[The howling of the wind at night had a very peculiar effect on her nerves—nothing in the least approaching to the sensation of fear, as few were more exempt from that class of alarms usually called nervous; but working upon her imagination to a degree which was always succeeded by a reaction of fatigue and exhaustion. The solemn influences thus mysteriously exercised are alluded to in many of her poems, particularly “The Song of the Night,” and “The Voice of the Wind.”—Memoir, p. 84.]

[378] Suggested by Thorwaldsen’s bas-relief of Night, represented under the form of a winged female figure, with two infants asleep in her arms.

[379] Pietro Mulier, called Il Tempesta, from his surprising pictures of storms. “His compositions,” says Lanzi, “inspire a real horror, presenting to our eyes death-devoted ships overtaken by tempests and darkness—fired by lightning—now rising on the mountain-wave, and again submerged in the abyss of ocean.” During an imprisonment of five years in Genoa, the pictures which he painted in his dungeon were marked by additional power and gloom.—See Lanzi’s History of Painting, translated by Roscoe.

THE STORM-PAINTER IN HIS DUNGEON.

“Where of ye, O tempests, is the goal?
Are ye like those that shake the human breast?
Or do ye find at length, like eagles, some high nest?”
Childe Harold.
Midnight, and silence deep!
—The air is fill’d with sleep,
With the stream’s whisper, and the citron’s breath;
The fix’d and solemn stars
Gleam through my dungeon-bars—
Wake, rushing winds! this breezeless calm is death!
Ye watch-fires of the skies!
The stillness of your eyes
Looks too intensely through my troubled soul;
I feel this weight of rest
An earth-load on my breast—
Wake, rushing winds, awake! and, dark clouds, roll!
I am your own, your child,
O ye, the fierce, and wild,
And kingly tempests!—will ye not arise?
Hear the bold spirit’s voice,
That knows not to rejoice
But in the peal of your strong harmonies.
By sounding ocean-waves,
And dim Calabrian caves,
And flashing torrents, I have been your mate;
And with the rocking pines
Of the olden Apennines,
In your dark path stood fearless and elate.
Your lightnings were as rods,
That smote the deep abodes
Of thought and vision—and the stream gush’d free;
Come! that my soul again
May swell to burst its chain—
Bring me the music of the sweeping sea!
Within me dwells a flame,
An eagle caged and tame,
Till call’d forth by the harping of the blast;
Then is its triumph’s hour,
It springs to sudden power,
As mounts the billow o’er the quivering mast.
Then, then, the canvass o’er,
With hurried hand I pour
The lava-waves and gusts of my own soul!
Kindling to fiery life
Dreams, worlds, of pictured strife—
Wake, rushing winds, awake! and, dark clouds, roll!
Wake, rise! the reed may bend,
The shivering leaf descend,
The forest branch give way before your might;
But I, your strong compeer,
Call, summon, wait you here—
Answer, my spirit!—answer, storm and night!

THE TWO VOICES.

Two solemn Voices, in a funeral strain,
Met as rich sunbeams and dark bursts of rain
Meet in the sky:
“Thou art gone hence!” one sang; “our light is flown,
Our beautiful, that seem’d too much our own
Ever to die!
“Thou art gone hence!—our joyous hills among
Never again to pour thy soul in song,
When spring-flowers rise!
Never the friend’s familiar step to meet
With loving laughter, and the welcome sweet
Of thy glad eyes.”
“Thou art gone home, gone home!” then, high and clear,
Warbled that other Voice. “Thou hast no tear
Again to shed;
Never to fold the robe o’er secret pain;
Never, weigh’d down by memory’s clouds, again
To bow thy head.
“Thou art gone home! O early crown’d and blest!
Where could the love of that deep heart find rest
With aught below?
Thou must have seen rich dream by dream decay,
All the bright rose-leaves drop from life away—
Thrice bless’d to go!”
Yet sigh’d again that breeze-like Voice of grief—
“Thou art gone hence! Alas, that aught so brief
So loved should be!
Thou takest our summer hence!—the flower, the tone,
The music of our being, all in one,
Depart with thee!
“Fair form, young spirit, morning vision fled!
Canst thou be of the dead, the awful dead—
The dark unknown?
Yes! to the dwelling where no footsteps fall,
Never again to light up hearth or hall,
Thy smile is gone!”
“Home, home!” once more the exulting Voice arose:
“Thou art gone home!—from that divine repose
Never to roam!
Never to say farewell, to weep in vain,
To read of change, in eyes beloved, again—
Thou art gone home!
“By the bright waters now thy lot is cast—
Joy for thee, happy friend! thy bark hath past
The rough sea’s foam!
Now the long yearnings of thy soul are still’d,
Home! home!—thy peace is won, thy heart is fill’d:
Thou art gone home!”

THE PARTING SHIP.

“A glittering ship, that hath the plain
Of ocean for her own domain.” Wordsworth.
Go, in thy glory, o’er the ancient sea,
Take with thee gentle winds thy sails to swell;
Sunshine and joy upon thy streamers be,
Fare thee well, bark! farewell!
Proudly the flashing billow thou hast cleft,
The breeze yet follows thee with cheer and song;
Who now of storms hath dream or memory left?
And yet the deep is strong!
But go thou triumphing, while still the smiles
Of summer tremble on the water’s breast!
Thou shalt be greeted by a thousand isles,
In lone, wild beauty drest.
To thee a welcome breathing o’er the tide,
The genii groves of Araby shall pour;
Waves that enfold the pearl shall bathe thy side,
On the old Indian shore.
Oft shall the shadow of the palm-tree lie
O’er glassy bays wherein thy sails are furl’d,
And its leaves whisper, as the winds sweep by,
Tales of the elder world.
Oft shall the burning stars of southern skies,
On the mid-ocean see thee chain’d in sleep,
A lonely home for human thoughts and ties,
Between the heavens and deep.
Blue seas that roll on gorgeous coasts renown’d,
By night shall sparkle where thy prow makes way;
Strange creatures of the abyss that none may sound,
In thy broad wake shall play.
From hills unknown, in mingled joy and fear,
Free dusky tribes shall pour, thy flag to mark;—
Blessings go with thee on thy lone career!
Hail, and farewell, thou bark!
A long farewell! Thou wilt not bring us back
All whom thou bearest far from home and hearth:
Many are thine, whose steps no more shall track
Their own sweet native earth!
Some wilt thou leave beneath the plantain’s shade,
Where through the foliage Indian suns look bright;
Some in the snows of wintry regions laid,
By the cold northern light.
And some, far down below the sounding wave.
Still shall they lie, though tempests o’er them sweep;
Never may flower be strewn above their grave,
Never may sister weep!
And thou, the billow’s queen—even thy proud form
On our glad sight no more perchance may swell;
Yet God alike is in the calm and storm—
Fare thee well, bark! farewell!

THE LAST TREE OF THE FOREST.

Whisper, thou Tree, thou lonely Tree,
One, where a thousand stood!
Well might proud tales be told by thee,
Last of the solemn wood!
Dwells there no voice amidst thy boughs,
With leaves yet darkly green?
Stillness is round, and noontide glows—
Tell us what thou hast seen.
“I have seen the forest-shadows lie
Where men now reap the corn;
I have seen the kingly chase rush by
Through the deep glades at morn.
“With the glance of many a gallant spear,
And the wave of many a plume,
And the bounding of a hundred deer,
It has lit the woodland’s gloom.
“I have seen the knight and his train ride past,
With his banner borne on high;
O’er all my leaves there was brightness cast
From his gleaming panoply.
“The pilgrim at my feet hath laid
His palm-branch midst the flowers,
And told his beads, and meekly pray’d,
Kneeling, at vesper hours.
“And the merry men of wild and glen,
In the green array they wore,
Have feasted here, with the red wine’s cheer,
And the hunter’s song of yore.
“And the minstrel, resting in my shade,
Hath made the forest ring
With the lordly tales of the high Crusade,
Once loved by chief and king.
“But now the noble forms are gone
That walk’d the earth of old;
The soft wind has a mournful tone,
The sunny light looks cold.
“There is no glory left us now
Like the glory with the dead;
I would that, where they slumber low,
My latest leaves were shed!”
O thou dark tree, thou lonely tree,
That mournest for the past!
A peasant’s home in thy shades I see,
Embower’d from ever blast.
A lovely and a mirthful sound
Of laughter meets mine ear;
For the poor man’s children sport around
On the turf, with naught to fear.
And roses lend that cabin’s wall
A happy summer-glow:
And the open door stands free to all,
For it recks not of a foe.
And the village bells are on the breeze
That stirs thy leaf, dark tree!
How can I mourn, midst things like these,
For the stormy past, with thee?

THE STREAMS.

“The power, the beauty, and the majesty,
That had their haunts in dale or piny mountain,
Or forest by slow stream, or pebbly spring,
Or chasms and watery depths; all those have vanish’d!
They live no longer in the faith of heaven,
But still the heart doth need a language!”
Coleridge’s “Wallenstein.”
Ye have been holy, O founts and floods!
Ye of the ancient and solemn woods,
Ye that are born of the valleys deep,
With the water-flowers on your breast asleep,
And ye that gush from the sounding caves—
Hallow’d have been your waves.
Hallow’d by man, in his dreams of old,
Unto beings not of this mortal mould—
Viewless and deathless, and wondrous powers,
Whose voice he heard in his lonely hours,
And sought with its fancied sound to still
The heart earth could not fill.
Therefore the flowers of bright summers gone,
O’er your sweet waters, ye streams! were thrown
Thousands of gifts to the sunny sea
Have ye swept along, in your wanderings free,
And thrill’d to the murmur of many a vow—
Where all is silent now!
Nor seems it strange that the heart hath been
So link’d in love to your margins green;
That still, though ruin’d, your early shrines
In beauty gleam through the southern vines,
And the ivied chapels of colder skies
On your wild banks arise.
For the loveliest scenes of the glowing earth
Are those, bright streams! where your springs have birth;
Whether their cavern’d murmur fills,
With a tone of plaint, the hollow hills,
Or the glad sweet laugh of their healthful flow
Is heard midst the hamlets low.
Or whether ye gladden the desert sands
With a joyous music to pilgrim bands,
And a flash from under some ancient rock,
Where a shepherd king might have watch’d his flock,
Where a few lone palm-trees lift their heads,
And a green acacia spreads.
Or whether, in bright old lands renown’d,
The laurels thrill to your first-born sound,
And the shadow, flung from the Grecian pine,
Sweeps with the breeze o’er your gleaming line,
And the tall reeds whisper to your waves,
Beside heroic graves.
Voices and lights of the lonely place!
By the freshest fern your path we trace;
By the brightest cups on the emerald moss,
Whose fairy goblets the turf emboss;
By the rainbow-glancing of insect wings,
In a thousand mazy rings.
There sucks the bee, for the richest flowers
Are all your own through the summer hours;
There the proud stag his fair image knows,
Traced on your glass beneath alder-boughs;
And the halcyon’s breast, like the skies array’d,
Gleams through the willow shade.
But the wild sweet tales that with elves and fays
Peopled your banks in the olden days,
And the memory left by departed love
To your antique founts in glen and grove,
And the glory born of the poet’s dreams—
These are your charms, bright streams!
Now is the time of your flowery rites
Gone by with its dances and young delights:
From your marble urns ye have burst away,
From your chapel-cells to the laughing day;
Low lie your altars with moss o’ergrown,
And the woods again are lone.
Yet holy still be your living springs,
Haunts of all gentle and gladsome things!
Holy, to converse with nature’s lore,
That gives the worn spirit its youth once more,
And to silent thoughts of the love divine,
Making the heart a shrine!

THE VOICE OF THE WIND.

“There is nothing in the wide world so like the voice of a spirit.”
Gray’s “Letters.”
Oh! many a voice is thine, thou Wind! full many a voice is thine!
From every scene thy wing o’ersweeps thou bear’st a sound and sign;
A minstrel wild and strong thou art, with a mastery all thine own,
And the spirit is thy harp, O Wind! that gives the answering tone.
Thou hast been across red fields of war, where shiver’d helmets lie,
And thou bringest thence the thrilling note of a clarion in the sky;
A rustling of proud banner-folds, a peal of stormy drums,—
All these are in thy music met, as when a leader comes.
Thou hast been o’er solitary seas, and from their wastes brought back
Each noise of waters that awoke in the mystery of thy track—
The chime of low, soft, southern waves on some green palmy shore,
The hollow roll of distant surge, the gather’d billows’ roar.
Thou art come from forests dark and deep, thou mighty rushing Wind!
And thou bearest all their unisons in one full swell combined;
The restless pines, the moaning stream, all hidden things and free,
Of the dim, old, sounding wilderness, have lent their soul to thee.
Thou art come from cities lighted up for the conqueror passing by,
Thou art wafting from their streets a sound of haughty revelry;
The rolling of triumphant wheels, the harpings in the hall,
The far-off shout of multitudes, are in thy rise and fall.
Thou art come from kingly tombs and shrines, from ancient minsters vast,
Through the dark aisles of a thousand years thy lonely wing hath pass’d;
Thou hast caught the anthem’s billowy swell, the stately dirge’s tone,
For a chief, with sword, and shield, and helm, to his place of slumber gone.
Thou art come from long-forsaken homes, wherein our young days flew,
Thou hast found sweet voices lingering there, the loved, the kind, the true;
Thou callest back those melodies, though now all changed and fled—
Be still, be still, and haunt us not with music from the dead!
Are all these notes in thee, wild wind? these many notes in thee?
Far in our own unfathom’d souls their fount must surely be;
Yes! buried, but unsleeping, there thought watches, memory lies,
From whose deep urn the tones are pour’d through all earth’s harmonies.

THE VIGIL OF ARMS.[380]

A sounding step was heard by night
In a church where the mighty slept,
As a mail-clad youth, till morning’s light,
Midst the tombs his vigil kept.
He walk’d in dreams of power and fame,
He lifted a proud bright eye,
For the hours were few that withheld his name
From the roll of chivalry.
Down the moonlit aisles he paced alone,
With a free and stately tread;
And the floor gave back a muffled tone
From the couches of the dead:
The silent many that round him lay,
The crown’d and helm’d that were,
The haughty chiefs of the war array—
Each in his sepulchre!
But no dim warning of time or fate
That youth’s flush’d hopes could chill;
He moved through the trophies of buried state
With each proud pulse throbbing still.
He heard, as the wind through the chancel sung,
A swell of the trumpet’s breath;
He look’d to the banners on high that hung,
And not to the dust beneath.
And a royal masque of splendour seem’d
Before him to unfold;
Through the solemn arches on it stream’d,
With many a gleam of gold:
There were crested knight, and gorgeous dame,
Glittering athwart the gloom;
And he follow’d, till his bold step came
To his warrior-father’s tomb.
But there the still and shadowy might
Of the monumental stone,
And the holy sleep of the soft lamp’s light
That over its quiet shone,
And the image of that sire, who died
In his noonday of renown—
These had a power unto which the pride
Of fiery life bow’d down.
And a spirit from his early years
Came back o’er his thoughts to move,
Till his eye was fill’d with memory’s tears,
And his heart with childhood’s love!
And he look’d, with a change in his softening glance,
To the armour o’er the grave—
For there they hung, the shield and lance,
And the gauntlet of the brave.
And the sword of many a field was there,
With its cross for the hour of need,
When the knight’s bold war-cry hath sunk in prayer,
And the spear is a broken reed!
—Hush! did a breeze through the armour sigh?
Did the folds of the banner shake?
Not so!—from the tomb’s dark mystery
There seem’d a voice to break!
He had heard that voice bid clarions blow,
He had caught its last blessing’s breath—
’Twas the same—but its awful sweetness now
Had an under-tone of death!
And it said—“The sword hath conquer’d kings,
And the spear through realms hath pass’d;
But the cross, alone, of all these things,
Might aid me at the last.”

[380] The candidate for knighthood was under the necessity of keeping watch, the night before his inauguration, in a church, and completely armed. This was called “the Vigil of Arms.”

THE HEART OF BRUCE IN MELROSE ABBEY.

Heart! that didst press forward still,[381]
Where the trumpet’s note rang shrill,
Where the knightly swords were crossing,
And the plumes like sea-foam tossing,
Leader of the charging spear,
Fiery heart!—and liest thou here?
May this narrow spot inurn
Aught that so could beat and burn?
Heart! that lovedst the clarion’s blast,
Silent is thy place at last;
Silent—save when early bird
Sings where once the mass was heard;
Silent—save when breeze’s moan
Comes through flowers or fretted stone;
And the wild-rose waves around thee,
And the long dark grass hath bound thee,
—Sleep’st thou, as the swain might sleep,
In his nameless valley deep?
No! brave heart! though cold and lone,
Kingly power is yet thine own!
Feel I not thy spirit brood
O’er the whispering solitude?
Lo! at one high thought of thee,
Fast they rise, the bold, the free,
Sweeping past thy lowly bed,
With a mute, yet stately tread.
Shedding their pale armour’s light
Forth upon the breathless night,
Bending every warlike plume
In the prayer o’er saintly tomb.
Is the noble Douglas nigh,
Arm’d to follow thee, or die?
Now, true heart! as thou wert wont
Pass thou to the peril’s front!
Where the banner-spear is gleaming,
And the battle’s red wine streaming,
Till the Paynim quail before thee,
Till the cross wave proudly o’er thee.
—Dreams! the falling of a leaf
Wins me from their splendours brief;
Dreams, yet bright ones! scorn them not,
Thou that seek’st the holy spot;
Nor, amidst its lone domain,
Call the faith in relics vain!

[381] “Now pass thou forward, as thou wert wont, and Douglas will follow thee or die!”—with these words Douglas threw from him the heart of Bruce into mid-battle against the Moors of Spain.

NATURE’S FAREWELL.

“The beautiful is vanish’d, and returns not.”
Coleridge’s “Wallenstein.”
A youth rode forth from his childhood’s home,
Through the crowded paths of the world to roam;
And the green leaves whisper’d, as he pass’d,
“Wherefore, thou dreamer! away so fast?
“Knew’st thou with what thou art parting here,
Long wouldst thou linger in doubt and fear;
Thy heart’s light laughter, thy sunny hours,
Thou hast left in our shades with the spring’s wild flowers.
“Under the arch by our mingling made,
Thou and thy brother have gaily play’d;
Ye may meet again where ye roved of yore,
But as ye have met there—oh! never more!”
On rode the youth—and the boughs among,
Thus the free birds o’er his pathway sung:
“Wherefore so fast unto life away?
Thou art leaving for ever thy joy in our lay!
“Thou may’st come to the summer woods again,
And thy heart have no echo to greet their strain;
Afar from the foliage its love will dwell—
A change must pass o’er thee. Farewell, farewell!”
On rode the youth—and the founts and streams
Thus mingled a voice with his joyous dreams:
“We have been thy playmates through many a day,
Wherefore thus leave us?—oh! yet delay!
“Listen but once to the sound of our mirth!
For thee ’tis a melody passing from earth;
Never again wilt thou find in its flow
The peace it could once on thy heart bestow.
“Thou wilt visit the scenes of thy childhood’s glee,
With the breath of the world on thy spirit free;
Passion and sorrow its depths will have stirr’d,
And the singing of waters be vainly heard.
“Thou wilt bear in our gladsome laugh no part—
What should it do for a burning heart?
Thou wilt bring to the banks of our freshest rill,
Thirst which no fountain on earth may still.
“Farewell!—when thou comest again to thine own,
Thou wilt miss from our music its loveliest tone;
Mournfully true is the tale we tell—
Yet on, fiery dreamer! farewell, farewell!”
And a something of gloom on his spirit weigh’d
As he caught the last sounds of his native shade;
But he knew not, till may a bright spell broke,
How deep were the oracles Nature spoke!

THE BEINGS OF THE MIND.

“The beings of the mind are not of clay;
Essentially immortal, they create
And multiply in us a brighter ray,
And more beloved existence; that which Fate
Prohibits to dull life, in this our state
Of mortal bondage.”
Byron.
Come to me with your triumphs and your woes,
Ye forms, to life by glorious poets brought!
I sit alone with flowers, and vernal boughs,
In the deep shadow of a voiceless thought;
Midst the glad music of the spring alone,
And sorrowful for visions that are gone!
Come to me! make your thrilling whispers heard,
Ye, by those masters of the soul endow’d
With life, and love, and many a burning word,
That bursts from grief like lightning from a cloud,
And smites the heart, till all its chords reply,
As leaves make answer when the wind sweeps by.
Come to me! visit my dim haunt!—the sound
Of hidden springs is in the grass beneath;
The stock-dove’s note above; and all around,
The poesy that with the violet’s breath
Floats through the air, in rich and sudden streams,
Mingling, like music, with the soul’s deep dreams.
Friends, friends!—for such to my lone heart ye are—
Unchanging ones! from whose immortal eyes
The glory melts not as a waning star,
And the sweet kindness never, never dies;
Bright children of the bard! o’er this green dell
Pass once again, and light it with your spell!
Imogen! fair Fidele! meekly blending,
In patient grief, “a smiling with a sigh;”[382]
And thou, Cordelia! faithful daughter, tending
That sire, an outcast to the bitter sky;
Thou of the soft low voice!—thou art not gone!
Still breathes for me its faint and flute-like tone.
And come to me!—sing me thy willow-strain,
Sweet Desdemona! with the sad surprise
In thy beseeching glance, where still, though vain,
Undimm’d, unquenchable affection lies;
Come, bowing thy young head to wrong and scorn,
As a frail hyacinth by showers o’erborne.
And thou, too, fair Ophelia! flowers are here,
That well might win thy footstep to the spot—
Pale cowslips, meet for maiden’s early bier,
And pansies for sad thoughts,[383]—but needed not!
Come with thy wreaths, and all the love and light
In that wild eye still tremulously bright.
And Juliet, vision of the south! enshrining
All gifts that unto its rich heaven belong;
The glow, the sweetness, in its rose combining,
The soul its nightingales pour forth in song,
Thou, making death deep joy!—but could’st thou die?
No!—thy young love hath immortality!
From earth’s bright faces fades the light of morn,
From earth’s glad voices drops the joyous tone;
But ye, the children of the soul, were born
Deathless, and for undying love alone;
And, O ye beautiful! ’tis well, how well,
In the soul’s world, with you, where change is not, to dwell!

[382]

“Nobly he yokes
A smiling with a sigh.”—Cymbeline.

[383]

“Here’s pansies for you—that’s for thoughts.”
Hamlet.

THE LYRE’S LAMENT.

“A large lyre hung in an opening of the rock, and gave forth its melancholy music to the wind—but no human being was to be seen.”
Salathiel.
A deep-toned lyre hung murmuring
To the wild wind of the sea;
“O melancholy wind,” it sigh’d,
“What would thy breath with me?
“Thou canst not wake the spirit
That in me slumbering lies,
Thou strikest not forth th’ electric fire
Of buried melodies.
“Wind of the dark sea-waters!
Thou dost but sweep my strings
Into wild gusts of mournfulness,
With the rushing of thy wings.
“But the spell—the gift—the lightning—
Within my frame conceal’d,
Must I moulder on the rock away
With their triumphs unreveal’d?
“I have power, high power, for freedom
To wake the burning soul!
I have sounds that through the ancient hills
Like a torrent’s voice might roll.
“I have pealing notes of victory
That might welcome kings from war;
I have rich, deep tones to send the wail
For a hero’s death afar.
“I have chords to lift the pæan
From the temple to the sky,
Full as the forest-unisons
When sweeping winds are high.
“And love—for love’s lone sorrow
I have accents that might swell
Through the summer air with the rose’s breath,
Or the violet’s faint farewell:
“Soft—spiritual—mournful—
Sighs in each note enshrined—
But who shall call that sweetness forth?
Thou can’st not, ocean-wind!
“I pass without my glory,
Forgotten I decay—
Where is the touch to give me life?
—Wild, fitful wind, away!”
So sigh’d the broken music
That in gladness had no part—
How like art thou, neglected Lyre!
To many a human heart!

TASSO’S CORONATION.[384]