freedom, as they knelt before God's shrine.
See you not a form advancing, as the shadow of the Gnomon,
Step by step, in darkness, onward--can ye read the fatal omen!
Coarse the hand, and rude the raiment, and the brow is dark to see,
But flashes fierce the eye as those of vengeful Zincali.
III.
On its brow a name is written--France read it once before,
And like a demon's compact, it was written in her gore--
A fearful name--thrones trembled as the murmur passed along--
+RETRIBUTION+, proud oppressors, for your centuries of wrong.
From the orient to the ocean, from the palm-tree to the pine,
From Innisfail, by Tagus, to the lordly Appenine--
From Indus to the river by which pale Warsaw bleeds--
Souls are wakening--hands are arming--God is blessing noble deeds.
IV.
Bravely done, ye Roman Eagles, ye are fluttering at last;
Spread your broad wings brave and proudly, as in old times, to the blast;
Never furl them--never flag, till with the Austrian's slaughter,
Ye crimson the full tide of the Danube's rolling water.
Who will falter now? Who'll stand like a trembling coward dumb!
_Plaudite!_ Freedom stands again on the Janiculum!
From the Tiber to the Adige her vatic words are waking,
Italy! fair Italy! arise the dawn is breaking!
V.
The Russian breathed on Poland, and she changed to a Zahara;
The jewels of her ancient crown adorn the Czar's tiara.
Her princes, and her nobles, tread the land with footsteps weary,
And her people cry to Heaven with ceaseless _Miserere_.
On her pale brow, thorn crownéd, ye may read her shame and loss;
See, foreign rule has branded there the fatal _Thanatos_.
But her agony and bloody sweat the Lord from Heaven will see,
And a resurrection morn heal the wounds of Calvary.
VI.
By our prophets God is speaking, in Sinai's awful thunders,
By pestilence and famine, in fearful signs and wonders;
By our great poet-priesthood, the sacred race immortal,
Whose words go forth triumphant, as through a golden portal;
By our patriots and martyrs, who, for Freedom's holy law,
Have hearts to dare, a hand to burn, like Mutius Scævola.
Then, courage, Brothers! lock your shields, like the old Spartan band,
Advance! and be your watchword ever--God for Ireland!
THE OLD MAN'S BLESSING.
Mine eye is dull, my hair is white,
This arm is powerless for the fight,
Alas! alas! the battle's van
Suits not a weak and aged man.
Thine eye is bright, thine arm is strong--
'Tis Youth must right our country's wrong.
Arise, my son, and proudly bear
This sword that I was wont to wear;
Firm grasp the hilt, fling down the sheath--
A thousand years their wrongs bequeath
To thy young heart, thy hot revenge--
Kneel down, and swear thou wilt avenge.
May thy hand be fierce as Até's,
Fighting for our old Penates;
May thy glance be lightning flashes,
May thy words be thunder crashes,
May that earnest, haughty frown,
Like weapon, strike the foeman down.
May thy smile of scorn be
Blasting as the Upas tree;
Boldly like Olympian God,
Hurl the tyrants from our sod,
Let their wail be Ichabod!
Be to them destruction glooming--
Be to them a vengeance looming,
Hair-suspended o'er their race,
Like the sword of Damoclés,
Let thy daring right hand free us,
Like that son of old Ægeus,
Who purged his land for evermore
From the blood-stained Minotaur.
Fear not death, but fear dishonour;
Yield thy country all but honour.
What more fitting warrior's shroud
Than the foeman's standard proud?
Heed ye not their glozing words;
Fear ye not their myriad swords;
Never make ye peace with them
'Till ye chant their requiem.
Ha! I hear thy heart's pulsation
Throbbing vengeance for our nation;
Ha! I see thy dark eyes shine
With a fury leonine--
Burning brow and clenchéd hand--
Quivering lip and naked brand--
Arise! arise! my patriot son,
By hearts like thine is Freedom won!
MAN'S MISSION.
I.
Human lives are silent teaching,
Be they earnest, mild, and true--
Noble deeds are noblest preaching
From the consecrated Few.
Poet-Priests their anthems singing,
Hero-sword on corslet ringing,
When Truth's banner is unfurled;
Youthful preachers, genius-gifted,
Pouring forth their souls uplifted,
Till their preaching stirs the world;
II.
Each must work as God has given
Hero hand or poet soul;
Work is duty while we live in
This weird world of sin and dole.
Gentle spirits, lowly kneeling,
Lift their white hands up appealing
To the Throne of Heaven's King--
Stronger natures, culminating,
In great actions incarnating
What another can but sing.
III.
Pure and meek-eyed as an angel,
We must strive--must agonise;
We must preach the saints' evangel
Ere we claim the saintly prize.
Work for all, for work is holy,
We fulfil our mission solely
When, like Heaven's arch above,
Blend our souls in one emblazon,
And the social diapason
Sounds the perfect chord of love.
IV.
Life is combat, life is striving,
Such our destiny below;
Like a scythéd chariot driving
Through an onward pressing foe.
Deepest sorrow, scorn, and trial
Will but teach us self-denial;
Like the alchymists of old,
Pass the ore through cleansing fire
If our spirits would aspire
To be God's refinéd gold.
V.
We are struggling in the morning
With the spirit of the night;
But we trample on it scorning--
Lo! the eastern sky is bright.
We must watch. The day is breaking;
Soon, like Memnon's statue waking
With the sunrise into sound,
We shall raise our voice to Heaven,
Chant a hymn for conquest given,
Seize the palm, nor heed the wound.
VI.
We must bend our thoughts to earnest,
Would we strike the idols down;
With a purpose of the sternest
Take the Cross, and wait the Crown.
Sufferings human life can hallow,
Sufferings lead to God's Valhalla;
Meekly bear, but nobly try,
Like a man with soft tears flowing,
Like a God with conquest glowing
So to love, and work, and die!
A LAMENT.
I.
Gone from us--dead to us--he whom we worshipped so!
Low lies the altar we raised to his name;
Madly his own hand hath shattered and laid it low--
Madly his own breath hath blasted his fame.
He whose proud bosom once raged with humanity,
He whose broad forehead was circled with might,
Sunk to a time-serving, driv'lling inanity--
God! why not spare our loved country the sight?
II.
Was it the gold of the stranger that tempted him?
Ah! we'd have pledged to him body and soul;
Toiled for him--fought for him--starved for him--died for him--
Smiled, tho' our graves were the steps to his goal.
Breathed he one word in his deep, earnest whispering,
Wealth, crown, and kingdom, were laid at his feet;
Raised he his right hand, the millions would round him cling--
Hush! 'tis the Sassenach ally you greet.
III.
Leaders have fallen--we wept, but we triumphed, too--
Patriot blood never sinks in the sod;
He falls, and the jeers of the nation he bent to sue
Rise like accusing weird spirits to God.
Weep for him--weep for him---deep is the tragedy--
Angels themselves now might doubt of God's truth;
Souls from their bloody graves, shuddering, rise to see
How he avenges their lost, murdered youth.
IV.
Tone, and Fitzgerald, and the pale-brow'd enthusiast--
He whose heart broke, but shrank not from the strife;
Davis, the latest loved--he who in glory passed,
Kindling Hope's lamp with the chrism of life.
Well may they wail for him--power and might were his--
Loved as no mortal was loved in the land--
What has he sold them for? Sorrow and shame it is,
Fair words and false from a recreant band.
V.
Time's shade was on him; what matter? we loved him yet;
Aye, would have torn the veins with our teeth,
Made him a bath of our young blood to pay the debt--
Purchased his life, tho' we brough it by death.
Pray for him--pray: an archangel has fallen low;
There's a throne less in Heaven, there is sorrow on earth.
Weep, angels--laugh, demons! When his hand could strike the blow,
Where shall we seek for truth, honour, or worth?
THE YOUNG PATRIOT LEADER.
Oh! he stands beneath the sun, that glorious Fated One
Like a martyr or conqueror, wearing
On his brow a mighty doom, be it glory, be it gloom,
The shadow of a crown it is bearing.
At his Cyclopean stroke the proud heart of man awoke.
Like a king from his lordly down-lying;
And whereso'er he trod, like the footstep of a God,
Was a trail of light the gloom outvying.
In his beauty and his youth, the Apostle of the Truth,
Goes he forth with the words of salvation,
And a noble madness falls on each spirit he enthralls,
As he chants his wild Pæans to the nation.
As a tempest in its force, as a torrent in its course,
So his words fiercely sweep all before them,
And they smite like two-edged swords, those undaunted thunder-words,
On all hearts, as tho' angels did implore them.
See our pale cheeks how they flush, as the noble visions rush
On our soul's most dark desolation,
And the glorious lyric words, Right, Freedom, and our Swords!
Wake the strong chords of life to vibration.
Aye; right noble, in good sooth, seemed he battling for the truth,
When he poured the full tide of his scorn
Down upon the tyrant's track, like an Alpine cataract:
All! such men wait an Æon to be born.
So he stood before us then, one of God's eternal men,
Flashing eye, and hero mould of stature,
With a glory and a light circling round his brow of might,
That revealed his right royal kingly nature.
Lo! he leadeth on our bands, Freedom's banner in his hands,
Let us aid him, not with words, but doing;
With the marches of the brave, prayers of might that strike and save,
Not a slaving spirit's abject suing.
Thus in glory is he seen, tho' his years are yet but green,
The anointed as head of our nation;
For high Heaven hath decreed that a soul like his must lead,
Let us kneel, then, in deep adoration.
Oh! his mission is divine; dash down the Lotus wine--
Too long is your trancéd sleep abiding;
For by Him who gave us life, we shall conquer in the strife,
So we follow but that Young Chief's guiding.
ATTENDITE POPULE.
Oh! that I stood upon some lofty tower,
Before the gathered people, face to face,
That, like God's thunder, might my words of power
Roll down the cry of Freedom to its base!
Oh! that my voice, a storm above all storms,
Could cleave earth, air, and ocean, rend the sky
With the fierce earthquake shout: "To arms! to arms!
For Truth, Fame, Freedom, Vengeance, Victory!"
The mountains, could they speak, would cry in thunder,
"Too long we've borne the tyrant's trampling hoof;"
The stars would fight from Heaven with signs of wonder;
The tempest waves dash back a stern reproof:
But ye, writhing like worms beneath the tyrant's spurning,
Dragged in the dust behind his chariot-wheel,
Is there no vengeance in your strong hearts burning,
Tho' God, and man, and earth, and heaven appeal?
Oh! for some prophet's voice to rouse and warn--
Some angel's hand to strike them branch and root!
Oh! for Christ's strength to bid, in Godlike scorn,
The very stones cry out, should ye be mute!
FORWARD!
I.
What though Freedom's hosts are parted,
Yet, beneath one banner fighting,
Strong in love and hero-hearted,
All, their Country's wrongs are righting
With the weapon that each deemeth best to strike oppression down
II.
And one battle-cry resoundeth
From your ranks, success presaging;
And one heart within you boundeth
With a martyr's faith, engaging
Each to bind upon his forehead cypress wreath or laurel crown.
III.
For a power without you urges
That can brook no more delaying,
And the heaving myriad surges,
To and fro in tumult swaying,
Threaten death to all who vainly would oppose them in their might.
IV.
Thrilling words, that burn like fire,
Ye have preached to hut and hovel,
Till they leap up in their ire
From the death-dust where they grovel,
These men of many sufferings, to die or win their right.
V.
Pass the word that bands together--
Word of mystic conjuration--
And, as fire consumes the heather,
So the young hearts of the nation
Fierce will blaze up, quick and scathing, 'gainst the stranger and the foe.
VI.
Hand to hand with them confronted,
Looking death and danger gravely
In the face, with brow undaunted;
Doing nobly, dying bravely,
Stern as men resolved to conquer or to perish in their woe.
VII.
For the God-breath speaketh in you,
Dare ye not belie your mission;
And the beck'ning angels win you
On with many a radiant vision,
Up the thorny path of glory, where the hero gains his crown.
VIII.
Fling abroad our Country's banner,
Foremost march to Freedom leading,
Let the breath of millions fan her,
Not alone the wine-press treading,
For a Nation is arising from her long and ghastly swoon.
IX.
Go with lips that dare not falter,
Offer up, with exaltations,
On your country's holy altar,
Youth, with all its fervid passions,
And your life, if she demands it--Can a patriot fear to die?
X.
What is life that ye should love it
More than manlike deeds of duty?
There's a glory far above it
Crowns your brow with nobler beauty--
'Tis to die, with cheers heroic, lifting Freedom's standard high.
XI.
Through the darkness and the dunlight,
Of this sorrow-night of weeping,
Ye shall trail the radiant sunlight,
And, like strong men armed, leaping
Forth to wondrous deeds of glory, make Humanity sublime.
XII.
Rising higher still, and higher,
Till the Angel who stands nighest
To the Throne shall tune his lyre
To your praise before the Highest,
And the Crown of Fame Immortal shall be yours throughout all time.
HAVE YE COUNTED THE COST?
I.
Will our Leaders faint and falter
At the foes they have to bind--
The Ignorance and Prejudice,
Bigot heart and shallow mind?
Do they tremble at the ordeal
That is looming from afar--
The battle, and the hero-death,
And vict'ry's fiery car?
II.
Ah! the brave ones! Lion-hearted!
They whose prophet-accents rung,
As if pentecostal fires
Had been kindled on their tongue;
Some with words of soft persuasion,
Melting hearts of stern and strong,
Like the minor chord that waketh
All our tears in Irish song.
III.
Some with glance, like eagles, fearless,
And great thoughts that kindle deeds,
Bowing souls of men before them
As the storm-wind sweeps the reeds.
Will they sink down, pale and weary?
Vain is preaching to the wind,
Burning words and supplications--
Slavish souls are deaf and blind.
IV.
Never! Like the protomartyr,
Ages since on Judah's plains,
While around him, furious raging,
Stood the fierce, unbranded Cains;
So, sublime in holy daring,
Stand our Leaders calmly there,
Though such grief their spirit's clouding
As might quickly fade young hair.
V.
Grief for the idiot people,
Who, with suicidal hand,
Strive to the bind the fetters closer
On their prostrate, bleeding land.
But a silver cord of gladness
Is inwoven in the gloom--
Through the midnight of our sadness,
Brightest stars from heaven loom.
VI.
Morning comes when night is darkest,
Near to evil good will spring,
As the Indian serpent resteth
On the leaf that heals its sting.
Braver spirits will enkindle,
To redeem our abject race;
Noble hearts will beat yet nobler,
To retrieve our past disgrace.
VII.
Brighter still, and brighter shining,
Seems the glory of the few,
Who, in face of earth and heaven,
Swear to God they dare be true.
Let the masses pass on scorning,
Seek not courage in their mind;
Self-devotion, patriot fervour,
Spring not from the craven kind.
VIII.
Abject tears, and prayers submissive--
Have they eyes, and cannot see?
Never country gained her freedom
When she sued on bended knee.
Be our Leaders, then, still daring,
Bold in word, and brave in fight;
And when comes the day of trial,
Then, may God defend the Right!
THE YEAR OF REVOLUTIONS.
I.
Lift up your pale faces, ye children of sorrow,
The night passes on to a glorious to-morrow!
Hark! hear you not sounding glad Liberty's pæan,
From the Alps to the Isles of the tideless Ægean?
And the rhythmical march of the gathering nations,
And the crashing of thrones 'neath their fierce exultations,
And the cry of Humanity cleaving the ether,
With hymns of the conquering rising together--
God, Liberty, Truth! How they burn heart and brain--
These words shall they burn--shall they waken in vain?
II.
No! soul answers soul, steel flashes on steel,
And land wakens land with a grand thunder-peal.
Shall we, oh! my Brothers, but weep, pray, and groan,
When France reads her rights by the flames of a Throne?
Shall we fear and falter to join the grand chorus,
When Europe has trod the dark pathway before us?
Oh, courage! and we, too, will trample them down,
The minions of power, the serfs of a crown.
Oh, courage! but courage, if once to the winds
Ye fling Freedom's banner, no tyranny binds.
III.
At the voice of the people the weak symbols fall,
And Humanity marches o'er purple and pall,
O'er sceptre and crown, with a glorious disdain,
For the symbol must fall and Humanity reign.
Onward! then onward! ye brave to the vanguard,
Gather in glory round Liberty's standard!
Like France, lordly France, we shall sweep from their station
All, all who oppose the stern will of a nation;
Like Prussia's brave children will stoop to no lord,
But demand our just rights at the point of the sword.
IV.
We'll conquer! we'll conquer! No tears for the dying,
The portal to Heaven be the field where they're lying.
We'll conquer! we'll conquer! No tears for the slain,
God's angels will smile on their death-hour of pain.
On, on in your masses dense, resolute, strong
To war against treason, oppression, and wrong;
On, on with your chieftains, and Him we adore most,
Who strikes with the bravest and leads with the foremost,
Who brings the proud light of a name great in story,
To guide us through danger unconquered to glory.
V.
With faith like the Hebrew's we'll stem the Red Sea--
God! smite down the Pharaohs--our trust is in Thee;
Be it blood of the tyrant or blood of the slave,
We'll cross it to Freedom, or find there a grave.
Lo! a throne for each worker, a crown for each brow,
The palm for each martyr that dies for us now;
Spite the flash of their muskets, the roar of their cannon,
The assassins of Freedom shall lower their pennon;
For the will of a Nation what foe dare withstand?
Then Patriots, Heroes, strike! God for our Land!
RUINS.
I.
Shall we tread the dust of ages,
Musing, dreamlike, on the past,
Seeking on the broad earth's pages
For the shadows Time hath cast;
Waking up some ancient story,
From each prostrate shrine or hall,
Old traditions of a glory
Earth may never more recall?
II.
Poet thoughts of sadness breathing,
For the temples overthrown;
Where no incense now is wreathing,
And the gods are turned to stone.
Wandering by the graves of heroes,
Shrouded deep in classic gloom,
Or the tombs where Egypt's Pharaohs
Wait the trumpet and the doom.
III.
By the city, desert-hidden,[2]
Which Judea's mighty king
Made the Genii, at his bidding,
Raise by magic of his ring;
By the Lake Asphaltian wander,
While the crimson sunset glow
Flings its radiance, as we ponder
On the buried towns below.
IV.
By the Cromleach, sloping downward,
Where the Druid's victim bled;
By those Towers, pointing sunward,
Hieroglyphics none have read:
In their mystic symbols seeking,
Of past creeds and rites o'erthrown,
If the truths they shrined are speaking
Yet in Litanies of Stone.
V.
By the Temple of the Muses,
Where the climbers of the mount
Learned the soul's diviner uses
From the Heliconian fount.
By the banks of dark Illyssus,
Where the Parcæ walked of old,
In their crowns of white narcissus,
And their garments starred with gold.
VI.
By the tomb of queenly Isis,
Where her fallen prophets wail,
Yet no hand has dared the crisis
Of the lifting of the vail.
By the altar which the Grecian
Raised to God without a name;
By the stately shrine Ephesian,
Erostratus burned for fame.
VII.
By the Libyan shrine of Ammon,
Where the sands are trod with care,
Lest we, bending to examine,
Start the lion from his lair.
Shall we tread the halls Assyrian,
Where the Arab tents are set;
Trace the glory of the Tyrian,
Where the fisher spreads his net?
VIII.
Shall we seek the "Mene, mene,"
Wrote by God upon the wall,
While the proud son of Mandane
Strode across the fated hall?
Shall we mourn the Loxian's lyre,
Or the Pythian priestess mute?
Shall we seek the Delphic fire,
Though we've lost Apollo's lute?
IX.
Ah! the world has sadder ruins
Than these wrecks of things sublime;
For the touch of man's misdoings
Leaves more blighted tracks than Time.
Ancient lore gives no examples
Of the ruins here we find--
Prostrate souls for fallen temples,
Mighty ruins of the mind.
X.
We had hopes that rose as proudly
As each sculptured marble shrine;
And our prophets spake as loudly
As their oracles divine.
Grand resolves of giant daring,
Such as Titans breathed of old;
Brilliant aims their front uprearing,
Like a temple roofed with gold.
XI.
Souls of fire, like columns pointing,
Flamelike, upward to the skies;
Glorious brows, which God's anointing
Consecrated altar-wise.
Stainless hearts, like temples olden,
None but priest hath ever trod;
Hands as pure as were the golden
Staves which bore the ark of God.
XII.
Oh! they built up radiant visions,
Like an iris after rain;
How all Paradise traditions
Might be made to live again.
Of Humanity's sad story,
How their hand should turn the page,
And the ancient primal glory,
Fling upon this latter age.
XIII.
How with Godlike aspirations,
Up the souls of men would climb,
Till the fallen, enslavéd nations
Trod in rhythmic march sublime;
Reaching heights the people knew not,
Till their Prophet Leaders led--
Bathed in light that mortals view not,
While the spirit life lies dead.
XIV.
How the pallid sons of labour,
They should toil, and toil to raise,
Till a glory, like to Tabor,
Once again should meet earth's gaze.
How the poor, no longer keeping
Count of life alone by groans,
With the strong cry of their weeping,
Start the angels on their thrones.
XV.
Ah! that vision's bright ideal,
Must it fade and perish thus?
Must its fall alone be real?
Are its ruins trod by us?
Ah! they dreamed an Eldorado,
Given not to mortal sight;
Yet the souls that walk in shadow,
Still bend forward to its light.
XVI.
Earnest dreamers, sooth we blame not
If ye failed to reach the goal--
If the glorious Real came not
At the strong prayer of each soul.
By the path ye've trod to duty,
Blessings yet to man may flow,
Though the proud and stately beauty
Of your structure lieth low.
XVII.
Low as that which Salem mourneth,
On Moriah's holy hill;
While the heathen proudly scorneth,
Yet the wrecks are glorious still:
Like the seven columns frowning,
On the desert city down;
Or the seven cedars crowning
Lofty Lebanon.
XVIII.
Poet wanderer, hast thou bent thee
O'er such ruins of the soul?
Pray to God that some Nepenthe
May efface that hour of dole.
We may lift the shrine and column,
From the dust which Time hath cast;
Choral chants may mingle solemn,
Once again where silence passed;
XIX.
But the stately, radiant palace,
We had built up in our dreams,
With Hope's rainbow-woven trellis,
And Truth's glorious sunrise beams;
Our aims of towering stature,
Our aspirations vain,
And our prostrate human nature--
Who will raise them up again?
DISCIPLINE.
I.
Close the starry dream-portal,
We must tread earth again,
Flashes no light immortal
Now on life's dreary plain.
We must wait, like the Stoic,
Brave, enduring, and strong,
Till the soul's strength heroic
Bends the fetters of wrong.
II.
By the lore life has brought us,
We shall fathom man's soul;
By the tears sorrow taught us,
We shall measure their dole.
Guide them on through affliction,
All earth's Saviours have trod,
Till from life's crucifixion
They can soar up to God.
III.
From the heart of man weeding
Up each rough brier and thorn,
With a hero-pride treading
Down the world's shallow scorn;
With a saint's self-denying
Toiling still for our land;
With a Christ-strength defying
Earth and Hell's gathered band.
IV.
In the soul's earnest travail
Must the God-work be wrought;
By the world's woe and cavil,
Must the deep heart be taught.
Blighted youth, crushed ambition,
On the altar must lie;
'Tis the world-old tradition,
Thus the Prophet must die.
V.
But this deep lore can only
Be learnéd in the gloom,
Where the gifted tread, lonely,
The Prophet-path of doom:
For by life-blood, and brain-sweat,
Is the altar-flame fed;
And from hearts crushed by pain, yet
Must the incense be shed.
VI.
Still, 'tis grand this wild warring,
Upon life's battle-field;
Fear not the heart's marring
If the soul never yield.
Fight for God's Truth yet longer,
'Gainst the fierce storms of life,
For the strong soul grows stronger
By the combat and strife.
THE EXODUS.
I.
"A million a decade!" Calmly and cold
The units are read by our statesmen sage;
Little they think of a Nation old,
Fading away from History's page;
Outcast weeds by a desolate sea--
Fallen leaves of Humanity.
II.
"A million a decade!"--of human wrecks,
Corpses lying in fever sheds--
Corpses huddled on foundering decks,
And shroudless dead on their rocky beds;
Nerve and muscle, and heart and brain,
Lost to Ireland--lost in vain.
III.
"A million a decade!" Count ten by ten,
Column and line of the record fair;
Each unit stands for ten thousand men,
Staring with blank, dead eye-balls there;
Strewn like blasted trees on the sod,
Men that were made in the image of God.
IV.
"A million a decade!"--and nothing done;
The Cæsars had less to conquer a world;
And the war for the Right not yet begun,
The banner of Freedom not yet unfurled:
The soil is fed by the weed that dies;
If forest leaves fall, yet they fertilise.
V.
But ye--dead, dead, not climbing the height,
Not clearing a path for the future to tread;
Not opening the golden portals of light,
Ere the gate was choked by your piled-up dead;
Martyrs ye, yet never a name
Shines on the golden roll of Fame.
VI.
Had ye rent one gyve of the festering chain,
Strangling the life of the Nation's soul;
Poured your life-blood by river and plain,
Yet touched with your dead hand Freedom's goal;
Left of heroes one footprint more
On our soil, tho' stamped in your gore--
VII.
We could triumph while mourning the brave,
Dead for all that was holy and just,
And write, through our tears, on the grave,
As we flung down the dust to dust--
"They died for their country, but led
Her up from the sleep of the dead."
VIII.
"A million a decade!" What does it mean?
A Nation dying of inner decay--
A churchyard silence where life has been--
The base of the pyramid crumbling away:
A drift of men gone over the sea,
A drift of the dead where men should be.
IX.
Was it for this ye plighted your word,
Crowned and crownless rulers of men?
Have ye kept faith with your crucified Lord,
And fed His sheep till He comes again?
Or fled like hireling shepherds away,
Leaving the fold the gaunt wolf's prey?
X.
Have ye given of your purple to cover,
Have ye given of your gold to cheer,
Have ye given of your love, as a lover
Might cherish the bride he held dear,
Broken the Sacrament-bread to feed
Souls and bodies in uttermost need?
XI.
Ye stand at the Judgment-bar to-day--
The Angels are counting the dead-roll, too;
Hare ye trod in the pure and perfect way,
And ruled for God as the crowned should do?
Count our dead--before Angels and Men,
Ye're judged and doomed by the Statist's pen.
THE FAITHLESS SHEPHERDS.
"Os habent, et non loquuntur:
Oculos habent, et non vident."
Dead!--dead! Ye are dead while ye live;
Ye've a name that ye live--but are dead.
Neither counsel nor love did ye give,
And your lips never uttered a word
While swift ruin downward sped,
And the plague raged on undisturbed.
Not a throb of true life in your veins,
Not a pulse in your passionless heart,
Not a thought in the dull, cold brains,
Of how ye should bear your part,
When summoned the strife to brave,
For our Country, with Death and the Grave.
Ye have gold for the follies of fashion,
And gold for its tinsel glare,
But none for the wild, sobbing passion
Wrung from the lips of despair.
False Shepherds and Guides are ye,
For the heart in each bosom is cold
As the ice on a frozen sea;
And your trappings of velvet and gold
Lie heavy and close as a pall,
When the steps of the bearers fall
On a grave, with measured tread;
For ye seem to live--but are dead.
Ye are dead!--ye are dead! stone by stone
The temple is crumbling down;
It will fall with a crash of doom,
For the night deepens dark in its gloom.
But ye look on with vacant stare,
Like men lying still in the tomb.
Stand forth! face the sun, if ye dare,
With your cold eyes unwet by a tear,
For your Country laid low on your bier,
And say--have ye stretched forth a hand
To raise up our desolate Land?
She dies--but ye flourish and grow
In the midst of the deadly maze:
Like the palm springing heavenward?--No,
But like weeds in the churchyard fed
By the vapours of death below,
Breathing round you a poisonous haze.
Go!--go! True life is not so--
For decay lies beneath your tread,
And the staff in your hand is a reed--
Too weak for your Country's need;
For you seem to live--but are dead.
Ye are dead!--ye are dead! Fling the clay
On the noble names--noble no more;
Leave the sword in the sheath to rust;
Let the banners be trailed in the dust;
And the memory perish away
Of the dead, who are dead evermore;
Blot them out from the book writ in gold.
Noble neither in deed nor in soul,
Are ye worthy to stand in the roll
Of the glorified heroes of old?
Has Ireland need of such sons?
Floating down with a silken sail,
On the crimson tide of her life, that runs
With a mournful, ceaseless wail,
Like rain pouring down from the eaves.
And ye laugh when the strangers deride
Her trials, the saddest and sorest,
And plunge the sword deep in her side;
And no kindly heart sighs or grieves
For her branches, all bare as a forest,
When the autumn wind scatters the leaves.
Laugh low with your perfumed breath,
For the air is heavy with death.
But ye hear not the gliding feet
Of the Future, that stands at your door;
For the roses lie heavy and sweet,
And too thick on your marble floor,
And the dead soul is dead to his call.
And your eyes are heavy with wine;
Ye see not the letters of flame,
Traced by a hand divine--
The writing of God on the wall--
"Ye are weighed, and found wanting"--Oh, shame!
Your life is a gilded lie;
And the wide world that doom has read,
With a shudder and chill of dread;
For the judgment of God is nigh,
And the universe echoes the cry--
You've a name that ye live--but are +DEAD+.
WORK WHILE IT IS CALLED TO-DAY.
"No man hath hired us"--strong hands drooping,
Listless, falling in idleness down;
Men in the silent market-place grouping
Round Christ's cross of silent stone.
"No man hath hired us"--pale hands twining,
Stalwart forms bowed down to sue.
"The red dawn is passed, the noon is shining,
But no man hath given us work to do."
Then a voice pealed down from the heights of Heaven,
Men, it said, of the Irish soil!
I gave you a land as a Garden of Eden,
Where you and your sons should till and toil;
I set your throne by the glorious waters,
Where ocean flung round you her mighty bands,
That your sails, like those of your Tyrian fathers,
Might sweep the shores of a hundred lands.
Power I gave to the hands of your leaders,
Wisdom I gave to the lips of the wise,
And your children grew as the stately cedars,
That shadowed the rivers of Paradise.
What have ye done with my land of beauty--
Has the spoiler bereft her of robe and crown?
Have my people failed in a people's duty?
Has the wild boar trampled my vineyard down?
True, they answered, faint in replying--
Our vines are rent by the wild boar's tusks;
The corn on our golden slopes is lying,
But our children feed on the remnant husks.
Our strong men lavish their blood for others;
Our prophets and wise men are heard no more;
Our young men give a last kiss to their mothers,
Then sail away for a foreign shore.
From wooded valleys and mountain gorges,
Emerald meadow and purple glen,
Across the foam of the wild sea surges,
They flee away like exiled men.
Yet, the chant we hear of the new Evangels,
Rising like incense from earth's green sod;
We--we alone, before worshipping Angels,
Idly stand in the Garden of God.
Then the Lord came down from the heights of Heaven,
Came down that garden fair to view,
Where the weary men waited from morn till even,
For some one to give them work to do.
Ye have sinned, He said, and the angel lustre
Darkened slowly as summer clouds may;
Weeds are growing where fruit should cluster,
Yet, ye stand idle all the day.
Have ye trod in the furrows, and worked as truly
As men who knew they should reap as they sow?
Have ye flung in the seed and watched it duly,
Day and night, lest the tares should grow?
Have ye tended the vine my hand hath planted,
Pruned and guided its tendrils fair;
Ready with life-blood, if it were wanted,
To strengthen the fruit its branches bear?
Have ye striven in earnest, working solely
To guard my flock in their native fold?
Are your hands as pure, and your hearts as holy,
As the saints who walk in the City of Gold?
Go! work in my vineyard, let none deceive ye,
Each for himself his work must do;
And whatever is right shall my Angels give ye,
The work and the workman shall have their due.--
Who knoweth the times of the new dispensations?
Go on in faith, and the light will come;
The last may yet be the first amongst nations,
Wait till the end for the final doom.
The last may be first! Shall our Country's glory
Ever flash light on the path we have trod?
Who knows?--who knows?--for our future story
Lies hid in the great sealed Book of God.
TO-DAY!
I.
Has the line of the Patriots ended,
The race of the heroes failed,
That the bow of the mighty, unbended,
Falls slack from the hands of the quailed?
Or do graves lie too thick in the grass
For the chariot of Progress to pass?
II.
Did the men of the past ever falter?
The stainless in name and fame.
They flung life's best gifts on the altar
To kindle the sacrifice flame,
Till it rose like a pillar of light
Leading up from Egyptian night.
III.
Oh! hearts all aflame, with the daring
Of youth leaping forth into life!
Have ye courage to lift up, unfearing,
The banner fallen low in the strife,
From hands faint through life's deepest loss,
And bleeding from nails of the cross?
IV.
Can ye work on as they worked--unaided,
When all but honour seemed lost?
And give to your Country, as they did,
All, without counting the cost?
For the children have risen since then
Up to the height of men.
V.
Now, swear by those pale martyr-faces,
All worn by the furrows of tears,
By the lost youth no morrow replaces,
By all their long-wasted years,
By the fires trod out on each hearth,
When the Exiles were driven forth;
VI.
By the young lives so vainly given,
By the raven hair blanched to grey,
By the strong spirits crushed and riven,
By the noble aims faded away,
By their brows, as the brows of a king,
Crowned by the circlet of suffering--
VII.
To strive as they strove, yet retrieving
The cause from all shadow of blame,
In the Congress of Peoples achieving
A place for our nation and name;
Not by war between brothers in blood,
But by glory made perfect through good.
VIII.
We are blind, not discerning the promise,
'Tis the sword of the Spirit that kills;
Give us Light, and the fetters fall from us,
For the strong soul is free when it wills.
Not our wrongs but our sins make the cloud
That darkens the land like a shroud.
IX.
With this sword like an Archangel's gleaming,
Go war against Evil and Sin,
'Gainst the falsehood, and meanness, and seeming
That stifle the true life within.
Your bonds are the bonds of the soul,
Strike them off, and you spring to the goal!
X.
O men who have passed through the furnace,
Assayed like the gold, and as pure!
By your strength can the weakest gain firmness
The strongest may learn to endure,
When once they have chosen their part,
Though the sword may drive home to each heart.
XI.
O Martyrs! The scorners may trample
On the broken hearts strewed in their path;
But the young race, all flushed by example,
Will awake to the duties it hath,
And re-kindle your own torch of Truth
With the passionate splendours of youth!
A REMONSTRANCE,
ADDRESSED TO D. FLORENCE M'CARTHY, M.R.I.A.[3]
Stand on the heights, O Poet! nor come down
Amid the wise old serpents, coiled around
The Tree of Knowledge in Academies.
The Poet's place is by the Tree of Life,
Whose fruit turns men to Gods, and makes them live,
Not seeking buried treasure in the tombs.
Leave the dim records of a by-gone age
To those great Archivists, who flash the torch
Of Truth along Time's mouldering records,
Illuminating all the fading Past,
Like golden letters on an ancient scroll.
The Poet soars with eagles, breathes pure ether,
Basks in the light that suns the mountain peak,
And sings, from spirit altitudes, such strains,
That all the toilers in life's rugged furrows
Are forced, for once, to lift the bow'd-down head,
And look on Heaven. Flashes from Poet's words
Electric light, strong, swift, and sudden, like
The clash of thunder-clouds, by which men read
God's writing legibly on human hearts.
O Poet-Prophets! God hath sent ye forth
With lips made consecrate by altar fire,
To guide the Future, not to tread the Past;
To chaunt, in glorious music, man's great hymn,
The watchword of humanity--Advance!
Advance in Wisdom, Nobleness, and Truth,
High aims, high purposes, and self-control,
Which is self-reverence, knowing we shall stand
With crownéd angels before God's great throne
The Poet nerves the arm to do great deeds,
Inspires great thoughts, flings o'er the tears of life
The rainbow arch, to save us from despair;
Quickens the stagnant energies to act,
Bears the advancing banner of the age,
Full in the van of all Humanity;
And, with a strength, God-given, rolls the stone,
As angels may, from off the Sepulchre
Where souls lie bound, bidding them rise and live.
O Poet! preach this Gospel once again--
True Life, true Liberty, God's gifts to man;
Freedom from servile aims and selfish ends,
That swathe and bind the kingly spirit down,
Like Egypt's grave-clothes on the royal dead;
Scatter the golden grain of lofty thoughts
From which spring hero-deeds--that so, in truth,
Our Future may be nobler than our Past,
In all that makes a nation's life divine--
This is the Poet's mission, therefore--+THINE+.
FRANCE IN '93.
I.
Hark! the onward heavy tread--
Hark! the voices rude--
'Tis the famished cry for Bread
From a wildered multitude.
They come! They come!
Point the cannon--roll the drum;
Thousands wail and weep with hunger--
Faster let your soldiers number.
Sword, and gun, and bayonet
A famished people's cries have met.
II.
Hark! the onward heavy tread--
Hark! the voices rude--
'Tis the famished cry for Bread
From an armed multitude.
They come! They come!
Not with meek submission's hum.
Bloody trophy they have won,
Ghastly glares it in the sun--
Gory head on lifted pike.
Ha! they weep not now, but strike.
III.
Ye, the deaf ones to their cries--
Ye, who scorned their agonies--
'Tis no longer prayers for bread
Shriek in your ears the famishéd;
But wildly, fiercely, peal on peal,
Resoundeth--Down with the Bastile!
Can ye tame a people now?
Try them--flatter, promise, vow,
Swear their wrongs shall be redressed--
But patience--time will do the rest;
Swear they shall one day be fed--
Hark! the People--Dead for Dead!
IV.
Calculating statesmen, quail;
Proud aristocrat, grow pale;
Savage sounds that deathly song:
Down with tyrants! Down with wrong!
Blindly now they wreak revenge--
How rudely do a mob avenge!
What! coronetted Prince or Peer,
Will not the base-born slavelings fear
Sooth, their cry is somewhat stern:
_Aristocrats, à la Lanterne!_
Ghastly fruit their lances bear--
Noble heads with streaming hair;
Diadem and kingly crown
Strike the famine-stricken down.
Now, the People's work is done--
On they stride o'er prostrate throne;
Royal blood of King and Queen
Streameth from the guillotine;
Wildly on the people goeth,
Reaping what the noble soweth.
Little dreamed he, prince or peer,
Of who should be his heritor.
Hunger now, at last, is sated
In halls where once it wailed and waited;
Wild Justice fiercely rives the laws
Which failed to right a people's cause.
On that human ocean floweth,
Whither stops it no one knoweth--
Surge the wild waves in their strength
Against all chartered rights at length--
Throne, and King, and Noble fall;
But the People--they hold Carnival!
THE FALL OF THE TYRANTS.
+A SPANISH BALLAD, 1492.+
I.
Ho! Spaniards! rise for Liberty--your country on ye calls,
To fight to-day, in proud array, before Granáda's walls;
A proud array is here to-day, full fifty thousand strong,
Of Fantassins and Cavaliers Gonzalo leads along.
II.
From Leon to Granáda--from Corunna to Seville,
Gather, Spaniards, gather, by the banks of the Xenil!
Eight hundred years of blood and tears beneath a foreign sway--
Eight hundred years of blood and tears must be avenged to-day.
III.
Think of your ancient glory, Oh ye lions of León!
And how in ancient story your great lion name was won;
Think of Zamora's conquest field, and royal Douro's flood--
How ye bridged with Moslem corses, and swam it in their blood.
IV.
And, mountaineers, have ye no tears to be avenged to-day--
Asturians, and Gallicians, and wild dwellers by Vizcày?
Ye, the unconquered remnant of the brave old Celtic race--
For ne'er could Roman, Goth, or Moor, your nationhood efface.
V.
Ye, too, proud Gothic nobles! by your memories as men,
Will never fail, or shrink, or quail to meet the Saracen;
Ye, 'fore whose conquering arm were the bravest forced to yield,
Who smote the Suevi in their tent--the Romans in the field.
VI.
Now, now, oh, shame and misery! a stranger rules your lands!--
A stranger's spoil is your native soil--a stranger's voice commands;
Ye, princes once and chieftains, ere the false foe crossed the flood,
Now, drawers of their water and base hewers of their wood!
VII.
And, Adalusian Brothers, of the old Vandalic race,
Will ye alone 'midst Spaniards, be proud of your disgrace?
They flatter, fawn, but hate you, these proud foes to whom you've sold
Your Liberty for mocking smiles--your country for their gold.
VIII.
They own your stately palaces, they desecrate your shrines,
They trample on your vineyards, yet ye stoop to drink their wines;
Ye wear their silk, their gold, their gems, and to their feasts ye run;
Now shame for ye, my brothers, is it thus that Freedom's won?
IX.
Back to your wild sierras, better die there in your homes
Than cringingly bow low beneath your masters' haughty domes;
Their Syrian silks, their Indiam gems, go--fling them to the sea,
But keep their Syrian steel, for it will help to set us free.
X.
Oh! by your ancient memories, rise Prince, and Peer, and Chief--
Smite down the foe that wrought our woe at Gebel el Taríf.
The robber horde awaits your sword--draw, Spaniards! for your land!
The crown ye lost by Roderic, regain it by Fernand!
XI.
No coward fears--eight hundred years ye've lived as slaves, not men;
But swords makes bright each chartered right--ye'll have your own again.
Brave hearts and leal of proud Castile--Revenge, on Mauritania!
Rend earth and sky with your gathering cry: Charge! Cierra Espana!
XII.
As tempests sweep the surging deep, thus on the Moorish ranks
Dashes the Spanish chivalry; they charge on van and flanks.
From Calpe's rock the thunder-shock re-echoes o'er the main--
Now, God and Santiago, for our Liberty and Spain!
XIII.
Little they think of mercy, these slaves of eight hundred years;
Never they spare a foeman, these hold true Iberian spears.
Crescènted hosts your taunting boasts this day find answer meet,
For the light of Heaven is darkened by the dust of your flying feet.
XIV.
Granàda falls! From the Castle walls tear down the Alien's rag--
On turret and Alcàzar, comrades, up with our ancient flag!
It floats from the proud Alhambra! Thank God, we've lived to see
Our ancient standard waving once again above the Free!
XV.
Pass out, ye weeping people; aye, weep--for never more
Shall ye gather in Granàda by the sound of Atambór;
For, by the rood, ye Moslem brood, we swore it in Castile,
Never again should Spain be ruled by foreign Alquazil.
XVI.
O Moorish King! by suffering thou has earned a name to-day[4]--
But we give thee life, Abdallah; pass onwards on thy way.
Accursed race, the foul disgrace thy rule hath brought on Spain,
Is cleansed away in blood to-day--we drive thee 'cross the main.
XVII.
By Elvira's gate he goeth, all solemnly and slow--
One last look at Granàda, ere they pass that gate of woe.
"Oh, better far thy scimitar had laid thee with the dead,
Than weep for what thou could'st not keep"--the proud Zoràya said.[5]
XVIII.
Allah, Allah Hu Akbar! what sorrow like my sorrow?
Thus he goeth weeping by the way of Alpujarras;
Allah, Allah Hu Akbar! on his tomb is written down--
The King who lost a Kingdom when great Spain regained her Crown.
WHO WILL SHOW US ANY GOOD?
I.
Beautiful Ireland! Who will preach to thee?
Souls are waiting for lips to vow;
And outstretched hands, that fain would reach to thee,
Yearn to help, if they knew but how,
To lift the thorn-wreath off thy brow.
II.
Passionate dreamers have fought and died for thee,
Poets poured forth their lava song;
But dreamer and poet have failed as a guide for thee--
Still are unriven the chains of wrong.
III.
Suffering Ireland! Martyr-Nation!
Blind with tears thick as mountain mist;
Can none amidst all the new generation
Change them to glory, as hills sun-kissed
Flash lights of opal and amethyst?
IV.
Welcome a Hero! A man to lead for us,
Sifting true men from chaff and weeds;
Daring and doing as those who, indeed, for us.
Proved their zeal by their life and deeds.
V.
Desolate Ireland! Saddest of mothers,
Waits and weeps in her island home;
But the Western Land--has she help for others
Who feeds her eagles on blood of brothers?
Not with cannon or roll of drum,
Or foreign flag can our triumph come.
VI.
Why seek aid from the arm of a stranger?
Trust thy sons, O Mother! for good;
Braver can none be in hours of danger,
Proudly claiming thy rights withstood.
VII.
Then, Ireland! wake from thy vain despairing!
Grand the uses of life may be;
Heights can be reached by heroic daring,
Crowns are won by the brave and free,
And Nations create their own destiny.
VIII.
But, Time and the hour fleet fast unbidden,
A turbid stream over golden sands;
And too often the gold is scattered or hidden,
While we stand by with listless hands.
IX.
Then seize the least grain as it glistens and passes,
Swift and sure is that river's flight:
The glory of morning the bright wave glasses,
But the gold and glory soon fade from sight,
And noon-tide splendours will change to night.
X.
Ah! life is too brief for languor or quarrel,
Second by second the dead drop down;
And souls, all eager to strive for the laurel,
Faint and fall ere they win the crown.
XI.
Ireland rests mid the rush of progression,
As a frozen ship in a frozen sea;
And the changeless stillness of life's stagnation,
Is worse than the wildest waves could be,
Rending the rocks eternally.
XII.
Then, trumpet-tongued, to a people sleeping,
Who will speak with magic command,
Bidding them rise--these dead men, keeping
Watch by the dead in a silent land?
XIII.
Grandly, solemnly, earnestly preaching,
Man's great gospel of Truth and light;
With lips like saints' in their love beseeching,
Hands as strong as a prophet's to smite
The foes to Humanity's sacred right.
XIV.
Earth is thrilling with new aspirations,
Rending the fetters that bar and ban;
But we alone of the Christian nations
Fall to the rear in the march of Man.
XV.
Alas! can I help? but a nameless singer--
Weak the words of a woman to save;
We wait the advent of some light-bringer,
Strong to roll the stone from the grave,
And summon to life the death-bound slave.
XVI.
Down from heights of the Infinite drifting,
Raising the prisoned soul from gloom;
Like the white angels of God uplifting
Seal and stone from the Saviour's tomb.
XVII.
Yet, hear me now, for a Nation pleading;
Strike! but with swords yet keener than steel;
Flash on the path the new Age is treading,
As sparks from grooves of the iron wheel,
In star-flames its onward march reveal.
XVIII.
Work by the shore where our broad ocean rages,
Bridging it over by wraiths of steam;
Linking two worlds by a chain that sages
Forged in the heat of a science dream.
XIX.
For Nature has stamped us with brand immortal,
Highway of nations our Land must be:
We hold the keys of the Old-world portal,
We guard the pass of the Western Sea--
Ireland, sole in her majesty!
XX.
Work! there is work for the thinker and doer,
And glory for all when the goal is won;
So we are true to our Country, or truer
Than Planets are to the central Sun.
XXI.
Call from the hills our own Irish Eagle,
Spread its plumes on the "The Green" of old;
With a sunrise blaze, as a mantle regal,
Turning the dusk-brown wings to gold--
Symbol and flag be it then unrolled!
XXII.
Face Heaven's light with as proud a daring,
Tread the heights with a step as grand,
Breast the wild storm with brave hearts unfearing
As kings might do for their rightful land.
XXIII.
Irish daring by land and by river,
Irish wealth from mountain and mine,
Irish courage so strong to deliver,
Irish love as strong to combine
Separate chords in one strain divine;
XXIV.
These are the forces of conquering power,
Chains to sever, if slaves we be;
Then strike in your might, O Men of the hour!
And Ireland springs on the path of the free!
A LAMENT FOR THE POTATO.
A.D. 1739.
(FROM THE IRISH).
There is woe, there is clamour, in our desolated land,
And wailing lamentation from a famine-stricken band;
And weeping are the multitudes in sorrow and despair,
For the green fields of Munster lying desolate and bare.
Woe for Lorc's[6] ancient kingdom, sunk in slavery and grief;
Plundered, ruined, are our gentry, our people, and their Chief;
For the harvest lieth scattered, more worth to us than gold,
All the kindly food that nourished both the young and the old.
Well I mind me of the cosherings, where princes might dine,
And we drank until nightfall the best seven sorts of wine;
Yet was ever the Potato our old, familiar dish,
And the best of all sauces with the beeves and the fish.
But the harp now is silent, no one careth for the sound;
No flowers, no sweet honey, and no beauty can be found;
Not a bird its music thrilling through the leaves of the wood,
Nought but weeping and hands wringing in despair for our food.
And the Heavens, all in darkness, seem lamenting our doom,
No brightness in the sunlight, not a ray to pierce the gloom;
The cataract comes rushing with a fearful deepened roar,
And ocean bursts its boundaries, dashing wildly on the shore.
Yet, in misery and want, we have one protecting man,
Kindly Barry, of Fitzstephen's old hospitable clan;
By mount and river working deeds of charity and grace:
Blessings ever on our champion, best hero of his race!
Save us, God! In Thy mercy bend to hear the people's cry,
From the famine-stricken fields, rising bitterly on high;
Let the mourning and the clamour cease in Lorc's ancient land,
And shield us in the death-hour by Thy strong, protecting hand![7]
HAVE WE DONE WELL FOR IRELAND?
O country, writhing in thy chain
With fierce, wild efforts to be free,
Not seeing that with every strain
The bonds close firmer over thee;
Or grasping blindly in thy hate
The temple pillars of the State,
To hurl them down on friend and foe,
Crushed in one common overthrow--
Can none of all thy Poet band
Preach nobler aims, loved Ireland?
As David drove with magic chords
The Evil Spirit back to night;
As Moses by his mighty words
Led Egypt's bondmen up to light;
Hast thou no Poet, strong to calm
Thy troubled soul with holy psalm?
Or trusted Chief, who, safely on
Across the fatal Rubicon,
Could lead thee with pure heart and hand
To Freedom--my own Ireland?
By those doomed men, in dull despair
Slow wasting in a dungeon's gloom;
By all youth's fiery heart can dare
Quenched in the prison's living tomb--
By the corroding felon chain,
That tortures with Promethean pain
Of vultures gnawing at the core
Of their lost lives for evermore--
I ask you, People of our Land,
Have ye done well for Ireland?
By History traced on dungeon walls,
By scaffolds, chains, and exiles' tears,
Slow marking, as the shadow falls,
The mournful sequence of the years;
By genius crushed and progress barred,
By noble aspirations marred,
Till with a smouldering fire's life
They burn in deadly hate and strife--
I ask you, Rulers of our Land,
Have ye done well for Ireland?
O Men! these men are brothers too,
Tho' frenzied by a fatal dream,
Their living souls were meant to do
Some noble work in God's great scheme,
Perchance to hew down, branch and root,
The tree that bore such bitter fruit;
But, left unguided in the Right,
They grope out blindly in the night
Of their dark passions; striking down
Their Country's proud hopes with their own.
But now, ye say, the Land hath rest--
Aye, with the death weights on her eyes;
And fettered arms across her breast,
And mail'd hands stifling down her cries.
So rests a corpse within the grave
O'er which the charnal grasses wave.
Oh, better far some kindly word
To stay the vengeance-lifted sword,
Or Love, with queenly, outstretched hand,
To soothe thee--fated Ireland!
WILLIAM CARLETON.
+DIED, JANUARY 30TH, 1869.+
Our land has lost a glory! Never more,
Tho' years roll on, can Ireland hope to see
Another Carleton, cradled in the lore
Of our loved Country's rich humanity.
The weird traditions, the old, plaintive strain,
The murmured legends of a vengeful past,
When a down-trodden people strove in vain
To rend the fetters centuries made fast;
These, with the song and dance and tender tale,
Linked to our ancient music, have swept on
And died in far-off echoes, like the wail
Of Israel's broken Harps in Babylon.
No hand like his can wake them now, for he
Sprang from amidst the people: bathed his soul
In their strong passions, stormy as the sea,
And wild as skies before the thunder-roll.
Yet, was he gentle; with divinest art
And tears that shook his nature over much,
He struck the key-note of a people's heart,
And all the nation answered to his touch,
Even as he swayed them, giving smiles for gloom,
And childlike tenderness for hate that kills--
As rain clouds threat'ning with a weight of doom
Flash sudden, silver light upon the hills.
But, he had faults--men said. Oh, fling them back,
These cold deductions, marring praise with blame;
When earthquakes rend the rocks they leave a track
For central fires issuing forth in flame;
And by the passionate heat of gifted minds
The ruddest stones are crystallised to gems
Of glorious worth, such as a poet binds
Upon his brow, right royal diadems!
Like the great image of the Monarch's dream,
Genius lifts up on high the head of gold,
And cleaves with iron limbs Time's mighty stream,
Tho' all too deep the feet may press earth's mould.
Yet, by his gifts made dedicate to God
In noblest teachings of each gentle grace,
Through every land that Irishmen have trod
We claim for him the homage of our race.
With pen of light he drew great pictures when
Nothing but scorn was ours; and without fear
He flung them down before the face of men,
Saying, in words the whole world paused to hear:
So brave, so pure, so noble, grand, and true
Is this, our Irish People. Thus he gave
His fame to build our glory, and undo
The taunts of ages,--strong to lift and save.
So, with a nation's gratitude we vow
In every Irish heart a shrine shall be
To The Great Peasant, on whose deathless brow
Rests the star-crown of immortality.
The kings of mind, unlike the kings of earth,
Can bear their honours with them to illume
The grave's dark vault; so Carleton passes forth,
As through triumpal arches, to the tomb!
THE NEW PATH.
I.
We stand in the light of a dawning day,
With its glory creation flushing;
And the life-currents up from the pris'ning clay
Through the world's great heart are rushing.
While from peak to peak of the spirit land
A voice unto voice is calling:
The night is over, the day is at hand,
And the fetters of earth are falling!
II.
Yet, faces are pale with a mystic fear
Of the strife and trouble looming;
And we feel that mighty changes are near,
Tho' the Lord delayeth his coming.
For the rent flags hang from each broken mast,
And down in the ocean's surges
The shattered wreck of a foundering Past
Sinks mid the night wind's dirges.
III.
But the world goes thundering on to the light,
Unheeding our vain presages;
And nations are cleaving a path to Right
Through the mouldering dust of ages.
Are we, then, to rest in a chill despair,
Unmoved by these new elations;
Nor carry the flag of our Island fair
In the onward march of nations?
IV.
Shall our hands be folded in slumber, when
The bonds and the chains are shattered;
As stony and still as enchanted men,
In a cave of darkness fettered?
The cave may be dark, but we'll flash bright gleams
Of the morning's radiance on it,
And tread the New Path, tho' the noontide beams,
As yet, fall faintly upon it.
V.
For souls are around us, with gifts divine,
Unknown and neglected dying;
Like the precious ore in a hidden mine,
Unworked and as useless lying.
We summon them forth to the banded war,
The sword of the Spirit using,
To come with their forces from near and far,
New strength with our strength infusing.
VI.
Let each bear a torch with the foremost bands,
Through the Future's dark outgoing;
Or stand by the helm, mid the shoals and sands
Of the river of life fast flowing.
Or as guides on the hills, with a bugle note,
Let us warn the mountain ranger
Of the chasms that cross and the mists that float
O'er his upward path of danger.
VII.
For the chasms are deep, and the river is strong
And the tempest is wildly waking;
We have need of brave hands to guide us along
The path which the Age is taking.
With our gold and pearls let us build the State;
Faith, courage, and tender pity
Are the gems that shine on the golden gate
Of the Angels' Heavenly city.
VIII.
O People! so richly endowed with all
The splendours of spirit power,
With the poet's gift and the minstrel-soul,
And the orator's glorious dower;
Are hearts not amongst us, or lips to vow,
With patriot fervour breathing,
To crown with their lustre no alien brow
While the thorn our own is wreathing.
IX.
Ev'n lovelier gifts on our lowly poor,
Kind Nature lavishly showers,
As the gold rain falls on the cottage door,
Of the glowing laburnam flowers;
The deathless love for their Country and God
Undimmed through the ages keeping,
Tho' the fairest harvests that grew on our sod
Were left for the strangers' reaping.
X.
The gentle grace that to commonest words
Gives a rare and tender beauty;
With the zeal that would face a thousand swords
For their Country, home and duty.
Still breathing the prayer for their Motherland
Her wrongs and her sorrows taught them;
Tho' the scaffold's doom, or the felon-brand,
Were the only gifts she brought them.
XI.
But we, let us bring her--as eastern kings,
At the foot of Christ low kneeling--
The gold that symbols our costliest things,
And myrrh for the spirit's healing
Oh, Brothers! be with us, our aim is high,
The highest of man's vocation:
With these priceless jewels, that round us lie,
To build up a noble Nation.
O'CONNELL,
HIBERNIÆ LIBERATOR AD LIMINA APOSTOLORUM PERGENS
GENOÆ OBDORMIVIT.
Crowned with a liberated people's love,
Crowned by the Nations with eternal fame,
His great heart burning still with patriot-fire,
Tho' Death's pale shadow rested on his brow,
Forth went the mighty Chief from his loved Land,
'Mid the hushed reverence paid to dying Kings,
On his last pilgrimage; yearning to find rest
For the o'erwearied hero-heart and brain,
After great trials pass'd and triumphs won,
Within the Temple-City of the World.
But, faint with combats of a glorious life,
Tho' Freedom's hymns still murmured on his lips,
And his dim eyes still tracked the western Sun
Would rise on Ireland, but no more for him,
Seeking the gates of God's great Church on earth,
He found the gates of Heaven, and entered in.
There Angels met him with the conqueror's Palm,
And passing from the portal to the Throne,
Circled with golden glitter of their wings,
God crowned him Victor for his work well done!
ASPIRATIONS.
Oh! for pinions to bear me sunward,
Ever and ever higher and onward;
With a glance of pride, and a wing of might,
Cleaving a path through the starry skies,
As the soul of a poet that heavenward flies,
Daring the depths of the Infinite.
Soaring and singing, still upward aspire,
Trailing a path through the crimson fire,
Bathing in oceans of purple and gold,
Treading the glory that men behold,
Like far-off fields of Elysian light,
Where angels walk in radiance bright;
And never to rest till the goal is won,
And I furl my wings at the blazing sun--
I alone, the Conquering One!
Then, said Love, I will lend thee mine;
And with strange enchantments, and many a sign,
He bound on me the wings divine.
Onward, onward--higher, higher,
Seemed to bear me those wings of fire;
Over the earth, the clouds, the moon,
Till the portals of Heaven glittered soon.
But, ah! too near the Sun of Truth
I passed, in the vain, proud spirit of youth;
And Love's cement could not, tho' strong,
Retain the glowing pinions on;
And they fell from my heart, and left it bare;
And so I sank down weeping there,
Into the fathomless sea of despair.
Long I lay in depth of dole,
Till a Voice like a trumpet stirred my soul;
My wings, it said, will bear thee far,
Over yon highest glittering star.
Glorious thoughts of high emprize,
These will lift thee to the skies,
Where the goal of glory lies.
Trust thy own undaunted will,
Let ambition's spirit fill
All thy being, till no height
Seems too distant or too bright,
Through the stars of upper air,
For a soul like thine to dare.
Then upon my spirit came
Flooding glory, like a flame;
And I soared away from the mountain height,
Filled with a strange and mad delight:
Away, away, over march and fen,
Over the heads of my fellow-men;
Hearing their choral praises rise,
As I soared away through the pathless skies,
In ever-echoing symphonies.
But never a rest till I reached the star
Ambition had pointed out afar;
Alas! I knew not the dazzling ray
Of its glory was made for no mortal sight--
And I sank back dazed with excess of light.
Still the proud wings bore me on,
I knew not whether, my sight was gone;
But I heard the tempest raging round,
And the rolling thunder's terrible sound,
As if all fierce passions were unbound.
And the wings Ambition had tied so fast,
Were rent from my soul by the tempest blast;
And down I sank to earth again,
Like the dead eagle on the plain,
By the blasting lightning slain.
Then I heard a low Voice near,
Murmuring softly in my ear:--
Shall I give thee wings of power,
Wings that will thy spirit dower,
With a strength that, angel-wise,
Up will waft thee to the skies?
Passing, unscathed, the Sun of Truth,
Fatal to wings of Love in sooth;
Past the false but glittering light,
Whose glory dimm'd thy mortal sight;
On, through the trackless firmament,
Where the wings Ambition lent,
By the stormy winds were rent.
Onward still, and ever higher,
Past the solar central fire,
Past the hymning angel choir;
Till thou standest at the Throne
Of the great Eternal One.
Ever more to dwell on high,
Breathing like a harmony,
Through the unnumber'd worlds that lie
Far in yon blue Infinity--
Wilt thou have these wings of mine?
Murmured that low Voice divine.
Yet my touch is cold and chill,
Horror through thy heart would thrill,
Pale dismay thy bosom fill,
Could'st thou see me face to face.
Never one of human race
Could that dreadful sight behold;
Mortal lips have never told,
All the terrors that abide,
All the gloom, yet kingly pride,
In the pale form at thy side.
Ha! the cold sweat on thy brow,
As I bind them on thee now:
Canst thou bear the touch of pain,
For the glory thou shalt gain?
Then I asked, with faltering breath
Thy name, dread Spirit? and he saith--
I who give these wings am _Death_!
THE PARABLE OF LIFE.
I.
He treads alone the burning sand
Of the fiery desert plain;
No human heart is near to love,
No human hands sustain.
There are spirits dread in that region wild,
And they howl in the desert blast;
There are spirits lost, who wail and weep
As viewless they hurry past.
II.
There are forms that man never looked upon,
Nor mortal eye could bear--
The terrible sight of an angel's brow,
On which is stamped despair.
No lofty palm-tree casts a shade,
Gusheth no silvery well,
Where the stately Giraffe stoops down to drink,
Or cometh the soft Gazelle.
III.
For the desert islands of waving green
Are far, oh! far away;
And never a spot can the wanderer find
To rest from the noontide ray.
Oh! weary, weary, the changeless, waste,
Of that burning desert sand;
Oh! weary, weary, the changeless sky,
Of that blasted fiery land!
IV.
Weary to listen, with straining sense,
For the step or the voice of man;
To watch in despair, till the sun goes down,
For the wandering caravan.
But the sun goes down, and the white stars rise,
And never a sound is heard,
Save the roar of the Lion, the Panther's howl,
Or the scream of the carrion bird.
V.
Still on the pale young wanderer goes--
On, without fear or dread,
The hot sand burning beneath his feet,
The hot sun above his head:
On, tho' never his fevered lips
Have been cooled in the desert springs;
For the soul that is filled with the Spirit of God,
Recks little of earthly things.
VI.
On, tho' never the bending fruit
Of the palm-tree meets his hand;
No food, no rest, no shelter for him
In all that terrible land.
And the powers of Hell seem gathering round
That frail and gentle form,
But, sublime in the strength of faith, he stands
Unmoved, amid the storm.
VII.
The spirit is strong, but the flesh is weak,
He hath borne what a mortal can;
And down on the desolate waste he sinks,
A fainting, dying man.
Now the hot samiri approaches fast
The desert wind of dread;
Glaring upon the horizon's verge,
Like a pillar fiery red.
VIII.
Onward it comes in its lurid light,
Like a giant form of death,
Blasting the earth, and air, and sky,
With its scorching, deadly breath.
The sands rise high as the billows at sea,
Raging when tempest-tossed:
Ah! the fiery column has reached him now--
Pale wanderer--thou art lost!
IX.
It drinks the blood from his youthful cheek,
It burns up the life within;
And fiercely around him it dashes and whirls,
With a wild, unearthly din.
Then he seems to hear a silvery flow,
Soft gushing, like Paradise streams;
For of such whom the desert kills, it is said,
These are the dying dreams.
X.
And he lifts his head from the burning waste;
But in place of the silvery fall,
He sees but that lurid, fiery cloud
Encircling him as a pall.
Nearer and nearer it gathers round,
Stifling the half-breathed prayer,
And the fainting hands drop weary down,
That were lifted in mute despair.
XI.
There's an hour of dread for human souls,
When help there seemeth none,
And the powers of Hell rage fierce around
The God-forsaken one;
'Tis the hour of dread, when souls are tired,
And angels are bending down,
Watching each one that resisteth to death,
To weave for him the crown.
XII.
But an hour more dark, a trial more dread,
That Weary-one hath known;
For now he must fight the Lord of Hell,
In the desolate waste alone.
Oh! the burning breath of the fiery wind,
Hunger, and thirst, and woe--
What are they all to that strange, lone strife
With man's dark Demon-foe?
XIII.
What terrible form the Tempter chose,
Saw never a mortal eye--
Did he come in the flame, or the thunder-cloud,
Or flash as the lightning by?
Was his blasted brow as the midnight black,
Or wreathed with a lurid light,
Like the livid rays that play on the ice
In the gloom of a polar night?
XIV.
None can tell; but the subtle words
He poured in the wanderer's ears,
Are echoed to us from that desert wild,
Through the long, long course of years.
And ages many have shadowed the earth
Since human woes began,
Yet still, with the self-same words and lures,
He tempteth the sons of man.
XV.
Woe, woe to the suffering soul, unless
Sustained, O God, by Thee,
Who hears in its anguish the Tempter's words--
"Fall down, and worship me."
Woe to the soul that ascends the mount
Of pomp, and power, and pride,
With the glories of earth within his reach,
And the Demon at his side.
XVI.
But Christ, with His meek and holy brow,
Shuns not the deadly strife;
For His soul is strong in the armour of faith,
And His sword is the Word of Life.
The soul is strong, tho' the human frame
May faint 'neath the chastening rod;
And the Demon-foe recognises there
The mortal and the God.
XVII.
With the radiant light of a stainless soul,
As a crown upon His brow,
How He forces the trembling Chief of Hell
To bend in homage low.
Thus, with His foot on the serpent's head,
He stands a triumphant king;
But the serpent fangs that have pierced His heel,
Sorrow and Death must bring.
XVIII.
How glorious now is that frail, weak form,
Strong in the spirit within,
Standing alone in the desert of life,
Conquering Hell and Sin.
And we must tread the desert too,
Where want and woe assail;
We must war, like Christ, with the Prince of Hell,
We--human, weak, and frail.
XIX.
The Tempter will come in those moments of life,
When the soul is dark with fears,
And we sit by the empty urn of joy,
Filling it with our tears;
When those we love, as shadows pass,
And we tread life's desert lone,
Without hope in heaven, or love upon earth,
Wearily ever on.
XX.
It is then he will lead us to doubt upon God,
Doubt in His love for us;
And the murmuring soul he will tempt to ask--
"Why must I suffer thus?"
And pleasure and power will seem so near,
If we but kneel to him--
O God, keep from us the Tempter far,
When faith is burning dim!
XXI.
O Christ, who hast known the Tempter's strength,
Bend from Thy throne of light;
Aid in the terrible strife with Hell,
Aid with Thy power and might.
Teach us to fight as Thou hast fought;
To conquer as Thou hast done;
That angels may bring from the starry skies
The plan for the conquering one.
XXII.
For never yet was the Tempter foiled
By the might of Jehovah's name,
But holy joys in the sufferer's heart,
Like blessed angels came.
And the terrible strife, and the desert drear,
Will pass like earthly things;
But the soul that has conquered will rest in peace,
'Neath angels' shadowing wings.
VANITAS.
The glory of Life is fleeting;
Its splendour passeth away,
With tints and odours meeting
The flowers we twined to-day.
How brightly, in varied light,
They reflected the morning sun;
But the chilling dews of the night
Withered them one by one.
So the stream of Existence floweth
O'er the golden sands of youth,
In the light of a joy that gloweth
From the depths of its love and truth.
But heavy, and cold, and fast,
The gathering clouds uprise,
Eclipsing the light, which cast
On the waters a thousand dyes.
And onward, in sullen endeavour,
Like a stream in a sunless cave,
It floweth in darkness ever:
Yet--could we thus reach the grave!
But we wake to a sorrow deeper--
The knowledge of all we have lost;
And the light grows fainter and weaker
As we're borne from youth's sunny coast.
Yet onward with drifting motion,
Still farther from life and light;
Around us a desert Ocean--
Above us eternal Night.
FATALITY.
FROM THE GERMAN.
I.
One glance from thy dark eyes is all I pray for,
One word from thy lips breathed on mine,
One clasp of thy dear hand as a last favour--
Then go--I'll never more repine.
II.
Yet, thoughts of thee will dim my eyes with weeping,
In the noon-day's glorious light,
And dreams of thee will haunt my troubled sleeping,
'Neath the shadows of the night.
III.
A fatal gulf for ever lies between us,
I know we dare not speak of love,
Yet angels, purest angels, had they seen us,
Might well have pardoned from above.
IV.
The future is too dark for my sad seeing;
I gaze, but, weeping, turn away--
No hope, alas! of our ever being
Less sad than we are here this day.
DESTINY.
I.
There was a star that lit my life--
It hath set to rise no more,
For Heaven, in mercy, withdrew the light
I fain would have knelt before.
II.
There was a flower I pluck'd in my dreams,
Fragrant and fair to see;
Oh, would I had never awoke and found
Such bloom not here for me.
III.
There was a harp, whose magic tone,
Echoed my faintest words--
But Destiny's hand, with a ruthless touch,
Hath rent the golden chords.
IV.
There was a path like Eden's vale,
In which I was spell'd to stray,
But Destiny rose with a flaming sword
To guard that path alway.
V.
I've looked on eyes were like the star--
Their light is quench'd for me;
And a soul I have known like the golden harp
That breath'd but melody.
VI.
And moments bright as that dream-land
Where bloomed the radiant flower.
Oh! would I had died ere I felt the gloom
Of this dark, joyless hour.
VII.
Fatal the time I rais'd mine eyes
To eyes whose light hath blasted--
Yet ere I could turn from their glance away,
Life had with gazing wasted.
VIII.
Bitter the thought that years may pass--
Yet thus it must be ever,
To look on thy form, to hear thy voice--
But nearer--never, never.
IX.
Could I but love as I love the stars,
Or the gush of the twilight breeze,
Or the pale light of the wandering moon
Glancing through forest trees;
X.
With a sinless, calm, untroubled love,
Look upwards and adore--
Could I but thus gaze life away,
Without the wish to soar.
XI.
In vain! in vain! I hope, I weep,
I kneel the long nights in prayer--
Oh! better to die in the noon of life,
Than love, and yet despair.
MEMORY.
"Nessun maggior dolore
Che ricordarsi del tempo felice
Nella miseria."--+DANTE.+
When the gloom the light appalleth--
When no tear-dew ever falleth
Downward silently--
When the tired heart, from languor
Of Life's poor unmeaning clangour,
Droopeth wearily--
When the day, in its uprising,
Bringeth nought that's worth the prizing,
And the night, all dark and lonely,
No star showeth, but clouds only--
I think of thee.
Pleasures past, a ghastly vision--
Words and looks but now tradition
That thought brings;
Holy Kalends of past meetings
Rise again, with quick heart-beatings,
On spirit wings.
For a moment seems the vision
A reality Elysian
As the joy before the Fall;
While I gaze the brightness waneth,
Passeth, fadeth--what remaineth?
Ashes all!
CORINNE'S LAST LOVE-SONG.
I.
How beautiful, how beautiful you streamed upon my sight,
In glory and in grandeur, as a gorgeous sunset-light!
How softly, soul-subduing, fell your words upon mine ear,
Like low aerial music when some angel hovers near!
What tremulous, faint ecstacy to clasp your hand in mine,
Till the darkness fell upon me of a glory too divine!
The air around grew languid with our intermingled breath,
And in your beauty's shadow I sank motionless as death.
I saw you not, I heard not, for a mist was on my brain--
I only felt that life could give no joy like that again.
II.
And this was Love--I knew it not, but blindly floated on,
And now I'm on the ocean waste, dark, desolate, alone;
The waves are raging round me--I'm reckless where they guide;
No hope is left to light me, no strength to stem the tide.
As a leaf along the torrent, a cloud across the sky,
As dust upon the whirlwind, so my life is drifting by.
The dream that drank the meteor's light--the form from Heav'n has flown--
The vision and the glory, they are passing--they are gone.
Oh! love is frantic agony, and life one throb of pain;
Yet I would bear its darkest woes to dream that dream again.
THE DYING CHRISTIAN.
By the streams of living water,
Rest, my daughter.
Soul, I would not stay thy flight;
Jesus waiteth at the portal--
See, poor mortal,
Open stand the doors of light.
Let me go, life's tempest braven,
To the haven;
There, beside the Saviour's throne,
Where the choir of seraph voices
Now rejoices
In eternal jubal-tone.
By thy earthly Virgin Mother--
Saviour, Brother,
Thou hast known the gloom of death;
Through its shadows now I wander,
Angels yonder,
Keep me even as Jesus saith!
Now I see the distant glory--
Life's poor story
Ends, as it began, in pain.
Earthly form, doth it grieve me
Thus to leave thee?
No, for Christians die to reign.
What availeth life's brief sorrow?
Ere the morrow
Christ will change to smiles my sighs;
Dreaming, pass we through death's portal--
Then, immortal,
Waken up in Paradise.
Soul-Redeemer, by Thy power,
In this hour,
Keep faith's light from burning dim;
I am strong when Thou art near me--
Saviour, hear me!
Guard me with Thy Cherubim.
Thou the martyr's crown hath borne,
Shame and scorn,
All to save my soul from sin;
Thou the hosts of death assailest,
Sinner frailest
Through Thee rises conquering.
Prince of Life! my soul's endeavour,
Now and ever,
Be to sing Thy glorious love;
Death is conquered! Thou hast given
Peace from heaven--
Soon I'll chant Thy praise above!
SYMPATHIES WITH THE UNIVERSAL.
The Angel of the Universe, for ever stands he there
Within the planet circle, the grand Hierophant of prayer;
His altar is the eternal sun, his light its flames of gold,
And the stars are his rosary, through the hands of angels rolled.
Down, down, throughout the Infinite, they're falling, world on world;
Like coral beads from praying hands, the planet beads are hurled.
Thus, for unnumbered ages on their diamond string they run,
The circling planet rosary from Uranus to the Sun.
A rhythmic music rises from that stately choral band,
Like a vibrant-chorded lyre when struck by angel hand;
Pealing down the deep abysses, soaring up the infinite,
The grand hymn of the Universe is sounding day and night.
The grand cathedral chanting from the choir of the spheres,
Within the star-roofed temple, tho' unheard by mortal ears.
Never prayer from lip ascendeth, or from spirit never groan,
But the flooding planet music bears it up before God's throne.
Thus, ages after ages, will the cherub, earnest eyed,
Within the starry temple of the Universe abide,
Till hymns of spheral litanies, till solemn chants are done,
Then he'll rise up from the altar within the glowing sun.
By his mighty pinions shaken, star falleth after star,
And he flings the planet rosary down from him afar;
As by an earthquake riven, temple, altar, falleth crush'd,
And the wailing planet music of the choral band is hush'd.
But he leads the praying spirits up from each burning world,
Till before the Throne in Heaven his radiant wings are furled.
There he resteth calm in glory, his holy mission done,
For within the Golden City, Altar, Temple, needeth none.
LA VIA DOLOROSA.
I wander here, I wander there,
Through the desert of life, all wearily;
No joy on earth for the pilgrim soul--
On, on for ever drearily;
O'er the mountain height,
In the tempest night,
Through the mist and the gloom,
We press on to the tomb,
While the death-like pall of a midnight sky
Hangs over past and futurity.
And the echo of wandering feet I hear,
And human voices and hearts are near;
But lonely, lonely each one goeth
On his dark path, and little knoweth
Of love, kind words, or sympathy.
Oh! fain would I lay me down and die;
For the upward glance of a tearful eye,
Is all I have known of humanity.
Yet must I on, tho' darker and drearer
And lonelier ever the pathway seems,
And the spectral shadow of death draws nearer,
And rare and faint are the sun-light gleams;
An unseen power impelleth us on--
No pause, no rest for the weary one,
Till we reach the shores of that fathomless sea
Where Time poureth down to Eternity.
SHADOWS FROM LIFE.
"Che bella es el sognar aunque es mentira!"
I.
Vain the love that looketh upward; we may worship, may adore;
From the heart's o'erflowing chalice all the tide of feeling pour;
Dash our souls against the barriers that divide us from the shrine;
Fling the incense; pour libations--aye, of life's own ruddy wine;
But, the angel we gaze up to, calm as form of pictured saint,
From its golden mist of glory bendeth never to our plant;
Heedeth not if crushed the temple where the altar fires burned,
For the doom runs through the ages--Love was never yet returned.
II.
Thus it was he loved a lady: never priest in Ispahàn
So adored when mount and ocean morning's flashing glories span.
Never sun-god in its glory, marching stately from the east,
Crimson-robed and cloud-attended, heeded less the praying priest,
Than the lady that pale lover, while her lonely path she took
O'er the spirit's glittering summits, with her proud and queenly look;
Like that Roman Sybil bearing in her hands the mystic scroll,
And her large eyes looking onward where the future ages roll.
III.
So, in lone and lofty beauty, she stood high above the world,
Never heeding, dashing neathward, how life's stormy billows curled;
As a pine upon the mountain, warring tempests raging round,
As an island peak of ocean, with the starry midnight crowned.
How could she who trod the pathway of the spirit's starry zones
Stoop to listen, bending earthward, to a lover's murmuring tones?--
While her ear was gathering music from Creation's golden chords,
List the human tears low falling, with the pleading human words?
IV.
And could he, who tracked the eagle borne on through cloud and light,
With her glorious regnant beauty filling soul and sense and sight,
Stoop to gaze on me, half-blasted by fierce Passion's fiery skies,
Only Love, the love of woman, burning strangely in my eyes?
Oh! I've watched his glance dilating, as it rested where afar
Rose her lofty brow, as riseth the pale glory of a star;
Heard the world's praise hymning round her, saw his cheek of flushing pride,
Whilst I, writhing in heart-agony, all calmly sat beside.
V.
No rays of genius crowning, such as brows like hers enrol,
With no flashing thoughts, like North-lights, rushing up my darkened soul;
Waking but his earnest feelings with, perchance, my graver words,
While her spirit, like a tempest, swept the range of Passion's chords.
Oh, Woman! calmest sufferer! what deep agony oft lies
In thy low, false-hearted laughter, glancing bright through tearless eyes!
And how little deemed he truly that the calmest eyes he met
Were but Joy's funereal torches, on Life's ruined altar set.
VI.
How could I light up his nature, with no glory in my own?
Soul like his, that throbbed and glittered in the radiance of her throne.
Bitter came the words of plaining:--Why should fate to me deny
All the beauty of the mortal, all the soul to deify?
What had she done, then, for Heaven, so that Heaven should confer
Every gift, to make man prostrate at her feet as worshipper?
Raised her high enough to scorn him--aye, to trample in disdain
On the heart flung down before her--heart that I had died to gain!
VII.
Trod his love down calmly, queenly, like a mantle 'neath her feet,
While with lordly spirit-monarchs she moved proudly to her seat,
Grand as eagle in the zenith, with the noonday radiance crowned--
Lone and icy as an Alp-peak, with the circling glaciers round.
But an echo of all beauty through her fine-toned spirit rang,
As a golden harp re-echoes to each passing music clang,
Till in thrilling, clear vibrations rang her poet-words in air,
Summoning souls to lofty duties, as an _Angelus_ to prayer.
VIII.
Oh! she flung abroad her fancies, free as waves dash off the foam--
As the palm-tree flings its branches on the blue of Heaven's dome,
With a genius-shadow dark'ning in the stillness of her eyes--
With her rainbow-spirit arching half the circle of the skies,
Like a dark-browed Miriam chanting songs of triumph on the foe,
As the rushing waters bore them to the Hades halls below,
Till up through the startled ether, down the far horizon's rim,
Clashed the swords of men in music to her lofty prophet-hymn.
IX.
But no beauty thrill'd my nature, noon, or night or sunset skies;
For the only heaven I gazed on was the heaven of his eyes--
I'd have bartered Freedom, Justice, People's rights, or native Land,
All the island homes of Ocean, for one pressure of his hand;
Trembling, weak, a coward spirit, only wishing low to lie,
As a flower beneath his footstep, breathe my life out, and so die.
Yet he liked me--aye, he liked me--'twas the phrase--O saints above!
Cold and cruel sounds this liking from the lips of one we love.
X.
They said that he was dying; could I longer silence keeping,
Only pour forth my deep passion in my chamber lonely weeping?
I reck'd not if 'twere womanly, cold convention little heeding,
But in mine his hand enfolding, said, with tearful raised eyes pleading--
"She hath left you, left you lonely--sorrow's harvest death may reap;
I say not--love me; let me only watch here by you and weep!"
Then he said, his pale brow raising, with a faint, unquiet smile,
And with saddest eyes upgazing upon mine for all the while--
XI.
"Sweetest friend, this sorrow-blighted, faded form, and searéd heart,
To pale death, I fear, are plighted, yet 'twere bitter now to part;
For the chords of life are shaken by a sympathy so true,
And they tremble, in vibration, with a pleasure strange and new.
Still, no love-dream may be cherished--ah! the time of love is o'er--
Youthful heart, by passion blighted, can be kindled never more;
But if sympathy thou darest with a heart so wrecked as mine,
I will give thee back the rarest kindred souls can intertwine."
XII.
And so bending coldly, gently, on my brow he placed his lips;
While, I trembling in the shadow of that faint and brief eclipse,
Murmur'd:--"Tell me, tell me truly, do you love her then so well?"
And the hot tears, all unruly, through my twinèd fingers fell,
And I sank down there unheeding so of maidenhood or wrong,
While I told him, weeping, pleading, how I'd loved him, loved him long;
Seen my hopes all faded, perished, spread around in pale dismay,
Wept their pallid corses over--I alone, like Niobe!
XIII.
Thank God, that no cruel scorning dimm'd his starry eyes divine,
Softly, tender, earnest gazing down the tearful depths of mine--
But with warmest splendours resting on the paleness of his cheek,
As the roseate tinted sunset on a snowy Alpine peak,
Bent he down upon my shoulder, murmuring loverlike and low,
While his breathing softly trembled on my pale lips lying so:--
"Ah! such deep and tender loving hath recall'd me from the grave--
And this heart with soft approving bids you keep the life you gave;
XIV.
"Woman's soothing grief to lighten hath a mystic healing power,
And their sympathy can brighten man's most dark and destined hour.
Let the holy words be spoken that bind soul to soul for life;
Let me place the symbol token on this hand--my wedded wife!"
Oh! never yet did an angel breathe diviner words of bliss,
Never mortal heard evangel of a joy like unto this;
In my gladness, smiling, weeping, knelt I down before him there,
Blessing God with wild words leaping from my full heart's inward prayer;
XV.
And a glory, ruddy, golden-hued, streamed down on me from high,
As with lifted hands enfolden gazed I up into the sky--
Ever brighter, flashing downward, till my pained eyes ached with light,
And I turned from gazing sunward back to earth's more calm delight.
But--was it spell, or was it charm?--when I turned meto the room,
Fading seem'd the loved one's form, half in light and half in gloom--
Throbb'd my brain in wild confusion, slowly died his words in air,
All around me seemed illusion, save that streaming golden glare.
XVI.
On my fevered eyelids aching, madly press'd my hands I keep--
Then arose like one awaking from a strange and magic sleep;
Round I gazed in wild amazement for the glorious light that shone,
Was morn streaming through my casement, but it shone on me alone!
The last cold words he had written still lay there beside my bed;
The last flowers he had given lay beside them, faded, dead;
Life's lonely bitter desolation was true, for aye, I deem,
But, joy's blessed revelations, that--oh, that--was but a dream!
Wanderings through European Literature.
LE RÉVEILLE.
It was the lark--not the nightingale--
Poured forth her notes of warning;
Upwards she flew from the sun-lit vale,
Awoke by the light of the morning.
The day, the day is bright!
The night
Hath fled that in darkness bound ye;
Fling ye the myrtle of love aside,
And grasp the sword whate'er may betide--
For the Foemen are gathering round ye!
It was the lark--not the nightingale--
Arouse ye from apathy's slumber!
Few and dull do your watchfires pale,
But they soon shall the stars outnumber.
Awake, awake to life!
The strife
For God and your right advances;
Leave the white arms of weeping beauty,
The van of the battle's your post of duty,
Where glitter the Foeman's lances!
It was the lark--not the nightingale--
The gate of the morning uncloses;
She sings of the thundering cannon's hail--
She sings of the battle's roses;
On the warrior's breast
They rest--
The crimson roses that free the world!
Up, then, in Liberty's cause ye are sent--
Let the wide heavens be but one warrior's tent
When the banner of Freedom's unfurled.
It was the lark--not the nightingale--
Leave, then, O youth, thy dreaming!
As dashes the torrent adown the vale,
O'er all barriers wildly streaming,
So of thy young heart's blood,
The flood
Pour down on the thirsty land;
And Liberty's cause, that would else have died,
Will bloom afresh from that crimson tide;
So pledge ye your heart and hand.
It was the lark--not the nightingale--
Who chanted a Nation's rise;
Borne on the wings of the morning gale,
It peals through the azure skies.
Liberty's torch is bright!
The light
May mock our tyrant's scorning,
For millions of hearts will be kindled ere noon;
And the freedom we dream'd of in darkness, full soon
We'll achieve in the light of the morning!
OUR FATHERLAND.
I.
Why pour the ruby wine,
For glad carousal, brothers mine,
In the sparkling glass that flashes
In your hand,
When, mourning, sits in dust and ashes
Our Fatherland?
II.
What means the joyous song
Of the festive bridal throng?
Oh! let music no more waken
The echoes of our strand,
For the bridegroom hath forsaken
Our Fatherland!
III.
No more your masses falter,
Trembling priests, before the altar.
Can prayer avail the dead or dying?
Oh! vain demand!
Prostrate, trodden on the ground, is lying
Our Fatherland!
IV.
Ye princes, fling ye down
Your blood-bought jewelled crown--
Bear the circlet on your brow no more,
Nor signet on your hand;
For, shivering, stands before your door
Our Fatherland!
V.
Woe to ye rich; in gloom
Hath toll'd your hour of doom--
There, reck'ning up your gold, ye sit in state
In palace grand,
While Lazarus is dying at your gate,
Our Fatherland!
VI.
And woe to you, ye poor--
Want and scorn ye must endure;
Yet before ye many noble jewels shine
In the sand.
Ah! they are patriots' tears--even mine--
For Fatherland!
VII.
But the Poet's mission
Is but prophetic vision;
To him the daring heart is granted--
Not the hand.
He may cease--the death-song has been chanted
For Fatherland!
THE KNIGHT'S PLEDGE.
The tedious night at length hath pass'd;
To horse! to horse! we'll ride as fast
As ever bird did fly.
Ha! but the morning air is chill;
Frau Wirthin, one last goblet fill,
We'll drain it ere we die!
Thou youthful grass, why look'st so green?
Soon dyed in blood of mine I ween,
With damask rose thou'lt vie.
The goblet here! with sword in hand
I pledge thee first, my Fatherland,
Oh! blessed for thee to die!
Again our mailed hands raise the cup:
Freedom, to thee we drink it up.
Low may that coward lie
Who fails to pledge, with heart and hand,
The freedom of our glorious Land--
Her Freedom, ere we die!
Our wives--but, ah! the glass is clear,
The cannon thunders--grasp the spear,
We'll pledge them in a sigh.
Now, on the Foe like thunder crash!
We'll scathe them as a lightning flash,
And conquer, though we die!
OPPORTUNITY.[8]
FROM THE ITALIAN OF MACHIAVELLI.
"Chi sei tu, che non par Donna mortale?"
Who art thou, glorious Form, flashing by me,
So beautiful, so Godlike--wilt thou fly me?
Why o'er thy face and bosom fall thy tresses streaming?
And why the airy pinions on thy white feet gleaming?
My name is Opportunity. Pause or rest I never:
Mortals rarely know me till I'm gone for ever.
To seize me passing on to few is granted;
Therefore one foot upon a wheel is planted--
Therefore the light wings bound on them, to make me
So quick in flight that none shall overtake me.
Down fall my tresses, face and bosom veiling,
That none may know me 'till to know be unavailing;
Then, mockingly, I fling aside the veil, and please me
With their vain hope, and vainer haste to seize me.
And who is this dark form that follows thee with weeping,
Ever as a shadow on thy bright track keeping?
Her name's Repentance. When I fleet quickly by them,
She stoppeth weeping, vainly weeping nigh them.
But thou, poor mortal, precious moments wasting,
Idly thou dreamest while I'm onwards hasting.
Wilt thou not wake? Alas! weep now, I've passed for ever.
Weep, for Repentance henceforth leaves thee never.
KING ERICK'S FAITH.
I.
In Upsal's stately Minster, before the altar, stands
The Swedish King, brave Erick, with high uplifted hands--
His royal robes are round him, the crown upon his head,
And thus, before his people, right sovranly he said:--
II.
"God! whoso trusteth in Thee will never rue his trust;
If God the Lord be with us, our foes shall flee like dust."
He spake--from priests and people rose up the answering cry--
"If God the Lord be with us, all danger we defy!"
II.
Scarce through the aisles is dying their mingled voices' din,
A pallid slave, disordered, comes rushing wildly in.
"Now God us aid!--Skalater, the Dane, has come again,
Fast pouring down the mountains with seven hundred men!"
IV.
King Erick heard him calmly, then strong in faith replied--
"What man can fight against us, with God upon our side?"
A second slave comes rushing all breathless as the first--
"The gate is down--Skalater each bar and bolt hath burst!"
V.
King Erick's brow grew paler, but still he looked on high--
"If God the Lord be with us, no danger need we fly!"
In comes another, trembling, but ere he uttered sound
The Danish axes glisten--they cleave him to the ground.
VI.
Then rose a fearful tumult--then rose a wildered cry--
Skalater comes in fury--defenceless we must die--
Skalater comes in fury, with all his pagan hordes,
And Priest, and King, and Altar must fall beneath their swords.
VII.
King Erick's glance grew prouder; he grasp'd the golden rood--
He held it high to Heaven, as on Skalater strode:
Lo! from each wound, the seven, pours forth a thousand rays,
And down to earth Skalater sinks dazzled by the blaze.
VIII.
They're prostrate on their foreheads, the seven hundred Danes,
Praying the God to spare them who guards the Christian fanes;
But Erick and his people lift up the joyful cry--
Our God, the Lord, has conquered; all praise to Him on high!
"FOR NORGE!"
FROM THE DANISH.
I.
For Norway, Freedom's fatherland,
Fill up the wine-cup flowing,
And pledge it, brothers, hand in hand,
To keep the hot blood glowing.
By gyves and fetters rent we swear,
No tyrant's hand shall ever dare
To chain our souls, while swords we bear
To guard old Norway's Freedom!
II.
Again the wine-cup passes round;
We'll drain it to the glory
Of all the Chiefs and names renowned
In Norway's ancient story.
Across our gloomy northern night
Their clashing arms flashed the light,
And won for us, in hero fight,
The prize of Norway's Freedom.
III.
And now to all the brave ones here,
And to the maids that love us--
To men who never knew a fear,
Maids pure as saints above us.
The Norway maidens! fill on high--
The Norsemen, brave to do and die!
And shame to him who passes by
The pledge to Love and Freedom!
IV.
And yet one cup to Norway's land,
Her snow and icy fountains,
The rocks that guard her stormy strand,
The pines upon her mountains!
Aye--three times three fill up the wine,
Pledge mountain, torrent, rock, and pine--
Pledge all that marks the snowy line
Where Norsemen guard their Freedom!
THE FOUNTAIN IN THE FOREST.
FROM LAMARTINE.
I.
Lonely stream of rushing water,
From the rock that gave thee birth,
Hast thou fallen, O Naiad's daughter!
Mingling with the common earth?
Shall Carrara's snowy marble
Never more thy waves inurn;
That with wild and plaintive warble,
By their broken temple mourn?
II.
Nor thy dolphins lying shattered,
Fling their columns up again,
That in radiant glory scattered,
Fell to the earth a jewelled rain.
Must the bending beeches only,
Veil thy desolate decay,
Spreading solemnly and lonely
O'er thy waters, dark as they?
III.
Pallid Autumn-leaves are lying
On thy hollow marble tomb,
And the willows round it sighing,
Wave their bannerets of gloom.
Still thou flowest ever, ever--
Like a loving heart that gives
Smiles and blessings, though it never
Meeteth smile from one who lives.
IV.
Roughest rocks to polished beauty
Changing as thou flowest on;
Such the Poet's heaven-taught duty,
Mid the stony-hearted throng!
Thus thy voice to me hath spoken,
Falling, falling from on high,
As a chord in music, broken
By a gently-murmured sigh.
V.
Ah! what sad yet glorious vision
Of my youth thy scenes unroll,
When I felt the Poet's mission
Kindling first within my soul;
When the passion and the glory
Of the far-off future years,
Shone in radiant light before me,
Through the present dimm'd by tears.
VI.
Can thy stream recall the shadow
Of the spirit-haunted boy,
Who in sunlight, through the meadow,
Roamed in deep and woundrous joy?
Yet bright memory still reaches,
All athwart thy glistening beams,
Where, beneath the shading beeches,
Lay the sunny child of dreams;
VII.
Weaving fancies bright as morning,
With its purple and its gold;
Strong to trample down earth's scorning
With the faith of men of old.
Ready life itself to render
At the shrine to which he bowed,
Knowing not the transient splendour
Gilded but the tempest-cloud.
VIII.
On my heart was still'd the laughter,
Cold the clay around the dead,
When I came in years long after
Here to rest my weary head.
Waked the sad tears fast and warm,
Once again the ancient place,
Till, like droppings of the storm,
They fell heavy on thy face.
IX.
Human voice was none to hear me
In that silence of the tomb;
But thy waters, sobbing near me,
Seemed responsive to the gloom;
And I flung my thoughts all idly
On thy current in a dream,
Like the pale leaves scattered widely
On thy autumn-drifted stream.
X.
Yet 'twas in that mournful hour
Rose the spirit's mighty words;
Never soul could know its power
Until sorrow swept the chords--
Blended with each solemn feature
Of the lonely scenes I trod,
For the sacred love of Nature
Is the Poet's hymn to God.
XI.
Did He hear the words imploring
Of a strong heard tempest-riven?
Did the tears of sorrow pouring
Rise like incense up to Heaven?
Ah! the heart that mutely prayeth
From the ashes of the past,
Finds the strength that ever stayeth,
Of the Holy, round it cast!
XII.
But the leaf in winter fadeth,
And the cygnet drops her plumes:
Time in passing ever shadeth
Human life in deeper glooms;
So, perchance, with white hair streaming,
In my age to thee I'll turn--
Muse on life, with softened dreaming,
By thy broken marble urn.
XIII.
While thy murmuring waters falling
Drop by drop upon the plain,
Seem like spirit-voices calling--
Spirit-voices not in vain;
For life's fleeting course they teach me,
With life's endless source on high,
Past and future thus may reach me,
While I learn from thee to die.
XIV.
O stream! hath thy lonely torrent
Many ages yet to run?
O life! will thy mournful current
See many a setting sun?
I know not; but both are passing
From the sunlight into gloom--
Yet the light we left will meet us
Once again beyond the tomb!
SALVATION.
When the gloom is deepest round thee;
When the bands of grief have bound thee,
And in loneliness and sorrow,
By the poisoned springs of life
Thou sittest, yearning for a morrow,
That will free thee from the strife;
Look not upwards, for above thee;
Never sun or star is gleaming;
Look not round for one to love thee;
Put not faith in mortal seeming;
Lightly would they scorn, then leave thee.
Trust not man--he will deceive thee.
But in the depths of thy own soul
Descend; mysterious powers unroll--
Energies that long had slumbered
In its mystic depths unnumbered.
Speak the word!--the power divinest
Will awake, if thou inclinest.
Thou art lord in thine own kingdom;
Rule thyself--thou rulest all!
Smile, when from its proud dominion
Earthly joy will rudely fall.
Be true unto thyself and hear not
Evil thoughts, that would enslave thee.
God is in thee! Mortal, fear not;
Trust in Him, and He will save thee!
MISERY IS MYSTERY.
I.
Misery his heart hath broken--
Misery is mystery!
Let the sad one lonely be;
As the Ancients shunned the token
Of a lightning-blasted tree.
II.
Breathe no word, his doom is spoken--
Misery is mystery!
By its scathing lightning fated,
Human hearts are consecrated,
For a higher destiny.
FAREWELL!
Let mine eyes the parting take,
Which my faint lips never can;
Moments such as these might break
Even the sternest heart of man.
Mournfully doth Joy's eclipse,
Shroud in grief Love's sweetest sign;
Cold the pressure of thy lips,
Cold the hand that rests in mine.
Once the slightest stolen kiss--
O, what rapture did it bring!
Like a violet's loveliness,
Found and plucked in early spring.
Now, no more my hand shall twine,
Rose wreaths, sweetest love, for thee;
Without, is summer's glorious prime,
Within, weird autumn's misery.
CATARINA.
FROM THE PORTUGUESE OF CAMOENS.
"Um mover d'olhos brando e piadoso."
A movement of the soft eyes, slow and eloquent,
A smile of sweet, yet of such chastened joy,
'Twere easy to transform it to a tear.
A gentle, timid motion, like young flowers
Beneath the murmuring west wind undulating.
A graceful, modest ardour--yet at times
Most grave and quiet majesty, as one
Who knows--that rarest knowledge--her own worth.
A childlike nature, index of a soul
Where goodness is intuitive--not put on
To gain false praises for a falser virtue.
A bashful softness when she tells her love--
A tremour as of guilt, with low-drooped eyes
And red-rose cheek, did not her brow serene,
Like to a temple of all holy things,
Forbid the thought. A patient power of sufferance,
Enduring all with angel smiles of love.
This, the celestial beauty of my Circé--
This is the magic potion which has changed
Earth and all earthly sorrows to a Heaven!
THE POET AT COURT.
I.
He stands alone in the lordly hall--
He, with the high, pale brow;
But never a one at the festival
Was half so great, I trow.
They kiss the hand, and they bend the knee,
Slaves to an earthly king!
But the heir of a loftier dynasty
May scorn that courtly ring.
II.
They press, with false and flattering words,
Around the blood-bought throne;
But the homage never yet won by swords
Is his--the Anointed One!
His sway over every nation
Extendeth from zone to zone;
He reigns as a god o'er creation--
The universe is his own.
III.
No star on his breast is beaming,
But the light of his flashing eye
Reveals, in its haughtier gleaming,
The conscious majesty.
For the Poet's crown is the godlike brow--
Away with that golden thing!
Your fealty was never yet due till now--
Kneel to the God-made King!
THE MYSTIC TREE.
FROM ÖLENSCHLÄGER.
Its branches up to Heaven a tree is sending,
Rare to see,
For with flowers, fruit, and seed at once is bending
That mystic tree.
Round the giant stem, all rugged, rude, and mossy,
Roses twine,
And the young flowers veil it with their glossy
Hues divine.
The leaves rustle thickly, many-formed,
So green and bright;
The branches spread out broadly to be warmed
In Heaven's light.
Now curve they down, all drooping, to the meadows
And cool springs;
Now upwards on the blue air fling their shadows
Like seraphs' wings.
Pause ye beneath its golden avalanches--
Well it's worth;
For when the breath of Heaven stirs the branches
The fruit falls to earth.
Mocking apes all day there, in their folly,
Play antic wiles;
All night rest the branches, still and holy
As cathedral aisles.
The nightingale, soft in the moonlight singing,
Stops her grief;
For the magic tones of Oreads seem ringing
From every leaf.
The tree is loved by all, but comprehended
Scarce by one;
Yet each basketh in its glory, many-blended,
As 'neath a sun.
Many pause, the bright fruit harvest reaping,
Of golden gleam;
But he who loveth shadow saith in weeping--
Here let me dream.
Lighter spirits, passing, stop where glisten
Brightest flowers;
While others pause, enchanted, but to listen
The music of its bowers.
And he who nothing loveth goes his way,
Unheeding all;
But they who love the universe will say--
Sing on, JEAN PAUL!
'TIS NOT UPON EARTH.
Why comest thou here, so pale and clear,
Thou lone and shadowy child?
"I come from a clime of eternal sun,
Tho' my mother's home is a dreary one;
But Love hath stolen my heart away,
And to seek it through the world I stray."
Oh, turn thee back to thy native land--
Turn, ere thy heart is blighted;
For, alas! upon this desert strand
True love has never alighted.
"My native land is beyond the skies,
Where the perfumed bowers of Eden rise.
But my mother's home is the spectral tomb;
Yet I'll back and rest in its shadowy gloom,
For the grave is still and Heaven is fair,
And the myrtle of love fadeth never there!"
THE ITINERANT SINGING GIRL.
FROM THE DANISH.
Fatherless and motherless, no brothers have I,
And all my little sisters in the cold grave lie;
Wasted with hunger I saw them falling dead--
Lonely and bitter are the tears I shed.
Friendless and loverless, I wander to and fro,
Singing while my faint heart is breaking fast with woe,
Smiling in my sorrow, and singing for my bread--
Lonely and bitter are the tears I shed.
Harp clang and merry song by stranger door and board,
None ask wherefore tremble my pale lips at each word;
None care why the colour from my wan cheek has fled--
Lonely and bitter are the tears I shed.
Smiling and singing still, tho' hunger, want, and woe,
Freeze the young life-current in my veins as I go;
Begging for my living, yet wishing I were dead--
Lonely and bitter are the tears I shed.
IGNEZ DE CASTRO.
FROM THE PORTUGUESE.
"Longe de caro esposo Ignez formosa."
I.
Far from her Royal lover, by Mondego's sunny tide,
Does the Lady Inez wander, Don Pedro's lovely bride;
Her long hair fell around her, like a veil of a golden light,
And the jewelled zone that bound her in the noontide sparkled bright.
II.
But heavy showers are falling fast adown her azure eyes,
As on Heaven with anguish calling, she lifts them to the skies.
Where is her princely lover? Is there none to save her nigh?
Does he know that King Alonzo hath sworn that she shall die?
III.
She trembles at each murmured sound that's wafted on the breeze:
It is the murderer's footstep that rustles through the trees;
But wearily, all wearily, with watching and with weeping,
She sank in troubled slumber, while her maidens guard were keeping.
IV.
She dream'd that in the palace, by her Royal lover's side,
She sat upon the high throne, as his crownéd Queen and bride;
And words of love he murmured, and the crowd knelt down to praise,
And she proudly took their homage, but blushed beneath his gaze.
V.
Fair cloth of silver brighter than the sunbeam's woven light,
And marble pillars whiter than the pale queen of night--
Flowers and odours blending, all lovliest things were there,
Incense-clouds upsending, for her--the beautiful, the fair!
VI.
Her robes of tissue golden outvied her golden tresses,
As she lay enfolden in her lover's soft caresses;
But brighter than the diamonds that circled round her brow,
Were the flashing eyes beneath them--he murmured with a vow.
VII.
And redder than the rubies that enclasped her jewelled zone,
Were the roses on her cheek when he whispered--Thou'rt mine own.
And he stooped his plumed head gently to kiss her--so she dreamed--
But his lips were icy cold, like the touch of death it seemed.
VIII.
And she started from her slumber all tearfully and pale,
For hurrying steps and voices were heard, and woman's wail--
"O God! the hour has come," they cried--"the murderers are near!"
Why weep ye so, my maidens, now?--your cheeks are blanched with fear.
IX.
"I see--I see their shadows--down the marble steps they run;
I see their daggers gleaming in the red light of the sun--
O Pedro! Pedro! save me!"--help from God nor man is nigh:
All vainly to her murderers for mercy did she cry.
X.
Then she raised her eyes to Heaven, and threw back her golden hair,
And in the streaming sunlight calm and saintly stood she there;
While upon her snowy bosom she meekly crossed her hands--
You'd take her for an Angel as she there in beauty stands.
XI.
What! shrink ye now, false cravens!--do ye fear yon pale-faced girl?
Tigers, traitors, as ye are, dare ye touch one golden curl?
King Alonzo's gold is tempting, yet fain ye now would fly
From the calm and holy glance of that tearful azure eye.
XII.
It was but for a moment's pause--the next their daggers gleam,
And she falls, the young and lovely, by Mondego's fated stream;
Like red rain on the young flowers, pours forth life's crimson tide--
And softly murmuring, Pedro! she looked to Heaven, and died.
THE WAIWODE.
FROM THE RUSSIAN.
Secretly by night returning,
Jealous fears within him burning,
The Waiwode seeks his young wife's bed,
And with trembling hand, uncertain,
Backward draws the silken curtain--
Death and vengeance--she has fled!
With a frown like tempest weather,
Fierce he knits his brows together,
Tears his beard in wrathful mood--
Roars in thunder through the castle,
Summoning each trembling vassal,
"Ho there! slaves--ye devil's brood!
"Who left the castle gate unguarded,
And slew the hound?--some hand unbarr'd it!
Quick! prepare ye sack and cord!
My arms here, fellows--loaded, ready!
Now, slave, your pistols, follow--steady---
Ha, traitress! thou shalt feel this sword!
Close in the murky shadows hiding,
Slave and master, onward gliding,
Reach the garden. There, indeed,
Listening to the soft appealing
Of a youth before her kneeling,
Stands she in her white _naridd_.
Through the marble fountain's playing,
Passion's words they hear him saying--
"How I love thee, yet thou'st sold
All thy beauty's glowing treasures,
All this soft band's tender pressures,
For the Waiwode's cursed gold.
"How I loved, as none can love thee;
Waited, wept--if tears could move thee--
Ah! and is it thus we meet?
He ne'er strove through tears and troubles,
Only clang'd his silver roubles,
And thou fallest at his feet.
Yet once more, through night and storm,
I ride to gaze upon thy form,
Touch again that thrilling hand;
Pray that peace may rest upon thee
In the home that now has won thee,
Then for ever fly this land."
Low she bendeth o'er him weeping,
Heeds not stealthy footsteps creeping,
Sees not jealous eye-balls glare--
"Now, slave, steady,--Fool, thou tremblest
Vengeance if thy heart dissemblest--
Kill her as she standeth there."
"Oh, my Lord and master, hear me--
Patience yet, or much I fear me
I shall never aim aright.
See, the bitter night wind's blowing
Numbs my hand, and brings these flowing
Icy tears to dim my sight.
"Silence! thou accurséd Russian.
Hold--I'll guide the pistol's motion;
See'st thou not her gleaming brow?
So, steady--straight before thee--higher--
When I gave the signal, fire--
Darker doom awaits him--Now!"
A shot, a groan, and all is over;
Still she standeth by her lover--
'Tis the Waiwode falleth dead!
Was ever known such sad disaster?
The bungling slave hath shot his master
Straight and steady through the head.
THE COMPARISON.
FROM THE PORTUGUESE.
I.
Loveliest of flowers
That in the garden grows,
Brightest, sweetest, fairest,
Crimson blushing rose.
Envy of all others,
No charm thy beauty misses,
Favourite of Phœbus,
Blushing at his kisses.
II.
Yet as he outshineth,
Glorying in his might,
The pale, uncertain splendour
Of Luna's silver light--
So does Amarilla,
When compared unto thee,
Heedless wanton, careless
Of the thousand lips that woo thee.
III.
Thou hast cruel thorns
Beneath thy rich leaves lying,
But she is soft and gentle
As Æolian music sighing;
Thou heedest not the murmur
Of Zephyr when he sings,
But see her dark eyes flashing
When I touch my golden strings.
IV.
In the month of flowers,
When flaunting in thy pride,
Crimson-robéd Queen,
I shall place thee side by side;
Then, Cupid, come and tell me,
On thy judgment I'll repose,
Which is fairest, brightest,
Amarilla or the Rose?
Stay! here is Venus coming,
The goddess will decide--
Ah! tis not the Paphian Queen,
But Amarilla, my young Bride!
BUDRIS AND HIS SONS.
FROM THE RUSSIAN.
I.
Spring to your saddles, and spur your fleet horses;
Time for ye, children, to seek your life courses.
(Thus spake old Budris, the Lithuan brave.)
Never your father's sword rusted in leisure,
Never his hand failed to grasp the rich treasure;
But now my feeble frame sinks to the grave.
II.
Three paths from Wilna to plunder will lead ye;
Ride forth, my sons--each a path I aread ye--
Thus will your booty be varied and rare.
Olgard, go thou and despoil the proud Prussian;
Woiwod, Kiestut, be thy prey the Russian--
Vitald the lances of Poland may dare.
III.
From Novgorod Veliki[9] come back to me never
Without the rich dust of the Tartar's gold river;
Bring the sables of Yakutsk, so costly and fine,
And the silver of Argun they dig from the mine,
The gems of Siberia and far Koliván--
So saints speed the ride of the bold Lithuán!
IV.
In the cursed Prussian land there is wealth for the bold:
Ha, boy! never shrink from their ducats of gold;
Take their costly brocades, where the golden thread flashes,
The amber that lies where the Baltic wave dashes,
Be the prize but as rich as your forefathers won,
And the gods of old Litwa[10] will guard thee, my son.
V.
No gold, my young Vitald, will fall to thy share,
Where the plains of the Polac lie level and bare;
But their lances are bright, and their sabres are keen,
And their maidens the loveliest ever were seen:
So speed forth, my son, and good luck to the ride
That brings a fair Polenese home for thy bride.
VI.
Not the azure of ocean, or stars of the sky,
Can rival the colour or light of her eye;
Like the lily in hue, when its first leaves unfold,
Is the bosom on which fall her tresses of gold;
Fine and slender her form as the pines of the grove,
And her cheek and her lips glow with beauty and love.
VII.
By three paths from Wilna, the young men are roaming,
Day after day Budris looks for their coming--
But day after day he watcheth in vain.
No steed from the high-road, no lance from the forest,
He watcheth and waiteth in anguish the sorest--
"Alas! for my brave sons, I fear they are slain!"
VIII.
The snow in the valley falls heavy and fast--
Through the forest a horseman comes dashing at last,
With his mantle wrapped closely to guard from the cold:
"Ha, Olgard! hast brought me the ducats of gold?
Let's see--is it amber thou'st won for thy ride?"
"Oh, father--no, father--a young Polish bride!"
IX.
The snow on the valley falls heavier still,
A horseman is seen rushing down from the hill;
Wrapped close in his mantle some rich treasure lies--
"How now, my brave son--hast thou brought me a prize?
Is it silver of Argun thou'st won for thy ride?
Come show me!" "No, father--a young Polish bride!"
X.
Faster and thicker the snow-showers fall--
A horseman rides fiercely through snow-flakes and all;
Budris sees how his mantle is clasped to his breast--
"Ho, slaves! 'tis enough, bid our friends to the feast!
I'll ask no more questions, whatever betides,
We'll drain a full cup to the three Polish brides!"
THE LADY BEATRIZ.
ROMANCE.
FROM THE SPANISH.--THIRTEENTH CENTURY.
"Bodas hacian en Francia."
There were stately nuptials in France,
In the royal town of Paris:
Who is it leads the dance?
The lovely Lady Beatriz.
Who is it gazes on her,
With looks so earnest and bright?
'Tis her noblest Page of Honour,
Don Martin, Count and Knight.
The bride and her maidens advance--
Young Count, why lookest thou so?
Are thy dark eyes fixed on the dance,
Or on me? Oh! I fain would know.
I gaze not upon the dance,
Sweet Beatriz, lady mine;
For many a galliard I've seen in France,
But never such beauty as thine.
Then if thou lovest me so, young Count,
Oh! take me away with thee;
For nor gay nor young, though a prince's son,
Is the bridegroom they'd wed with me.
There was mourning in France, I ween,
In the royal town of Paris;
For no more was seen either Count Martín
Or the lovely Lady Beatriz.
A SERVIAN SONG.
I.
Wherefore neighest thou so sadly?
Stampest with the hoof so madly?
Speak, my steed--why at the tent,
With thy stately neck down bent?
II.
Have not my own hands caress'd thee?
Proudly in gay trappings dress'd thee?
Yet thou com'st not as of old,
Champing at thy curb of gold.
III.
Hast thou not, in bright hues glowing,
Silken shabrack downward flowing,
Silver hoof and broidered rein.
Gemm'd with trophies from the slain?
IV.
And the horse, he answered sadly--
Stamp I with the hoof so madly?
Tramp of steed I hear afar,
Trumpet clang and din of war.
V.
But soon a stranger will bestride me,
Other hand than thine will guide me,
Never more by thee caress'd,
Or proudly in gay trappings dress'd.
VI.
See, the foe, with fury glowing,
Rends my glittering shabrack flowing,
Curb of gold and broidered rein
Fiercely does he cleave in twain.
VII.
And my stately neck is drooping,
'Neath a fearful burthen stooping--
There a dead man lies supine,
Cold as ice--the Form is thine!
INSTABILITY.
FROM THE SPANISH.--SIXTEENTH CENTURY
"Como estoy alegre
Tristezas temo."
When the day is brightest,
Darkness draweth near;
When the heart is lightest,
Coming grief I fear.
Eyes of heavenly splendour,
Radiance o'er me fling;
But when their light's most tender
I fear its vanishing.
Lips, where passion keepeth
Holiest incense, bend to mine;
But when woman speaketh,
Who would trust so false a shrine?
Even in twined caresses
Where love has woven his spells,
Of the mutual love that blesses,
I hear a voice which tells.
As light with darkness weddeth,
So must pleasure with annoy,
And sorrow ever treadeth
On the doomed path of joy.
A WARNING.
FROM THE DANISH.
I.
Fair Guniver roam'd in the sunset light,
Through wood and wold,
In sweet dreams of love, but her heart was bright
As proven gold.
Yet ever a voice to the maiden spoke,
Beware--beware of the false men-folk!
II.
Fair Guniver fished by a lonely stream,
With silken line,
And smiled to see in the silvery gleam
Her image shine.
Yet ever a voice still whispered there,
My child, of the false-men folk beware!
III.
Lo! a Merman rose from the sedgy reeds,
With glittering eyes,
And a mantle of pale-green ocean weeds
Draped kingly-wise;
And wreath'd with the mist of his flowing hair,
Was a crown of the river-lotus fair.
IV.
Sweet Guniver, said he, in tones that fell
So low and clear,
Like music that breathes from the caverned shell
In the listener's ear:
I've gazed on thy beauty down deep in the sea,
And my heart pines away for the love of thee.
V.
Yet I ask thee to grant but one demand,
Oh! let me rest
My burning lips on thy snow-white hand,
One instant blest:
And dream not of harm, for a Merman's truth
Is pure as a maiden's in stainless youth.
VI.
Fair Guniver, heed not the tongues that tell
Of man's vain wile,
For our artless souls, thou knowest full well,
Disdain all guile.
Is it much to ask for thy hand to rest
One moment, in love, on thy throbbing breast?
VII.
'Tis a gentle prayer, she answered, to sue
For one alone;
So, beautiful Merman, here take the two
Within thine own;
And if, as thou sayest, my hand can bless,
Place both to thy lips in one love caress.
VIII.
He took her white hands, and he drew her down,
With laughter hoarse;
But the fishermen weep, for they look upon
Fair Guniver's corse.
And still, by her lone grave, the same voice spoke,
Beware--oh! beware of the false men-folk!
CASSANDRA.
FROM SCHILLER.
I.
Joy in Ilion's hall resoundeth,
Ere the mighty city fell;
Festive hymns of triumph sounded
With the gold harp's richest swell.
Each stern warrior rests at last
From that strife of direst slaughter;
For the brave Pelides weds
Royal Priam's loveliest daughter.
II.
Troop on troop, with laurel garlands,
Slowly swept the bridal train
Onward to the sacred temple
Where arose the Thymbrian's fane.
By them ran, with long hair streaming,
Ivy-crownéd Mænades;
One alone, of sorrow dreaming,
Wandered in her wretchedness.
III.
Joyless, while they chant their praises--
None to soothe her, none to love--
Did Cassandra tread the mazes
Of Apollo's laurel grove;
To the wild wood's deepest shadow
Fled the mystic maiden now,
And she dashed the priestess-fillet
Wildly from her throbbing brow.
IV.
"Everywhere are sounds of gladness,
From each happy heart awoke;
I alone must rove in sadness,
I alone must grief invoke.
Joy illumes my father's features,
Garlanded my sisters stand--
Yet I hear the rushing pinions
Of Destruction o'er our land.
V.
"Wildly high a torch is flashing,
But 'tis not from Hymen's hand;
Upward see the red stream dashing,
But 'tis not an altar brand.
Costly viands, festal dances,
Wait the bridegroom and the bride--
Yet the Avenger's step advances,
Who will crush them in their pride.
VI.
"And they mock my prophet wailing,
And they scorn my words of woe;
Fatal gift and unavailing--
Still I've wandered to and fro,
Shunn'd by all the happy round me,
Scorned by all where'er I trod;
Heavily thou hast foredoomed me,
Oh! thou mighty Pythian God!
VII.
"Why on me was laid the mission:
Lift the future's mystic shroud?
Why to me the seer's vision
'Mid a spirit-darkened crowd?
When the mortal arm is weak,
Wherefore give the prophet's power?
Can it turn the stream, or break
Clouds of woe that darkly lower?
VIII.
"Wherefore lift the pall o'ershading
Dark and dread Futurity?
Ignorance is joy unfading--
Knowledge, death and misery.
Oh! recall thy mournful mission--
Take the future from my sight:
Fatal is the prophet's vision
To the form that shrines its light.
IX.
"Give me back the happy blindness,
Ere my childhood felt thy spell;
Never sang I in joy's wildness
Since I heard thy oracle.
Clear the future lies before me,
But the present veiled away;
Oh! to life and joy restore me--
Take thy cruel gift away!
X.
"Never round my perfumed tresses
May the bridal wreath entwine;
'Mid thy temple's drear recesses
Doomed in loneliness to pine.
Never o'er my youth of weeping
Did one happy moment rise--
Never aught but sorrow reaping
From thy fatal mysteries.
XI.
"See my gay companions round me,
Blessed with all that love can give;
I alone, my youth consuming,
Live to weep, and weep to live.
Vain to me the sun, the skies,
The flowers on the green earth bending;
Who the joys of life would prize
That could know their bitter ending?
XII.
"Thou, Polyxena, art happy
In thy love's first deep excess,
Hellas gives her bravest hero
To thy young heart's fond caress.
Proudly is her bosom heaving,
Conscious of her bridegroom's love,
Whilst her dreams of pleasure weaving,
Envies not the Gods above.
XIII.
"And I, too, have trembled gazing
Upon one my heart adored--
In his deep eyes' soft appraising
Reading love's unspoken word.
Bridal vows I'd fain have uttered,
Oh, to him how willingly!
But there stepped a Stygian spectre
Nightly between him and me.
XIV.
"Pale and hideous phantoms haunt me,
From the realms of Proserpine;
Ghastly shades of gloom confront me,
Everywhere my steps incline;
Even in festive scenes of pleasure,
Stifling bright youth's careless glee--
Oh! that I could know the treasure
Of a young heart's gaiety!
XV.
"Ha! the murderer's steel is beaming!
The murderer's eye glares wildly bright!
Whither shall I fly the gleaming
Of the Future's lurid light?
All in vain I turn my glances--
Still the vision's ghastly hand
Points my doom as it advances:
Death within the stranger's land."
XVI.
Does the prophet-maiden falter?
Hark! those wild disordered cries!
Slain before the sacred altar,
Dead the son of Thetis lies.
Eris shakes her wreathed serpents--
All the Gods their temples shun--
And a thunder-cloud is resting
Heavily on Ilion!
UNDINÉ.
FROM THE DANISH.
I.
Undiné by the lonely shore,
In lonely grief, is pacing;
The vows her perjured lover swore
No more with hope retracing.
Yet none in beauty could compare
With ocean's bright-haired daughter.
Her cheek is like the lotus fair
That lieth on the water;
II.
Her eye is like the azure sky,
The azure deep reflecteth;
Her smile, the glittering lights on high,
The glittering wave collecteth.
Her robe of green with many a gem
And pearl of ocean shineth,
And round her brow a diadem
Of rosy coral twineth.
III.
Like diamonds scattered here and there,
The crystal drops are glistening
Amid her flowing golden hair,
As thus she paceth listening--
Listening through the silver light,
The light that lover loveth;
Listening through the dark midnight,
But still no lover cometh.
IV.
An earthly love her heart enthralls,
She loves with earth's emotion;
For him she left her crystal halls
Beneath the crystal ocean.
Abjured them since he placed that day
The gold ring on her finger,
Though still the sparkling diamond spray
Around her robe would linger.
V.
And she hath gained a human soul,
The soul of trusting woman;
But love hath only taught her dole,
Through tears she knows the human.
So from her sisters far apart,
Her lonely path she taketh,
With human sorrow in the heart
That human love forsaketh.
VI.
She weaves a crown of dripping reeds,
On which the moon shines ghastly--
"A wedding crown my lover needs,
My pale hands weave it fastly."
She treads a strange and solemn dance,
The waves around her groaning,
And mingles, with prophetic sense,
Her singing with their moaning.
VII.
"My bridegroom, nought can save thee now,
Since plighted troth is broken--
The fatal crown awaits thy brow,
The fatal spell is spoken.
Thou'rt standing by another bride,
Before the holy altar--
A shadowy form at thy side
Will make thy strong heart falter.
VIII.
"To her, within the holy church,
Thy perjured vows art giving;
But never shalt thou cross the porch
Again amidst the living.
I wait thee 'neath the chill cold waves,
While marriage-bells are tolling;
Our bridal chant, 'neath ocean's caves,
Be ocean's billows rolling."
IX.
The bridegroom, in his pride of youth,
Beside the fair bride standeth--
"Now take her hand to plight thy troth,"
The solemn Priest commandeth.
But lo! a shadowy form is seen
Betwixt the bridal greeting,
A shadowy hand is placed between,
To hinder theirs from meeting.
X.
The priest is mute, the bridegroom pale--
He knows the sea-nymph's warning;
The fair bride trembles 'neath her veil,
The bridal's turned to mourning.
No more within the holy church,
Love's holy vows are giving;
They bear the bridegroom from the porch--
The dead amidst the living!
+NOTE TO UNDINÉ.+
These Undinés, or Ocean Nymphs, according to the Northern Mythology,
are gentle, beautiful, harmless creations in the form of woman, but
without a soul. They can attain this only by union with a mortal,
and as they have a passionate desire to ascend into the higher life
of humanity, they seek such earthly unions, not guilefully, like
the Sirens, but lovingly, aspiringly, as the human might aspire to
the angel. It is a beautiful mythus, and veils a deep and profound
meaning. De La Motte Fouqué has made it familiar to all readers by
his exquisite romance of "Undiné," and Bulwer has revealed some of
the hidden truths shadowed forth by the fable, in his two novels
of "Ernest Maltravers" and "Alice"--namely, the power of love
to create an intellect, in fact, a _soul_ in woman. For, to the
deep-thinking, close-observing psychologist, there is no truth more
evident than that, under the influence of love, a woman's intellect,
genius, energy, all the powers of her mind seem capable of infinite
expansion. And just in proportion as love has need of them, do the
particular qualities start into life and unimagined vigour; be it
fortitude, heroism, mental energy, even physical courage, love seems
to have the power to create them all. Nothing is impossible to a
woman that loves, as nothing is impossible to a man who _wills_.
Another truth is symbolised in this ocean hieroglyphic--namely, that
it is the instinct of a woman's nature to aspire, while the instinct
of a man's nature is to deteriorate--to gravitate towards the animal,
to a lower sphere of existence. Woman always loves heavenward; she
has the instinct of ascension like flame and ether. Man always loves
earthward; he gravitates to earth, not to spirit: so that we may
formulize thus:--Love gives soul to a woman, but takes it from a
man. This is assuming what, indeed, is true, that man always bestows
his love, by preference, on fair Undinés without souls. When united
to such he necessarily divides his soul with her, for all things in
nature tend to an equalization, and as he gives half so he loses
half. What the result would be if a man of genius wedded a priestess
of the eternal fire we have no means of ascertaining; for history
contains no solitary instance of a man of genius becoming united to
his equal: that true correlative of his soul, of which Plato speaks,
but which no one, so destiny seems to decree, shall ever find on
earth.
We may imagine, indeed, the possibility of a beautiful, lofty,
soaring spirit, standing ever beside man in the combat of life. A
serene influence, almost as invisible, yet as sustaining as the ether
of heaven, filling him with all divine impulses, strengthening all
his noble aspirations, exciting his spirit upwards by all rich and
radiant foreshadowings of glory, as Minerva stood, bright in deity,
yet loving as humanity, beside her favourite warrior on the plains
of Troy. But this is but a fabulous hypothesis; for, as we have
said, man always loves earthward, and when united to the soulless
Undiné, quickly vanishes with her into the ocean of inanity. Here
is another cryptic meaning in the myth--the union is represented as
indissoluble. He leaves the human, and descends to her sphere--to
a lower state of existence. A man without the influence of love
may rise to any height; love is not the absolute requirement for
his elevation, as it is for woman's; but, bound to an inferior
nature, he must fall, and does fall invariably, irrecoverably,
precisely down to her level. There is no hope for him. He cannot
resist the fatal miasma of commonplace. He falls for ever into the
dull abyss of mediocrity. We are not proof against any of the daily
influences, however trivial, that surround us. Always there is a
tendency to assimilation, either by ascension or deterioration, and
Tennyson's proposition is as true in the converse, as in the original
statement:--
As the wife is so the husband--_he_ will sink down day by day,
What is fine within him growing coarse to sympathise with clay.
And now, as every fable must have a moral, what shall we learn
from this mythus of the fatal termination of men who "herd with
narrow foreheads?" The moral is obvious. Let all genius remain
unwed--
All unmated--all unmated,
Because so consecrated.
THE PAST.
From the far off time of my youthful prime
A light comes evermore;
Oh! it seems so bright in its far-off light,
The glory I had of yore.
What the swallow sang with its silvery clang,
When autumn and spring were near;
What the church bells rung and the choristers sung,
The chant and the song I hear.
Oh! that parting day when I went away,
How my heart to joy awoke!
And again I came, but ah! not the same,
For the trusting heart was broke.
Since that parting day--that parting day--
Through the fair bright world I've ranged,
And the world is there still as bright and fair--
But I--'tis I have changed.
Oh! childhood's truth, with its words of sooth,
And its lips as pure as gold,
Like a bird it sung, and its untaught tongue
Was wise as the prophets of old.
Bright home and hearth, in this joyless dearth,
Could thy holy vision gleam
But once, once more from the far-off shore
Of the past, as a heavenly dream!
Oh! the swallow may come from her southern home,
The spendthrift regain his gold,
The church bells ring, and the choristers sing
Again as they did of old;
But the hopes of youth and its trusting truth,
And bright sunny laughter gleams,
Once passed and o'er, can return no more,
Except in the land of dreams.
THE FISHERMAN.
I.
The water rushes--the water foams--
A fisherman sat on the bank,
And calmly gazed on his flowing line,
As it down in the deep wave sank,
The water rushes--the water foams--
The bright waves part asunder,
And with wondering eyes he sees arise
A nymph from the caverns under.
II.
She sprang to him--she sang to him--
Ah! wherefore dost thou tempt
With thy deadly food, my bright-scaled brood
From out their crystal element?
Could'st thou but know our joy below,
Thou would'st leave the harsh, cold land,
And dwell in our caves 'neath the glittering waves,
As lord of our sparkling band.
III.
See you not now the bright sun bow
To gaze on his form here;
And the pale moon's face wears a softer grace
In the depths of our silver sphere.
See the fleecy shroud of the azure cloud
In the heaven beneath the sea;
And look at thine eyes, what a glory lies
In their lustre. Come, look with me.
IV.
The water rushes--the water foams--
The cool wave kiss'd his feet.
The maiden's eyes were like azure skies,
And her voice was low and sweet.
She sung to him--she clung to him--
O'er the glittering stream they lean;
Half drew she him, half sunk he in,
And never more was seen.
THE IDEAL.
FROM SCHILLER.
I.
So wilt thou, Faithless! from me sever,
With all thy brilliant phantasy?
With all thy joys and sorrows never
For prayers or tears come back to me?
Oh, golden time of youthful life!
Can nothing, Swift One, stay thy motion?
In vain! thy waves, with ruthless strife,
Flow on to the eternal ocean.
II.
Quenched are the glorious suns that glowing
Bright o'er my youthful pathway shone,
And thoughts the prescient heart o'erflowing
With burning inspirations, gone.
For ever fled the trusting faith
In visions of my youthful dreaming,
Reality has risen to scathe
Their all too fair and godlike gleaming.
III.
As once with wild desire entreating,
Pygmalion the stone enclasped,
'Till o'er the marble pale lips fleeting
Life, hope, and passion glowed at last;
So, around Nature's cold form weaving
My youthful arms, her lips I pressed,
Until her lifeless bosom heaving,
Throbbed life-like on my poet-breast.
IV.
An answering chord to passion's lyre
Within her silent frame I woke;
She gave me back my kiss of fire,
And in my heart's deep language spoke.
Then lived for me the tree, the flower,
The silver streams in music sang;
All soulless things in that bright hour,
With echoes of my spirit rang.
V.
The while it sought with eager strife,
To clasp Creation with its arm,
And spring incarnated to life
In deed, or word, or sound, or form.
How glorious then the world upfolded,
Within its shrouding calyx seen!
How little when Time's hand unroll'd it!
That little, oh! how poor and mean!
VI.
But, as the wayward, rippling motion
Of some bright rock-stream gathers strength,
Until, in kingly waves of ocean,
It dashes down the height at length:
With storm, and sound, and power, crushing
The granite rock, or giant tree;
Proud in its chainless fury rushing,
To mingle with the rolling sea.
VII.
So, filled with an immortal daring,
No chains of care around his form,
Hope's impress on his forehead bearing,
The youth sprang forth amid Life's storm.
Ev'n to dim ether's palest star
Wing'd fancy bore him on untiring;
Nought was too high, and nought too far,
For those strong pinions' wild aspiring!
VIII.
How swiftly did they bear him, dashing
Through all youth's fiery heart could dare!
How danced before life's chariot flashing
Bright aërial visions there!
Love in her sweetest beauty gleaming,
Fortune with golden diadem crown'd,
Truth like the glittering sunlight streaming,
Fame with her starry circlet bound!
IX.
Alas! those bright companions guided
Through only half of life's dark way;
All false and fleeting, none abided
With the lone wanderer to stray.
First light, capricious Fortune vanished--
Still love of lore consumed his youth;
But doubt's dark tempest rose and banished
The sun-bright form of radiant Truth.
X.
I saw the sacred crown degraded,
Of Fame, upon a common brow--
And, ah! 'ere yet life's summer faded,
I saw Love's sweetest spring-flowers bow.
And ever silenter, and ever
Lonelier grew the dreary way--
Scarce even could hope, with frail endeavour
Shed o'er the gloom a ghastly ray.
XI.
But who, amid the train false-hearted,
Stayed lovingly with me to roam--
Still from my side remains unparted,
And follows to my last dark home?
Thou, who with joys and sorrows blending,
Thy gentle hand to soothe each wound,
And bear life's burdens, ever lending,
Thou, Friendship, early sought and found.
XII.
And thou, with Friendship wedded ever,
To calm the tempest of the soul--
Exhaustless study! wearying never,
Creating while the ages roll.
Still the world-temple calm uprearing,
Tho' grain on grain thou can'st but lay,
And striking, with a ceaseless daring,
Time's minutes, days, and years away.
THE EXILE.
I.
Spring's sweet odours from the meadow
Fling their fragrance far and wide,
And the tall trees cast the shadow
Of the winter's gloom aside;
But for me no spring is bearing
Gladness to my heart despairing;
Comes no more with soothing power
Kindly voice, or friendly hand,
Song of home, or breath of flower,
From my own dear native land.
II.
High in Heaven, circling nightly,
Moon and stars shine overhead;
Mighty rivers rush on brightly
To the ocean's distant bed;
But for me, in sorrow pining,
Star and stream in vain are shining,
Foreign skies are drear above me,
By a foreign shore I stand,
Thinking of the friends that love me,
In my own dear far-off land.
DEATH WISHES.
Oh! might I pass as the evening ray
Melts in the deep'ning twilight away;
Calmly and gently thus would I die,
Untainted by ills of mortality.
Oh! might I pass as the silver star
That glitters in radiant light afar.
Thus silent and sorrowless fade from sight,
Lost in the deep blue ether of night.
Oh! might I pass as the fragrant breath
Springing from violets crushed to death,
And rise from the dull, cold earthly sod,
As an incense-cloud to the throne of God.
Oh! might I pass as the morning showers
Drank by the sun from the cups of flowers:
Would that the fire of eternal love
Thus exhaled my life-weary soul above!
Oh! might I pass as Æolian notes,
When over the chords the soft wind floats:
But ere the silver strings are at rest,
Find an echo within the Creator's breast.
"Thou wilt not pass in music or light,
Nor silently sink in the ether of night,
Nor die the gentle death of the flower,
Nor be drank by the sun like a morning shower.
"Thou wilt pass, but not till thy beauty is withered,
Not till thy powers and hopes lie shivered:
Silence and beauty are Nature's death-token;
But the poor human heart, ere it die--must be broken!"
HYMN TO THE CROSS
SAVONAROLA.
Jesus, refuge of the weary,
Object of the spirit's love,
Fountain in life's desert dreary,
Saviour from the world above!
Oh, how oft Thine eyes, offended,
Gazed upon the sinner's fall;
Yet, Thou on the Cross extended,
Bore the penalty of all!
For our human sake enduring
Tortures infinite in pain;
By Thy death our life assuring,
Conquerors through Thee we reign.
Still we passed the Cross in scorn,
Breathing no repentant vow,
Though from 'neath the circling thorn,
Dropped the blood-sweat off Thy brow.
Yet, Thy sinless death hath brought us
Life eternal, peace and rest;
What Thy grace alone hath taught us,
Calms the sinner's stormy breast.
Jesus, would my heart were burning
With more vivid love for Thee!
Would mine eyes were ever turning
To Thy Cross of agony!
Would that on that Cross suspended
I the martyr's palm might win--
Where the Lord, the heaven-descended,
Sinless suffered for my sin!
Cross of torture! may'st thou rend me
With thy fierce, unearthly dole;
Welcome be the pangs that lend me
Strength to crush sin in my soul.
So, in pain and rapture blending,
Might my fading eyes grow dim,
While the freed heart rose, ascending
To the circling Seraphim.
Then in glory, parted never
From the blessed Saviour's side,
Graven on my heart for ever
Be the Cross, and Crucified!
JESUS TO THE SOUL.
SAVONAROLA.
Fair soul, created in the primal hour,
Once pure and grand,
And for whose sake I left my throne and power
At God's right hand--
By this sad heart, pierced through because I love thee,
Let love and mercy to contrition move thee.
Cast off the sins thy holy beauty veiling,
Spirit divine!
Vain against thee the host of hell assailing--
My strength is thine.
Drink from my side the wine of life immortal,
And love will lead thee back to Heaven's portal.
Quench in my light the flame of low desire,
Crush doubt and fear;
Even to my glory may each soul aspire,
If victor here.
Die now to earth, with earthly vanity,
And live for evermore in Heaven with me.
I, for thy sake, was pierced with many sorrows,
And bore the Cross;
Yet heeding not the galling of the arrows,
The shame or loss.
So, faint not thou, whate'er the burden be,
Bear with it bravely, even to Calvary.
Still shall my spirit urge if thou delayest,
My hand sustain;
My blood wash out thy errors if thou strayest--
Plead I in vain?
An hour is coming when the judgment loometh;
Repent, fair soul, ere yet that hour cometh.
[The Italian original of these two beautiful Hymns will be
found in Doctor Madden's most admirable and interesting life of
Savonarola.]
TRISTAN AND ISOLDE.
THE LOVE SIN.
None, unless the saints above,
Knew the secret of their love;
For with calm and stately grace
Isolde held her queenly place,
Tho' the courtiers' hundred eyes
Sought the lovers to surprise.
Or to read the mysteries
Of a love--so rumour said--
By a magic philtre fed,
Which for ever in their veins
Burn'd with love's consuming pains.
Yet their hands would twine unseen,
In a clasp 'twere hard to sever;
And whoso watched their glances meet,
Gazing as they'd gaze for ever,
Might have marked the sudden heat
Crims'ning on each flushing cheek,
As the tell-tale blood would speak
Of love that never should have been--
The love of Tristan and his Queen.
But, what hinders that the two,
In the spring of their young life,
Love each other as they do?
Thus the tempting thoughts begin--
Little recked they of the sin;
Nature joined them hand in hand,
Is not that a truer band
Than the formal name of wife?
Ah! what happy hours were theirs!
One might note them at the feast
Laughing low to loving airs,
Loving airs that pleased them best;
Or interchanging the swift glance
In the mazes of the dance.
So the sunny moments rolled,
And they wove bright threads of gold
Through the common web of life;
Never dreaming of annoy,
Or the wild world's wicked strife;
Painting earth and heaven above
In the light of their own joy,
In the purple light of love.
Happy moments, which again
Brought sweet torments in their train:
All love's petulance and fears,
Wayward doubts and tender tears;
Little jealousies and pride,
That can loving hearts divide:
Murmured vow and clinging kiss,
Working often bane as bliss;
All the wild, capricious changes
Through which lovers' passion ranges.
Yet would love, in every mood,
Find Heaven's manna for its food;
For love will grow wan and cold,
And die ere ever it is old,
That is never assailed by fears,
Or steeped in repentant tears,
Or passed through the fire like gold.
So loved Tristan and Isolde,
In youth's sunny, golden time,
In the brightness of their prime;
Little dreaming hours would come,
Like pale shadows from the tomb,
When an open death of doom
Had been still less hard to bear,
Than the ghastly, cold despair
Of those hidden vows, whose smart
Pale the cheek, and break the heart.
THEKLA.
A SWEDISH SAGA.
THE TEMPTATION.
On the green sward Thekla's lying,
Summer winds are round her sighing,
At her feet the ocean plays;
In that mirror idly gazing
She beholds, with inward praising,
Her own beauty in amaze.
And with winds and waves attuning
Her low voice, in soft communing
Said: "If truly I'm so fair,
Might the best in our Swedish land
Die all for love of my white hand,
Azure eyes and golden hair."
And fair Thekla bent down gazing,
Light her golden curls upraising
From her bosom fair to see,
Which, within the azure ocean,
Glittered back in soft commotion,
Like a lotus tremblingly.
Saying soft, with pleasure trembling,
"If so fair is the resembling,
How much fairer I must be!
Rose-lipped shadow, smiling brightly,
Are we angels floating lightly
Through the azure air and sea?
"Oh! that beauty never faded,
That years passing never shaded
Youthful cheek with hues of age!
Oh! thou fairest crystal form,
Can we not time's hand disarm?"
Hark! the winds begin to rage;
And with onward heaving motion
Rise the waves in wild commotion--
Spirits mournfullest they seem
Round the crystal shadow plaining,
Shivered, shattered, fades it waning
From the maiden like a dream.
And from midst the drooping oziers
Of the sunny banks' enclosures
Rose a woman weird to see:
Strange her mein and antique vesture,
Yet with friendly look and gesture
To the trembling girl spake she.
"As the cruel winds bereft thee
Of the shadow that hath left thee,
Maiden, will thy children steal
One by one these treasures from thee,
Till all beauty hath foregone thee:
Mother's woe is children's weal.
"For the beauty of the mother
Is the children's--sister, brother,
As she fades away, will bloom.
Mother's eyes grow dim by weeping,
Wan her cheek, lone vigils keeping:
Youthful virgin, 'ware your doom!
"Wifely name is sweet from lover,
Yet ere many years are over,
From the fatal day you wed,
Sore you'll rue the holy altar,
And the salt sea will grow salter
For the bitter tears you'll shed.
"See the pallid cheek reflected,
Hollow, sunken eyes dejected,
Look of weary, wasting pain;
All changed for thy beauty rarest:
Maiden, tell me, if thou darest
Then come here, and look again.
"But should lovers' pleading gain thee,
Haste thee quick and I will sain thee
Ere the marriage vows are said;
By the might of magic power,
I can save thee from the hour
Of a mother's anguish dread."
Answered Thekla: "Save me! save me!
Witch or woman, then I crave thee,
From a mother's fated doom!
So my beauty never fading
Thou canst make with magic aiding,
Fatal Mother, I shall come."
THE SIN.
'Neath the casement stood a Ritter,
Sings by night with sweetest tone.
"Thekla, dearest Thekla, listen,
Wilt thou be my bride, mine own?
"Castles have I, parks and forests,
Mountains veined with the red gold;
And a heart that pineth for thee,
With a wealth of love untold.
"I will deck my love in jewels,
Gold and peril on brow and hand,
Broidered robes and costly girdles,
From the far-off Paynim land.
"Here I hang upon the rose-tree,
Love, a little golden ring;
Wilt thou take it? wilt thou wear it,
Love?" Thus did the Ritter sing.
Then upon his black steed mounting,
Kissed his hand and doffed his plume.
Lovely Thekla stole down gently,
Sought the gold ring in the gloom.
"Little ring, wilt thou deceive me?
Like the rose dost hide a thorn?"
As she takes it, close beside her
Sounds a ringing laugh of scorn.
And the fatal Mother, mocking,
Points her finger to the ring:
"What, my maiden! sold thy beauty
For that paltry glittering thing?
"Plucked the bauble from a rose-tree?
Ring and rose and doom in all;
Roses bright from cheek of beauty,
Roses bright must fade and fall.
"Wilt thou follow me?" They glided
Over heath, through moor and wood,
Till beside an ancient windmill,
In the lone, dark night they stood.
All the mighty wheels were silent,
All the giant arms lay still--
"Bride and wife, but never mother,
Maiden, swear, is such thy will?
"Dost swear?" "I swear!" They glided
Up the stairs and through the door,
With her wand the magic Mother
Draws a circle on the floor.
Grains of yellow corn, seven,
Takes she from a sack beside,
Draws the gold ring of her lover
From the finger of the bride.--
"Seven children would have stolen
Light and beauty from thine eyes,
But as I cast the yellow corn
Through thy gold ring, each one dies.
Slowly creaked the mill, then faster
Whirled the giant arms on high;
Shuddering, hears the trembling maiden
Crushing bones, and infant's cry.
Now there is a deathlike silence,
Thekla hears her heart alone--
Again the weird one flings the corn,
Again that plaintive infant's moan.
Two--three--four--the mill goes faster,
Whirling, crushing.--Ah! those cries!
"Bride, thou'lt never be a mother;
Thy beauty's saved--the seventh dies!"
Seven turns the mill hath taken,
Seven moans hath Thekla heard;
Then all is still. The moon from Heaven
Shines down calm upon the sward.
"Now take back thy ring in safety;
Mother's joy or mother's woe,
Wasting pain or fading beauty,
Maiden, thou shalt never know!
"Home, before the morning hour!"
Home in terror Thekla flies,
Shuddering, she hears behind her
Laugh of scorn, infants' cries.
THE BRIDAL
The guests have met in the castle hall.
Who rides through the castle gate,
With banner and plume? The young bridegroom
And a hundred knights in state.
The guests have met in procession fair,
Around the bride they stand;
The myrtle wreath on her golden hair,
The bride ring on her hand.
So bright her beauty she dazed men's eyes,
Like the blinding, glorious sun.
"Never knight," they murmured, "gained such prize
Since ever the world begun."
Seven maidens held up her train of white,
Inwrought with the precious gold,
And over it flowed in a stream of light
Her long, bright hair unrolled.
Seven pages, each with a lighted torch,
Precede her as she moves
With the long array to the ancient church
Within the beechen groves.
The priest stood mute with the holy book,
And scarce could utter a prayer,
As that lovely vision of light and youth
Knelt down before him there.
She vows the vows. Erick bends to place
The gold ring on her hand,
Prouder then, as he gazed on her face,
Than if King of the Swedish land.
The lights were bright in the hall that night,
But brighter Thekla's glance,
As in wedded pride, by Erick's side,
She led the bridal dance.
"Drink! and wave high the flaming pines;
God bless the bride so fair!
May a goodly race, like clustering vines,
Twine round the wedded pair!"
The "vivas" rung for the noble race,
Till they stirred the banners of gold,
And the bridegroom bow'd with a stately grace;
But the bride sat mute and cold--
For the air seemed heavy as that of graves,
And the lights burned lurid and chill;
And she hears the dash of the far-off waves,
And the creak of the mighty mill.
The "vivas" sound like an infant's wail,
Or a demon's laugh of scorn.
"Oh! would to God," she murmured, all pale,
"That I had never been born!"
THE PUNISHMENT.
Full seven years have passed and flown--
But years o'er Thekla lightly pass,
As rose leaves, falling one by one,
From roses on the summer grass.
"It is our bridal day," she said;
"We're bidden to a christ'ning feast
I'll wear the robe I had when wed,
The robe I love of all the best.
"I'll wear my crown of jewels rare:
On brow and bosom let them shine;
Yet diamonds in my golden hair
Were dull beside these eyes of mine!"
She laughed aloud before the glass.
"Some women's hair would turn to grey
With cares, ere half the years did pass
I've numbered since my wedding day.
"But they were mothers--fools, I trow.
Life's current all too quickly runs;
I would not give my beauty now
For all their goodly race of sons."
She sprang upon her palfrey white,
While Erick held the broidered rein,
And showered down her veil of light
Upon the flowing, silky mane.
The guests rose up in wonderment--
Such beauty never had been seen--
And bowed before her as she went,
As if she were a crownéd queen.
The knights pressed round with words of praise,
And murmured homage in her ear,
And swore to serve her all their days,
E'en die for her--would she but hear.
But vainly, all in vain they sought
One answering smile of love to win.
Upon her soul there lieth nought
Save that one only, deadly sin.
"I pray you now I fain would have
So fair an angel hold my child,"
The mother said; and smiling, gave
To Thekla's arms her infant mild.
Advancing slow, with stately air,
Beside the font she took her place,
The infant, like a rosebud fair,
Nestling amid her bosom's lace.
She lays it on the bishop's arm,
The while he makes the blessed sign,
And sains it safe from ghostly harm
By Father, Spirit, Son Divine.
Then reaches out her hands again
To take it--but with moaning sound,
Like one distraught with sudden pain,
Falls pale and fainting to the ground.
"She has no children," Erick said,
As pleading for the strange mischance;
"This only grief since we were wed
Has saddened sore her life, perchance."
"She has no children!" murmured low
The happy mothers, gathered near;
"No child to love her--bitter woe;
No child to kiss her on her bier!"
But graver matrons shook the head:
"That witchlike beauty bodes no good;
Witch hands can never hold, 'tis said,
A child just blessed by holy rood."
They raised her up; she spake no word,
But slowly drooped her tearful eyes;
The rushing wave was all she heard,
The whirling wheels, the infants' cries.
And Erick said, with bitter smile:
"You play the mother all too ill;
Madonnas do not suit your style."
Her thoughts were by the lonely mill.
They set her on her palfrey white;
She heeds not all their taunting sneers,
But showers down her veil of light,
To hide the conscious, guilty tears.
They rode through all his vast estate
But rode in silence--he behind,
Sore pondering on his childless fate,
With ruffled brow and moody mind.
They rode through shadowy forest glades,
By meadows filled with lowing kine,
By streams that ran like silver threads
Down from the dark-fringed hills of pine.
"Alas!" he thought, "no child of mine
When I am dead shall take my place;
Must all the wealth of all my line
Pass to a hated kinsman's race?"
"Now, by my sword, I'd give up all,
Wealth, fame, and glory, all I've won,
So that within my father's hall
Beside me stood a noble son!"
He saw her white veil floating back
Along the twilight gray and still,
Like ghostly shadows on her track--
Her thoughts were by the lonely mill.
And now they neared the ancient church,
The ancient church where they were wed!
The moonlight full upon the porch
Shone bright, and Erick raised his head.
O Heaven! There upon the lawn
The palfrey's shadow stands out clear,
But Thekla's shadow--it is gone!
Nor form nor floating veil is there.
He spurred his steed with bitter cry:
"Could she have fallen in deathly swoon?"
But no, there, slowly riding by,
He sees her by the bright full moon.
With gesture fierce he seized her rein:
Woman or fiend! Look, if you dare,
The palfrey casts a shadow plain,
But yours--O horror!--is not there!"
She gathered close her silken veil,
And wrung her hands, and prayed for grace,
While down from Heaven the calm moon pale
Looked like God's own accusing face.
He flung aside the broidered rein:
"O woe the day that we were wed!
A witch bride to my arms I've ta'en,
Branded by God's own finger dread."
She followed, weeping, step by step,
Led by the unseen hand of Fate,
Still keeping in the shadows deep,
Until they reached the castle gate.
He strode across the corridor,
And rolling back upon its ring
The curtian of her chamber door,
He motioned her to enter in.
She laid aside her silken veil,
The golden circlet from her head,
And waited, motionless and pale,
Like one uprisen from the dead.
Could she deny, e'en if she would?
The moonlight wrapped her like a sheet.
And in the accusing light she stood,
As if before God's judgment-seat.
Brief were his questions, stern his wrath;
A doom seemed laid on her to tell,
How, with the ring of plighted troth,
Her hand had wrought the murd'rous spell.
How she had marred his ancient line,
And broke the life-chord that should bless,
And sent the seven fair souls to pine
Back to the shades of nothingness--
That so her beauty might not wane,
Her glorious beauty--fatal good;
Yet one she would not lose to gain
The rights of sacred motherhood.
And still she told the tale as cold--
The witch-fire burning in her eyes--
As if it were some legend old,
Drawn from a poet's memories.
He cursed her in his bitter wrath,
He cursed her by her children dead,
He cursed the ring of plighted troth,
He cursed the day when they were wed.
Fierce and more fierce his accents rose:
"Away!" he cried, "false hag of sin:
I see through all this painted gloze
The black and hideous soul within.
"Oh! false and foul, thou art to me
A devil--not a woman fair!
Like coiling snakes I seem to see
Each twisted tress of golden hair.
"I hate thee, as I hate God's foe.
Forth from my castle halls this night:
I could not breathe the air, if so
Thy poison breath were here to blight."
She cowered, shivered, spake no word,
But fell before him at his feet,
As if an angel of the Lord
Had smote her at the judgment-seat.
And on her heart there came at last
The dread, deep consciousness of sin,
That ghastly spectre which had cast
Upon her life this suffering.
And from her hand the gold ring fell--
Her wedding ring--and broke in twain;
The fatal ring that wrought the spell,
The accursed ring of love and pain.
The spell seemed broken then: the word
Came, softly breath'd: "Oh, pardon! grace!"
And pleadingly to her dread lord
She lifted up her angel face--
With golden tresses all unbound,
Still lovely through her shame and loss,
Around his feet her arms she wound,
As sinner might around the cross.
He dashed her twining hands aside,
He spurned her from him as she knelt.
"O hateful beauty!" Erick cried,
"The source of all thy hellish guilt.
"Pray for a cloud that can eclipse
That long, white streak of moonlight pale.
No word of grace from mortal lips
Can bring a ruined soul from Hell.
"Away! I would not pardon, not
(I swear it by the holy rood)
Unless upon that hated spot
An angel with a lily stood!"
She shuddered in the moonlight pale,
That doomed and banned her from his sight
Then rose up with a bitter wail,
And fled away into the night!
THE EXPIATION.
Full seven times the summer sun
Had waked the dreaming summer flowers,
And seven times they slept again
Beneath the winter snow and showers;
And still, through summer's parching heat,
Through winter's storm, and rain, and snow,
Had Thekla dragged her weary feet
In one long pilgrimage of woe.
The beasts fled back at her approach,
The sunshine ceased to flicker round,
The flowers withered at her touch,
And fell like corpses to the ground.
Where'er she passed there lay a gloom,
The young birds shivered in the nest,
All nature echoed back her doom,
And spurned the sinner from her breast.
She flung her sighs out to the wind:
The peasants heard that mournful wail,
And, crouching down by winter fires,
Said: "'Tis the witch-fiend in the vale."
They laid down food beneath the trees,
And waited, trembling, till she came,
Then fled away, for none would speak
To one so bann'd by sin and shame.
She gathered autumn leaves and moss
Within a cavern lone and deep,
And there she crept each night to rest,
To rest, but never more to sleep.
No human voice came near to soothe,
Her anguish dimm'd no human eye,
The bond of sisterhood was rent
Between her and Humanity.
But ever when the moon was full,
All in the moonlight weird and still
Came evermore upon her ear
The moanings by the lonely mill;
And seven dread shadows entered in
And gathered round her lowly bed,
The ghastly witnesses of sin,
A silent freezing sight of dread.
All night they stayed, those phantoms pale,
Those formless phantoms dim and drear,
And looked at her with fixed cold eyes,
That chilled her very blood with fear.
In vain she tried to hide her face;
She felt their presence still around,
And well she knew no pitying grace
From these dread beings could be found.
She could not weep, she dare not pray,
But lay like one in coffined clay,
Till those weird phantoms, one by one,
Melted away in the morning sun,
Which fell like the light of the judgement-day,
When the doom of the Lord is done.
Oft wandering round the ancient church,
The ruined church where they were wed,
She vainly tried to cross the porch,
And lay therein her weary head;
And her weary load of shame and sin
Upon the altar steps within.
But never, since the fatal night
She fled away from Erick's sight,
Curs'd with his ban of deepest hate,
Had human hand unbarred the gate;
Nor priest nor chorister was there,
Nor sacred rite nor holy prayer:
Foredoom'd and desolate it stood
All in the lonely beechen wood.
God's curse it is a bitter thing
To fall on a human soul,
Alone with its awful suffering,
With its deadly sin and dole;
'Mid the ghastly wrecks of a human life,
And memories of shame,
When thoughts of a past that would not sleep,
Like barbèd arrows came.
GOD'S JUSTICE.
And Erick roamed in distant lands,
But cannot fly his weary fate;
Before him in the lonely night,
Before him in the noonday bright,
His guilty wife for ever stands,
A thing of loathing and of hate.
Alone, as under blight and ban,
He roams, a saddened, weary man.
Yet yearnings came to him at last,
And, drawn as by a spirit hand,
He homeward turned, his wanderings past,
To his own distant Swedish land;
And rose up with a spirit grace,
As pleading to him for her life,
Before him, with her angel face,
His beautiful, his sinning wife.
The ship sailed fast through storm and wrack,
The ship sailed slow the Isles between,
And Erick, watching on the deck,
Saw rise before him, low and green,
The Swedish shores in level lines,
The fringed shores of lordly pines:
A spirit's touch, a spirit's power,
Seemed on him at that magic hour.
* * * * *
He stood within his castle halls,
The grass grew rank around the gate,
The weeds hung from the mouldering walls,
And all around was desolate.
The bridal room was closed from sight,
For none had dared to enter in,
Since by God's awful, searching light
The sinner had confessed her sin.
Her golden ring of hellish ban
Still lay upon the marble floor,
Her broken ring--the fatal sign
Of love that could return no more.
And nought the purple curtains stirred
Save the drear night-wind's mournful gust,
And golden crown and silken veil
Lay mouldering in the silent dust.
A bitter cry, a mournful cry,
Was wrung by grief from Erick's breast.
She sinned, he said, but suffered, too,
Could penitence the sin undo,
Her sinning soul had rest.
If God can pity, why should I
Relentless doom a soul to die
Unpardoned, and unblest?
Christ did not scorn the sinner's touch:
Shall man avenge sin overmuch,
And crush the heart-woe riven?
Fain would I say one word of grace
Ere yet I meet her face to face,
Before the throne in Heaven.
Then led as by a spirit's might,
He wandered forth into the night,
And rested not till he stood
By the lone Chapel in the wood.
And she that night in bitter woe,
Low kneeling by the closèd gate,
Poured out the grief those only know
By God and man left desolate.
Nought but the scared owl heard her moan
Of inarticulate agony,
As down upon the threshold stone
She sank, and prayed that she might die.
O piteous sound of vain despair,
That mournful wailing by the gate;
That wailing of a ruined soul,
Downfallen from its high estate!
She wrung her wasted hands the while,
And pressed her forehead to the bar,
As if within that holy aisle
God's pardon yet might come to her.
The cruel moon lit up the sward,
And pierced the guilty soul within,
That blighted form, all seared and marred
With deadly consciousness of sin;
The form that threw no shadow more
Besides God's holy temple door;
And the awful moon, sharp, cold, and clear,
Struck through her like the Avenger's spear.
O saddest sight beneath its light,
That humbled, suffering creature!
For all too heavy lay the doom
Upon her human nature
The curse of sin that none forego,
The agony, the pain, the strife,
The sullied soul, the wasted life
Sin's endless heritage of woe.
She prayed as only those can pray
Who pray to be forgiven;
She wept as only those can weep
Who fear to forfeit Heaven.
With outstretched hands and streaming eyes
She pleads to Heaven, imploring,
As if her cries could pierce the skies,
Where angels stand adoring.
O writhing hands! O wasted hands!
Flung out with frenzied gesture,
As if they fain would touch the hem
Of Christ's fair flowing vesture.
Bitter the dole of that sinning soul,
Outcast of Earth and Heaven;
And her cry went up like a wail from Hell,
Across the night-wind driven.
GOD'S MERCY.
A form stood by her in the night,
A human presence near her
Spoke one low word of pitying grace,
A name once uttered face to face,
When none was ever dearer--
Like oil upon the raging flame
That burned within her heart, it came,
That word of soft approving;
The first soft word that struck her ears,
Through all the long and dreary years,
Of human or of loving.
At once the barred gate opens wide,
They pass within it, side by side--
The human hand still leading;
Up through the ruined aisle they go,
When from the altar, still and slow,
Like angels onward treading,
Came seven fair spirits robed in white,
Each holding high a torch, whose light
Lit all the dark with splendour;
And the heavy air around was stirred,
As if from an Æolian chord,
With music low and tender.
"We come from God," they murmur low,
"Thy unborn children, seven,
To break the bonds of thy bitter woe
And lead thee back to Heaven.
Thy tears have washed away thy crime,
Thou hast repented while 'tis time.
The sinner is forgiven!
"The bond is loosed, the doom is done,
We come to thee, thou sinning one,
With words of peace and pardon;
And as a sign of mercy lay
Upon thee on thy dying day
A lily as God's guerdon."
She sank before them on the ground,
With folded palms and hair unbound,
And eyes upraised to Heaven.
Her pale lips moved as if to pray,
But one low murmured word they say--
"Forgiven! oh, forgiven!"
And lo! while yet the shadows speak,
A dove with lily in its beak,
A snow-white dove, came floating in,
Along the silver line of light,
And laid upon that breast of sin
A spotless lily, pure and white.
Then bending low at Erick's feet,
As if before the Mercy-seat,
"Pardon!" she said, "by God's own sign,
I claim from thee that word divine
Before the Judgment-day;
Bend lower down, and yet more low,
That I may feel thy soft tears flow
To wash my sin away."
He took her hand as an angel might,
A dying soul to save,
And his tears fell fast as a holy chrism,
Anointing her for the grave--
He kissed her brow to still her fears,
Ere yet her eyes grew dim:
The curse is broken, she but hears
His pardon--sees but him.
The damp of death is on her brow,
The last death-strain is over now,
The suffering soul hath fled.
The solemn shadows slowly wane,
And nought within the church remain
Save Erick and the dead.
* * * * *
They laid her 'neath the altar stair--
Thus Erick gave command--
Wrapped in her shroud of golden hair,
The lily in her hand.
And standing in the Holy place,
With solemn voice he said:
I do recall the bitter curse
I poured upon her head.
Let the dead bells toll for the sinning soul,
Repentant, saved, forgiven;
By the dread remorse of that pallid corpse,
We feel that her sin is shriven.
She stands before the Mercy-seat,
If human prayers can waft her,
And by that angel sign 'tis meet
We trust in God's Hereafter.
Moral.
God give us grace, each in his place,
To keep from sin and sinning:
Our souls we sell for gifts from Hell,
That are not worth the winning.
False smiles that lure but to betray,
False gold some demon flashes,
False hopes that lead from Heaven astray,
False fruit that turns to ashes.
WHY WEEPEST THOU?
Why weepest thou?
A few more hours dreary,
And thy spirit, the world weary
Beneath the icy hand of death must bow;
But the fetters then will fall,
And the soul redeemed from thrall,
Will upwards mount in joy, tho' chainéd now--
Why weepest thou?
The great Eternal One,
Round whom the planets roll,
Beholds each suffering soul
Prostrate in mortal grief before His Throne;
He numbers every tear,
He stills the throb of fear,
He guides us to our heavenly native zone--
The great Eternal One.
Then still thy fears!
Behold thy glorious home,
Yon star-roofed azure dome--
How infinite thy Father's house appears!
There, ah! there we'll rest,
Poor weak ones, on His breast;
Then, mourner, let thy frail heart break in tears,
But still thy fears!
SULEIMA TO HER LOVER.
FROM THE TURKISH.
Thou reck'nest seven Heavens; I but one:
And thou art it, Beloved! Voice and hand,
And eye and mouth, are but the angel band
Who minister around that highest throne--
Thy godlike heart. And there I reign supreme,
And choose, at will, the angel who I deem
Will sing the sweetest, words I love to hear--
That short, sweet song, whose echo clear
Will last throughout eternity:
"I love thee!
How I love thee!"
A LA SOMBRA DE MIS CABELLOS.
FROM THE SPANISH.--SIXTEENTH CENTURY.
My love lay there,
In the shadow of my hair,
As my glossy raven tresses downward flow;
And dark as midnight's cloud,
They fell o'er him like a shroud:
Ah! does he now remember it or no?
With a comb of gold each night
I combed my tresses bright;
But the sportive zephyr tossed them to and fro;
So I pressed them in a heap,
For my love whereon to sleep:
Ah! does he now remember it or no?
He said he loved to gaze
On my tresses' flowing maze,
And the midnight of my dark Moorish eyes;
And he vowed 'twould give him pain
Should his love be all in vain;
So he won me with his praises and his sighs.
Then I flung my raven hair
As a mantle o'er him there,
Encirling him within its mazy flow;
And pillowed on my breast,
He lay in sweet unrest:
Ah! does he now remember it or no?
CONSTANCY.
FROM THE RUSSIAN.
I.
A raven on a branch is sitting;
By him comes another flitting--
Brother, where so quickly flying?
Hast thou scented dead or dying?
II.
Food and plenty sent to cheer us,
Croaks the other, we have near us.
Yonder there, amid the gorse,
Lies the murdered Baron's corse.
III.
Who slew him? Wherefore? Woe the day!
Did the Baron's falcon say?
Or the Baron's steed so wild--
Or the Baron's wife so mild?
IV.
Her flight far off the falcon's winging:
On the steed a slave is springing;
And she?--by the pale moonlight hath fled
With the living from the dead.
THE FATE OF THE LYRIST.
The soul is ever clinging unto form;
Action, not abstract thought, alone can warm
The great heart of humanity--in life's fierce storm
Pass they the Lyrist by.
The Dramatist may wear triumphant bays;
And see the wondering people's tranc'd amaze,
The while unrolls great Homer to their gaze,
His gorgeous, many-coloured tapestry.
But lofty Pindar's heaven-directed flight,
Petrarca's song, mystic and sad as night,
Fall dull upon the common ear--their might
Is to the world a mystery.
Such spirits dwell but with the spiritual--
Their godlike souls disdaining to enthrall;
Within the limits of the actual,
Men pass, unheeding the divinity.
Their name, indeed, is echoed by the crowd;
But from amidst the masses earthward bowed,
Few lift the head, with kindred soul endowed,
To list their Orphic melody.
THE POET'S DESTINY.
The Priest of Beauty, the Anointed One,
Through the wide world passes the Poet on.
All that is noble by his word is crown'd,
But on his brow th' Acanthus wreath is bound.
Eternal temples rise beneath his hand,
While his own griefs are written in the sand;
He plants the blooming gardens, trails the vine--
But others wear the flowers, drink the wine;
He plunges in the depths of life to seek
Rich joys for other hearts--his own may break.
Like the poor diver beneath Indian skies,
He flings the pearl upon the shore--and dies.
DÉSILLUSION.
Too soon, alas! too soon I plunged into the world with tone and clang,
And they scarcely comprehended what the Poet wildly sang.
Not the spirit-glance deep gazing into nature's inmost soul,
Not the mystic aspirations that the Poet's words unroll.
Cold and spiritless and silent--yea, with scorn received they me,
Whilst on meaner brows around me wreath'd the laurel crown I see.
And I, who in my bosom felt the godlike nature glow,
I wore the mask of folly while I sang of deepest woe.
But, courage! years may pass--this mortal frame be laid in earth,
But my spirit reign triumphant in the country of my birth!
THE PRISONERS.
CHRISTMAS, 1869.
I.
Has not vengeance been sated at last?
Will the holy and beautiful chimes
Ring out the old wrongs of the past,
Ring in the new glories and times?
Will the eyes of the pale prisoners rest
Once again on their loved mountain scenes,
When the crimson of East or of West
Falls o'er them as mantles on Queens?
Will they muse once again by the sea,
List the thunder of waves on the strand,
As exultant, as fearless and free
As the foam-flakes that dash on the land?
Will they lift their wan faces to God
In the radiant, bright, infinite air,
Press their lips to the old native sod
In a rapture of praise and of prayer?
II.
Ah, the years of their young lives pass over,
Still wept out in dungeons alone,
Where the lips of a wife, child, or mother
Were never yet pressed to their own;
Years of torture and sorrow and trials,
In the gloom of the desolate cell,
Where the wrath of the sevenfold vials
Seem poured to turn Earth to a Hell;
Where strong brains are seared into madness,
And burning hearts frozen to stone,
And despair surges over life's gladness,
And young life goes out with a moan.
Go, kneel as at graves, weeping woman--
When the last fatal sentence was said,
All ties that are tender and human
Were rent as from those that are dead.
III.
They were young then, in youth's glorious fashion
With a pulse-throb of fire in each vein,
And the glow and the splendours of passion
Flashing up from the heart to the brain.
Sharp as falchions their keen words reproving--
Great words moved by no coward breath--
And no crime on their souls save of loving
Their Country with love strong as death.
Oh, their hearts, how they leaped to the surface,
As a sword from the scabbard unsheathed,
Their pale faces stern with a purpose,
Their brows with Fate's cypress enwreathed,
Grave, earnest, the judgment unheeding,
Or the wreck of their lives lying prone,
From these doomed lips the strong spirits' pleading
Soared up from man's bar to God's Throne.
IV.
"We but taught men," they said, "from the pages,
Graven deep in our history and soil,
From the Litanies poured through the ages
Of sorrow, and torture, and toil;
By the insults, the mockings, the scornings,
The bondage on body and soul;
By the ruin, the slaughters, the burnings,
When death was the patriot's goal;
By the falsehood enthroned in high places,
By the feeble hearts cowering within,
By the slave-brand read plain on their faces,
Though the ermine might cover the sin.
We were broken and sundered and shattered,
Made thrall by the tyrant's strong arm,
To the wild waves and fierce winds were scattered
As dead leaves swept on by the storm.
For each age gave a traitor or tyrant
To build up the wrongs that we see,
But each age, too, gives heroes aspirant
Of the Fame or the death of the Free!"
V.
Oh, Chimes ringing out in our city,
Oh, Angels that walk to and fro,
Oh, Christ-words of pardon and pity,
Can ye speak to those souls lying low
In a sorrow no festal chime scatters,
In a night where no Angel appears,
The wasted limbs heavy with fetters,
The weary heart heavy with tears;
With the ghost of dead youth crushing on them,
And the gloom of the years yet to be,
With a blackness of darkness upon them
As of night when it falls on the sea?
VI.
When the Christmas bells ring out at even
The song of the Angels' bright spheres,
Their sad eyes will strain up to Heaven,
Their bread will be bitter with tears.
Through our laughter will come that sad vision,
Through the ivy-wreathed wine-cup's red glow,
Through our wassail the wail from their prison,
Lamentation and mourning and woe.
With sorrow wrapped round like a garment,
With ashes for joy as their crown,
With bonds tight'ning close as a cerement
They wait till God's morning comes down;
Yet no echo from their lips will falter
Of the solemn, sweet carol or song,
But a cry, as of souls 'neath the Altar,
"_How long! oh, our Lord God, how long?_"
THE DAWN.
What of the night, O Watcher on the Tower?
Is the Day dawning through the golden bars?
Comes it through the midnight, over clouds that lower,
Trailing robes of crimson mid the fading stars?
"Through the rent clouds I see a splendour gleaming,
Rolling down the darkness to the far Heaven's rim,
While through the mist the glorious Dawn upstreaming
Rises like the music of a grand choral hymn."
From the deep valleys where the whirlwind passes,
Hear you the tramp of the coming hosts of men,
Strong in their manhood, mighty in their masses,
Swift as rushing torrents down a mountain glen?
"Far as eye can reach, where purple mists are lifted,
Thousands upon thousands are gathering in might,
Powerful as tempests when giant sails are rifted,
Beautiful as ocean in the sun's silver light."
See you their Banner in the free air proudly
Waving, as an oriflamme a king might bear,
Has it no legend--dare we utter loudly
All that a people may have written there?
"I see their Banner in the red dawn flashing--
Haughty is the legend, plain to all men's sight,
Traced in their heart's blood, which the breeze upcatching,
Flings out in flame-words--Liberty and Right!
"Onward they come, still gathering in power,
Serried ranks of men o'er the crimson-clouded lawn;
Banners glisten brightly in the golden shower
Pouring through the portals of the golden Dawn.
"Each bears a symbol, glorious in its meaning,
Holy as the music of the crown'd Bard's Psalm:
Faith gazing upward, on her Anchor leaning,
Peace with the Olive, and Mercy with the Palm."
Long have we waited, O Watcher, for the vision,
Splendid in promise we now can see it rise,
Scattering the darkness, while with hero-mission
Brave hands uplift Hope's banner to the skies.
Not with vain clamour, but the soul's strength revealing
In the golden silence of all great true deeds,
Banded in strength for human rights appealing,
Banded in love for our poor human needs.
Bitter was the Past; let it rest, a new Æon
Preaches a new Gospel to man not in vain,
Earth through all her kingdoms echoes back the Pæan
Chanted once by Angels on the star-lit plain.
Brotherhood of Nations, disdaining ancient quarrel,
Brotherhood of Peoples, flushed with a nobler rage,
Palm branch and Olive let us mingle with the Laurel
In the radiant future of the coming Age!
AN APPEAL TO IRELAND.
I.
The sin of our race is upon us,
The pitiless, cruel disdain
Of brother for brother, tho' coiling
Round both is the one fatal chain;
And aimless and reckless and useless
Our lives pass along to the grave
In tumults of words that bewilder,
And the conflicts of slave with slave.
II.
Yet shadows are heavy around us,
The darkness of sin and of shame,
While the souls of the Nation to slumber
Are lulled by vain visions of fame;
True hearts, passion-wasted, and breaking
With sense of our infinite wrong,
Oh! wake them, nor dread the awaking,
We need all the strength of the strong.
III.
For we rage with senseless endeavours
In a fever of wild unrest,
While glory lies trampled, dishonoured,
Death-pale, with a wound in her breast;
Had we loosened one chain from the spirit,
Had we strove from the ruin of things
To build up a Temple of Concord,
More fair than the palace of Kings;
IV.
Our name might be heard where the Nations
Press on to the van of the fight,
Where Progress makes war upon Evil,
And Darkness is scattered by Light.
They have gold and frankincense and myrrh
To lay at the feet of their King,
But we--what have we but the wine-cup
Of wrath and of sorrow to bring?
V.
Let us ask of our souls, lying under
The doom of this bondage and ban,
Why we, made by God high as Angels,
Should fall so much lower than man;
Some indeed have been with us would scale
Heav'n's heights for life-fire if they dare--
But the vultures now gnaw at their hearts
Evermore on the rocks of Despair.
VI.
Let us think, when we stand before God,
On the Day of the Judgment roll,
And He asks of the work we have done
In the strength of each God-like soul;
Can we answer--"Our prayers have gone up
As light from the stars and the sun,
And Thy blessing came down on our deeds
As a crown when the victory's won.
VII.
"We fought with wild beasts, wilder passions,
As of old did the saints of God,
Tho' our life-blood ran red in the dust
Of the fierce arena we trod;
We led up Thy people triumphant
From Egypt's dark bondage of sin,
And made the fair land which Thou gavest
All glorious without and within.
VIII.
"We changed to a measure of music
The discord and wail of her days.
For sorrow gave garments of gladness,
For scorn of her enemies praise.
We crowned her a Queen in the triumph
Of noble and beautiful lives,
While her chariot of Freedom rolled on
Through the crash of her fallen gyves."
IX.
I ask of you, Princes, and Rulers,
I ask of you, Brothers around,
Can ye thus make reply for our people
When the Nations are judged or crowned?
If not, give the reins of the chariot
To men who can curb the wild steeds--
They are nearing the gulf, in this hour
We appeal by our wrongs and our needs.
X.
Stand back and give place to new leaders;
We need them--some strong gifted souls,
From whose lips, never touched by a falsehood,
The heart's richest eloquence rolls.
True Patriots by grandeur of purpose,
True men by the power of the brain:
The chosen of God to lift upward
His Ark with hands clear of all stain.
XI.
We need them to tend the Lord's vineyard,
As shepherds to watch round His fold,
With brave words from pure hearts outpouring,
As wine from a chalice of gold;
That the souls of the Nation uplifted,
May shine in new radiance of light,
As of old stood the Prophets transfigured
In glory with Christ on the height.
XII.
Far out, where the grand western sunsets
Flush crimson the mountain and sea,
And the echoes of Liberty mingle
With the roar of the waves on the lea;
Where over the dim shrouded passes
The clouds fling a rainbow-hued arch,
And through giant-rent portals a people
Go forth on their sad, solemn march:
XIII.
I had dreams of a future of glory
For this fair motherland of mine,
When knowledge would bring with its splendours
The Human more near the Divine.
And as flash follows flash on the mountains,
When lightnings and thunders are hurled,
So would throb in electrical union
Her soul with the soul of the world.
XIV.
For we stand too apart in our darkness,
As planets long rent from the sun,
And the mystical breath of the spirit
Scarce touches our hearts sweeping on.
I appeal from this drear isolation
To earth, to the mountains, and sky--
Must we die as of thirst in a desert,
While full tides of life pass us by?
XV.
Yet still, through the darkness and sorrow,
I dream of a time yet to be,
When from mountain and ocean to Heaven
Will rise up the Hymn of the Free.
When our Country, made perfect through trial,
White-robed, myrtle-crowned, as a Bride,
Will stand forth, "a Lady of Kingdoms,"
Through Light and through Love glorified.
FOOTNOTES
[Footnote 1: "Kings--The Earthly Elohim."--+SIR THOMAS BROWNE.+]
[Footnote 2: Palmyra, or Tadmor.]
[Footnote 3: On reading his Essay on the Collation of Certain Ancient
Spanish Manuscripts, printed from the proceedings of the Royal
Irish Academy.]
[Footnote 4: Abdallah is known in history as "El triste Rey."]
[Footnote 5: This taunt of the Sultana mother is related by Condé.]
[Footnote 6: Lorc, or Lorcan, an ancient King of Munster, the
grandfather of the great King Brian Boru.]
[Footnote 7: This Irish poem, so pathetic and expressive in its
simplicity, first appeared in the _Dublin University Magazine_, in
the Essay on "The Food of the Irish," by Sir William Wilde. It is
quoted by him as "highly characteristic both of the feelings of the
people and the extent of the calamity of that time; besides being a
good specimen of the native poetry of the Irish more than a hundred
years ago."]
[Footnote 8: "Thoughts come again, convictions perpetuate themselves
opportunities pass by irrecoverably."--+GOETHE.+]
[Footnote 9: Novgorod the Great.]
[Footnote 10: Lithuania.]
*** End of this LibraryBlog Digital Book "Poems by Speranza" ***
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