A night not sacred to Spring's opening leaves, But one of crowded festival.
LIGHT and glad through the rooms the gay music is waking, Where the young and the lovely are gathered to-night; And the soft cloudless lamps, with their lustre, are making A midnight hour only than morning less bright. There are vases,-the flowers within them are breathing Sighs almost as sweet as the lips that are near; Light feet are glancing, white arms are wreathing,- O temple of pleasure! thou surely art here.
I gazed on the scene; 'twas the dream of a minute; But it seemed to me even as fairy land fair; Twas the cup's bright inside; and on glancing within it, What but the dregs and the darkness were there? -False wave of the desert, thou art less beguiling Than false beauty over the lighted hall shed: What but the smiles that have practised their smiling, Or honey words measured, and reckoned as said? O, heart of mine! turn from the revellers before thee; What part hast thou in them, or have they in thee? What was the feeling that too soon came o'er thee?- Weariness ever that feeling must be. Praise-flattery-opiates the meanest, yet sweetest, Are ye the fame that my spirit hath dreamed? Lute, when in such scenes, if homage thou meetest, Say, if like glory such vanity seemed?
O for some island far off in the ocean,
Where never a footstep has pressed but mine own: With one hope, one feeling, one utter devotion
To my gift of song, once more, the lovely, the lone!
My heart is too much in the tangs which profane it, The cold, and the worldly, why am I like them ? Vanity! with my lute chords I must chain it, Nor thus let it sully the minstrel's best gem.
It rises before me, that island, where blooming,
The flowers in their thousands are comrades for me: And where if one perish, so sweet its entombing,
The welcome it seems of fresh leaves to the tree.
I'll wander among them when morning is weeping Her earliest tears, if such pearls can be tears; When the birds and the roses together are sleeping, Till the mist of the daybreak, like hope fulfilled, clears.
Grove of dark cypress, when noontide is flinging
Its radiance of light, thou shalt then be my shrine; I'll listen the song which the wild dove is singing, And catch from its sweetness a lesson for mine.
And when the red sunset at even is dying,
I'll watch the last blush as it fades on the wave; While the wind, through the shells in its low music sighing, Will seem like the anthem pearled over its grave.
And when the bright stars which I worship are beaming, And writing in beauty and fate on the sky, Then, mine own lute, be the hour of thy dreaming, And the night-flowers will open and echo thy sigh.
Alas! but my dream has like sleep's visions vanished; The hall and the crowd are before me again : Sternly my sweet thoughts like fairies are banished; Nay, the faith which believed in them now seems but vain.
I left the gay circle:-if I found it dreary,
Were all others there, then, the thoughtless and glad? Methinks that fair cheek in its paleness looked weary, Methinks that dark eye in its drooping was sad.
-I went to my chamber,-I sought to be lonely,- I leant by the casement to catch the sweet air; The thick tears fell blinding; and am I then only Sad, weary, although without actual care?
The heart hath its mystery, and who may reveal it; Or who ever read in the depths of their own?- How much, we never may speak of, yet feel it, But, even in feeling it, know it unknown!
Sky of wild beauty, in those distant ages
Of which time hath left scarce a wreck or a name, Say were thy secrets laid bare to the sages,
Who held that the stars were life's annals of flame?
Spirit, that ruleth man's life to its ending,
Chance, Fortune, Fate, answer my summoning now; The storm o'er the face of the night is descending,— Fair moon, the dark clouds hide thy silvery brow.
Let these bring thy answer, and tell me if sadness For ever man's penance and portion must be; Doth the morning come forth from a birthplace of gladness Is there peace, is there rest, in thine empire or thee?
Spirit of fate, from yon troubled west leaning,
As its meteor-piled rack were thy home and thy shrine, Grief is our knowledge, 'twill teach me thy meaning, Although thon but speakest it in silence and sign.
I marked a soft arch sweep its way over heaven; It spanned as it ruled the fierce storm which it bound; The moonshine, the shower, to its influence seemed given And the black clouds grew bright in the beautiful round
I looked out again, but few hues were remaining On the side nearest earth; while I gazed, they were past As a steed for a time with its curb proudly straining, Then freed in its strength, came the tempest at last. And this was the sign of thy answer, dark spirit! Alas! and such ever our pathway appears; Tempest and change still our earth must inherit, - Its glory a shade, and its loveliness tears.
THE SULTANA'S REMONSTRANCE IT suits thee well to weep,
As thou lookest on the fair land, Whose sceptre thou hast held With less than woman's hand.
On yon bright city gaze,
With its white and marble halls, The glory of its lofty towers,
The strength of its proud walls.
And look to yonder palace, With its garden of the rose, With its groves and silver fountains, Fit for a king's repose.
There is weeping in that city, And a cry of wo and shame, There's a whisper of dishonor, And that whisper is thy name.
And the stranger's feast is spread, But it is no feast of thine; In thine own halls accursed lips Drain the forbidden wine.
And aged men are in the streets,
Who mourn their length of days, And young knights stand with folded arms, And eyes they dare not raise.
There is not one whose blood was not As the waves of ocean free,— Their fathers died for thy fathers, They would have died for thee.
Weep not, 'tis mine to weep
That ever thou wert born; Alas, that all a mother's love Is lost in a queen's scorn!
Yet weep, thou less than woman, weep, Those tears become thine eye,-
It suits thee well to weep the land For which thou darest not die."
⚫ these lines allude to the fight of the last king of Grenada
PRAY thee, maiden, hear him not! Take thou warning by my lot; Read my scroll, and mark thou all I can tell thee of thy thrall.
Thou hast owned that youthful breast Treasures its most dangerous guest; Thou hast owned that Love is there: Though now features he may wear, Such as would a saint deceive, Win a skeptic to believe, Only for a time that brow, Will seem what 'tis seeming now. I have said, heart, be content!
For Love's power o'er thee is spent. That I love not now, O true!- I have bade such dreams adieu : Therefore deemest thou my heart Saw them tranquilly depart; That they past, nor left behind Wreck and ruin in my mind. Thou art in the summer hour Of first passion's early power; I am in the autumn day, Of its darkness, and decay. -Seems thine idol now to thee' Even as a divinity?
Such the faith that I too held; Not the less am I compelled All my heart-creed to gainsay, Own my idol gilded clay, And yet pine to dream again What I know is worse than vain. Ay, I did love, and how well,
Let thine own fond weakness tell : Still upon the softened mood Of my twilight solitude, Still upon my midnight tear, Rises image all too dear;
Dark and starry eyes, whose light Make the glory of the night; Brow like ocean's morning foam, For each noble thought a home. Well such temple's fair outline Seemed the spirit's fitting shrine. -Is he hero, who hath won Fields we shrink to think upon? Patriot, on whose gifted tongue Senates in their wonder hung? Sage, before whose gifted eyes Nature spreads her mysteries?
Bard, to whose charmed lute is given All that earth can breathe of heaven? Seems thy lover these to thee? Even more mine seemed to me. Now, my fond belief is past; Strange, methinks, if thine should last. "Be content, thou lovest nct now :" Free, thou sayest,-dreamest thou how? Loathing wouldst thou shun dismayed Freedom by such ransom paid. -Girl, for thee I'll lay aside Veil of smiles and mask of pride; Shrouds that only ask of Fate Not to seem so desolate.
-I am young, but age's snow Hides not colder depths below; I am gay-but such a light Shines upon the grave by night. -Yet mine is a common tale;
Hearts soon changed, and vows were frail Each one blamed the other's deed, Yet both felt they were agreed; Ne'er again might either prove Those sweet fallacies of love. -Still for what so vain I hold Is my waisted heart grown cold. Can hopes be again believed, When their sweetest have deceived? Can affection's chain be trusted, When its dearest links have rusted?
Can life's dreams again be cherished. When its dearest one have perishe I know Love will not endure;- Nothing now to me seems sure. -Maiden, by the thousand tears Lava floods on my first years; By the nights, when burning pain Fed upon my heart and brain; By the wretched days now past, By the weary days to last; Be thou warned, for still the same Is Love, beneath whatever name. Keep thy fond faith like a thing Where Time never change may bring. Vow thee to thy idol's shrine,— Then, inaiden! read thy fate in mine.
THE NAMELESS GRAVE.
A NAMELESS grave,-there is no stone To sanctify the dead:
O'er it the willow droops alone.
With only wild flowers spread.
"O, there is naught to interest here, No record of a name,
A trumpet call upon the car, High on the roll of fame.
"I will not pause beside a tomb Where nothing calls to unind Aught that can brighten mortal glocir, Ör elevate mankind ;-
"No glorious memory to efface
The stay of meaner clay;
No intellect whose heavenly trace Redeemed our earth :-away!"
Ah, these are thoughts that well may rise On youth's ambitious pride;
But I will sit and moralize
This lowly stone beside.
Here thousands might have slept, whose name Had been to thee a spell,
To light thy flashing eyes with flame,- To bid thy young heart swell.
Here might have been a warrior's rest, Some chief who bravely bled, With waving banner, sculptured crest, And laurel on his head.
That laurel must have had its blood, That blood have caused its tear,- Look on the lovely solitude-
What! wish for warfare here !
A poet might have slept,-what! he Whose restless heart first wakes Its lifepulse into melody,
Then o'er it pines and breaks ?—
He who hath song of passionate love, His life a feverish tale :- O! not the nightingale, the dove Would suit its quiet vale.
See, I have named your favorite two,- Each had been glad to crave Rest 'neath this turf's unbroken dew, And such a nameless grave!
FA EWELL!and never think of me 1. lighted hall or lady's bower! Fare vell!-and never think of me In spring sunshine or summer hour! But when you see a lonely grave, Już where a broken heart might be, With not one mourner by its sod, Then-and then only-THINK OF ME!
SONG OF THE HUNTER'S BRIDE.
ANOTHER day-another day
And yet he comes not nigh; I look amid the dim blue hills,
Yet nothing meets mine eye.
I hear the rush of mountain streams Upon the echoes borne;
I hear the singing of the birds, But not my hunter's horn.
The eagle sais in darkness past,
The watchful chamois bounds;
But what I look for comes not near,
My ULRIC'S hawk and hounds.
Three times I thus have watched the snow Grow crimson with the stain,
The setting sun threw o'er the rock, And I have watched in vain.
I love to see the graceful bow Across his shoulder slung,- I love to see the golden horn
Beside his baldric hung.
I love his dark hounds, and I love His falcon's sweeping flight;
I love to see his manly cheek With mountain colors bright.
I've waited patiently, but now
Would that the chase were o'er : Well may he love the hunter's toil, But he should love me more.
Why stays he thus ?—he would be here If his love equalled mine - Methinks had I one fond caged dove,
I would not let it pine.
But, hark! what are those ringing steps That up the valley come ?
I see his hounds,-I see himself,— My ULRIC, welcome home!
I PRAY THEE LET ME WEEP TO-NIGHT.
I PRAY thee let me weep to-night, 'Tis rarely I am weeping; My tears are buried in my heart,
Like cave-locked fountains sleeping.
But O, to-night, those words of thine, Have brought the past before me; And shadows of long-vanished years Are passing sadly o'er me.
The friends I loved in early youth,
The faithless and forgetting,
Whom, though they were not worth my love, I can not help regretting;-
My feelings, once the kind, the warm, But now the hard, the frozen; The errors I've too long pursued,
The path I should have chosen ;
The hopes that are like falling lights Around my pathway dying; The consciousnes none others rise, Their vacant place supplying;—
The knowledge by experience taught, The useless, the repelling; For what avails to know how false Is all the charmer's telling?
I would give worlds, could I believe One half that is professed me; Affection! could I think it thee, When Flattery has caressed me?
I can not bear to think of this,- O, leave me to my weeping; A few tears for that grave my heart, Where hope in death is sleeping.
THOU art flowing, thou art flowing, O, small and silvery brook; The rushes by thee growing,
And with a patient look
The pale narcissus o'er thee bends Like one who asks in vain for friends.
I bring not back my childhood, Sweet comrade of its hours; The music of the wild wood,
The color of the flowers; They do not bring again the dream That haunted me beside thy stream.
When black-lettered old romances Made a world for me alone; O, days of lovely fancies,
Are ye for ever flown?
Ye are fled, sweet, vague, and vain, So I can not dream again.
I have left a feverish pillow
For thy soothing song;
Alas, each fairy billow
An image bears along,
Look where I will, I only see One face too much beloved by me
In vain my heart remembers What pleasure used to be, My past thoughts are but embers Consumed by love for thee.
I wish to love thee less-and feel A deeper fondness o'er me steal.
NAY, fling not down those faded flowers, Too late they're scattered round; And violet and rose-leaf lie Together on the ground.
How carefully this very morn
Those buds were culled and wreathed; And 'mid the cloud of that dark hair, How sweet a sigh they breathed!
And many a gentle word was said
Above their morning die,
How that the rose had touched thy cheek, The violet thine eye.
Methinks, if but for memory,
I should have kept these flowers; Ah! all too lightly does thy heart Dwell upon vanished hours.
Already has thine eager hand
Stripped yonder rose-hung bough; The wreath that bound thy raven curls Thy feet are on it now.
That glancing smile, it seems to say "Thou art too fanciful: What matters it what roses fade,
While there are no more to cull ?”
Ay, I was wrong to ask of thee
Such gloomy thoughts as mine:
Thou in thy Spring, how shouldst thou dream Of Autumn's pale decline?
Young, lovely, loved,-O! far from thee Life's after-death and doom;
Long ere thou learn how memory clings To even faded bloom!
Ir is my design, in the following Poem, to celebrate, by an allegory, that immortality, which Shakspere has conferred on the Fairy mythology by his Midsummer Night's Dream. But for him, those pretty children of our childhood wound leave barely their names to our maturer years; they belong, as the mites upon the plum, to the bloom of fancy, a thing generally too frail and beautiful to withstand the rude handling of time: but the Poet has made this most perishable part of the mind's creation equal to the most enduring; he has so intertwined the Elfins with human sympathies, and linked them by so many delightful associations with the productions of nature, that they are as real to the mind's eye as their green magical circles to the outer sense.
It would have been a pity for such a race to go extinct, even though they were but as the butterflies that hover about the leaves and blossoms of the visible world.
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