If e’er again my spirit be allow’d
Converse with Nature in her chambers deep,
Where lone, and mantled with the rolling cloud,
She broods o’er new-born waters, as they leap
In sword-like flashes down the heathery steep
From caves of mystery;—if I roam once more
Where dark pines quiver to the torrent’s roar,
And voiceful oaks respond;—may I not reap
A more ennobling joy, a loftier power,
Than e’er was shed on life’s more vernal hour
From such communion? Yes! I then shall know
That not in vain have sorrow, love, and thought
Their long, still work of preparation wrought,
For that more perfect sense of God reveal’d below.

DREAMS OF THE DEAD.

Oft in still night-dreams a departed face
Bends o’er me with sweet earnestness of eye,
Wearing no more of earthly pains a trace,
But all the tender pity that may lie
On the clear brow of Immortality,
Calm, yet profound. Soft rays illume that mien;
Th’ unshadow’d moonlight of some far-off sky
Around it floats transparently serene
As a pure veil of waters. O rich Sleep!
The spells are mighty in thy regions deep,
To glorify with reconciling breath,
Effacing, brightening, giving forth to shine
Beauty’s high truth; and how much more divine
Thy power when link’d, in this, with thy strong brother—Death!

THE POETRY OF THE PSALMS.

Nobly thy song, O minstrel! rush’d to meet
Th’ Eternal on the pathway of the blast,
With darkness round him as a mantle cast,
And cherubim to waft his flying seat.
Amidst the hills that smoked beneath his feet,
With trumpet-voice thy spirit call’d aloud,
And bade the trembling rocks his name repeat,
And the bent cedars, and the bursting cloud.
But far more gloriously to earth made known
By that high strain, than by the thunder’s tone,
The flashing torrents, or the ocean’s roll,
Jehovah spake, through thee imbreathing fire,
Nature’s vast realms for ever to inspire
With the deep worship of a living soul.

DESPONDENCY AND ASPIRATION.

“Par correr miglior acqua alza le vele,
Omai la navicella del mio Intelletto.”—Dante.
My soul was mantled with dark shadows, born
Of lonely Fear, disquieted in vain;
Its phantoms hung around the star of morn,
A cloud-like, weeping train:
Thro’ the long day they dimm’d the autumn gold
On all the glistening leaves, and wildly roll’d,
When the last farewell flush of light was glowing
Across the sunset sky,
O’er its rich isles of vaporous glory throwing
One melancholy dye.
And when the solemn night
Came rushing with her might
Of stormy oracles from caves unknown,
Then with each fitful blast
Prophetic murmurs pass’d,
Wakening or answering some deep Sybil-tone
Far buried in my breast, yet prompt to rise
With every gusty wail that o’er the wind-harp flies.
“Fold, fold thy wings,” they cried, “and strive no more—
Faint spirit! strive no more: for thee too strong
Are outward ill and wrong,
And inward wasting fires! Thou canst not soar
Free on a starry way,
Beyond their blighting sway,
At heaven’s high gate serenely to adore!
How shouldst thou hope earth’s fetters to unbind!
O passionate, yet weak! O trembler to the wind!
“Never shall aught but broken music flow
From joy of thine, deep love, or tearful woe—
Such homeless notes as through the forest sigh,
From the reeds’ hollow shaken,
When sudden breezes waken
Their vague, wild symphony.
No power is theirs, and no abiding-place
In human hearts; their sweetness leaves no trace—
Born only so to die!
“Never shall aught but perfume, faint and vain,
On the fleet pinion of the changeful hour,
From thy bruised life again
A moment’s essence breathe;
Thy life, whose trampled flower
Into the blessed wreath
Of household-charities no longer bound,
Lies pale and withering on the barren ground.
“So fade, fade on! Thy gift of love shall cling
A coiling sadness round thy heart and brain—
A silent, fruitless, yet undying thing,
All sensitive to pain!
And still the shadow of vain dreams shall fall
O’er thy mind’s world, a daily darkening pall.
Fold, then, thy wounded wing, and sink subdued
In cold and unrepining quietude!”
Then my soul yielded: spells of numbing breath
Crept o’er it heavy with a dew of death—
Its powers, like leaves before the night-rain, closing;
And, as by conflict of wild sea-waves toss’d
On the chill bosom of some desert coast,
Mutely and hopelessly I lay reposing.
When silently it seem’d
As if a soft mist gleam’d
Before my passive sight, and, slowly curling,
To many a shape and hue
Of vision’d beauty grew,
Like a wrought banner, fold by fold unfurling.
Oh! the rich scenes that o’er mine inward eye
Unrolling then swept by
With dreamy motion! Silvery seas were there,
Lit by large dazzling stars, and arch’d by skies
Of southern midnight’s most transparent dyes;
And gemm’d with many an island, wildly fair,
Which floated past me into orient day,
Still gathering lustre on th’ illumin’d way,
Till its high groves of wondrous flowering-trees
Colour’d the silvery seas.
And then a glorious mountain-chain uprose,
Height above spiry height!
A soaring solitude of woods and snows,
All steep’d in golden light!
While as it pass’d, those regal peaks unveiling,
I heard, methought, a waving of dread wings,
And mighty sounds, as if the vision hailing,
From lyres that quiver’d through ten thousand strings—
Or as if waters, forth to music leaping
From many a cave, the Alpine Echo’s hall,
On their bold way victoriously were sweeping,
Link’d in majestic anthems!—while through all
That billowy swell and fall,
Voices, like ringing crystal, fill’d the air
With inarticulate melody, that stirr’d
My being’s core; then, moulding into word
Their piercing sweetness, bade me rise, and bear
In that great choral strain my trembling part,
Of tones by love and faith struck from a human heart.
Return no more, vain bodings of the night!
A happier oracle within my soul
Hath swell’d to power; a clear, unwavering light
Mounts through the battling clouds that round me roll;
And to a new control
Nature’s full harp gives forth rejoicing tones,
Wherein my glad sense owns
The accordant rush of elemental sound
To one consummate harmony profound—
One grand Creation-Hymn,
Whose notes the seraphim
Lift to the glorious height of music wing’d and crown’d.
Shall not those notes find echoes in my lyre,
Faithful though faint? Shall not my spirit’s fire,
If slowly, yet unswervingly, ascend
Now to its fount and end?
Shall not my earthly love, all purified,
Shine forth a heavenward guide,
An angel of bright power—and strongly bear
My being upward into holier air,
Where fiery passion-clouds have no abode,
And the sky’s temple-arch o’erflows with God?
The radiant hope new-born
Expands like rising morn
In my life’s life: and as a ripening rose
The crimson shadow of its glory throws
More vivid, hour by hour, on some pure stream;
So from that hope are spreading
Rich hues, o’er nature shedding
Each day a clearer, spiritual gleam.
Let not those rays fade from me!—once enjoy’d,
Father of Spirits! let them not depart—
Leaving the chill’d earth, without form and void,
Darken’d by mine own heart!
Lift, aid, sustain me! Thou, by whom alone
All lovely gifts and pure
In the soul’s grasp endure;
Thou, to the steps of whose eternal throne
All knowledge flows—a sea for evermore
Breaking its crested waves on that sole shore—
Oh, consecrate my life! that I may sing
Of thee with joy that hath a living spring,
In a full heart of music! Let my lays
Through the resounding mountains waft thy praise,
And with that theme the wood’s green cloisters fill.
And make their quivering, leafy dimness thrill
To the rich breeze of song! Oh! let me wake
The deep religion, which hath dwelt from yore
Silently brooding by lone cliff and lake,
And wildest river-shore!
And let me summon all the voices dwelling
Where eagles build, and cavern’d rills are welling,
And where the cataract’s organ-peal is swelling,
In that one spirit gather’d to adore!
Forgive, O Father! if presumptuous thought
Too daringly in aspiration rise!
Let not thy child all vainly have been taught
By weakness, and by wanderings, and by sighs
Of sad confession! Lowly be my heart,
And on its penitential altar spread
The offerings worthless, till thy grace impart
The fire from heaven, whose touch alone can shed
Life, radiance, virtue!—let that vital spark
Pierce my whole being, wilder’d else and dark!
Thine are all holy things—oh, make me thine!
So shall I, too, be pure—a living shrine
Unto that Spirit which goes forth from thee,
Strong and divinely free,
Bearing thy gifts of wisdom on its flight,
And brooding o’er them with a dove-like wing,
Till thought, word, song, to thee in worship spring,
Immortally endow’d for liberty and light.

[This exquisite poem was composed during the Author’s last illness; and the following account of her situation at the time, from the pen of her sister, cannot fail to be read with a deep and painful interest. It is another forcible, visible illustration of “the ruling passion strong in death.” Happy, as in her case, when the direction of the mind is towards all that is high, pure, and excellent!

“A shuddering thrill pervaded her whole frame, and she felt, as she often afterwards declared, a presentiment that from that moment her hours were numbered. The same evening she was attacked by a fit of ague; and this insidious and harassing complaint continued its visitations for several weeks, reducing her poor, wasted form to the most lamentable state of debility, and at length retiring only to make way for a train of symptoms still more fatal and distressing. Yet, while the work of decay was going on thus surely and progressively upon the earthly tabernacle, the bright flame within continued to burn with a pure and holy light, and, at times, even to flash forth with more than wonted brightness. The lyric of ‘Despondency and Aspiration,’ which may be considered as her noblest and highest effort, and in which, from a feeling that it might be her last work, she felt anxious to concentrate all her powers, was written during the few intervals accorded her from acute suffering or powerless languor. And in the same circumstances she wrote, or rather dictated, the series of sonnets called Thoughts during Sickness, which present so interesting a picture of the calm, submissive tone of her mind, whether engaged in tender remembrances of the past, or in solemn and reverential speculations on the future. The one entitled ‘Sickness like Night’ discloses a view, no less affecting than consolatory, of the sweet and blessed peace which hovered round the couch where

‘Mutely and hopelessly she lay reposing.’

“The last sonnet of the series, entitled ‘Recovery,’ was written under temporary appearances of convalescence, which proved as fugitive as they were fallacious.”

THE HUGUENOT’S FAREWELL.

I stand upon the threshold stone
Of mine ancestral hall;
I hear my native river moan;
I see the night o’er my old forests fall.
I look round on the darkening vale
That saw my childhood’s plays;
The low wind in its rising wail
Hath a strange tone, a sound of other days.
But I must rule my swelling breast:
A sign is in the sky!
Bright o’er yon gray rock’s eagle-nest
Shines forth a warning star—it bids me fly.
My father’s sword is in my hand,
His deep voice haunts mine ear;
He tells me of the noble band
Whose lives have left a brooding glory here.
He bids their offspring guard from stain
Their pure and lofty faith;
And yield up all things, to maintain
The cause for which they girt themselves to death.
And I obey. I leave their towers
Unto the stranger’s tread,
Unto the creeping grass and flowers,
Unto the fading pictures of the dead.
I leave their shields to slow decay,
Their banners to the dust:
I go, and only bear away
Their old majestic name—a solemn trust!
I go up to the ancient hills.
Where chains may never be,
Where leap in joy the torrent-rills,
Where man may worship God, alone and free.
There shall an altar and a camp
Impregnably arise;
There shall be lit a quenchless lamp,
To shine, unwavering, through the open skies.
And song shall midst the rocks be heard,
And fearless prayer ascend;
While, thrilling to God’s holy word,
The mountain-pines in adoration bend.
And there the burning heart no more
Its deep thought shall suppress,
But the long-buried truth shall pour
Free currents thence, amidst the wilderness.
Then fare thee well, my mother’s bower!
Farewell, my father’s hearth!—
Perish my home! where lawless power
Hath rent the tie of love to native earth.
Perish! let deathlike silence fall
Upon the lone abode;
Spread fast, dark ivy! spread thy pall;—
I go up to the mountains with my God.

ANTIQUE GREEK LAMENT.[440]

By the blue waters—the restless ocean-waters,
Restless as they with their many-flashing surges,
Lonely I wander, weeping for my lost one!
I pine for thee through all the joyless day—
Through the long night I pine: the golden sun
Looks dim since thou hast left me, and the spring
Seems but to weep. Where art thou, my beloved?
Night after night, in fond hope vigilant,
By the old temple on the breezy cliff,
These hands have heap’d the watch-fire, till it stream’d
Red o’er the shining columns—darkly red
Along the crested billows!—but in vain:
Thy white sail comes not from the distant isles—
Yet thou wert faithful ever. Oh! the deep
Hath shut above thy head—that graceful head;
The sea-weed mingles with thy clustering locks;
The white sail never will bring back the loved!
By the blue waters—the restless ocean-waters,
Restless as they with their many-flashing surges,
Lonely I wander, weeping for my lost one!
Where art thou?—where? Had I but lingering press’d
On thy cold lips the last long kiss—but smooth’d
The parted ringlets of thy shining hair
With love’s fond touch, my heart’s cry had been still’d
Into a voiceless grief: I would have strew’d
With all the pale flowers of the vernal woods—
White violets, and the mournful hyacinth,
And frail anemone, thy marble brow,
In slumber beautiful! I would have heap’d
Sweet boughs and precious odours on thy pyre,
And with mine own shorn tresses hung thine urn,
And many a garland of the pallid rose:
But thou liest far away! No funeral chant,
Save the wild moaning of the wave, is thine:
No pyre—save, haply, some long-buried wreck;
Thou that wert fairest—thou that wert most loved!
By the blue waters—the restless ocean-waters,
Restless as they with their many-flashing surges,
Lonely I wander, weeping for my lost one!
Come, in the dreamy shadow of the night,
And speak to me! E’en though thy voice be changed,
My heart would know it still. Oh, speak to me!
And say if yet, in some dim, far-off world,
Which knows not how the festal sunshine burns,
If yet, in some pale mead of asphodel,
We two shall meet again! Oh, I would quit
The day rejoicingly—the rosy light—
All the rich flowers and fountains musical,
And sweet, familiar melodies of earth,
To dwell with thee below! Thou answerest not!
The powers whom I have call’d upon are mute:
The voices buried in old whispery caves,
And by lone river-sources, and amidst
The gloom and mystery of dark prophet-oaks,
The wood-gods’ haunt—they give me no reply!
All silent—heaven and earth! For evermore
From the deserted mountains thou art gone—
For ever from the melancholy groves,
Whose laurels wail thee with a shivering sound!
And I—I pine through all the joyous day,
Through the long night I pine—as fondly pines
The night’s own bird, dissolving her lorn life
To song in moonlight woods. Thou hear’st me not!
The heavens are pitiless of human tears:
The deep sea-darkness is about thy head;
The white sail never will bring back the loved!
By the blue waters—the restless ocean-waters,
Restless as they with their many-flashing surges,
Lonely I wander, weeping for my lost one!

[440] The original title given to this poem was The Lament of Alcyone, which was altered to its present one, on the suggestion of a friend. It was written in November 1834.

THOUGHTS DURING SICKNESS.

INTELLECTUAL POWERS.

O Thought! O Memory! gems for ever heaping
High in the illumined chambers of the mind—
And thou, divine Imagination! keeping
Thy lamp’s lone star mid shadowy hosts enshrined;
How in one moment rent and disentwined,
At Fever’s fiery touch, apart they fall,
Your glorious combinations! broken all,
As the sand-pillars by the desert’s wind
Scatter’d to whirling dust! Oh, soon uncrown’d!
Well may your parting swift, your strange return,
Subdue the soul to lowliness profound,
Guiding its chasten’d vision to discern
How by meek Faith heaven’s portals must be pass’d,
Ere it can hold your gifts inalienably fast.

SICKNESS LIKE NIGHT.

Thou art like Night, O Sickness! deeply stilling
Within my heart the world’s disturbing sound,
And the dim quiet of my chamber filling
With low, sweet voices by Life’s tumult drown’d.
Thou art like awful Night! thou gatherest round
The things that are unseen—though close they lie;
And with a truth, clear, startling, and profound,
Giv’st their dread presence to our mental eye.
Thou art like starry, spiritual Night!
High and immortal thoughts attend thy way,
And revelations, which the common light
Brings not, though wakening with its rosy ray
All outward life:—Be welcome, then, thy rod,
Before whose touch my soul unfolds itself to God.

ON RETZSCH’S DESIGN OF THE ANGEL OF DEATH.[441]

Well might thine awful image thus arise
With that high calm upon thy regal brow,
And the deep, solemn sweetness in those eyes,
Unto the glorious artist! Who but thou
The fleeting forms of beauty can endow
For him with permanence? who make those gleams
Of brighter life, that colour his lone dreams,
Immortal things? Let others trembling bow,
Angel of Death! before thee;—not to those
Whose spirits with Eternal Truth repose,
Art thou a fearful shape! And oh! for me,
How full of welcome would thine aspect shine,
Did not the cords of strong affection twine
So fast around my soul, it cannot spring to thee!

[441] This sonnet was suggested by the following passage out of Mrs Jameson’s Visits and Sketches at Home and Abroad, in a description she gives of a visit paid to the artist Retzsch, near Dresden:—“Afterwards he placed upon his easel a wondrous face which made me shrink back—not with terror, for it was perfectly beautiful,—but with awe, for it was unspeakably fearful: the hair streamed back from the pale brow—the orbs of sight appeared at first two dark, hollow, unfathomable spaces, like those in a skull; but when I drew nearer and looked attentively, two lovely living eyes looked at me again out of the depth of the shadow, as if from the bottom of an abyss. The mouth was divinely sweet, but sad, and the softest repose rested on every feature. This, he told me, was the Angel of Death.”

REMEMBRANCE OF NATURE.

O Nature! thou didst rear me for thine own,
With thy free singing-birds and mountain-brooks;
Feeding my thoughts in primrose-haunted nooks,
With fairy fantasies and wood-dreams lone;
And thou didst teach me every wandering tone
Drawn from thy many-whispering trees and waves,
And guide my steps to founts and sparry caves,
And where bright mosses wove thee a rich throne
Midst the green hills: and now that, far estranged
From all sweet sounds and odours of thy breath,
Fading I lie, within my heart unchanged,
So glows the love of thee, that not for death
Seems that pure passion’s fervour—but ordain’d
To meet on brighter shores thy majesty unstain’d.

FLIGHT OF THE SPIRIT.

Whither, oh! whither wilt thou wing thy way?
What solemn region first upon thy sight
Shall break, unveil’d for terror or delight?
What hosts, magnificent in dread array,
My spirit! when thy prison-house of clay,
After long strife is rent? Fond, fruitless quest!
The unfledged bird, within his narrow nest,
Sees but a few green branches o’er him play,
And through their parting leaves, by fits reveal’d,
A glimpse of summer sky; nor knows the field
Wherein his dormant powers must yet be tried.
Thou art that bird!—of what beyond thee lies
Far in the untrack’d, immeasurable skies,
Knowing but this—that thou shalt find thy Guide?

FLOWERS.

Welcome, O pure and lovely forms! again
Unto the shadowy stillness of my room!
For not alone ye bring a joyous train

Of summer-thoughts attendant on your bloom—
Visions of freshness, of rich bowery gloom,
Of the low murmurs filling mossy dells,
Of stars that look down on your folded bells
Through dewy leaves, of many a wild perfume
Greeting the wanderer of the hill and grove
Like sudden music: more than this ye bring—
Far more; ye whisper of the all-fostering love
Which thus hath clothed you, and whose dove-like wing
Broods o’er the sufferer drawing fever’d breath,
Whether the couch be that of life or death.

RECOVERY.[442]

Back, then, once more to breast the waves of life,
To battle on against the unceasing spray,
To sink o’erwearied in the stormy strife,
And rise to strive again; yet on my way,
Oh! linger still, thou light of better day!
Born in the hours of loneliness: and you,
Ye childlike thoughts! the holy and the true—
Ye that came bearing, while subdued I lay,
The faith, the insight of life’s vernal morn
Back on my soul, a clear, bright sense, new-born,
Now leave me not! but as, profoundly pure,
A blue stream rushes through a darker lake
Unchanged, e’en thus with me your journey take,
Wafting sweet airs of heaven thro’ this low world obscure.

[442] Written under the false impression occasioned by a temporary improvement in strength.

SABBATH SONNET.[443]

COMPOSED BY MRS HEMANS A FEW DAYS BEFORE HER DEATH, AND DICTATED TO HER BROTHER.

How many blessed groups this hour are bending,
Thro’ England’s primrose meadow-paths, their way
Towards spire and tower, midst shadowy elms ascending,
Whence the sweet chimes proclaim the hallow’d day!
The halls from old heroic ages gray
Pour their fair children forth; and hamlets low,
With whose thick orchard-blooms the soft winds play,
Send out their inmates in a happy flow,
Like a freed vernal stream. I may not tread
With them those pathways—to the feverish bed
Of sickness bound; yet, O my God! I bless
Thy mercy, that with Sabbath-peace hath fill’d
My chasten’d heart, and all its throbbings still’d
To one deep calm of lowliest thankfulness!

26th April 1835.

[443] After the exhausting vicissitudes of days when it seemed that the night of death was indeed at hand—of nights when it was thought that she could never see the light of morning—wonderful even to those who had witnessed, throughout her illness, the clearness and brightness of the never-dying principle, amidst the desolation and decay of its earthly companion, was the consecrated power and facility with which, on Sunday, the 26th of April, she dictated to her brother the “Sabbath Sonnet,” the last strain of the “sweet singer,” whose harp was henceforth to be hung upon the willows.

Amongst the many tributes of interest and admiration elicited by a poem, so remarkable to all readers—so precious to many hearts—the following expressions, contained in a letter from the late venerable Bishop of Salisbury to Mrs Joanna Baillie, and already published by the latter, are too pleasingly applicable not to be inserted here. “There is something peculiarly touching in the time, the subject, and the occasion of this deathbed sonnet, and in the affecting contrast between the ‘blessed groups’ she describes, and her own (humanly speaking) helpless state of sickness; and that again contrasted with the hopeful state of mind with which the sonnet concludes, expressive both of the quiet comforts of a Christian Sabbath, and the blessed fruits of profitable application. Her ‘Sweet Chimes’ on ‘Sabbath-peace,’ appear to me very characteristic of the writer.”—Memoir, p. 311-12.