Felicia Hemans

“ Have mingled with our own;
Fill high the cup, but when the soul rejoices,
Forget not who are gone!
They that stood with us, midst the dead and dying,
On Albuera's plain;
They that beside us cheerly tracked the flying,
Far o'er the hills of Spain:
They that amidst us, when the shells were showering,
From old Rodrigo's wall,
The rampart scaled, thro' clouds of battle towering,
First, first at victory's call!
They that upheld the banners, proudly waving,
In Roncesvalles' dell;
—With England's blood the southern vineyards laving,
Forget not how they fell! ”

“ The life from out young hearts, and choking sighs
Which ne'er might be repeated.
Byron.
The vesper-bell, from church and tower,
Had sent its dying sound;
And the household, in the hush of eve,
Were met, their porch around.
A voice rang through the olive-wood, with a sudden trumpet's power—
"We rise on all our hills! come forth! 'tis thy country's gathering hour—
There's a gleam of spears by every stream, in each old battle-dell—
Come forth, young Juan! bid thy home a brief and proud farewell!" ”

“ I see the bright flood shine, I see the bright flood shine!
Sing on the march, with every banner waving—
Sing, brothers, 'tis the Rhine! Sing, brothers, ’tis the Rhine!
⁠CHORUS.
The Rhine! the Rhine! our own imperial River!
Be glory on thy track, be glory on thy track!
We left thy shores, to die or to deliver;—
We bear thee Freedom back, we bear thee Freedom back!
⁠SINGLE VOICE.
Hail! Hail! my childhood knew thy rush of water,
Ev'n as my mother's song; ev'n as my mother’s song;
That sound went past me on the field of slaughter,
And heart and arm grew strong! ”

“ Terre, soleil, vallons, belle et douce Nature,
Je vous dois une larme aux bords de mon tombeau;
L'air est si parfumé! la lumiere est si pure!
Aux regards d'un Mourant le soleil est si beau!
⁠Lamartine.
A song was heard of old—a low, sweet song,
On the blue seas by Delos: from that isle,
The Sun-God's own domain, a gentle girl,
Gentle—yet all inspired of soul, of mien,
Lit with a life too perilously bright,
Was borne away to die. How beautiful
Seems this world to the dying!—but for her ”

“ Oh sister, hush that thrilling lute, oh cease that haunting lay,
Too deeply pierce those wild sweet notes; yet, yet I cannot stay,
For weary—weary is my heart! I hear a whispered call
In every breeze that stirs the leaf and bids the blossom fall.
I cannot breathe in freedom here, my spirit pines to dwell
Where the world's voice can reach no more!—oh calm thee! Fare thee well! ”

“ On my rich lyre, and quench'd its living strings?
—Let them lie silent at my feet!
Since broken even as they,
The heart whose music made them sweet,
Hath pour'd on desert-sands its wealth away.
Yet glory's light hath touch'd my name,
The laurel-wreath is mine—
—With a lone heart, a weary frame—
O restless deep! I come to make them thine! ”

“ And I met the dread gloom of its grandeur alone.
I lay there in silence—a Spirit came o'er me;
Man's tongue hath no language to speak what I saw;
Things glorious, unearthly, pass'd floating before me,
And my heart almost fainted with rapture and awe!
I viewed the dread beings, around us that hover,
Tho' veil'd by the mists of mortality's breath ”

“ They are from lone wild places, forest dingles,
Fresh banks of many a low voiced hidden stream,
Where the sweet star of eve looks down and mingles
Faint lustre with the water-lily's gleam.
They are from where the soft winds play in gladness,
Covering the turf with flowery blossom-showers;
—Too richly dowered, O friend! are we for sadness—
Look on an empire—mind and nature—ours! ”

“ Green land, Poet-land of my home and my dead!
I bless thee for all the true bosoms that beat,
Where'er a low hamlet smiles up to thy skies,
For thy cottage hearths, burning the stranger [1] to greet,
For the soul that shines forth from thy children’s kind eyes!
May the blessing, like sunshine, about thee be spread,
Green land of my childhood, my home, and my dead! ”

“ In holy things and fair?
We met—I saw thy soul once more—
—The world's breath had been there!
Yes! it was sad on desert-plain,
Mournful on midnight sea,
Yet would I buy with life again
That one deep dream of thee! ”

“ When the stars give quiet light,
And let us offer our faint perfume
On the silent shrine of night.
"Call it not wasted, the scent we lend
To the breeze, when no step is nigh;
Oh thus for ever the earth should send
Her grateful breath on high!
"And love us as emblems, night's dewy flowers,
Of hopes unto sorrow given,
That spring through the gloom of the darkest hours,
Looking alone to heaven!" ”

“ Had watched bright sunsets, dreamt of blissful years;
——And thus they met.
"Haste, with your torches, haste! make firelight round!"
—They speed, they press—what hath the miner found?
Relic or treasure, giant sword of old?
Gems bedded deep, rich veins of burning gold?
—Not so—the dead, the dead! An awe-struck band,
In silence gathering round the silent stand,
Chained by one feeling, hushing e'en their breath,
Before the thing that, in the might of death,
Fearful, yet beautiful, amidst them lay—
A sleeper, dreaming not!—a youth with hair
Making a sunny gleam (how sadly fair!) ”

“ And thro' a still blue heaven the sweet winds rove.
Know'st thou it well?
—There, there, with thee,
O friend, O lov'd one! fain my steps would flee.
Know'st thou the dwelling?—there the pillars rise,
Soft shines the hall, the painted chambers glow;
And forms of marble seem with pitying eyes
To say—"Poor child! what thus hath wrought thee woe?"
Know'st thou it well?
There, there with thee,
O my protector! homewards might I flee!
Know'st thou the mountain?—high its bridge is hung,
Where the mule seeks thro' mist and cloud his way ”

“ Teach me the spell of thy melody.
Bird! is it blighted affection's pain,
Whence the sad sweetness flows thro' thy strain?
And is the wound of that arrow still'd,
When thy lone music the leaves hath fill'd? ”

“ Each leaf's light whisper hath a tone,
My faint heart, ev'n in death, would own.
Then bear me thence one bough, to shed
Life's parting sweetness round my head,
And bind it, Mother! on my breast
When I am laid in lonely rest. ”

“ Summer and mirth.
"Leave us not, leave us not!
Can thy heart roam?
Wilt thou not pine to hear
Voices from home?
"Too sad our love would be,
If thou wert gone!
Turn to us, leave us not!
Thou art our own!" ”

“ It shall seem from the bright flower's heart to flow,
As if 'twere a breeze with a flute's low sigh,
Or water-drops trained into melody.
—Come away! for the midsummer sun grows strong,
And the life of the lily may not be long. ”

“ These lines were given to Sir Walter Scott, at the gate of Abbotsford, in the summer of 1829. He was then apparently in the vigour of an existence whose energies promised long continuance; and the glance of his quick, smiling eye, and the very sound of his kindly voice, seemed to kindle the gladness of his own sunny and benignant spirit in all who had the happiness of approaching him. ”

“ With storms in battle striven?
Where all is now so calmly clear,
Hath anguish cried to heaven?
—Then the sea's voice arose,
Like an earthquake's under-tone:
"Mortal, the strife of human woes
Where hath not nature known? ”

“ Ye, from the gaze of crowds your beauty veiling,
Keep in dim vestal urns the sweetness shrined;
Till the mild moon, on high serenely sailing,
Looks on you tenderly and sadly kind.
—So doth love's dreaming heart
Dwell from the throng apart,
And but to shades disclose
The inmost thought which glows
With its pure life entwined. ”

“ Seems gazing down on grief or mirth.
How softly, yet how far!
⁠Let her depart!
Her spirit's hope—her bosom's love—
Oh! could they mount and fly!
She never sees a wandering dove,
But for its wings to sigh. ”

“ From my chainless heart should spring,
Like the bright rain's vernal treasures,
As I wandered on thy wing.
But oh! the silver chords,
That around the heart are spun,
From gentle tones and words,
And kind eyes that make our sun! ”

“ What strain?—oh! not the Nightingale's when showering
Her own heart's life drops on the burning lay,
She stirs the young woods in the days of flowering,
And pours her strength, but not her grief away ”

“ Would lure me back to life,
When my weaned heart hath said farewell,
And passed the gates of strife.
Let not a sigh of human love
Blend with the song its tone!
Let no disturbing echo move
One that must die alone! ”

“ A bright-eyed mountain king!
In my visions I have heard
The rushing of his wing.
I follow some wild river,
On whose breast no sail may be;
Dark woods around it shiver—
—I dream of all things free! ”

“ For dear hath been its evening mirth
To me, sweet friends! in other days.
And oh! when music's voice is heard
To melt in strains of parting woe,
When hearts to love and grief are stirr'd—
—Think of me then! I go, I go! ”

“ When prayer and tear gush free,
—O soft star of the west!
O soft star of the west,
⁠Gleaming far!
Thou'rt guiding all things home,
⁠Gentle star!
Shine from thy rosy heaven,
Pour joy on earth and sea! ”

“ Incense forth to meet thee—
Wake my heart no more!
⁠No more!
From a funeral urn
Bowered in leafy gloom,
Ev'n thy soft return
Calls not song or bloom.
Leave my spirit sleeping
Like that silent thing ”

“ We lov'd to breathe and share,
On thy full heart returning,
Shall wake its voiceless yearning;
⁠Then feel me near once more!
Near thee, still near thee!—trust thy soul's deep dreaming!
—Oh! love is not an earthly Rose to die! ”

“ Into the stillness of autumn skies;
And to teach thee that grief hath her needful part,
Midst the hidden things of each human heart.
Yet shall we mourn, gentle child! for this?
Life hath enough of yet holier bliss! ”

“ Visit her soul in heaven's calm beauty still,
Be their names uttered, be their memory spread
Yet round the place they never more may fill!
All is not over with earth's broken tie—
Where, where should sisters love, if not on high? ”

“ But if thou hast a cup o'erthrown
With a bright draught filled—oh! never
Shall earth give back that lavished wealth
To cool thy parched lip's fever!
The heart is like that cup,
If thou waste the love it bore thee ”

“ With sorrow in the air,
Can weary hearts be dying,
Vain love repining there?
If not, then how can that wild wail,
O sad Æolian lyre!
Be drawn forth by the wandering gale,
From thy deep thrilling wire? ”

“ Joy is in every pang—I go, I go!
⁠I feel thy tears, I feel thy breath,
⁠I meet thy fond look still;
⁠Keen is the strife of love and death;
Faint and yet fainter grows my bosom's thrill.
⁠Yet swells the tide of rapture strong,
⁠Tho' mists o'ershade mine eye ”

“ For the tie is rent that gave thee part
In the gladness it's beauty shed.
And gaze on the pictured smile no more
That thus can life out-last,
All between parted souls is o'er;—
—Love! love! forget the past! ”

“ Heart, strong as death, yet as a reed to break.
As a flame, tempest-swayed!
He that sits calm on high is yet the source
Whence thy soul's current hath its troubled course,
He that great deep hath made! ”

“ Thou hast no longings that pine for home,
Thou seek'st not the haunts of the bee and bird,
To fly from the sickness of hope deferred:
In thy brief being, no strife of mind,
No boundless passion is deeply shrined ”

“ With a dull deep rolling sound
Which told the hamlets round
Of a soldier's burial rite.
But it told them not how dear
In a home beyond the main,
Was the warrior youth laid low that hour,
By a mountain stream of Spain. ”

“ Singing of freedom from steep to steep.
Come from Alhambra! garden and grove
Now may not shelter beauty or love.
Blood on the waters, death midst the flowers!
—Only the spear and the rock are ours. ”

“ Lonely, lonely is thy bed,
Never there may flower be shed,
Marble reared, or brother's head
Bowed to weep.
Yet thy record on the sea,
Borne thro' battle high and free,
Long the red cross flag shall be.
Sleep! O sleep! ”

“ Where floats the myrtle-scent
O'er vale and lea,
When evening calls the dove
Homewards to flee?
Where doth the orange gleam
Soft on my native stream?
—Far o'er the sea!
Where are sweet eyes of love
Watching for me? ”

“ Tho' to other shores far hence they woo:
⁠Come away!
In the light leaves, in the reed's faint sighing,
In the low sweet sounds of early spring,
Still their music wanders—till the dying
Hears them pass, as on a spirit's wing:
⁠Come away! ”

“ Flowers from the night-dew are closing,
Pilgrims and mourners reposing—
—Mother, oh! sing me to rest!
Take back thy bird to its nest!
Weary is young life when blighted
Heavy this love unrequited;—
—Mother, oh! sing me to rest! ”

“ The early lost—the beautiful—the dead—
That unto her bequeathed a mournful home,
Whence with their voices all sweet laughter fled;
They rise—the sisters of her youth arise,
As from the world where no frail blossom dies. ”

“ Peace in thy saddest hour, my love!
Dwelt on thy brow;
But something mournfully divine
There shineth now!
And silent ever is thy lip,
And pale thy cheek;—
Oh! art thou Earth's, or art thou Heaven's,
Speak to me, speak! ”

“ My thoughts are like those gentle sounds, dear love!
By day shut up in their own still recess,
They wait for dews on earth, for stars above,
Then to breathe out their soul of tenderness:
Leave me not yet! ”