THE LIBRARY OF THE UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA LOS ANGELES POEMS OF TEN YEARS (1846—1855) MKS. D. OGILVY. LONDON : THOMAS BOSWORTH, 215, REGENT STREET. EDINBURGH : JOHN MENZIES. 1850. LONDON \ G J. PALMER, SAVOY STREET, STRAND. rut* PREFACE. There are certain disadvantages connected with the chronological arrangement adopted in this volume ; an obvious one being that the more crude and inexperienced thoughts are those which first present themselves to the reader. But, on the other hand, I hope that there is some interest in marking, as it were, the mile- stones of a mental track across a period so stormy and so variable as the last Ten Years have proved. Written in the passion of the living struggle, many of these brief poems partake, more or less, 8221 84 of the bitterness of party-spirit, but I scruple not to leave them in their natural order of growth, because they were at least honest utterances of feeling ; and though reflection might speak in softer tones, it would not gainsay the principles advocated, whether religious or political. E. A. H. 0. CONTENTS. 1846. A Remembrance . Sobraon Dirge of the Dishonoured Soldier What shall be the End] . The Convict's Embarkation The Child's Departure from India A Woman's Renunciation On an Entrraving .after Murillo's Guardian Angel PAGE 1 10 14 16 21 •24 184,7. Dreamers 28 CONTENTS. PAGE Convent of the Visitation. Boulogne . 34 Place De La Concorde. Paris . 40 La Morgue .... . 42 The Rhine at Basle . 46 First Impressions of Rome . 51 1848. Strasburg ..... 54 Savonarola in his Cell in the Tower of the Palazzo Vecchio, Florence . . . . . .70 The English Cemetery at Rome . . . .75 1849. Bona and Piero, a Tale of the Condottieri 79 1850. Lines for Music . . . . . .108 Despondency . . . . .109 Newly Dead and Newly Born . . . .111 OgniMorti . . . . . .113 Miriam in the Wilderness of Kadesh. Numbers xii. . 116 Constancy ...... 123 Night at Sorrento . . . . . -125 CONTENTS. 1851. PAGE Fear not the End . . . . . .127 The Nameless Portrait. By Lorenzo Da Credi, in the Uffizj Gallery, Florence . . . .129 La Bella Simonetta ..... 134 The Austrian Night Patrol. Florence . . . 141 The Lombard Ploughman ..... 144 Angelica. A Tale of the Siege of Prato by the Spaniards in the Sixteenth Century .... 147 The Silent City . . . . . .153 The Rock Niobe . . . . . .156 Alexander Ogilvy . . . . .160 Graves . . . . . . .169 The End of 1851 174 1852. A Family Picture The Great Grandmother .... Farewell to Florence .... To E. S. Priestly Anthem, for Easter Day in St. Peter's, Rome 177 180 184 187 189 CONTENTS. PAGE To Certain Peoples and Populaces . . 191 Youth ..... . 194 The Death of Eliot Warburton . 197 Young Vincent of the Amazon . 202 Wellington's Funeral . 205 1853. Francesco Madiai in the Prison of Volterra . 209 England and her Refugees . 212 Reverses .... . 214 The Children's Journey. F. and G. B. . 216 Private Judgment . 219 Charon's Ferry . 222 A Lover's Pleading . 226 Logie Almond . 228 A Vision . 233 A Nuptial Dirge . 236 Phantoms . 240 The Christmas Tree . 244 1854. Unheard Music 246 CONTENTS. IX I>AGE Progress . 248 Time and Love . 250 Time and Friendship . 252 A Nightmare . 254 Vividness of the Past . 255 On Images in a Church . 258 La Madonnina. A Story of Vol terra . 2(50 To the Poets of the New ( feneration . 267 The Four Winds . 272 An Apparition . 279 Quicklime . 281 Star-Promises . 282 Shortcomings . 284 Sketches of Character . . 286 Tarnaway . 290 Ferrachur Leeich . . 292 Our Army . 298 The End of 1854 . . 301 1855. The Submarine Telegraph Sebastopol Early Love 303 306 308 CONTENTS. PAGE Sheep in the Suburb . 310 The Dwina .... . 313 English Worship in Sebastopol . 316 To M. G. . 319 A Requiem. To the Memory of C. S. C. . . 321 Walter Von Vogel. The Minnesinger . 323 Sultan Ibrahim .... . 325 POEMS OF TEN YEARS, 1846. A EEMEMBRANCE. We stood upon a strand Where heavy tides did roll, We saw a ship that neared the land Strike midway on a shoal. The sand and shingles rough Were grating on her keel As she grounded on and off With a sudden heave and wheel. So close upon the beach, We could distinctly trace The gestures and the speech Of men of foreign race : poems — 1 846. When a wave more huge and round Upbuoyed her with its force, And again the Outward Bound Swept proudly on her course. To what fair clime she bore It was not ours to learn, But we know that to our shore She never will return. And thus it was with thee, Child Spirit, now at rest, Who from creation's sea Wert stranded on my breast. So closely didst thou lie That in thy dawning powers Bright symptoms we could spy Of better lands than ours. Thy face had foreign charms Unknown to earthly clay, While in our clasping arms We felt thee slide away. One mighty wave of death That clasp hath burst in twain, And thee with sorrowing breath Swept back upon the main. A REMEMBRANCE. What fair worlds round thee glow It is not oui's to learn, But we know, and weep to know, Thou never can'st return ! b a SOBEAON. IN MEMORY OF SIR ROBERT H. DICK, K.C.B., WHO FELL WHILE LEADING THE VICTORIOUS ATTACK, FEB. 10th, 1846. Sobraon ! Sobraon ! unheard of, unknown, How darkly suggestive at once thou hast grown ! ( )n the banks of far Sutlej a village obscure Chosen War's bloody landmark through time to endure : Thy palms and thy sandhills, thy jungle and wave Become monuments heaped o'er the bones of the brave, While the white rolling floods on thy long level shore Still re-echo the thunders that boomed from La- hore. Siir.KAdN. .1 Sobraon ! Sobraon ! we knew not tby name, When thou gavest our hero a deathbed of fame, When that hoary-browed chief on his charger <>i gray With the cheers of a conqueror marshalled the way, And an army's step followed those eyes of clear blue, As the Black- Watch had followed on dread Water loo. In the fire-breath of cannon the trenches were scaled, Till the hissing hot rain of the batteries failed. Save the last fatal gun, — ah 'twas pointed too well ! And the star-breasted victor in victory fell. He saw not the flying foe whelmed in the tide And the sun of Sobraon went down as he died. Sobraon ! Sobraon ! far o'er the sea foam Rose the snow mantled hills of his own Highland home ; The rowans were budding that belted around The ivied old wall of the burial ground, Where with blue bells and tender green mosses up-piled Side by side lay in slumber his wife and his child, And the bum hurried past with a low fitful wail Like the sound of a battle borne faint on the gale. 6 poems — 1846. Sobraon ! Sobraon ! we dare not repine That ours is the sorrow — the burden be thine. That mind ever noble, that pulse ever true, Those lips which deceit or mistrust never knew ; O kindly of spirit ! O generous of deed ! O life that expressed Christianity's creed ! The stay of the widow, the friend of the poor, The dews of thy bounty fell noiseless and sure. Perchance among mankind War's lustre may fade But of better remembrance thy cenotaph's made, And the hearts thou hast cheered shall rebound to thy story, Till they lie still as thou in thy slumber of glory. DIRGE OF THE DISHONOURED SOLDIER. When no more the battle Boometli on the breeze, Where above the streamlet Bend the willow trees (As a widowed woman Stoopeth to the storm Which she cannot buffet, Weak of heart and form), Low to lay the soldier Silently we come ; Not for him the volley, Not for him the drum. He was like his mother Delicate and frail ; War from home's recesses Swept him in its gale ; poems- — 1846. To his tender spirit Human life was dear : Soon his girlish softness Sank to girlish fear : In the whirl of conflict Dizzy o'er the dead Suddenly he falter'd, Suddenly he fled. Eled ! and struck in flying Yielded up his breath, While his shouting comrades Onward rushed to death ; Onward, at the breaches Mounting side by side With the foe before them. Oh, that he had died Ere the mastering terror Hurried him to shame, Infamously falling On a field of fame ! Ages yet shall know it, Musing o'er his dust, How a British soldier Brake a soldier's trust. Death before dishonour ! Death, dishonour too, DIRGE OF THE DISHONOURED SOLDIER. Was the retribution On himself he drew. In the rolls of glory Blank shall be his place : But his childless mother Knows not the disgrace. 10 poems — 1846. WHAT SHALL BE THE END ? When another life is added To the heaving turbid mass ; When another breath of being Tarnisheth creation's glass ; When the first cry, weak and piteous, Heralds long enduring pain, And a soul from non-existence Springs, that ne'er can die again ; When the mother's passionate welcome Sorrowlike bursts forth in tears, And the sire's self gratulation Prophesies of future years — It is well we cannot see What the end shall be. WHAT SHALL BE THE END? I 1 When across the infant-features Trembles the faint dawn of mind ; When the heart looks from the windows Of the eyes that were so blind ; When the incoherent murmurs Syllable each swaddled thought, To the fond ear of affection With a boundless promise fraught, Kindling great hopes for to-morrow From that dull uncertain ray, As by glimmering of the twilight Is foreshewn the perfect day — It is well we cannot see What the end shall be. When the boy upon the threshold Of his all-comprising home Parts aside the arm maternal That enlocks him ere he roam ; When the canvass of his vessel Flutters to the favouring gales, Years of solitary exile Hid behind its sunny sails ; When his pulses beat with ardour, And his sinews stretch for toil, And a hundred bold emprises Lure him to that eastern soil — It is well we cannot see What the end shall be. 12 poems — 1846. When the youth beside the maiden Looks into her credulous eyes, Where the heart upon the surface Shines too happy to be wise ; He by speeches less than gestures Hinteth what her hopes expound, Laying out the waste hereafter Like enchanted garden- ground : He may palter, so do many, She may suffer, so must all ; Both may yet, world-disappointed, This lost hour of love recall — It is well we cannot see What the end shall be. When the altar of religion Greets the expectant bridal pair ; When the vow that lasts till dying Vibrates on the sacred air ; When man's lavish protestations Doubt of after-change defy, Comforting the frailer spirit Bound his senator for aye ; When beneath love's silver moonbeams Many rocks in shadow sleep Undiscovered till possession Shews the dangers of the deep — It is well we cannot see What the end shall be. W II M SB \l I B] III! I M) " 13 Whatsoever is beginning That is wrought by human skill. Every daring emanation Of the mind's ambitious will ; Every first impulse of passion, Gush of love, or twinge of hate : Every launch upon the waters Wide horizoned by our fate ; Every venture in the chances Of life's sad, oft desperate, game. "Whatsoever be our motive, Whatsoever be our aim — It is well we cannot see What the end shall be. 14 poems — 1846. THE CONVICT'S EMBARKATION. Black was the night-fall, Oppressive the air, The bleak face of ocean Gave back his despair. He stood on the threshold Of exile and shame, His hearth desolation, A byword his name. Before in the offing The gaunt prison-hull Swung round on her anchor In evening's dead lull : Behind him the headlands Fast melted to sky, The land that his errors Made forfeit for aye. THE CONVICTS EMBABEATTON. Ye weep, who in boyhood Leave motherly breast Afar with life's dangers And griefs to contest. Ye weep, but he wept not Who still in his bloom Looked back on dishonour Detection and doom ! For this he had girdled His conscience with fire, Changed love into horror With sister and sire, Bought vengeance to chase him. A gaoler to greet, Bemembrance to poison Each morsel of meat. Disowned by his kinsmen, Cast out by his land, Not one to lament him When dead on that strand. Black was the night-fall, Oppressive the air, But midnight was noonday Beside his despair. 16 poems — 1846. THE CHILD'S DEPARTURE FROM INDIA. What followest thou adown the stream, woman pale and sunken-eyed, Abstracted in a hideous dream The hurrying floods beside? O'er pool and shoal the punctual tide Is ebbing duly to the main, So ebbs upon thy heart again Its current of maternal pride. What seest thou ? my sight is keen, Yet dimly can its search descry Far drifting on the waters green One slender mast and high, One quivering sail whose orange dye Like tropic mangoe-bird doth shew, For it has caught the sunset glow That flames athwart the Western sky THE CHILD S DEPARTURE FROM INDIA l< And now it is an Iris wing Shedding a quick remittent ray, Such as the changeful pinions fling Of paroquet or jay. So in the deepening eye of day The ship emits one ruby spark. Then leaves the horizon dark, And through the gloom of night shoots for- ward and away. But high on that irradiate sail, So seems it to the rapt beholder. Her boy bestrode adown the gale A seraph's plumed shoulder ; And dark as grows the air and colder She in the night-wind's sudden rise His plaintive voice can recognize, As clear as if that angel told her. Keturn, mother, to thy home, Tread in its silent halls once more : No little pattering feet shall come Across its matted floor : The silken purdahs of the door No tiny hand shall brush aside : His loving lips at morning-tide Shall kiss thee from thy sleep no more. c 18 poems — 1846. His mountain pony in its stall Shall idly rest, which gallopped free Across the plain at evening-fall, Sharing its rider's glee. Long whinnying at thy vacant knee That petted horse shall ask for bread, Ah ! if the creature that he fed Thus miss him — who can mourn like thee ? The walnut-hued and wrinkled crone Who in her lap his slumber hushed, And patiently all night alone The sharp mosquitoes brushed That hovered o'er his forehead flushed, Who sang him legendary songs Of Hindoo heroes and their wrongs, She, speaking but his name, with sudden tears hath gushed. Far far away the hearth-fire's blaze Shall kindle on his ruddy cheek, His tongue forget its Orient phrase And Saxon language speak, And childhood like a sunset streak Dissolve into Oblivion's mist, Until it shall be as he wist No memory of that mother meek. THE CHILDS DEPARTURE FROM INDIA. 19 She, by the sacred Gunga's wave, Shall be forgotten as the dead : New sympathies his soul shall crave And in new channels spread, On stranger bosoms lean his head, To stranger ears his feelings trust; Ah ! if that mother slept in dust Not more another had her stead. Grief tenfold heavier than death ! For who that sees an infant die Can e'er reject the natural faith That love lives in the sky ? The disembodied babe on high Its filial bond retaineth yet : They are the living who forget, Who rust the chain with apathy. Still, mother, clear that cloudy gaze, Nor let despair thy bosom rive, Lift up to God unselfish praise, Thy blighted flower shall thrive. Though not for thee its hues revive, Though not for thee his eyes relume, The hands have snatched him from the tomb Which seaward from thy bosom drive. c 2 20 poems — 1846. Fold to thy heart his image fair, No changes shall eclipse its view, Eternal childhood it shall wear Through youth, through manhood too. Whate'er his after steps pursue, Whate'er his guilt or folly be, O mother, thou shalt only see The babe that leaves thee now with sinless eyes of blue. 21 A WOMAN'S RENUNCIATION. Unto God I deliver thy life : He clingetk who now hath removed me Closer than sister, closer than wife, Closer than I could have proved me. As a mother doth cherish her son Loveth He who my love hath forbidden : I obey, though my spirit undone Cowers down in its loneliness chidden. Yet, though fate with such pitiless hand Cuts me off from thy hearing and seeing, My heart hath a stronger command Contained in the law of its being. '2'2 poems— 1846. In the blue of the cold twilight morn, When thine eyelids in slumber were folden. My body afar hath been borne From thy presence which God has withholden. Yet my spirit still lingers around, In the dreams of the night I'll be near thee. And even from my grave-clothes unbound Would come back with the angels to cheer thee. Thou never shalt know of my love, Of the pain that my heart has been riving, But a blessing I'll ask from above When thou pleasest thy fancy in wiving. More gentle, more fair she may be, In womanly grace more abounding ; But she never can love thee like me All the depths of thine intellect sounding. Thine image is fixed in my soul As an island in midst of the ocean, Defying all outward control And resisting all inward corrosion. That image in secret I'll keep With hallowed remembrances hoarded ; On thy head, beloved one ! I'll heap Mute orisons daily recorded. a woman's denunciation. 28 O dearest ! dearer than life ! If with life this affection had ending How hopeless indeed were the strife i In which graveward my soul is descending ! But I feel that for time's scanty years No passion deep-rooted is given : Earth's beginnings mature in the spheres : We shall meet, we shall love, and in Heaven ! •44 poems — 1846. ON AN ENGEAVING AFTER MURILLO'S GUARDIAN ANGEL. I know thee, child, ofearthly make, That joumeyest fey the angel's side, By orbs with wonder opened wide Where hopes celestial newly wake, By lips with richest carmine dyed Whereon such eager questions shake, By bearing meek and forehead calm And hand laid in the angel's palm I know thee, child, of earthly make. A beauteous and a holy thing Is childhood unto him who sees Far down through life's deep mysteries The shadow of the angel's wing Doth visibly to such a gaze Encanopy the infant's face, MURILLOS GUARDIAN ANGKL. 28 The pressure of the angel's hold The tiny trusting hand enfold, As visibly as on this page That doth pourtray a seraph's ambassage. I know thee, child, of earth created, Because I see thy fluttering soul Cannot escape the flesh control, But through the lattice of thine eyes Yearns vainly toward the distant skies. hasty boy, that hast not waited For kin or friend or playmate young But at the first word risen and sprung ! Darkness behind thee veils the globe : Cling closer, child, unto the robe Of thy seraphic messenger, And undisturbed pursue afar That heaven-directed nearing star To which his fingers point : Its rays already thee anoint : While thy few doubts thou dost commit With childhood's quick instinctive wit For counsel to that placid mien, Those fearless eyes and brow serene : How should such doubts possess thy thought ? One single accent of his speech Which human lips could never reach With certainty of joy, with perfect peace is fraught. 26 poems — 1846. boy, in beauty tby compeer, Offspring of same unrivalled hand, And drawing too his image clear From olive babes of Spanish land — How like yet most unlike to thee That Child Divine whom I have seen With mild and melancholy mien Upon his virgin mother's knee ; His eyes reciprocal to hers, Brown and transparent as a pool That keeps its tranquil waters cool Moss-fed beneath the mountain firs, Which solemnize the noonday beam Falling refracted on the stream. Great heart, great intellect endowed, Murillo, thee, whose vision stretched Over all childhood, and thence fetched Far differing attributes, — not disallowed By those high aims which sanctified thy toucli With part of childhood's purity in loving it so much. Its loftiest secrets hast thou dared explore When to the God thou didst aspire ; Thy canvass shows Him child for evermore Upon His mother's lap ascending to his Sire. MUR1LL08 GUARDIAN ANGEL. v! t And from that Infant Deity how low Thy pencil slid down to this creature frail Whose timid footsteps humbly trail After the angels as they go ; This babe who onward to the morrow Impatient eyes the starry rays, And that sad retrospective gaze Turned upon man and sin and sorrow : £ This, with its human hope and trust — That, from His triumph throne pitying our mortal dust. POEMS-1847. DREAMERS. Some minds there are that cannot wholly rest, That cannot cease from working, as the sun Leaves not off shining in the crimson West Till Orient lands their morning have begun. So when the darkness drops upon their sense Life is in them as active as in him, The wild dream-regions lift their countenance On the relaxed and sleep-quiescent limb. These have no break in time, no soundless hush. No windless calm like tropic seas aglaze, From wakeful beings' vehement cares they rush To find their nights as stormy as their days. DREAMERS. 29 These when all other human hearts are still, When thought with sorrow makes a transient peace, Love, joy, and struggle, suffer fortune's will, And find e'en there her every-day caprice. To them the absent are restored again, To them the dead can never wholly die : Sleep is the treasurer of their wealthy brain, And gives them interest for the hours laid by. These in their pilgrimage from birth to death Live twice the living of the common herd ; Comes no experience in the night's cold breath, No mystic lesson in its voiceless word ? In that dream chorus, fragmentary, faint, And deeply tender as an angels' quire, Breaks out no echo of the spirit's plaint Still bound to earth, howe'er of earth it tire ? Among the faces flitting o'er our eyes, Thus sightless gazing into memory's frame, Are there not some whom day in its disguise Fain would forget and never dares to name ? Truly, significant to us are dreams, For in the bottom of their shady well We trace the sources of our passion streams. And mark the currents as they rise and swell. 30 poems— 1847. So when some eyes that like a Southern star O'erhung our bark in youth's warm latitudes, But fallen since 'neath time's horizon are In Age's frost and unillumined moods, When such lost eyes with former radiance shine Across the dusty years upon our sleep, The dreamers learn by that unerring sign What vital strength our young emotions keep. And in the non-volition of a dream Things often take their truest shapes at last, The fickle show them false, the faithful seem Cleared from the misconceptions of the past. Such solace is not wrought by human will ; No stimulating drugs can lift the shroud From buried joys ; no lulling herbs can still The jealous doubtings that beset the proud. We cannot say when we lie down to rest, " Soul ! drive back time and show her loving look Whose humid eyes were folded on my breast, When we stood parting by the cottage brook." We cannot smooth our pillow and resolve To meet the comrade wedded far away, Whom father-cares in endless toil involve, And on whose health restricted fortunes prey. DREAMERS. :i 1 Nor rising from our vesper-prayers that ask For pardon in forgiveness of our foe, Can we ordain, 'this night we'll make our task To heal the breach was cloven long ago.' Is there no merit in the good we do, The love Ave lavish, or the alms we spend '? And our dream-errors do we never rue, Their insult or desertion of a friend ? Yes, they are types of what Ave are by day, Truths in the abstract, although vision seen, 'Tis Avell for him Avho to his heart doth lay What these revealings of his slumbers mean. Our very impuissance in their deeds Betrays the setting of our nature's tide, There in a glass our waking memory reads Our strength, our Aveakness, cowardice, or pride. Yet, chafe not, Christian, at thy busy brain Which night or morning no remission knows ; Nor heed, though sophists sneeringly maintain The essence of perfection is repose. The sweating brow, the anxious rolling eye Might rouse the Pagan to presumptuous scorn. " Your struggles prove your folly," he might cry, " Poor restless emmets, for brief labour born." 3-2 poems— 1847. His God was egotistic and inert, His man the runner of a crownless race, Who must awhile his petty powers exert And frustrated at last yield up his place. To such a wearied unrewarded thing Whom life had mocked with emptiness and air, To such, repose his highest joy might bring, His grief might choose oblivion for its share. But we whom every mystery allures, Whose zest is effort even though it sting, Whose sturdy hope through all despite endures And after falling can re-imp its wing. We cannot live contented with repose, Or think that inanition can be bliss, A worthier fate our high ambition knows And its reward we could not bear to miss. Our Heaven should be a never ending work, Labour devoid of lassitude or woe, Schemes under which no disappointments lurk, Studies no aches should force us to forego. No dreamless rest for us, no lounging noon, But tireless energy to climb the height, Itself the recompense, itself the boon, To see the True and to attempt the Eight. DREAMERS. And well Eternity might so be trod Ever upreaching to the Immortal Throne, Think of the distance between us and God ! The Father-God who claims us as His own. In copying Him whose bounties never pause, Whose love is co-extensive with His power. Who comprehends creation with His laws, Could we have leisure for one idle hour ? No, the perfection of true life is this, Eternal action in behalf of all. Brethren beloved, aspire with me to this, Nor dread obstruction at the curtain's fall. 34 poems — 1847. CONVENT OF THE VISITATION, MAQUETBA, ABOVE BOLOGNE-SUB-MER. The summer day's meridian sun Strikes warmly through a wooded lane, Where cottage children shout and run With yelping puppies in their train. Beside the door-sill's entrance low The watchful mother sits to spin, And oft her sunburned features glow With gladness at their merry din ; While lightened of his heavy load The grateful ass in quiet lies, And near him in the sandy road The basking kitten blinks her eyes. CONVENT OF THE VISITATION. Exuberant of life are all, And joy according to their kind Under the shadow of that wall For life's captivity designed. Hark ! hear ye not the piercing chaunt. More sad than Irish Keeners' wail ? Doth not the sight your spirit daunt Of youthful face in sable veil ? Among the fragrant heaps of hay, Beneath the July's lavish boughs That dark procession winds its way With drooping melancholy brows. The raven robes that round them cling Enwrap them in a living shroud, A gloom on nature's smiles they fling Like passing of a thunder-cloud. Sweet nature in her fullest flush ! While they have cast away their prime. Their virgin foreheads may not blush, Their virgin love itself were crime ; With eyelids nailed upon their book They pace across the flowering sward, Vacant of heart, austere of look, Are such thy favoured children, Lord ? Hark ! for reply the solemn bell Sounds slowly in the chapel near ; It seems their youth's funereal knell As one by one they disappear. 36 poems — 1847. In distance die their thrilling staves That through the blue empyrean rang : If I had seen them dig their graves I had not felt a sharper pang ; For many a home-endearing wife That suicidal veil has slain, And many a mother's brimming life Is stifled in that barren train. My fancy follows to the cell Where oft along the stony floor The wind sends murmurs of the swell That beats far downward on the shore. That freest voice of earth and air Doth it not mock the captive nun ? Will she not sometimes wish she were A billow dancing in the sun? Vainly she would her memory steel, And force her languid thoughts on high, She is of flesh, and she must feel We are not angels till we die. I see a woman on the road With naked feet and ragged skirt, Her shoulders bear a faggot load, Her horny hands are stained with dirt ; She ploddeth to her fisher home, Her shingle hut beside the pier ; Her husband's boat is on the foam, Himself and all her children dear ; CONVENT OF THE VISITATION. 87 Yet better, worthier to my mind, To work and love and hope as she, Than live apart from all my kind, A lonely friendless devotee. Thou golden form, that to the sky Pointest above the convent roof, Thy mother bosom doth belie The vows that call on thee for proof. Thine arms a glittering babe enfold, Maternal love thy features wear As if beneath that vest of gold Beat all a mother's sleepless care. Mary ! if thou couldst hear me call, I'd pray thee chide this foolish strife Which in thy name makes war on all That was the glory of thy life. I call thee not — it were to mock Thy mouldering dust which ere this hour Has nourished grass for Syrian flock, And fed the roots of palm and flower. I call thee not, thou patient one, Who in the peace of death dost lie Till the glad summons of thy Son Bid thee and us ascend on high. Could the wild thought thy bosom stir When pondering o'er that Babe Divine, Men would His praise to thee transfer, And in thy honour rob His shrine ! 38 poems— 1847. No, could we hear thee from thy grave, Far different would thy teaching he : " I have no power to help or save, I was a woman even as ye, The partner of a labouring man, The parent of an earthly line, The duties of life's common span, Its common cares and toils were mine. A human household, human ties Upon me laid imperious claim ; I read my lot in Joseph's eyes ; I bid you, daughters, do the same. Aye, learn from me, if ye must learn That woman ministers to man, That lowly task she must not spurn If she would do the good she can ; Whate'er her powers, if she would fill The sum of womanhood complete, The noblest triumph of her will Is to be wife and mother meet. Temptation lurks in every track, God sends you work as pleaseth Him, Ye may not turn aside or back, Or change your burden at your whim.' So thought I at the convent gate, Beneath the gloomy prison wall Where Mary in her starry state Shone o'er the Chapel's belfry tall. CONVENT OF THE VISITATION. 89 It might have been the unseen choir That thus in vocal cheam I stood, Or wind that wandered like a lyre Across the lindens in the wood, Or distant surge, I cannot know If Mary's voice it was, or not, But this it said, " No gifts below Exempt you from the common lot." 40 poems — 1847. PLACE DE LA CONCORDE, PARIS. Flow, shining fountains, flow, Dash freely round your coloured spray : Ah happy if the ground below Had drunk no redder streams than they, Had only water's stainless flow Brimmed the crime-orgies long ago ! Rear, stone of Luxor, rear Midway thy tall Egyptian lance That tapers like a Titan's spear : Ah we had never blushed for France, Had nought more sinister and drear, No hungiy guillotine stood here. Sigh, flowering chesnuts, sigh, Whose alleys line the palace path, : Ah had there never hurried by Those harsher sounds of hate and wrath, PLACE DE LA CONCORDE. 41 The human bloodhounds' frenzied cry- Around their victims dragged to die ! Guard, emblem statues, guard This area like an altar-stone : castled towns, far stronger ward Ye should have kept around the throne, Rebellion's onslaught to retard, To save your king misfortune-starred. Bear silent witness, bear, Ye pillared fanes august and grand, The Senate Hall, the House of Prayer, Memorials stern on either hand Of outraged law and faith. Beware, Man, ere yourself or God you dare ! Well light, sun, light well This fairest city's fairest place, And foulest blot that ever fell Upon her gay unthinking face : Shine on the murder spots and tell This place is called " The Peaceable !" 42 poems — 1847. LA MORGUE. The Seine is flowing merrily, with bubbles in the breeze, Below his graceful bridges and between his fair white quays ; In sunshine clad like spirit pure he glideth through the town, He pauseth not for palace smile nor yet for prison frown. Green trees are marshalled on his banks, steep houses rear them high, With rows of open jalousies that glitter in the sky; Old colleges and senate halls his leaping waters lave, And statues of dead majesties look proudly on his wave. LA MORGUE. 1" He floats by spacious barrack-gates where lounging soldiers stand, By luxury's full magazines and wines of Ehenish land, By gardens of rare herbaries collected from all climes, Where Transatlantic animals bound under the broad lines. Ay, make thou merry in thy track ! sing on, thou silver Seine ! Forget among the shady elms embowering Cours la Reine, Forget in pleasant Normandy by Rouen's sculp- tured pile What thou hast left at Notre Dame within the city's isle. Yet, cruel Seine, my heart is faint at memory of that sight, The victims of thy treacherous waves, those waves so clear and bright, Extended on the brassy beds where living men ne'er lay, They looked like half-formed effigies rough mod- elled in the clay ! All who had known them as they were ? not sister, no, nor wife, Not child who might have clomb their knees, not friend who shared their life, 44 poems — 1847. The seething waves had worked their will upon each senseless weft, A dim resemblance of our race was all that they had left. Athwart a grated aperture the light upon them streamed Kevealing strangest lineaments such as were never dreamed, And from the crowd of passengers a few turned hack to gaze And shuddering looked and crossed themselves and hastened on their ways. That loneness of abandonment for grief was like a claim, Yet no one knew their parentage, their history, their name ; None guessed what once had been those forms so purpled by decay, Or generous lovers of their kind or savage beasts of prey. But close above them Notre Dame reared her fa- miliar towers, And in the market place beside the women sold their flowers, And Paris through her busy streets poured out her noisy train, And past the dead with careless voice sang on the silver Seine. LA MORGUE. 45 Thus is it ever, we shall be as desolate on When 'neath the unfrequented sod our grave some hireling delves, Then few who late our comrades were will pause to mark the spot, It is not only in the Morgue men lie and are for- got. 46 poems — 1847. THE EHINE AT BASLE. Father Ehine, supreme of rivers! once again into my sleep Pass the voices of thy waters, a contralto strong and deep, As I heard them for the first time ; seven days are come and gone Since their loud sonorous greeting hade me wel- come to Cologne. Full of fancies was my dreaming on that first eventful night, There was old association in each mirrored city light, Blythe as tone of early comrade was the pleasant plashing sound Of thy waves against the barges where the float- ing bridge is bound. THE RHINE AT BASLE. 47 Full of fancies was my dreaming, and yet more fantastic still Was the waking at the sunrise by a bugle pealing shrill, When I saw below the casement of my lofty barrack- inn All the Prussian Horse defiling with a warlike music's din. Many hundred were the chargers in a scintillating line, Many hundred were the riders that went clashing o'er the Rhine, But diminished by the distance to a quaint and foreign toy, Such as might be the rewarding of some soldier- smitten boy. O'er the narrow bridge they spurred them, while between each bursting strain, Through the trampling of the horses and the jingling of the rein Rose the chorus of thy waters as they swept by boat and quay With a steady slow progression moving down- wards to the sea.. FatherRhine, when first I knew thee thou wert well advanced in life, Hale and sturdy as a veteran who hath come through much of strife, 48 poems — 1847. Proud as one who feels his young hlood hath been never idly spilled, Who hath aimed at mighty ventures, and achieved what he hath willed. Even so, at length grown languid thou forebodedst thy decline, Leaning down thy broad old shoulders on the sloping bank of vine, Wrapping as a mantle round thee cherry orchards, fields of corn, While the bells of grave Cathedrals o'er thy sleepy brows were borne. For thou ever wert religious ; but alas ! a fickle soul, Seeking after novel doctrines, soon impatient of control ; Bom a Papist in the Grisons at some mountain patron's knee, Now at Basle the Calvin preacher is responded to by thee. Here I find thee, glorious river, in thy greenly buoyant youth, Bearing on thy rapid current simpler hymn and purer truth ; Ah, relapse not ! ah, forget not ! keep those words in thy career ! Woe is me for men and rivers, in religion how they veer ! THE ItniNE AT BASLE. 49 Was't the lonely hermit Roland that thy fancy so allured, Gazing on the cloistered vestal in old Nonnen- worth immured ? Was't his legend that so won thee by its constancy till death To the rites and to the worship of those martyred lovers' faith ? Howsoever — see the churches, the Cathedral of Cologne ; Oh too easily converted, Rome reclaims thee as her son ; Thou in age art superstitious, like ourselves thou needs must yearn To that mystery of the future which in youth we often spurn. Ostentatious thy devotion to thy long abandoned creed, Sowing churches on thy margin thick as Scrip- ture's mustard seed, Snuff their incense in thy nostrils, waft their masses on thy breast, Thou again shalt be apostate 'mong the marshes of the West. I have read thy story backward, I began with thee in age, So my track hath been reversing all thy varied pilgrimage, e 50 poems — 1847. And at Basle I pause in wonder on thy youthful face to look, Clear and healthy and ingenuous, open as a large- leaved hook. Peace is on thy singing waters, ever sing so, mighty Khine, Ever fill the woods and mountains with the words of the Divine, Ah ! thou hearest not, thou tarriest not, Cologne's unfinished dome Sees thee worship the Madonna, sees thee peni- tent to Rome. Brief shall be her pride, false river, in thy versa- tile devotion, For the Calvinistic orisons shall bury thee in ocean ; Yea, the barrier of that sepulchre alone shall stop thy ranging, Ocean hath her own religion, one eternal and un- changing ! Then remember I right humbly, numberless are men like thee, Countless the unresting spirits that in doubts perpetual be, Hearts unstable as thy waters, brains fermenting as thy wine, Till they merge in the Eternal, like thyself, old Father Rhine. 51 FIRST IMPRESSIONS OF ROME. Am I in Rome ? how desolate, How utterly forlorn it is ! Through every crevice penetrate The rain-drops with a snaky hiss. And scrambling up the miry way Beneath a huge umbrella's roof, My glorious visions slink away For none, alas, are waterproof ! My fancy struck with mortal chill Limps feebly up the terrace stair, And shudders while on Pincian Hill The Acacia wrings her dripping hair. Like islands from a leaden main Uprise those world-renowned domes Somany student hearts in vain Have sighed for in their northern homes. !■: 2 52 poems — 1847. Amid the misty sleet they stand Without one welcome on their face, The embodied miseries of the land Scowling on its degenerate race. Soft-breathing Eome, thy silent air Moist with thy tears, resigned and sad, Is more like one who hugs despair, Obeying where she might have bade, Than Christendom's Imperial Queen, Whose fetters to the conscience cling ; I looked for her of haughty mien, I see a cowering frightened thing. How different from that blue-eyed shrew, Keen-blasted Florence, in whose frame Leaps strength elastically new, Feeding her children of the same. And if she weep it is a storm, A fury in its vehement gush, And if she smile her perfect form Thrills with the rapture of her blush. Pale mournful Eome, I'll shut mine eyes, Nor ope them till thy tears are shed, Until the sun of Southern skies Lighten again thy suffering head. FIRST IMPRESSION'S OF !;• .'.:; I would not choose to turn my feet Already to my Island home This broken record to repeat, " I stood within the walls of Rome, The ' mighty mother's ' face I saw With grief and squalor sore opprest, And pity took the place of awe And hushed the throbbing of my breast." No, let me wait till thou can'st smile, Thou charmer of the days of eld, Silence ! my verse, one little while, Until this sorrow be dispelled. , 54 POEMS-1848. STRASBURG. Rivers like men have epochs in their going When the tide slackens to a gentler flowing, In tranquil glass the heaven above them showing. Before their middle age, but past their spring When strength is violence and everything They do bespatter with the spray they fling. They cleave the precipice with noisy feet, Dragging dismay into each calm retreat Where children sport and household lambkins bleat. STEASBDRG. Anon this burst of inexperienced force They have o'erpast, too few without remorse For mischiefs done in that insensate couiv Therefore with sudden promptings of delay From frightened conscience they would make i stay, A breathing moment to reflect and pray With murmuring lips against the grassy plain, Near the mossed basement of some minster fane Whose holy calm their madness would restrain. This period of refreshing now was thine, By Strasburg's cannoned gates, majestic Rhine, Where France and Prussia touch their frontier line. In the Alsatian meadows rich and flat And fragrant as an Hindoo's scented mat Thou like a wearied dawn-belated bat Wert fallen tangled 'mong the playful isles That dimpled all the champaign with their smiles, Winding about the pointed poplar files. Thy features wore a passionless repose, Languidly resting from thy youth's wild throes, Like eyes that heavy with long weeping close. / 56 poems — 1848. No more thou hurledst down some Alpine pass Thy glacier-nurtured and impetuous mass Of turbid waters : now as clear as glass Thy brow unfurrowed had dismissed from mind Basle's verdant torrent that outstripped the wind And the stern Grisons which ice-girdles bind. Thy youth's destructive impulses no more Chalets and pines from breaking landslips tore, Thou hadst forgot the avalanche's roar. Mayhap repenting thee to have neglected Some village shrine by mountain saint protected, Or city tower that o'er thy breast projected. Papist or Huguenot thou didst not care, Now sniffing eagerly the censered air, Now thrilling with some simple psalm or prayer. But never pausing, never turning back Till o'er Schaffhausen's precipices black Thy rash feet stumbled in thy hasty track. Then bruised and shattered by that daring leap, And forced on faster in thy hurrying sweep, How welcome was the plain that nestled thee to sleep ! STRASBUEG. 57 There in luxurious apathetic ease I found thee lying under aspen trees That ever quake expectant of the breeze. These with their femininely gentle song Entranced thy current that before so strong Now lazily its loiterings did prolong. weary Ehine who couldst not then foresee What grave impediments still threatened thee, Ere thou couldst reach thy final home the sea ! Nor did I prophecy with envious spite Of Lurley's whirlpool and her demon sprite, Of ghosts and legends for each haunted height, Of castles mouldering on the stormy rock, Of gorges rent by rude volcanic shock, Of darkest dens that sudden will unlock Thy tide, and shut out all the living world, In the abysses of their dungeons curled Where never star the dusky wave impearled. No, better leave thee in the future's keeping Under the noon as I beheld thee sleeping, Lulled by the song of peasants at their reaping. 58 poems — 1848. So as I crossed thy breast I gently trod, Lest that my foot however lightly shod Might wake thee by its echo on the sod. I crossed, and found me in a moment's glance Among the careless merry sons of France, A race that seem idolaters of chance, Who literally take the Scripture's guide To let the morrow for its wants provide, Careless are they, let good or ill betide. Yet dominated by the sprightly Gaul And though the tricolor waved on its wall The ancient Burg had not surrendered all Of Teuton lineage, still it gave you proof By quaint brown gable and tall lichened roof, And maid with modest eyes and skin of lily woof. The grave simplicity of German life Tempered the mirth and quieted the strife, And sanctified the virtues of the wife. There shrilled a Babel from the market-place, Voices discordant of each several race, The sharp French treble and the Teuton's bass. STRASBURG. 59 That market place, I know not busier scene, Vendors of fruits and vegetables green, And kerchiefs gay to tempt the female eyne. And through the din of bargain and of sale Rose the famed minster in its coat of mail, Its fretwork delicate as Flanders veil. No rhapsody of language can express The double majesty and loveliness Wherewith its arches up to ether press. Right on the flagstones of the teeming street It plants the sure foundation of its feet, While its fair brow the topmost cloudlets greet ; Winding by many an arrow-headed stair, By many a spiracle in upper air, Till even the birds to follow it despair. From the deep porch our eyes enraptured gazed, Resolved to reach the highest cross that blazed Though at our own temerity amazed. Then passing inward we arrested stood Before a form that imaged womanhood, Sculpture expressing one both great and good. 60 poems— 1848. Her attitude's responsible command, The hammer and the chisel in her hand Told was no common daughter of the land. Sabina ! worthy of thine artist sire, Thy praise is built in that of Strasburg's spire, Who knows thy story must perforce admire. Genius unsexed thee not, thy utmost pride For thy dead father's honour to provide, Lest the great work had with its worker died. His fame assured was all that thou didst ask, But after-times appreciating that task Immortalized thy love within this stony mask. Therefore these implements masonic suit Thy girl-hand better than the dainty lute, Or sempstress needle flying fast and mute. Within thy church one hurried glance we gave To solemn choir, to groined and columned nave, To statues carven of the wise and brave, To gorgeous windows in prismatic line, Wheel shaped and arched, that through the dark- ness shine Like rubies flaming in their native mine, 8TRASBURG. 61 To marble flags whose hollow tombs resound, Till far-recessed a low small door we found That gave dark entrance to a chamber round. There we ascended by revolving flight Of steps obscurer than a moonless night, Till on the minster roof we saw new light And faced once more the sunshine : then 'twas ours To mount the taller of those sister towers Through carved knots of foliages and flowers. An outer stair of many a rugged grade Around the steeple twined its narrow braid Bare to the breeze ; the unfenced steps dismayed My dizzy eyes : I trembled as we clomb. I have achieved the heights of Milan's dome, And from St. Peter's gazed abroad on Eome, But these have ta'en a broader firmer root, Heaving the ground up round each giant foot, While Strasburg's spire is one presumptuous shoot. Sheer to the skies its pointed lancet soars, The sunbeams pierce through its transparent pores, And in its open work the storm wind roars. 62 poems— 1848. No cheating there the senses or the nerve, You recognize the peril if you swerve And glue your footsteps to the stairs' sharp curve. Distinct the city lay beneath our feet, Soldiers like ants filed through the narrow street, Like a bee's droning was the drummer's beat. At every step the landscape wider grew Its countless points receding from our view At once diminished and expanded too. The river shrank and thinned as growing dry, The lofty mansions crouched below our eye, The mountain summits slid adown the sky. Stooping they bared a hundred farther peaks Kosely tinged as country maiden's cheeks When in her ear the first love-promise speaks. Still higher we, still larger rolled the scene, Still backward fell the ever loftier screen Of purple hills behind the meadows green. And thus revolving like a potter's wheel My limbs grew heavy and my head did reel, And all confusedly I seemed to feel STBASBURG. C3 Myself abetter of some daring crime, Bold as the giants of the olden time Who sealed shut Paradise with brick and lime. A second Babel surely this I trod Obnoxious by its stature to the rod, The fulgent thunder of insulted God. " No more," I said, " Oh friends, I can no more ! As easy tread the ocean's yielding floor As these unparapetted heights explore. Leave me to breathe one moment, go ye hence, While I repose me on this sight immense Horizoned by the line of Jura's icy fence." Then to my urgency they gave assent, On to the loftiest spiracle they went Some thirty feet above where Thad leant. And all alone I rested in that tower, Encanopied within a sculptured bower, Bose and acanthus and the lily flower, A stony arbour proof against decay, Not a leaf withered in its garland gray Where swallows built as if on forest spray 64 poems — 1848. They circled round me in a timid flight, Each I could fancy a released sprite From the cold sepulchres of priest and knight, Hero and statesman in the church beneath, This with carved surplice, that in mailed sheath, And lady effigied in jewelled wreath. Myself in truth I could have thought the same, So did that keen air lift me from my frame And disencumber me of earthly name, And free my sense with instantaneous throe, So that I saw my chrysalis below Lie all beclogged with worldly pain and woe. But high my disembodied spirit sprung, With flight aerial o'er the globe I hung And bid it farewell with rejoicing tongue. Yes, in that vision I could realize The snapping of the life-cord when flesh dies, And spirit, turning with reluctant eyes, Glances once backward on its prison clay, And pauses ere it wings its course away Into its final rest hid in the eternal day. STRASBURG. 05 I could appi'eciate the freed spirit's dower, Its second birth to unimagined power, Whereby it learns what scaped the living hour. Not a mere shell would then its mortal coil Appear to soul, for it could trace the toil, The aching pains, the languor, the turmoil, And recognise how much the body lends Of sin to spirit, so 'twould make amends For many an over-task and part at last as friends. These wayward fancies in my brain were seething, When over head returned the human breathing, The human footfall on that stony wreathing. And merry laughter broke at once the spell Which had possessed me in that airy cell, Placed side by side with Strasburg's Minster bell. Then I descended with averted face, As one who sliding down to error's base By looking up would wholesome terrors chase. Thus saw I not the gulf that yawned below, Nor the gray houses tall and taller grow, Nor chimneys lengthen in ambitious row. F 66 poems— 1848. But while aloud my agile speed I vaunted My secret soul was by that vision haunted, That mystery which hath so many searchers daunted. Nor could I shake a longing from my brain To know this truth, What follows death's last pain In the dread blank whence none can write again ? A wild wild wish ! none is there who hath heard From that vast silence one consoling word Howe'er the grave by questionings they stirred. All's chaos there, uncertainty and gloom : Doth the soul lie in slumber in the tomb, Waiting the trumpet for its wakeful doom, So interlaced with flesh that it doth faint, When fails the body, and in long constraint Eest placidly unconscious without plaint ? Doth it dissevered shake its ethery wing, Refreshed and buoyant, and immediate spring To hear the judgment of its heavenly King ? Or doth it linger separate, incomplete, A broken fragment hid in some retreat, Not heaven, not hell, nor wholly bad nor meet? STRASBURG. r >7 Or must it ache where penal torments bind The wretched sinner to some stake assigned, Dependant on the prayers of weepers left behind? Can we indeed by paying down our dole Lighten the burden of our darling's soul, And from our dead the burning swathes unroll ? How many strange imaginations crowd Upon my thought which men have taught aloud, And as salvation's signet seal avowed ! Say not 'tis curious presumption's eye That in the vagues of after-death would pry. That it concerns us not until we die. Out on such selfishness ! though none can learn The secrets of that darkness till there bum The funeral tapers by his burial um, Yet where is he so isolate, so lone, That never in his life-time he hath known Kinsman or friend who to the dark hath gone ? How can we rest contentedly apart From them who shared the blood-drops of our heart, Nor sigh, " dear one, tell me where thou art ?" 68 poems — 1848. Nor call upon the winds to give reply, Nor search the stars that watch us from on high, Nor on the grave itself in desperation cry ? She who lay in our bosom, how can we Sleep without marvelling where hers may be, In what far corner of immensity ? Can the reft parent lay her throbbing head Beside her infant's newly vacant bed Nor follow with sad fancies on the dead ? Ask history, ask the past, and you shall trace How every creed, albeit blind and base, Hath taken pity on the wistful face Of mourners kneeling by the raw brown sod, How each one in its ignorance of God Hath sent some legend of the grave abroad. Love, stronger than the barrier of the tomb, With feeble glimmer would disperse its gloom, And show us something of the lost one's doom. So every land and nation hath its part In these untaught religions of the heart, These faiths that from the wormy cerements start. STRASBURG. f)9 For grief and love their airy tissues span Which would explain the after lot of man Exiled from sight by death's mysterious ban. Deeply must they have suffered who first dared Look down the abyss where all for which they cared In this short life lay hidden and ensnared. The boldness of affection it hath been To people thus the grave's appalling scene, And draw the phantom from behind its screen. Therefore, when any fondly would recall The fragments which tradition has let fall Of this sad yearning common to us all, Oh, let us tenderly and softly deal With superstitions which at least reveal Hopes, which the coldest nurse, fears, which the boldest feel. 70 poems— 1848. SAVONAEOLA IN HIS CELL IN THE TOWEK OF THE PALAZZO VECCHIO, FLOKENCE. Fate has found thee, Savonarola, The brand is binning thy heart, Through all the chill of thy dungeon Thou feelest the fire-fang's smart. In thy cell on Arnolfo's belfry, That is poised on a Palace' roof, Where once thou hast held a council And once borne the torture proof, Fate has found thee, Savonarola. The grating is at thy level : Dominican, look without ! Thou can'st see the face of thy people, Thou can'st hear their rabble shout : SAVONAROLA. 7 1 Shouting for newer idols, Shouting for deadly play, To-morrow the flames shall crackle, To-morrow is holiday ! Fate has found thee, Savonarola. Dream thou art with thy hrethren Kneeling in Marco's cell, Dream that this angry clangor Is only the vesper hell : Those are the same blue mountains, Yonder is Fiesole's brow, But it is not the hempen girdle Of thine order that girds thee now, Fate has found thee, Savonarola ! Turn from the gorgeous landscape Charted so clear below, The plain and the peaks of Lucca And the Amo's azure flow. Sigh not for thy favourite convent On L'Averna's snowy crown, Glorify God in thy fetters As then in thy cowl and gown. Fate doth tempt thee, Savonarola. Wherefore are nailed thine eyelids Down on the well-known square ? A pole with its chesnut faggots, A stake and a staple are there : 72 poems— 1848. Workmen knock at the scaffold Where to-morrow are gazers hid, And every knock of their hammer Rivets thy coffin lid. Fate is threatening, Savonarola ! Over the tall old houses Peer the eyes of the marvellous dome, Where sounded the prophet sermons That rushed from thy lips like foam ; Warning and threat and judgment, Like as an angel spoke, And Florence sat at thy footstool And put her neck in thy yoke. But Fate followed, Savonarola. Though the children left their playing To sing thy procession hymn, Though the women knelt in passing To kiss thy white mantle's rim, Though they hurned the lute and viol And the books that profaned the shelf And never a sign foreshadowed Those flames should attack thyself, Yet Fate marked thee, Savonarola. When the sacrilege aroused thee Of St. Peter's tainted seat, When the surge of thy righteous fuiy Rolled unto Tiber's feet, SAVONAROLA. When the guilty Borgia's forehead Blanched 'neath the triple tiar, And the Vatican was shaken By the wrath of a barefoot friar, Fate was waiting, Savonarola. Woe thou regenerator ! Believer in human good ! See the end of thy hardy struggles In the pyre and its fatal wood ! The people that seemed to hearken, The nobles that seemed to heed, Is there one to share thy peril ? Is there one to prop thy creed ? Fate deceived thee, Savonarola. Still shall the Papal mantle Cover its hidden sin, The guns of a despot clamour Florence's gates within ; The voice of the Lord be silenced, The voice of the world be loud, The traitor, the liar, the cruel Shall sway, as thou swayed'st the crowd. Fate has mocked thee, Savonarola. Yet hearken, thou caged and captive ! Thou doomed to devouring flame ! Many nations shall rise to bless thee, Many centuries praise thy name. 74 poems — 1848. The ground that is humed in autumn In the spring tenfold doth bear ; And the truths that destroy thy body To the end of all time shall glare. Fate shall 'venge thee, Savonarola. Remember not yester's weakness, Its swooning unconscious speech, Thy faith by thy death is tested, That is beyond their reach ! Rome ! Florence ! to-morrow's martyr Is the first of a royal line, In his Saxon convent Luther Inherits the gift divine. Fate avenges Savonarola. 75 THE ENGLISH CEMETERY AT ROME. 'Tis March, our month of bluster, of wind and dust and rain, But a blue-eyed noon is laughing across the Ro- man plain ; Thick clustering like the children's heads when out to play they pass The daisy buds are crowding bright above the crisp young grass. The sunbeams from the zenith drop on Aurelian's wall With such a spendthrift scattering as shares its wealth with all, But chiefly on a sloping bank fenced from the meadow turf That undulates in ridgy rolls, like lines of flowery surf. The walls of no mean city support that Guelphic tower, The hand of no mean conqueror upreared its threatening power, 76 poems— 1848. Amid the Celt and Saxon graves, black with the centuries grime The marble Cestian Pyramid recalls the Augustan time. And lapped amid anemones, 'neath trellised arch of rose, 'Neath sentinel tall cypresses, the English dead repose A bowshot from the Tiber's path, he in the hush of eve Is heard across the grassy fields all tenderly to grieve. There Shelley's heart, and Shelley's child, await the great up-springing, With that unseasoned instrument that shivered in the stringing, Poor morbid Keats ; and by his side, I pray you mark it well, Lies dust where art and science met in our own Scottish Bell.* I looked on these but went my way to one broad slab of stone, Graved to a soldier's memory,f a name I long had known : * John Bell, the anatomist, author of " Observations on Art in Italy." t Lieut. General Sir Dugald Gilmour, K.C.B. THE ENGLISH CEMETEEY AT ROME. 77 One who had hattled in his youth, and gained his fame from men, One who had reached the Psalmist's goal, the threescore years and ten. I thought no more of Italy, beyond the Aurelian arch I saw the hills of Tullymet, crowned with their plumy larch, And that old knight whose grave I touched an- other knight beside,* Brothers in arms, and friends in peace, their dust is scattered wide. Both charged at Salamanca, both bled at Waterloo, And many a day of sylvan sport their veteran lei- sure knew; Their lives resembled, but their deaths contrasted strangely sad, Old man who sleepest at my foot, for thee I can be glad. The patriot's and the poet's clay is mingled into thine, The breath of flowers is on thy tomb, the shelter of the pine : * M. General Sir R. Dick. K.C.B., of Tullymet, Perthshire. 78 poems — 1848. A nameless village holdeth him who at Sobraon fell, Who had an army's wailing for his brief funereal knell. His grey hairs were in carnage steeped, his gen- erous heart grew chill'd, As shouts of hard-won victory the wild horizon fill'd: They pressed on o'er the flying foes whom he had forced to flight, Fame and reward to others came, to him death's silent night. Thus glory turned to ashes soon as it touched his mouth ; Oh happier thou to glide away in this sweet sunny south ; And even here the Koman noon seems drooping with regret For the slain of far Sobraon, for the friends of Tullymet. 79 POEMS-1849. BONA AND PIEEO, A TALE OF THE CONDOTTIERI. PRELUDE. Maid Alice at her window stands In presence of the sun, Flounces and frills her eager hands Are fashioning one hy one ; The world may go astray for her Until her task be done. She lets her goldfinch lack its food, Her service lack her sire ; She has no thought but is engrossed By this new brave attire, The rustling ribbons sound to her Melodious as a lyre. 80 poems — 1849. Her mother, entering at the door, Stands unperceived awhile, The shadow of a grave rebuke O'ercomes her wonted smile, Yet pauseth she, about to blame That creature void of guile. At length, " child," she spake aloud, " On evil days we fall, Few are they and December short Which for our own we call, Like players in a tennis court We strike the enclosure wall. Against the inexorable bars Our folly-flights rebound, Meanwhile the judgment cometh near As every clock goes round, WTien snatched from our frivolities We hear the sentence sound. The young show age's selfishness, Youth's vanities the old : The obedient natural elements To our deceits are sold, The very lightning condescends To make our copper gold. BONA AND PIERO. 8 I There's nothing seemeth what it is, Or is what 'tis avowed ; The poor man vieth with the rich, The mean man with the proud ; The linnet by the prating jay Is out-voiced in the crowd. And where the best are hypocrites, The wisest borrowed breath, Where law is mere chicaneiy And statecraft broken faith, What wonder woman be extreme And fool it on till death ? Her girlhood wastes in labouring At some imperfect shows, Her mind a surface-burnishment While nought she really knows, Her heart refined away to threads As thin as her gauze clothes. Her prime is spent in stratagems To catch the matron's ring, Heedless of after servitude And duties it doth bring ; Thus wifehood she, and motherhood, Makes each a godless thing. G 82 poems — 1849. Or if repelled on singleness She envieth others' lot, And rails in slanderous bitterness At all which she hath not ; And browses like a tethered mare Around a stony spot. Dear girl, I see thine eyes dilate With wonder and distress, Thy soul can ill at such an end In life's beginning guess : Yet every mirror-worshipper To such an end doth press. Nay, pout not, Alice, sit by me And hear a livelier theme, What women were in days of yore When love was not a dream, But fed the soul's vitality With its arterial stream. This valley thou hast oft explored Here where I tell my tale, Is changed as infancy to age, As frost to summer hail, Since they lived whom my verse invokes From death's concealing pale. BONA AXD PIERO. You see but languid foreigners Lounging against the hill, A little town of hostelries Extortionate of bill, And peasants culturing the vine For English squires to swill. The bustle of a watering place Upon our Sussex shore, Its rivalries, its gossipries, Its mimic city roar, These have besieged the Apennine, And nature's rest is o'er. Such was it not in days 1 sing ; These flowering chestnut trees, Whose gnarled old trunks appear to you True aborigines, Had not then climbed the naked hills Left open to the breeze. No foliage draped the mountain bunk. But on the mountain's crest Frowned ancient burg and buttressed fort. That still to men attest What valour and what fortitude Could once these walls invest. 84 poems— 1849. And upward through the zigzag paths That mountain courage need Rode cavaliex's in harness gay, On mountain nurtured steed Accustomed to those steepy heights Too steep for champaign breed. Yon fortalice which badger-like Bristles against the sky Flashed down the cannon's iron fire Upon the skulking spy, And warned him and his ambushed friends Safe in the glen to lie. For there was war 'twixt lord and lord, 'Twixt knight and baron bold, Each under flags inimical Entrenched him in his hold, And beat to clumsy armoury His chains and cups of gold. For Sforza and Visconti some, For Florence some, most great, And more for Papal empeiy, And few for Sienna's state, And many for the fighting's sake Mere wantonness of hate. BONA AND PIERO. 1 say not 'twas a worthy cause Which spurred them to the fray, Yet were they not all purposeless As our indifferent day, They chose an aim, they worked it out Whate'er might bar their way. A school for captains green in bud ! A field for generals ripe ! Whose was the hand determinate To loosen Sforza's gripe? Who Piccinino's bloody track With following fire could wipe ? As Boulders in St. Gothard's Pass Along the rapid Reuss Rise mossily from out the snows Round, isolate, and loose, But yet are clasped into their place By a lichens' crimson noose. So hardy women Alpine-nerved Those rough men held in gage, They had no mirrors in their camp, Their gauds were counsel sage, Brave energy to tread the track Of love's rude pilgrimage : 86 poems — 1849. True women who esteemed their faith The best robe they could wear, Meek piety their frontlet gem, And self-devoting care, And pure simplicity of right That saved from every snare. EPOCH I. Among these hills was pitched a camp, Upon a flowery mead Which on a bleak volcano's cone Doth rarest blossoms breed: Exotics elsewhere cluster there Like any vulgar weed. In noon's siesta weary men Lay basking at their ease ; Their leader sat within his tent, His sword between his knees ; Before him stood his favourite page Less by some few degrees. BONA AND PIERO. ^7 A girlish boy of slender make, Yet sinewy, spare and strong, His bright black hair in closest rings Encased a visage long, As serious as a martyr's brow, Yet sweet as ballad song. He had been speaking at the time, I summon you to list, And uttering those harsh verities Whereon if we insist No human bond so intricate But we asunder twist. For in the deepest earthly vows Some flattery needs must blend, We dare not show the untinged truth E'en to our dearest friend, To break the coloured medium glass Breaks love, and there's an end. This boy spake with such noble heat, Such confidence of right, He made the soldiers eyelids quail, The soldier's lip grow white, Worse to confront that young rebuke Than foeman in the fight. 88 poems— 1849. "Now by the Lord !" the captain said, " And by His Mother dear, An 'twere not that I love thee, girl ! Such words I would not hear : Thy speech becomes not woman's tongue, But smacks of sword and spear. " Back to thy distaff in the hills, Back to thy shuttle fine, Go ravel out the gold cocoons In thine own Yalteline, On silken webs speak positive, Let war's affairs be mine." Quoth she, " If woman gird the sword And weight her brows with helm, If woman's shaft the straightest fly In all Alfonso's realm, If woman's foot the rampart scale As vine stalk scales the elm, " Then let her judge, and let her speak As free as northern wind ! Thou knowest I have a female heart But not a female mind, I left that with my mulberries And all their spinning kind. BONA AND PIERO. -'•• " If with thee perils of the camp Hardship and march I share, Is not the glory of thy name Essentially my care ? Is not thine honour, O my love, Thy Bona's first affair? " I am not like your peasant wives Who sit in chimney nook, While husbands barter life or fame They never turn a look, Indifferent to their praise or blame As tale writ in a book. " No Piero ! never can I see This traitorous Judas act, See thee sell Sforza and thyself In most unholy pact, Without once crying, Treachery ! Man, keep thy faith intact ! " Desert him not this very clay That weakness numbs his hand, He values well thy captainship And prowess of thy band : But if betrayed by thee, I know Not fortress in the land 90 poems — 1849. " To check him in his fierce pursuit ; When once his grip is free, As eagle from his precipice He will swoop down on thee, And seize thee wert thou prostrated Before the papal knee." She ceased, but not as orator Whose weightiest words are spent, More like the clerkly who unwinds A subtle argument Beneath the dull and stupid eye Of one that is dement. She ceased, because he listened not, But with uneasy stir He shifted his alternate feet And gazed at all but her, And dug the flowers into a grave With his sharp shining spur. Till brake he forth right angrily, " Spare yourself pleadings vain, Behold these jonquils I have snapt, Canst bid them bloom again ? That deed is done, and so is mine, Leave me to bear its bane. BONA AND 1'Il.Ko. 91 " Nor I alone in this resolve From our old ranks to swerve, There was another chid like me Taunted with lack of nerve, But Sforza yet shall learn from us How bravely hate can serve." She shuddered loathingly, a frown Spanned her dark brows between, She tore his colours from her cap, And trampled on their sheen, She looked the master, he the slave, So abject and so mean. " Farewell," she cried, " go sheath that blade. Seek thou my mountain home, Take up the distaff there I dropped, Take up my carding comb, Go cheat the peasant like thy chief ; I swear by heaven's blue dome " With thee I hold no more converse, Affinity or kin, My soul is spotless, nor shall be Partaker of thy sin. fallen, fallen, fallen lord ! What saint thy grace shall win ? 92 poems— 1849. " For me, I go on pilgrimage With foot and forehead bare, Where Mary's Son was crucified By traitor followers, — there I'll plead for thee, whom I must name A traitor in my prayer." A step, a sweep of curtains, lo ! The day strikes in beyond, Is this her parting whom he held So faithful and so fond ? It needed not the wedlock ring, Nor church's hallowing bond. He kept her free, and she is free As bird that never knew The jesses or hoodwinking band, But sensitively true Flies following on its master's track, Constrained by voice and view. To such there comes a freedom whim Outweighing in its force Habitual love and fellowship, And leaving but remorse To him who watches impotent The truant's sudden course. BONA AND PIEEO. 93 Is she thus flying ? struck with fear Too strong for pride's control, " Forgive !" he cries impetuous, " Forgive my baser soul ! Bona, thy loyalty's a rock, And mine a shifting shoal. " Love ! I repent, but to repair Is past me, art thou stern More than the saints that pity us Nor our petitions spurn ? Wouldst have Madonna steel her heart And shut thee out in turn '? " A woman she most womanly, Whose mission among men Is to forgive, to intercede, To open heaven again When justice bars ; Madonna mine — " She looked upon him then In that unwonted attitude, Bending his warrior head, Kneeling to her, the lowly girl, Less than his vassal bred ; The loving nature stirred itself And plaintively she said, 94 poems — 1849. " My Piero, make me not ashamed Of thee who wert my pride." Then with averted countenance She brushed the tent aside, Nor waited for one moment more To hear if he replied. EPOCH II. A cliff is planted in the sea, A castle on the cliff, Fortress and rock are rivetted Into one mountain stiff, Alike in colour, like in shape, To claw of hippogriff. A hippogriff whose wings are closed, Whose talons clutch the deep, A thousand fathoms from its crest You to the main might leap, So sheer it is that precipice Where only lizards creep. BONA AND PIERO. 95 There is not footway for a goat Along its bastioned crag, The birds themselves cling painfully As if their pinions flag, No green thing clothes its bony breast Like that of wrinkled hag. Near to the top a stanchioned clift Gives way for light and air Into a dungeon cell that seems The homestead of despair ; Its walls are damp, its floor is cold, Its aspect grim and bare. It has no entrance for a hope, Save by that loophole blue, Where like a friend's smile far away The Spanish sun looks through : The prisoner climbs there eveiy day To feed his gaze anew. It is his life, his daily bread, Of strength his only draught, Thence he discerns the jagged Alps, The tiny fisher craft, And every glittering buoyant sail Whereon the sea has laughed. 96 poems — 1849. His eye is up before the mom The highest Alp can catch, The noonday lustre dazzles not An orb of equal match, That only in the darkness hour Its fitful sleep will snatch. Month after month as far below The silvery fishes frisk He counts the numbers of the sails That cut his narrow disk, His little sky which to enlarge Salvation he would risk. But never was a captive wretch Enkennelled half so sure, So strongly barred, so strong a guard For one forgot and poor ; No work to work, no foes to fight, Nought left but to endure. Sforza hath bound his victim well : He saith, " I am forlorn, Forgot of men, forgot of God, Cursed be the fatal mom In which my father heard them cry, ' A son, a son is born !' BONA AND PIERO. 07 " Forgot of Bona ?" said he so In his abandoned plight ? il Oft are the virtuous too severe, Too stem the brow of Eight, The pure eyes pierce not to my cell, They leave me to my night." Forgot of Bona? would he heard That low imploring tone ! A woman tanned and travel-soiled Kneels humbly at a throne, And clings with meek tenacity Until her cause be known. What uses she ? mean flatteries ? Sophistical excuse ? To gloze her lover's treachery Doth she the truth abuse ? Oh no, in Christ our Saviour's name She pleads — but they refuse. The prince cries " Off, importunate !" She lifts her voice anew, " Remember Jesus on the cross Who prayed for them who slew. earthly king, let heavenly King Ensample be to you. 98 poems — 1849. " It is great kings' prerogative To pardon and restore ; And Christ who died to give us bliss On mercy sets high store, More than on sumptuous minster fane, Or shrine of chiselled ore." This is her only argument By London's turbid wave, On Marly's sculptured terraces, Which mimic fountains lave ; Even in the awful Vatican She patiently doth crave. Till patience finds its perfect work, Till Pope and king are won, And despotism's bolts and bars By woman's prayers undone : A scrap of paper in her hand Her heart for joy doth stun. Long years have dragged their fettered feet Across his dungeon cell, To outward things indifferent He never heeds the bell Which of a stranger's rare approach With sullen boom doth tell. BONA AND PIERO. 99 He marks not how the drawbridge creaks A stranger's weight to bear, How stranger footsteps cross the court, And climb the narrow stair ; He never turns his head to list, His calmness is despair. He turns not, though his dungeon key Grates rasping in its lock, Some haughty jailor he expects 7 The captive chief to mock. — That voice ! he falls upon his knees Smit by a tempest shock. That voice ! he thought her far away Beneath some Alpine tree, Beside her own fair mountain rills, A dream it sure must be To hear that soft voice uttering " My Piero, thou art free !" Free — and she stands full in his sight. Will she not vanish soon ? The obsequious jailor breaks his gyves. But he sinks in a swoon ; He cannot feel that he is free, That she has brought the boon. h 2 100 poems — 1849. By Bona is a hoary monk, He holds the precious scroll ; "My son, has't nought that thou can'st do Or give in generous dole, To prove to heaven's high company Thou hast a grateful soul ?" " Father " he saith, " my gold is gone, And confiscate my land, Remaineth nought of former wealth Save this emaciate hand, Which could not rein my former steed, Or wield my former brand. " But something in God's sight I'll try To prove me no in grate, A deed I should have done in youth And now do all too late ; With her whose love has ransomed me I link my wedded fate." Then raised the monk a crucifix Suspended at his side, And in that dungeon plighted them Whose faith had sore been tried. And Bona wept for happiness To be her Piero's bride. BONA AND PIERO. 101 "If I essayed to be thy liege, Unbound by any vow, So much the firmer trust in me To love and serve thee now. But forward ! for the Adrian wave Must meet our vessel's prow." Then went he back to worldly life, To fight and toil once more, And close she followed after him On many a foreign shore ; And with a wife's high fellowship His changing fortunes bore. EPOCH III. Blue is the heaven above her head, Blue are the waves below, And deeper blue the distant hills Upon the windward bow ; And sea and sky and mountains pant In summer's furnace glow. 103 poems — 1849. And kindly voices in her ear Point out each sea-port town, And columned fanes whose marble shafts The olive headlands crown, And every name her friends repeat Is one of old renown. But aye she answers wearily, " when will dawn the day Upon my own dear Apennines, My own Ligurian bay, Carrara's bold sierras, And Spezia's dashing spray? " My husband fell at Negropont, My work on earth is done ; No captain now for me to serve, No guerdon to be won. I cannot live on Grecian soil, Or die 'neath Grecian sun. " I left him not while he had life, Whatever ills might threat, I strode beside bim through the field Knee deep with slaughter wet, Where death on many a knightly brow His purple seal had set. BONA AND PIERO. 103 " I've laid me calmly at his feet, Around the camp fire's light, When all the Avorld was dead asleep Except the hawks of night, And far Orion's starry blade The only sword in sight. " You count it scarce a woman's track In wintry frost and snow, In summer's hail and hurricane, Behind a camp to go, And look, instead of festival, For grapplings with the foe. " But I can say my womanhood Ne'er failed me at my need, And twice I struck their blows aside Whom Piero would not heed, And boldly for the wounded wretch My voice would intercede. " I lived for love and for renown, Thank God that both He gave ! What matter now if both are gone Beyond my power to save ? I will not drop one whining tear Into this Grecian wave. 104 poems— 1849. " But homeward turn mine eyes once more To my own Valteline, Where once my mother reeled her silk, My sister fed her kine, My brother sang his jokeln song When digging round the vine. " Where once I stood a mountain maid That morning at the mass When Piero's glittering company Adown our vale did pass, When love began that ended ne'er, That ends not now alas ! " Alas ! I said, nay, well-a-day, For we shall meet again, The death change may not baffle me Nor cheat my risen ken, My captain I will recognize 'Mong all redeemed men." With her old dauntless energy, Her old heroic force She spake, but ah the gallant blood Was ebbing at its source, And briefer than that summer sail Its yet remaining course. BONA AND PIERO. 105 Next day at dawn the helmsman cried " Behold yon far off streak, It is our bright Calabria, And Mondragone's peak, And Tiber's waters to the north The blue Tyrrhenean seek." She came, she gazed upon her land, Gazed northward o'er the sea, Where underneath the morning clouds She knew her home must be, With all the sunny seething plains Of warm moist Lombardie. She gazed, and down her eyelids dropped Upon her withered cheek, No word she said to answer them Who hailed the shining streak, And of their kindred's welcoming arms Did passionately speak. No word she said, her lips were pale, They saw her eyelids close, For she had owned the mastery Of death, her last of foes ; And after all her sufferings Had found the end of woes. 106 poems— 1849. They bore her body o'er the sea To her own Valteline, They laid her at her mother's side Beneath the church-yard pine ; But all, no more her brother sang, When digging round the vine ! Maid Alice listened to the tale With filling eyes down cast, She held her peace till all was said, Then at the very last She kissed her mother suddenly, And from the chamber past. Nor, ever since, her father missed His child's obedient care, Her goldfinch had his measure full And seed beside to spare, And simple was the garniture Maid Alice now would wear. BONA AND PIERO. 107 And when old Eome renewed her youth In one devoted band, A sheaf of noble patriots Who strangers would withstand, Maid Alice served war's hospitals With tender nursing hand. Ah me what wounded dying men Have blessed her in their strait ! What fervent ghostly counselling Consoled them ere too late ! She died for them she succoured, It was our Saviour's fate. They most who loved her did not weep To lay her side by side With all that gallant company To ease whose pain she died : I would not wish a fairer bed Than hers, by Tiber's tide. 108 POEMS-1850. LINES FOR MUSIC. I lean above the flow of waves in shelly grot, That murmur sad and low, " They miss, they miss thee not, Thy dear ones far away enjoy their tranquil lot, Day followeth on their day, and still they miss thee not." The night wind blows to me across the waters hot It moaneth drearily " They miss, they miss thee not, No records fond they keep, they haunt no well- known spot, 'Tis thine alone to weep, they miss, they miss thee not." 109 DESPONDENCY. Yon ebon cloud that overcharged and weary Labours from rock to rock along the hill, Shadows a likeness, in its progress dreary To my exhausted will. Yon ebon cloud with gathering tempests heavy, And my repressed and overladen heart ! Each step of my existence seems to levy More strength than I impart. I am worn out by this incessant travel Over rough tracks, where never rest I win, The snake that crawls across the gritty gravel Bruiseth her tender skin. I am too weakly fibred, thinly coated For this rude clambouring, surely I was made, In some green covert silent and unnoted, To glide from blade to blade. 110 poems— 1850. I was not meant to tack for days together, My sails are rent, my masts go by the board, I, like a yacht, was launched for summer weather, With flowers and music stored. Let stronger hearts set out for Arctic oceans, Let them find glory, I desire but peace, I am too sick of fluctuating motions And pining for release. O brothers, sisters, of earth's strifeful kindred ! How would I love you, did ye let me love, But by unnatural dissensions hind'red, I lift my hopes above. Ill NEWLY DEAD AND NEWLY BORN. The mother lies in travail bed, The babe beside her sleepeth, When, hark ! a chaunting for the dead Below her window creepeth. It swelleth nearer, filling loud That vast Florentian palace, Deaf is the corpse within its shroud To sympathy or malice. Deaf as the little babe above To all its kindred's praises, Both child and corpse are shut from love In mystery's awful mazes. Hard by with round Etruscan arch Expands the church's portal, 'Mid smoking brands the funeral march Leads in those relics mortal. 112 poems — 1850. As if 'twere round her infant's head The mother hears them singing, While from the bier up to the bed Eise fumes of censers swinging. Herself yet trembling on the verge Of scarce escaped danger, A shudder takes her at this dirge From Death, the great all-changer. And when the requiem's failing sighs Expire along the distance, She turneth where her new-born lies To test its wami existence. By touch, and sight, and fine-edged ear, To certify its thriving, Then cry " Death, go with that bier, And leave this life surviving." Poor mother ! look for higher things ! To warnings rest beholden : All human souls are born with wings Which but awhile are folden. They sink or soar as God sees right When grown to full extension, Pray, when arrives her horn- of flight, The summons be ascension. Casa G-uidi, Florence. 113 OGNI MORTL* In the deep of the night as I lay on my bed I heard a voice crying " pray for the dead, By the love you once bore them, the sorrow you feel, Arise from your slumbers and pray for their weal." In the deep of the night went this cry through the street, And I listened so stilly I heard my heart beat. As I thought of the young I had lost in their bloom, Of the gray hairs that battle trod down in the tomb. * For some nights after the festival of " All Souls," it is the cus- tom in Florence, and probably in many other Roman Catholic cities, to send a man round a little before dawn crying " (for ora) per i morti, i poveri morti." Pray for the dead, the poor dead. This is to rouse the worshippers for the early mass in behalf of the dead. I 114 poems— 1850. And I said, my God, while they waken to pray . And send up their orisons long ere the day, Assailing thine altars with questionings strange Of the souls that have passed all our chances and change, I too think of my dead, and remembering am blest, For the links broken here reunite on Thy breast, And the lamp of their being, though quenched to my sight, Is but lost in thy radiance, ineffable Light. I pray not for them, they are safe, they are home, Landed safe through the breakers, the shoals, and the foam, But I cry to thee, Lord ! when I think of their bliss, For the living like me hanging o'er the abyss. Since ours are the dangers for us be the prayers, Encompassed with sorrows temptations and cares ; They rest from their labours, we sink under ours, And we need help each other the best of our powers. Then before on my pillow I fasten mine eyes I abjure by that Dead One who lives in the skies, OGNI MORT1. I I S Wlio, dying, bought life for all willing to live. Lord ! to each and to all that true willingness give. In the deep of the night as I lay on my bed I heard a voice crying "0, pray for the dead !" In the heart of old Florence its echo passed o'er, And the living sank back to their slumbers once more. i 2 116 poems— 1850. MIRIAM IN THE WILDERNESS OF KADESH. NUMBERS XII. They go away, the last steps crackle out Like sparks in tinder, silence spreads again Inexorable, not a watch-fire scout Lingers beyond the camp ; her fellow men Crowd close together in the wilderness, Under the Tabernacle's shade they press, And of the exiled whisper, in an awed distress. She sees against the cloud, whereon the moon Leans her yet feeble shoulder, tents dark- rimmed, Circling that fiery pillar often hymned By Miriam with her maidens ; very soon Faint voices reach her from the distant fold, Sheep bleating, lowing kine, can it be told How eagerly she catches them across the desert wold? MIRIAM IN" THE WILDERNESS OF KADESH. I 1 ', But man and beast l^edown, upon them all Sleep lighteth quietly ; she listening sits And trembles, for on God she dare not call ; The wild cat hisses in the rock ; by fits Some camp-babe wakens wailing, and is blest By her who envies its disordered rest, While in her cave she cowers awaiting some foul guest. Near her the fountain glitters in the ray Of fast maturing moonbeams, on its bank Huge lions group them in a threatening rank. Their shaggy heads distinct as if by day They lap and roar within a pebble shot, She shrinks back farther in her humid grot, Sending her eyes alone ft> watch the danger spot. So draggeth night, till cold dawn with its frost Whitens black earth whence glazy vapours rise, The fowls flap crowing at each lintel post, The dogs and cattle ope their careless eyes, And the twelve tribes betake themselves to prayer Under the cloudy column, gray in air It towers above the camp, unmoved it resteth there. No march to-day ! go, Israel, ere the sun Dry the fresh manna blanching all the ground ! The gatherers stream out o'er the desert round. Bending and chatting near the hidden one. 118 poems— 1850. They fill their several measures and depart. Then she steals forward with humiliate heart To glean a meagre pittance for herself apart Ere it evaporate in noon-tide heat ; This having done in sullen dark despair, She to her lonely cavern must repair, Where discontent sits growling at her feet, Where maddening memories taunt her with her lust Of vain ambition, her presumptuous trust In her own strength arrayed against the Great and Just! The cricket shrilling in some straggled trees, The noiseless lizard, darting o'er the stones, These are her comrades, hearers of her groans ; Across the broad blue zenith moves no breeze, From the tall palm no limber leaf doth beck, Nought stirreth, save the loathly scars that fleck With leprous blemishes her once fair neck. These beat and bum, and mark the pace of time, Hideous to self she shuts her eyes abhorrent, Whence rush hot tears in unappeasing torrent, Like thunderous showers of arid Afric's clime That 'stead of nourishing strike down the grain ; So her tears irritate her fevered brain, And spur her bosom faster in its pants of pain. MIRIAM IN THE WILDERNESS OF KADESH. 1 1 9 In place of holy peace bestowed by God On woman's breast as on its natural home, Miriam hath dread remembrances, of foam Dashing o'er Pharaoh's chariots, iron-shod, Whose drivers drave against the King of kings, Of blood red rivers, pestilential stings, And locust squadrons swept upon tornado wings, Of mighty plagues which Egypt's people curst, Of wondrous miracles the Almighty showed To His elected ; Sinai's top that glowed With mystic burnings, while the trumpet-burst And voice unearthly shook the listening crowd. And even Moses trembled as he bowed To the dread Being veiled behind that thunder- cloud. Nor these dread memories only, but her deed When Aaron and the Hebrews with her made That brute Egyptian image : undismayed By God's near presence, with unholy speed Melting their jewels in a vassal fire, While the high mountain's unregarded pyre Burned with their outraged God's indignant ire. Woe, woe for Miriam, unappalled by this, She sinned again presumptuously and spake, " Yea, hath God promised answers for no sake But that of Moses? hears no voice but his ? 120 poems — 1850. Not mine nor thine, Aaron ? we were bred By the same father, at the same breast fed, We have more fluent speech than he, our self- made head." While o'er her lips that blasphemy yet past She found that God hath answers as direct As selfishly she craved for, — foully specked With signs of Heaven's great wrath, she was out cast, Driven from her leadership of song and hymn So often raised round ark and cherubim, Upon this stony ledge to stretch her aching limb. Night follows night, till swells the moon as large As buckler of the Anakim ; she waits From morn to twilight watching those far gates, And that white cloud which keeps them all in charge. From the unshifted camp the camels troop For water to her well, a laughing group Of Jewish maidens by its margin stoop. They come, they go, but never from the spring Glance towards her covert, with their beasts and jars They leave her bursting heart beneath the stars As lonely as a dead unburied thing. Then wildly weeps she, rails on each by name, MIRIAM IN THE WILDERNESS OF KADESH. 121 Anon repentant, smit by smarting shame, She cries " I have no friend to clear my sullied fame." Her painful body heals, the fatal stain With slow amendment fadeth from her skin ; Father merciful so heal her sin ! So cleanse the blotches which her soul engrain ! Refreshing coolness soothes her mossy nest ; Her penance-term draws to its end ; calm rest, True sleep, like dew, falls on her parched breast. She wakes, a nightingale has perched at hand, From out the darkness he uplifts his note, She lists astonied that a bird's small throat Can so praise God, while she doth thankless stand : The millstone from her neck into the sea Of penitence is rolled, loud prayeth she, As fervently as sings that bird upon the tree. Long prays — her lips are moving yet amain, Her knees yet bowed, when o'er the distant mount Breaks cheerful dawn, and slowly to the fount A grave procession crosses o'er the plain, Wise elders of the tribes conduct its van, Then the High Pontiff and that injured man The captain of the host for whom she lies in ban. 122 poems— 1850. With ceremonial rites, with sacred pomp They purify the outcast from her stain, Then lead the sister to the camp again With glad applause and cymbal clear and tromp. So march they to the tents — but ere the maid Approach within the tabernacle's shade The cloudy column moves, and leads the long parade. And chaunting loud they follow in its rear, A mighty multitude — none lag behind, Advancing steady as Equator wind, Women and babes in rank compact and clear. Miriam takes up her song in sweet reply Answering the chorus as they onward hie, And leave her place of punishment for aye. 123 CONSTANCY. With the longing of one that is sick unto death I long after thee : In the silence of night I say under my breath, Is all over for me ? Shall we never more meet as we met long ago ? Shall we never more mingle in joy or in woe ? Are our hearts and our spirits, our life and our clay, Divided for ever, and rended away ? With the tears that we water a newly made tomb I freshen thy name : It lives in my soul like an amaranth's bloom, Is thy memory the same ? Hast thou power by thy passion to live o'er the past? As the dead pine survives in the frigate's tall mast Uprooted and blossomless, wither'd and dry, Yet strong 'gainst the tempests of sea and of sky. 124 poems — 1850. Hope hopeth, for Love loveth faithfully still, Yet looks not for bliss : A glimmering remembrance, like stars on a hill, My hope is but this, To be swept o'er thy heart in some pause of its pulse, When no duties absorb, nor ambitions convulse. To be named in thy prayers when at church time they pray For the travellers by land and by water alway. I give thee the same as I gave thee lang syne Each throb of my heart, In spite of the years, of the miles, of the brine Thou unconsciously art The shadow that follows me, foot after foot, To all but my senses, invisible, mute, Like my blood that goes secretly forward and back, And essential to life as that blood in its track. Yet, lover of girlhood, I long after thee, I wrestle with fate : I cry in strong anguish " look once upon me Before 'tis too late ! Give me one of those accents I fed on of yore, Give me one of those glances that covered me o'er With rapturous flushings ; I, lonely, deprest, I would die of delirium of joy on thy breast." 125 NIGHT AT SORRENTO Fall on us, night. Soft voiced night! Open out thy starry store On the mountain and the shore. From their rocky caves Loose the zephyrs, cool the waves, We are sick, we swoon with light, Fall on us, night ! Let life's labour cease In thy peace, Send thy placid shimmering moon Through our burning June, Kiss us with thy slumbrous lips, Cloud our souls in dim eclipse, Ere our prayers have ended quite Fall on us, night ! 126 poems— 1850. Bid thine angels fair Fill thine air, When our heads are laid at rest Send us each a loving guest, Bringing dreams of beauteous places And of absent faces, Dead and dear restored to sight, Fall on us, night ! Fall on us, O night, Pitying night! All that weary web undo Of the daylight stern and true; Thou art not too clear of eye, Feign some bliss of days gone by, Cheat us with some lost delight, Fall on us, night ! 12; POEMS-1851. FEAK NOT THE END. Feae not the end, Life's road is engineered with many a bend Zigzag as Simplon or St. Gothard Passes, Best crossed by mules and asses : Yet, solitary foot-sore man, Push forward as you can ; Once reach the snows that top the peak, you'll see Luxuriant Italy ; Treading the Alpine lichens, you'll behold Her orange gardens gold ; And through your locks wind-blown and dank with mist Catch the bright silvery twist 128 poems— 1851. Of some calm river in the vale Under the olives pale. Thence is it easy to descend ; The top is nigh the end. So on life's summit 'mid her wintry snows We look down on repose ; Inhospitable crags beset us round, But there is Eden ground, All fruits and flowers and sun ; for we Are gazing on eternity. Conscious that we are near The finis of our hardship and our fear, We measure that decline With wistful weary eyne ; Then comrade saith to comrade, " Have good heart Take courage and depart, Yon church tower shining in the western sun Is our brief goal, brace up your loins and run." To the worn feet those rugged paths relent : A long long climbing, but a quick descent. What heavy teams they harness to their yokes Who upward clamber — and what whirling spokes Flash downwards at the tail of some halt mare, Sufficient as a troop of horsemen there ! Yes, death is merciful at last When life's high peak is past ; Briskly we rattle o'er the plain, my friend ; Fear not the end. 019 THE NAMELESS PORTRAIT. BY LORENZO Dl CREDI, IN THE UFFIZJ GALLERY, FLORENCE. youth, 'what was thy history, What sorrow died with thee ? Did time that cures most ill Find thee resisting still, And hardened into wrinkles on thy cheek Each wavy, weeping streak ? Great must the passion of thy grief have been After three hundred years to be so clearly seen, That in this lordly place 1 stop before thy nameless face, Leave goddess, potentate, and saint. To question its complaint. K 130 poems— 1851. The blackness of thy half-shut eyes Is saturate with tears as are the thundery skies, Their long fringed lids disclose An under depth of woes ; Thy full young mouth has shed Too soon its berries red, It falls relaxed, the curve unbent Like bow that hath its last shaft spent. Thy languid uncurled hair. Thy smooth cheek pallid fair, Thy side-long looks convey Expression which no verse can say : While in thy skin and in thy tress, The faint hued cap, the dull hued dress, A crowd of neutral colours meet To make sad consonance, gloomy-sweet. Was't love that caused thine ache ? Or jealousy, that spotted snake ? Ambition's hungry appetite That gnawed the roots of young delight ? Or was it shame for lineage base In days when men set store by race, And in their indigence of finer sense Asked not, What is the man ? but Whence ? Wert thou a poet lacking skill To interpret thy vague oracle ? Or painter, with high visions at command, THE NAMELESS PORTRAIT. I " I Foiled by a fickle tremulous hand ? Or stripling by devices foul Untimely chosen for the cowl ? Or ever thy cheek bore velvet down, Shorn prematurely on the crown ? Or ever virile energy Had knowledge to be free, And from the thronging aims of life Could choose its goal, and breast the strife, Was't then the frocked effeminate band Seized the young man by the hand, His upgirded loins undid, His impassioned fancy chid, Brake the sword, unstrung the lute, Bade the pulse beat low and mute, And the cloistral silence close Over his lethargy of brute repose? youth, whate'er thy history To me it must be mystery. 1 speculate in vain To classify thy painted pain. How fared thy long thereafter ? Did the boy-mouth resume its laughter ? The eye flash out again Lightening from its early rain ? Surely youth's privilege he took To sorrow and forget, nor strook 132 poems — 1851. All life-long sunshine with that shade From his first hope hetrayed. Three hundred years agone it hapt, Many a hope since then hath snapt, Grief hath many a harvest sown, Watched to earing-time and mown. His grief died, yet here's its garh, The feather has survived the barb. This deft artistic counterfeit One sense, at least, of ours can cheat, Though touch and smell pronounce it lie, We yield full credence to the eye, And brotherly compassion lay Upon a square of oily clay, Because we know that symbol 'tis Of what hath been, will be, and is ; We know he lived who wore that face, We know his pang a common case, It may be ours, perchance hath been, Aye, and it may return despite our stoic mien. Grief is no infantile disease Which on the creature once may seize, Swirl through the channel of its veins, Spot its external rind with stains, And having rioted its day Eush onward to a newer prey, Under condition that its track Recede no single hair-breadth back. THE NAMELESS PORTRAIT. 188 Nay, but a fever of the swamp Call sorrow, aguish shivers damp, Which every breath sets shuddering When once they catch their pendulous swing, And rock like Cromlechs of the moor The wretches who those pangs endure. Aye, well thy pallid face is meant Man's common pain to represent. The woes which uncomplaining ache Thou dost apparent make, And plead with that dumb suffering brow ; For all that suffer now : Shall I then quit thee unresolved To aid each hidden grief wherewith my path's involved ? 134 poems— 1851 LA BELLA SIMONETTA.* In the rocky isle of Capri through one summer I sat singing To the cadence of the waters as they rippled on the beach, Legends sang I of Italia from my inmost spirit springing, But my friends said, when they heard me, " these are far too sad for speech. " Strike us gayer measures, minstrel ! in the sun- shine thou art sitting, Sends its flash across the paper when thou writest down the words." * A Portrait in the Pitti palace by Botticelli, of a girl beloved by Giuliano de' Medici, brother of Lorenzo the Magnificent. LA BELLA SIMONETTA. 135 And I fain would have obeyed them, but my hand again unwitting Smote a dread historic shiver from the melan- choly chords. Ah look back, my friends, on story, what she telleth, whether fable From the first dumb silence spelt out of illiterate mankind, Or the pompous voice of chroniclers who from tradition's Babel Make articulate the agonies of ages left behind. What is salient on the marble frieze whereon the past is graven ? Tis the fallen king, the battle-plunge, the martyr crowned by fire, 'Tis the woman's patient anguish ; yea, that poet is a craven Who hath only learned a wassail song for story's sacred lyre. To the happy man his happiness sufficeth by its pleasance, And moreover 'tis untangible, an odour gone when used, But our grief is very real, nigh immortal in its essence, Stern necessity of lower life so tangled and con- fused. 136 poems— 1851. When the poet in the sunshine has confessed, " Irradiate nature, Thou art comforter of sadness, glorious world of mount and sea, " He returneth to the changing spots that mark his fellow creature, " Thy backslidings, thy repentances, are themes enough for me." And as history takes small cognizance of aught but great disaster, Of a famine or invasion, of rebellion or the plague, So the poet feels when searching that, if truth shall be his master, In his foreground must be sorrow, joy is distant, dim and vague. From the flats of common-places oft some legend we see jutting, Not by whiteness it is visible 'mong neutral tints around, Inky black against the misty gray which crime's sharp outline cutting Makes a shape from out the shapelessness of all that quagmire ground. It is therefore, Simonetta, that I like thy faded picture, LA I! K 1.1. A SIMONETTA. I:'»7 Better limned are many faces here that cannot bid me pause, But lorn deserted maiden, I am not in mood for stricture, And I'll ask not if thy only love were hallowed by men's laws. Not a blush, pale Simonetta, dost thou give the sun's hot kisses, Living mockery of a lover to this mockery of a maid, Where a thousand happy women perished name- less in their blisses By a murder-stroke remembered is this melan- choly shade. Thus I fancy Botticelli had beheld her in her dwelling, When the light of Julian's presence disappeared behind the tomb, When the sword of traitor Pazzi, her young Medici down felling, With a simultaneous striking smote her beauty and her bloom. Pallid, calmly uncomplaining, all her gauds laid by for ever, Tn close coif and sad-hued raiment, at the lattice all the day 138 poems — 1851. She would sit and watch the swallows, with a fond and faint endeavour To espy old Santa Croce, where her Julian's body lay. Alessandro Botticelli, whose right hand was skilled in painting Gold-haired virginal Madonnas with the Christ upon their knees, Saw pale Simonetta watching, then he said, " This grief is sainting And it preacheth sin's deceptions like my master's homilies. "As Savonarola crieth in his pulpit against lusting After Sodom's rosy apples that taste bitter on the tongue, So pale Simonetta preacheth, who hath sickened through her trusting The allurements of a wicked world to one so fair and young." Then he painted her thus pining : still she pineth in the Pitti, Not a breath can stir her braided tress, or lighten her sad eye, Not a crimson hanging warm her, so I give this kindly ditty Sympathising in the anguish which was hers ere she might die. LA BELLA STMONETTA. 139 Yes, I let the happy hymn themselves, I know that gladness prattles Like a child of its enjoyment, but the sob doth stifle speech, And my interest goes ever forth to conflicts and to battles, Till it makes me sing of suffering as I sang on Capri's beach. Yet if you and I, reader ! ever meet beyond the curtain Which must separate these corridors of earth from all the vast Onward lengthening infinitudes, I'll sing you, I am certain, Never more a song of sorrow, for all sorrow shall be past. Then this antichamber waiting, where the win- dows are all blinded, Where the future is so muffled, and the present is so drear, Shall be over, and for ever, and we too shall be like-minded Unto Him who dwells in daylight, and who never wept but here. Once He wept and by that weeping told us, " grief is eaith's due portion, 140 poems — 1851. Tis the bond of loving-kindness to entwine you while ye live, Your condition till I come again is only wrenched ■distortion, But Creation shall be righted at the first glance that I give." 141 THE AUSTRIAN NIGHT PATROL. FLORENCE. In the guise of conquerors, Harnessed with their guns and glaives, March the Austrian patrols Through the city of their slaves. From the fastened jalousies Greeted with indignant groans. As their hoofs from street to street Ring metallic on the stones. When these bats do fly abroad By the stately palace-eaves, Florentines, like timorous birds, Nestle close among their leaves : For that clash and clang proclaim Insolently night and day, Tuscans ! ye are prisoners ! Florence ! thou'rt the German's prey ! 142 poems — 1851. I remember of a time When the night was glad and boon, Children sang of liberty Unrebuked beneath the moon. Then the sovereign's name was sweet To his people's loving ear, Hark the foreign troopers' beat ! He has brought those bloodhounds here. When his Tuscans cried " Come back We repent, we were too bold," With his mouth he promised fair, With his hand their freedom sold. So some petty Afric chief Sells his negroes on the strand, Yielded to the slaver's grip Chained together foot and hand. Ah, that savage cannot see What his victims undergo, But this nation-seller lives Present to his people's woe. And content ? he who was hymned By his country's grateful verse ? Now despised, his honour dimmed, Every blessing changed to curse. THE AUSTRIAN NIGHT PATROL. 143 Every subject for his foe, Christendom's contempt and blame, Go with Pope, with Bourbon go To the pit of endless shame ! Hark, again the stern patrol Drowns the holy midnight bells, Up, Italia ! can'st thou sleep With thy foes for sentinels ? 144 poems — 1851. THE LOMBARD PLOUGHMAN. Plough, plough, ye Italians, with sweat and with moil, The blood of your brethren is fattening the soil, Impatient your master expecteth his spoil. Plough, plough, as ye turn up their bones in the field, Say, these were more happy to die than to yield, They sank like the Spartan who fell on his shield. Plough, hind, as thou cursest the famine and fate, And risest up early and liest down late, The claimer of tribute is heard at thy gate. Till: LOMBARD PLOUGHMAN. I I ."> He comes greedy handed to ruin thy thrift, Thy store melts away as the sun-touched snow- drift. Ah worse, for the sun leaves some flakes in the clift ! In Judea of yore, God-abandoned as thou, What the cankerworm left on the desolate bough Did the locust devour, — so the German doth now. Plough ! the corn whose young roots buried heroes have fed Must ripen to nourish our foemen with bread, I would it were poison to bum them instead. " plough !" quoth the husbandman, cleaving the land, " Could thy share smite as sabre in Kossuth's right hand, Strike the earth dead with barrenness here where I stand. " Let famine seize tyrant and victim together As the earthquake whelms herdsmen and kine that they tether, At least we'd starve free on our Apennine's heather. " Plough, plough, when my oxen go dully along They force down the iron share sharply and strong. So these dull foreign soldiers go plunging down Wrong. 146 poems— 1851. "Like the steer in the shafts without spite or mis- trust These brave brutish Croats our liberty thrust, And trample fair Italy's fields in the dust. " God of nations ! not God of the despot art thou ! We feel the red anger-spot mounts to thy brow, We know thou wilt help us, but when, Lord, and how? " The cry of the captive how long wilt thou bear ? When, when shall thy light pass as free as the air? When, when shall the people be roused from de- spair ?" 147 ANGELICA. V TALE OF THE SIEGE OF PRATO BY THE SPANIARDS IN THE SIXTEENTH CENTURY. Under the bills lies Prato, garmented With poplar borders and low trailing vines, Girt with strong battlements, which fervid suns People with lizards. On three sides the plain Stretches supinely dozing in the noon, But on the fourth serrated peaks shoot up And hamlets fasten on their steepy rocks. " What, save tranquillity can harbour here ?" Say the glib tourists, as with guide-books spread They criticise Filippo's frescoed choir, Or praise the dance of Donatello's frieze. For my part I could weep in Prato now, I hate its death-in-life : the pitying sun In vain sheds glory on degraded man, l 2 148 poems— 1851. On lazy beggars yawning in the shade, On sentinels with nothing left to guard, On gates where no one enters. Overhead, Fresh on the antique palace yellow shields With sculptured blazonry recall a time When men where worthy of this heritage. And I remember, and my heart grows hot, How Prato held her gates against the foe ; How when her nobles sold her unto Spain, Her burghers made her ramparts of their breasts, And foreign victors entered at her forts Treading on corses of the patriots. And if the massacre past reckoning, And if the souls of murdered innocents Went up accusingly to God — at least They died as we who envy them would die, And those loud cannon-roars gave liberty To angel-spirits. Thinking of them thus I can resign me to their earthly loss, Nor shrink from stories of that dire defeat, Of convents forced, and virgins blanched by shade In sunless cloisters, dragged beneath the noon ; Of children smitten by new Herod hands, Cleft as they lisped for mercy ; of old men, Deep in the cool embrasure of a porch, ANGELICA. 149 Surprised, and in bewilderment struck down, Dead ere they understood that death approached. From the high altars was the Host o'erthrown The churches, filled with sacrilegious bands, Resounded not to anthems, but to oaths ; Drunk troopers made them couches on the tombs, And 'stead of masses they sang madrigals. Heaven saw the crime and let its thunders out, Huge blocks of cloud exploded into flame As quarried crags where gunpowder is laid, The blue lights leapt from every riven chasm, Followed by such a deluge of hot rain As almost cleansed the foulness of the fight. The houses old and massive as the hills Tottered to their foundations, and within Hid wretched women, choking down their tears And stifling sobs at every wild halloo Of reeling Spaniards mad with victory. They scour each palace from its garden court Up to the red-tiled roof — no secret niche, No hollow passage but is thickly crammed With children and young maidens faint for food, That crouch, and listen till the foe pass by. Yon lofty mansion, curiously carved With moulded cornices and salient shields Seems all deserted, ruined and forlorn. The soldiery have sacked it, — wealth they found, 150 poems— 1851. Lucca's silk hangings, Arras tapestries, Goblets of golden chasing set with gems, Madonnas Fra Bartolommeo drew, And saints that Civitali chiselled. None Alive they found there, save a Countess old, Abandoned by her menials, lean and dry ; A meek old lady, humble in her strait, Eager to serve them, skilful and alert. Her they detained as handmaid : happy she, Lacking the choicest gifts of womanhood, Beauty and youth, — yea, well for her to show Unsightly ugliness and withered eld ! She seemed contented ; but their watchfulness Discerned that she unquiet glances threw Towards a buffet carved with swarthy boys In ebon wood : her captors saw and guessed Some booty hid there. Speedily they flung The pannelled shelves aside, and tore the fruits And flower-festoons asunder, but within No precious hoard repaid them : yet again The unhappy Countess frightened glances cast, Thinking that none espied her. So they said, " Surely she saves some treasure near that spot." Then roughly searching, sounding every board, They found a hollow surface, this they cleft With axe unmerciful, and wide it gaped, And as the dark rift grew the countess shrieked And a shriek answered from the vault within ! ANGELICA. 151 As a hare lies low doubled in its form With ears erect and breath that pants more quick The nearer come the hounds, so crouched a girl, Niece of the countess, hidden in that wall. She heard the rude jests of her brutal foes, She saw their fierce eyes glaring in the gloom Like penal fires, then wildly she upsprang And darted through the crevice, but she fell, Caught by her sweeping garments ; pale as death She let them drag her to the light of day. It was a hall of dais, round its sides Her painted ancestors looked sternly down, And said, " Die stainless, young Angelica !" " By Saint Iago, 'tis a pearl, she's mine !" Brake out the captain with a captain's oath, " The first girl worth the winning found in Frato, How say'st thou, pretty bird ? 'tis no ill doom To sing in my free camp." Angelica Uplifted tearless eyes that had no rays, But the deep fixture of a starless night. " Aunt !" said she firmly to the sobbing dame, " Aunt, fear not for your child, I am content. Let me look once more on my native town, And I am yours, Sir Cavalier." As on The sandal-timbered pyre an Indian wife Smiles, taking in her lap her husband's head, And bending on the corse to her next heir Makes sign to fire the pile, so to her aunt 152 poems — 1851. Smiled young Angelica, and from her cheek, White as the marble Maries of the Dome, She flung her long damp hair ; unaided then, Though she had fasted for so many days, She put aside her captor's sullying hands, And through the stately effigies of men Whose blood she now would vindicate, she walked : The very captain dropped his forward arm, And stepped back awestruck by his stately prize. The ample window opened on the street, Its balcony, supported by two heads Of huge heraldic griffins, overhung The riotous town below ; to this she moved, Slow, predeterminate : on the dizzy verge Of that high precipice she turned and smiled, " Cheer up, sweet aunt, Madonna holds my hand, My soul goes up a virgin to the skies !" So saying and so smiling, without threat Or warning of her purpose, o'er the rail Angelica leaped headlong to the street ; Her mangled body reached it, not her spirit, That rose immaculate, and God received her ! 153 THE SILENT CITY. city of the silent streets, Whose passengers the waters rock, Where never wheel of chariot beats, Nor masons chip the pavement block. Nor headstrong charger's iron clash Strikes fire along the flinty road, But shoals of finny barges plash Below the citizens' abode. The Naiad's song rejoices night In cadence at each palace door ; The early morn in scales of light Swims glittering from the marshy shore. His branching weeds in clustering braids Old ocean hangeth as he goes On marble steps and balustrades, Deep-dinted by his daily flows. 154 poems — 1851. Silently on his way he rolls, Silently hears his living freight; You mark not, though a thousand souls Have floated past your open gate. By ones and twos and social threes Adown the buoyant stream they glide, Here borne upon a favouring breeze, There labouring 'gainst both wind and tide. No rugged noises break the hush, Some gondoliers forewarning hail, Some blending voices, choral gush Of music o'er their cushioned rail. Nought else, save bells that speak of pray'r As soft as if our Saviour spake ; A country peace broods everywhere Which no rough city tumults shake. If as in other towns aside You turn to list the mingled roar, You only hear the rising tide Chafe on the stakes that guard the shore. How shall I henceforth bear to dwell On earth born cities set in plains ? How nerve me to the sounds that swell From creaking coaches, loaded wains ? THE SILENT CITY. 155 How venture under horses' hoofs, Scared, jostled by each ponderous team ? Now deluged by the dripping roofs, Now wading through a Stygian stream ! Venice, calm and motherly, That lulled me on thy placid breast, How often shall I long for thee Whose motion was as soft as rest ! Whose peace 'mid street and piazza dwelt, Hid like a bee 'mid summer flowers, Whose every charm was seen and felt, But heard no more than April showers. 156 poems— 1851 THE EOCK NIOBE, ON MOUNT SYPILE, LYDIA. Sol bends his tawny bow across the West And with his fiery arrows hits the wave, Ocean receives them on her yielding breast, Red with the wounds she carelessly doth brave. Far Lydian mountains in the eastern sky Blush faintly conscious of the distant war. The homebound eagle, as he whistles by, Shows his broad pinions dashed with drops like gore. One purple streak like finger dipped in blood Adown Mount Sypile's volcanic crest Marks out a figure that commands the flood, And from its lofty peak defies the West. THE ROCK NIOBE 157 The semblance of a woman there you see, No proud Athene with her crested head, But a Greek Rachel in her agony, Who will not he consoled for her dead. Approach, and question of her hopeless state — The phantom changes to a mass of stone, An old gray rock, whose outlines simulate A woman weeping in the wilds alone. An old gray rock, as Lydian legends tell, In whose hard grain a mother's pulse once beat, A mother's eye wept inconsolable On children's corses slaughtered at her feet. Child after child, the youngest slain the last, Then hardening with the stun of every shock, As doth forged iron on an anvil cast, This mother's bosom petrified to rock. Still from her stony sides salt teardrops flow, Still in a silvery trickling stream escape, And they who mark her from the plain below May well believe she keeps the woman's shape. That stormy region's scoriatic gloom Befits her legend, and the lava layers That wrap a buried city in their tomb, Lost, like her children, in contempt of prayers. 158 poems — 1851. Still by the blue iEgean is she bound, But the red arrows of her ancient foe Drop harmless on the rocky wastes around, For his dread power is gone for evermoe. Phoebus and Phoebe are weak names to day That rouse no homage, in their Grecian isles Their temples moulder 'neath a stranger's sway, Nor sun, nor moon, is worshipped for its smiles. Their gorgeous festivals esteemed as sins, Their myths mere fables which the children mock, Yet still the vengeance of the Latmian twins Hath left its memory on the Lydian rock. Pale Niobe attesteth by her woe Of fallen gods who can no longer smite, And every traveller in the plains below Kecounts the legend of their cruel might. Shed, Niobe, thy salt tears on the waste, They are not lost, thou mother of despair ; Of all thine anguish not one sob effaced But unto us its harvest seed doth bear. A greater God than he whose arrows slew Thy children, as 'tis sculptured, and thee chained THE ROCK NIOBE. 159 In mute memorial by the iEgean blue, Thy story for our teaching hath retained. Not idly doth imagination fuse Itself in facts, and so transmute their ore To noble bronze, which men are proud to use As emblems of their race for evermore. 160 poems— 1851. ALEXANDER OGILVY. Come, Alexander Ogilvy, the last one of thy name, Leave speaking -those Italian words, thy Scottish hlood they shame, In spirit quit thy Tuscan home, its slopes and cy- press wood, Come, stand upon the Grampian hills where thy forefathers stood. Up, youngling of a southern sun, confront this Highland storm, Is the old clan-fire all burned out ? beat not thy boy-veins warm ? See, child, the castle of thy sires, neglected, burned and gray, Yet still old Inverquharity where wolf-tribes turned at bay. ALEXANDER OGILVY. 101 Four hundred years from sire to son those towers exchanged their lords, Child of Etruscan vineyards ! thou hast not their lands or swords, Yet leave off prattling vowelled verse, and hear the rugged tales Of thy fierce warrior ancestry along their border vales. Fair, large-eyed child ! thy heart is love, I doubt me thou wilt bring But wavering sympathy for those who bled for Thane or king, Thy joy is self-devotedness, yet unlike his who flung Scabbard on Aberbro thick moor when the Second James was young. Thy childish loyalty, my son, has nought to do with strife, To love, to give, to share around, such is thy sense of life, But Alexander Ogilvy, who died at red Arbroath, Brake every bond of brotherhood to keep his knightly oath. They say five hundred of thy name fell, brother slain by brother, Ask boy, with horror-darkened eyes, what made them kill each other? >f l(j«4 POEMS — 1851. What whim of feudal rivalry thus to the onslaught led The Lyndsay, and the Ogilvy, the green clan and the red ? But when the fighting fever sank, as flame for lack of fuel, When prowlers searched among the dead for ar- mour rich and jewel, His followers bore the Ogilvy from off the bloody ground, Young Alexander Ogilvy smit with a deadly wound. They bore him to a kinsman's hall, albeit of hos- tile part, They said, " To wear the foeman's badge slays not the kinsman's heart, The very blood that trickles down this litter as we pace Beats in the temples of his brow who lords it o'er the place." I wonder if the young man oped his faint lids as they passed The portal where in festive pomp he bridesman rode there last, I wonder if the strong self-pain shut out her maiden charms, His cousin Alice Ogilvy, given to Earl Crawford's arms. ALEXANDER OGILVY. 168 They laid him on a sumptuous couch, they barred the daylight forth, And dealt out all the surgery that monkish skill was worth ; But far apart the Countess sat, his cousin, in her bower, And only of her husband thought and his return- ing hour. Her missal open on her knee, she had no heart to pray, Instead of " Help us, gracious God," " He comes not," did she say, Instead of beads she turned the sands, and shook the horn* glass back, And chid her anxious servitors as if they made him slack. At length a horse's footfall sounds, she leaps from off her place ; Down falls the prayer book on the floor on Jesu's pictured face, She never turned to pick it up, nor thought of God or Christ, But like an arrow out she flew to keep her war- rior's tryst. She ran blind, hasty, seeing but proud visions crowding near, m 2 164 poems— 1851. Not the scared charger riderless, the corse upon its bier, His corse whom she expected home in his victo- rious might, Whom men had brought a huddled heap, such as they found in fight. " Who did this ?" asked the countess. Boy, thou art amazed to hear She did not swoon for agony, nor fall upon the bier, But women then were welded steel tempered for usage stern, Not like thy timid sister there, who sways like wind-bent fern. ; " Who did this, answer, ye beheld?" Then stept a clansman forth, " By this clear wind that rushes down sharp falchioned from the north, I saw thy cousin Ogilvy assault thy wedded fere, Young Alexander Ogilvy, whom men brought wounded here." She gave command for sacred mass, for candles tall to light, For priest to chaunt the orisons and pray the livelong night, ALEXANDER OGILVY. 165 Then while Earl Crawford's senseless corpse was to the chapel borne, The widow took a mourning veil and hid her head forlorn. And noiselessly she sought the room wherein her kinsman lay, A hushed and shuttered chamber watched by a Franciscan grey, " Go, father, add thy prayers for him who at the altar lies, Unbind his soul, no human prayer can now un- bind his eyes." Then all alone the ladye knelt beside the sick man's bed, And " Alexander Ogilvy, my cousin, speak," she said, " Thou must confront thy God to-night, thou in His ear must tell The truth of this day's slaughter, but, first answer me as well. " Who slew my lord, the Crawford '?" He hall fainting made reply, " We closed in indiscriminate fight, I fear me it was I. Yet, cousin, for I loved thee so, forgive me this one wrong, 166 poems— 1851. I loved thee, Alice Ogilvy, when both of us were young !" " Bribe me not," cried that haughty dame, "with passion's lying tale, It may o'erpass the maiden's snood, but not the widow's veil, I loved but one, and he is dead : dead, cousin, thou alive ! Thou, the destroyer of my lord ! thou hast not time to shrive. " He had at least a hero's death, a coward's thou shalt find : Down 'mong the plumes of thy soft bed ! a soft death lurks behind, Die like a woman in the throes of her maternal pain!" Under the pillows oozed a sigh, but nothing spake again. Silence only heard it, darkness only saw, God alone was present when this woman brake His law, Alexander Ogilvy 's young spirit soared aloof, Pressed out by this Jael's hand, 'neath her own false roof. ALEXANDER OGILVY. I I ' ". O, Alexander Ogilvy, my dear pure-hearted son, Is such an Abel's fate in store for thee, my generous one? Or is that black drop in the blood that jointly flows with mine To make our growing family, our far onspreading line '? Ye are her kindred, of her race ; the salt taste of her sin Embitters each smooth glossy cheek where I have kissed the skin : I would see you all three dead, folded in holy rest, Rather than have her tiger heart beneath your infant breast. For, boy, there's shame in ancestry, as well as honest pride, If we should count the many crimes to which we are allied ; Yes, looking back, the proudest eye must droop to mark his race, Must bless the God who only asks, " What didst thou in thy place ?" " For nought are we accountable but what our- selves believe, 168 poems — 1851. For nought are we respectable but what ourselves achieve : God's questions are not like to man's, " Whence come ? to whom belong ? What feats, did your progenitors ? your fathers, were they strong ?" Thyself, my child, must stand alone, nor hold by staff or rope, There is one only helping hand which we may clasp in hope, One helping hand unstained by blood, of noblest royal line, His Hand which at the judgment hour shall stretch to give the sign. 1G9 GEAVES. Lo, many isles and continents have felt The impress of this ever restless foot, Whose instep arching even as it falls Hastens advancing. Many stranger graves Have had their verdure ruffled by my knee, Where I have stooped to read some wom-out name, Of half formed letters, telling underneath Lay one whom long in spirit I had known, But never seen in flesh. Through close-piled fields Ground-sown with genius, I have searched and found Some prostrate tablet, or rose-tangled knoll, Or wooden cross damp-beaded, which gave sign That a great teacher of humanity Was passing upwards in its vapoury dews. T have seen pines o'ershadow Shelley's urn 170 poems — 1851. In Rome's campagna : I have culled a disc From those abounding daisies whose firm roots Anchor within the melting heart of Keats. Under the domed Pantheon, where false gods Once held high council, I have kissed the cross Raised over Raphael's bones ; and softly bathed My reverential brows in lambent flame, That strikes down from the lancet-windowed aisles Of Santa Croce, o'er the Emblem Three Who guard the sleep of Angelo, and mourn The empty tomb of Dante. Nearer home, Beneath the glaciers of an Alpine pass, I bent to Hofer's effigy : he stands Furling his unscathed flag, as who should say " I died, oh comrades ! standard-bearer true Of liberty; as I received this whole, Whole I restore it to oppressed lands." On that green level wherp the Tyrol ends, Where wearied nature having climbed her fill, Dived down to inaccessible ravines, And parted back with fingers frozen stiff The blue air-curtains of Immensity, Now satiated reposes on the plain, (No heave upon her meadow, and her streams Still as the veins of one in sleep, her trees Marshalled in lines all motionless, as guards Surround the chamber of a monarch sick,) There is a gracious city whereby man GBA.VE8. 171 Hath made a barren wilderness to laugh And blossom like the rose. It hath great halls, Majestic colonnades, broad pediments, Living with sculpture : churches all alight With frescoed saints, and virgins lily-browed, Fair as the visions of Art's glorious prime To Pcrugino sent and Sodoma, And that joy-named Allcgri. Proud it was To call these things by names of later men, Born in our day, and heirs with us of time, And dying happy with fame's trumpet sound Pealing them slowly out of life. Their graves Stand 'mong their works nor need more monu- ment. One saw an aery city in his mind, And lived to see it real, — porch and gate, Cloister and apse, and arches byzantine, Carved courts of kings, and painted libraries Where books are lodged like princely visitants : And last of all his graceful fancy framed A death-enclosure, clasped and fastened in Like some rich Bible with its golden clamps From vulgar touch or usage. The first grave Was his, the maker's : side by side with him, Placed by his marble mask, another smiles Content, because he lived and left his land Her likeness 'mong immortals. This was he Who set that figure of Bavaria 172 poems — 1851. With oak-wreathed head and full expanded breast And port commanding, on the rising bank Whence she o'erlooks white Munich and her towers, A beacon to the joumeyer ; as of old With that same dignity of goddess-mien, In champion arms protective, on her height Shone great Athene, who from Phidias' hand Leaped to the summit of the citadel And greeted mariners afar at sea. Yea, that Greek sculptor might fraternally Embrace this Goth Schwanthaler. I approached Those graves in humble homage, now I come Upon a little nameless spot, a slab Railed off among a thousand like itself, That in this company of buried ones Each mourner may discern where he has right To sob, " my dead," a sob oft checked for fear He should disturb the weeper at the next. O child, lost child, shall I make pilgrimage To famous tombs, and leave thine out, — asking Where Albert Diirer sleeps, where Titian, while Thy modest memory passes to decay ? Rose, thou wert but a little gentle child, A little bright haired creature loved by men And more by God, thy happy baby smile Went with thee to the coffin ; stays it there GBAVE8 173 Making a brightness under ground ? ah no ! For then the sod would break like Etna's cone And let its light escape. What matters it? This earth is not thy substance, that has gone For many an eve and morning up to heaven In dews and flowery moisture ; gradual change Hath turned the infant beauty into bloom Of things as lovely. Once like children fair Whom Jesus blessed and in his arms embraced, Now art thou like those stainless lily buds Of flowerets that he noted in his walk, Whose beauty moved the veiled God eye to pleasure. Named from the roses thou ; and blossoming still Each spring in their red flushes, o'er thy slab They trail triumphantly their fragrant boughs, And cover up the thick black city mould With hues and scents of beauty, and they say " We are the visible remains of her Shortlived as we ourselves, and like to us Leaving the place sweet even where she died." 174 poems — 1851. THE END OF 1851. A sinner lies on his death-bed And groans his last confession, The bells ring out ere he is dead, His heir has seized possession. He sighs, " My youth had promise fair, My middle age renown, Earth's multitudes I bid repair Unto one single town. One city in an island small, Washed by nor* -western tide, Became the centre of them all, The summit of their pride. THE END OP 1851. 175 From every land that has a sense However vaguely stirred, Of honour and intelligence, I led a pilgrim herd. And festal hanquetings I made Through my short summer time, And my fair crystal bower arrayed In beams like southern clime. Then was I praised in speech and book With prophecies of fame, I should have died while men could look On my unsullied name. I die now, but alas, too late ! For with this aged hand I have struck down a vigorous state And fettered a free land. I've added to the lists of slaves And to the tyrants' scrolls, I've heaped up more of patriot graves, And damned more perjured souls. France ! I leave thee in the dust Under the despot's heel, Thou wert unworthy of thy trust Of Freedom's charter-seal. 176 poems — 1851. I saw thee try its wax at flame To prove the fastening true, It holds no longer, but the name Stands mockingly to view. Irate, I snatched from such a gi*asp A signet so abused, I gave it to the tyrant's clasp — I cannot be excused. Forgive me, France, forgive me, man ! This outrage on thy right, I have contracted wisdom's span, And clouded hope with night ; Men, by my madness, are driven back On the old life of brutes, I see red war upon his track, I taste of thraldom's fruits. Crystal Palace, clear as day, Would I had fallen with thee, The good I did has passed away, The ill begins to be !" L77 POEMS-1852. A FAMILY PICTUEE. Her cottage is a noisy place, Where healthy children romping play, Now shouting in a mimic chase, Now shrieking in a short-lived fray. Their cup of life runs o'er its brim, It froths and foams from morn to night. They are as fish who happiest swim ■When most the waves are lashed to white. At evening they come laughing in, And cluster round their father's chair, The eldest with her waxen skin, Her slender shape and yellow hair, 178 poems— 1852. Her eager eyes that wondering scan The narrow world within her reach, Her thoughts that brood on God and man And overflow in artless speech. Few thoughts hath he, the next in age, A winsome wight, a gleeful boy, He never asks a question sage, His large blue eyes are round with joy ; So fearless, frank, and debonair, So trustful of his bright to-day, He spreads a sunshine on the air, And strangers stop him on the way. Next, twinkles in a shining head, Crowned with a classic Koman name On parted tresses burnished red, Like sunset slanting into flame. Imperious as that name befits, Yet tender in her wildest ways, And fashioning her baby wits To many a soft Ausonian phrase. Last closing this domestic row The newly born, a tiny mite, Whose soul, like lichens under snow, Grows unperceived by human sight. A FAMILY PICTURE. 179 He liveth but for food and sleep, An inarticulate atom, we Know not what ray may pierce the deep Of his unfathomed entity. Lo, these are all that in the flesh Are present entering at the door, But to the mother's eye afresh Her first-born riseth with the four. A spirit form, that year by year Takes new proportions e'en as they, That duly foremost will appear, And as her birthright lead the way. She dwarfs them by her elder height, She dims them by her angel smile, They are of clay and she of light, No passion-storms her brow defile. When strangers greet the mother proud Of children four, she inly sighs, " There was one fairer in her shroud, Yea, now is fairer in the skies." J 80 POEiis— 1852. THE GREAT GRANDMOTHER. Why should I seek unreal fictions? What better aim can I pursue Than following out my predilections For all that life has good and true ? No tale of maid who love-smit dieth, No dirge of knight in battle slain, But every day's experience vieth In pathos with their mournful strain. I see an aged matron sitting At evening by the ocean spray, The sunset clouds through ether flitting To her no sense of joy convey. She looks upon the flashing water, It flasheth into sightless eyes, She thinks of perished sons and daughter Submerged beneath far torrid skies. THE GREAT GRANDMOTHER. 181 The great world-belt, whose folds enamelled Work in and out among the isles, Again her wandering feet hath trammelled. And tight across her heart it coils, Erasing intervening distance, As silver rubbed from mirror-plate, And letting through her past existence As fresh as in its early date. So with her children's children's children Before her on the beach at play, By memory's flood of dreams bewild'ring That aged dame is swept away. The links of triple generations, Which from her sides have sprung and spread, A moment are as mere negations, And none seem living save those dead. Again she sees the anchor raising, The steady stun-sails swelling free, And right against the sunset blazing The bark that bore her babes to sea. Ah luckless winds that so unbound her, The vessel sailed, the vessel sped, But where in mid-seas did she founder? And where, where ! are hid her dead ? 182 poems— 1852. She sailed, but earthly port or haven She never reached from then till now, Ah, grief, thou wert a shameless craven To strike a mother's unfenced brow ! She could not bear that mocking water, She could not bear its cruel glee Which seemed to sing, " Thy sons and daughter I keep as hostages for thee. " Perchance on coral reefs serrated They lie 'mong groves of cocoa palms, Perchance with savage comrades mated Row their light shallop through the calms. '• They may be sealed in emerald caskets, Where the flawed icebergs greenly freeze, Or tossed in tangled weedy baskets On beds of sea-anemones. " But wheresoe'er, thou canst not find them, In vain thine eyes may dim with age, My wreathing surge will not unwind them Till thou hast done thy pilgrimage." So sang the sea from all his fountains Into that mother's loathing ear, She fled to cities, fields, and mountains, His cruel voice no more to hear. THE GREAT GRANDMOTHER. 183 Now after years of inland travel, Of births and deaths, of joy and woe, Again she treads the beach's gravel, Again she nears her ancient foe. Her ancient foe, her sorrow bringer, Unseen beneath her eye-ball leaps, But time has laid his soothing finger On the harsh cadence of the deeps. That cruel voice has learned remorses, And fain would comfort as it rolls, " I keep the tiny infant corses, But not the full-grown angel souls ; " Full grown with that immortal essence They have absorbed since drowned by me ; Thine own blind space of exile lessens, Thy God and them thou soon shalt see." 184 poems — 1852. FAREWELL TO FLORENCE. Veil- thy blue radiance, Tuscan sky, Draw near in likeness to those gray Low hanging vaults, all sough and sigh, Which shall o'erarch me from to-day. Rain down strange vapours, intercept The wonted clearness of thy dome, A clammier mist will soon have crept Around me in mine island home. I needed this to brace my slack Weak corn-age for farewell, this dense Uncustomed darkness presses back My fond reluctance to go hence. FAREWELL TO FLORENCE. 185 Yet, give me one last glittering eve From Fiesole's enamouring bowers, Let me behold before I leave Valdarno from Saint Margaret's towers, Far Pagni Peaks like blocks of gold Slow melting in the western blaze, White towns and hamlets manifold Swimming like foam bells on the haze. And thou, dear Florence, rainbow girt, With purple domes and ruby spires, The very dust upon thy skirt Transfigured to prismatic fires. Cruel, thou scom'st this love of mine ! Thou skut'st me out with rainy door, Saying, " To-morrow I will shine When thou can'st see my face no more. " Again I'll light up every range Of palace windows, every roof I'll plate with silver, but this change I'll work when thou must roam aloof. " Aha ! in London streets recall How I am bright as newmade star, The jaspers of my mountain wall Seek thou in smoke-dried bricks afar." 186 poems— 1852. Ungenerous ! yet despite thy frowns Except in love we cannot part, Armida of all earthly towns ! Thy beauty lives within my heart. Can I forget for this day's wrath Long years of sweetness ? 'twere ingrate, I needs must own the pleasant path Wherein thou smoothly leddest fate. I bless thee, Florence, for each hour Of fair imaginative peace, Ah, let their memory keep its power Though to my sense thy beauties cease. Where'er I sojourn, east or west, Exuberant France or Albion grave, My Florence days for ever blest I'll count, because of light they gave. 187 TO E. S. The world goes round, it cannot pause, Our passions blossom, droop and die, Obedient to eternal laws, In vain we chafe and murmur " Why?" Our friends forget, our fancies pass, We need like farmer's fields each year New crops, now grain, now meadow grass, Or else we barren grow and sear. Yet with a love which cannot tire I gaze adieu to every hill, Each antique church, each cypress spire, To me beloved, benignant still. Old ties are rent, new hopes are born, Since Florence brake upon my sight, Yet still her beauties are unshorn, And still her charms awake delight. 188 poems— 1852. O world of things how fixed thou art Unlike the shifting world of men, Unlike our vacillating heart That ebbs and flows and ebbs again. Thus mused I in my selfish spleen, But Florence whet her honest gales And chid me for my churlish mien, And rang thy name adown her vales. She said, " wanderer, go not forth Without one grateful thought to-day. For her whose overflowing worth Thou knowest thou never can repay. " The world of things would lose its spell Did human love not scent its wind, Boon nature greeteth none so well As those at friendship with their kind." 189 PRIESTLY ANTHEM. FOR EASTER DAY IN ST. PETER'S, ROME. Christ is risen, Christ is risen, Let us keep his festal day ; Hale the heretics to prison, Take from men the choice to pray. Christ is risen, burn his story, Seal it up from vulgar eyes, Show Madonna crowned in glory, Say 'tis she who rules the skies. Christ is risen, flesh and spirit Joining vanish, heavenward borne ! Yet at least we priests inherit Holy coat and holy thorn. 190 poems— 185-2. Christ is risen, death is beaten, As the martyrs proved in strife, See this hand by worms uneaten ! See this mummy fresh as life ! Christ is risen to His Father, But to us his powers hath given, You must hear us, heed us rather, Ours the keys of hell and heaven. Christ is risen, mystery's curtain Bending leaves redemption clear, Natheless, men, the truth's uncertain, We alone decipher here. Christ is risen, love and mercy Steep the earth like summer rain, Therefore, heretics, we curse ye, Banish, starve ye, spoil, and chain. Christ is risen, Christ is risen, Close His word from human eyes, Hale the thinking minds to prison, Keep the fools for Paradise. 191 TO CERTAIN PEOPLES AND POPULACES. I had as lief my soul were dead, As any idiot's dumb and dull, My body left from heel to head A husk, a blank receptacle. I had as lief my life were spilled, Its aromatic wine outpoured, Ere half the goblet's depths were filled. Ere one faint heart I had restored. I had as lief all hope belied When first I thrilled to sorrow's stound, Like landsmen leaping o'er the side The instant that their ship's aground. I had as lief in this midday Disown the blessings God doth give, And self with stroke audacious slay, As live the life you cowards live. 192 poems — 1852. To creep when you should stand upright, To skulk when you should front the foe, To shrivel in Aphidian blight Like tainted grapes that cannot grow. It suits such meaner forms of life In adverse winds to pine and fade, But nations should be braced by strife, Not without pangs are heroes made. It suits the vine along your hill, When hostile insects gnaw its bole, A leprous poison to distil, — But not the strength of patriot souls. And wolves may slink, and jackals crouch, And curs give fawning back for blows, But warrior men ! you should avouch Your free rights in the face of foes. Up ! up ! I hate the sight of blood, I hate the roll of threatening drum, Yet better drown your fields in flood Then fleeing cry, They come, they come. Up ! up ! God meant all men for mates, Not some to cringe, nor some to beat: Yea, better slay them at your gates Than curse them as ye lick their feet. TO CERTAIN PEOPLES AND POPULACES. 193 Nor fear their death shall on you weigh ; A heavier burden, men, believe That country whom her sons betray, That nation whom her chiefs deceive. 194 poems — 1852. YOUTH. In hev young certainty the heart defies Time's frost, o'erhead she feels her tropic skies, Forgets the globe is rolling round each hour. And with each day the seasons change their power. " Here it must aye be summer," she exclaims, •• The woods all foliage, and the clouds all flames; [f every bud dropped off by turns, they'd last Till I myself were in the brown mould cast." But one quick tempest in an August day Sufficeth, heart, to brush thy tlowers away, To rend tin 1 green leaves from the topmost branch, Oftenest in summer falls the avalanche. Thou reckonest on a long calm windless prime. youth. I ( .i;"> But storms rage fiercest in the hottest clime ; And he must gag the mouth of cares and woes Who would keep life a slumber of repose. Thus preach we on the outside of the pale ; Youth, in her park within the gilded rail, Laughs merrily, and tells us that we prate, And skips and dances at the trellised gate. Beyond its bars, out on the open heath Bright gorses woo her with their balmy breath, And when she turneth to her garden-bed Her violet clusters faintly smell instead ; She thinks to venture just one step beyond To the mossed margin of yon moorland pond, Then run back swiftly to her nursery ground. Where hitherto such peace and joy was found. Ah little knows she when she issues forth And breasts the unscreened fury of the North, The gate of childhood closes at her heel And swings behind her inaccessible. Its double hinges only outward turn ; Within 's the rosebush, and without the fern ; Within, azalia, oleander, vine, Without, the prickly holly and the pine ; Within, the fragrance of a southern breeze, Without, the salt-winds from Atlantic seas. Poor youth, behold thy spring already spent. Not for thee first will destiny relent, Not on thee first that sullen door has shut, o -2 196 poems— 1852. And time pronounced the inexorable But. Sad pilgrim, track the moorland like the rest, Gather thy plaid-folds thicker on thy breast. Strong be thy staff, and firmly shod thy feet, Life's pathway leadeth o'er no well-paved street, And thou with fortitude must bear fatigue, For the wide wastes stretch on for many a league. Yet when the large rain patters on thy cheek Look for the valley with its curling reek, Where amid woods and pastures ever green The pleasant mansion of thy rest is seen, Where warmth and light and unextinguished joy Console the wanderer for his long annoy : No change besets that quiet home, nor woe, Nor all the dangers which these journeys know. Youth, there's thy home, youth then thou wilt not be, Years count for nothing in eternity. 197 THE DEATH OF ELIOT WARBURTON. Strange dreams had lately haunted him While yet he dwelt upon the land, Of shipwrecked sailors as they swim And strike out vainly for the strand. Of boats beneath a vessel's lee Swamping unnumbered leagues from shore, Of drowning wretches' agony, And outcries choked by ocean's roar. Of helmless bark whose masts are gone, Whose crew is fled, whose timbers strain, Where some lost passenger alone Drifts starving o'er the naked main. ;t//'^//^J2>tM4\ , flc>Xko> )$ /W\Ua y L98 poems— 1852. Or haply, with foreboding light, The death by which he was to die Flung its red horror o'er the night, A burning ship 'twixt sea and sky. Until he was constrained to tell, By pressure he could not resist, What perils indescribable Lurked for him in the raw sea mist. But as when to the morning bright We tell what sleep uneasy showed . And feel at once our burden light, (jJ'-fJw ' Perchance his writing eased his load. Now when in truth the ponderous wheel His vessel o'er the sand-bar drave, When the great steamer's maiden keel Shore proudly the Atlantic wave, Did it return that well known dread, And change the foam sparks' frosty blue To eyes of comrades floating dead, And he himself among them too ? Or did the cordage slack at night, That creaked outside his cabin door, Wake him with suddenness of fright Like voice prophetic, " sleep no more ?" THE DEATH OF ELIOT WARBCJRTON. 199 Not long for sleep, not long for fear, The second night they passed at sea Brought rage of winds and waters near With certain sense of jeopardy. And yet unwarned, God of love ! In careless peace they sank to rest, Clouds whirled across the moon above, Below, the billows reared their crest. They slept a sleep, whence some should wake To spring bewildered from their pyre, And some a shorter path must take To God, through martyrdom of fire. Realization of his thought Burst thus on him when he awoke, And scarce surprised the deck he sought Across abridge of blazing smoke. Beyond the yellow wreaths of flame He saw them launching boats in haste, They may have called him by his name, May have forgot him, danger-chased. Though by the helm one saw him stand, Who through sore perils safety gained And told this story on the land, But him the sea and fire retained. 200 poems— 1852. Forewarned he died, how, none can say ; With him an hundred others sank, The ship pursued her furious way Lashed on by piston and by crank. No human hand the engines touched, But swift the monster wheels kept pace, As if Sathanas' self had clutched The red-hot lever for that race. Wildly she drove with groaning cry ; Erect, her chimney's iron frame Like furnace glass against the sky Rose crimson through the clear white flame. Till with a loud explosive roar, One burst of shivered stars she fell, And the flushed seething deep once more Grew pallid o'er that dying yell. O'er his warm heart who at the helm By fleeing sailors last was seen, Expectant till the waves o'erwhelm His pregnant thought and fearless mien. He struggled not, resigned to fate He seemed to recognize his doom ; Perhaps beyond the burning gate He saw the flowers of Eden bloom. THE DEATH OF ELIOT WARBURTON. '201 Perhaps through raging seas and gales He heard the heavenly harpers' strings ; What others took for shrivelling sails To him were angels' ready wings. We hope it, Lord ! thy realm extends O'er faithless ocean, steadfast land ; What comfort else have we for friends Whose hodies cumber up the strand. The rain drips slowly as I sit, The sky is lowering, dark, and dree, It is a day of all most fit To think of them who died at sea. Winds are abated, and the thick Wet stagnant airs upon us brood, Our souls turn wearied from the quick To lean on death in morbid mood. The strife is stilled, the calm is come, A heavy opiate dulls our woe, Flat waters obstinately dumb Beneath our questions darkly flow. No jar, no sigh, lethargic peace O'ercomes us as we sadly pore, And whispers " death was their release, The fire-sword waves at Eden's door." •202 poems— 1852. YOUNG VINCENT OF THE AMAZON. A pocket-knife may cut the rope Which frigate anchors could not strain, A life that lingered past all hope Asleep may snap in twain. Thus him, who when this year was young From off his blazing vessel swung, Whom fire could burn not, billows drown, Though sturdier men sank gurgling down. Nor hunger starve, nor winter freeze, Now in the sunny tropic seas, At harbour in the land locked bay, A fever's breath has blown away. When all the elements ran mad, And of his ship made havoc dire, On his boy's heart this sailor lad Eode through the wind, and rain, and fire. YOUNG VINCENT OF THE AMAZON. 9.03 When, master of that lurid deck, Ked Moloch clasped his comrades brave, He, leaping from the treacherous wreck, Put trust in scarce the trustier wave. But icy blast and raging sea Took pity on his jeopardy. Now having past these worst of ills, These flames and billows, damps and chills, Something untangible, unseen, Too slight the midday sun to screen, A mystic touch, laid none knows where, Hath slain him through the vital air. In midst of death we are not dead, In midst of life our doom may be ; When pilot engines run ahead To keep the railway free, When safety signals wave on high, And not a fog obscures the sky, And not a snow-flake hides the rail To clog the forward rushing mail, A strap may break, a valve may choke, An axle crack beneath its yoke, And the swift train with all its freight O'ertaken by a swifter fate, Like a big cloud o'ercharged with thunder, Crashing and roaring burst asunder. • 204 poems— 1852. Why murmur? Some on battle plain Fall fighting for their father-land, Some stooping forward end their pain At desks, obscurely, pen in hand ; Some women die at heart attaint By disappointment never named, And some in heat of labour faint, The iron-willed, the osier-framed. One way of birth, one weeping way, We passed alike in each our day, One way of taking this poor breath, But how of giving it in death ? On inward hinge one only door, But outward gaping many more, As if on life man's weight undue Forces a thousand issues new ; So dense a mass of human souls Breaks through innumerable holes, Through rents, and rifts, and yawning chinks. Where eveiy sinner separate sinks. Surely 'tis Satan's whim to try Each hour new deaths for us to die ! Why murmur ? if he stretch his rule No farther than this vestibule ? If on the other threshold stone The Lord of glory keeps His throne, Then dying's but a moment's pain, Then death's an everlasting gain. 205 WELLINGTON'S FUNERAL. When one we love departeth We hide him out of sight, The lips we kissed are ghastly, The eyes we watched affright. We haste the coffin's hammering, We haste the sexton's spade, We cannot eat, nor drink, nor sleep, Till all in dust be laid. But when he we loved departed, Our nation's long-lived pride, We bade them keep his body In the chamber where he died. We set his bravest soldiers On guard around their chief, We called the world to witness Our homage and our grief. 206 poems— 1852. We showed him in his coffin Scarce calmer than in life, Vanquished at last our victor By him who ends all strife. We pointed to the sword-arm So rigid there that lay, We said, " This never was struck down Till death took up the fray." When a corse is left unburied The carrion vultures meet, Far clouds of birds obscenest Darken the sun's high seat, Foul creatures in their eyries Sniff up the quick decay : The banquet of the eagles Is dreadful to survey. But this corse was left unburied To gather from afar The wisest heads in council, The boldest hearts in war, The grandest dirge of music, The poet's loftiest lay : The meeting of earth's mourners Was glorious to survey. I fain had seen that army Of veterans by the bier, Wellington's funeral. 207 Each haloed with his own renown In war's dun atmosphere. I fain had seen those squadrons Of youths before the car, Vowed to preserve their leader's fame, To track his guiding star. I fain had heard the trumpets Peal farewell o'er his tomb, What time the solemn priest recalled The universal doom. I fain had seen a nation Stand weeping by that grave Saying, " This man was good as great, As true as he was brave. " Our leader, our ensample ! Whom have we left, like thee ? We must abase our measurement And shorten our degree. Our mast must be of poplar, Our bow of willow frail, For the pine is withered on the height, The yew tree in the vale. " 'Twas thus I sat and pondered On that November morn, Beyond my sight those armies, Mine ear that trump and horn. 208 poems — 1852. I only saw the beeches Nodding their naked boughs, I only saw the hoary rime Whitening the mossy knowes. " But the living trees and mosses Through all their wintry frost, Spake better cheer than pageantries For him whom we had lost ; They said, " See God reneweth The leaves and flowers that fall, Is the soul that helpeth a nation's need Not worthier than them all ?" 209 POEMS-1853. FRANCESCO MADIAI IN THE PRISON OF VOLTERRA. Once I ascended to Volterra's gate, O'er fields made hollow by sepulchral caves, I entered at the prison of the state, A citadel whose troops are fettered slaves. They led me on from speechless ward to ward Of felon captives, till beneath the ground They said, " Within this little dungeon barred, And damp as well-head, were two virgins bound " For sake of Christ our sacrifice." Methought Its limits stretched, its lonely darkness filled With light surpassing sunshine ; here was fought A nobler battle than with sword and shield. 210 poems— 1853. So while my heart sustained its rapture brave At their true courage and undaunted wills, I issued, to see Elba on the wave And sunset purpling the Maremma hills. And I spake freely to that mountain air, " Thank God, we live in happier kinder times, The gift of truth our fellows freely share, And faith and piety no more are crimes." I spake it on Volterra's eyrie rock, On that May eve suffused with violet bloom, Now my rash boasting echoes back to mock Volterra's martyr and Volterra's doom. For in the wind that sweeps this Scottish snow Francesco's chains are clanking to my sense, In vain we labour and in vain we know If bigot rage be all the consequence, If none may pray, or lift adoring hands, But the priest's shadow falls 'twixt them and God, If none may read Christ's record as it stands, And not sink smitten by the tyrant's rod. What good to drive a rail-car like the wind, To speak in lightning, and on clouds be hurled, With human lore the rolling earth to bind, And sow new nations broad-cast on the world ? FEANCESCO MADIAI. 211 What good ? so long as mind is shut to mind, As hearts are froward, consciences insane, Better with dotards of the past be blind Than look on truth, to see her foully slain ! Presumptuous age, that hollow art as vain, Lie down, abase thee in the lowest dust, Christ's prisoner doth accuse thee by his chain. Woe to the world that hath condemned the just ! Woe to the prince who nailed Francesco there, A nation's wrong denounces him on high, Pale exiles, banished for the sake of prayer, Appeal to God and shall not lack reply. Will He not answer and avenge their cause ? Hath He not said, and it abideth sure, "Woe to the great that set at nought my laws, The priests that grind the faces of the poor ?" p 2 212 poems— 1853. ENGLAND AND HER REFUGEES. Stand up, stand forth my noble land ! Proclaim to every wind that blows There's welcome on thy friendly strand For broken hopes and banished woes. There never was an exile yet Repulsed from thy maternal arms, While daily suns shall rise and set Thou shalt be refuge in alarms. Rear up thy foamy mane erect, Old lion couchant on the brine, Say, " he whom court or king has wrecked May anchor safe with me and mine." ENGLAND AND HER REFUGEES. 213 " I bid none name or lineage show, But like the Arab of the sands I take as guest my deadliest foe, And give him shelter at my hands." Speak, England, that the coward courts Who dared suggest to thee their shame May shrink and shudder in their forts, While patriots lustily thy name. While exiles bless thy saving hold Thy sons applaud thy dauntless will, And gathering round thy banner's fold Exult, " we are a nation still." •ZH poems — 1853. EEVEKSES. The storm rages fiercer, the billows swell higher, No break in this tempest, no lull in this gale, The thunder-charged clouds are one furnace of fire, The sea and the shore are one volley of hail. nations, O brethren, the war horse doth tread you, Your noblest lie prostrate, your bravest are slain, () would I were Wallace or Ziska to head you ! But woman's weak service, 'tis weeping in vain. 1 pray, but my prayer is dispersed in ascending, I weep, but my tears fall back sterile as brine, The chains and the slaughter continue unending, And the hand of Jehovah refuses a sign. REVERSES. 215 O who but despairs in this conflict unaided ? O who in his fatherland cares but to die, Where even the passage to God is blockaded And even the altar is dogged by the spy ? As the Mede mocked the Jew by the waters of Babel, Exulting his captive's lost hopes to deride, So our foe maketh mirth of our faith as a fable, Crying " God has disowned you, He fights on our side." Avenger, display thee, requite them their taunting! Shine out, dreadful Majesty, clear up the right! How long shall oppressors thy favour be vaunting. How long shall oppressed ones grope blindly by night ? nations, brethren, accept this sad wailing, Accept my poor orisons, fervent and deep ; Where patriots and heroes have died unavailing, What can a mere woman but pray God and weep? •216 poems— 1853. THE CHILDKEN'S JOUKNEY. F. AND G. B. How gay the little children sat within the rush- ing train, They laughed to see the shadows flee across the dizzy plain, How swift they passed the Scottish hill, how swift the English dale, They saw not 'twas their earthly life went sweep- ing by the rail. They laughed to see the vapours curl in white folds wreathing high, Nor thought it was a seraph's form whose broad wings touched the sky, They said how brave the engine drave its black high-mettled horse, Nor knew the angelic messenger who steered them on their course. THE CHILDREN'S JOURNEY. 217 A spring-day journey, such it seemed, to end when night should come, A few more miles, another hour, and they should reach their home : So nearer, near, when suddenly the angel swerved his hand Aside from every earthly goal, due for the eternal land. He swerved aside, because he saw heaven's gate- way arching blue, One moment's breath and joyfully the children are let through, Their spring-day journey at an end, its perils and alarms, For Jesus on the threshold stood, and clasped them in His arms. Bear up, brave mother, strong in faith, bear, father, stricken sore, Your little ones are housed and home, what can ye wish them more ? The voices ye miss silent here are singing gladly there, Or asking God to comfort you in some sweet childish prayer. •318 poems — 1853. Some prayer ye taught theni, night or morn, they use before the throne, Some promise fallen from your lips they plead in earnest tone, For you, for you ; they need no prayer, they have no tears to dry, Their promises are all fulfilled, their haven reached for aye ! 219 PEIVATE JUDGMENT. The Lord of life, the Lord of light, He gave us each a princely dower, There may be difference in its power But 'tis in all the same birthright ; It fills the spirit of each man The fullest measure that it can. Like graft upon a living tree This heavenly gift in us is found, With sap and stem and root en wound, Grown in the growth of you and me ; And he who wills away his share His very self to shreds must tear. 220 • poems— 1853. We may abuse, we may misshape, Our being's franchise may ignore, But when our earthly life is o'er Its short account we cannot 'scape, And every soul shall have enow In answering for itself, I trow. Despotic priest, vicegerent Pope, Ye arrogate the Kock of rocks, Ye say " Our Church defieth shocks, Our word must be your ground of hope, Give us your faith, 'tis not for you God's voice to hear, God's works to view." What church dare strike 'twixt me and Christ ? What priest my stretch of reason span ? The Saviour speaks as man to man, 'lis with ourselves he keeps his tryst: These thoughts are mine my flesh enframes, And 'tis from me their use He claims. I take the danger and the dread With no presumptuous rash intent, If God the bounden duty sent He judgeth how his gift has sped ; Yea, I am proud, if it be pride, Kejecting mental suicide. PRIVATE JUDGMENT. 221 'Tis Christ who hath the fiends cast out That would have made my breast a hell ; Now clothed and in right mind I dwell His freedman bold, your chains I scout, Let abject slaves deny their birth, One Master's mine, but not on earth. 222 poems— 1853. CHARON'S FERRY. The tide runs up the estuary, The fog-wind rises from the sea, And damp and chill with driving spray Soaks the loose sandhills of the bay, Till their reed grasses, stiff as spears, Bow down beneath his silent teai*s, While wails and sighs around them float : " Charon ! Charon ! loose thy boat ; Shift thy helm and take us in ; We are sick with cold and sin — Charon ! Charon !" There is a hazy helpless moon : She cannot light the vast lagoon, Nor daunt the marsh-fire wandering wild Like some belated orphan child, charon's ferry. 223 Nor pierce the sea-fog's misty curls, As on the sandy marge it swirls In vapoury wreaths and folds of shrouds, All shifting like aerial clouds, All wailing, wailing evermore : " Charon ! Charon ! lift thine oar ; Haste to help us ; urge thy bark ; We are waiting in the dark — Charon ! Charon !" Then from behind a jutting cape Steered out a boat of ghastly shape. With coffined ridge it blackly glides, Like those that brush San Marco's sides, And shoot below Venetian walls Their rapid, noiseless, funeral palls. Her prow hangs forth a single lamp, That flares and flickers in the damp ; A single boatman tugs the oar, And, stoutly pulling, nears the shore, Whence issue sighs and dreary wails : " Charon! Charon ! spread thy sails ! We have watched the midnight through. Dawn approaches, cold and blue — Charon ! Charon !" But, lo ! the boatman stern replied . " ye who haunt this fatal tide, 224 poems— 1853. Eemember, he who sails with me Must buy his place and pay his fee, Since I account to gods below For souls that o'er their ferry go." Then sad and sadder down the gale Outrang the spirits' woful wail : " Charon ! Charon ! grant us grace ; We were slaves of wretched race, Lived with brutes, man's serf and hind, Died deserted by our kind — Charon ! Charon !" Inexorable still, he said : " I judge you not, ye hapless dead ; Your life was hard, your road was rough, Of stripes and plagues you felt enough ; Howe'er, this word abideth true, The Elysian fields are not for you : Without my token none may cross ; Ye should have friends to save your loss." Then rose a shriek of men and maids, Of aged ghosts and infant shades : " Charon ! Charon ! we were poor ; Must the punishment endure ? Are the gods like men, who hate Those who are abused by Fate ? Charon! Charon!" CHARON 'S FERRY. 225 Lo ! fables these of ancient times — They only live in poets' rhymes ; Yet still, methinks, there are to-day Who would the churlish Charon play, And standing by Salvation's shore Forbid the Outcast's passage o'er, Pressing the mockery of a claim On some neglected child of shame, And crying out : " The fee, the fee !" While spirits wail in jeopardy : " Charon ! Charon ! we were slaves, Tossed on Misery's barren waves, Want, despair, and crime our lot, We can give but what we got — Charon ! Charon !" 226 poems— 1853. A LOVER'S PLEADING. Go not, the day in summer hours Stays longer, lingering half through night, Wilt thou be charier than the light, And earlier folded than the flowers ? Go not, for winter soon arrives, When suns are veiled, when darkness reigns, Sweet Ida, wait for fortune's pains, Nor grudge this summer of our lives. I know thou art no fixed star, To circle in my central sky, Thou comet, swiftly flashing by, Returning to thy spheres afar. I must not catch the glittering train Of smiles that track thine airy course, They draw me with seductive force To hurl me back on space again. A LOVERS PLEADING. 227 Yet stay, beloved, one grace bestow, The very felon ere he dies Is free to gaze upon the skies, Let me so look before I go. My track leads not to ease or bliss, Yet I could face its perils drear, And bear its burdens without fear, Baptized to endurance by thy kiss. One golden hour to recollect Through iron years of toil and care, One memory shining like thy hair Across the murky retrospect. Sweet, am I over fond or fain Beside thee looking on to loss ? Prepared to spread one moment's gloss. Thin silvering o'er a life of pain ? Ask I too much, fair Ida, say, One lingering lengthening solstice bright '.' Behind us, like our fate, hangs night. Oh cut not short love's summer day. v 2 228 poems— 1853. LOGIE ALMOND. The Almond wave is drumlie, The Almond woods are sear, It is the mirkest gloaming time Of Scotland's fitful year. The leaves are running waters, The low-winged swallows flag, By Almond's side the sodden banks Are slipping from the crag. " Draw down the curtains, Mysie, Shut to the shutters fast, Make snug the house of Logie Against the rising blast ; Arouse the sleepy embers To glad and ruddy play, And call the gossips roundabout To wile the night away." LOGIE ALMOND. 229 " The roof doth leak," quoth Mysie, With sharp rheumatic twinge, " There's not a shutter high or low That hangs upon its hinge, There's not a window curtain, And scarce a window pane, There's not a door can keep its sneck Against the driving rain. " The arras on the wainscot Is only fit to flap, 'Tis riddled like a dug up shroud With many a wormy gap ; And as for friend or cummer To wile the night with me, The Mack-eyed rats that keep the house Are all my companie." She goes about her duties With calm collected smile, One flickering candle in her hand To light that huge old pile ; The big hall door she swingeth With such a solemn boom, It echoeth down the long approach And woods of leafy gloom. And now she is enclosed, A solitary dame, 230 poems — 1853. Within old Logie's ruins, That hear an evil fame. No cottage is there standing Within a woman's call, No human creature save herself In that deserted hall. I marvel how she knitteth So tranquilly alone, Beneath the gusty corridors, And crumbling slate and stone ; She looks but at her needles And half completed hose, She thinks but of her worsted balls And steaming supper brose. But if I were beside her I know what I should see, Those cruel eyed pale figures Upon the tapestry, The false Delilah smiling On Samson's charmed sleep, The treacherous skulking Philistines Who on that slumber creep. And if I were beside her I know what I should hear, The sighing of the Duke of Perth In secret dungeon near, LOGIE ALMOND. 231 Where day and night he languished In hiding from his foes : Yes, I should see his haggard brow, Instead of Mysie's hose. And when the vaulted kitchen Ee-echoed to the gale, I'd hear deep in the hollow tower Some wretched captives wail. I wot the Lords of Logie Used oft that dungeon room, If two went there for safetihood Sure ten went there for doom. And if I sat by Mysie When midnight striketh twelve, The hour that graves give up their dead However deep ye delve, I'd see the guests that gather In Logie's ample hall, When ghostly dames and cavaliers Lead off a spectral ball. I'd hear the dice-box rattle, The bubbling flagons fill, The oaths, and toasts, and ribald songs, Wherewith their wine they swill. Before mine eyes would stagger Full many a drunken spright, 232 poems— 1853. And many a foul unhallowed jest Disturb the sacred night. Aye me, 'tis well for Mysie, When high that revel roars She only says, " Alack-a-day ! How loud the storm-wind roars." When spectres shriek their shrillest She thinks the chimney howls, And mildly lifts her besom's shank To scare the bats and owls. Aye me, 'tis well for Mysie, When wainscoats split like thunder, When ceilings hail their plaster down And stone walls crack asunder, That she sits knitting calmly, And says, " The wind is high, I'm better off in this bein house Than in the woods outbye." Knit on, thou stolid woman, Thou *rt fitted to thy work, Thou art not vexed by phantasies That in my brain would lurk. rare and happy fortune, Thy place is matched in thee, Thou canst not hear what I should hear, Nor see what I should see ! 233 A VISION. Methought it was Volterra's rocky base, And on its hill-side honey-combed with graves, A dark Etrurian sepulchre I saw, "Whose entrance served as framework to a mass Of mournful visages, of women pale, Of children hungry eyed, of stubborn men Louringly rebel : all were pressing forth And struggling from the precincts of that tomb, Ciying, " air, light, and liberty we need, We choke, we faint, this low vault stifles us, Its twilight shows us nothing but the dead ; Round all its clammy walls wev'e groped, to find But rotting skeletons and crumbled gods ; Give us the sunshine, give the broad full heaven, The nourishing warm west wind, fed by dews, By rain-clouds' balmy droppings ; here are damps, 234 poems— 1853. That ooze between the fissures of these blocks, Like slime from noisome reptiles." So they cried Unto a band of figures clad in black, With ample raiment spreading as the wings Of poising eagles ; these kept hovering round Before the issue of that gloomy cave, And ever pressed the crowd back, and chastised Their eagerness with Medusean thong, A lash that bit its victims : their broad robes Did intercept as doth a blighting wind The healthful brightness of the natural day. And irefully to all the prisoners' plaints These guardians made retort, " Break not your bonds, Quit not the grave, for that is sacrilege ; Your place is there, you have the buried great, The very images that they revered, The very lamps they lit, the chalices Of their libations ; be content ; your eyes Are feeble, and the light of day is strong, 'Tis ours to bear the heat of shadeless suns And tell you of their fierceness." But the crowd Received not their injunctions, clamouring still, " We are God's freemen even as you. Our lungs Are made like yours, so let us forth to breathe ; Our eyes will soon grow 'customed to the light, So let us forth to see ; our limbs will stretch, 235 (Jncramped by this captivity, and bound, Were we again upon that sunny turf, So let us forth to leap ; our voice will strike Against the very arches of heaven's gate, So let us forth to praise." Thus they reclaimed The others hotly answered. I awoke, And heard a whisper saying in my ear, Behold the Tuscans and the Eoman Chmch. 236 poems— 1853. A NUPTIAL DIRGE. There is silver, there is gold, There are wines and dainty meats, Radiant guests with silken fold Rustle in the banquet seats : On the daughter of their race Pictured ancestors look down As she sitteth in her place, Crowned with her espousal crown, Smiling at the words of mirth Buzzing gaily round — Thou art mouldering in the earth, Underneath the ground : None remember thee, Maiden that for love hast died, Thou that should'st have been the bride, I remember thee ! A NUPTIAL DIRGE. 237 Newly to the holly tree Did the Christmas berries cling, When the passing bell for thee Dolefully was heard to ring ; And thy lover bent his head Like a tulip snapped by rain. And his sorrowing kinsmen said " Ah he ne'er will smile again." But the red leaf withers fast Off November's bough, All his grief and love are past, He is wedded now : None remember thee, Maiden that for love hast died, Thou that should'st have been the bride, I remember thee ! Never in thy breathing life Did thy shadow cross my way, Yet upon thy lover's wife I behold thee gaze to-day, Thinner than her bridal veil, Whiter than her orange wreath, Like a phosphoresence pale Kising from the vault of death, With a blessing in thine eye, On thy lip a prayer, Fitter for the angels' sky Than our world of care : 238 poems— 1853. None are ware of thee, Maiden that for love hast died, Thou that should'st have heen the bride, I am ware of thee ! Happy he that can forget, Happier thou, allowed to die : Where this nuptial feast is set Echoes many a troubled sigh, Many a dame, whose rich attire Wins her praises from the crowd, Aches with unappeased desire, Pines with sorrow unavowed : Only thou art all at peace, Thou hast found thy rest, Better so, I say, than these Yearning unconfest. Who may pity thee ? Maiden that for love hast died, Thou that should'st have been the bride. I must envy thee ! Fitful life, like Albion's sky Quick to rain, and slow to shine ! Like a storm-wind rushing by Was that hasty youth of thine ; Many foes assailed thy faith, Cankers on thy blossom fed, Surely thou art best in death, Surely thou art happiest dead. A NUPTIAL DIRGE. 239 Having changed man's fickle tears, Wiped ere half the year was done, For the friendship of the spheres, For the Father and the Son, All must envy thee ; Maiden that for love hast died, Thou that should'st have been the bride, I must envy thee ! 240 poems— 1853 PHANTOMS. In a dream I visited A house upon a mountain side ; One took me by the hand and led Through vaulted halls and chambers wide The windows opened to the floor, The warm south wind about them blew, Far down the river hushed his roar, Far up the climbing forests grew. Thus on from painted hall to hall, Where flowers and sunshine seemed to vie, Unto the crowning spot of all, A terrace spread beneath the sky ; Beyond its twisted metal screen, Where red verbenas blazing hung, A visionaiy land was seen As ever mocked the poet's tongue. PHANTOMS. 2 1 I The precipice whereon I stood Sank sheerly to a narrow sea, A winding firth whose gentle flood Among the hills sang courteously. I saw its waters froth the strand That rose in gardens rank o'er rank, I saw the peasants till the land Of slopes upon the opposite bank ; I saw the mountain's rampart bare That jagged the ether's curve immense, The shining blueness of the air Was pleasant to my dreaming sense ; And one beside as I beheld Spake, " This shall be thy future home," My heart with sudden rapture swelled, This house, this land, my very home. Ah woe is me, ah woe is me ! For never in this cloudy world That house, that country shall I see ! In a dream to me there came A creature cordial, frank, sincere, She did not need to have a name Herself was so distinct and clear, Her voice like some remembered strain My feeling's inmost coil unwound, The ecstacy was almost pain In which my consciousness was bound. K 242 poems — 1853. I had not seen her face before Yet how familiar was her kiss, I knew her at my bosom's core My long desired, despaired of bliss ; What ! I who hungei-ed year by year 'Mong niggard hearts' perpetual fast, To whom all womankind looked sear, Could I have found my mate at last? I clasped her in my clinging arms, I called her by love's sacred name, I had no doubtings, no alarms, Lest time should not endure the same. All woe is me, ah woe is me ! For never in this breathing world That phantom maiden shall I see. In a dream the sounds I've heard ! In a dream the sights I've seen ! There hardly is a passionate word But in my sleeping ears hath been : The stateliest cities of the earth Transfigui-ed past all human skill, Broad oaks of more than oaken girth, And peaks of more than natural hill : Tall battlements of porphyry rock, And lonely rivers lost in vales, PHANTOMS. 243 And isles which coral rings enlock, Where never drooped the seaman's sails. What friends have served me in my sti'ait ! What sons of fame my fortunes shared ! What commune with the good and great The secrets of my spirit bared ! What lovely children clomb my knees, What soft eyes answered mine as wife ! Who from exuberant dreams like these Would fall again to barren life ? Ah woe is me, ah woe is me ! For never in this lonely world My dream companions shall I see. r 2 •244 poems — 1853. THE CHRISTMAS TREE (_) Christmas Tree, that yester night So many glittering tapers bore, With trails of silver dropping light, Like slender veins of precious ore : A pennon crowned thy topmost shoot, Gay mimic birds about thee clung, And all thy branches weighed with fruit Of fairy gifts for old and young. It was a jocund sight to see The glory of that Christmas tree. The little children screamed for joy, And thought the glare would last for aye, So bounteous of each favourite toy, So brilliant in its lamps' array : But ah ! the candles flickered low, The trinket-blossoms one by one THE CHRISTMAS TREE. 245 Were plucked, and that resplendent show Sank darkly as the setting sun. It was a mournful sight to see The darkness of that Christmas tree. Let's point a moral for the time, A moral for this dying year, That glory was our early prime, That darkness our declension drear. We saw a feigned evergreen, With magic blaze and glittering store, And, like the children, said, " We ween This light will last our lives and more." So utterly befooled were we By youth's deceitful Christmas tree. But soon its shallow lamps were spent, Its sparkling branches stript and bare, Its trails of silver tissue rent And scattered all its blossoms fair : Youth's pleasant gifts, a dazzling band, Illusions bright, adventurous joys, All broken in the world's rough hand, As children break their fragile toys. And thus we found youth proved to be This naked leafless Christmas tree. 246 POEMS-1854. UNHEARD MUSIC. The other night I woke, When all around were sleeping, To hear a little hrook Its plaintive vigil keeping ; The birds were gone to roost, The stars themselves were clouded. In dreams were mankind shrouded, But I, alone unloosed, Could hear that streamlet light Pass singing through the night. It sang, and never stopped To think that no one listened ; By dark hills overtopped Whereon no moonbeam glistened, UNHEARD MUSIC. 2 1 7 By gloomy cliffs shut in Which never foot invaded, By dripping foliage shaded, It sang o'er rock and linn, And one sole creature heard, A hooting owlet bird. While thus I lay awake, " Poor heart," I kept repeating, " Be warned for wisdom's sake, Fond heart within me beating. Thou art that little brook In murkest silence singing, Thy thoughts on music stringing, With none to list or look : Perchance not even heard By hooting critic bird. " Thy singing must endure Through many a midnight eerie, When stars are all obscure, And winter winds are dreary, When sealed is every eye, And no one cares to hear thee, And thou hast only near thee The unanswering earth and sky. Poor heart, leave off thy lay :" " When the brook stops," my heart did say 243 poems— 1854. PROGRESS. Sages tell us, mother Earth, Cloven from the sun her sire, Brake out burning at her birth One intolerable fire, On her breast, intensely hot, Living creature was there not. Ages she went cooling, cooling, Softening down her savage heat As she tempered, life organic Slowly gathered round her feet ; Nobler by each chillier change, Race on race sublimely strange. PROGRESS. M'.l Till at length when ice and snows Came her gelid age to stun, Man ahove her glaciers rose And proclaimed the climax won : Proving to the shivering skies Coldness only maketh wise. This in each small cosmic life Our experience seems to be ; After the primeval strife Of our youth's intensity, Like the earth-crust scorched and brown We go cooling, cooling down. Every chill produces thought In its generation higher Than those young emotions wrought Which were near the early fire ; Till at last some wintry mom Is the perfect wisdom born. Thus our hearts go cooling, cooling, Through vicissitudes of years, Turning to refrigerators Even our warmest human tears; Till we deem ourselves complete By the loss of all our heat. 250 poems — 1854. TIME AND LOVE. What should time have to do with love ? That heavenly essence which apart, All time and space and chance above, Dwells self-existent in the heart : To whom a day is a year, When haunted by suspense or fear, To whom a year is as a day When basking in contentment's ray. O why should love be serf to time ? Why see its glorious nature marred, Like trees where mildew eats the prime, And all the sap turns thick and hard '? Time should but circumstance affect, Might harbour birds, or weeds dissect, Might prune a leaf, or twist a shoot, But never touch the immortal root. TIME AND LOVE. 251 what lias time to do with love? It is not like the vital air, Which piercing straightway from above Can lay the heart of nature bare ; Nor merely alter shapes and hues, But matter's very self transfuse, And with alchymic virtue strange Things even to their opposites change. Oh what has time to do with love ? Howe'er it chafe the outer skin, Or fade the bloom, it cannot move The principle of life within. What though mine eyesight waxes dim, Though age weighs down the elastic limb, Myself remains the same from youth, And such is love's undying truth. Extolling thus affection's law, An aged thinker spake with pride, A sigh went up, he turned and saw A pale-faced maiden by his side. " Sophist," she said, " I will not charge One falsehood on the world at large, But this 1 know, how sad the lore ! 1 have been loved, am loved no more." 252 poems — 1854. TIME AND FRIENDSHIP. The hills remain, the city stands, The quiet firth as bluely bends, I only need put forth my hands To touch youth's unforgotten friends. I see them in the well-known streets Where they and I of old would stray, My cordial heart their presence greets As warmly as in youth's glad day. The very flagstones which I tread Are memories of delicious hours, Of all the thoughtful words we said, Of stirring hopes, and untried powers. TIME AND FRIENDSHIP. 25:5 Of genial sympathetic joy, Of aspirations frank and free, Ah scenes beloved, ye but destroy Those recollections dear to me ! For all along your homely track Go feet estranged, averted eyes, And hands to kindly pressure slack, And hearts that worldly cares disguise. And I, a worse than stranger, move Unwelcome through our haunts of old, Sighing, " Ah youth is dead, and love, And memory's veiy self is cold !" Who reckons absences and years ? We are not brutes whom fates deny A past and future, our arrears Of love accumulate on high. 1 never made a friend for time, Immortal I no mortal chose, In every circumstance and clime My love beats steady to the close : Beats to the verge of death, unshocked By that arrestal, knowing this, That God the silenced heart has locked To throb throughout eternal bliss. '254 poems — 1854. A NIGHTMARE. I dreamed that I was sick and sore at heart. Till weary of its aching, rash I said, " Come hither fate, and end for me this strife." Then fate, in guise of one in armour, came And laid his mailed hand heavy on my breast, Crushing as with a vice, whereat I shrieked, And fain would have my troubles back, and cried, "Youth's sharpest pangs are blunt compared to fate's, Unhand me, tyrant, let me be as erst." But still the mailed hand pressed upon my heart, And still the pulse beat stronger for the pain. 255 VIVIDNESS OF THE PAST. As some sweet memory of our lives, It may be of our earliest youth, All after joy and grief survives, An evergreen eternal truth. While after hopes 'twixt then and now, And after aims drop down the dark, This but preserves its pristine glow Unwasting as a diamond spark. And all life's other interests seem Thrown into shadow by its light, And all this active world a dream That agitates a feverish night. So seems it but as yesterday Since Christ was nailed the cross upon. So seems it but as yesterday Since Mary weeping went with Jolm. 256 poems— 1854. Clear as our childish pleasures stand, Is that beloved remembered hour, When Jesus took the maiden's hand And called her back from death with power. Soft as the nightly kisses prest By mother lips on sleeping eyes, The smiles wherewith our Saviour blest The firstlings offered to the skies. Ah surely scarce a day hath gone Since that dear Friend departed hence, His words, his looks, his every tone, Eemain apparent to our sense. What stormy ages intervene, What wars, what dearths their records break, Since Jesus in a boat was seen To teach the fishers by the lake. How many a murderous sword and spear Have roused the childless widow's cries, Since Jesus stood beside the bier, And spake, " young man, I say, Arise !" All wondrous deeds of later fact, All recent histories great and proud Whatever men since then might act, Go past me like a drifting cloud. VIVIDNESS OF THE PAST. '•>;'• 7 To mc the Lord is yet alive, 1 Lis pangs like mine each day renewed, And I like Him shall yet survive The anguish of this earthly feud ! 258 poems— 1854. ON IMAGES IN A CHUECH. Break up the wood and marble forms ! Break up the painted effigies ! A nobler fire our bosom warms Than ever was alit by these. E'en earthly love can grow and thrive Though sense refuse its grosser aid, Can altered times and scenes survive With hope's strong thirstings unallayed. E'en earthly love can range the globe, Keeping one spirit-presence near, Too deep for prying words to probe, For common confidence too dear. ON IMAGES IN A CHURCH. '-259 E'en earthly love, contemned, belied, Can pray, the absent's name repeating, And look beyond life's turbid tide For mutual trust and mutual greeting. And were it not a thing most strange That we should love our fellows thus. Our frail congeners prone to change, More than the Lord who died for us ? We love them so, while they forget, Or chafe beneath our wistful care, He from His glory never yet Lost one faint sigh that stirs the air. Break up the wood and carven stone ! Our yearning hearts an image hold Far liker that transcendent One Than any shape of molten gold. We need not sight nor sound to feel Him near us wheresoe'er we roam, The friend devoted to our weal, The brother waiting us at home ! 260 poems— 1854. LA MADONNINA. A STORY OF VOLTERRA. You heard her singing in the choir to-day, She led the anthem — 'tis a voice most rare, Pellucid as the dew-drops, but as sad As if a harp were strung of beaded tears. That singing is Volterra's pride ; men come From distant towns to listen. It is said Princes and prelates covet her in vain, Nay, that the Pope writ with his holy hand To beg her minstrelsy, that proud Francesco Claimed her as suzerain lord, and both have failed. The abbess hath a most undaunted soul, And will not part with what she prizes, nor Wise Madeline desires to change her state ; Her nun's heart clings unto her nunneiy As in her youth it clung unto her love. LA MAD0NN1NA. 2.61 You ask her story? Well, 'twas common talk, Though now almost forgotten. Sit we here Where we can overlook the surging hills, And glcamy folds of wilful Cecina, That knows not if he wanders to the sea Or curleth hack to nestle in his source. Her tide was steady, strong and resolute, And having left behind it all these rolls Of burnt volcanic mounds by passion heaved Like those we see down yonder, she speeds on To lose herself and her remembered griefs In death's deep, pitying ocean. In her youth They say she was most lovely to behold, And prematurely pious ; yet a child She vowed a pilgrimage to Catherine's shrine In old Sienna, and she kept her vow : And one who saw her kneeling all alone In that strange gloomy oratory dark, With her white veil flung backward from her face, Her young soul breaking from her girlish eyes. Caught up her ecstacy and painted it : And to this day in Sienna's antique town, In the high church of San Domenico You may behold her on a chapel wall Supporting fainted Catherine. Sodoma Is he who made her deathless in this guise ; Nor he alone confessed her early spell, For from her girlhood many sighed for her. 262 poems— 1854. But only one she loved ; 'tis very strange These saintly maidens are so often snared By vehement stormy spirits. Madeline Was promised in her opening bloom to one Who was like thunder crashing through the dark, Shooting whence no one knew, nor whither bound, Nor if his deeds worked benefit or harm. Snatched when a boy from his old father's roof, From vines and olives hurled into the war And roystering camps of mercenary troops, Now late restored, a world-worn man he came Deep scarred with wounds and browned with sun and wind, And keeping of his boyhood not a trace Except his love for Madeline. Her word Stilled his most stormy passions, he revei'ed The grass she bent in stepping, for her sake He gave up war and all its fierce delights : And she, perchance she loved him all the more Because he had such need of her, because Her idol must be prayed for, not prayed to. She was his hold on good, a tiny branch By which he hung on o'er eternity. He looked to her as to a living saint, Often in mingled reverence and jest (That mixture common in the human heart), Hath he been heard to call her by this name, His Madonnina ; and it came to pass LA MADON'NINA. 263 That all Volterra called her even so, And vied with him in homage. One fair eve They being troth-plight, her consenting sire Into her lap a rain of ducats poured ; And counting her, as all men did, discreet, He gave her power to spend it at her will. Then did Lorenzo and the maiden plan A pretty home among the sloping trees That tangle their old roots deep in the sod, Down to the ceiling of those circular tombs, Where round about the long extinguished lamp Patricians crumble slowly, and at the gates Slave-skeletons are stretched in faithful guard. Lorenzo vowed to sheath his rapier, hang His streaming plume above the door, and pledge His comrades in his helmet, and his bride Sang back her gladdest minstrelsy. It chanced, If chance indeed have handling of our haps, Lorenzo met upon an evening tide Old fellow-troopers, sharers of his perils, Now seeking in Volterra's youth a band Of volunteers for service. With loud mirth They greeted him and questioned of his weal, And much was said in their irreverent talk It was as well no Madonnina heard ; For these were graceless heathens, who had lost 264 poems — 1854. In the rough camp whatever piety Had with them crossed their mother's threshold. They held light sacred things, and on the force Of their wild torrent was Lorenzo home ; They drank deep draughts, they sang uproarious songs, And when they left those revels, 'twas to hurl Bowls massive as a cannon vomits forth, Which mightily they flung with rival strength Across the Eoman amphitheatre. Now on this antique play-ground one had set A picture of Our Lady in a shrine, A picture famous far and near for virtue, A healer of all sickness. I'll not say How many blind eyes opened on its face, How many cripples walked, and deaf men heard The crowd around them lauding ; there was none So bold, so rude, as by that shrine to pass Without some courtesy. But these rough soldiers Had not the piety of chivalry. They mocked and as they played blasphemed, Heated with Chianti's wine they uttered jests That sober would appal, aye even them, And this contagion rash Lorenzo caught : Fooling as madly as the rest, he had A huge bowl poised in action as to throw, When one at hand with wicked merriment Braved him, " Thou wilt not dare, thou chicken- heart, LA MADONNINA. 265 " To aim at yon old picture, lest forsooth The painted arm should stretch and smite thee dead." "Dare!" said Lorenzo, "dost thou dare me, friend," With that he flung the stony glohe aloft. Too truly aimed, it struck Madonna's breast ! And the scared revellers saw her lift her arm In token of that outrage : earthly stroke Touched not Lorenzo, but some bolt unseen Felled the strong trooper, like a bludgeoned ox He tumbled prone upon the sunset sward, And when they ran to lift him, he was dead. Tis true a heretic old peevish wight, A pottingar of some alchemic still, Hath often told me that those drunken men Were not too faithful witnesses ; that he Looking intently on Lorenzo's corse, Believed him perished of a ruptured vein, Straining his strength unduly in that sport. I tell you what he told me, in his words Crabbed and cold, and unbelieving. So Thought not poor Maddonina when to fate She bowed submissively with broken heart. Her dowry's gold in self-devoting haste She gave to build a chapel o'er her love, And o'er the altar where his body lies 266 poems — 1854. She shrined in silver that dread effigy, With its avenging arm and wounded breast, That still accuse the byegone sacrilege ; And daily masses said at her behest And echoed by the Amen of her tears Kesound within its precincts. Other joy Hath not the veiled nun, she never speaks, Except in prayers, nor sings, save anthem songs, Nor hath a man beheld her from that hour. Her beauty hath become tradition now, Nought of her lives among us but her voice, And often when high floating o'er the choir I hear her sky-lark notes I think, if heaven Hath pity on such penitence unstained, Such grief for others' sins, that it may be Lorenzo is assoilzied of his crime, And for her sake accepted and redeemed. m TO THE POETS OF THE NEW GENERATION. In olden times when war was lord The pious bigot fled, His heart leaped not when leaped the sword, No gory battle-bed Had honour in his eyes, Which musing mounted to the skies : So he from man's companionship Retired to dens and caves, And from his craggy steep Looked calmly on the plain, Nor questioned if 'twere God's clear rain That swelled the river's waves, Or if they rose with blood of foully slaughtered slaves. He had his visions there apart Bred by an isolated heart, •268 poems— 1854. And while the shrinking women down In yon beleagured town Clasped their pale starvelings at the breast. To his ecstatic rest Were given dreams of angels bright, And virgins clad in light. When want and hardship spurred Up to his cave some squalid herd, With hearts that ache and feet that bleed, Imploring, " Saint, wilt intercede With Him for us too high, That He may help us ere we die," At that lugubrious call Would he come forth and face them all, And imperturbable recite Some solemn mystic rite With many a wondrous word, In language all unknown to any soul that heard ; Then blessing them the same, In some uncomprehended name, Assure them it had virtue past compare Because 'twas understood by none that listened there. O poets thus ye do In this our generation new : The world is in its throes, A thousand homesteads of repose TO THE POETS OF THE NEW GENERATION. 209 Are shuttered as I write, But every one of you is eremite : High on your aiiy crag With introverted gaze In self observances ye waste your days, Nor heed what storms uproot the nation's flag, Nor how on Danube's banks Close up the serried ranks And flash the Cossack blades, Nor the fear stricken wives and maids On Revel's icy shore, Where louder and more loud comes England's lion-roar. The troops are trampling in the streets, Down, poets, from your still retreats, Where each with analytic knife Traces the nerves of spirit-life ; The world is in its throes, Can ye but sing poetic pains ? Amid the writhe of orphaned woes Can ye but note the birth of some fantastic strain ? Down, poets, from your solitudes Above the reach of human floods, From your Engaddi and your Nile, Your sea-washed Carmel's rocky pile Descend, each minstrel-monk 270 poems — 1854. On beatific visions fed, With cabalistic Hashish drunk, Whose fumes have such sweet mania bred That rapt, insensible, ye sing Apostrophes to sea and star, While hosts of fellow-mortals swing Caught in the hurricane of war ! Nor when your followers climb the rude Steep pathway to your misty gate, And pray you for some utterance wise, Worthy such dweller in the skies, To cheer them in their strait, Some revelation of the good, Some legend of the great, Use not, oh poet, priestly rite In learned language dark, But send your thought a living spark, To lead and comfort through the night. The poet is a human sun, To lavish light ordained, Not in a nebulous haze To dissipate his rays, Nor stumble throughout space a vagrant orb un- chained. Him an unerring law Should to his fellows draw : On all that men have done, TO THE POETS OF THE NEW GENERATION. 271 On all that they have felt Should his effulgent glory fall, And every harshness melt, And show the loopholes in the prison wall, The silvery star that decks the very coffin pall. 1-2 poems— 1854. THE FOUR WINDS. NORTHERLY. O'er thy shoulders wrap thy maud, Pluck thy honnet o'er thy hrows, Not a bum is yet unthawed, Not a snowdrop cheers the knowes. Like a cateran on a raid, Rushing from his mountain white, Brandishing his whetted blade Comes the north wind in his might. See the cowering flocks that haste To the covert of the crag ! See the birches on the waste Torn as tempest-tattered flag ! TIIK FOUR WINDS. 273 Wilt thou to its fury yield, Crouch and flutter e'en as they ? Or in some warm Josy bield Stretch thee by the faggot's ray ? Out on such a womanish blood ! I will brace my loins and go, Daunted by no angry flood, By no drifts of wreathing snow. Not in rash uncertain hour From my rest I sally forth, 1 will gird me with thy power, Wind that blowest from the north. "With thy keen Ithuriel spear Search and try me, I am brave, I demand no cloudless sphere, No translucent glassy wave : Bold I face thy lowering sky, Thick and dark with menaced snow, I am young, my heart is high, Northwind, in thy teeth I go ! SOUTHERLY. Royally rides the Southwind, He rides across the hills, His voice is a loud but pleasant voice Like the sound of thawing rills. T 274 poems— 1854. Like albatrosses flying Across the Atlantic deep, Before him on the blue blue space The clouds' strong pinions sweep. Green woods at his approaching Erect their leafy manes, That bristle like a war steed's neck When the foe is in the plains. The smoke of quiet hamlets, The busy cities' fume He sweepeth from the face of earth With his all-cleansing broom. While all the birds on branches, And all the flies in air, Sing out a glad accompaniment, To his step trampling there. Royally rides the Southwind, Against the tide rides he, And beateth back the sullen Tay That hastens out to sea. Go back, thou purple water, Back to thy heathy hill, Go, lick the feet of dark Ben More, And say, 'tis Auster's will. THE FOUR WINDS. Brave Auster ever buoyant ! I bless thy hearty tone, I bless thee for thy wholesome cheer And blast of pure ozone. There's not a weary creature That labours in the field, But smileth when thy foot goes by, And knows his languor healed. There's not a w r orn eyed woman That stoopeth o'er her seam But hails thee on her casement-sill As fresh as morning's beam. The air grows sweet behind thee, The flowers look up and bloom, The blue space broadens in the sky. The sunlight in the room. Bide on, thou strong winged Auster, By many a city's towers, Go sweep the fever from their streets, As thou hast done from ours. EASTERLY. The bitter wind comes from the East, It comes with joy, it comes with pain, It chills the blood of man and beast, It nips the sprouting grain. i -J 276 poems— 1854. The unfledged linnets, chid for mirth, On naked branches fold their wing, The craven sun deserts the earth, And winter preys on spring. perverse wind, from morning's gate Thus speeding to our western shore, With nothing but a blight for freight From all her spicy store : From lands which light and rapture bathe, Where everlasting summer smiles, Thou earnest a cloudy swathe To enwrap our shivering isles. As if some trader spread her sails, Returning from a port of Ind, And 'stead of gems and silken bales Brought only sands of Scinde. As if on Java's luscious coast Some home-bound sailor's whim should be, To bear to those who loved him most A venomed Upas tree. So thou from heat dost bring us chills, From sunshine mists of moistened gloom, And barrenness from fruitful hills, And nipping frosts from bloom. THE FOUR WINDS. bitter wind, thou art not dumb, Thy whistle sounds an axiom trite, " It boots not whence misfortunes come If they have power to smite." WESTERLY. Blow softly, gentle Zephyr, Blow from the setting sun, 1 need not thy reminder To tell me day is done. The heaven behind thee fadeth, Its golden jets of fire Blanch into lifeless ashes On some extinguished pyre. Thy wings are strong, O Zephyr, Yet cannot lift on high One single roseleaf cloudlet That droppethdown the sky. Thou weeping, weeping Zephyr ! I too am weeping sore, My day of youth is ended, My light will rise no more. Not all the breath of memory, Nor all the gales of grief, Can blow me back from boyhood One cloudlet's rosy leaf. 278 poems— 1854. I feel the mists of twilight Up from the valley press, Like dying men's last kisses I feel thy chill caress. Thou comest from the death-bed Of yon expiring sun, Thou comest to my bosom Where hope and warmth are done. Blow softly, weeping Zephyr, That sun again shall rise, But youth and youth's beloved May glad no more mine eyes. 279 AN APPAKITION. She stood on the Western rampart Fronting the sea and skies, And all the blue of the sunset Had gathered itself in her eyes. #• And all the red of the sunset Burned on her conscious cheek, And all the gold of the sunset Was fused in her ringlets' streak. With her white robes ruby tinted By the light from that fiery sea, I thought her a flaming angel Sent from the clouds to me. 280 poems — 1854. But the gold, and the blue, and the crimson Faded and fled away, She stood in the faltering twilight Pallid and chill and gray. The sea-fogs seemed arising Out of her misty form, In their wreaths her crescent forehead Showed stern as a moon in storm. With her white robes faintly gleaming As she stood by that starless sea, I thought her a cold corpse-maiden Sent from the grave to me. :2s 1 QUICKLIME. There is quicklime for the corse To accelerate decay, With a kind destructive force Every trace to clear away, Lest malaria it should harhour, lest infection it should give To the healthy and the happy round about the place that live. Tell me, tell me, when the heart Is a dead corrupting thing, From what philosophic mart Mental quicklime shall we bring ? Lest some other faiths be poisoned, lest some other hopes be slain, Hasten, hasten dissolution, when revival is 282 poems— 1854. STAR-PROMISES. Ye many stars so keenly blue, Ye are so like in all your ways, I wonder how life wears in you, And if your men pass happy days. And if our globe appear the same To you across the breadth of space, A single spark of steady flame, Like all its fellows in the race. Ye are so like, I needs must think One monochrome of azure calm O'erfloods your orbs from brink to brink, A sweet insipid cloying balm. A pulseless hush, like tropic spring High-arching o'er Pacific seas, When not a bird is on the wing, And not a flutter in the breeze. BTAB-PBOMI8E8. 283 stars, serenely though you live, I would not care to test your powers, Unless assured that you could give A larger, nobler track than ours. Assured that there none could exhaust The verve and vigour of the soul, Could feel the bloom of Being lost Ere the deep crimson cup unroll. To open as a cankered flower Displaying only shrivelled buds, To waste an ever baffled power, As on the beaches beat the floods, 1 would not ask — but I am fain, When searching in your friendly eyes To hope for victories over pain, And conquests o'er infirmities. I seek not rest, but complete strength, And mind and body's tuned accord, I seek what I shall find at length In the full presence of the Lord ! 284 poems — 1854. SHOKTCOMINGS. I look beyond the morrow, I look beyond the year, I cannot be contented with life's contracted sphere, Cramped in a space so narrow, so full of jostling woes, I look for some Hereafter of freedom and repose. I strive, but never conquer ; I aim, but never win ; I think a grand ideal, I act a new-shaped sin ; I lift mine eyes to heaven, and stumble in the mire, I faint with vain endeavour, I pine with vain de- sire. I turn my glances inward, alas for what I find ! What hopes, like broken javelins, have left their barbs behind ! BHORTI 0MING9 •.!-."> How ill did I requite them who tended me in youth. How weak was my tenacity, how treacherous my truth ! I turn my glances inward, alas this heart of care ! So feeble in reliance, so subtle in despair, Thou sleepless watching spirit that cannot sink to rest, That cannot trust our Father who gives thee what is best. I gaze around and shudder at pestilence and dooms, At pauper hearths unlighted, at crowded cholera tombs, At cannonaded cities, at foundering ships at sea. Till all my fellows' anguish seems hoarded up in me. I cannot be contented with earth as it is now, The red mark of destruction is ringed on every bough ; I look beyond the morrow, I look beyond the year, I strain to catch the dawning when Christ shall re-appear. 286 poems— 1854. SKETCHES OF CHARACTER. You would have painted her in neutral tints, Or in white chalk upon a sombre ground, A clear gray sky, transparent but not blue, Cloudless and cool with only so much wind As let you feel that nature was alive. This was my emblem for her, when my heart Reposed beneath her high o'erarching calm And left off vexing. Seldom did she speak. But always with effect of good result ; Whate'er she said was just, whate'er she did The thing most needful, and her noiseless hand Moved like a sower's shedding out the grain, And left her track fertility. She was Pure as a rock-spring, free from passion's heat, Her smiles were like a febrifuge, or streams SB ETCHES OF OHABACTEB. '287 Of running water in a thirsty land. I worshipped, I revered her as a saint, But never sought to woo her as a wife : Desire sank in her presence, her cool touch Numbed all my pulses with its anodyne. If I had dwelt for ever by her side I think I should have petrified to stone. II. Hippies and eddies on her surface played, And winds capricious shifted all the vanes, And foam-bells circled on her inky pools, So that men called her treacherous ; her moods Changed like the Euxine, glassing now the sky, Now wrecking frigates ; when she bent her brows You thought of Phoebus and the Python, this Made her oft dreaded, and by coward hearts Hated as well as feared ; but under all Rolled a strong current steady in its course, Deeper than death, and stronger than despair, Unswerving to the gulf of ocean bound, And heavy with a weight of buried love, With long- drowned hopes, and hidden memories Sucked from life's upper changes in the abyss. But as the dead with stiffened fingers gripe Some treasure which they would not leave behind. So unrelaxed she held what she had loved ; Nor ever guessed the gazers who made sport 288 poems— 1854. Of all her wild variety of moods, Her fluctuating impulses that wheeled Like swallows on the water searching flies, They guessed not of this under current strong Sailing in silence to eternity, With voiceless griefs, and uncomplaining pains. III. His was a double nature not akin — An upward soul that parleyed with the stai's, And from empyrean heights looked stainless down Upon our fighting, foul humanity, As the pure virgins from their upper ring Looked on the athletes in the circus games. This soul was delicate and sensitive, Its nerves acuter than mimosa leaf To touch of love, or chivalry, or faith. This soul was made for soaring, unabashed Could beat its pinion 'gainst an adverse gale, And if it had been sovran of his breast He had been sovran of his fellow men. But squatted by its side a loathly mate, A sort of creeping despicable sense, Hard, beetle-sheathed against the stroke of shame. I dare not call it soul, it was so thick With earthy vapours, it could live and thrive In haunts impure, and on rank poisons fed, As erst was fabled of the serpent kind. SKETCHES OF CHARACTER. 28fl And when the nobler spirit roared itself And tried to issue from that slimy coil, This creeper followed and polluted all. High resolutions and unselfish aims It sullied with its trail, and even made Abominations of his holy things. So when he sang of heaven there was ajar, When he would picture heaven there was a blotch, And his divinest works bore signature Of Satan's cloven hoof. For many years I watched the conflict in that double soul, And trembled for the end : but God watched too : lb' who is helper of the impotent Sustained the better part, and at the last The croaking lusts were silenced, and the wing Once more elastical of that freed heart Kose on the heavenly breezes up to God, Nor thence returned, for he is long since dead, And comrade of the angels and the saints. 290 poems— 1854. TARNAWAY. heather hills of Tarnaway ! wooded glens of Tarnaway ! What years since then have slipped aside, What wounded hopes have mortified ! Yet fair the memories abide Of youth's bright hour in Tarnaway. 1 see the rocks on which we stood, The mossy rocks above the flood, I see thee in thy pensive mood, So young, so tender, and so good, Among the hills of Tarnaway. I speak, I hear thee answering low, On cheek and forehead's changing glow The happy blushes come and go, Ah ! can it be so long ago Since we were friends in Tarnaway ? TABNAWAY. 291 It was not much, I think, was said. Thy silence like a book I read, What promise through that moment sped ! But we are strangers now instead, And far from love and Tamaway. The hydra world rears up between Its reptile heads of scaly sheen, Life is no more what it hath been, Yet in my heart rcmaineth green That hour of love in Tamaway ! ■292 poems — 1854. FERRACHUR LEEICH.* The bride woke up on her bridal bed, She woke from a nightmare's grip, And she saw her husband beside her dead, With the curls unruffled about his head, And the tinge on his parted lip. She laid her hand on his forehead white, It struck to her heart like snow. Was ever bride in such cruel plight, What secret enemy stole to night And dealt on my lord this blow ? Then she called the esquires that lay asleep In the entrance hall without, And they searched the body for gashes deep, But all unwounded in death's calm sleep Lay the corse of that baron stout. * Ferrachur Leeich is the hero of many legends in the Western Highlands of Scotland, and of him a story is related similar to that of the poem. FERRACHUR LEETCII. 293 In vain she questioned, for none had seen The trace of a midnight foe, " Nought passed, save a butterfly blue and green, With spots of fire on its gauzy sheen, When the dawn began to glow." All day the bride with her maiden train Beside the dead kept guard ; The linnet sang in the lancet pane, The grasshopper chirped in the woody lane Below the turret barred. And the long June sunlight faded slow Across the castle wall ; Like a stream dried up in its summer flow The bride sat fixed in a moveless woe, By the side of death's pale thrall. With twilight the linnet ceased to sing, And over the window pane All burnished with fire on its emerald wing, And its head encrowned with a blazing ring. The butterfly passed again. Swift and straight as a ray of light It shot through the darkening room, On to the face of the coipse so white ; And ere the lady could trust her sight, It vanished away in gloom. 294 poems— 1854. It vanished within the dead man's mouth, And lo, he was stirred all through With a languid motion, as when the South Rains on the flowers in a time of drought, And lifteth their heads anew. The eyes unlidded with creeping smile " Dear wife !" said the voice once more, •' My soul hath been wandering far this while Beyond the ocean's remotest isle, Unto the Infinite shore. " My soul will wander, it may not rest In this narrow world of ours, But I charge thee, love, by thy faithful breast. Give me not over with rites unblest To the grave's appalling powers." Down on the bed she leant by him, With her young heart aching sore, •' Stay with me, love, why wilt thou swim Over the waves of the ocean dim Unto the Infinite shore ?" Down on the bed her face she bent And she vowed as he bade her vow That never till her own soul was spent, Should the priestly rites and the oil be shent On his sleep-entranced brow, FEIUIACHUR LEEICH. 295 The bride woke up on her marriage bed, And she saw she lay alone ; For her husband's soul again was fled To the unseen shadowy abysses dread Where the spirits dwell unknown. She murmured not, but she hushed the place As ye quiet a fevered child ; She folded the form in her nuptial lace, And she sent her esquires all achace, Hunting the gray wolf wild. And all clay long she watched him by, A dreary December day, The storm rushed seaward with angry cry, The screech owl shrieked in the covert nigh, And the night fell thick and gray. And she watched and watched for that mystic thing Which she saw return before, Which brought back life on its emerald wing, As the ice bound lakes leap up at spring With a pulse of joy once more : When the heavy arras was backward flung, And a priest with haughty air Stept over the threshold ; her heart was wrung At the first accost from his suasive tongue, " 'Tis a corse is lying there. 296 poems— 1854. " My daughter, leave him to ghostly rite : Thy watching avails not now." But the true wife trembled with deadly fright, And muffled up close from his questioning sight The slumberer's senseless brow. " It is not death, 'tis a passing trance, He will wake as he promised soon." " Ah child," said the priest with a cynic glance, " 'Tis Satan himself in mocking chance Who hath promised thee such a boon. " 'Tis his fiendish sorcery worketh here, But the end I will surely bide." And smiling contempt on her girlish fear He drew a settle of oakwood near, And watched by the dead man's side. He spake no more, but he fixed his gaze On her eyes till she sat spell bound, Unable to stir from her rooted place, Like a planted pine, whom its fibres lace To its pit in the stony ground. He gazed, and her lids wei-e weighed with lead, And her senses swooned and swam, And every recollection fled, Aye even the vow she had vowed the dead. In that strong dissolving dwam. FERRACHUR LEEICII. 297 And when she wakened the night was black : In the one lamp's smoking glare, She saw the butterfly's gleaming track As it flew to the bed and fluttered back, For the sleeper lay not there. Far down in the vault of the chapel rang The psalm of the monkish quire, And it stabbed her heart with a hopeless pang, For she heard the great door's closing clang, And the steps returning nigher. The butterfly circled in dizzy flight With a sound like a human sigh Round and round in her garments white, As if it prayed for her hand to smite, That the severed soul might die. It gleamed and glowed with a blue witch-flame, Like an unloosed star it sped Staggering in circles, close it came, And she thought she heard like her whispered name In the voice of her husband dead. Nearer and near through her garments white, Till it dropped in her bosom's fold With a sting of fire, and behold, that night, When the maidens returned from the funeral rite, Their lady was dead and cold ! 298 poems — 1854. OUR ARMY. Who saith, " The giants were of old, The dwarfs are of to-day ; Your fathers were of iron mould, Your brothers are of clay ; Your fathers trod in ringing steel, Your sons in silken vest ; Your fathers sought the common weal, Your sons their selfish rest ?" Whoever doubts our Husbands' might, Our Brothers' warrior-mien, I bid him stand on Alma's height Or Inkermann's ravine ; There fenceless bosoms panted high As ever corslet bound, Nor visor screened the dauntless eye That scanned the foes around. OUR ARMY. 299 Across those dark Cimmerian shades, Which weeping ghosts of yore Thrid from their soft Thessalian glades Unto the Eternal shore, Never went souls to death and doom In such heroic state, Nor wider yawned the entrance-gloom Of that Tartarean gate. Together through the hattle-field They frayed their gory path, Who sword to sword, and shield to shield, Had ofttimes met in wrath : Still rivals in a warrior's joy, But rival comrades true, They razed the feuds of Fontenoy, Of Crecy and Poitou. A band of brothers in the front They stood, when maddened hordes Came rushing to the deadly brunt From Don and Volga's fords : They stood enlaced, that little group, Eight in the cannon's track, Defied the Northern Eagle's swoop, And hurled his lesions back. 300 poems— 1854. mother England, did they say, " Thy veins were ehbing cold, That feeble were thy sons to-day By them thou'st borne of old?" Rise up and vindicate their blood, And tell the slanderous crew The first-born of thy nationhood Were not more brave and true ! The grand old Mother ! hoary-haired, And seamed with toil and grief, She blesseth them whom war hath spared, The Private and the Chief : She blesseth them with fervent prayer, And in each flashing eye You see they count it well to dare For her — if need, to die. She saith : "I am content to fall, If my decline be near, With such a race to bear my pall, To lift me on my bier. 1 am content, for men must say " Her growth was proud and long, These are the fruits of her decay, What young lands boast as strong '?" And if I perish, children, state This simple truth of me : " She lived to make the nations great. She fell to keep them free !" 301 THE END OF 1854. The year is dead In his wintry bed Under the linden trees : Let us ring no bell For his funeral knell Adown the midnight breeze. But where he is laid Send a cannonade, For his farewell rites to boom : 'Twas a soldier year We are burying here, And shall have a soldier's tomb. For through smoke and blood, Over field and flood, This veteran forced his tracks. 302 poems— 1854. Men's lives he hewed, Like the brittle wood Beneath the glittering axe. And I thought it well How to-night befell, As the setting sun gat low : The sky's broad breast From east to west Was one ensanguined glow. And it seemed to beat Like the furnace heat Of a city's burning core : Would to heaven, I cried, That fiery tide Gleamed from Crimea's shore ! Would to heaven that sign, Old year, were thine, Of victory o'er our foes ! But the flames died out, And a rabble rout Of black clouds choked the close. Dear friends afar In that wintry war, Who knows your present cheer ? Or how many a soul Down the winds may roll Of this dark departing year ? 303 POEMS-1855. THE SUBMAKINE TELEGRAPH. MARCH 1ST. Lean down thy shoulder on the shore, Lean lower, where the waves come in, Say, does no distant trump of war Reverberate beneath their din ? List, if across their restless tide Pass thrills from some deploring lyre, Where fisher barks and frigates ride Above the lightning-goaded wire. There steamers snort, there cruisers tack, There barges plunge with canvass furled, Nor feel how underneath their track Is flashing news that shakes a world. 304 poems — 1855. Ah listen England ! on thy cliffs, Those bulwarks of thy freedom's hold, Beats up the story of our griefs, Of armies slain by want and cold. Beats up, and echoes back its knell From every headland's frowning crest, How in the fight, some, happy, fell, And how their country starved the rest. How lips that never blenched to foes, How eyes as keen as sabre blade In icy hunger filmed and froze, By brethren of their blood betrayed. Lean down, and hearken on the beach, Heed, England ! that upbraiding strain, For every billow hath its speech Of loss, and famine, death and pain. Some widow's doom, some orphan's wrong, A nation's shame, a throne's alarms, And that beleaguered fortress strong In presence of our puny arms. Defiant of our shadowy band Fast dropping 'neath an unseen scourge, Untouched by Sclave or Cossack hand — This is the story of the surge. THE SUBMARINE TELEGRAPH. 305 No wonder that the chordings wailed, That every voice indignant said, •'Sebastopol is still assailed, But 'tis by phantoms of your dead." >0(j poems — 1855. SEBASTOPOL. MARCH 3 1ST. In the night as I lie with my habe at my breast, And hear his calm life flowing forward through rest, Strange visions assail me my courage to freeze, Strange phantoms of war from the dread Cher- sonese. By my night lamp's pale glimmer I see the dull glow Of the long-besieged city on guard 'mid its snow ; I see the dark horseman patrol by the wall, I hear the rough sentry commandingly call. The icy blast beats upon port and redoubt, The Avar of the cannonade slowly dies out, While the women and children from terrified dream At the click of the musketeers start up and scream. SEBASTOPOL. 307 The visions of midnight to me they disclose The numberless ranks of Sebastopol's foes, From the camp's gloomy graveyard they rise to my view, The warriors whom England neglected and slew. With hunger-gnawed visage, with frost-bitten limb. With loose rags they march on in skeleton trim, On each bodiless charger a bodiless man, And the ghosts of dead generals point in the van. On the snow-muffled rampart a menacing form Confronteth their squadrons, defieth their storm. He towers o'er his legions that quail in the gate, And the wave of his sceptre 's despotic as fate. On his bare haughty forehead a cincture of fire Burns red with ambition, with hate and desire ; Dilating in fury he soars as he stands, And his voice is a god's to his fear-ridden bands. Lo, this is my vision of siege and of war. The daring invaders, the obdurate Czar, Dead phantoms that wrestle — the living lie still As that conquering pageantry sweeps up the hill. They lie and they sleep like the babe in my arms, Them pestilence druggeth, them famine disarms, Defrauded of glory, with doubt at their head, While Sebastopol's taken and sacked by the dead. 308 poems— 1855. EARLY LOVE. I remember the early days When our paths wound side by side, I remember no word of praise, Only looks which that praise implied. I remember your generous youth That burned for the great and free, I remember your zeal for truth As warm as your love for me. I cared not to reign alone O'er your soul's ideal land, It was glory to share that throne "With all that was good and grand. We woo'd not in nattering gibes That desecrate love's high name, We walked like the Hebrew tribes In the siefht of Jehovah's flame. EARLY LOVE. 309 We walked in a sheltered vale 'Neath the tender morning skies, Ere one starry dream could pale, Or one worldly gust arise. It lives in my heart so clear Not a colour is dimmed by age, Yet so unlike all things here I could deem it some missal's page, Or some frescoed legend quaint From the mystic Giotto's hand, Or the tale of a pilgrim saint With his deeds in the Holy Land. Ah friend, 'twas a passage brief That can never be crossed again, It was followed by pain and grief, Yet I hold it was worth the pain. And its memory still smells sweet As when stainless together we trod, Now with bleeding and way-soiled feet I am travelling alone towards God. 310 poems — 1855. SHEEP IN THE SUBURB. In the London suburb squalid, 'Neath the dusky London sun, 'Midst the features hard and stolid, And the meagre houses dun, With the northwind from the city Blowing smoke-wreaths in my face, And a beggar's dolorous ditty Moving side by side my pace, Me a sudden turn surpriseth With a flock of ewes and rams, Whence a plaintive bleating riseth From their over driven lambs. Then I shut mine eyes and follow, Follow in that bleating wake, And at once the breezy hollow And the mountains on me break. SHEEP IN THE SUBURB. 911 With the hidden streamlet springing Down among the alders low, With the very same lark singing, Which we heard there long ago ; And the rocky sheep-paths sweeping Round the curving waterfall, And the heart within me leaping, Leaping faster than it all ! And the heather moor extending Miles around us as we paused, And thine eyes upon me bending, And the blush that gazing caused ; All these memories sweet unbidden Through my tingling senses run. Till I nearly am o'er-ridden By the butcher's blue-frocked son. For allured behind that bleating I perceive not, till too late, All the weary flock retreating Through his sacrificial gate. Woe is me for lamb and wether, Each predestined to the knife ! Doomed to perish altogether Like those memories of my life. 312 poems — 1855. Those fair memories, which that bleating Has revived in me so late, Unresistingly retreating Through time's sacrificial gate. 318 THE DWINA. Stony-beowed Dwina, thy face is as flint, Horsemen and waggons cross, scoring no dint, Cossacks patrol thee and leave thee as hard, Camp-fires but blacken and spot thee like pard, For the dead silent river lies rigid and still. Down on thy sedgy banks picquet the troops, Scaring the night-wolves with carols and whoops, Crackle their faggots of drift-wood and hay, And the steam of their pots fills the nostril of day, But the dead silent river lies rigid and still. Sledges pass sliding from hamlet to town, Lovers and comrades, and none doth he drown. Harness-bells tinkling in musical glee, For to none comes the sorrow that came unto me, And the dead silent river lies rigid and still 314 poems — 1855. I go to the Dwina, I stand on his wave, Where Ivan, my dead, has no grass on his grave Stronger than granite that coffins a Czar, Solid as pavement, and polished as spar, Where the dead silent river lies rigid and still. Stronger than granite ? nay, falser than sand ! Fatal the clasp of thy slippery hand, Cruel as vulture's the clutch of thy claws. Who shall redeem from the merciless jaws Of the dead silent river so rigid and still ? Crisp lay the new-fallen snow on thy breast, Trembled the white moon through haze in the west, Far in the thicket the wolf-cub was howling, Down by the sheep-cotes the wolf-dam was prowling. And the dead silent river lay rigid and still, When Ivan my lover, my husband, my lord, Lightly and cheerily stepped on the sward, Light with bis hopes of the morrow and me, That the reeds on the margin leaned after to see, But the dead silent river lay rigid and still. O'er the fresh snow-fall, the winter-long frost, O'er the broad Dwina the forester crost, Snares at his girdle, and gun at his side, Gamebag weighed heavy with gifts for his bride, And the dead silent river lay rigid and still. Illl. HWINA. 318 Rigid and silent, and crouching for prey, Crouching for him who went singing his way, Oxen were stabled, and sheep were in fold, But Ivan was struggling in torrents ice-cold, 'Neath the dead silent river so rigid and still. Home he came never, we searched by the ford, Small was the fissure that swallowed my lord, Glassy ice-sheetings had frozen above A crystalline cover to seal up my love In the dead silent river so rigid and still. Still by the Dwina my home-torches burn, Faithful I watch for my bridegroom's return, When the moon sparkles on hoarfrost and tree I see my love crossing the Dwina to me O'er the dead silent river so rigid and still. Always approaching, he never arrives, Howls the north-east wind, the dusty snow drives Snapping like touchwood I hear the ice crack, And my lover is drowned in the water-hole black 'Neath the dead silent river sorierid and still. 3L6 poems— 1855. ENGLISH WOESHIP IN SEBASTOPOL, SUNDAY, SEPTEMBER 14-TH, 1855. Let the batteries cease shelling, the mortars lie still, Be these cannon-mouths muzzled that snarl on the hill ; March our men down to prayer, down the pathway bomb-frayed, While our priests in the centre advance undis- mayed. Where the shell entered yesterday now enter we, Where the Russ worshipped yesterday now wor- ship we, Not with altars and tapers, and images stained, But with gratitude bursting and love unrestrained. ENGLISH WORSHIP IN SEBASTOPOL. 317 Through the gaps in the Cupola issue our prayers, O'er the grass-covered streets and the desolate squares, Our praises confused in tumultuous hymn, For the singer's voice chokcth, the singer's eyes dim. In Sehastopol's shelter we hug ourselves here ; Bar outside the winter, its famines and fear ! Bar outside the bastions blood-crusted which led To the stronghold of Russia o'er Englishmen dead ! Heap, heap up the trenches for graves o'er their bones, Tear the enemy's ramparts for monument stones, Let them lie where they fell, in posterity's sight, Our brothers, our sons, given spendthrift in fight. We gave them for England, they gave themselves free, More lavish than sunbeams on tropical sea, Generations to come shall record of each man, •' Twas a hero-heart cleft on the deadly Redan." 318 poems— 1855 Peal, peal out the organ, if yet one be found Unripped by the grape-shot that cumber the ground ; Ring, ring out our psalms over harbour and shore, For our dead are at peace with the God they adore ! 319 TO M. (. On; fate her precious gifts will hoard, Her plate is under lock and key, Her pewter flagons load the board, But few her silver goblets see. Her guests are set below the salt, Regaled with poor insipid fare. While one or two she will exalt To savoury meats and vintage rare. How many foolish folk we meet ! How many vapid thoughts we say ! Society's a London street, Devoid of colour, form, or ray. Not often in this sober sky The sun breaks out with dazzling power, Not often as the years roll by The heart's stiff aloe bursts in flower. 320 poems— 1855. Not often leaving idle words, The parrot-prate of converse cold, We strike our spirit's richest chords To some dear listener, fellow-souled. One moment we may prove in sooth That fusion of congenial minds, Those fearless utterances of truth Untrammelled as the winged winds. One moment, then the bridge is drawn, The chasm of life between us gapes, The cheery smiling turns to yawn As round us flock the 'customed shapes. And with the rest we walk the road, Indifferent who may come or go, Or where we fix our frail abode, Or how we speak of what we know. May I not say this who have roved For half my life across the sea, So very far from those I loved, So very far, toy friend, from thee .' 321 A EEQUIEM. TO THE MEMORY OF C. S. C. Gone away, gone away ! Did some unbeliever say Death and she were mates alway '? Did they call my love corruption's helpless prey? Gone away she is indeed, Parted on the lightning's speed, Yet in death I own no creed ; She is sound asleep, in truth she had much need. She was weaiy, so am I, She was favoured first to die, Glad I am she will not sigh O'er some narrow mound in which my bones must lie. 322 poems— 1855. Down athwart the ocean blue Where our feet cannot pursue, Where our vision holds no clue, Daylight makes its way and clearly passes through. Down among the waters dense, Fatal to our breathing sense, Tiny minnows, whales immense Live in genial homes, nor care to journey thence. Gone away, I think, is she Into some such azure sea, Too opaquely blue for me, Yet where God's own light plays ever round her free. Gone away in bliss to dwell Not to us accessible, Us in our thick earthy shell, But to her a home, a home where all is well. Gone away, gone away ! Wherefore do I fast and pray ? I have twilight, she hath day : Were she standing here, I would not bid her stay. 828 WALTER VON VOGEL. THE MINNESINGER. Tite minstrel sang unto the world. The world was far too busy. Across his path her chariot whirled And left him stunned and dizzy. The minstrel sang unto the birds, The birds replied with singing ; Their wordless song, his songful words Set all the woods aringing. In quiet Wurtzburg's garden ways, With briar and elder tangled, He sang them all his sweetest lays, And ne'er a critic wrangled. So when death bowed his boyish head, And stroked his ringlets sunny, "I leave unto the birds," he haul. •' My only sum of money. v 2 '3-li poems — 1855. •' Kind father, who hast heard my shrift, Choose thou, and thine succeeding. Of wheaten bread a yearly gift, My feathered songsters feeding. " And strew it o'er my burial stone, That they may sing above me, And deep down in my dust be known Some yet remain to love me. •' I leave unto the world my lays, Though lightly men will hold them, They cared not in my living days For any truths I told them." Thus wise in death the poet said, And still the like has followed, His verses oft are left unread, His crumbs are always swallowed. 355 SULTAN IBBAHIM.* The night-lamp in its agate cup Waneth low and nickers up, Twinkling here and twinkling there Now on the turban's topaz rare, And whitening now the ostrich plume That lies like snow-drift in the gloom : And now its restless elfin play Catches the dagger's ruby ray Along the unsheathed poniard hilt Left open on the satin quilt, By the outstretched hand and limb Of sleeping Sultan Ibrahim. * I owe the groundwork of this poem to a Syrian legend related by Princess Belgiojoso in her " Scenes de la Vie Nomade en Orient." 326 poems — 1855. Happy Sultan, crowned this morn, And to be wed to-morrow ! Lightly yet the crown is borne, And bridals threat no sorrow ! He lies in bliss, he lies in dreams, He glideth down immortal streams, Immortal music in his ears Sounding from the heavenly spheres, And by him in an ivory boat O'er the lilied wave doth float That daughter of an Indian king Whose dark eyes haunted him afar. Eyes clearer than the southern star And pure as Himalayan spring : Round his bed these visions swim, Happy Sultan Ibrahim. A voice, a woman's voice beside ! No coy response of timid bride, This voice authoritative, deep Breaks at once his charmed sleep, And lifting up his prostrate head He sees his mother by his bed. As lotus in a river cold Sways and swings yet keeps its hold, In drought, or flood, or stormy tides Still level with the surface rides, SULTAN IBRAHIM. 027 That lady kept her steady life Throughout a court's intrigue and strife, Unpraised, unslandered, calm and great, Acknowledged mistress of the state. But now her haughty eye was strange. Her haggard features worked with change ; Each twisted tress's purple ring Rose like a snake about to spring ; Her lips, compressed with stern disdain, Were writhing in a spasm of pain, And thus she let her passion brim O'er startled Sultan Ibrahim. " A sign was sent to me, my son, A message from the Evil one, It comes direct from Eblis' Hall, It forces me to tell thee all. crowned Sultan, sceptred King, Thou art a nameless base-born thing, A wild-wood seedling, hazard-sown Upon the steps of Achmet's throne. No blood of Achmet runs in thee, And yet mine only son to me ! 1 was betrothed in mine own place Unto a kinsman of my race, A hunter youth of low degree, But kings are meaner souled than he. 328 poems — 1855. They brake my pledge for sake of gold, My girlhood at a price they sold, They held my heart of no account, They left my lover in the mount, And forced me o'er the Euxine wave To be the Sultan's garnished slave. He made me queen, he spake me fair, But ah, I pined for native air, And when they saw my strength nigh spent Me back to mine own land they sent. Again I climbed my Georgian hills, Again I saw by leaping rills My hunter love, who kept his truth As only can our mountain youth. Ah me ! it was a rapture wild, I know thou art not Achmet's child ! No sluggish channel of the plains Goes creeping through thy hunter veins, Thy limbs with mountain sinews strung, The mountain frankness whets thy tongue. Nay, art thou not more formed to rule Than hadst thou been a royal fool, Effete of nerve, and soft of hand, Too weak to grasp the ruler's brand, In whom no manly force survives, Yea, more a woman than thy wives ? Thy sire was freeman bold, like him Deal bravely, Sultan Ibrahim !" SULTAN IBRAHIM. 329 " Great is God !" the Sultan said, And meekly bowed his loyal head, " He setteth up, he bringeth down, He can the loftiest lord discrown. This morn I thought that death alone Could cast me from my rightful throne, I counted me a man to mate As equal with the mightiest state. But if I he not Achmet's son 1 am no King, God's will be done ! Go back my mother, sleep again, I do not fear my fellow men : God knows I held my crown from Him," Said pious Sultan Ibrahim. 330 poems — 1855. SULTAN IBEAHIM. PART II. The dawnwind whistles down the hill, The faint night flies before its chill. It breaks into the curtained room And blows away its scented gloom : And close behind it follows day, Peering on all this disarray Of broidered robes, and costly shawls, And jewelled weapons from the walls, Left scattered by a hasty hand On carpet rich and carved stand, And strewn upon the empty bed, Empty of his imperial head Who lay there in the twilight dim, Vanished Sultan Ibrahim ! SULTAN IBRAHIM. 331 A gallant heart above deceit, Ih could not brook to live a cheat, I!, would not rule with borrowed name, He would not shine with spurious fame, And, " If I be not Achmet's heir, I am no king," did he declare. So far away at early dawn He strode across his dewy lawn, Out on the open world to fare As best became a hunter's heir. Wrapt in a Santon's woollen fold Instead of kingly robes of gold, By mosque and thicket dark and cool, By garden green and cattle-pool He went, a subject through the state That yesterday allegiance swore : He went, unmurmuring at his fate : And think you not this man was more Thus meekly resting at your door, Than came he in seignorial pomp Preceded by the horn and tromp, And followed by a servile crowd Chanting their fulsome praises loud ? My heart's best homage goes to him, Loyal Sultan Ibrahim. Yet had he still been Begnant Lord, What priceless knowledge he had stored ! 332 poems— 1855. What insight into human hreast By prince and pasha ne'er possest ! What instruments of glorious deeds Have gathered 'rnong the way-side weeds, And in the hrook what pehbles found To sling each monsterto the ground ! But self-bereft of choice or use He could but mourn at each abuse, And self-deprived of right to cure He could but wonder and endure, A century's wrongs were 'venged on him, Powerless Sultan Ibrahim. His rank in mean disguises hid, Of yore went Haroun Alraschid A masquer 'neath the trusty stars Through Bagdad's lanes and rich bazaars. And wrongs he spied he could redress, And change past grief to happiness, And worth despised he could reward, And gird the hero with his sword. But this chivalric Georgian boy Dreaming o'er the plains of Troy, Not of Hector or Atrides Or the wrath of stern Pelides, But of some approaching time When the earth should purge its crime, SULTAN IIUiAIIIM. 383 When the strong the weak should aid, When all fraud and rapt and raid Should be myths of bygone ages Commented by learned sages — Only dreams were left to him, Crownless Sultan Ibrahim. And yet he sought to help his kind, Of rough reprisal unafraid, By no ingratitude dismay 'd; He buffeted life's desert wind Until a glory round him spread As circles Christian martyr's head ; A fame of saintship to him grew Whose spell the vilest villain knew, Mastered by that kingly grace, By that bravely patient face, By that firm heart which never quailed, Which circumstance so dimly veiled, Where pierced beyond all low disguise The royalty of noble eyes. The robber chief he could persuade Unransomed to restore the maid, The fraudful merchant at his sight Hid tallies false and balance light, The unjust judge reversed his say And let the trembling slave away, But most the mourner joyed in him. Gentle Sultan Ibrahim. 334 poems— 1855. Thus following in heroic tracks O'er world-famed battle-fields to-day, To-morrow weary feet he slacks By lonely legend-haunted bay, Encamping by Cilician wall Once familiar to Saint Paul : Until his vigour flagged, and then By a running stream he stayed, Wooed by such benignant shade As seldom soothes wayfaring men. There in a meadow close embraced By that river's winding coils, Rested he from all his toils 'Neath a spreading sycamore. From the covert of his tree, In the glossiest greenwood placed, He could view the glancing sea, And like a wild deer hotly chased Hope at last his pains were o'er. "Henceforth vowed to God alone Here I'll raise my spirit-throne, Prayers of honest faith I'll plant Hedging round my leafy tent, Prayers to heaven sincerely sent, God may hear, and God may grant, I will leave His world to Him," Said pious Sultan Ibrahim. :;:;:, SULTAN IBRAHIM. When on her sleepless couch again The Sultan mother lay, A calmer mood resumed its sway. She thought, " I surely was insane, My girlhood's grief with him to share. My unsuspected fault to bare. I marvel how my kingly child Hath home that revelation wild, I marvel if his haughty brow Burns at my deep dishonour now. From him I could not brook a word. Not even " Mother, thou hast err'd." Men's common blame I can despise, But not the lightning of his eyes 336 poems— 1855. For whom I've led such life austere That slander's self was dumb in fear, For whom I linger on this earth, Of one sole love the one sole birth. I hope, I fear, I live in him, My glorious Sultan Ibrahim !" She said, and springing from the down Which could not lull her breast, She stole out in her trailing gown To look upon her idol's rest. She stole with cautious footstep near. Paused at the silken door to hear : So slumbrous-silent all within She smiled at her uneasy fear And turned, her distant room to win ; When sweeping down the gallery wide A wind-gust blew the door aside, The silken curtain hanging deep To hide the Sultan's sacred sleep. She saw the vacant couch, the floor Strewed over with disordered gear : She screamed, for more than all her fear Bushed back upon her heart once more. They sought, they found no trace of him, Vanished Sultan Ibrahim ! SULTAN IBRAHIM. 337 The wise men of tbe council met, The bearded Agas, grave and stern, " Lo, he whom on our throne we set Is fled, and none can we discern Left worthy in the royal line : O Sultan mother, he it thine, So strong of mind, so firm of will, Of virtue so impregnable, To wield the sword thy son has dropped — : " But briefly she their purpose stopped, " It is no mother's part to reign While yet she hath a living son, My sole great duty is undone While undiscovered he remain." Then gathering up her queenly train She swept a haughty farewell round, And left them rooted to the ground With mute surprise and wonderment. And as a sleuth-hound takes the scent And follows on one human trace With chest dilated baying loud, Unbaffled in the densest crowd, Distinguishing in market place, In highway trodden, mosque or church, The single footstep of his search — So went this mother without clue, Except her love and courage true ; But these were more than map or chart, 338 poems— 1855. She tracked him by his noble heart. For here she heard of orphan cheered, There of a saintly youth revered. To-day some matron praised his mien. The kingliest dervish ever seen, To-morrow 'twas a slave set free By his impassioned oratory. But e'en the hound may sometimes lose The fugitive whom he pursues, And oft that mother searching vain Lay down upon the arid plain, And wrapt her mantle round her head, And cried, " I doubt me he is dead, How could he brave fatigue and woe, So softly from his birth-hour bred ? How can I live if it be so ? Kind Allah, let me die with him, My dear lost Sultan Ibrahim ! There passed two merchants on their road, And as they journeyed they conversed, And mightily the fame rehearsed Of one who had ta'en up abode Upon their native Syrian coast, And how his word was as a host To turn men from their evil way, And how he dwelt beside the play SULTAN IBKAHIM. 339 Of ocean in a flowery mead, And sowed of prayers a fruitful seed. She heard them talk, she knew the man, " There is but one who will and can Such noble deeds attempt," said she, And rose again right hopefullie. So journeying late, and journeying fast, She tracked her quarry home at last, She saw the sea before her swim, She saw — dead Sultan Ibrahim ! Ah ! tender hermit, suffering long, Reared softly in thine Eastern court Thy body made resistance short, It was thy soul alone was strong. That smiling meadow grew no corn, No freight adown that stream was borne, Thy sheltering tree was bare of fruit, Thine odorous flowers had baleful root, The sunny sea rolled to thy feet Bright-coloured shells thou could'st not eat, And out of sight is out of mind, Unto the most part of mankind. Thou had'st assuaged their troubles rude. They let thee starve in solitude, Where fed on prayer's ethereal balm The frame grew weak, the spirit calm, And rocked like infant by the sea, 340 poems— 1852. With cradled song of lullaby, Death's gracious slumber fell on him, Gentle Sultan Ibrahim. The mother's search was done, she made Of her deep grief no loud parade : But true to oriental thought She bade a costly pile be wrought, A dome inlaid with precious ore, Beneath the Sultan's sycamore — A mausoleum sculptured rich With marble gate and ivory niche, And lamp of everlasting light, And guardian priests that should recite To the surging of the seas, To the blowing of the breeze, To the pattering of the showers, To the waving of the flowers, Yea, to every bird and cricket Chirping in the lilac thicket, Chorus of those very prayers Full of passion, full of cares, Said at morn and twilight dim By fervent Sultan Ibrahim. Again she entered Council hall Among the bearded Agas gray, And reverently they made a way For that sad figure towering tall, SULTAN IBRAHIM. 341 For they were tired of princely tool And of their kingdom's long misrule That split across as timber crude When the hot simoom dries the wood. Royally that lady grave Took the sceptre which they gave, " He is dead, my son, your liege — Me no mother cares besiege, I have nought on earth to do But rule his land and counsel you." And ages after, o'er her dust, Her people spake of her with pride ; The strict, the stem, the alway just, She never swerved the laws aside ; The peasant in the judge's hall Equal with the pasha pled, She had one righteous rule for all, And when they lauded her, she said, " I do but imitate the dead : I hold my realm in fee from him, Sainted Sultan Ibrahim !" ALSO BY THE SAME AUTHOR. A BOOK OF HIGHLAND MINSTRELSY: Poems and Ballads, with Prose Introductions, descriptive of the Manners and Superstitions of the Scottish Highlanders. With numerous Illustrations by Dalziel, from Drawings by M'Ian. 1 vol. fcap. 4to. cloth gilt, 12s. TRADITIONS OF TUSCANY. fit *&MU. 1 vol. fcap. 8vo. cloth, 6s. T. Bosworth, London. J. Menzies,. Edinburgh. University of California Library Los Angeles This book is DUE on the last date stamped below. •a ktvAffi iu/a^ Qd&LftiCcfrto*) ^ DUt2 twtctwto THE LIBRARY UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA LOS ANGELES UC SOUTHERN REGIONAL LIBRARY FACILITY AA 000 795 074 5112 03Up -: At