Susanna Moodie

“ And, ere the day-king veils his glowing crest,
Shrouds the dark tempest in his burning vest;
O'er earth and heaven his gorgeous banner flings,
And gilds with borrowed light his sable wings—
And those who view with rapture-lifted eyes
The short-lived pageant of the summer skies,
Behold it vanish like a fearful dream,
And death and desolation mar its beam.
So when we seek above life's sea of tears
To raise a monument for future years,
If built on earth the fabric will decay,
Oblivion's hand will sweep the pile away ”

“ I dwell in the moon's pale beam,
In the depths of the star-lit sky;
I traverse the earth, the air, the main,
And bind young hearts in my golden chain.
I float on the crimson cloud,
My voice is in every breeze,
I speak in the tempest loud,
In the sigh of the wind-stirred trees;
To the sons of earth, in a magic tone,
I tell of a world more bright than their own! ”

“ THE REAPERS' SONG.
The harvest is nodding on valley and plain,
To the scythe and the sickle its treasures must yield;
Through sunshine and shower we have tended the grain;
'Tis ripe to our hand!—to the field—to the field!
If the sun on our labours too warmly should smile,
Why a horn of good ale shall the long hours beguile.
Then, a largess! a largess!—kind stranger, we pray,
We have toiled through the heat of the long summer day! ”

“ But the deep sleep of death on each eyelid still hung;
Each figure was motionless, mute every tongue:
Through those slumbering thousands there breathed not a sound,
And silence, unbroken, reigned awfully round:—
"Raise thy voice, son of man! call the winds from on high,
As viewless they sweep o'er the brow of the sky;
And life shall return on the wings of the blast,
And the slumber of death shall be broken at last."
I called to the wind—and a deep answer came
In the rush of the tempest, the bursting of flame ”

“ Ere the fresh tide of life has wasted low,
And discovered the hidden rocks of woe:
When like the rosy beams of morn,
Joy and gladness and love were born,
Hope divine, of heavenly birth,
And pleasure that lightens the cares of earth!
THE NOONTIDE HOUR.
I come like an Eastern monarch dight
In my crown of beams, in my robe of light;
And nature droops at my ardent gaze,
And wraps the woods in a purple haze;
From my fiery glance the strong man shrinks,
Like a babe on the bosom of earth he sinks;
[Pg 172] Yet cries, as he turns from the glowing ray,
"This is a glorious summer day!" ”

“ Views more exalted than this world can give,
And hopes that, deathless as the soul, outlive
The wreck of nature, and the common doom
That hourly sweeps her myriads to the tomb?
His mental powers, unfettered by the clod,
Soar o'er time's gulf, and reach the throne of God.
Oh what a privilege it is to know
That death chains not the immortal soul below!
[Pg 28] Through the dark portals of the grave upborne,
Leaving the care-worn sons of earth to mourn,
On wings of light the new-born spirit flies
To seek a home and kindred in the skies. ”

“ Darkness spreads o'er all the skies;
And a lurid twilight gloom
Closes o'er earth's living tomb!
Nature's pulse has ceased to play,—
Night usurps the crown of day,—
Every quaking heart is still,
Conscious of the coming ill.
Lo, the fearful pause is past,
The awful tempest bursts at last!
Torrents sweeping down amain
With a deluge flood the plain;
The rocks are rent, the mountains reel,
Earth's yawning caves their depths reveal;
The forests groan,—the heavy gale
Shrieks out Creation's funeral wail. ”

“ As she comes to the lattice to catch his strain,
And sighs while she bends to smile and listen.
She sleeps, but her rosy lips still move,
And in dreams she answers the voice of love.
Sleep on, ye thoughtless and giddy train,
Sorrow comes with the dawning ray;
Ye never shall wake to joy again,
Or your gay laugh gladden the rising day:
Death sits brooding above your towers,
And destruction rides on the coming hours.—
The day has dawned—but not a breath
Sighs through the sultry air ”

“ When the eye whose kind beam was the beacon of gladness
From the glance of a lover turns coldly away,
O'er the bright sun of hope float the dark clouds of sadness,
And youth's lovely visions recede with the ray.
Oh turn not where pleasure's wild meteor is beaming,
And night's dreary shades wear the splendour of day,
To the rich festive board where the red wine is streaming;—
Can the dance and the song disappointment allay? ”

“ Like a dew-drop from heaven in the ocean of life,
From the morn's rosy diadem falling,
A stranger as yet to the storms and the strife,
Dear babe, of thy earthly calling!
Thine eyes have unclosed on this valley of tears;
Hark! that cry is the herald of anguish and woe;
Thy young spirit finds a deep voice for its fears,
Prophetic of all that is passing below. ”

“ The golden dreams that cheat the care-worn crowd.
His world is all within. He mingles not
In their society; he cannot drudge
To win the wealth they toil to realize.
A different spirit animates his breast.
Their eager calculations, hopes, and fears,
Still flit before him, like dim shadows thrown
By April's passing clouds upon the stream,
A moment mirrored in its azure depths,
Till the next sunbeam turns them into light!—
Rashly confiding, still to be deceived,
Our youthful poet overleaps the bounds
Of probability. He walks this earth
Like an enfranchised spirit ”

“ Who will not raise a hope beyond the tomb?
Who, quite enamoured with his fallen state,
Clings to the world and leaves the rest to fate;
Prefers corruption to his Maker's smile,
"And shuns the light because his deeds are vile?"
The man who feels the value of his soul,
Presses unwearied towards a higher goal;
Leaving this earth, he seeks a brighter prize,
And claims a crown immortal in the skies. ”

“ Eternal youth is in thy train
With rapture-beaming eyes,
And Beauty, with her magic chain,
And Hope, that laughs at present pain,
Points up to cloudless skies.
[Pg 134]
Spirit of love, of life, and light!
Each year we hail thy birth—
The day-star from the grave of night
That set to rise in skies more bright,—
To bless the sons of earth
With leaf—and bud—and perfumed flower,
Still deck the barren sod;
In thee we trace a higher power,
In thee we claim a brighter dower,
The day-spring of our God!—
[Pg 135]
O COME TO THE MEADOWS.
O come to the meadows! ”

“ Sinking now in floods of light,
The sun resigns the world to night;
When a lingering glance he turns,
The glowing west with glory burns,
And the blushing heavens awhile
Long retain his parting smile.
Ere gray evening's sullen eye,
Bids those tints of beauty die;
Ere her tears have washed away
The footsteps of departing day,
Nature from her verdant bowers
Her last long strain of rapture pours;
[Pg 211] Shrouded in her misty vest,
She sings a drowsy world to rest,
And tells to man, in thrilling strains,
That the Lord Jehovah reigns! ”

“ Like a stormy morn, has in splendour set;
When the sorrows of time and the hopes of heaven
Blend in the soul like the hues of even,
And the spirit looks back on this troubled scene
With a glance as bright as it ne'er had been!
NIGHT.
I come, like Oblivion, to sweep away
The scattered beams from the car of day:
The gems which the evening has lavishly strown
Light up the lamps round my ebon throne.
[Pg 175] Slowly I float through the realms of space,
Casting my mantle o'er Nature's face,
Weaving the stars in my raven hair,
As I sail through the shadowy fields of air. ”

“ Is heard in those realms where, in darkness hurled,
Lie the shattered domes of the ancient world!
A thousand ages have slowly rolled
O'er temple and tower and fortress strong,
By the giant kings possessed of old,
That buried beneath the waters cold,
Only echo the mermaids' plaintive song,
When they weep o'er the form of some child of clay,
'Mid the wreck of a world that has passed away.
[Pg 168]
The spirits of earth and air have sighed
To traverse those halls, in vain;
The rolling waters those ruins hide,
And buried beneath the oozy tide,
They sleep in my icy chain ”

“ Join the chorus of the skies!—
Dost thou sleep? to whom is given
The privilege of sons of heaven?
Wake with angel choirs to sing
Glory to the Almighty King,
Who life within himself retains—
Lord of all, Jehovah reigns!
Rising o'er the tide of years,
Lo, a morn more blessed appears:
When yon burning orb of fire,
And moon, and stars, and heavens expire,
And all that once had life and breath,
Emerging from the arms of death,
[Pg 209] Shall animate the heaving sod,
And countless millions meet their God!
Whose hand the links of time shall sever,
And man shall wake—to live for ever! ”

“ To rapture's listening ear.
[Pg 118] While April like a virgin pale
Retreats with modest grace,
And blushing through her tearful veil
Just shows her cherub face.
'Tis but a momentary gleam
From those young laughing eyes,
Yet, like a meteor's passing beam,
It lights up earth, and skies:
But, ere the sun exhales the dew
That sparkles on the grass,
Dark clouds flit o'er the smiling blue,
Like shadows o'er a glass.
But ah! upon the musing mind
Those varied smiles and tears,
Like words of love but half defined,
Give birth to hopes and fears. ”

“ Robed in the splendour of immortal light;
But cast their crowns before him whilst they veil
The brow in rapt devotion and adore!—
Nature will furnish subjects far beyond
The grasp of human genius. Didst thou e'er,
On mossy bank or grassy plot reclined,
Watch the effect of sunlight on the boughs
Of some tall graceful ash, or maple tree?
Each leaf illumin'd by the noon-tide beam
Transparent shines.—Anon a heavy cloud
Floats for a moment o'er the car of day,
And gloom descends upon the forest bowers;
A ray steals forth—and on the topmost twig
[Pg 10] Falls, like a silver star. ”

“ The skies are clear—the breeze is strong—
We meet to part no more!"
[Pg 124]
While yet she spoke a sudden chill
O'er her ardent spirit crept;
A sad presentiment of ill—
She turned away and wept.
Far off the sigh of ocean stole—
The sweeping of the sounding surge—
In plaintive murmurs o'er her soul,
Like wailing of a funeral dirge.
And in the wind there is a tone
Which whispers to her sinking heart—
"Mary we meet in death alone;
In realms of bliss no more to part." ”

“ As night's dim shadows flee the eye of day.
No patriot voice thy glory shall recall,
No eye shall weep, no tongue lament thy fall.
The day of vengeance comes—the awful hour—
Fraught with the terrors of almighty power;
The arm of God is raised against thy walls;
Destruction hovers o'er thy princely halls,
[Pg 67] Flings his red banner to the rising wind,
While death's stern war-cry echoes far behind.
When the full horrors of that hour are felt,
The warrior's heart shall as the infant's melt;
Counsel shall flee the learned and the old,
And fears unfelt before shall tame the bold. ”

“ His harp is doomed to mourn in plaintive tones.
His ardent unsophisticated mind,
On all things beautiful, delighted, dwells.
Earth is to him a paradise. No cloud
Floats o'er the golden promise of the morn.
Hope daily weaves fresh roses for his brow,
Shrouding the grim and ghastly phantom, Death,
Beneath her soft and rainbow-tinted wings. ”

“ O'er thee hath vainly waved his wings!
The sun, with his refulgent beams,
Thaws not thy icy zone;
Lord of ten thousand frozen streams,
That sleep around thy throne,
Whose crystal barriers may defy
The genial warmth of summer's sky.
[Pg 156]
What human foot shall dare intrude
Beyond the howling waste,
Or view the untrodden solitude,
Where thy dark home is placed;
In those far realms of death where light
Shrieks from thy glance and all is night? ”

“ In a low plaintive strain of melody,
That rose and died away upon the breeze,
The mournful requiem of her perished hopes:—
Hark! the restless spirits of ocean sigh;
I can hear them speak as the wind sweeps by.
See, the ivy has heard their mystic call,
And shivering clings to the broken wall,
The dark green leaves take a sadder shade,
And the flowers turn pale and begin to fade;
The landscape grows dim in the deepening gloom,
And the dead awake in the silent tomb. ”

“ Kindle no hope in the possessor's breast?
[Pg 20] Awaken no desire to be restored
To that most pure and perfect state of bliss
Man by transgression lost?—the noble thought
Of claiming kindred with the skies, give birth
To no anticipations of delight—
Joys such as angels share, and saints, who dwell
Within the circle of Jehovah's throne?
A light is breaking on my mental eye;
Visions of glory in succession rise
And fill the airy palace of the soul.
I see afar the promised land. An arch
Of golden radiance canopies the gates
Of that celestial city—Beautiful! ”

“ The moon is still sleeping beneath the wide sea,
Whilst wonder is keeping her vigils with me.
The bow of the covenant brightens the storm,
When its dark wings are shading the brow of the morn;
But thou art uncradled by vapour or cloud,
Thy glory's unshaded by night's sable shroud.
Oh whence is thy splendour, fair luminous bow?
From light's golden chalice thy radiance must flow;
Thou look'st from the throne of thy beauty above
On this desolate earth, like the spirit of love!
[Pg 179]
THE SUGAR BIRD. [C]
Thou splendid child of southern skies! ”

“ When the morning breeze rives the rack apart,
And the sun breaks through the clouds.
There's joy when he nears his native land,
And the tedious voyage is o'er,
And he feels the grasp of the kindred hand
He thought to enfold no more.
There's joy above, around, beneath,
But tis a fleeting ray;
The world's stern strife, the hand of death,
Bid mortal hopes decay.
[Pg 204] But there's a better joy than earth,
With all her charms, can give,
Which marks the Christian's second birth,
When man but dies to live!
[Pg 205]
LOVE.
Oh Love! ”