BATTLE OF THE BALTIC. I. Of Nelson and the North, Sing the glorious day’s renown, When to battle fierce came forth All the might of Denmark’s crown, And her arms along the deep proudly shone; By each gun the lighted brand, In a bold determined hand, And the Prince of all the land Led them on. II. Like leviathans afloat, Lay their bulwarks on the brine; While the sign of battle flew On the lofty British line: It was ten of April morn by the chime; As they drifted on their path, There was silence deep as death; And the boldest held his breath, For a time. III. But the might of England flushed To anticipate the scene; And her van the fleeter rushed O’er the deadly space between. “Hearts of oak!” our captain cried; when each gun From its adamantine lips Spread a death-shade round the ships, Like the hurricane eclipse Of the sun. IV. Again! again! again! And the havoc did not slack, Till a feeble cheer the Dane To our cheering sent us back;— Their shots along the deep slowly boom:— Then ceased—and all is wail, As they strike the shattered sail; Or, in conflagration pale, Light the gloom. V. Out spoke the victor then, As he hailed them o’er the wave; “Ye are brothers! ye are men! And we conquer but to save:— So peace instead of death let us bring; But yield, proud foe, thy fleet, With the crews, at England’s feet, And make submission meet To our King.” VI. Then Denmark blessed our chief, That he gave her wounds repose; And the sounds of joy and grief From her people wildly rose, As death withdrew his shades from the day. While the sun looked smiling bright O’er a wide and woeful sight, Where the fires of funeral light Died away. VII. Now joy, Old England, raise! For the tidings of thy might, By the festal cities’ blaze, While the wine-cup shines in light; And yet amidst that joy and uproar, Let us think of them that sleep, Full many a fathom deep, By thy wild and stormy steep. Elsinore! VIII. Brave hearts! to Britain’s pride Once so faithful and so true, On the deck of fame that died;— With the gallant good Riou: [70]Soft sigh the winds of Heaven o’er their grave! While the billow mournful rolls And the mermaid’s song condoles, Singing glory to the souls Of the brave!
YE MARINERS OF ENGLAND:
A NAVAL ODE. I. Ye Mariners of England! That guard our native seas; Whose flag has braved, a thousand years, The battle and the breeze! Your glorious standard launch again To meet another foe! And sweep through the deep, While the stormy tempests blow; While the battle rages loud and long, And the stormy tempests blow. II. The spirits of your fathers Shall start from every wave!— For the deck it was their field of fame, And Ocean was their grave: Where Blake and mighty Nelson fell, Your manly hearts shall glow, As ye sweep through the deep, While the stormy tempests blow; While the battle rages loud and long, And the stormy tempests blow. III. Britannia needs no bulwark, No towers along the steep; Her march is o’er the mountain-waves, Her home is on the deep. With thunders from her native oak, She quells the floods below,— As they roar on the shore, When the stormy tempests blow: When the battle rages loud and long, And the stormy tempests blow. IV. The meteor flag of England Shall yet terrific burn; Till danger’s troubled night depart, And the star of peace return. Then, then, ye ocean-warriors! Our song and feast shall flow To the fame of your name, When the storm has ceased to blow; When the fiery fight is heard no more, And the storm has ceased to blow.
TO THE RAINBOW. Triumphal arch, that fill’st the sky When storms prepare to part, I ask not proud Philosophy To teach me what thou art— Still seem as to my childhood’s sight, A midway station given For happy spirits to alight Betwixt the earth and heaven. Can all that Optics teach, unfold Thy form to please me so, As when I dreamt of gems and gold Hid in thy radiant bow? When Science from Creation’s face Enchantment’s veil withdraws, What lovely visions yield their place To cold material laws! And yet, fair bow, no fabling dreams, But words of the Most High, Have told why first thy robe of beams Was woven in the sky. When o’er the green undeluged earth Heaven’s covenant thou didst shine, How came the world’s grey fathers forth To watch thy sacred sign. And when its yellow lustre smiled O’er mountains yet untrod, Each mother held aloft her child To bless the bow of God. Methinks, thy jubilee to keep, The first made anthem rang On earth delivered from the deep, And the first poet sang. Nor ever shall the Muse’s eye Unraptured greet thy beam: Theme of primeval prophecy, Be still the poet’s theme! The earth to thee her incense yields, The lark thy welcome sings, When glittering in the freshened fields The snowy mushroom springs. How glorious is thy girdle cast O’er mountain, tower, and town, Or mirrored in the ocean vast, A thousand fathoms down! As fresh in yon horizon dark, As young thy beauties seem, As when the eagle from the ark First sported in thy beam For, faithful to its sacred page, Heaven still rebuilds thy span, Nor lets the type grow pale with age That first spoke peace to man.
THE LAST MAN. All worldly shapes shall melt in gloom, The Sun himself must die, Before this mortal shall assume Its Immortality! I saw a vision in my sleep, That gave my spirit strength to sweep Adown the gulph of Time! I saw the last of human mould, That shall Creation’s death behold, As Adam saw her prime! The Sun’s eye had a sickly glare, The Earth with age was wan, The skeletons of nations were Around that lonely man! Some had expired in fight,—the brands Still rested in their bony hands; In plague and famine some! Earth’s cities had no sound nor tread; And ships were drifting with the dead To shores where all was dumb! Yet, prophet-like, that lone one stood With dauntless words and high, That shook the sere leaves from the wood As if a storm passed by, Saying, “We are twins in death, proud Sun, Thy face is cold, thy race is run, ’Tis Mercy bids thee go. For thou ten thousand thousand years Hast seen the tide of human tears, That shall no longer flow. “What though beneath thee man put forth His pomp, his pride, his skill; And arts that made fire, flood, and earth, The vassals of his will;— Yet mourn I not thy parted sway, Thou dim discrownÈd king of day: For all those trophied arts And triumphs that beneath thee sprang, Healed not a passion or a pang Entailed on human hearts. “Go, let oblivion’s curtain fall Upon the stage of men, Nor with thy rising beams recall Life’s tragedy again. Its piteous pageants bring not back, Nor waken flesh, upon the rack Of pain anew to writhe; Stretched in disease’s shapes abhorred, Or mown in battle by the sword, Like grass beneath the scythe. “E’en I am weary in yon skies To watch thy fading fire; Test of all sumless agonies, Behold not me expire. My lips that speak thy dirge of death— Their rounded gasp and gurgling breath To see thou shalt not boast. The eclipse of Nature spreads my pall,— The majesty of Darkness shall Receive my parting ghost! “This spirit shall return to Him That gave its heavenly spark; Yet think not, Sun, it shall be dim When thou thyself art dark! No! it shall live again, and shine In bliss unknown to beams of thine, By Him recalled to breath, Who captive led captivity, Who robbed the grave of Victory,— And took the sting from Death! “Go, Sun, while Mercy holds me up On Nature’s awful waste To drink this last and bitter cup Of grief that man shall taste— Go, tell the night that hides thy face, Thou saw’st the last of Adam’s race, On Earth’s sepulchral clod, The darkening universe defy To quench his Immortality, Or shake his trust in God!”
VALEDICTORY STANZAS
To J. P. KEMBLE, Esq.
COMPOSED FOR A PUBLIC MEETING,
Held June, 1817. Pride of the British stage, A long and last adieu! Whose image brought the heroic age Revived to Fancy’s view Like fields refreshed with dewy light When the sun smiles his last Thy parting presence makes more bright Our memory of the past; And memory conjures feelings up That wine or music need not swell, As high we lift the festal cup To Kemble—fare thee well! His was the spell o’er hearts Which only Acting lends,— The youngest of the sister Arts, Where all their beauty blends: For ill can Poetry express Full many a tone of thought sublime, And Painting, mute and motionless, Steals but a glance of time. But by the mighty actor brought, Illusion’s perfect triumphs come,— Verse ceases to be airy thought, And Sculpture to be dumb. Time may again revive, But ne’er eclipse the charm, When Cato spoke in him alive, Or Hotspur kindled warm. What soul was not resigned entire To the deep sorrows of the Moor,— What English heart was not on fire With him at Agincourt? And yet a Majesty possessed His transport’s most impetuous tone, And to each passion of his breast The Graces gave their zone. High were the task—too high, Ye conscious bosoms here! In words to paint your memory Of Kemble and of Lear; But who forgets that white discrownÈd head, Those bursts of Reason’s half-extinguished glare— Those tears upon Cordelia’s bosom shed, In doubt more touching than despair, If ’twas reality he felt? Had Shakespeare’s self amidst you been, Friends, he had seen you melt, And triumphed to have seen! And there was many an hour Of blended kindred fame, When Siddons’ auxiliar power And sister magic came. Together at the Muse’s side The tragic paragons had grown— They were the children of her pride, The columns of her throne, And undivided favour ran From heart to heart in their applause, Save for the gallantry of man, In lovelier woman’s cause. Fair as some classic dome, Robust and richly graced, Your Kemble’s spirit was the home Of genius and of taste:— Taste like the silent dial’s power, That when supernal light is given, Can measure inspiration’s hour And tell its height in Heaven. At once ennobled and correct, His mind surveyed the tragic page, And what the actor could effect, The scholar could presage. These were his traits of worth:— And must we lose them now! And shall the scene no more show forth His sternly pleasing brow! Alas, the moral brings a tear!— ’Tis all a transient hour below; And we that would detain thee here, Ourselves as fleetly go! Yet shall our latest age This parting scene review:— Pride of the British stage, A long and last adieu!
A DREAM. Well may sleep present us fictions, Since our waking moments teem With such fanciful convictions As make life itself a dream. Half our daylight faith’s a fable; Sleep disports with shadows too Seeming in their turn as stable As the world we wake to view. Ne’er by day did Reason’s mint Give my thoughts a clearer print Of assured reality, Than was left by Phantasy, Stamped and coloured on my sprite, In a dream of yesternight. In a bark, methought, lone steering, I was cast on Ocean’s strife; This, ’twas whispered in my hearing, Meant the sea of life. Sad regrets from past existence Came, like gales of chilling breath; Shadowed in the forward distance Lay the land of Death. Now seeming more, now less remote, On that dim-seen shore, methought, I beheld two hands a space Slow unshroud a spectre’s face; And my flesh’s hair upstood,— ’Twas mine own similitude. But my soul revived at seeing Ocean, like an emerald spark, Kindle, while an air-dropt being Smiling steered my bark. Heaven-like—yet he looked as human As supernal beauty can, More compassionate than woman Lordly more than man. And as some sweet clarion’s breath Stirs the soldier’s scorn of death— So his accents bade me brook The spectre’s eyes of icy look, Till it shut them—turned its head, Like a beaten foe, and fled. “Types not this,” I said, “fair spirit! That my death-hour is not come? Say, what days shall I inherit?— Tell my soul their sum.” “No,” he said, “yon phantom’s aspect, Trust me, would appal thee worse, Held in clearly measured prospect:— Ask not for a curse! Make not, for I overhear Thine unspoken thoughts as clear As thy mortal ear could catch The close-brought tickings of a watch— Make not the untold request That’s now revolving in thy breast. “’Tis to live again, remeasuring Youth’s years, like a scene rehearsed, In thy second life-time treasuring Knowledge from the first. Hast thou felt, poor self-deceiver! Life’s career so void of pain, As to wish its fitful fever New begun again? Could experience, ten times thine, Pain from Being disentwine— Threads by Fate together spun? Could thy flight Heaven’s lightning shun? No, nor could thy foresight’s glance ’Scape the myriad shafts of Chance. “Would’st thou bear again Love’s trouble— Friendship’s death-dissevered ties; Toil to grasp or miss the bubble Of Ambition’s prize? Say thy life’s new guided action Flowed from Virtue’s fairest springs— Still would Envy and Detraction Double not their stings? Worth itself is but a charter To be mankind’s distinguished martyr.” I caught the moral, and cried, “Hail! Spirit! let us onward sail, Envying, fearing, hating none— Guardian Spirit, steer me on!”
LINES
WRITTEN AT THE REQUEST OF THE HIGHLAND SOCIETY IN LONDON, WHEN MET TO COMMEMORATE THE 21ST OF MARCH, THE DAY OF VICTORY IN EGYPT. Pledge to the much-loved land that gave us birth! Invincible romantic Scotia’s shore! Pledge to the memory of her parted worth! And first, amidst the brave, remember Moore! And be it deemed not wrong that name to give, In festive hours, which prompts the patriot’s sigh! Who would not envy such as Moore to live? And died he not as heroes wish to die? Yes, though too soon attaining glory’s goal, To us his bright career too short was given; Yet in a mighty cause his phoenix soul Rose on the flames of victory to Heaven! How oft (if beats in subjugated Spain One patriot heart) in secret shall it mourn For him!—How oft on far Corunna’s plain Shall British exiles weep upon his urn! Peace to the mighty dead!—our bosom thanks In sprightlier strains the living may inspire! Joy to the chiefs that lead old Scotia’s ranks, Of Roman garb and more than Roman fire! Triumphant be the thistle still unfurled, Dear symbol wild! on Freedom’s hills it grows, Where Fingal stemmed the tyrants of the world, And Roman eagles found unconquered foes! Joy to the band [71] this day on Egypt’s coast, Whose valour tamed proud France’s tricolor, And wrenched the banner from her bravest host, Baptised Invincible in Austria’s gore! Joy for the day on red Vimeira’s strand, When, bayonet to bayonet opposed, First of Britannia’s host her Highland band Gave but the death-shot once, and foremost closed! Is there a son of generous England here Or fervid Erin?—he with us shall join, To pray that in eternal union dear, The rose, the shamrock, and the thistle twine! Types of a race who shall the invader scorn, As rocks resist the billows round their shore; Types of a race who shall to time unborn Their country leave unconquered as of yore!
STANZAS
TO THE MEMORY OF THE SPANISH PATRIOTS LATEST KILLED IN RESISTING THE REGENCY AND THE DUKE OF ANGOULEME. Brave men who at the Trocadero fell— Beside your cannons conquered not, though slain, There is a victory in dying well For Freedom,—and ye have not died in vain, For come what may, there shall be hearts in Spain To honour, ay embrace your martyred lot, Cursing the Bigot’s and the Bourbon’s chain, And looking on your graves, though trophied not, As holier, hallowed ground than priests could make the spot! What though your cause be baffled—freemen cast In dungeons—dragged to death, or forced to flee; Hope is not withered in affliction’s blast— The patriot’s blood’s the seed of Freedom’s tree; And short your orgies of revenge shall be, Cowled Demons of the Inquisitorial cell! Earth shudders at your victory,—for ye Are worse than common fiends from Heaven that fell, The baser, ranker sprung, Autochthones of Hell! Go to your bloody rites again—bring back The hall of horrors and the assessor’s pen, Recording answers shrieked upon the rack; Smile o’er the gaspings of spine-broken men;— Preach, perpetrate damnation in your den;— Then let your altars, ye blasphemers! peal With thanks to Heaven, that let you loose again, To practise deeds with torturing fire and steel No eye may search—no tongue may challenge or reveal! Yet laugh not in your carnival of crime Too proudly, ye oppressors!—Spain was free, Her soil has felt the foot-prints, and her clime Been winnowed by the wings of Liberty; And these even parting scatter as they flee Thoughts—influences, to live in hearts unborn, Opinions that shall wrench the prison-key From Persecution—show her mask off-torn, And tramp her bloated head beneath the foot of Scorn. Glory to them that die in this great cause! Kings, Bigots, can inflict no brand of shame, Or shape of death, to shroud them from applause:— No!—manglers of the martyr’s earthly frame! Your hangmen fingers cannot touch his fame. Still in your prostrate land there shall be some Proud hearts, the shrines of Freedom’s vestal flame. Long trains of ill may pass unheeded, dumb, But vengeance is behind, and justice is to come.
SONG OF THE GREEKS. Again to the battle, Achaians! Our hearts bid the tyrants defiance; Our land, the first garden of Liberty’s tree— It has been, and shall yet be the land of the free: For the cross of our faith is replanted, The pale dying crescent is daunted, And we march that the foot-prints of Mahomet’s slaves May be washed out in blood from our forefathers’ graves. Their spirits are hovering o’er us, And the sword shall to glory restore us. Ah! what though no succour advances, Nor Christendom’s chivalrous lances Are stretched in our aid—be the combat our own! And we’ll perish or conquer more proudly alone; For we’ve sworn by our Country’s assaulters, By the virgins they’ve dragged from our altars, By our massacred patriots, our children in chains, By our heroes of old and their blood in our veins. That living, we shall be victorious, Or that dying, our deaths shall be glorious. A breath of submission we breathe not; The sword that we’ve drawn we will sheathe not! Its scabbard is left where our martyrs are laid, And the vengeance of ages has whetted its blade. Earth may hide—waves engulph—fire consume us, But they shall not to slavery doom us: If they rule, it shall be o’er our ashes and graves; But we’ve smote them already with fire on the waves, And new triumphs on land are before us, To the charge!—Heaven’s banner is o’er us. This day shall ye blush for its story, Or brighten your lives with its glory. Our women, oh, say, shall they shriek in despair, Or embrace us from conquest with wreaths in their hair? Accursed may his memory blacken, If a coward there be that would slacken Till we’ve trampled the turban and shown ourselves worth Being sprung from and named for the godlike of earth. Strike home, and the world shall revere us As heroes descended from heroes. Old Greece lightens up with emotion Her inlands, her isles of the Ocean; Fanes rebuilt and fair towns shall with jubilee ring, And the Nine shall new-hallow their Helicon’s spring: Our hearths shall be kindled in gladness, That were cold and extinguished in sadness; Whilst our maidens shall dance with their white-waving arms, Singing joy to the brave that delivered their charms, When the blood of yon Mussulman cravens Shall have purpled the beaks of our ravens.
ODE TO WINTER. [72] This ode was written in Germany, at the close of 1800, before the conclusion of hostilities.
LINES
SPOKEN BY MR. ***, AT DRURY-LANE THEATRE, ON THE FIRST OPENING OF THE HOUSE AFTER THE DEATH OF THE PRINCESS CHARLOTTE, 1817. Britons! although our task is but to show The scenes and passions of fictitious woe, Think not we come this night without a part In that deep sorrow of the public heart, Which like a shade hath darkened every place, And moistened with a tear the manliest face! The bell is scarcely hushed in Windsor’s piles, That tolled a requiem from the solemn aisles, For her, the royal flower, low laid in dust, That was your fairest hope, your fondest trust. Unconscious of the doom, we dreamt, alas! That e’en these walls, ere many months should pass, Which but return sad accents for her now, Perhaps had witnessed her benignant brow, Cheered by the voice you would have raised on high, In bursts of British love and loyalty. But, Britain! now thy chief, thy people mourn, And Claremont’s home of love is left forlorn:— There, where the happiest of the happy dwelt, The ’scutcheon glooms, and royalty hath felt A wound that every bosom feels its own,— The blessing of a father’s heart o’erthrown— The most beloved and most devoted bride Torn from an agonizÈd husband’s side, Who “long as Memory holds her seat” shall view That speechless, more than spoken last adieu, When the fixed eye long looked connubial faith, And beamed affection in the trance of death. Sad was the pomp that yesternight beheld, As with the mourner’s heart the anthem swelled; While torch succeeding torch illumed each high And bannered arch of England’s chivalry. The rich plumed canopy, the gorgeous pall, The sacred march, and sable-vested wall,— These were not rites of inexpressive show, But hallowed as the types of real woe! Daughter of England! for a nation’s sighs. A nation’s heart went with thine obsequies!— And oft shall time revert a look of grief On thine existence, beautiful and brief. Fair spirit! send thy blessing from above On realms where thou art canonised by love! Give to a father’s, husband’s bleeding mind, The peace that angels lend to human kind, To us who in thy loved remembrance feel A sorrowing, but a soul-ennobling zeal— A loyalty that touches all the best And loftiest principles of England’s breast! Still may thy name speak concord from the tomb— Still in the Muse’s breath thy memory bloom! They shall describe thy life—thy form portray; But all the love that mourns thee swept away, ’Tis not in language or expressive arts To paint—yet feel it, Britons in your hearts!
LINES
ON THE
GRAVE OF A SUICIDE. By strangers left upon a lonely shore, Unknown, unhonoured, was the friendless dead, For child to weep, or widow to deplore, There never came to his unburied head:— All from his dreary habitation fled. Nor will the lanterned fisherman at eve Launch on that water by the witches’ tower, Where hellebore and hemlock seem to weave Round its dark vaults a melancholy bower, For spirits of the dead at night’s enchanted hour. They dread to meet thee, poor unfortunate! Whose crime it was, on life’s unfinished road To feel the stepdame buffetings of fate, And render back thy being’s heavy load. Ah! once, perhaps, the social passions glowed In thy devoted bosom—and the hand That smote its kindred heart, might yet be prone To deeds of mercy. Who may understand Thy many woes, poor suicide, unknown?— He who thy being gave shall judge of thee alone.
THE TURKISH LADY. ’Twas the hour when rites unholy Called each Paynim voice to prayer, And the star that faded slowly Left to dews the freshened air. Day her sultry fires had wasted, Calm and sweet the moonlight rose; E’en a captive spirit tasted Half oblivion of his woes. Then ’twas from an Emir’s palace Came an Eastern lady bright: She, in spite of tyrants jealous, Saw and loved an English knight. “Tell me, captive, why in anguish Foes have dragged thee here to dwell, Where poor Christians as they languish Hear no sound of Sabbath bell?” “’Twas on Transylvania’s Bannat, When the Crescent shone afar, Like a pale disastrous planet O’er the purple tide of war— “In that day of desolation, Lady, I was captive made; Bleeding for my Christian nation By the walls of high Belgrade.” “Captive! could the brightest jewel From my turban set thee free?” “Lady no!—the gift were cruel, Ransomed, yet if reft of thee.” “Say, fair princess! would it grieve thee Christian climes should we behold?” “Nay, bold knight! I would not leave thee Were thy ransom paid in gold!” Now in heaven’s blue expansion Rose the midnight star to view, When to quit her father’s mansion Thrice she wept, and bade adieu! “Fly we then, while none discover! Tyrant barks, in vain ye ride!” Soon at Rhodes the British lover Clasped his blooming Eastern bride.
THE WOUNDED HUSSAR. Alone to the banks of the dark-rolling Danube Fair Adelaide hied when the battle was o’er:— “Oh, whither,” she cried, “hast thou wandered, my lover? Or here dost thou welter and bleed on the shore? “What voice did I hear? ’twas my Henry that sighed!” All mournful she hastened, nor wandered she far, When bleeding, and low, on the heath she descried, By the light of the moon, her poor wounded Hussar! From his bosom that heaved, the last torrent was streaming, And pale was his visage, deep marked with a scar! And dim was that eye, once expressively beaming, That melted in love, and that kindled in war! How smit was poor Adelaide’s heart at the sight! How bitter she wept o’er the victim of war! “Hast thou come, my fond Love, this last sorrowful night, To cheer the lone heart of your wounded Hussar?” “Thou shalt live,” she replied, “Heaven’s mercy relieving Each anguishing wound, shall forbid me to mourn!” “Ah, no! the last pang of my bosom is heaving! No light of the morn shall to Henry return! “Thou charmer of life, ever tender and true! Ye babes of my love, that await me afar!” His faltering tongue scarce could murmur adieu, When he sunk in her arms—the poor wounded Hussar!
LINES
INSCRIBED ON THE MONUMENT
LATELY FINISHED BY MR. CHANTREY, WHICH HAS BEEN ERECTED BY THE WIDOW OF
ADMIRAL SIR G. CAMPBELL K.C.B.,
TO THE MEMORY OF HER HUSBAND. To him, whose loyal, brave, and gentle heart, Fulfilled the hero’s and the patriot’s part,— Whose charity, like that which Paul enjoined, Was warm, beneficent, and unconfined,— This stone is reared: to public duty true, The seaman’s friend, the father of his crew— Mild in reproof, sagacious in command, He spread fraternal zeal throughout his band, And led each arm to act, each heart to feel, What British valour owes to Britain’s weal. These were his public virtues:—but to trace His private life’s fair purity and grace, To paint the traits that drew affection strong From friends, an ample and an ardent throng, And, more, to speak his memory’s grateful claim On her who mourns him most, and bears his name— O’ercomes the trembling hand of widowed grief, O’ercomes the heart, unconscious of relief Save in religion’s high and holy trust, Whilst placing their memorial o’er his dust.
THE BRAVE ROLAND.[73] The brave Roland!—the brave Roland!— False tidings reached the Rhenish strand That he had fallen in fight; And thy faithful, bosom swooned with pain, O loveliest maiden of AllÉmayne! For the loss of thine own true knight. But why so rash has she ta’en the veil, In yon Nonnenwerder’s cloisters pale? For her vow had scarce been sworn, And the fatal mantle o’er her flung, When the Drachenfells to a trumpet rung— ’Twas her own dear warrior’s horn! Woe! woe! each heart shall bleed—shall break! She would have hung upon his neck, Had he come but yester-even; And he had clasped those peerless charms That shall never, never fill his arms, Or meet him but in heaven. Yet Roland the brave—Roland the true— He could not bid that spot adieu; It was dear still ’midst his woes; For he loved to breathe the neighbouring air, And to think she blessed him in her prayer, When the Halleluiah rose. There’s yet one window of that pile, Which he built above the Nun’s green isle; Thence sad and oft looked he (When the chant and organ sounded slow) On the mansion of his love below, For herself he might not see. She died!—He sought the battle plain; Her image filled his dying brain, When he fell and wished to fall: And her name was in his latest sigh, When Roland, the flower of chivalry, Expired at Roncevall.
THE SPECTRE BOAT.
A BALLAD. Light rued false Ferdinand to leave a lovely maid forlorn, Who broke her heart and died to hide her blushing cheek from scorn. One night he dreamt he wooed her in their wonted bower of love, Where the flowers sprang thick around them, and the birds sang sweet above. But the scene was swiftly changed into a churchyard’s dismal view, And her lips grew black beneath his kiss, from love’s delicious hue. What more he dreamt, he told to none; but, shuddering, pale, and dumb, Looked out upon the waves, like one that knew his hour was come. ’Twas now the dead watch of the night—the helm was lashed a-lee, And the ship rode where Mount Ætna lights the deep Levantine sea; When beneath its glare a boat came, rowed by a woman in her shroud, Who, with eyes that made our blood run cold, stood up and spoke aloud:— “Come, Traitor, down, for whom my ghost still wanders unforgiven! Come down, false Ferdinand, for whom I broke my peace with heaven!”— It was vain to hold the victim, for he plunged to meet her call, Like the bird that shrieks and flutters in the gazing serpent’s thrall. You may guess the boldest mariner shrunk daunted from the sight, For the spectre and her winding-sheet shone blue with hideous light; Like a fiery wheel the boat spun with the waving of her hand, And round they went, and down they went, as the cock crew from the land.
THE LOVER TO HIS MISTRESS
ON HER BIRTH-DAY. If any white-winged Power above My joys and griefs survey, The day when thou wert born, my love— He surely blessed that day. I laughed (till taught by thee) when told Of Beauty’s magic powers, That ripened life’s dull ore to gold, And changed its weeds to flowers. My mind had lovely shapes portrayed, But thought I earth had one Could make e’en Fancy’s visions fade Like stars before the sun? I gazed, and felt upon my lips The unfinished accents hang: One moment’s bliss, one burning kiss, To rapture changed each pang. And though as swift as lightning’s flash Those trancÈd moments flew, Not all the waves of time shall wash Their memory from my view. But duly shall my raptured song, And gladly shall my eyes Still bless this day’s return, as long As thou shalt see it rise.
HOHENLINDEN. On Linden, when the sun was low, All bloodless lay the untrodden snow, And dark as winter was the flow Of Iser, rolling rapidly. But Linden saw another sight, When the drum beat, at dead of night, Commanding fires of death to light The darkness of her scenery. By torch and trumpet fast arrayed, Each horseman drew his battle blade, And furious every charger neighed, To join the dreadful revelry. Then shook the hills with thunder riven, Then rushed the steed to battle driven, And louder than the bolts of heaven, Far flashed the red artillery. But redder yet that light shall glow On Linden’s hills of stainÈd snow, And bloodier yet the torrent flow Of Iser, rolling rapidly. ’Tis morn, but scarce yon level sun Can pierce the war-clouds, rolling dun, Where furious Frank, and fiery Hun, Shout in their sulph’rous canopy. The combat deepens. On, ye brave, Who rush to glory, or the grave! Wave, Munich! all thy banners wave, And charge with all thy chivalry! Few, few, shall part where many meet! The snow shall be their winding-sheet, And every turf beneath their feet Shall be a soldier’s sepulchre.
GLENARA. O heard ye yon pibroch sound sad in the gale, Where a band cometh slowly with weeping and wail? ’Tis the chief of Glenara [74] laments for his dear; And her sire, and the people, are called to her bier. Glenara came first with the mourners and shroud; Her kinsmen they followed, but mourned not aloud: Their plaids all their bosoms were folded around: They marched all in silence,—they looked on the ground. In silence they reached over mountain and moor, To a heath, where the oak-tree grew lonely and hoar; “Now here let us place the grey stone of her cairn: Why speak ye no word!”—said Glenara the stern. “And tell me, I charge you! ye clan of my spouse, Why fold ye your mantles, why cloud ye your brows?” So spake the rude chieftain:—no answer is made, But each mantle unfolding a dagger displayed. “I dreamt of my lady, I dreamt of her shroud,” Cried a voice from the kinsmen, all wrathful and loud; “And empty that shroud, and that coffin did seem: Glenara! Glenara! now read me my dream!” O! pale grew the cheek of that chieftain, I ween, When the shroud was unclosed, and no lady was seen; When a voice from the kinsmen spoke louder in scorn, ’Twas the youth who had loved the fair Ellen of Lorn: “I dreamt of my lady, I dreamt of her grief, I dreamt that her lord was a barbarous chief: On a rock of the ocean fair Ellen did seem; Glenara! Glenara! now read me my dream!” In dust, low the traitor has knelt to the ground, And the desert revealed where his lady was found; From a rock of the ocean that beauty is borne— Now joy to the house of fair Ellen of Lorn!
LINES
ON RECEIVING A SEAL WITH THE CAMPBELL CREST, FROM K. M——, BEFORE HER MARRIAGE. This wax returns not back more fair The impression of the gift you send, Than stamped upon my thoughts I bear The image of your worth, my friend! We are not friends of yesterday;— But poet’s fancies are a little Disposed to heat and cool (they say),— By turns impressible and brittle. Well! should its frailty e’er condemn My heart to prize or please you less, Your type is still the sealing gem, And mine the waxen brittleness. What transcripts of my weal and woe This little signet yet may lock,— What utterances to friend or foe, In reason’s calm or passion’s shock! What scenes of life’s yet curtained page May own its confidential die, Whose stamp awaits the unwritten page, And feelings of futurity! Yet wheresoe’er my pen I lift To date the epistolary sheet, The blest occasion of the gift Shall make its recollection sweet; Sent when the star that rules your fates Hath reached its influence most benign— When every heart congratulates, And none more cordially than mine. So speed my song—marked with the crest That erst the adventurous Norman [75] wore, Who won the Lady of the West, The daughter of Macaillain Mor. Crest of my sires! whose blood it sealed With glory in the strife of swords, Ne’er may the scroll that bears it yield Degenerate thoughts or faithless words! Yet little might I prize the stone, If it but typed the feudal tree From whence a scattered leaf, I’m blown In Fortune’s mutability. No!—but it tells me of a heart, Allied by friendship’s living tie; A prize beyond the herald’s art— Our soul-sprung consanguinity! Katherine! to many an hour of mine Light wings and sunshine you have lent; And so adieu, and still be thine The all-in-all of life—Content!
GILDEROY. The last, the fatal hour is come, That bears my love from me; I hear the dead note of the drum, I mark the gallows’ tree! The bell has tolled; it shakes my heart; The trumpet speaks thy name; And must my Gilderoy depart To bear a death of shame? No bosom trembles for thy doom; No mourner wipes a tear; The gallows’ foot is all thy tomb, The sledge is all thy bier. Oh, Gilderoy! bethought we then So soon, so sad to part, When first in Roslin’s lovely glen You triumphed o’er my heart? Your locks they glittered to the sheen, Your hunter garb was trim; And graceful was the ribbon green That bound your manly limb! Ah! little thought I to deplore Those limbs in fetters bound; Or hear, upon the scaffold floor, The midnight hammer sound. Ye cruel, cruel, that combined The guiltless to pursue; My Gilderoy was ever kind, He could not injure you! A long adieu! but where shall fly Thy widow all forlorn, When every mean and cruel eye Regards my woe with scorn? Yes! they will mock thy widow’s tears, And hate thine orphan boy; Alas! his infant beauty wears The form of Gilderoy. Then will I seek the dreary mound That wraps thy mouldering clay, And weep and linger on the ground, And sigh my heart away.
ADELGITHA. The ordeal’s fatal trumpet sounded, And sad pale Adelgitha came, When forth a valiant champion bounded, And slew the slanderer of her fame. She wept, delivered from her danger; But when he knelt to claim her glove— “Seek not,” she cried, “oh! gallant stranger, For hapless Adelgitha’s love. “For he is in a foreign far land Whose arm should now have set me free And I must wear the willow garland For him that’s dead, or false to me.” “Nay! say not that his faith is tainted!” He raised his vizor—At the sight She fell into his arms and fainted; It was indeed her own true knight!
ABSENCE. ’Tis not the loss of love’s assurance, It is not doubting what thou art, But ’tis the too, too long endurance Of absence, that afflicts my heart. The fondest thoughts two hearts can cherish, When each is lonely doomed to weep, Are fruits on desert isles that perish, Or riches buried in the deep. What though, untouched by jealous madness, Our bosom’s peace may fall to wreck; The undoubting heart, that breaks with sadness, Is but more slowly doomed to break. Absence! is not the soul torn by it From more than light, or life, or breath? ’Tis Lethe’s gloom, but not its quiet,— The pain without the peace of death!
THE RITTER BANN. The Ritter Bann from Hungary Came back renowned in arms, But scorning jousts of chivalry And love and ladies’ charms. While other knights held revels, he Was wrapt in thoughts of gloom, And in Vienna’s hostelrie Slow paced his lonely room. There entered one whose face he knew,— Whose voice, he was aware, He oft at mass had listened to, In the holy house of prayer. ’Twas the Abbot of St. James’s monks, A fresh and fair old man: His reverend air arrested even The gloomy Ritter Bann. But seeing with him an ancient dame Come clad in Scotch attire, The Ritter’s colour went and came, And loud he spoke in ire. “Ha! nurse of her that was my bane, Name not her name to me; I wish it blotted from my brain: Art poor?—take alms, and flee.” “Sir Knight,” the Abbot interposed, “This case your ear demands;” And the crone cried, with a cross enclosed In both her trembling hands:— “Remember, each his sentence waits; And he that shall rebut Sweet Mercy’s suit, on him the gates Of Mercy shall be shut. “You wedded, undispensed by Church, Your cousin Jane in Spring; In Autumn, when you went to search For churchmen’s pardoning, “Her house denounced your marriage-band, Betrothed her to De Grey, And the ring you put upon her hand Was wrenched by force away. “Then wept your Jane upon my neck, Crying, ‘Help me, nurse, to flee To my Howel Bann’s Glamorgan hills;’ But word arrived—ah me!— “You were not there; and ’twas their threat, By foul means or by fair, To-morrow morning was to set The seal on her despair. “I had a son, a sea-boy, in A ship at Hartland Bay; By his aid from her cruel kin I bore my bird away. “To Scotland from the Devon’s Green myrtle shores we fled; And the Hand that sent the ravens To Elijah, gave us bread. “She wrote you by my son, but he From England sent us word You had gone into some far countrie, In grief and gloom he heard. “For they that wronged you, to elude Your wrath, defamed my child; And you—ay, blush, Sir, as you should— Believed, and were beguiled. “To die but at your feet, she vowed To roam the world; and we Would both have sped and begged our bread, But so it might not be. “For when the snow-storm beat our roof, She bore a boy, Sir Bann, Who grew as fair your likeness proof As child e’er grew like man. “’Twas smiling on that babe one morn While heath bloomed on the moor, Her beauty struck young Lord Kinghorn As he hunted past our door. ‘She shunned him, but he raved of Jane, And roused his mother’s pride; Who came to us in high disdain,— ‘And where’s the face,’ she cried, “‘Has witched my boy to wish for one So wretched for his wife?— Dost love thy husband? Know, my son Has sworn to seek his life.’ “Her anger sore dismayed us, For our mite was wearing scant, And unless that dame would aid us, There was none to aid our want. “So I told her, weeping bitterly, What all our woes had been; And though she was a stern ladie, The tears stood in her een. “And she housed us both, when, cheerfully, My child to her had sworn, That even if made a widow, she Would never wed Kinghorn.”—— Here paused the nurse, and then began The Abbot, standing by:— “Three months ago a wounded man To our abbey came to die. “He heard me long, with ghastly eyes And hand obdurate clenched, Speak of the worm that never dies, And the fire that is not quenched. “At last by what this scroll attests He left atonement brief, For years of anguish to the breasts His guilt had wrung with grief. “‘There lived,’ he said, ‘a fair young dame Beneath my mother’s roof; I loved her, but against my flame Her purity was proof. “‘I feigned repentance, friendship pure: That mood she did not check, But let her husband’s miniature Be copied from her neck. “‘As means to search him, my deceit Took care to him was borne Nought but his picture’s counterfeit, And Jane’s reported scorn. “‘The treachery took: she waited wild; My slave came back and lied Whate’er I wished; she clasped her child, And swooned, and all but died. “‘I felt her tears for years and years Quench not my flame, but stir; The very hate I bore her mate Increased my love for her. “‘Fame told us of his glory, while Joy flushed the face of Jane; And while she blessed his name, her smile Struck fire into my brain. “‘No fears could damp; I reached the camp, Sought out its champion; And if my broad-sword failed at last, ’Twas long and well laid on. “‘This wound’s my meed, my name’s Kinghorn, My foe’s the Ritter Bann.’—— The wafer to his lips was borne, And we shrived the dying man. “He died not till you went to fight The Turks at Warradein; But I see my tale has changed you pale.”— The Abbot went for wine; And brought a little page who poured It out, and knelt and smiled:— The stunned knight saw himself restored To childhood in his child; And stooped and caught him to his breast, Laughed loud and wept anon, And with a shower of kisses pressed The darling little one. “And where went Jane?”—“To a nunnery, Sir— Look not again so pale— Kinghorn’s old dame grew harsh to her.”— “And has she ta’en the veil?”— “Sit down, Sir,” said the priest, “I bar Rash words.”—They sat all three, And the boy played with the knight’s broad star, As he kept him on his knee. “Think ere you ask her dwelling-place,” The Abbot further said; “Time draws a veil o’er beauty’s face More deep than cloister’s shade. “Grief may have made her what you can Scarce love perhaps for life.” “Hush, Abbot,” cried the Ritter Bann, “Or tell me where’s my wife.” The priest undid two doors that hid The inn’s adjacent room, And there a lovely woman stood, Tears bathed her beauty’s bloom. One moment may with bliss repay Unnumbered hours of pain; Such was the throb and mutual sob Of the Knight embracing Jane.
THE HARPER.
SONG
TO THE EVENING STAR. Star that bringest home the bee, And sett’st the weary labourer free! If any star shed peace, ’tis thou, That send’st it from above, Appearing when Heaven’s breath and brow Are sweet as hers we love. Come to the luxuriant skies, Whilst the landscape’s odours rise, Whilst far-off lowing herds are heard, And songs, when toil is done, From cottages whose smoke unstirred Curls yellow in the sun. Star of love’s soft interviews, Parted lovers on thee muse; Their remembrancer in Heaven Of thrilling vows thou art, Too delicious to be riven By absence from the heart.
SONG.
“MEN OF ENGLAND.” Men of England! who inherit Rights that cost your sires their blood! Men whose undegenerate spirit Has been proved on land and flood:— By the foes ye’ve fought uncounted, By the glorious deeds ye’ve done, Trophies captured—breaches mounted, Navies conquered—kingdoms won! Yet, remember, England gathers Hence but fruitless wreaths of fame, If the patriotism of your fathers Glow not in your hearts the same. What are monuments of bravery, Where no public virtues bloom? What avail in lands of slavery, Trophied temples, arch, and tomb? Pageants!—Let the world revere us For our people’s rights and laws, And the breasts of civic heroes Bared in Freedom’s holy cause. Yours are Hampden’s, Russell’s glory, Sydney’s matchless shade is yours,— Martyrs in heroic story, Worth a hundred Agincourts! We’re the sons of sires that baffled Crowned and mitred tyranny:— They defied the field and scaffold For their birthrights—so will we!
THE MAID’S REMONSTRANCE. Never wedding, ever wooing, Still a love-lorn heart pursuing, Read you not the wrong you’re doing In my cheek’s pale hue? All my life with sorrow strewing, Wed, or cease to woo. Rivals banished, bosoms plighted, Still our days are disunited; Now the lamp of hope is lighted, Now half quenched appears, Damped, and wavering, and benighted, Midst my sighs and tears. Charms you call your dearest blessing, Lips that thrill at your caressing, Eyes a mutual soul confessing, Soon you’ll make them grow Dim, and worthless your possessing Not with age, but woe!
SONG. Drink ye to her that each loves best. And if you nurse a flame That’s told but to her mutual breast, We will not ask her name. Enough, while memory tranced and glad Paints silently the fair, That each should dream of joys he’s had, Or yet may hope to share. Yet far, far hence be jest or boast From hallowed thoughts so dear; But drink to them that we love most, As they would love to hear.
SONG. When Napoleon was flying From the field of Waterloo, A British soldier dying To his brother bade adieu! “And take,” he said, “this token To the maid that owns my faith, With the words that I have spoken In affection’s latest breath.” Sore mourned the brother’s heart, When the youth beside him fell; But the trumpet warned to part, And they took a sad farewell. There was many a friend to lose him, For that gallant soldier sighed; But the maiden of his bosom Wept when all their tears were dried.
THE BEECH-TREE’S PETITION. O leave this barren spot to me! Spare, woodman, spare the beechen tree Though bush or floweret never grow My dark unwarming shade below; Nor summer bird perfume the dew Of rosy blush, or yellow hue; Nor fruits of autumn, blossom-born, My green and glossy leaves adorn; Nor murmuring tribes from me derive The ambrosial amber of the hive; Yet leave this barren spot to me: Spare, woodman, spare the beechen tree! Thrice twenty summers I have seen The sky grow bright, the forest green; And many a wintry wind have stood In bloomless, fruitless solitude, Since childhood in my pleasant bower First spent its sweet and sportive hour. Since youthful lovers in my shade Their vows of truth and rapture made; And on my trunk’s surviving frame Carved many a long-forgotten name. Oh! by the sighs of gentle sound, First breathed upon this sacred ground, By all that Love has whispered here, Or Beauty heard with ravished ear; As Love’s own altar honour me: Spare woodman, spare the beechen tree!
SONG. Earl March looked on his dying child, And smit with grief to view her— “The youth,” he cried, “whom I exiled, Shall be restored to woo her.” She’s at the window many an hour His coming to discover; And her love looked up to Ellen’s bower, And she looked on her lover— But ah! so pale, he knew her not, Though her smile on him was dwelling. “And am I then forgot—forgot?”— It broke the heart of Ellen. In vain he weeps, in vain he sighs, Her cheek is cold as ashes; Nor love’s own kiss shall wake those eyes To lift their silken lashes.
LOVE AND MADNESS.
AN ELEGY.
WRITTEN IN 1795. Hark! from the battlements of yonder tower [76]The solemn bell has tolled the midnight hour! Roused from drear visions of distempered sleep, Poor Broderick [77] wakes—in solitude to weep! “Cease, Memory, cease,” the friendless mourner cried, “To probe the bosom too severely tried! Oh! ever cease, my pensive thoughts, to stray Through the bright fields of Fortune’s better day When youthful Hope, the music of the mind, Tuned all its charms, and Errington was kind! “Yet, can I cease, while glows this trembling frame, In sighs to speak thy melancholy name? I hear thy spirit wail in every storm! In midnight shades I view thy passing form! Pale as in that sad hour when doomed to feel, Deep in thy perjured heart, the bloody steel! “Demons of Vengeance! ye at whose command I grasped the sword with more than woman’s hand. Say ye, did Pity’s trembling voice control, Or horror damp the purpose of my soul? No! my wild heart sat smiling o’er the plan, Till Hate fulfilled what baffled Love began! “Yes; let the clay-cold breast that never knew One tender pang to generous Nature true, Half-mingling pity with the gall of scorn, Condemn this heart, that bled in love forlorn! “And ye, proud fair, whose soul no gladness warms, Save Rapture’s homage to your conscious charms! Delighted idols of a gaudy train, Ill can your blunter feelings guess the pain, When the fond faithful heart, inspired to prove Friendship refined, the calm delight of love, Feels all its tender strings with anguish torn, And bleeds at perjured Pride’s inhuman scorn! “Say, then, did pitying Heaven condemn the deed, When Vengeance bade thee, faithless lover! bleed? Long had I watched thy dark foreboding brow, What time thy bosom scorned its dearest vow! Sad, though I wept the friend, the lover changed, Still thy cold look was scornful and estranged, Till from thy pity, love, and shelter thrown, I wandered hopeless, friendless, and alone! “Oh! righteous Heaven! ’twas then my tortured soul First gave to wrath unlimited control! Adieu the silent look! the streaming eye! The murmured plaint! the deep heart-heaving sigh Long-slumbering Vengeance wakes to better deeds; He shrieks, he falls, the perjured lover bleeds! Now the last laugh of agony is o’er, And pale in blood he sleeps, to wake no more! “’Tis done! the flame of hate no longer burns Nature relents, but, ah! too late returns! Why does my soul this gush of fondness feel? Trembling and faint, I drop the guilty steel! Cold on my heart the hand of terror lies, And shades of horror close my languid eyes! “Oh!’twas a deed of Murder’s deepest grain, Could Broderick’s soul so true to wrath remain? A friend long true, a once fond lover fell!— Where Love was fostered could not Pity dwell? “Unhappy youth! while yon pale crescent glows To watch on silent nature’s deep repose, Thy sleepless spirit, breathing from the tomb, Foretells my fate, and summons me to come! Once more I see thy sheeted spectre stand, Roll the dim eye, and wave the paly hand! “Soon may this fluttering spark of vital flame Forsake its languid melancholy frame! Soon may these eyes their trembling lustre close, Welcome the dreamless night of long repose! Soon may this woe-worn spirit seek the bourne Where, lulled to slumber, Grief forgets to mourn!”
SONG. Oh, how hard it is to find The one just suited to our mind; And if that one should be False, unkind, or found too late, What can we do but sigh at fate, And sing, Woe’s me—Woe’s me! Love’s a boundless burning waste, Where Bliss’s stream we seldom taste, And still more seldom flee Suspense’s thorns, Suspicion’s stings; Yet somehow Love a something brings That’s sweet—e’en when we sigh, “Woe’s me!”
STANZAS
ON THE THREATENED INVASION 1803. Our bosoms we’ll bare for the glorious strife, And our oath is recorded on high, To prevail in the cause that is dearer than life, Or crushed in its ruins to die! Then rise, fellow freemen, and stretch the right hand, And swear to prevail in your dear native land! ’Tis the home we hold sacred is laid to our trust— God bless the green Isle of the brave! Should a conqueror tread on our forefathers’ dust, It would rouse the old dead from their grave! Then rise, fellow freemen, and stretch the right hand, And swear to prevail in your dear native land! In a Briton’s sweet home shall a spoiler abide, Profaning its loves and its charms? Shall a Frenchman insult the loved fair at our side? To arms! oh, my Country, to arms! Then rise, fellow freemen, and stretch the right hand, And swear to prevail in your dear native land! Shall a tyrant enslave us, my countrymen!—No! His head to the sword shall be given— A death-bed repentance be taught the proud foe, And his blood be an offering to Heaven! Then rise, fellow freemen, and stretch the right hand, And swear to prevail in your dear native land!
EXILE OF ERIN.[78] There came to the beach a poor Exile of Erin, The dew on his thin robe was heavy and chill: For his country he sighed, when at twilight repairing To wander alone by the wind-beaten hill. But the day-star attracted his eye’s sad devotion, For it rose o’er his own native isle of the ocean, Where once in the fire of his youthful emotion, He sang the bold anthem of “Erin go bragh!” [79] “Sad is my fate!” said the heart-broken stranger; “The wild deer and wolf to a covert can flee, But I have no refuge from famine and danger, A home and a country remain not to me. Never again, in the green sunny bowers, Where my forefathers lived, shall I spend the sweet hours, Or cover my harp with the wild-woven flowers, And strike to the numbers of ‘Erin go bragh!’ “Erin, my country! though sad and forsaken, In dreams I revisit the sea-beaten shore; But, alas! in a far foreign land I awaken, And sigh for the friends who can meet me no more! Oh cruel fate! wilt thou never replace me In a mansion of peace—where no perils can chase me? Never again shall my brothers embrace me? They die to defend me, or live to deplore! “Where is my cabin-door, fast by the wild-wood? Sisters and sire! did ye weep for its fall? Where is the mother that looked on my childhood? And where is the bosom-friend, dearer than all? Oh! my sad heart! long abandoned by pleasure, Why did it doat on a fast-fading treasure? Tears, like the rain-drop, may fall without measure, But rapture and beauty they cannot recall. “Yet all its sad recollections suppressing, One dying wish my lone bosom can draw: Erin! an exile bequeaths thee his blessing! Land of my forefathers! ‘Erin go bragh!’ Buried and cold, when my heart stills her motion, Green be thy fields,—sweetest isle of the ocean! And thy harp-striking bards sing aloud with devotion,— Erin mavournin [80]—Erin go bragh!’”
LORD ULLIN’S DAUGHTER. A chieftain to the Highlands bound, Cries, “Boatman, do not tarry! And I’ll give thee a silver pound, To row us o’er the ferry.” “Now who be ye, would cross Lochgyle, This dark and stormy water?” “O, I’m the chief of Ulva’s isle, And this Lord Ullin’s daughter. “And fast before her father’s men Three days we’ve fled together, For should he find us in the glen, My blood would stain the heather. “His horsemen hard behind us ride; Should they our steps discover, Then who will cheer my bonny bride When they have slain her lover?” Outspoke the hardy Highland wight “I’ll go, my chief—I’m ready; It is not for your silver bright, But for your winsome lady: “And by my word! the bonny bird In danger shall not tarry; So though the waves are raging white, I’ll row you o’er the ferry.” By this the storm grew loud apace, The water-wraith was shrieking; [81]And in the scowl of heaven each face Grew dark as they were speaking. But still as wilder blew the wind, And as the night grew drearer, Adown the glen rode armÈd men, Their trampling sounded nearer. “O haste thee, haste!” the lady cries, “Though tempests round us gather; I’ll meet the raging of the skies, But not an angry father.” The boat has left a stormy land, A stormy sea before her,— When, oh! too strong for human hand, The tempest gathered o’er her. And still they rowed amidst the roar Of waters fast prevailing: Lord Ullin reached that fatal shore, His wrath was changed to wailing. For sore dismayed, through storm and shade, His child he did discover: One lovely hand she stretched for aid, And one was round her lover. “Come back! come back!” he cried in grief, “Across this stormy water: And I’ll forgive your Highland chief, My daughter!—oh my daughter!” Twas vain: the loud waves lashed the shore, Return or aid preventing: The waters wild went o’er his child— And he was left lamenting.
ODE
TO
THE MEMORY OF BURNS. Soul of the Poet! wheresoe’er, Reclaimed from earth, thy genius plume Her wings of immortality: Suspend thy harp in happier sphere, And with thine influence illume The gladness of our jubilee. And fly like fiends from secret spell, Discord and strife, at Burns’s name, Exorcised by his memory; For he was chief of bards that swell The heart with songs of social flame, And high delicious revelry. And Love’s own strain to him was given, To warble all its ecstasies With Pythian words unsought, unwilled— Love, the surviving gift of Heaven, The choicest sweet of Paradise, In life’s else bitter cup distilled. Who that has melted o’er his lay To Mary’s soul, in Heaven above, But pictured sees, in fancy strong, The landscape and the livelong day That smiled upon their mutual love? Who that has felt forgets the song? Nor skilled one flame alone to fan: His country’s high-souled peasantry What patriot-pride he taught!—how much To weigh the inborn worth of man! And rustic life and poverty Grow beautiful beneath his touch. Him, in his clay-built cot, [82] the muse Entranced, and showed him all the forms Of fairy-light and wizard gloom (That only gifted Poet views), The Genii of the floods and storms, And martial shades from Glory’s tomb. On Bannock-field what thoughts arouse The swain whom Burns’s song inspires? Beat not his Caledonian veins, As o’er the heroic turf he ploughs, With all the spirit of his sires, And all their scorn of death and chains? And see the Scottish exile tanned By many a far and foreign clime, Bend o’er his home-born verse, and weep In memory of his native land, With love that scorns the lapse of time, And ties that stretch beyond the deep. Encamped by Indian rivers wild, The soldier resting on his arms, In Burns’s carol sweet recalls The scenes that blessed him when a child, And glows and gladdens at the charms Of Scotia’s woods and waterfalls. O deem not, midst this worldly strife, An idle art the Poet brings: Let high Philosophy control And sages calm the stream of life, ’Tis he refines its fountain-springs, The nobler passions of the soul. It is the muse that consecrates The native banner of the brave, Unfurling at the trumpet’s breath, Rose, thistle, harp; ’tis she elates To sweep the field or ride the wave, A sunburst in the storm of death. And thou, young hero, when thy pall Is crossed with mournful sword and plume, When public grief begins to fade, And only tears of kindred fall, Who but the Bard shall dress thy tomb, And greet with fame thy gallant shade? Such was the soldier—Burns, forgive That sorrows of mine own intrude In strains to thy great memory due. In verse like thine, oh! could he live, The friend I mourned—the brave, the good— Edward that died at Waterloo! [83] Farewell, high chief of Scottish song! That couldst alternately impart Wisdom and rapture in thy page, And brand each vice with satire strong, Whose lines are mottoes of the heart, Whose truths electrify the sage. Farewell! and ne’er may Envy dare To wring one baleful poison drop From the crushed laurels of thy bust: But while the lark sings sweet in air, Still may the grateful pilgrim stop, To bless the spot that holds thy dust.
THE SOLDIER’S DREAM. Our bugles sang truce—for the night-cloud had lowered, And the sentinel stars set their watch in the sky; And thousands had sunk on the ground overpowered, The weary to sleep, and the wounded to die. When reposing that night on my pallet of straw, By the wolf-scaring faggot that guarded the slain, At the dead of the night a sweet vision I saw, And thrice ere the morning I dreamt it again. Methought from the battle-field’s dreadful array, Far, far I had roamed on a desolate track: ’Twas Autumn,—and sunshine arose on the way To the home of my fathers, that welcomed me back. I flew to the pleasant fields traversed so oft In life’s morning march, when my bosom was young I heard my own mountain-goats bleating aloft, And knew the sweet strain that the corn-reapers sung. Then pledged we the wine-cup, and fondly I swore, From my home and my weeping friends never to part My little ones kissed me a thousand times o’er, And my wife sobbed aloud in her fulness of heart, Stay, stay with us,—rest, thou art weary and worn; And fain was their war-broken soldier to stay;— But sorrow returned with the dawning of morn, And the voice in my dreaming ear melted away.
LINES
WRITTEN ON VISITING A SCENE IN ARGYLESHIRE. At the silence of twilight’s contemplative hour, I have mused in a sorrowful mood, On the wind-shaken weeds that embosom the bower, Where the home of my forefathers stood. [84]All ruined and wild is their roofless abode, And lonely the dark raven’s sheltering tree: And travelled by few is the grass-covered road, Where the hunter of deer and the warrior trode To his hills that encircle the sea. Yet wandering, I found on my ruinous walk, By the dial-stone agÈd and green, One rose of the wilderness left on its stalk, To mark where a garden had been Like a brotherless hermit, the last of its race, All wild in the silence of nature, it drew, From each wandering sun-beam, a lonely embrace, For the night-weed and thorn overshadowed the place, Where the flower of my forefathers grew. Sweet bud of the wilderness! emblem of all That remains in this desolate heart! The fabric of bliss to its centre may fall, But patience shall never depart! Though the wilds of enchantment, all vernal and bright, In the days of delusion by fancy combined With the vanishing phantoms of love and delight, Abandon my soul, like a dream of the night, And leave but a desert behind. Be hushed, my dark spirit! for wisdom condemns When the faint and the feeble deplore; Be strong as the rock of the ocean that stems A thousand wild waves on the shore! Through the perils of chance, and the scowl of disdain, May thy front be unaltered, thy courage elate! Yea! even the name I have worshipped in vain Shall awake not the sigh of remembrance again: To bear is to conquer our fate.
SPANISH PATRIOT’S SONG. How rings each sparkling Spanish brand, There’s music in its rattle; And gay, as for a saraband, We gird us for the battle. Follow, follow! To the glorious revelry, When the sabres bristle, And the death-shots whistle. Of rights for which our swords outspring, Shall AngoulÊme bereave us? We’ve plucked a bird of nobler wing— The eagle could not brave us. Follow, follow! Shake the Spanish blade, and sing— France shall ne’er enslave us: Tyrants shall not brave us. Shall yonder rag, the Bourbon’s flag, White emblem of his liver, For Spain the proud be Freedom’s shroud? Oh, never, never, never. Follow, follow! Follow to the fight, and sing— Liberty for ever: Ever, ever, ever. Thrice welcome hero of the hilt, We laugh to see his standard; Here let his miscreant blood be spilt Where braver men’s was squandered. Follow, follow! If the laureled tricolor Durst not over-flaunt us, Shall yon lily daunt us? No! ere they quell our valour’s veins, They’ll upward to their fountains Turn back the rivers on our plains, And trample flat our mountains. Follow, follow! Shake the Spanish blade, and sing— France shall ne’er enslave us: Tyrants shall not brave us.
VERSES
ON
MARIE ANTOINETTE.[85] Behold where Gallia’s captive queen, With steady eye and look serene, In life’s last awful—awful scene, Slow leaves her sad captivity. Hark! the shrill horn that rends the sky Bespeaks thy ready murder nigh, The long parade of death I spy, And leave my lone captivity. Farewell, ye mansions of despair, Scenes of my sad sequestered care. The balm of bleeding war is near. Adieu, my lone captivity. To purer mansions in the sky, Fair Hope directs my grief-worn eye, Where sorrow’s child no more shall sigh Amid her lone captivity. Adieu, ye babes whose infant bloom Beneath oppression’s lawless doom, Pines in the solitary gloom Of undeserved captivity. O Power benign that rul’st on high, Cast down, cast down a pitying eye; Shed consolation from the sky, To soothe their sad captivity. Now virtue’s sure reward to prove, I seek empyreal realms above, To meet my long-departed love; Adieu my lone captivity. [85] These lines were published in a leading Glasgow newspaper in 1792.
DIRGE OF WALLACE. They lighted the tapers at dead of night, And chanted their holiest hymn, But her brow and her bosom were damp with affright, Her eye was all sleepless and dim. And the lady of Elderslie wept for her lord, When a deathwatch beat in her lonely room, When her curtain had shook of its own accord, And the raven had flapped at her window board, To tell of her warrior’s doom. Now sing the death-song and loudly pray For the soul of my knight so dear, And call me a widow this wretched day, Since the warning of God is here. For a nightmare rides on my strangled sleep— The lord of my bosom is doomed to die; His valorous heart they have wounded deep, And the blood-red tears shall his country weep, For Wallace of Elderslie. Yet knew not his country that ominous hour, Ere the loud matin bell was rung, That a trumpet of death on an English tower Had the dirge of her champion sung. When his dungeon light looked dim and red On the high-born blood of a martyr slain, No anthem was sung at his holy death-bed; No weeping was there when his bosom bled, And his heart was rent in twain. Oh! it was not thus when his ashen spear Was true to that knight forlorn, And hosts of a thousand were scattered like deer, At the sound of the hunter’s horn! When he strode o’er the wreck of each well-fought field, With the yellow-haired chiefs of his native land; For his lance was not shivered on helmet or shield, And the sword that seemed fit for archangel to wield, Was light in his terrible hand. But bleeding and bound though “the Wallace wight,” For his much-loved country die, The bugle ne’er sung to a braver knight Than Wallace of Elderslie. But the day of his glory shall never depart, His head unentombed shall with glory be palmed, From its blood-streaming altar his spirit shall start; Though the raven has fed on his mouldering heart— A nobler was never embalmed.
JEMIMA, ROSE, AND ELEANORE;
THREE CELEBRATED SCOTTISH BEAUTIES. Adieu! Romance’s heroines— Give me the nymphs who this good hour May charm me, not in Fiction’s scenes, But teach me Beauty’s living power. My harp that has been mute too long Shall sleep at Beauty’s name no more, So but your smiles reward my song— Jemima, Rose, and Eleanore. In whose benignant eyes are beaming The rays of purity and truth; Such as we fancy woman’s seeming In the creation’s golden youth. The more I look upon thy grace, Rosina, I could look the more; But for Jemima’s witching face, And the sweet smile of Eleanore. Had I been Lawrence, kings had wanted Their portraits, till I painted yours; And these had future hearts enchanted, When this poor verse no more endures. I would have left the Congress faces, A dull-eyed diplomatic corps, Till I had grouped you as the Graces— Jemima, Rose, and Eleanore. The Catholic bids fair saints befriend him, Your poet’s heart is Catholic too; His rosary shall be flowers ye send him, His saints’ days when he visits you. And my sere laurels for my duty, Miraculous at your touch would rise; Could I give verse one trait of beauty Like that which glads me from your eyes. Unsealed by you these lips have spoken, Disused to song for many a day, Ye’ve tuned a harp whose strings were broken, And warmed a heart of callous clay; So when my fancy next refuses To twine for you a garland more, Come back again and be my Muses— Jemima, Rose, and Eleanore.
THE
DEATH-BOAT OF HELIGOLAND Can restlessness reach the cold sepulchred head?— Ay, the quick have their sleep-walkers, so have the dead There are brains, though they moulder, that dream in the tomb, And that maddening forehear the last trumpet of doom, Till their corses start sheeted to revel on earth, Making horror more deep by the semblance of mirth: By the glare of new-lighted volcanoes they dance, Or at mid-sea appal the chilled mariner’s glance. Such I wot, was the band of cadaverous smile Seen ploughing the night-surge of Heligo’s isle. The foam of the Baltic had sparkled like fire, And the red moon looked down with an aspect of ire; But her beams on a sudden grew sick-like and grey, And the mews that had slept clanged and shrieked far away And the buoys and the beacons extinguished their light, As the boat of the stony-eyed dead came in sight, High bounding from billow to billow; each form Had its shroud like a plaid flying loose to the storm; With an oar in each pulseless and icy-cold hand, Fast they ploughed, by the lee-shore of Heligoland, Such breakers as boat of the living ne’er crossed; Now surf-sunk for minutes again they uptossed, And with livid lips shouted reply o’er the flood To the challenging watchman that curdled his blood— “We are dead—we are bound from our graces in the west, First to Hecla, and then to——” Unmeet was the rest For man’s ear. The old abbey bell thundered its clang, And their eyes gleamed with phosphorous light as it rang Ere they vanished, they stopped, and gazed silently grim, Till the eye could define them, garb, feature and limb Now who were those roamers?—of gallows or wheel Bore they marks, or the mangling anatomist’s steel? No, by magistrates’ chains ’mid their grave-clothes you saw, They were felons too proud to have perished by law; But a ribbon that hung where a rope should have been, ’Twas the badge of their faction, its hue was not green, Showed them men who had trampled and tortured and driven To rebellion the fairest Isle breathed on by Heaven,— Men whose heirs would yet finish the tyrannous task, If the Truth and the Time had not dragged off their mask. They parted—but not till the sight might discern A scutcheon distinct at their pinnace’s stern, Where letters emblazoned in blood-coloured flame, Named their faction—I blot not my page with its name.
SONG. When Love came first to Earth, the Spring Spread rose-beds to receive him And back he vowed his flight he’d wing To Heaven, if she should leave him. But Spring departing, saw his faith Pledged to the next new comer— He revelled in the warmer breath And richer bowers of Summer. Then sportive Autumn claimed by rights An Archer for her lover, And even in Winter’s dark, cold nights A charm he could discover. Her routs and balls, and fireside joy, For this time were his reasons— In short, Young Love’s a gallant boy, That likes all times and seasons.
LINES
ON THE DEPARTURE OF EMIGRANTS FOR NEW SOUTH WALES. On England’s shore I saw a pensive band, With sails unfurled for earth’s remotest strand, Like children parting from a mother, shed Tears for the home that could not yield them bread, Grief marked each face receding from the view, ’Twas grief to nature honourably true. And long, poor wanderers o’er the ecliptic deep, The song that names but home shall bid you weep; Oft shall ye fold your flocks by stars above In that far world, and miss the stars ye love; Oft, when its tuneless birds scream round forlorn, Regret the lark that gladdens England’s morn, And, giving England’s names to distant scenes, Lament that earth’s extension intervenes. But cloud not yet too long, industrious train, Your solid good with sorrow nursed in vain: For has the heart no interest yet as bland As that which binds us to our native land? The deep-drawn wish, when children crown our hearth, To hear the cherub-chorus of their mirth, Undamped by dread that want may e’er unhouse, Or servile misery knit those smiling brows: The pride to rear an independent shed, And give the lips we love unborrowed bread; To see a world, from shadowy forests won, In youthful beauty wedded to the sun; To skirt our home with harvests widely sown, And call the blooming landscape all our own, Our children’s heritage, in prospect long. These are the hopes, high-minded hopes and strong, That beckon England’s wanderers o’er the brine, To realms where foreign constellations shine; Where streams from undiscovered fountains roll, And winds shall fan them from th’ Antarctic pole, And what though doomed to shores so far apart From England’s home, that e’en the home-sick heart Quails, thinking, ere that gulf can be recrossed, How large a space of fleeting life is lost: Yet there, by time, their bosoms shall be changed, And strangers once shall cease to sigh estranged, But jocund in the year’s long sunshine roam, That yields their sickle twice its harvest-home. There, marking o’er his farm’s expanding ring New fleeces whiten and new fruits upspring, The grey-haired swain, his grandchild sporting round, Shall walk at eve his little empire’s bound, Emblazed with ruby vintage, ripening corn, And verdant rampart of Acacian thorn, While, mingling with the scent his pipe exhales, The orange-grove’s and fig-tree’s breath prevails; Survey with pride beyond a monarch’s spoil, His honest arm’s own subjugated soil; And summing all the blessings God has given, Put up his patriarchal prayer to Heaven, That when his bones shall here repose in peace, The scions of his love may still increase, And o’er a land where life has ample room, In health and plenty innocently bloom. Delightful land, in wildness e’en benign, The glorious past is ours, the future thine! As in a cradled Hercules, we trace The lines of empire in thine infant face. What nations in thy wide horizon’s span Shall teem on tracts untrodden yet by man! What spacious cities with their spires shall gleam Where now the panther laps a lonely stream, And all but brute or reptile life is dumb! Land of the free! thy kingdom is to come, Of states, with laws from Gothic bondage burst, And creeds by chartered priesthood’s unaccurst; Of navies, hoisting their emblazoned flags, Where shipless seas now wash unbeaconed crags; Of hosts reviewed in dazzling files and squares, Their pennoned trumpets breathing native airs,— For minstrels thou shalt have of native fire, And maids to sing the songs themselves inspire:— Our very speech, methinks, in after time, Shall catch th’ Ionian blandness of thy clime; And whilst the light and luxury of thy skies Give brighter smiles to beauteous woman’s eyes, The Arts, whose soul is love, shall all spontaneous rise. Untracked in deserts lies the marble mine, Undug the ore that midst thy roofs shall shine; Unborn the hands—but born they are to be— Fair Australasia, that shall give to thee Proud temple-domes, with galleries winding high, So vast in space, so just in symmetry, They widen to the contemplating eye, With colonnaded aisles in long array, And windows that enrich the flood of day O’er tesselated pavements, pictures fair, And nichÈd statues breathing golden air. Nor there, whilst all that’s seen bids Fancy swell, Shall Music’s voice refuse to seal the spell; But choral hymns shall wake enchantment round, And organs yield their tempests of sweet sound. Meanwhile, ere Arts triumphant reach their goal, How blest the years of pastoral life shall roll! E’en should some wayward hour the settler’s mind Brood sad on scenes for ever left behind, Yet not a pang that England’s name imparts, Shall touch a fibre of his children’s hearts; Bound to that native land by nature’s bond, Full little shall their wishes rove beyond Its mountains blue, and melon-skirted streams, Since childhood loved and dreamt of in their dreams. How many a name, to us uncouthly wild, Shall thrill that region’s patriotic child, And bring as sweet thoughts o’er his bosom’s chords, As aught that’s named in song to us affords! Dear shall that river’s margin be to him, Where sportive first he bathed his boyish limb, Or petted birds, still brighter than their bowers, Or twined his tame young kangaroo with flowers. But more magnetic yet to memory Shall be the sacred spot, still blooming nigh, The bower of love, where first his bosom burned, And smiling passion saw its smile returned. Go forth and prosper then, emprizing band: May He, who in the hollow of his hand The ocean holds, and rules the whirlwind’s sweep, Assuage its wrath, and guide you on the deep!
FAREWELL TO LOVE. I had a heart that doated once in passion’s boundless pain, And though the tyrant I abjured, I could not break his chain; But now that Fancy’s fire is quenched, and ne’er can burn anew, I’ve bid to Love, for all my life, adieu! adieu! adieu! I’ve known, if ever mortal knew, the spells of Beauty’s thrall, And if my song has told them not, my soul has felt them all; But Passion robs my peace no more, and Beauty’s witching sway Is now to me a star that’s fall’n—a dream that’s passed away. Hail! welcome tide of life, when no tumultuous billows roll, How wondrous to myself appears this halcyon calm of soul! The wearied bird blown o’er the deep would sooner quit its shore, Than I would cross the gulf again that time has brought me o’er. Why say the Angels feel the flame?—Oh, spirits of the skies! Can love like ours, that doats on dust, in heavenly bosoms rise?— Ah no; the hearts that best have felt its power, the best can tell, That peace on earth itself begins, when Love has bid farewell.
LINES
ON A PICTURE OF A GIRL IN THE ATTITUDE OF PRAYER, BY THE ARTIST GRUSE, IN THE POSSESSION OF LADY STEPNEY. Was man e’er doomed that beauty made By mimic art should haunt him? Like Orpheus, I adore a shade, And doat upon a phantom. Thou maid that in my inmost thought Art fancifully sainted, Why liv’st thou not—why art thou nought But canvass sweetly painted? Whose looks seem lifted to the skies, Too pure for love of mortals— As if they drew angelic eyes To greet thee at heaven’s portals. Yet loveliness has here no grace, Abstracted or ideal— Art ne’er but from a living face Drew looks so seeming real. What wert thou, maid?—thy life—thy name Oblivion hides in mystery; Though from thy face my heart could frame A long romantic history. Transported to thy time I seem, Though dust thy coffin covers— And hear the songs, in fancy’s dream, Of thy devoted lovers. How witching must have been thy breath— How sweet the living charmer— Whose very semblance after death Can make the heart grow warmer! Adieu, the charms that vainly move My soul in their possession— That prompt my lips to speak of love, Yet rob them of expression. Yet thee, dear picture, to have praised Was but a poet’s duty; And shame to him that ever gazed Impassive on thy beauty.
STANZAS
ON THE BATTLE OF NAVARINO. Hearts of oak that have bravely delivered the brave, And uplifted old Greece from the brink of the grave, ’Twas the helpless to help, and the hopeless to save, That your thunderbolts swept o’er the brine; And as long as yon sun shall look down on the wave The light of your glory shall shine. For the guerdon ye sought with your bloodshed and toil, Was it slaves, or dominion, or rapine, or spoil? No! your lofty emprize was to fetter and foil The uprooter of Greece’s domain! When he tore the last remnant of food from her soil, Till her famished sank pale as the slain! Yet, Navarin’s heroes! does Christendom breed The base hearts that will question the fame of your deed Are they men?—let ineffable scorn be their meed, And oblivion shadow their graves!— Are they women?—to Turkish serails let them speed! And be mothers of Mussulman slaves. Abettors of massacre! dare ye deplore That the death-shriek is silenced on Hellas’s shore? That the mother aghast sees her offspring no more By the hand of Infanticide grasped? And that stretched on yon billows distained by their gore Missolonghi’s assassins have gasped? Prouder scene never hallowed war’s pomp to the mind, Than when Christendom’s pennons wooed social the wind, And the flower of her brave for the combat combined, Their watch-word, humanity’s vow;— Not a sea-boy that fought in that cause, but mankind Owes a garland to honour his brow! Nor grudge, by our side, that to conquer or fall, Came the hardy rude Russ, and the high-mettled Gaul; For whose was the genius, that planned at its call, Where the whirlwind of battle should roll? All were brave! but the star of success over all Was the light of our Codrington’s soul. That star of the day-spring, regenerate Greek! Dimmed the Saracen’s moon, and struck pallid his cheek; In its first flushing morning thy Muses shall speak When their lore and their lutes they reclaim: And the first of their songs from Parnassus’s peak Shall be “Glory to Codrington’s name!”
LINES
ON LEAVING A SCENE IN BAVARIA. Adieu the woods and waters’ side Imperial Danube’s rich domain! Adieu the grotto, wild and wide, The rocks abrupt, and grassy plain! For pallid Autumn once again Hath swelled each torrent of the hill; Her clouds collect, her shadows sail, And watery winds that sweep the vale, Grow loud and louder still. But not the storm, dethroning fast Yon monarch oak of massy pile; Nor river roaring to the blast Around its dark and desert isle; Nor church-bell [86] tolling to beguile The cloud-born thunder passing by, Can sound in discord to my soul: Roll on, ye mighty waters, roll! And rage, thou darkened sky! Thy blossoms now no longer bright; Thy withered woods no longer green Yet, Eldurn shore, with dark delight I visit thy unlovely scene! For many a sunset hour serene My steps have trod thy mellow dew; When his green light the fire-fly gave, When Cynthia from the distant wave Her twilight anchor drew, And ploughed, as with a swelling sail, The billowy clouds and starry sea: Then while thy hermit nightingale Sang on his fragrant apple-tree,— Romantic, solitary, free, The visitant of Eldurn’s shore, On such a moonlight mountain strayed As echoed to the music made By Druid harps of yore. Around thy savage hills of oak, Around thy waters bright and blue, No hunter’s horn the silence broke, No dying shriek thine echo knew; But safe, sweet Eldurn woods, to you The wounded wild deer ever ran. Whose myrtle bound their grassy cave, Whose very rocks a shelter gave From blood-pursuing man. Oh heart effusions, that arose From nightly wanderings cherished here; To him who flies from many woes, Even homeless deserts can be dear! The last and solitary cheer Of those that own no earthly home, Say—is it not, ye banished race, In such a loved and lonely place Companionless to roam? Yes! I have loved thy wild abode, Unknown, unploughed, untrodden shore; Where scarce the woodman finds a road, And scarce the fisher plies an oar: For man’s neglect I love thee more; That art nor avarice intrude To tame thy torrent’s thunder-shock, Or prune thy vintage of the rock Magnificently rude. Unheeded spreads thy blossomed bud Its milky bosom to the bee; Unheeded falls along the flood desolate and aged tree. Forsaken scene, how like to thee The fate of unbefriended Worth! Like thine her fruit dishonoured falls, Like thee in solitude she calls A thousand treasures forth. O! silent spirit of the place, If, lingering with the ruined year, Thy hoary form and awful face I yet might watch and worship here! Thy storm were music to mine ear, Thy wildest walk a shelter given Sublimer thoughts on earth to find, And share, with no unhallowed mind, The majesty of heaven. What though the bosom friends of Fate,— Prosperity’s unweanÈd brood,— Thy consolations cannot rate, O self-dependent solitude! Yet with a spirit unsubdued, Though darkened by the clouds of Care, To worship thy congenial gloom, A pilgrim to the Prophet’s tomb Misfortune shall repair. On her the world hath never smiled Or looked but with accusing eye; All-silent goddess of the wild, To thee that misanthrope shall fly! I hear her deep soliloquy, I mark her proud but ravaged form, As stern she wraps her mantle round, And bids, on winter’s bleakest ground, Defiance to the storm. Peace to her banished heart, at last, In thy dominions shall descend, And, strong as beechwood in the blast, Her spirit shall refuse to bend; Enduring life without a friend, The world and falsehood left behind, Thy votary shall bear elate (Triumphant o’er opposing Fate), Her dark inspirÈd mind. But dost thou, Folly, mock the muse A wanderer’s mountain walk to sing, Who shuns a warring world, nor wooes The vulture cover of its wing? Then fly, thou cowering, shivering thing, Back to the fostering world beguiled To waste in self-consuming strife The loveless brotherhood of life, Reviling and reviled! Away, thou lover of the race That hither chased yon weeping deer! If Nature’s all majestic face More pitiless than man’s appear; Or if the wild winds seem more drear Than man’s cold charities below, Behold around his peopled plains, Where’er the social savage reigns, Exuberance of woe! His art and honours wouldst thou seek Embossed on grandeur’s giant walls? Or hear his moral thunders speak Where senates light their airy halls, Where man his brother man enthralls; Or sends his whirlwind warrants forth To rouse the slumbering fiends of war, To dye the blood-warm waves afar, And desolate the earth? From clime to clime pursue the scene, And mark in all thy spacious way, Where’er the tyrant man has been, There Peace, the cherub, cannot stay; In wilds and woodlands far away She builds her solitary bower, Where only anchorites have trod, Or friendless men, to worship God, Have wandered for an hour. In such a far forsaken vale,— And such, sweet Eldurn vale, is thine,— Afflicted nature shall inhale Heaven-borrowed thoughts and joys divine: No longer wish, no more repine For man’s neglect or woman’s scorn;— Then wed thee to an exile’s lot, For if the world hath loved thee not, Its absence may be borne.
STANZAS TO PAINTING. O thou by whose expressive art Her perfect image Nature sees In union with the Graces start, And sweeter by reflection please! In whose creative hand the hues Fresh from yon orient rainbow shine; I bless thee, PromethÉan Muse! And call thee brightest of the Nine! Possessing more than vocal power, Persuasive more than poet’s tongue; Whose lineage, in a raptured hour, [87]From Love, the Sire of Nature, sprung. Does Hope her high possession meet? Is joy triumphant, sorrow flown? Sweet is the trance, the tremor sweet, When all we love is all our own. But oh! thou pulse of pleasure dear, Slow throbbing, cold, I feel thee part; Lone absence plants a pang severe, Or death inflicts a keener dart. Then for a beam of joy to light In memory’s sad and wakeful eye! Or banish from the noon of night Her dreams of deeper agony. Shall Song its witching cadence roll? Yea, even the tenderest air repeat, That breathed when soul was knit to soul, And heart to heart responsive beat? What visions rise! to charm, to melt! The lost, the loved, the dead are near! Oh, hush that strain too deeply felt! And cease that solace too severe! But thou serenely silent art! By heaven and love wast taught to lend A milder solace to the heart, The sacred image of a friend. All is not lost! if, yet possest, To me that sweet memorial shine:— If close and closer to my breast I hold that idol all divine. Or, gazing through luxurious tears, Melt o’er the loved departed form, Till death’s cold bosom half appears With life, and speech, and spirit warm. She looks! she lives! this trancÈd hour, Her bright eye seems a purer gem Than sparkles on the throne of power, Or glories wealthy diadem. Yes, Genius, yes! thy mimic aid A treasure to my soul has given, Where beauty’s canonisÈd shade Smiles in the sainted hues of heaven No spectre forms of pleasure fled, Thy softening, sweetening tints restore; For thou canst give us back the dead, E’en in the loveliest looks they wore. Then blest be Nature’s guardian Muse, Whose hand her perished grace redeems! Whose tablet of a thousand hues The mirror of creation seems. From Love began thy high descent; And lovers, charmed by gifts of thine, Shall bless thee mutely eloquent; And call thee brightest of the Nine!
DRINKING-SONG OF MUNICH. Sweet Iser! were thy sunny realm And flowery gardens mine, Thy waters I would shade with elm To prop the tender vine; My golden flagons I would fill With rosy draughts from every hill; And under every myrtle bower, My gay companions should prolong The laugh, the revel, and the song, To many an idle hour. Like rivers crimsoned with the beam Of yonder planet bright, Our balmy cups should ever stream Profusion of delight; No care should touch the mellow heart, And sad or sober none depart; For wine can triumph over woe, And Love and Bacchus, brother powers, Could build in Iser’s sunny bowers A paradise below.
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ON REVISITING A SCOTTISH RIVER. And call they this Improvement?—to have changed, My native Clyde, thy once romantic shore, Where Nature’s face is banished and estranged, And Heaven reflected in thy wave no more; Whose banks, that sweetened May-day’s breath before, Lie sere and leafless now in summer’s beam, With sooty exhalations covered o’er; And for the daisied green sward, down thy stream Unsightly brick-lanes smoke, and clanking engines gleam. Speak not to me of swarms the scene sustains; One heart free tasting Nature’s breath and bloom Is worth a thousand slaves to Mammon’s gains. But whither goes that wealth, and gladd’ning whom? See, left but life enough and breathing-room The hunger and the hope of life to feel, Yon pale Mechanic bending o’er his loom, And Childhood’s self as at Ixion’s wheel, From morn till midnight tasked to earn its little meal. Is this Improvement?—where the human breed Degenerates as they swarm and overflow, Till Toil grows cheaper than the trodden weed, And man competes with man, like foe with foe, Till Death, that thins them, scarce seems public woe? Improvement!—smiles it in the poor man’s eyes, Or blooms it on the cheek of Labour?—No— To gorge a few with Trade’s precarious prize, We banish rural life, and breathe unwholesome skies. Nor call that evil slight; God has not given This passion to the heart of man in vain, For Earth’s green face, th’ untainted air of Heaven, And all the bliss of Nature’s rustic reign. For not alone our frame imbibes a stain From foetid skies; the spirit’s healthy pride Fades in their gloom—And therefore I complain, That thou no more through pastoral scenes shouldst glide, My Wallace’s own stream, and once romantic Clyde!
LINES
ON REVISITING CATHCART.
THE “NAME UNKNOWN;”
IN IMITATION OF KLOPSTOCK. Prophetic pencil! wilt thou trace A faithful image of the face, Or wilt thou write the “Name Unknown,” Ordained to bless my charmÈd soul, And all my future fate control, Unrivalled and alone? Delicious Idol of my thought! Though sylph or spirit hath not taught My boding heart thy precious name; Yet musing on my distant fate, To charms unseen I consecrate A visionary flame Thy rosy blush, thy meaning eye, Thy virgin voice of melody, Are ever present to my heart; Thy murmured vows shall yet be mine, My thrilling hand shall meet with thine, And never, never part! Then fly, my days, on rapid wing, Till Love the viewless treasure bring; While I, like conscious Athens, own A power in mystic silence sealed, A guardian angel unrevealed, And bless the “Name Unknown!”
SONG. Withdraw not yet those lips and fingers, Whose touch to mine is rapture’s spell; Life’s joy for us a moment lingers, And death seems in the word—farewell. The hour that bids us part and go, It sounds not yet,—oh! no, no, no! Time, whilst I gaze upon thy sweetness, Flies like a courser nigh the goal; To-morrow where shall be his fleetness, When thou art parted from my soul? Our hearts shall beat, our tears shall flow, But not together,—no, no, no!
HALLOWED GROUND. What’s hallowed ground? Has earth a clod Its Maker meant not should be trod By man, the image of his God, Erect and free, Unscourged by superstition’s rod To bow the knee? That’s hallowed ground—where mourned and missed The lips repose our love has kissed;— But where’s their memory’s mansion? Is’t Yon churchyard’s bowers? No! in ourselves their souls exist, A part of ours. A kiss can consecrate the ground Where mated hearts are mutual bound: The spot where love’s first links were wound, That ne’er are riven, Is hallowed down to earth’s profound, And up to Heaven! For time makes all but true love old; The burning thoughts that then were told Run molten still in memory’s mould; And will not cool, Until the heart itself be cold In Lethe’s pool. What hallows ground where heroes sleep? ’Tis not the sculptured piles you heap! In dews that heavens far distant weep Their turf may bloom; Or Genii twine beneath the deep Their coral tomb. But strew his ashes to the wind Whose sword or voice has served mankind— And is he dead, whose glorious mind Lifts thine on high?— To live in hearts we leave behind, Is not to die. Is’t death to fall for Freedom’s right? He’s dead alone that lacks her light! And murder sullies in Heaven’s sight The sword he draws:— What can alone ennoble fight? A noble cause! Give that! and welcome war to brace Her drums! and rend Heaven’s reeking space! The colours planted face to face, The charging cheer, Though Death’s pale horse lead on the chase, Shall still be dear. And place our trophies where men kneel To Heaven!—but Heaven rebukes my zeal! The cause of Truth and Human weal, O God above! Transfer it from the sword’s appeal To Peace and Love. Peace, Love! the cherubim that join Their spread wings o’er Devotion’s shrine— Prayers sound in vain, and temples shine, Where they are not— The heart alone can make divine Religion’s spot. To incantations dost thou trust, And pompous rites in domes august? See mouldering stones and metal’s rust Belie the vaunt, That man can bless one pile of dust With chime or chaunt. The ticking wood-worm mocks thee, man! Thy temples—creeds themselves grow wan! But there’s a dome of nobler span, A temple given Thy faith, that bigots dare not ban— Its space is Heaven! Its roof star-pictured Nature’s ceiling, Where trancing the rapt spirit’s feeling, And God himself to man revealing The harmonious spheres Make music, though unheard their pealing By mortal ears. Fair stars! are not your beings pure? Can sin, can death your worlds obscure? Else why so swell the thoughts at your Aspect above? Ye must be Heaven’s that make us sure Of heavenly love! And in your harmony sublime I read the doom of distant time; That man’s regenerate soul from crime Shall yet be drawn, And reason on his mortal clime Immortal dawn. What’s hallowed ground? ’Tis what gives birth To sacred thoughts in souls of worth!— Peace! Independence! Truth! go forth Earth’s compass round; And your high priesthood shall make earth All hallowed ground.
CAROLINE.
PART I. I’ll bid the hyacinth to blow, I’ll teach my grotto green to be; And sing my true love all below The holly bower and myrtle tree. There all his wild-wood sweets to bring, The sweet South wind shall wander by, And with the music of his wing Delight my rustling canopy. Come to my close and clustering bower Thou spirit of a milder clime, Fresh with the dews of fruit and flower, Of mountain heath, and moory thyme. With all thy rural echoes come, Sweet comrade of the rosy day, Wafting the wild bee’s gentle hum, Or cuckoo’s plaintive roundelay. Where’er thy morning breath has played, Whatever isles of ocean fanned, Come to my blossom-woven shade, Thou wandering wind of fairy-land. For sure from some enchanted isle, Where Heaven and Love their sabbath hold, Where pure and happy spirits smile, Of beauty’s fairest, brightest mould: From some green Eden of the deep, Where Pleasure’s sigh alone is heaved, Where tears of rapture lovers weep, Endeared, undoubting, undeceived; From some sweet paradise afar, Thy music wanders, distant, lost— Where Nature lights her leading star, And love is never, never crossed. Oh gentle gale of Eden bowers, If back thy rosy feet should roam, To revel with the cloudless Hours In Nature’s more propitious home. Name to thy loved Elysian groves, That o’er enchanted spirits twine, A fairer form than cherub loves, And let the name be Caroline.
CAROLINE.
PART II.
TO THE EVENING STAR. Gem of the crimson-coloured Even, Companion of retiring day, Why at the closing gates of Heaven, BelovÈd star dost thou delay? So fair thy pensile beauty burns, When soft the tear of twilight flows; So due thy plighted love returns, To chambers brighter than the rose, To Peace, to Pleasure, and to Love, So kind a star thou seem’st to be, Sure some enamoured orb above Descends and burns to meet with thee. Thine is the breathing, blushing hour, When all unheavenly passions fly, Chased by the soul-subduing power Of Love’s delicious witchery. O! sacred to the fall of day, Queen of propitious stars appear, And early rise and long delay, When Caroline herself is here! Shine on her chosen green resort, Whose trees the sunward summit crown, And wanton flowers that well may court An angel’s feet to tread them down. Shine on her sweetly-scented road, Thou star of evening’s purple dome, That lead’st the nightingale abroad, And guid’st the pilgrim to his home. Shine, where my charmer’s sweeter breath Embalms the soft exhaling dew, Where dying winds a sigh bequeath To kiss the cheek of rosy hue. Where, winnowed by the gentle air, Her silken tresses darkly flow, And fall upon her brow so fair, Like shadows on the mountain snow. Thus, ever thus, at day’s decline, In converse sweet, to wander far, O bring with thee my Caroline, And thou shalt be my ruling star!
FIELD FLOWERS. Ye field flowers! the gardens eclipse you ’tis true, Yet, wildings of nature I dote upon you, For ye waft me to summers of old, When the earth teemed around me with faery delight, And when daisies and buttercups gladdened my sight, Like treasures of silver and gold. I love you for lulling me back into dreams Of the blue Highland mountains and echoing streams, And of birchen glades breathing their balm, While the deer was seen glancing in sunshine remote, And the deep mellow crush of the wood-pigeon’s note, Made music that sweetened the calm. Not a pastoral song has a pleasanter tune Than ye speak to my heart, little wildings of June: Of old ruinous castles ye tell, Where I thought it delightful your beauties to find, When the magic of Nature first breathed on my mind, And your blossoms were part of her spell. E’en now what affections the violet awakes; What loved little islands twice seen in their lakes, Can the wild water-lily restore; What landscapes I read in the primrose’s looks, And what pictures of pebbled and minnowy brooks In the vetches that tangled their shore. Earth’s cultureless buds, to my heart ye were dear, Ere the fever of passion, or ague of fear Had scathed my existence’s bloom; Once I welcome you more in life’s passionless stage, With the visions of youth to revisit my age, And I wish you to grow on my tomb.
LINES
ON THE VIEW FROM ST. LEONARD’S. Hail to thy face and odours, glorious Sea! ’Twere thanklessness in me to bless thee not, Great beauteous Being! in whose breath and smile My heart beats calmer, and my very mind Inhales salubrious thoughts. How welcomer Thy murmurs than the murmurs of the world! Though like the world thou fluctuatest, thy din To me is peace, thy restlessness repose. E’en gladly I exchange yon spring-green lanes With all the darling field-flowers in their prime, And gardens haunted by the nightingales’ Long trills and gushing ecstacies of song For these wild headlands and the sea-mew’s clang— With thee beneath my windows, pleasant Sea, I long not to o’erlook earth’s fairest glades And green savannahs—Earth has not a plain So boundless or so beautiful as thine; The eagle’s vision cannot take it in: The lightning’s wing too weak to sweep its space Sinks half-way o’er it like a wearied bird: It is the mirror of the stars, where all Their hosts within the concave firmament, Gay marching to the music of the spheres, Can see themselves at once. Nor on the stage Of rural landscape are there lights and shades Of more harmonious dance and play than thine. How vividly this moment brightens forth, Between grey parallel and leaden breadths. A belt of hues that stripes thee many a league, Flushed like the rainbow, or the ringdove’s neck, And giving to the glancing sea-bird’s wing The semblance of a meteor. Mighty sea! Cameleon-like thou changest, but there’s love In all thy change, and constant sympathy With yonder Sky—thy Mistress; from her brow Thou tak’st thy moods and wear’st her colours on Thy faithful bosom; morning’s milky white, Noon’s sapphire, or the saffron glow of eve; And all thy balmier hours, fair Element, Have such divine complexion—crispÈd smiles, Luxuriant heavings, and sweet whisperings, That little is the wonder Love’s own Queen From thee of old was fabled to have sprung— Creation’s common! which no human power Can parcel or enclose; the lordliest floods And cataracts that the tiny hands of man Can tame, conduct, or bound, are drops of dew To thee that couldst subdue the Earth itself, And brook’st commandment from the Heavens alone For marshalling thy waves— Yet, potent sea! How placidly thy moist lips speak e’en now Along yon sparkling shingles. Who can be So fanciless as to feel no gratitude That power and grandeur can be so serene, Soothing the home-bound navy’s peaceful way, And rocking e’en the fisher’s little bark As gently as a mother rocks her child?— The inhabitants of other worlds behold Our orb more lucid for thy spacious share On earth’s rotundity; and is he not A blind worm in the dust, great Deep, the man Who sees not or who seeing has no joy In thy magnificence? What though thou art Unconscious and material, thou canst reach The inmost immaterial mind’s recess, And with thy tints and motion stir its chords To music, like the light on Memnon’s lyre! The Spirit of the Universe in thee Is visible; thou hast in thee the life— The eternal, graceful, and majestic life— Of nature and the natural human heart Is therefore bound to thee with holy love. Earth has her gorgeous towns; the earth-circling sea Has spires and mansions more amusive still— Men’s volant homes that measure liquid space On wheel or wing. The chariot of the land With pained and panting steeds and clouds of dust Has no sight-gladdening motion like these fair Careerers with the foam beneath their bows, Whose streaming ensigns charm the waves by day Whose carols and whose watch-bells cheer the night, Moored as they cast the shadows of their masts In long array, or hither flit and yond Mysteriously with slow and crossing lights, Like spirits on the darkness of the deep. There is a magnet-like attraction in These waters to the imaginative power That links the viewless with the visible, And pictures things unseen. To realms beyond Yon highway of the world my fancy flies, When by her tall and triple mast we know Some noble voyager that has to woo The trade-winds and to stem the ecliptic surge. The coral groves—the shores of conch and pearl, Where she will cast her anchor and reflect Her cabin-window lights on warmer waves, And under planets brighter than our own: The nights of palmy isles, that she will see Lit boundless by the fire-fly—all the smells Of tropic fruits that will regale her—all The pomp of nature, and the inspiriting Varieties of life she has to greet, Come swarming o’er the meditative mind. True, to the dream of Fancy, Ocean has His darker hints; but where’s the element That chequers not its usefulness to man. With casual terror? Scathes not Earth sometimes Her children with Tartarean fires, or shakes Their shrieking cities, and, with one last clang Of bells for their own ruin, strews them flat As riddled ashes—silent as the grave? Walks not Contagion on the Air itself? I should—old Ocean’s Saturnalian days And roaring nights of revelry and sport With wreck and human woe—be loth to sing; For they are few and all their ills weigh light Against his sacred usefulness, that bids Our pensile globe revolve in purer air. Here Morn and Eve with blushing thanks receive Their fresh’ning dews, gay fluttering breezes cool Their wings to fan the brow of fevered climes, And here the Spring dips down her emerald urn For showers to glad the earth. Old Ocean was Infinity of ages ere we breathed Existence—and he will be beautiful When all the living world that sees him now Shall roll unconscious dust around the sun. Quelling from age to age the vital throb In human hearts, Death shall not subjugate The pulse that swells in his stupendous breast, Or interdict his minstrelsy to sound In thund’ring concert with the quiring winds; But long as Man to parent Nature owns Instinctive homage, and in times beyond The power of thought to reach, bard after bard Shall sing thy glory, Beatific Sea!
LINES ON POLAND. And have I lived to see thee sword in hand Uprise again immortal Polish Land!— Whose flag brings more than chivalry to mind, And leaves the tri-color in shade behind;— A theme for uninspirÈd lips too strong; That swells my heart beyond the power of song:— Majestic men, whose deeds have dazzled faith, Ah! yet your fate’s suspense arrests my breath; Whilst, envying bosoms bared to shot and steel, I feel the more that fruitlessly I feel. Poles! with what indignation I endure Th’ half-pitying servile mouths that call you poor; Poor! is it England mocks you with her grief, That hates, but dares not chide, th’ Imperial Thief? France with her soul beneath a Bourbon’s thrall, And Germany that has no soul at all,— States quailing at the giant overgrown, Whom dauntless Poland grapples with alone? No, ye are rich in fame e’en whilst ye bleed: We cannot aid you—we are poor indeed! In Fate’s defiance—in the world’s great eye, Poland has won her Immortality! The Butcher, should he reach her bosom now, Could tear not Glory’s garland from her brow; Wreathed, filleted, the victim falls renowned, And all her ashes would be holy ground! But turn, my soul, from presages so dark: Great Poland’s spirit is a deathless spark That’s fanned by Heaven to mock the Tyrant’s rage: She, like the eagle, will renew her age, And fresh historic plumes of Fame put on,— Another Athens after Marathon,— Where eloquence shall fulmine, arts refine, Bright as her arms that now in battle shine. Come—should the heavenly shock my life destroy And shut its flood-gates with excess of joy; Come but the day when Poland’s fight is won— And on my grave-stone shine the morrow’s sun— The day that sees Warsaw’s cathedral glow With endless ensigns ravished from the foe,— Her women lifting their fair hands with thanks, Her pious warriors kneeling in their ranks, The scutcheoned walls of high heraldic boast, The odorous altar’s elevated host, The organ sounding through the aisle’s long glooms, The mighty dead seen sculptured o’er their tombs; (John, Europe’s saviour—Poniatowski’s fair Resemblance—Kosciusko’s shall be there;) The tapered pomp—the halleluiah’s swell, Shall o’er the soul’s devotion cast a spell, Till visions cross the rapt enthusiast’s glance, And all the scene becomes a waking trance. Should Fate put far—far off that glorious scene, And gulfs of havoc interpose between, Imagine not, ye men of every clime, Who act, or by your sufferance share the crime— Your brother Abel’s blood shall vainly plead Against the “deep damnation” of the deed. Germans ye view its horror and disgrace With cold phosphoric eyes and phlegm of face. Is Allemagne profound in science, lore, And minstrel art?—her shame is but the more To doze and dream by governments oppressed, The spirit of a book-worm in each breast. Well can ye mouth fair Freedom’s classic line, And talk of Constitutions o’er your wine: But all your vows to break the tyrant’s yoke Expire in Bacchanalian song and smoke: Heavens! can no ray of foresight pierce the leads And mystic metaphysics of your heads, To show the self-same grave, Oppression delves For Poland’s rights, is yawning for yourselves! See, whilst the Pole, the vanguard aid of France, Has vaulted on his barb and couched the lance, France turns from her abandoned friends afresh, [88]And soothes the Bear that prowls for patriot flesh, Buys, ignominious purchase! short repose, With dying curses and the groans of those That served, and loved, and put in her their trust. Frenchmen! the dead accuse you from the dust— Brows laurelled—bosoms marked with many a scar For France—that wore her Legion’s noblest star, Cast dumb reproaches from the field of Death On Gallic honour; and this broken faith Has robbed you more of Fame—the life of life,— Than twenty battles lost in glorious strife! And what of England—Is she steeped so low In poverty, crest-fallen, and palsied so, That we must sit much wroth, but timorous more, With murder knocking at our neighbour’s door!— Not murder masked and cloaked with hidden knife, Whose owner owes the gallows life for life; But Public Murder!—that with pomp and gaud, And royal scorn of Justice walks abroad To wring more tears and blood than e’er were wrung By all the culprits Justice ever hung! We read the diademed Assassin’s vaunt, And wince, and wish we had not hearts to pant With useless indignation—sigh, and frown, But have not hearts to throw the gauntlet down. If but a doubt hung o’er the grounds of fray, Or trivial rapine stopped the world’s highway; Were this some common strife of States embroiled;— Britannia on the spoiler and the spoiled Might calmly look, and, asking time to breathe, Still honourably wear her olive wreath But this is Darkness combating with Light: Earth’s adverse Principles for empire fight: Oppression, that has belted half the globe, Far as his knout could reach or dagger probe, Holds reeking o’er our brother freemen slain That dagger—shakes it at us in disdain; Talks big to Freedom’s states of Poland’s thrall, And, trampling one, contemns them one and all. My Country! colours not thy once proud brow At this effront?—Hast thou not fleets enow With Glory’s streamer, lofty as the lark, Gay fluttering o’er each thunder-bearing bark, To warm th’ Insulter’s seas with barb’rous blood, And interdict his flag from Ocean’s flood? E’en now far off the sea-cliff, where I sing, I see, my Country, and my Patriot King! Your ensign glad the deep. Becalmed and slow A war-ship rides; while Heaven’s prismatic bow Uprisen behind her on th’ horizon’s base,} Shines flushing through the tackle, shrouds, and stays,} And wraps her giant form in one majestic blaze.} My soul accepts the omen; Fancy’s eye Has sometimes a veracious augury: The Rainbow types Heaven’s promise to my sight; The Ship, Britannia’s interposing Might! But if there should be none to aid you, Poles, Ye’ll but to prouder pitch wind up your souls, Above example, pity, praise or blame, To sow and reap a boundless field of Fame. Ask aid no more from Nations that forget Your championship—old Europe’s mighty debt. Though Poland (Lazarus-like) has burst the gloom, She rises not a beggar from the tomb: In Fortune’s frown, on Danger’s giddiest brink, Despair and Poland’s name must never link. All ills have bounds—plague, whirlwind, fire, and flood: E’en power can spill but bounded sums of blood. States caring not what freedom’s price may be, May late or soon, but must at last be free; For body-killing tyrants cannot kill The public soul—the hereditary will That downward as from sire to son it goes, By shifting bosoms more intensely glows: Its heir-loom is the heart, and slaughtered men Fight fiercer in their orphans o’er again. Poland recasts—though rich in heroes old,— Her men in more and more heroic mould: Her Eagle-ensign best among mankind Become, and types her eagle-strength of mind: Her praise upon my faltering lips expires: Resume it, younger bards, and nobler lyres!
LINES
ON THE CAMP HILL, NEAR HASTINGS. In the deep blue of eve, Ere the twinkling of stars had begun, Or the lark took his leave Of the skies and the sweet setting sun, I climbed to yon heights, Where the Norman encamped him of old, [89]With his bowmen and knights, And his banner all burnished with gold. At the Conqueror’s side There his minstrelsy sat harp in hand, In pavilion wide; And they chaunted the deeds of Roland. Still the ramparted ground With a vision my fancy inspires, And I hear the trump sound, As it marshalled our Chivalry’s sires. On each turf of that mead Stood the captors of England’s domains, That ennobled her breed And high-mettled the blood of her veins. Over hauberk and helm As the sun’s setting splendour was thrown, Thence they looked o’er a realm— And to-morrow beheld it their own.
LINES
WRITTEN IN A BLANK LEAF OF LA PEROUSE’S VOYAGES. Loved Voyager! whose pages had a zest More sweet than fiction to my wond’ring breast, When, rapt in fancy, many a boyish day I tracked his wanderings o’er the watery way, Roamed round the Aleutian isles in waking dreams, Or plucked the fleur-de-lys by Jesso’s streams— Or gladly leaped on that far Tartar strand, Where Europe’s anchor ne’er had bit the sand, Where scarce a roving wild tribe crossed the plain, Or human voice broke nature’s silent reign; But vast and grassy deserts feed the bear, And sweeping deer-herds dread no hunter’s snare. Such young delight his real records brought, His truth so touched romantic springs of thought, That all my after-life—his fate and fame Entwined romance with La Perouse’s name. Fair were his ships, expert his gallant crews, And glorious was th’ emprize of La Perouse,— Humanely glorious! Men will weep for him, When many a guilty martial fame is dim: He ploughed the deep to bind no captive’s chain— Pursued no rapine—strewed no wreck with slain, And, save that in the deep themselves lie low, His heroes plucked no wreath from human woe. ’Twas his the earth’s remotest bounds to scan, Conciliating with gifts barbaric man— Enrich the world’s contemporaneous mind, And amplify the picture of mankind. Far on the vast Pacific—midst those isles, O’er which the earliest morn of Asia smiles, He sounded and gave charts to many a shore And gulf of Ocean new to nautic lore; Yet he that led Discovery o’er the wave, Still finds himself an undiscovered grave. He came not back,—Conjecture’s cheek grew pale, Year after year—in no propitious gale, His lilied banner held its homeward way, And Science saddened at her martyr’s stay. An age elapsed—no wreck told where or when The chief went down with all his gallant men, Or whether by the storm and wild sea flood He perished, or by wilder men of blood— The shudd’ring Fancy only guess’d his doom, And Doubt to Sorrow gave but deeper gloom. An age elapsed—when men were dead or grey, Whose hearts had mourned him in their youthful day Fame traced on Mannicolo’s shore at last The boiling surge had mounted o’er his mast. The islesmen told of some surviving men, But Christian eyes beheld them ne’er again. Sad bourne of all his toils—with all his band— To sleep, wrecked, shroudless, on a savage strand! Yet what is all that fires a hero’s scorn Of death?—the hope to live in hearts unborn: Life to the brave is not its fleeting breath, But worth—foretasting fame, that follows death. That worth had La Perouse—that meed he won; He sleeps—his life’s long stormy watch is done. In the great deep, whose boundaries and space He measured, Fate ordained his resting-place; But bade his fame, like th’ Ocean rolling o’er His relics—visit every earthly shore. Fair Science on that Ocean’s azure robe, Still writes his name in picturing the globe, And paints—(what fairer wreath could Glory twine?) His watery course—a world-encircling line.
THE POWER OF RUSSIA. [90] This venerable man, the most popular and influential of Polish poets, and president of the Academy of Warsaw, was in London when this poem was written; he was seventy-four years old; but his noble spirit was rather mellowed than decayed by age. He was the friend of Fox, Kosciusko, and Washington. Rich in anecdote like Franklin, he bore also a striking resemblance to him in countenance.
REULLURA.[91] Star of the morn and eve, Reullura shone like thee, And well for her might Aodh grieve, The dark-attired Culdee. [92]Peace to their shades! the pure Culdees Were Albyn’s earliest priests of God, Ere yet an island of her seas By foot of Saxon monk was trod, Long ere her churchmen by bigotry Were barred from holy wedlock’s tie. ’Twas then that Aodh, famed afar, In Iona preached the word with power, And Reullura, beauty’s star, Was the partner of his bower. But, Aodh, the roof lies low, And the thistle-down waves bleaching, And the bat flits to and fro Where the Gael once heard thy preaching, And fall’n is each columned aisle Where the chiefs and the people knelt. ’Twas near that temple’s goodly pile That honoured of men they dwelt. For Aodh was wise in the sacred law, And bright Reullura’s eyes oft saw The veil of fate uplifted. Alas, with what visions of awe Her soul in that hour was gifted— When pale in the temple and faint, With Aodh she stood alone By the statue of an aged Saint! Fair sculptured was the stone, It bore a crucifix; Fame said it once had graced A Christian temple, which the Picts In the Britons’ land laid waste: The Pictish men, by St. Columb taught, Had hither the holy relic brought. Reullura eyed the statue’s face, And cried, “It is he shall come, Even he in this very place, To avenge my martyrdom. “For, woe to the Gael people! Ulvfagre is on the main, And Iona shall look from tower and steeple On the coming ships of the Dane; And, dames and daughters, shall all your locks With the spoiler’s grasp entwine? No! some shall have shelter in caves and rocks, And the deep sea shall be mine. Baffled by me shall the Dane return, And here shall his torch in the temple burn, Until that holy man shall plough The waves from Innisfail. [93]His sail is on the deep e’en now, And swells to the southern gale.” “Ah! knowest thou not, my bride,” The holy Aodh said, “That the Saint whose form we stand beside Has for ages slept with the dead?” “He liveth, he liveth,” she said again, “For the span of his life tenfold extends Beyond the wonted years of men. He sits by the graves of well-loved friends That died ere thy grandsire’s grandsire’s birth; The oak is decayed with old age on earth, Whose acorn-seed had been planted by him; And his parents remember the day of dread When the sun on the cross looked dim, And the graves gave up their dead. “Yet preaching from clime to clime, He hath roamed the earth for ages, And hither he shall come in time When the wrath of the heathen rages, In time a remnant from the sword— Ah! but a remnant to deliver; Yet, bless’d be the name of the Lord! His martyrs shall go into bliss for ever. Lochlin, [94] appalled, shall put up her steel, And thou shalt embark on the bounding keel; Safe shalt thou pass through her hundred ships, With the Saint and a remnant of the Gael, And the Lord will instruct thy lips To preach in Innisfail.” The sun, now about to set, Was burning o’er Tiriee, And no gathering cry rose yet O’er the isles of Albyn’s sea, Whilst Reullura saw far rowers dip Their oars beneath the sun, And the phantom of many a Danish ship, Where ship there yet was none. And the shield of alarm [95] was dumb, Nor did their warning till midnight come, When watch-fires burst from across the mair From Rona and Uist and Skye, To tell that the ships of the Dane And the red-haired slayers were nigh. Our islesmen arose from slumbers, And buckled on their arms; But few, alas! were their numbers To Lochlin’s mailÈd swarms. And the blade of the bloody Norse Has filled the shores of the Gael With many a floating corse, And with many a woman’s wail. They have lighted the islands with ruin’s torch, And the holy men of Iona’s church In the temple of God lay slain; All but Aodh, the last Culdee, But bound with many an iron chain, Bound in that church was he. And where is Aodh’s bride? Rocks of the ocean flood! Plunged she not from your heights in pride, And mocked the men of blood? Then Ulvfagre and his bands In the temple lighted their banquet up, And the print of their blood-red hands Was left on the altar cup. ’Twas then that the Norseman to Aodh said, “Tell where thy church’s treasure’s laid, Or I’ll hew thee limb from limb.” As he spoke the bell struck three, And every torch grew dim That lighted their revelry. But the torches again burnt bright, And brighter than before, When an aged man of majestic height Entered the temple door. Hushed was the revellers’ sound, They were struck as mute as the dead, And their hearts were appalled by the very sound Of his footstep’s measured tread. Nor word was spoken by one beholder, While he flung his white robe back on his shoulder And stretching his arm—as eath Unriveted Aodh’s bands, As if the gyves had been a wreath Of willows in his hands. All saw the stranger’s similitude To the ancient statue’s form; The Saint before his own image stood, And grasped Ulvfagre’s arm. Then uprose the Danes at last to deliver Their chief, and shouting with one accord, They drew the shaft from its rattling quiver, They lifted the spear and sword, And levelled their spears in rows. But down went axes and spears and bows, When the Saint with his crosier signed, The archer’s hand on the string was stopt, And down, like reeds laid flat by the wind, Their lifted weapons dropt. The Saint then gave a signal mute, And though Ulvfagre willed it not, He came and stood at the statue’s foot, Spell-riveted to the spot, Till hands invisible shook the wall, And the tottering image was dashed Down from its lofty pedestal. On Ulvfagre’s helm it crashed— Helmet, and skull, and flesh, and brain, It crushed as millstone crushes the grain. Then spoke the Saint, whilst all and each Of the Heathen trembled round, And the pauses amidst his speech Were as awful as the sound: “Go back, ye wolves, to your dens,” he cried, “And tell the nations abroad, How the fiercest of your herd has died That slaughtered the flock of God. Gather him bone by bone, And take with you o’er the flood The fragments of that avenging stone That drank his heathen blood. These are the spoils from Iona’s sack, The only spoils ye shall carry back; For the hand that uplifteth spear or sword Shall be withered by palsy’s shock, And I come in the name of the Lord To deliver a remnant of his flock.” A remnant was called together, A doleful remnant of the Gael, And the Saint in the ship that had brought him hither Took the mourners to Innisfail. Unscathed they left Iona’s strand, When the opal morn first flushed the sky, For the Norse dropt spear, and bow and brand, And looked on them silently; Safe from their hiding places came Orphans and mothers, child and dame: But alas! when the search for Reullura spread, No answering voice was given, For the sea had gone o’er her lovely head, And her spirit was in Heaven.
ODE TO THE GERMANS. The Spirit of Britannia Invokes across the main, Her sister Allemania To burst the Tyrant’s chain: By our kindred blood she cries, Rise, Allemanians, rise, And hallowed thrice the band Of our kindred hearts shall be, When your land shall be the land Of the free—of the free! With Freedom’s lion-banner Britannia rules the waves; Whilst your broad stone of honour[96]Is still the camp of slaves. For shame, for glory’s sake, Wake, Allemanians, wake, And the tyrants now that whelm Half the world, shall quail and flee, When your realm shall be the realm Of the free—of the free! Mars owes to you his thunder [97] That shakes the battle-field, Yet to break your bonds asunder No martial bolt has pealed Shall the laurelled land of art Wear shackles on her heart? No! the clock ye framed to tell By its sound, the march of time; Let it clang oppression’s knell O’er your clime—o’er your clime! The press’s magic letters, That blessing ye brought forth,— Behold! it lies in fetters On the soil that gave it birth: But the trumpet must be heard, And the charger must be spurred; For you father Armin’s Sprite Calls down from heaven, that ye Shall gird you for the fight, And be free!—and be free!
Could I bring back lost youth again, And be what I have been, I’d court you in a gallant strain, My young and fair Florine. But mine’s the chilling age that chides Devoted rapture’s glow, And Love—that conquers all besides— Finds Time a conquering foe. Farewell! we’re severed by our fate, As far as night from noon; You came into the world too late, And I depart so soon.
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