[256] Originally published in the New Monthly Magazine.

[“‘The Voice of Spring,’ perhaps the best known and best loved of all Mrs Hemans’ lyrics, was written early in the year 1823; and is thus alluded to in a letter to a friend, who had lately suffered a severe and sudden bereavement:—‘The Voice of Spring’ expresses some peculiar feelings of my own. Although my life has yet been unvisited by any affliction so deeply impressive, in all its circumstances, as the one you have been called upon to sustain; yet I cannot but feel every year, with the return of the violet, how much the shadows of my mind have deepened since its last appearance; and to me the spring, with all its joy and beauty, is generally a time of thoughtfulness rather than mirth. I think the most delightful poetry I know upon the subject of this season, is contained in the works of Tieck, a German poet, with whom you are perhaps acquainted; but the feelings he expresses are of a very different character from those I have described to you, seeming all to proceed from an overflowing sense of life and joy.’

“This indefinable feeling of languor and depression produced by the influence of spring, will be well understood by many a gentle heart. Never do the

‘Fond strange yearnings from the soul’s deep cell
Gush for the faces we no more shall see,’

with such uncontrollable power, as when all external nature breathes of life and gladness. Amidst all the bright and joyous things around us, we are haunted with images of death and the grave. The force of contrast, not less strong than that of analogy, is unceasingly reminding us of the great gulf that divides us from those who are now ‘gone down in silence.’ Some unforgotten voice is ever whispering—‘And I too in Arcadia!’ We remember how we were wont to rejoice in the soft air and pleasant sunshine; and these things can charm us no longer, ‘because they are not.’ The farewell sadness of autumn, on the contrary—its falling leaves, and universal imagery of decay, by bringing more home to us the sense of our own mortality, identifies us more closely with those who are gone before, and the veil of separation becomes, as it were, more transparent. We are impressed with a more pervading conviction that ‘we shall go to them;’ while, in spring, every thing seems mournfully to echo, ‘they will not return to us!’

“These peculiar associations may be traced in many of Mrs Hemans’ writings, deepening with the influence of years and of sorrows, and more particularly developed in the poem called ‘Breathings of Spring.’ And when it is remembered that it was at this season her own earthly course was finished, the following passage from a letter, written in the month of May, some years after the one last quoted, cannot be read without emotion:—‘Poor A. H. is to be buried to-morrow. With the bright sunshine laughing around, it seems more sad to think of; yet, if I could choose when I would wish to die, it should be in spring—the influence of that season is so strangely depressing to my heart and frame.’”—Memoir, p. 66-68.

“‘The Voice of Spring,’ one of the first of what may be called Mrs Hemans’ fanciful lyrics, which presently became as familiar as the music of some popular composer when brought to our doors by wandering minstrels.”—Chorley’s Memorials, vol. i. p. 113.

“But it is time Mrs Hemans’ poetry were allowed to speak for itself; in making our extracts from it, we have really been as much puzzled as a child gathering flowers in a lovely garden—now attracted by a rose—straightway allured by a lily—now tempted by a stately tulip—and again unsettled by a breathing violet, or ‘well-attired woodbine.’ We do think, however, that the ‘Voice of Spring’ is the pride of Mrs H.’s parterre—the rose of her poetry.”—(A. A. Watts.)—Literary Magnet, 1826.]

ELYSIUM.

[“In the Elysium of the ancients, we find none but heroes and persons who had either been fortunate or distinguished on earth; the children, and apparently the slaves and lower classes—that is to say, Poverty, Misfortune, and Innocence—were banished to the infernal Regions.”—Chateaubriand, Génie du Christianisme.]

Fair wert thou in the dreams
Of elder time, thou land of glorious flowers
And summer winds and low-toned silvery streams,
Dim with the shadows of thy laurel bowers,
Where, as they pass’d, bright hours
Left no faint sense of parting, such as clings
To earthly love, and joy in loveliest things!
Fair wert thou, with the light
On thy blue hills and sleepy waters cast
From purple skies ne’er deep’ning into night,
Yet soft, as if each moment were their last
Of glory, fading fast
Along the mountains!—but thy golden day
Was not as those that warn us of decay.
And ever, through thy shades,
A swell of deep Æolian sound went by
From fountain-voices in their secret glades,
And low reed-whispers, making sweet reply
To summer’s breezy sigh,
And young leaves trembling to the wind’s light breath,
Which ne’er had touch’d them with a hue of death!
And the transparent sky
Rang as a dome, all thrilling to the strain
Of harps that midst the woods made harmony,
Solemn and sweet; yet troubling not the brain
With dreams and yearnings vain,
And dim remembrances, that still draw birth
From the bewildering music of the earth.
And who, with silent tread,
Moved o’er the plains of waving asphodel?
Call’d from the dim procession of the dead,
Who midst the shadowy amaranth-bowers might dwell,
And listen to the swell
Of those majestic hymn-notes, and inhale
The spirit wandering in the immortal gale?
They of the sword, whose praise,
With the bright wine, at nations’ feasts went round!
They of the lyre, whose unforgotten lays
Forth on the winds had sent their mighty sound,
And in all regions found
Their echoes midst the mountains!—and become
In man’s deep heart as voices of his home!
They of the daring thought!
Daring and powerful, yet to dust allied—
Whose flight through stars, and seas, and depths, had sought
The soul’s far birthplace—but without a guide!
Sages and seers, who died,
And left the world their high mysterious dreams,
born midst the olive woods by Grecian streams.
But the most loved are they
Of whom fame speaks not with her clarion voice,
In regal halls! The shades o’erhang their way;
The vale, with its deep fountains, is their choice,
And gentle hearts rejoice
Around their steps; till silently they die,
As a stream shrinks from summer’s burning eye.
And these—of whose abode,
Midst her green valleys, earth retain’d no trace,
Save a flower springing from their burial-sod,
A shade of sadness on some kindred face,
A dim and vacant place
In some sweet home;—thou hadst no wreaths for these,
Thou sunny land! with all thy deathless trees!
The peasant at his door
Might sink to die when vintage-feasts were spread,
And songs on every wind! From thy bright shore
No lovelier vision floated round his head—
Thou wert for nobler dead!
He heard the bounding steps which round him fell,
And sigh’d to bid the festal sun farewell!
The slave, whose very tears
Were a forbidden luxury, and whose breast
Kept the mute woes and burning thoughts of years,
As embers in a burial-urn compress’d;
He might not be thy guest!
No gentle breathings from thy distant sky
Came o’er his path, and whisper’d “Liberty!”
Calm, on its leaf-strewn bier,
Unlike a gift of Nature to Decay,
Too rose-like still, too beautiful, too dear,
The child at rest before the mother lay,
E’en so to pass away,
With its bright smile!—Elysium! what wert thou
To her, who wept o’er that young slumb’rer’s brow?
Thou hadst no home, green land!
For the fair creature from her bosom gone,
With life’s fresh flowers just opening in its hand,
And all the lovely thoughts and dreams unknown,
Which in its clear eye shone
Like spring’s first wakening! but that light was past—
Where went the dewdrop swept before the blast?
Not where thy soft winds play’d,
Not where thy waters lay in glassy sleep!
Fade with thy bowers, thou Land of Visions, fade!
From thee no voice came o’er the gloomy deep,
And bade man cease to weep!
Fade, with the amaranth plain, the myrtle grove,
Which could not yield one hope to sorrowing love![257]

[257] The form of this poem was a good deal altered by Mrs Hemans some years after its first publication, and, though done so perhaps to advantage, one verse was omitted. As originally written, the two following stanzas concluded the piece:—

For the most loved are they
Of whom Fame speaks not with her clarion voice,
In regal halls! The shades o’erhang their way;
The vale, with its deep fountains, is their choice,
And gentle hearts rejoice
Around their steps; till silently they die,
As a stream shrinks from summer’s burning eye.
And the world knows not then,
Not then, nor ever, what pure thoughts are fled!
Yet these are they, who on the souls of men
Come back, when night her folding veil hath spread,
The long-remember’d dead!
But not with thee might aught save glory dwell—
Fade, fade away, thou shore of asphodel!

THE FUNERAL GENIUS,

AN ANCIENT STATUE.

“Debout, couronné de fleurs, les bras élevés et posés sur sa tête, et le dos appuyé contre un pin, ce génie semble exprimer par son attitude le repos des morts. Les bas-reliefs des tombeaux offrent souvent des figures semblables.”—Visconti, Description des Antiques du Musée Royal.

Thou shouldst be look’d on when the starlight falls
Through the blue stillness of the summer air,
Not by the torch-fire wavering on the walls—
It hath too fitful and too wild a glare!
And thou!—thy rest, the soft, the lovely, seems
To ask light steps, that will not break its dreams.
Flowers are upon thy brow; for so the dead
Were crown’d of old, with pale spring-flowers like these:
Sleep on thine eye hath sunk; yet softly shed
As from the wing of some faint southern breeze:
And the pine-boughs o’ershadow thee with gloom,
Which of the grove seems breathing—not the tomb.
They fear’d not death, whose calm and gracious thought
Of the last hour hath settled thus in thee!
They who thy wreath of pallid roses wrought,
And laid thy head against the forest tree,
As that of one, by music’s dreamy close,
On the wood-violets lull’d to deep repose.
They fear’d not death!—yet who shall say his touch
Thus lightly falls on gentle things and fair?
Doth he bestow, or will he leave so much
Of tender beauty as thy features wear?
Thou sleeper of the bower! on whose young eyes
So still a night, a night of summer, lies!
Had they seen aught like thee? Did some fair boy
Thus, with his graceful hair, before them rest?
—His graceful hair, no more to wave in joy,
But drooping, as with heavy dews oppress’d;
And his eye veil’d so softly by its fringe,
And his lip faded to the white-rose tinge?
Oh! happy, if to them the one dread hour
Made known its lessons from a brow like thine!
If all their knowledge of the spoiler’s power
Came by a look so tranquilly divine!
—Let him who thus hath seen the lovely part,
Hold well that image to his thoughtful heart.
But thou, fair slumberer! was there less of woe,
Or love, or terror, in the days of old,
That men pour’d out their gladd’ning spirit’s flow,
Like sunshine, on the desolate and cold,
And gave thy semblance to the shadowy king,
Who for deep souls had then a deeper sting?
In the dark bosom of the earth they laid
Far more than we—for loftier faith is ours!
Their gems were lost in ashes—yet they made
The grave a place of beauty and of flowers,
With fragrant wreaths, and summer boughs array’d,
And lovely sculpture gleaming through the shade.
Is it for us a darker gloom to shed
O’er its dim precincts?—do we not intrust
But for a time its chambers with our dead,
And strew immortal seed upon the dust?
Why should we dwell on that which lies beneath,
When living light hath touch’d the brow of death?

THE TOMBS OF PLATÆA.

FROM A PAINTING BY WILLIAMS.

And there they sleep!—the men who stood
In arms before th’ exulting sun,
And bathed their spears in Persian blood,
And taught the earth how freedom might be won.
They sleep!—th’ Olympic wreaths are dead,
Th’ Athenian lyres are hush’d and gone;
The Dorian voice of song is fled—
Slumber, ye mighty! slumber deeply on.
They sleep—and seems not all around
As hallow’d unto glory’s tomb?
Silence is on the battle-ground,
The heavens are loaded with a breathless gloom.
And stars are watching on their height,
But dimly seen through mist and cloud;
And still and solemn is the light
Which folds the plain, as with a glimmering shroud.
And thou, pale Night-queen! here thy beams
Are not as those the shepherd loves,
Nor look they down on shining streams,
By Naiads haunted in their laurel groves.
Thou seest no pastoral hamlet sleep,
In shadowy quiet, midst its vines;
No temple gleaming from the steep,
Midst the gray olives or the mountain pines:
But o’er a dim and boundless waste,
Thy rays, e’en like a tomb-lamp’s, brood,
Where man’s departed steps are traced
But by his dust, amidst the solitude.
And be it thus!—What slave shall tread
O’er freedom’s ancient battle-plains?
Let deserts wrap the glorious dead
When their bright Land sits weeping o’er her chains.
Here, where the Persian clarion rung,
And where the Spartan sword flash’d high,
And where the pæan strains were sung,
From year to year swell’d on by liberty;
Here should no voice, no sound, be heard,
Until the bonds of Greece be riven,
Save of the leader’s charging-word,
Or the shrill trumpet, pealing up through heaven!
Rest in your silent homes, ye brave!
No vines festoon your lonely tree,[258]
No harvest o’er your war-field wave,
Till rushing winds proclaim—The land is free!

[258] A single tree appears in Mr Williams’ impressive picture.

THE VIEW FROM CASTRI.

FROM A PAINTING BY WILLIAMS.

There have been bright and glorious pageants here,
Where now gray stones and moss-grown columns lie;
There have been words, which earth grew pale to hear,
Breathed from the cavern’s misty chambers nigh:
There have been voices through the sunny sky,
And the pine-woods, their choral hymn-notes sending,
And reeds and lyres, their Dorian melody
With incense-clouds around the temple blending,
And throngs with laurel-boughs before the altar bending.
There have been treasures of the seas and isles
Brought to the Day-god’s now-forsaken throne;
Thunders have peal’d along the rock-defiles,
When the far-echoing battle-horn made known
That foes were on their way! The deep wind’s moan
Hath chill’d th’ invader’s heart with secret fear;
And from the Sibyl-grottoes, wild and lone,
Storms have gone forth, which, in their fierce career,
From his bold hand have struck the banner and the spear.
The shrine hath sunk!—but thou unchanged art there!
Mount of the voice and vision, robed with dreams!
Unchanged—and rising through the radiant air,
With thy dark waving pines, and flashing streams,
And all thy founts of song! Their bright course teems
With inspiration yet; and each dim haze,
Or golden cloud which floats around thee, seems
As with its mantle veiling from our gaze
The mysteries of the past, the gods of elder days!
Away, vain fantasies!—doth less of power
Dwell round thy summit, or thy cliffs invest,
Though, in deep stillness, now the ruin’s flower
Wave o’er the pillars mouldering on thy breast?
—Lift through the free blue heavens thine arrowy crest!
Let the great rocks their solitude regain!
No Delphian lyres now break thy noontide rest
With their full chords:—but silent be the strain!
Thou hast a mightier voice to speak th’ Eternal’s reign![259]

[259] This, with the preceding, and several of the following pieces, first appeared in the Edinburgh Magazine.

THE FESTAL HOUR.

When are the lessons given
That shake the startled earth? When wakes the foe
While the friend sleeps? When falls the traitor’s blow?
When are proud sceptres riven,
High hopes o’erthrown?—It is when lands rejoice,
When cities blaze and lift th’ exulting voice,
And wave their banners to the kindling heaven!
Fear ye the festal hour!
When mirth o’erflows, then tremble!—’Twas a night
Of gorgeous revel, wreaths, and dance, and light,
When through the regal bower
The trumpet peal’d ere yet the song was done,
And there were shrieks in golden Babylon,
And trampling armies, ruthless in their power.
The marble shrines were crown’d:
Young voices, through the blue Athenian sky,
And Dorian reeds, made summer-melody,
And censers waved around;
And lyres were strung and bright libations pour’d!
When through the streets flash’d out the avenging sword,
Fearless and free, the sword with myrtles bound![260]
Through Rome a triumph pass’d.
Rich in her Sun-god’s mantling beams went by
That long array of glorious pageantry,
With shout and trumpet-blast.
An empire’s gems their starry splendour shed
O’er the proud march; a king in chains was led;
A stately victor, crown’d and robed, came last.[261]
And many a Dryad’s bower
Had lent the laurels which, in waving play,
Stirr’d the warm air, and glisten’d round his way
As a quick-flashing shower.
—O’er his own porch, meantime, the cypress hung,
Through his fair halls a cry of anguish rung—
Woe for the dead!—the father’s broken flower!
A sound of lyre and song,
In the still night, went floating o’er the Nile,
Whose waves, by many an old mysterious pile,
Swept with that voice along;
And lamps were shining o’er the red wine’s foam
Where a chief revell’d in a monarch’s dome,
And fresh rose-garlands deck’d a glittering throng.
’Twas Antony that bade
The joyous chords ring out! But strains arose
Of wilder omen at the banquet’s close!
Sounds, by no mortal made,[262]
Shook Alexandria through her streets that night,
And pass’d—and with another sunset’s light,
The kingly Roman on his bier was laid.
Bright midst its vineyards lay
The fair Campanian city,[263] with its towers
And temples gleaming through dark olive-bowers,
Clear in the golden day;
Joy was around it as the glowing sky,
And crowds had fill’d its halls of revelry,
And all the sunny air was music’s way.
A cloud came o’er the face
Of Italy’s rich heaven!—its crystal blue
Was changed, and deepen’d to a wrathful hue
Of night, o’ershadowing space
As with the wings of death!—in all his power
Vesuvius woke, and hurl’d the burning shower,
And who could tell the buried city’s place?
Such things have been of yore,
In the gay regions where the citrons blow,
And purple summers all their sleepy glow
On the grape-clusters pour;
And where the palms to spicy winds are waving,
Along clear seas of melting sapphire, laving,
As with a flow of light, their southern shore.
Turn we to other climes!—
Far in the Druid isle a feast was spread,
Midst the rock-altars of the warrior dead;[264]
And ancient battle-rhymes
Were chanted to the harp; and yellow mead
Went flowing round, and tales of martial deed
And lofty songs of Britain’s elder time;—
But ere the giant-fane
Cast its broad shadows on the robe of even,
Hush’d were the bards, and in the face of heaven,
O’er that old burial-plain,
Flash’d the keen Saxon dagger!—blood was streaming
Where late the mead-cup to the sun was gleaming,
And Britain’s hearths were heap’d that night in vain—
For they return’d no more!
They that went forth at morn, with reckless heart,
In that fierce banquet’s mirth to bear their part:
And on the rushy floor,
And the bright spears and bucklers of the walls,
The high wood-fires were blazing in their halls;
But not for them—they slept—their feast was o’er!
Fear ye the festal hour!
Ay, tremble when the cup of joy o’erflows!
Tame down the swelling heart! The bridal rose,
And the rich myrtle’s flower,
Have veil’d the sword! Red wines have sparkled fast
From venom’d goblets, and soft breezes pass’d
With fatal perfume through the revel’s bower.
Twine the young glowing wreath!
But pour not all your spirit in the song,
Which through the sky’s deep azure floats along
Like summer’s quickening breath!
The ground is hollow in the path of mirth:
Oh! far too daring seems the joy of earth,
So darkly press’d and girdled in by death!

[“‘The Festal Hour’ certainly appears to us to be one of the noblest, regular, and classical odes in the English language—happy in the general idea, and rich in imagery and illustration.”—Dr Morehead in Constable’s Magazine, Sept. 1823.]

[260] The sword of Harmodius.

[261] Paulus Æmilius, one of whose sons died a few days before, and another shortly after, his triumph on the conquest of Macedon, when Perseus, king of that country, was led in chains.

[262] See the description given by Plutarch, in his life of Antony, of the supernatural sounds heard in the streets of Alexandria, the night before Antony’s death.

[263] Herculaneum, of which it is related, that all the inhabitants were assembled in the theatres, when the shower of ashes which overwhelmed the city descended.

[264] Stonehenge, said by some traditions to have been erected to the memory of Ambrosius, an early British king; and by others mentioned as a monumental record of the massacre of British chiefs here alluded to.

SONG OF THE BATTLE OF MORGARTEN.

[“In the year 1315, Switzerland was invaded by Duke Leopold of Austria, with a formidable army. It is well attested that this prince repeatedly declared he ‘would trample the audacious rustics under his feet;’ and that he had procured a large stock of cordage, for the purpose of binding their chiefs, and putting them to death.

“The 15th October 1315 dawned. The sun darted its first rays on the shields and armour of the advancing host; and this being the first army ever known to have attempted the frontiers of the cantons, the Swiss viewed its long line with various emotions. Montfort de Tettnang led the cavalry into the narrow pass, and soon filled the whole space between the mountain (Mount Sattel) and the lake. The fifty men on the eminence (above Morgarten) raised a sudden shout, and rolled down heaps of rocks and stones among the crowded ranks. The confederates on the mountain, perceiving the impression made by this attack, rushed down in close array, and fell upon the flank of the disordered column. With massy clubs they dashed in pieces the armour of the enemy, and dealt their blows and thrusts with long pikes. The narrowness of the defile admitted of no evolutions, and a slight frost having injured the road, the horses were impeded in all their motions; many leaped into the lake; all were startled; and at last the whole column gave way, and fell suddenly back on the infantry; and these last, as the nature of the country did not allow them to open their files, were run over by the fugitives, and many of them trampled to death. A general rout ensued, and Duke Leopold was with much difficulty rescued by a peasant, who led him to Winterthur, where the historian of the times saw him arrive in the evening, pale, sullen, and dismayed.”—Planta’s History of the Helvetic Confederacy.]

The wine-month[265] shone in its golden prime,
And the red grapes clustering hung,
But a deeper sound, through the Switzer’s clime,
Than the vintage music, rung—
A sound through vaulted cave,
A sound through echoing glen,
Like the hollow swell of a rushing wave;
—’Twas the tread of steel-girt men.
And a trumpet, pealing wild and far,
Midst the ancient rocks was blown,
Till the Alps replied to that voice of war
With a thousand of their own.
And through the forest-glooms
Flash’d helmets to the day;
And the winds were tossing knightly plumes,
Like the larch-boughs in their play.
In Hasli’s[266] wilds there was gleaming steel
As the host of the Austrian pass’d;
And the Schreckhorn’s[267] rocks, with a savage peal,
Made mirth of his clarion’s blast.
Up midst the Righi snows
The stormy march was heard,
With the charger’s tramp, whence fire-sparks rose,
And the leader’s gathering-word.
But a band, the noblest band of all,
Through the rude Morgarten strait,
With blazon’d streamers and lances tall,
Moved onwards in princely state.
They came with heavy chains
For the race despised so long—
But amidst his Alp-domains,
The herdsman’s arm is strong!
The sun was reddening the clouds of morn
When they enter’d the rock-defile,
And shrill as a joyous hunter’s horn
Their bugles rang the while.
But on the misty height
Where the mountain-people stood,
There was stillness as of night,
When storms at distance brood.
There was stillness as of deep, dead night,
And a pause—but not of fear,
While the Switzers gazed on the gathering might
Of the hostile shield and spear.
On wound those columns bright
Between the lake and wood,
But they look’d not to the misty height
Where the mountain-people stood.
The pass was fill’d with their serried power,
All helm’d and mail-array’d,
And their steps had sounds like a thunder-shower
In the rustling forest-shade.
There were prince and crested knight,
Hemm’d in by cliff and flood,
When a shout arose from the misty height
Where the mountain-people stood.
And the mighty rocks came bounding down
Their startled foes among,
With a joyous whirl from the summit thrown—
Oh! the herdsman’s arm is strong!—
They came like lauwine[268] hurl’d
From Alp to Alp in play,
When the echoes shout through the snowy world,
And the pines are borne away.
The fir-woods crash’d on the mountain-side,
And the Switzers rush’d from high,
With a sudden charge, on the flower and pride
Of the Austrian chivalry:
Like hunters of the deer,
They storm’d the narrow dell;
And first in the shock, with Uri’s spear,
Was the arm of William Tell.[269]
There was tumult in the crowded strait,
And a cry of wild dismay;
And many a warrior met his fate
From a peasant’s hand that day!
And the Empire’s banner then
From its place of waving free,
Went down before the shepherd-men,
The men of the Forest-Sea.
With their pikes and massy clubs they brake
The cuirass and the shield,
And the war-horse dash’d to the reddening lake
From the reapers of the field!
The field—but not of sheaves—
Proud crests and pennons lay,
Strewn o’er it thick as the birch-wood leaves
In the autumn tempest’s way.
Oh! the sun in heaven fierce havoc view’d
When the Austrian turn’d to fly,
And the brave, in the trampling multitude,
Had a fearful death to die!
And the leader of the war
At eve unhelm’d was seen,
With a hurrying step on the wilds afar,
And a pale and troubled mien.
But the sons of the land which the freeman tills
Went back from the battle-toil,
To their cabin homes midst the deep-green hills,
All burden’d with royal spoil.
There were songs and festal fires
On the soaring Alps that night,
When children sprang to greet their sires
From the wild Morgarten fight

[265] Wine-month, the German name for October.

[266] Hasli, a wild district in the canton of Berne.

[267] Schreckhorn, the peak of terror, a mountain in the canton of Berne.

[268] Lauwine, the Swiss name for the avalanche.