A crown of victory! a triumphal song!
Oh! call some friend, upon whose pitying heart
The weary one may calmly sink to rest;
Let some kind voice, beside his lowly couch,
Pour the last prayer for mortal agony!
A trumpet’s note is in the sky, in the glorious Roman sky,
Whose dome hath rung, so many an age, to the voice of victory;
There is crowding to the Capitol, the imperial streets along,
For again a conqueror must be crown’d—a kingly child of song:
Yet his chariot lingers,
Yet around his home
Broods a shadow silently,
Midst the joy of Rome.
A thousand, thousand laurel boughs are waving wide and far,
To shed out their triumphal gleams around his rolling car;
A thousand haunts of olden gods have given their wealth of flowers,
To scatter o’er his path of fame bright hues in gem-like showers.
Peace! Within his chamber
Low the mighty lies—
With a cloud of dreams on his noble brow,
And a wandering in his eyes.
Sing, sing for him, the lord of song—for him, whose rushing strain
In mastery o’er the spirit sweeps, like a strong wind o’er the main!
Whose voice lives deep in burning hearts, for ever there to dwell,
As full-toned oracles are shrined in a temple’s holiest cell.
Yes! for him, the victor,
Sing—but low, sing low!
A soft, sad miserere chant
For a soul about to go!
The sun, the sun of Italy is pouring o’er his way,
Where the old three hundred triumphs moved, a flood of golden day;
Streaming through every haughty arch of the Cæsars’ past renown—
Bring forth, in that exulting light, the conqueror for his crown!
Shut the proud, bright sunshine
From the fading sight!
There needs no ray by the bed of death,
Save the holy taper’s light.
The wreath is twined—the way is strewn—the lordly train are met—
The streets are hung with coronals—why stays the minstrel yet?
Shout! as an army shouts in joy around a royal chief—
Bring forth the bard of chivalry, the bard of love and grief!
Silence! forth we bring him,
In his last array;
From love and grief the freed, the flown—
Way for the bier!—make way!

[384] Tasso died at Rome on the day before that appointed for his coronation in the Capitol.

THE BETTER LAND.

“I hear thee speak of the better land,
Thou call’st its children a happy band;
Mother! oh, where is that radiant shore?
Shall we not seek it, and weep no more?
Is it where the flower of the orange blows,
And the fire-flies glance through the myrtle boughs?”
—“Not there, not there, my child!”
“Is it where the feathery palm-trees rise,
And the date grows ripe under sunny skies?
Or midst the green islands of glittering seas,
Where fragrant forests perfume the breeze,
And strange, bright birds on their starry wings
Bear the rich hues of all glorious things?”
—“Not there, not there, my child!”
“Is it far away, in some region old,
Where the rivers wander o’er sands of gold?—
Where the burning rays of the ruby shine,
And the diamond lights up the secret mine,
And the pearl gleams forth from the coral strand?—
Is it there, sweet mother! that better land?”
—“Not there, not there, my child!
“Eye hath not seen it, my gentle boy!
Ear hath not heard its deep songs of joy;
Dreams cannot picture a world so fair—
Sorrow and death may not enter there:
Time doth not breathe on its fadeless bloom,
For beyond the clouds, and beyond the tomb,
It is there, it is there, my child!”

THE WOUNDED EAGLE.

Eagle! this is not thy sphere!
Warrior-bird! what seek’st thou here?
Wherefore by the fountain’s brink
Doth thy royal pinion sink?
Wherefore on the violet’s bed
Lay’st thou thus thy drooping head?
Thou, that hold’st the blast in scorn,
Thou, that wear’st the wings of morn!
Eagle! wilt thou not arise?
Look upon thine own bright skies!
Lift thy glance! the fiery sun
There his pride of place hath won!
And the mountain lark is there,
And sweet sound hath fill’d the air;
Hast thou left that realm on high?
—Oh! it can be but to die!
Eagle! eagle! thou hast bow’d
From thine empire o’er the cloud!
Thou, that hadst etherial birth,
Thou hast stoop’d too near the earth,
And the hunter’s shaft hath found thee,
And the toils of death have bound thee!
—Wherefore didst thou leave thy place,
Creature of a kingly race?
Wert thou weary of thy throne?
Was thy sky’s dominion lone?
Chill and lone it well might be,
Yet that mighty wing was free!
Now the chain is o’er it cast,
From thy heart the blood flows fast,
—Woe for gifted souls and high!
Is not such their destiny?

SADNESS AND MIRTH.

“Nay, these wild fits of uncurb’d laughter
Athwart the gloomy tenor of your mind,
As it has lower’d of late, so keenly cast,
Unsuited seem, and strange.
Oh, nothing strange!
Did’st thou ne’er see the swallow’s veering breast,
Winging the air beneath some murky cloud,
In the sunn’d glimpses of a troubled day,
Shiver in silvery brightness?
Or boatman’s oar, as vivid lightning, flash
In the faint gleam, that, like a spirit’s path,
Tracks the still waters of some sullen lake?
O gentle friend!
Chide not her mirth, who yesterday was sad,
And may be so to-morrow!” Joanna Baillie.
Ye met at the stately feasts of old,
Where the bright wine foam’d over sculptured gold;
Sadness and Mirth! ye were mingled there
With the sound of the lyre in the scented air;
As the cloud and the lightning are blent on high,
Ye mix’d in the gorgeous revelry.
For there hung o’er those banquets of yore a gloom,
A thought and a shadow of the tomb;
It gave to the flute-notes an under-tone,
To the rose a colouring not its own,
To the breath of the myrtle a mournful power—
Sadness and Mirth! ye had each your dower!
Ye met when the triumph swept proudly by,
With the Roman eagles through the sky!
I know that even then, in his hour of pride,
The soul of the mighty within him died;
That a void in his bosom lay darkly still,
Which the music of victory might never fill!
Thou wert there, O Mirth! swelling on the shout,
Till the temples, like echo-caves, rang out;
Thine were the garlands, the songs, the wine—
All the rich voices in air were thine,
The incense, the sunshine—but, Sadness, thy part,
Deepest of all, was the victor’s heart!
Ye meet at the bridal with flower and tear;
Strangely and wildly ye meet by the bier!
As the gleam from a sea-bird’s white wing shed
Crosses the storm in its path of dread;
As a dirge meets the breeze of a summer sky—
Sadness and Mirth! so ye come and fly!
Ye meet in the poet’s haunted breast,
Darkness and rainbow, alike its guest!
When the breath of the violet is out in spring,
When the woods with the wakening of music ring,
O’er his dreamy spirit your currents pass,
Like shadow and sunlight o’er mountain grass.
When will your parting be, Sadness and Mirth?
Bright stream and dark one! Oh, never on earth!
Never while triumphs and tombs are so near,
While death and love walk the same dim sphere,
While flowers unfold where the storm may sweep,
While the heart of man is a soundless deep!
But there smiles a land, O ye troubled pair!
Where ye have no part in the summer air:
Far from the breathings of changeful skies,
Over the seas and the graves it lies;
Where the day of the lightning and cloud is done,
And joy reigns alone, as the lonely sun!

THE NIGHTINGALE’S DEATH-SONG.

“Willst du nach den Nachtigallen fragen,
Die mit seelenvollen melodie
Dich entzuckten in des Lenzes Tagen?
—Nur so lang sie liebten, waren sie.” Schiller.
Mournfully, sing mournfully,
And die away, my heart!
The rose, the glorious rose is gone,
And I, too, will depart.
The skies have lost their splendour,
The waters changed their tone,
And, wherefore, in the faded world,
Should music linger on?
Where is the golden sunshine,
And where the flower-cup’s glow?
And where the joy of the dancing leaves,
And the fountain’s laughing flow?
A voice, in every whisper
Of the wave, the bough, the air,
Comes asking for the beautiful,
And moaning, “Where, oh! where?”
Tell of the brightness parted,
Thou bee, thou lamb at play!
Thou lark, in thy victorious mirth!
—Are ye, too, pass’d away?
Mournfully, sing mournfully!
The royal rose is gone:
Melt from the woods, my spirit! melt
In one deep farewell tone!
Not so!—swell forth triumphantly
The full, rich, fervent strain!
Hence with young love and life I go,
In the summer’s joyous train.
With sunshine, with sweet odour,
With every precious thing,
Upon the last warm southern breeze
My soul its flight shall wing.
Alone I shall not linger,
When the days of hope are past,
To watch the fall of leaf by leaf,
To wait the rushing blast.
Triumphantly, triumphantly!
Sing to the woods, I go!
For me, perchance, in other lands,
The glorious rose may blow.
The sky’s transparent azure,
And the greensward’s violet breath,
And the dance of light leaves in the wind,
May there know naught of death.
No more, no more sing mournfully!
Swell high, then break, my heart!
With love, the spirit of the woods,
With summer I depart!

THE DIVER.

“They learn in suffering what they teach in song.”—Shelley.

Thou hast been where the rocks of coral grow,
Thou hast fought with eddying waves;—
Thy cheek is pale, and thy heart beats low,
Thou searcher of ocean’s caves!
Thou hast look’d on the gleaming wealth of old,
And wrecks where the brave have striven:
The deep is a strong and a fearful hold,
But thou its bar hast riven!
A wild and weary life is thine—
A wasting task and lone,
Though treasure-grots for thee may shine,
To all besides unknown!
A weary life! but a swift decay
Soon, soon shall set thee free;
Thou’rt passing fast from thy toils away,
Thou wrestler with the sea!
In thy dim eye, on thy hollow cheek,
Well are the death-signs read—
Go! for the pearl in its cavern seek,
Ere hope and power be fled!
And bright in beauty’s coronal
That glistening gem shall be;
A star to all in the festive hall—
But who will think on thee?
None!—as it gleams from the queen-like head,
Not one midst throngs will say,
“A life hath been, like a raindrop, shed
For that pale, quivering ray!”
Woe for the wealth thus dearly bought!
—And are not those like thee,
Who win for earth the gems of thought?
O wrestler with the sea!
Down to the gulfs of the soul they go,
Where the passion-fountains burn,
Gathering the jewels far below
From many a buried urn:
Wringing from lava-veins the fire,
That o’er bright words is pour’d;
Learning deep sounds, to make the lyre
A spirit in each chord.
But, oh! the price of bitter tears
Paid for the lonely power
That throws at last, o’er desert years,
A darkly glorious dower!
Like flower-seeds, by the wild wind spread,
So radiant thoughts are strew’d;
—The soul whence those high gifts are shed
May faint in solitude!
And who will think, when the strain is sung
Till a thousand hearts are stirr’d,
What life-drops, from the minstrel wrung,
Have gush’d with every word?
None, none!—his treasures live like thine,
He strives and dies like thee;
—Thou, that hast been to the pearl’s dark shrine,
O wrestler with the sea!

THE REQUIEM OF GENIUS.

“Les poetes, dont l’imagination tient la puissance d’aimer et de souffrir, ne sont-ils pas les bannis d’une autre region?”

Madame de Stael—“De L’Allemagne.”

No tears for thee!—though light be from us gone
With thy soul’s radiance, bright, yet restless one!
No tears for thee!
They that have loved an exile, must not mourn
To see him parting for his native bourne
O’er the dark sea.
All the high music of thy spirit here
Breathed but the language of another sphere,
Unecho’d round;
And strange, though sweet, as midst our weeping skies
Some half-remember’d strain of Paradise
Might sadly sound.
Hast thou been answer’d?—thou, that from the night,
And from the voices of the tempest’s might,
And from the past,
Wert seeking still some oracle’s reply,
To pour the secrets of man’s destiny
Forth on the blast!
Hast thou been answer’d?—thou, that through the gloom,
And shadow, and stern silence of the tomb,
A cry didst send,
So passionate and deep?—to pierce, to move,
To win back token of unburied love
From buried friend!
And hast thou found where living waters burst?
Thou that didst pine amidst us in the thirst
Of fever-dreams!
Are the true fountains thine for evermore?
O lured so long by shining mists that wore
The light of streams!
Speak! is it well with thee? We call, as thou,
With thy lit eye, deep voice, and kindled brow,
Wert wont to call
On the departed! Art thou bless’d and free?
—Alas! the lips earth covers, even to thee
Were silent all!
Yet shall our hope rise fann’d by quenchless faith,
As a flame, foster’d by some warm wind’s breath,
In light upsprings:
Freed soul of song! yes, thou hast found the sought;
Borne to thy home of beauty and of thought,
On morning’s wings.
And we will dream it is thy joy we hear,
When life’s young music, ringing far and clear,
O’erflows the sky.
No tears for thee! the lingering gloom is ours—
Thou art for converse with all glorious powers,
Never to die!

TRIUMPHANT MUSIC.

“Tacete, tacete, O suoni trionfanti
Risvegliate in vano ’l cor che non puo liberarsi.”
Wherefore and whither bear’st thou up my spirit,
On eagle wings, through every plume that thrill?
It hath no crown of victory to inherit—
Be still, triumphant harmony! be still!
Thine are no sounds for earth, thus proudly swelling
Into rich floods of joy. It is but pain
To mount so high, yet find on high no dwelling,
To sink so fast, so heavily again!
No sounds for earth? Yes, to young chieftain dying
On his own battle-field, at set of sun,
With his freed country’s banner o’er him flying,
Well mightst thou speak of fame’s high guerdon won.
No sounds for earth? Yes, for the martyr, leading
Unto victorious death serenely on;
For patriot by his rescued altars bleeding,
Thou hast a voice in each majestic tone.
But speak not thus to one whose heart is beating
Against life’s narrow bound, in conflict vain!
For power, for joy, high hope, and rapturous greeting,
Thou wakest lone thirst—be hush’d, exulting strain!
Be hush’d, or breathe of grief!—of exile yearnings
Under the willows of the stranger-shore;
Breathe of the soul’s untold and restless burnings
For looks, tones, footsteps, that return no more.
Breathe of deep love—a lonely vigil keeping
Through the night-hours, o’er wasted wealth to pine;
Rich thoughts and sad, like faded rose-leaves, heaping
In the shut heart, at once a tomb and shrine.
Or pass as if thy spirit-notes came sighing
From worlds beneath some blue Elysian sky;
Breathe of repose, the pure, the bright, th’ undying—
Of joy no more—bewildering harmony!

SECOND-SIGHT.

“Ne’er err’d the prophet-heart that grief inspired,
Though joy’s illusions mock their votarist.”—Maturin.
A mournful gift is mine, O friends!
A mournful gift is mine!
A murmur of the soul which blends
With the flow of song and wine.
An eye that through the triumph’s hour
Beholds the coming woe,
And dwells upon the faded flower
Midst the rich summer’s glow.
Ye smile to view fair faces bloom
Where the father’s board is spread;
I see the stillness and the gloom
Of a home whence all are fled.
I see the wither’d garlands lie
Forsaken on the earth,
While the lamps yet burn, and the dancers fly
Through the ringing hall of mirth.
I see the blood-red future stain
On the warrior’s gorgeous crest;
And the bier amidst the bridal train
When they come with roses drest.
I hear the still small moan of time
Through the ivy branches made,
Where the palace, in its glory’s prime,
With the sunshine stands array’d.
The thunder of the seas I hear,
The shriek along the wave,
When the bark sweeps forth, and song and cheer
Salute the parting brave.
With every breeze a spirit sends
To me some warning sign,—
A mournful gift is mine, O friends!
A mournful gift is mine!
O prophet-heart! thy grief, thy power,
To all deep souls belong—
The shadow in the sunny hour,
The wail in the mirthful song.
Their sight is all too sadly clear—
For them a veil is riven;
Their piercing thoughts repose not here,
Their home is but in heaven.

THE SEA-BIRD FLYING INLAND.

“Thy path is not as mine;—where thou art blest
My spirit would but wither; mine own grief
Is in mine eyes a richer, holier thing,
Than all thy happiness.”
Hath the summer’s breath on the south-wind borne,
Met the dark seas in their sweeping scorn?
Hath it lured thee, bird! from their sounding caves
To the river shores where the osier waves?
Or art thou come on the hills to dwell,
Where the sweet-voiced echoes have many a cell?
Where the moss bears print of the wild-deer’s tread,
And the heath like a royal robe is spread?
Thou hast done well, O thou bright sea-bird!
There is joy where the song of the lark is heard,
With the dancing of waters through copse and dell,
And the bee’s low tune in the fox-glove’s bell.
Thou hast done well: oh! the seas are lone,
And the voice they send up hath a mournful tone;
A mingling of dirges and wild farewells,
Fitfully breathed through its anthem swells.
The proud bird rose as the words were said—
The rush of his pinion swept o’er my head,
And the glance of his eye, in its bright disdain,
Spoke him a child of the haughty main.
He hath flown from the woods to the ocean’s breast,
To his throne of pride on the billow’s crest.
Oh! who shall say to a spirit free—
“There lies the pathway of bliss for thee?”

THE SLEEPER.

Oh! lightly, lightly tread!
A holy thing is sleep,
On the worn spirit shed,
And eyes that wake to weep.
A holy thing from heaven,
A gracious dewy cloud,
A covering mantle given
The weary to enshroud.
Oh! lightly, lightly tread!
Revere the pale still brow,
The meekly drooping head,
The long hair’s willowy flow.
Ye know not what ye do,
That call the slumberer back
From the world unseen by you
Unto life’s dim, faded track.
Her soul is far away,
In her childhood’s land perchance,
Where her young sisters play,
Where shines her mother’s glance.
Some old sweet native sound
Her spirit haply weaves;
A harmony profound
Of woods with all their leaves;
A murmur of the sea,
A laughing tone of streams:—
Long may her sojourn be
In the music-land of dreams!
Each voice of love is there,
Each gleam of beauty fled,
Each lost one still more fair—
Oh! lightly, lightly tread!

THE MIRROR IN THE DESERTED HALL.

O dim, forsaken mirror!
How many a stately throng
Hath o’er thee gleam’d, in vanish’d hours
Of the wine-cup and the song!
The song hath left no echo;
The bright wine hath been quaff’d;
And hush’d is every silvery voice
That lightly here hath laugh’d.
O mirror—lonely mirror!
Thou of the silent hall!
Thou hast been flush’d with beauty’s bloom—
Is this, too, vanish’d all?
It is, with the scatter’d garlands
Of triumphs long ago,
With the melodies of buried lyres,
With the faded rainbow’s glow.
And for all the gorgeous pageants—
For the glance of gem and plume,
For lamp, and harp, and rosy wreath,
And vase of rich perfume—
Now, dim, forsaken mirror!
Thou givest but faintly back
The quiet stars, and the sailing moon,
On her solitary track.
And thus with man’s proud spirit
Thou tellest me ’twill be,
When the forms and hues of this world fade
From his memory, as from thee:
And his heart’s long-troubled waters
At last in stillness lie,
Reflecting but the images
Of the solemn world on high.

TO THE DAUGHTER OF BERNARD BARTON, THE QUAKER POET.

Happy thou art, the child of one
Who in each lowly flower,
Each leaf that glances to the sun,
Or trembles with the shower;
In each soft shadow of the sky,
Or sparkle of the stream,
Will guide thy kindling spirit’s eye
To trace the Love Supreme.
So shall deep quiet fill thy breast,
A joy in wood and wild;
And e’en for this I call thee blest,
The gentle poet’s child!

THE STAR OF THE MINE.

From the deep chambers of a mine,
With heavy gloom o’erspread,
I saw a star at noontide shine
Serenely o’er my head.
I had not seen it midst the glow
Of the rich upper day;
But in that shadowy world below,
How my heart bless’d its ray!
And still, the farther from my sight
Torches and lamps were borne,
The purer, lovelier, seem’d the light
That wore its beams unshorn.
Oh! what is like that heavenly spark?
—A friend’s kind, steadfast eye;
Where, brightest when the world grows dark,
Hope, cheer, and comfort lie!

WASHINGTON’S STATUE.

SENT FROM ENGLAND TO AMERICA.

Yes! rear thy guardian hero’s form
On thy proud soil, thou western world!
A watcher through each sign of storm,
O’er freedom’s flag unfurl’d.
There, as before a shrine, to bow,
Bid thy true sons their children lead:
The language of that noble brow
For all things good shall plead.
The spirit rear’d in patriot fight,
The virtue born of home and hearth,
There calmly throned, a holy light
Shall pour o’er chainless earth.
And let that work of England’s hand,
Sent through the blast and surge’s roar,
So girt with tranquil glory stand
For ages on thy shore!
Such, through all time, the greetings be,
That with the Atlantic billow sweep!
Telling the mighty and the free
Of brothers o’er the deep.

A THOUGHT OF HOME AT SEA.

WRITTEN FOR MUSIC.

’Tis lone on the waters
When eve’s mournful bell
Sends forth to the sunset
A note of farewell;
When, borne with the shadows
And winds as they sweep,
There comes a fond memory
Of home o’er the deep;
When the wing of the sea-bird
Is turn’d to her nest,
And the thought of the sailor
To all he loves best!
’Tis lone on the waters—
That hour hath a spell
To bring back sweet voices,
With words of farewell!

TO THE MEMORY OF A SISTER-IN-LAW.

We miss thy voice while early flowers are blowing,
And the first flush of blossom clothes each bough,
And the spring sunshine round our home is glowing
Soft as thy smile: thou shouldst be with us now.
With us? We wrong thee by the earthly thought:
Could our fond gaze but follow where thou art,
Well might the glories of this world seem naught
To the one promise given the pure in heart.
Yet wert thou blest e’en here—oh! ever blest
In thine own sunny thoughts and tranquil faith!
The silent joy that still o’erflow’d thy breast
Needed but guarding from all change, by death.
So is it seal’d to peace! On thy clear brow
Never was care one fleeting shade to cast;
And thy calm days in brightness were to flow
A holy stream, untroubled to the last.
Farewell! thy life hath left surviving love
A wealth of records, and sweet “feelings given,”
From sorrow’s heart the faintness to remove
By whispers breathing “less of earth than heaven.”[385]
Thus rests thy spirit still on those with whom
Thy step the path of joyous duty trode,
Bidding them make an altar of thy tomb,
Where chasten’d thought may offer praise to God.

[385] Alluding to the lines she herself quoted but an hour before her death:—

“Some feelings are to mortals given
With less of earth in them than heaven.”

TO AN ORPHAN.