Founts whose kisses woo the lea,
Endless, many-flooded sea,
All that witnesses a power
To o'erawe the importunate hour,
Human works devoutly wrought
To unfold enduring thought,
Shrines that seem the reverend birth
Of an elder, holier earth,
Mourn above your altar dear,
Quaking with no godless fear!
And, thou deepest heart of man,
Home of love ere sin began,
Faith prophetic, mercy mild,
Patriot passion undefiled,
Mourn with righteous grief the day
When was hushed your choral lay!
When the skiey guardian band
Of the liberated land,
Radiant kings were seen to wane,
And were eyeless clouds again;
When the foe, who far recoil'd,
By a maiden's presence foil'd,
Rushed again in grim despair
From his burning blood-stained lair,
And made prey of her whose word
Was so oft a living sword.
Woeful end, and conflict long!
Stress of agonizing wrong!
In the black and stifling cell,
Watched by many a sentinel,
Not a saint is with her now
Beaming light from locks and brow;
No melodious angel calls
Through the huge unshaken walls;
But the brutal sworder jeers,
Making merry at her tears,
And the priests her faith assail
Till it fears, but cannot fail.
So the hopeful cheer she wore
Like a robe of state before-
Branch and leaf, and summer flower,
Perish from her hour by hour.
But the firm sustaining root
Dies not with the trembling shoot.
So survives her soul-but O!
Fierce the closing gust of wo,
When beneath the eyes of day
Thousands gather round her way—
And a host in steel array,
When the captive, wan and lowly,
Walks beside her gaoler slowly,
Till before the expectant pile
Weak she stands, with saddest smile;
And her steady tones reply
To the cowled tormentor's lie-
"God commanded me to go,
And I went, as well you know,
To destroy my country's foe!"
While she clasps the saving rood
Fiercer swells the murderers' mood,
Till, through rising smoke and flame
Comes no sound but Jesu's name-
Jesu-Jesu-oft renewed,
Oft by stifling pain subdued.
Soon that cry is heard no more,
And the people, mute before,
Groan to heaven, for all is o'er.
Word untrue! That all can ne'er
Have its close and destiny here.
All that can be o'er on earth
Is the shifting cloudland's birth;
Dream and shadow, mist and error,
Joy unblest, and nightmare terror—
Passions blent in ghostly play,
Twinklings of life's gusty day-
Glittering sights that vaguely roll,
Catch the eye, but mock the soul-
Griefs and hopes ill understood.
Tyrants of man's weaker mood,
Folly's loved, portentous brood-
These, and all the aims they cherish,
In their native tomb may perish.
Phantoms shapeless, huge, and wild,
That beset the graybeard child-
Loud usurpers, fierce and mean,
Ruling an unstable scene;
Blinding hate, corroding lust,
Lies that cheat our wiser trust,
These may cleave to formless dust;
But the earth, oppress'd so long
By the heavy steps of wrong,
Sends an awful voice on high
With a keen accusing cry,
And appeals to him whose lore
Tells the all can ne'er be o'er.
Faithful maiden, gentle heart!
Thus our thoughts of grief depart;
Vanishes the place of death;
Sounds no more thy painful breath;
O'er the unbloody stream of Meuse
Melt the silent evening dews,
And along the banks of Loire
Rides no more the arm'd destroyer;
But thy native waters flow
Through a land unnamed below,
And thy woods their verdure wave
In the vale beyond the grave,
Where the deep-dyed western sky
Looks on all with tranquil eye,
And on distant dateless hills
Each high peak with radiance fills.
There amid the oak-tree shadow.
And o'er all the beech-crown'd meadow,
Those for whom the earth must mourn
In their peaceful joy sojourn.
Join'd with Fame's selected few,
Those whom Rumour never knew,
But no less to Conscience true;
Each gray prophet soul sublime,
Pyramids of elder time;
Bards with hidden fire possess'd,
Flashing from a wo-worn breast;
Builders of man's better lot,
Whom their hour acknowledged not,
Now with strength appeas'd and pure,
Feel the law of right is sure.
These and such as these the train,
Sanctified by former pain,
'Mid these softest yellow rays
Sphered afar from mortal praise;
Peasant, matron, monarch, child,
Saint undaunted, hero mild,
Sage whom pride has ne'er beguiled,
And with them the Champion-maid
Dwells in that serenest glade;
Danger, toil, and grief no more
Fret her life's unearthly shore;
Gentle sounds that will not cease,
Breathe but peace, and ever peace;
While above the immortal trees,
Michael and his host she sees
Clad in diamond panoplies;
And more near, in grayer light,
Honour'd Catherine, Margaret bright,
Agnes whom her loosen'd hair
Robes like woven amber air—
Sister of her childhood come
To her last eternal home.
(Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, 1838.)
"ONE of those heavenly days that cannot die!" So saith Wordsworth, while "his heart rejoiced in nature's joy," as saith Burns-and in these few syllables you feel how happy at the time were both poets. But not happier than you and we have often been and are now, though poets we may not be truly called, except according to the sense in which all human beings are poets who love dearly their mother earth. And are you sure you understand the feeling in Wordsworth's beautiful line? Is it that the day itself is too divine to die, and that the sun will never bring himself to set on it; or that the memory of it must needs be immortal?
Alas! how many heavenly days" seeming immortal in their depth of rest" have died and been forgotten! Treacherous and ungrateful is our memory even of bliss that overflowed our being as light our habitation. Our spirit's deepest intercommunion with nature has no place in her records-blanks are there that ought to have been painted with imperishable imagery, and steeped in sentiment fresh as the morning on life's golden hills. Yet there is mercy in this dispensation-for who can bear to behold the light of bliss rearising from the past on the ghastlier gloom of present misery? The phantoms that will not come when we call on them to comfort us, are too often at our side when in our anguish we could almost pray that they might be reburied in oblivion. Such hauntings as these are not as if they were visionary-they come and go like forms and shapes still embued with life. Shall we vainly stretch out our arms to embrace and hold them fast, or as
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