Her voice hath been th’ awakener—and her name
The gathering-word of nations. In her might,
And all the awful beauty of her fame,
Apart she dwelt, in solitary light.
High on her cliffs, alone and firm she stood,
Fixing the torch upon her beacon-tower—
That torch whose flame, far streaming o’er the flood,
Hath guided Europe through her darkest hour.
Away, vain dreams of glory!—in the dust
Be humbled, Ocean-queen! and own thy sentence just!

XII.

Hark! ’twas the death-bell’s note! which, full and deep,
Unmix’d with aught of less majestic tone,
While all the murmurs of existence sleep,
Swell’d on the stillness of the air alone!
Silent the throngs that fill the darken’d street,
Silent the slumbering Thames, the lonely mart;
And all is still, where countless thousands meet,
Save the full throbbing of the awe-struck heart!
All deeply, strangely, fearfully serene,
As in each ravaged home th’ avenging one had been.

XIII.

The sun goes down in beauty—his farewell,
Unlike the world he leaves, is calmly bright;
And his last mellow’d rays around us dwell,
Lingering, as if on scenes of young delight.
They smile and fade—but, when the day is o’er,
What slow procession moves with measured tread?—
Lo! those who weep, with her who weeps no more,
A solemn train—the mourners and the dead!
While, throned on high, the moon’s untroubled ray
Looks down, as earthly hopes are passing thus away.

XIV.

But other light is in that holy pile,
Where, in the house of silence, kings repose;
There, through the dim arcade and pillar’d aisle,
The funeral torch its deep-red radiance throws.
There pall, and canopy, and sacred strain,
And all around the stamp of woe may bear;
But Grief, to whose full heart those forms are vain,
Grief unexpress’d, unsoothed by them—is there.
No darker hour hath Fate for him who mourns,
Than when the all he loved, as dust, to dust returns.

XV.

We mourn—but not thy fate, departed One!
We pity—but the living, not the dead;
A cloud hangs o’er us[61]—“the bright day is done,”
And with a father’s hopes, a nation’s fled.
And he, the chosen of thy youthful breast,
Whose soul with thine had mingled every thought—
He, with thine early fond affections blest,
Lord of a mind with all things lovely fraught;
What but a desert to his eye, that earth,
Which but retains of thee the memory of thy worth?

XVI.

Oh! there are griefs for nature too intense,
Whose first rude shock but stupifies the soul;
Nor hath the fragile and o’erlabour’d sense
Strength e’en to feel at once their dread control.
But when ’tis past, that still and speechless hour
Of the seal’d bosom and the tearless eye,
Then the roused mind awakes, with tenfold power
To grasp the fulness of its agony!
Its deathlike torpor vanish’d—and its doom,
To cast its own dark hues o’er life and nature’s bloom.

XVII.

And such his lot whom thou hast loved and left,
Spirit! thus early to thy home recall’d!
So sinks the heart, of hope and thee bereft,
A warrior’s heart, which danger ne’er appall’d.
Years may pass on—and, as they roll along,
Mellow those pangs which now his bosom rend;
And he once more, with life’s unheeding throng,
May, though alone in soul, in seeming blend;
Yet still, the guardian-angel of his mind
Shall thy loved image dwell, in Memory’s temple shrined.

XVIII.

Yet must the days be long ere time shall steal
Aught from his grief whose spirit dwells with thee:
Once deeply bruised, the heart at length may heal,
But all it was—oh! never more shall be.
The flower, the leaf, o’erwhelm’d by winter snow,
Shall spring again, when beams and showers return,
The faded cheek again with health may glow,
And the dim eye with life’s warm radiance burn;
But the pure freshness of the mind’s young bloom,
Once lost, revives alone in worlds beyond the tomb.

XIX.

But thou! thine hour of agony is o’er,
And thy brief race in brilliance hath been run;
While Faith, that bids fond nature grieve no more,
Tells that thy crown—though not on earth—is won.
Thou, of the world so early left, hast known
Nought but the bloom and sunshine—and for thee,
Child of propitious stars! for thee alone,
The course of love ran smooth[62] and brightly free.
Not long such bliss to mortal could be given:
It is enough for earth to catch one glimpse of heaven.

XX.

What though, ere yet the noonday of thy fame
Rose in its glory on thine England’s eye,
The grave’s deep shadows o’er thy prospect came?
Ours is that loss—and thou wert blest to die!
Thou mightst have lived to dark and evil years,
To mourn thy people changed, thy skies o’ercast;
But thy spring morn was all undimm’d by tears,
And thou wert loved and cherish’d to the last!
And thy young name, ne’er breathed in ruder tone,
Thus dying, thou hast left to love and grief alone.

XXI.

Daughter of Kings! from that high sphere look down
Where still, in hope, affection’s thoughts may rise;
Where dimly shines to thee that mortal crown
Which earth display’d to claim thee from the skies.
Look down! and if thy spirit yet retain
Memory of aught that once was fondly dear,
Soothe, though unseen, the hearts that mourn in vain,
And in their hours of loneliness—be near!
Blest was thy lot e’en here—and one faint sigh,
Oh! tell those hearts, hath made that blest eternity![63]

[60]

“I saw him last on this terrace proud,
Walking in health and gladness;
Begirt with his court—and in all the crowd
Not a single look of sadness.
“The time since he walk’d in glory thus,
To the grave till I saw him carried,
Was an age of the mightiest change to us,
But to him a night unvaried.
“A daughter beloved—a queen—a son—
And a son’s sole child had perish’d;
And sad was each heart, save the only one
By which they were fondest cherish’d.”

—“The Contrast,” written under Windsor Terrace, 17th Feb. 1820, by Horace Smith, Esq.

[61]

“The bright day is done,
And we are for the dark.”—Shakspeare.

[62]

“The course of true love never did run smooth.”
Shakspeare.

[63] These stanzas were dated, Brownwhylfa, 23d Dec. 1817, and first appeared in Blackwood’s Magazine, vol. iii. April 1818.

EXTRACT FROM QUARTERLY REVIEW.

“The next volume in order consists principally of translations. It will give our readers some idea of Mrs Hemans’ acquaintance with books, to enumerate the authors from whom she has chosen her subjects;—they are Camoens, Metastasio, Filicaja, Pastorini, Lope de Vega, Francisco Manuel, Della Casa, Cornelio Bentivoglio, Quevedo, Juan de Tarsis, Torquato and Bernardo Tasso, Petrarca, Pietro Bembo, Lorenzini, Gesner, Chaulieu, Garcilaso de Vega—names embracing almost every language in which the muse has found a tongue in Europe. Many of these translations are very pretty, but it would be less interesting to select any of them for citation, as our readers might not be possessed of or acquainted with the originals. We will pass on, therefore, to the latter part of the volume, which contains much that is very pleasing and beautiful. The poem which we are about to transcribe is on a subject often treated—and no wonder; it would be hard to find another which embraces so many of the elements of poetic feeling; so soothing a mixture of pleasing melancholy and pensive hope; such an assemblage of the ideas of tender beauty, of artless playfulness, of spotless purity, of transient yet imperishable brightness, of affections wounded, but not in bitterness, of sorrows gently subdued, of eternal and undoubted happiness. We know so little of the heart of man, that when we stand by the grave of him whom we deem most excellent, the thought of death will be mingled with some awe and uncertainty; but the gracious promises of scripture leave no doubt as to the blessedness of departed infants; and when we think what they now are and what they might have been, what they now enjoy and what they might have suffered, what they have now gained and what they might have lost, we may, indeed, yearn to follow them; but we must be selfish indeed to wish them again ‘constrained’ to dwell in these tenements of pain and sorrow. The ‘Dirge of a Child,’ which follows, embodies these thoughts and feelings, but in more beautiful order and language:—

“No bitter tears for thee be shed,” etc.—Vide page 55.